There are rare few things that snatch my breath away on God’s green Earth.  Rarer few are the things that can be discussed on a family friendly site such as this.  One of those things is the original Boba Fett double racetrack Star Wars card.  It stirs something in me.  As far as other collectibles, I rank it right up there with Amazing Spider-Man 129 and a MISB G1 Megatron.  I’ve pretty much retired from collecting carded vintage Star Wars figures (high grade ones, anyway).  The combination of astronomical prices and fragility exceeds my comfort level.  Having said that, if an unpunched, price-sticker-free, AFA85 21-back Boba Fett crosses my path, I may tap into my 401K.  While this release might not be everyone’s cup of tea, suffice it to say, I had to have this.  Moreover,  I needed to find it in store (if you’re my age, you’ll get it).

Fortunately, THIS TWEET from Yak Face armed me with the tools I needed. I entered that TCIN number (87880980) into Popfindr’s Target inventory checker to find a store with some in stock.  Once in store, I scanned the barcode from that same Tweet to find the aisle.  It was on a back end cap fairly far removed from the normal Star Wars section.  There they were on the peg, and my heart leapt a little.  I grabbed my carded sample, and the most beat up card for an opener.  I think only other collectors will get this, but I was actually a bit nervous walking my figures up to the self checkout.  I still have flashbacks to the time that a Target employee snatched the Vandor-1 Heist playset out of my hands like I was committing espionage because they put it out on the shelf ahead of the street date.  Fortunately there was no goal line fumble this time, and I made it out of the store with both my dignity and figures intact.  It was a good day.

As far as the figure, this is another repaint of the outstanding VC186 - Boba Fett release.  It has been painted to mimic the colors on the vintage Kenner Boba Fett figure.  It’s mostly a decent facsimile.  The yellow and red are a pretty decent match, but the green was a little more toward the “olive drab” side on the vintage release.  There’s something about that yellow gauntlet and those vibrant yellow kneepads that really pop.  The mimicked paint applications on the jet pack are similarly striking, but the rocket should be a somewhat darker red.  As for what the figure is, there’s no way to spin it.  It’s a gimmick figure, and as such I always struggle coming up with a grade.  It’s a bit like grading a Funko Pop.  The typical criteria are out the window.  I’m going to use the original release as a basis, which received a 10 out of 10.  I’m knocking this one down to an 8 out of 10 primarily for one factor, and that is rubberiness.  The BlasTech EE-3 carbine rifle has all the rigidity of cocktail stirrer.  The rocket on the jetpack bends very easily, and worse is tends to retain that deformation.  But if you’re purchasing this figure, you’re likely buying it for the aesthetics, and not how it functions as an action figure.  While it’s not exactly faithful to the Kenner figure’s colors, I think it looks striking for what it’s going for.

The last thing I want to touch on is the debut Boba Fett card in the modern Vintage Collection.  This is the second time it has made it into the line, and both times, it’s been a kitschy / gimmicky release.  The first was the mail-away rocket-firing VCP03 Boba Fett, and now this “Kenner color” release.  I still want a legitimate Vintage Collection release on this card (complete with the callout text in the fireball).  Of course to match the photograph on the card, Hasbro would have to do some tooling to create the “Pre Pro #2” costume.  As excited as I was to buy this release, I would think I died and went to heaven for a Pre Pro Fett.

Postscript added after article publication:

This review was a last minute pivot due to real life getting in the way of Mr. Nomadscout, and as such, I was a bit rushed.  When that happens I tend to forget ideas that I originally intended to include (and misspell “Kenner” in the title).  In this case, I meant to include a few sentences on the concept of “Kenner” repaints.  Unlike with Carbonized, I hope Hasbro shows some restraint in this area.  It’s a very shallow well. Some of the more kitschier Kenner paint jobs were to Hammerhead and Walrusman, but those couldn’t be executed as a mere repaint.  Each would require some new tooling.  The community would probably shudder if the already strained tooling budget went to such efforts (even though those versions have been canonized in animation).  The “Kenner color” concept only works as exclusive repaints.  That means they are “on top” of the line and are not taking the place of something else (this does actually apply to Carbonized as well).  With that in mind, I can only see two more viable options and those are Greedo and Han Solo assuming we someday get new versions of each.