I’m sorry.  I am honestly apologizing to the community.  One of the negatives of needing to document each release for this site is that I don’t get to open my figures until either I or Mr. Nomadscout have photographed the packaging.  Well, when the original Black Series 3.75” Captain Rex was released, both the 3.75” community and this site were experiencing the lowest of lows.  Mr. Nomadscout had all but checked out of the hobby, and neither of us were providing any content.  The site went effectively dark save for the occasional sarcastic lashing out.  If I can’t open my figures until they are photographed, and we had ceased our photography, it meant I never got around to opening the first release of this figure.

Captain Rex is an important character.  Not only is he the former coach of the Jets and Bills, he’s also a fan favorite.  When this figure was announced, I thought it was good news.  Those 2015 Black Series figures are somewhat hard to find, and fans were going to get a second chance at the figure on a wonderful Vintage Collection card!  Yay!  The community’s reaction was a blend of outrage and incredulity that Hasbro would dare re-release the 2015 Captain Rex figure.  I dismissed that hue and cry as “collectors being collectors”.  You see the collecting community sometimes embodies this joke:

Two collectors were at a restaurant having lunch.  The waiter walked up to their table and asked, “Is anything okay?”

Well, I was wra-wra-wrong (and too judgemental).  You guys were right.  This figure is not up to current Vintage Collection standards.  In fact, I’m going to make the most savage comment I can possibly make about an action figure.  This figure simply isn’t fun.  Even though the line between “adult collectible” and “toy” continues to grow blurred, there still needs to be an element of fun, and this figure aint got it.

Sometimes releases are literally “figures out of time”.  In 2005, Hasbro released a Rabé figure that was originally planned for 1999’s Episode I line.  In the intervening six years, action figure technology marched on and the Rabé release felt incongruous with the contemporary figures.  The same can be said of this Captain Rex figure when it was first released in 2015.  In 2021, it’s downright blech.  In 2015, this sculpt was far bested by one of it’s predecessors, the legendary VC54 - ARC Trooper Commander figure. Six years ago it already represented a regression in quality.  Today it’s doubly bested by the VC172 - ARC Trooper Fives figure.

When a Vintage Collection Captain Rex was first rumored, many fans assumed that we’d finally be getting the “lost” Phase I Captain Rex figure, which was revealed at the 2012 Celebration.  It was to be slated for wave 2 of the Legacy Collection, which was supposed to be reintroduced in 2013.  The 2013 Legacy Collection was canceled, and that Captain Rex figure was never released.  I believe it’s the only time in the modern line that a figure was officially revealed, but never produced.  That lead to two scoops of disappointment when not only would we still have to continue waiting for that Phase I figure, but this release was also using the much derided 2015 figure.

This figure feels like it’s a refugee from 2005.  Swivel hips and terrible range of motion at the points of articulation date it terribly.  The elbows don’t even bend to ninety degrees.  The figure can’t even get in the ballpark of the pose on the card.  Image eight above is my futile attempt to replicate it. Right now I feel like THIS should be my grade for the figure.  Three years ago, Mr. Nomadscout gave the 2015 figure a 7 out of 10.  Considering the amazing work Hasbro has done with their newly tooled figures recently, I’m compelled to have this figure slide another point to a 6 out of 10.

Hopefully you will notice from the comparison pic that the blacks of this figure are blacker and the blues are brighter compared to the first release.  It looks like the 2015 figure was washed on hot and they forgot to use All-Tempa-Cheer.  Rookie mistake.