In A Different Era This Microseries Minibeat Would Be More Complete

Posted by Chris on 03/04/22 at 07:05 AM Category: Vintage Collection

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The 50th Anniversary Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars Microseries figures are currently shipping from Walmart and are arriving in collectors' homes with cards in various states of being banged up. Mine arrived yesterday (and I actually got some in decent shape). If my man cave were complete, I might have even taken pictures of them, but instead you get this article. For me, the two stand out figures from this "wave" are the ARC Trooper and Arc Trooper Captain (Not Fordo) figures. I could take or leave the stylized paint applications on the Jedi, but I'm excited to get these ARC Troopers. Their unit is known as the Muunilinst 10.

Like the A-Team and the Munsters, the Muunilinst 10 had their own signature vehicle. It was a custom "tiger shark" painted LAAT Gunship. It's pretty sweet:

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The last time we had a Microseries mini-beat, it was a simpler time when the world still had toy stores. And that mini-beat wasn't restricted to just figures. We actually got the Muunlist 10 Gunship:

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Our new vehicle-less world is what it is, but man, bringing that Gunship back out to accompany the new ARC Troopers would have been epic. The 2006 release fetches a whopping $400 on the secondary market. Of course this is all just another way to bemoan the loss of Toys R Us because they were the crazy uncle of the big toy retailers before their demise. When everyone else thinks that a one-off paint job of an expensive vehicle that made a brief appearance in a cartoon is too risky to take on, here comes crazy uncle pulling out his money clip and breaking off the hundreds.

Regardless, some form of the Republic Gunship needs to be re-released. It's too iconic of a vehicle for the world building scale to be as inaccessible as it is. The last time it was released, in 2013, the price was already eye popping at $120. You have to figure that scales to $250 with today's out of control pricing. Fan Channel was able to support a $150 Slave-I, and it even got a second production run. They might be able to support a $250 Gunship.