Jarek Yeager is probably the most likable character in Resistance so far.  He’s the adult in the room, and is surrounded by kids, hot shot pilots, and wackaloons.  Yeager was once a pilot for the Rebel Alliance and New Republic, flying in the Battle of Jakku.  He was married with a daughter, but during a race, his reckless brother crashed, killing his wife and daughter who were spectators.  Afterwards, Yeager “retired” to the Colussus platform, where he runs his repair shop and manages the racing team, Team Fireball.  His goal is to just earn a living and keep a relatively low profile.  Yeager is a friend of Poe Dameron, who recruits Kaz Xiono and asks Yeager to keep a watchful eye on him (with a little help from BB-8).  Yeager refused to get involved in the spying aspect and anything to do with The First Order, and promises Poe that he’ll give Kaz a shot in his shop, but he’s clearly not happy about it.  Yeager is kind of like the “Obi-Wan” of this story.  He is wise and has been through a lot, and doesn’t share much about his past.  He cares about his team members, but is rather conservative and likes to stay away from any First Order entanglements.  To help him at his repair shop, Yeager has R1-J5, a rather pathetic looking shell of an astromech, nick-named “Bucket.”

The action figure of Jarek Yeager is a lot like the others in the line.  He looks just like his animated on-screen counterpart, but has no business in your larger, realistically styled collection.  He does look good, though.  His head, sculpt, in particular, is really well done.  The stern expression, and the trademark beard and hair are outstanding.  If the eyes were a little less pronounced, and the hair had some more texture sculpted in, it could easily pass for a realistically style head sculpt.  However, this is betrayed by the simple, slender, and untextured body/outfit.  The figure is painted decently, although not as sharp as you would think it should be, given the clean lines of the sculpt.  Yeager comes with a blaster, which is the same mold as pretty much all the others which the good guys carry in the line.  Sadly, he doesn’t have a holster or any place to stow the weapon. I know the character doesn’t carry a weapon on the show, so either the figure doesn’t need one, or at least include a place to store it away. 

Like Torra Doza, Yeager comes with an swappable helmet.  Hasbro smartly went this route because the hair and beard would make it nearly impossible to place a separate helmet over the head.  In Torra’s case, Hasbro gave an alternate helmet with a sculpted an painted face inside.  I thought this was odd, because then you couldn’t really pose Torra while holding her helmet, because it would have a decapitated head inside, staring at you creepily.  In Yeager’s case, Hasbro just went for a non-see through visor.  It looks good, as it’s a translucent paint application.  However, after picking on the Torra helmet in that review, I am now torn over which I like better.  I think I actually like the one where you can see the character’s face.  After all, being 5POA and lacking elbows, the figure really can’t hold a helmet under its arms anyway.  And due to the nature of the helmet sculpt, there is no way for the figure’s hand to grip it casually.  So without a way to display the figure holding the helmet, I think the head/face inside would have been the way to go here.

While Jarek is a decent figure (in the crappy animated 5POA format), he is completely forgettable when compared to the “throw in” figure in this 2-pack, the astromech R1-J5.  In the Poe 2-pack, we got a smaller than normal BB-8,  He’s almost an accessory rather than a part of a proper 2-pack.  In this case, “Bucket” overshadows the decent Yeager figure.  Bucket is pretty much just a shell of an astromech.  He’s got the outer casing for a body, two gangly legs, and a third foot.  The head is pretty much just the round “eye” on a stalk.  Instead of a the astromech dome, Bucket wears a flight helmet which sits askew on top of the eye.  The figure is pretty neat.  The legs are actually ball-jointed (a first, I believe) instead of the the typical swivel, so you can coax many unique poses and emotions out of the droid.  The third leg extends fully, while it does not retract fully into the body.  All three feet are hinged, although they do not have wheels.  The eye stalk/helmet/head is ball jointed, which also may be a first for an astromech.  Bucket can be posed in a variety of interesting ways, and is the best Resistance figure so far.  While he’s a bit silly, he could actually fit in with the rest of your droids, if you found an appropriate place.  Maybe on a sandcrawler (NOT THAT BOOTLEG DISNEY ABOMINATION!), in a junkyard, or somewhere rolling along in the background of some street scene. 

Our standard baseline score for an animated 5POA figure is a terrible 3.  I would give Yeager a 4 and Bucket an 8 (Yes, an 8!) , so I’ll give the set an unheard of 6 for this format.  If Yeager’s swappable helmet had a face inside, and if Bucket’s helmet was removable, I would have given this set a 7.  If you consider spending your hard earned money on just one Resistance item, consider adding this 2-pack to your collection.