First: we hope everyone had a great weekend! 

Second: We are in the midst of the Great Banthaskull Thanksgiving Showdown of 2025.  It’s a 3 game set between New York and Boston that spans 3 of the big sports leagues.  On Friday, the Rangers defeated the Bruins in the first leg.  Chris attempted to blow off this crushing defeat by invoking the injury card.  The Sports Gods denied the attempt, and so it’s Nomad 1-0 over Chris.  The second matchup is tonight on Monday Night Football, as the Men of Tremendous Stature from New York take on the New England Silly Nannies.  The final matchup will see the Celtics take on the Knicks.

Third:  There’s this nonsense for a review.  It’s another effort toward completing the backlog of reviews.  At this rate, we’ll be finished by 2094.  We’re gonna make it!

I usually leave the Power of the Force 2 figure reviews to Chris, since I wasn’t collecting until the Episode I line debuted in 1999.  As such, I don’t have an emotional story to tell about this guy.  Chris would tell you how in 1997 his family was living in a station wagon at the bottom of a ravine in Saskatchewan, when his Uncle Bingo showed up with a box of Hamburger Helper and an Admiral Ackbar that he got from Service Merchandise.  They used the cardback for kindling, and it helped them survive one more night, until they were rescued by a pack of wild muskrats and carried back to a Massachusetts Dunkin where they shared a crullah, a lahge, 3 Pahlaments, and then took a dump.

It’s a heartwarming story, especially the way he tells it.

Anyway, I probably acquired this figure on Ebay, or maybe I found it in a Toys R Us somewhere.  Who really knows?  Admiral Ackbar was pretty solid for a 1997 figure.  He’s a bit buff, but you could talk yourself into thinking it’s because of his tunic, which almost looks like armor.  Figures were well on their way to more normal proportions as compared to their He-Man-ish beginnings. 

The head has a decent enough sculpt.  His skin has a somewhat mottled appearance, although the second color is a bit faded and doesn’t stand out as much as on the most recent updated figure.  He’s 5POA, has a prominent T-crotch, and his legs are spread open in that Tory Power stance kind of way that someone mentioned in the comments not too long ago.  Of course these POTF2 figures predate that stuff, so it is intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer that Tories love POTF2 figures. 

Ackbar comes with a nonsensical weapon that fits around his forearm.  Again, these types of things were typical for the day.  The figure looks okay, and was just fine in my collection until Hasbro issued VC22, which is far superior, of course.  That figure was repacked in the (horrific) TBS375 line, and was later re-issued in TVC 2.0 with minor paint adjustments.  I’m fairly certain the one I used in the comparison image is from TBS375, but I could be wrong.

Even the TVC/TBS Ackbar is outdated by today’s standards, but I have zero interest in revisiting the character today.  I would, however, love to have his command chair from Home One - which would be a neat accessory if they ever made the Briefing Room displayset.

I haven’t much else to say about this figure, so I’ll end it thusly: