Nowadays, every piece of new media set in the Age of Rebellion feels the need to introduce new classes of armored Imperials that were apparently just off-screen for the entirety of the Original Trilogy.  Death Troopers, Shore Troopers and AT-DP Drivers all managed to just avoid the camera’s lens in Episodes IV through VI.  The concept of “different troopers that were somehow just out of sight” well predates both Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels.  1996’s Shadows of the Empire introduced what the front of the card calls the “Imperial Guard”.  Both the back of the card and the novel refer to this as an elite Stormtrooper stationed on Coruscant. All of this has apparently been streamlined today into the name Coruscant Guard which was the basis of Darth Krayt’s Kinghthunters Stomtrooper Division.  Of course, none of that counts anymore since all of this was de-canonized when the entirety of the Expanded Universe was purged in 2014.  So I’ve just wasted your time and my time going over all of this.  Mr. Hand would be very upset with me, and he’d probably give away my pizza.

In Shadows of the Empire, Luke and Lando don this Imperial Guard armor to avoid detection while infiltrating Coruscant to spring Leia from the clutches of the evil Prince Xizor.  Huh.  Leia taken prisoner by a crime lord.  I wonder if that would ever happen again.  Nah.  What are the odds? Of course I hope I’m getting all these plot details correct.  I’m skimming SOTE plot summaries for research.  What?  You think I’m going to re-read the book for this review? Moving along, the Kenner division of Hasbro immortalized this incognito version of Luke in action figure form.  Lando, meanwhile, got the shaft, as is tradition.  If my accounting is correct, there were ten different major variations of Luke Skywalker released during the POTF2 era across the various product lines.  They are this Imperial Guard disguise version plus Tatooine Luke, Luke Stormtrooper, Luke Hoth, Luke Dagobah Training, Luke Bespin, Luke Jabba’s Palace, Luke Endor, Luke Death Star II, and Dark Empire Luke.  The Imperial Disguise Luke is the only one to have never been updated.  You may think you own every variation of Luke, but unless you own this specific figure, you’re wrong.

The Shadows of the Empire POTF2 sub-line of figures was not a retail success.  The Leia in Boushh Diguise figure was easily the best seller of the bunch due to its Episode VI appeal.  Of the non-movie figures, this Imperial Disguise Luke sold the best.  This is presumably because you could display it as the base Imperial Guard as well as a collagen-infused lip Luke in Imp Guard armor.  I have to admit, the design aesthetics of the Imperial/Coruscant Guard/Stormtrooper are neat.  This figure is your standard 6POA puffy looking POTF2 fare.  The lone accessory is a pugil stick.  Apparently the primary adversary for an Imperial Guard is a boot camp Marine.  A pugil stick might be the most quintessentially two handed weapon there is, but that is impossible for this figure.  Even without articulation, if Kenner had sculpted the grips either facing up or down, a two handed grip could have been achieved, but no.  The grips oppose one another.  So the figure can exclusively hold the accessory in one hand or the other, and I give a pinched nose groan similar to Peter Griffin listening to a Buzz Killington dad joke. 

In the glory days of a decade ago, when super articulated 3.75” figures were coming at us in waves across multiple product lines, I would have said an updated Imperial Guard should find its way into a Comic Pack along the way.  In today’s almost depressing super articulated 3.75” landscape, the update priority for this figure falls somewhere between a super articulated purple Dengar and a repack of Yarna with PhotoReal.  If you want an Imperial/Coruscant Guard figure, this is your only bet.