First lets start off that this figure has the best new innovation in articulation with the rocker ankle.  According to an emerging community standard, this joint counts as 129,000 points of articulation due to the spherical rotation it allows.  Isn’t that amazing?  I wholeheartedly embrace this new method of accounting the articulation as it has turned a decided negative event in my recent collecting into a positive.  For you see I did not break the trigger guard on my Bike Scout pistol.  I merely added a point of articulation!  Now that I’ve indulged my desire to rib my friends in the community, I can get onto the actual review.

I’m going to start off with the negatives of this figure and it’s the pervasive recent issue with the Black Series.  The material quality and quality control of the paint applications is lacking.  The lightsaber hilt is far too rubbery.  The hands are also extremely rubbery.  The pliability of the hands would have been a positive if the hilt had been made out of a stiffer plastic.  The give in the hands would have worked well with a rigid hilt because the combination would have added a final range of motion cheat when the limbs lacked the ability to strike a desired pose.  When both the hands and the accessory are bendy, it is a decided negative.  The ball joint of the neck clearly favors the left side of the joint creating an obvious void on my sample.  The Darth Vader Sith head overindulged in the Kristen Steward eyeliner and I fear it could have lasting affects on his vision.  There is also a brown blob on the Vader head’s chin giving the newly created Sith a stylish beauty mark.  The paint issues have been with the Black Series since it’s inception, but the rubberiness is a recent issue.

Fortunately that rubberiness has minimal impact on the functionality of the figure and really only manifests itself in the hands and the hilt.  The rest of the figure seems to be crafted with the stiffer plastic to which we are accustomed.  The legs function supremely as almost all of the 6” Black Series figures do.  Hasbro seems to be favoring aesthetics over range of motion with the placement of the elbow ball joints.  They easily obscure themselves in some poses, but can’t even bend to ninety degrees.  I prefer erring on the side of posability.  I also wish the hips had a little bit more range of motion.  I guess we’ll only count those joints as 93,247 points of articulation.  The familiar Skywalker mullet also prevents the head from looking up even though the joint would have that range of motion if the mold of the head weren’t preventing it.

I really like the execution of the tabard and the blouse.  The sculpted elements of the upper body seamlessly flow into the soft goods elements of the lower body.  The lower tabard has a simulated leather appearance which works really well.  Combined the soft goods elements serve to be as unobtrusive to the motion of the lower body articulation as possible.  This is a would be 9 out of 10 figure, but the aforementioned quality issues compel me to drop the score down another grade to 8 out of 10. 

8/10 Bantha Skulls