Amidst all the fanfare of Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, we’re putting out a simple gallery just to keep things moving until the next bit of breaking news.  One interesting bit of news was the lack of news regarding 5POA figures.  There were a few of the Galaxy of Adventure figures shown that will be available later this year in that totally tubular packaging with the comic book, but there was no news about a continuation of the standard 5POA format that has been in place since this line was formalized in 2015 with TFA.  The look has changed slightly with each of the 4 Disney films, and underwent it’s most recent change for Resistance.  But with that single wave of Resistance figures (and a pair of two-packs) that hit several weeks ago, there has been no official word about what comes next.  Is it possible the line is being phased out? Unlikely.  Perhaps SDCC will bring news of what happens with this format going forward.

For now, we look to close out Bantha Skull’s galleries and reviews of the animated Resistance figures with the final two that were missing from our library.  Here we have Commander Pyre.  Pyre was the leader of the contingent of First Order forces that inserted themselves into the business of the Colossus, a remote oceanic fueling station.  The first season of Resistance followed Kazuno Xiono, who was recruited by Poe Dameron to monitor potential First Order activity on the Colossus.  Pyre and his troops arrived to negotiate a security deal with Captain Doza, the officer in charge of the facility.  Doza was suspicious of Pyre’s motives, and resisted the First Order overtures to help defend the platform against pirate attacks. Doza had the help of his homegrown “Aces” to ward off the pirates, and help the shops and markets on board to flourish.  However, Pyre coordinated a ruse by secretly allying with a group of pirates to stage an attack which was successfully defended by the FO.  Pyre strongarmed his way into the role of protector of the Colossus, and by the end of the series, had effectively seized control on behalf of the First Order.  The season ended with a climactic battle, which saw the FO kicked off the platform, which itself turned out to be a floating space craft that subsequently launched off the surface and then jumped into hyperspace to the next adventure.

Pyre seemed to be a calculating and cunning leader, despite being “held back” by the constraints of a cartoon that was clearly aimed at a very young audience.  The character would be pretty cool and unique looking, if it weren’t essentially a gold version of Captain Phasma (who also briefly appeared in the show, before she had to leave because winter was coming).  Pyre is pretty faithfully recreated in action figure form, although this is too bad since he should have just been made with realistic styling. Of course, Pyre looks to be a character that will be present at Batuu in Disney Parks’ Galaxy’s Edge, as he was just given a realistically styled figure in the 6” line.  Again, while it seems unlikely that Hasbro is planning to dump the 5POA line, it really would be so much better if these figures were sculpted with more articulation and with realistic features.  The FO stormtroopers, along with Pyre, are sculpted to match their appearance in the show, but while they are no too cartoony, they are just cartoony enough to make you mad and not fit with your other regular figures.

The figure is standard 5POA.  It comes with a gold colored blaster, which seems to be the same sculpt as a standard FO blaster.  He also has a removable pauldron.  The figure has a slight action stance, which I am not a fan of.  My sample had a bit of difficulty with balancing, so I had to hunch him forward to keep from tipping over.  That’s too bad.

He’s a neat looking figure, but doesn’t offer much of anything to rate higher than the standard baseline of 3/10, to which we give 5POA figures with animated styling.  But he’s a nice niche figure to go along with the limited number of Resistance figures that have so far been produced by Hasbro.