Old Man Solo.  Somehow, Hasbro decided that in Harrison Ford’s last hurrah as our favorite nerf herding hero, we would get him in the super-articulated Walmart Black Series line in the outfit he wore for about 15 seconds, but save his more iconic look for the 5POA budget line.  Hooray!

At the time of release, I had sort of put my collecting on the back burner, and had mostly given up on the 5POA line.  I had only seen this figure once in the wild, and wasn’t interested enough to pick it up.  But then Rogue One came out, and I ended up collecting those 5POA figures. That was followed by Bantha Skull being resurrected from the dead when Chris called me and said that it was important to him that I buy more garbage so he wouldn’t have to.  My main goal in life is to ensure that Chris doesn’t bog down his collection with undesirable figures that would compel him to quit again.  Then, I stumbled upon a lone Han Solo in a Five Below (along with the wonderfully terrible Phasma/Finn 2-pack).  So here we are, having a lovely discussion about this figure.

While it’s a complete travesty that this version of Han Solo is only available in this format, I have to admit I don’t hate this figure.  Now, I didn’t say I loved it, nor did I say it was even OK that it exists (because it isn’t).  But since it does exist, it’s not the worst figure in the world.  Han stands pretty sturdily, he has a nicely sculpted outfit, and it’s painted pretty well.  The worst part of the figure is his blaster, which is made out of gummy bear plastic.  He doesn’t really hold it very tightly, and in my sample, I could not get it to fit inside the holster well.  Oh well.

The figure itself isn’t particularly special, but there’s something about it that kind of amuses me.  The stature…I don’t know what it is…it makes him look like an old man.  Like his torso and belly got a little bigger with age, while his legs got a little smaller.  He kind of reminds me of Gru.  And his face is delightfully silly, with a kind of wry grin mixed with a “what the hell am I still doing here?” look.  I don’t know. It works for me.

Hasbro should have made this version in the Black Series, and should have relegated the Starkiller parka outfit to the 5POA line.  Well, actually, they should have nuked the 5POA line and made everything in the Black Series.  I mean, they should have nuked the Black Series, and just kept the Vintage Collection.  Yeah, that.  But it is what it is.  I like this figure.  So even though the blaster is crap, I’m still going to allow it to keep the baseline 4 rating.  Wanna fight about it?