Okay, this will probably be short.  I don’t have a lot of inspiration at the moment.  I have been receiving a mix of the two current waves from Amazon and Pulse.  I received this Clone Commander a few weeks ago before any of the others, and took these photos at that time, but didn’t have bandwidth to post them before I then received some more interesting figures which I have since reviewed. Just yesterday I received several more of these clones, along with Not Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker and Luuke.  I’ve got Plo Koon and the terrible Sandtrooper repack coming today.  And I have Hera waiting on my desk as well.  At some point, Bodhi Rook will ship (I don’t know why he’s lagging behind), and then more stuff should be in the pipeline, including the Gunship.

So here’s the Clone Commander.  The base of this figure is VC309, so you can get the details by reading that review.

I gave that one a 9/10.  It’s a great clone sculpt, of course, but it suffered from the crappy removable helmet.  This time around, it takes a half step forward by skipping the removable helmet, and just going with a helmeted portrait.  So I’d give it a 9.5.  If it came with a swappable helmet and Temuera Morrison face, that would be ideal.

Also, would it be too much to ask for this guy to come with a pair of electrobinoculars?  I mean, even the hideous, preposed, barely-articulated clone commander from the 2003 Army of the Republic 3-packs came with this accessory.  (I didn’t include the figure in the comparison shot in the gallery above).  23 years later, it’s missing. C’mon Hasbro.  Maybe when we get the Forward Command Center that we won’t ever get, it will include a Clone Commander with a pair of binos.  And a PT-era Yoda that doesn’t suck so I can retire my 5POA thing.

As you can see from the comparison shot, we’ve had a few repaints/slight retools over the years, but really just spanning the time period from about 2004-2008.  It was never updated via the VC45 sculpt, so it’s been a good 17+ years since this guy has been available. 

It’s a “necessary” repaint, and while this one is arguably the most important ranked trooper since it gets much more prominent screen time, we shouldn’t ignore the others.  Hasbro failed to give us all 4 colors when they updated (downgraded?) the Clone mold with VC45 - which I guess is just as well because it was terrible.  But we shouldn’t let that happen this time around.

Oh, and if you’re thinking, “Hey jackass, we got a blue Clone Lieutenant as VC348, you’d be correct in calling me a jackass.  But you’d be very incorrect in terms of the character because Hasbro botched it.  The figure as painted (with the blue “mohawk” line breaking before it reaches the visor, and the lack of the 4 blue pips on the chest) is actually a 501st Clone Trooper, and not an LT as indicated on the package.