RUMOR:  A Familiar Bounty Hunter To Appear In Obi-Wan Series

WARNING: Possible spoilers for the Obi-Wan series may follow. If you want to go in clean, turn back now. I will even give you an image break to make sure that you don't accidentally see a spoiler. Proceed past this image at your own risk.


Firestorm was one heck of a picture, but I digress. We're here to talk about the latest Obi-Wan series rumor. According to Star Wars News Net, a familiar bounty hunter is going to make an appearance. They write:

We’ve heard from a credible source that the bounty hunter 4-LOM will make an appearance in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series. We don’t know many specifics about his involvement, but we were assured he will have a bigger role than the mere seconds he spent on screen in The Empire Strikes Back.

I love the idea of getting to better know a character such as 4-LOM who is visually compelling, but barely seeen on-screen. I'm not even sure I knew where 4-LOM appeared in The Empire Strikes Back when I got my hands on the mistakenly named Kenner Zuckuss figure. The book Tales of the Bounty Hunters is an anthology that is utterly uneven. Some of the stories feel like fanfic that was written in junior high. Other stories are really well written, to include the chapter on 4-LOM and Zuckuss. It makes me eager for any further exploration of either of those characters. So the rumor of an in-depth 4-LOM appearance in Obi-Wan is well met by this fan, but as this site obsesses with the 3.75" action figure scale, I would be remiss if didn't discuss the action figure angle.

The most recent and "best" 4-LOM figure has been released twice. It was initially released in 2007 as the Thirtieth Anniversary Collection (TAC) 30-41 4-LOM figure. It was re-released a few short years later as part of the Vintage Collection as 2010's VC10 - 4-LOM figure. It pegwarmed like nobody's business. Here's a problem with that figure: It stinks. It's a barrel chested "I can't put my arms down" callback to the POTF2 era for no good reason:



What makes matters worse is that Disney Parks released a much more accurately proportioned 4-LOM:



The above image is from our friends at Galactic Figures. Please click that link for the full sized images. It's hard to argue that the Disney Parks exclusive isn't far superior to the Hasbro sculpt, but on the flip side, the Hasbro paint applications are more accurate, specifically to the head sculpt. We need to bring these two things together in a moment of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup serendipity.

As mentioned above, 4-LOM has already been released in the Vintage Collection, so there is no "Originally 96" justification for going back to the source, but, as also mentioned, the figure we have stinks. I would be all for the Obi-Wan series being the impetus for a better proportioned 4-LOM being released in the Vintage Collection perhaps as a store exclusive. I don't want to have to use a Disney Parks bootleg as my go to 4-LOM.

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