The Black Series
Captain Rex
It was a long, strange trip for Captain Rex, but after a bunch of fits and starts, Hasbro finally brought a realistically-styled super-articulated version of the character to market. It wasn’t the home run that we might have hoped, and the community seemed split over the release. How does it hold up 3 years later?
Along with many collectors, my passion for the hobby waned during the Black Series run. I stopped making regular toy runs looking for figures, and I pretty much have Chris to thank for sending me figures in the mail to help me with my completism - or at least my evolving definition of it. I believe he sent me this figure, which was the one that I was looking most forward to. After all, my internationally renowned 501st focus collection demanded this figure be included. At the time of release, I still hadn’t watched The Clone Wars, but I loved the Phase II design for Captain Rex. I had already owned the 5POA version from the strange and upsetting Darth Vader line look. The Hasbro effort was so confusing during this period in time, but I knew that one figure I was looking forward to was this one.
The figure looks great, overall, but there’s a lot to take in, and not all of it is good.. The sculpt is mostly new or retooled, and along with the helmet, essentially make this one of the very few new figures in the Black Series Phase II line. But that sculpt should have been better. Despite there being some available options for bodies from previous clone figures, Hasbro went in this direction, and the result is mixed. The figure is super-articulated, but is missing some movement in a few areas. The waist is a simple swivel, while many clones in the past had the ball-jointed torso. Rex also only has swivel hips, when many clones and troopers benefit from the full ball-jointed treatment. These shortcuts do impact the overall availability of posing options, and that’s a bummer. The soft kama and sculpt designed allow for the legs to move in a good range, but again, the lack of ball-jointed hips is pretty lame.
The figure’s helmet is excellent, although it is a bit small. Hasbro has always struggled with their ability to produce a bucket that is properly sized to accommodate the head underneath. For Rex, Hasbro opted to skip the removable helmet. Sometimes this works out for the best, but given the high profile of Captain Rex in the Star Wars universe, it seems it would have been more appropriate to have the helmet removable, to show off Rex’s blonde hair. Personally, I think this was a huge miss. That said, the helmet itself is pretty cool, with a lot of nice detail sculpted and painted on. Even still, Hasbro sculpted the rangefinder in place, so it doesn’t move. That’s another miss. The paint applications throughout are pretty good. Rex has a lot of customization going on, and most of it is captured. The welded armor pieces and the kill marks are captured pretty faithfully. This figure could have benefited from some weathering - both with some paint chips and a nice dirt wash. Some of the details, like on the figure’s back, are not as sharp as they should be.
For weapons, Rex gets his signature pistols, which he holds fairly securely, and both of which fit snugly in the holsters which are sculpted onto the kama. The Black Series isn’t known for value, as the price was hiked, and included a lot of repacked or repainted figures. But whether the figures were new or repacked, accessories were pretty lame in the line. Rex definitely could have benefitted from some additional accessory, like a blaster, rifle, or even better, a rotary cannon. As it is, Rex just comes with the 2 blasters.
Overall, it’s a nice looking figure, but a little deeper look reveals missed opportunity and disappointment. It took a while for Hasbro to get this one out there, and given the current state of the collector line, even the return of TVC doesn’t hold much promise for another Rex release any time soon. As such, this is your only opportunity to own a realistically styled super-articulated Captain Rex figure, and it may stay that way for a very long time. The figure isn’t great, but I’m just happy to have been able to add it to my 501st collection. I’ll give it a baseline 7 for a collector-grade figure.