The release of ARC Trooper Jesse in the mainline should have been a surprise to exactly no one.  The convention exclusive 501st Legion ARC Troopers 3-pack certainly wasn’t going to be the lone use of a brand new trooper mold.  Echo and Fives were already re-released as single-carded figures, so it was simply a matter of time before Jesse followed.  And of course, the mold was also re-used for the three Battlefront II ARC’s. 

So you’ve seen this figure before, and you can get more details in the above-linked 3-pack review.  It’s pretty great, although not without its flaws.  It’s slightly diminutive in stature.  Also, for some reason it seems to me to be a bit “loose”, meaning the joints move a bit too easily, and the plastic seems particularly soft.  But those minor nitpicks are overshadowed by the one big problem, which is that the hard plastic kama really limits the range of motion of the lower body articulation.  And that’s a shame.  But still, freely admitting my 501st bias, I give this figure a 9/10.

A couple of interesting things about this mainline release revolve around the packaging.  As you probably know, I’m not a carded collector.  But if I was, I would probably be driven mad by Jesse.  First of all, both of my carded samples have the very prominent dent on the artwork due to the recent all-too-common pressure caused by the bubble of the figure packed opposite in the cases.  And from what I’ve seen, most carded samples of Jesse seem to be suffering from this.  For whatever reason, it seems to me, to be a lot more prevalent and prominent on this one than on other figures.  No idea why, and I can’t confirm that is true beyond what I’ve read around the ‘net. 

Another thing that’s really strange is the artwork itself.  [Nevermind - my original point was rendered nonsense by folks that pay more attention than I do.].  Nevertheless, the artwork is still interesting because it does depict the way Jesse should look.  No fin at the rear of the helmet crest, and no rangefinder.  It irritates me to no end when the figure doesn’t reference the basic image that Hasbro uses for the card.  I mean, it’s right there that Jesse has no fin and no rangefinder.  C’mon, man.

Anyway, excellent figure with a crappy kama.  If you missed out on the somewhat tricky to get 3-pack, be sure to grab this basic Jesse.