The Black Series: Wave One

September 6, 2013 at 9:26 am | Posted in Star Wars, Toys & Collectibles | Leave a comment
Tags: the black series

There has been a lot of talk about Hasbro’s new Black Series, especially the 6″ line that breaks the old 3 3/4″ collectible scale. As a toy collector myself, I’ve never been married to any one scale of collectible. To me, the important aspects are quality and quantity. While the new 6″ Black Series only has eight figures that have been revealed so far, they do succeed in the quality bracket. Each figure has very nice sculps, good paint applications, a decent amount of accessories and quite a bit of articulation.

Wave one of The Black Series 6″ is comprised of Darth Maul, Luke Skywalker in his pilot outfit, R2-D2 and Sandtrooper. Of the four, the Sandtrooper seems to be the more elusive figure to find, at least as of the moment. As far as tracking them down out in the wild, they’re most easily found at Target department stores and they’ve begun popping up at Toys R Us. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the figures of wave one.

Darth Maul

Darth Maul comes with his signature double bladed lightsaber. As you can see, the blades are removable so you can pose the lightsaber lit or unlit. His clothing is mostly a soft, rubbery plastic, but there is some soft goods clothing tucked in to further enhance the look.

Here he is with blades lit. Note that the lightsaber is a softer style plastic, so you can bend it and reshape it as necessary. Even with all the articulation of the figure, it can still be hard to get him to pose with both hands on the lightsaber at one time.

The hilt splits in two, allowing you to pose Maul with two lightsabers if it suits you.

He also comes with an alternate head that has a rubber hood attached to it and draping folds of his cloak. Here he is pictured with his binoculars.

Now one thing I’ve noticed with the figures is that they all have varying paint apps. Some figures have a lot better quality than others. There are also some very noticeable flaws to look out for. With Maul, it’s the paint app for his head. From the front, they all look pretty good. They all seem to have overlapping red paint on the horns, and the actual sculp gives each eye a slightly different look like one is squinting more than the other.

The right side of Maul’s head seems to be the biggest issue. Almost every figure I’ve seen has a paint overlap for the horn on the side of his head, the one right next to his eye. Here you can see how the black line goes into the red and right across the horn. I saw one figure the other day that looked like the line didn’t extend all the way across the horn, but I have yet to see one that didn’t go into the red circle around the horn. Mine has an additional flaw on the cheek where the black line isn’t solidly painted on.

Here’s a look at Maul’s alternate head. The whole thing is one piece, and kind of looks like a phantom Maul when displayed by itself.

Here’s the 6″ Black Series Maul next to the Unleashed statue of himself. The new 6″ version is actually a slightly larger scale in this case.

Pilot Luke

Luke Skywalker comes with his pilot outfit, a blaster pistol, a lightsaber and a pilot helmet. Like Maul’s lightsaber, the blade can be removed from the hilt so you can display an unlit lightsaber. There is also a hook on his belt that you can hang it from. Sadly, he doesn’t have a holster for his blaster pistol. Also worth noting is that the Darth Maul figure does not have a hook that you can hang his lightsaber off of, but he does have a hole on his side that his hilt can be plugged into (this hilt has a peg on it).

With Luke, all of the figures I have seen have had really good faces. The area where the paint app seems to be a problem is his chest controls. Many figures have scratches on the controls and it can be hard to find one with pristine paint, but they are out there because I’ve seen a few. The one I managed to get is pretty close to perfect.

Here’s Luke in comparison to the Unleashed statue of himself. As you can see, the scale here is very different. The Unleashed version is much larger.

R2-D2

R2-D2 comes with a lot of accessories. The side panels on his leg are removable and can be replaced with his jet rockets. There are three removable panels on his dome that allow his sensor, periscope, or spare lightsaber to be inserted. If you twist his dome, the third leg extends down. Each leg also has very nice rollers so he can roll around really well.

There are two panels on his chest that open to reveal his grasping arm and shock prod, though they’re kinda short.

The paint app on his eye is weird. It’s painted red and partially blue. Each figure is a little different on how partial the eye is painted. Some are half and half while others are almost entirely blue. It looks really odd and a little sloppy. The other quality issue I’ve noticed is the line on his dome. Most of the time the line wavers a little, so it’s not really straight. I’ve noticed some that also had minor dripping. Mine doesn’t have any dripping, but the line does waver a little. I’ve only seen one that looked like is was really straight, but I’d already picked this guy up and didn’t feel like exchanging him.

Another issue I just noticed yesterday is the top of his dome. I haven’t been able to inspect others, but mine is clearly cockeyed. The two halves don’t match up. There is also no way to correct the issue as there is no give to the two halves so there’s no way to realign them.

Here’s a side by side comparison between R2 and Luke to give you a sense of the scale. Many people have noted that the scale is off, and they’re right. R2 should actually be a little bit bigger. But it still looks pretty good.

Sandtrooper

Without his backpack and orange shoulder pauldron, the Sandtrooper looks like a dirty stormtrooper. To be honest, I think it’s a really cool look. It’s also makes a compelling case for buying more than one sandtrooper. Since the sandtrooper comes with three guns (an E-11 blaster rifle, DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle and T-21 light repeating blaster. Noticeably absent is the RT-97C heavy blaster rifle which was seen in A New Hope), it makes sense to buy three. For those keeping track and thinking about customizing, there are three different colored pauldrons that sandtroopers wore in the film: orange, white and black. Supposedly the commanders wear orange, the sergeants wear white, and the lowly grunts wear black.

Here’s a comparison of a sandtrooper with pauldron and one without.

Be careful when posing, those backpacks can really mess up their equilibrium.

Another cool thing about the sandtroopers is that the dirt painted on the figures varies between them. Each of my sandtroopers looks different. Some areas are dirtier than others. Looking at the figures in the stores, I have noticed any flaws to watch out for. They’ve all looked really good.

Customizing

When it comes to customizing, I’m a novice, but that doesn’t stop me from diving in anyways. The 6″ Black Series figures have some easy customizing options which are completely reversible. The biggest thing to look out for is the ball joint for their heads. The ball joints for Darth Maul and Luke Skywalker match, but the ball joint for the sandtrooper is larger and non compatible.

Here’s Pilot Maul

Hooded Pilot Maul.

Hooded stormtrooper Maul. I cheated on this one. The head doesn’t snap into the ball joint, but the cloak hides that and in hovers in just the right spot that you call pull it off.

Double pauldron Maul.

Pilot Luke in black.

Darth Skywalker.

My favorite: bounty hunter Luke.

Double pauldron sandtrooper. Commander of the legion maybe?

Taking it a step farther, I painted one of the pauldrons white so I would have a sandtrooper sergeant. I plan on getting at least one more to paint black so I can have lowly grunt to order around.

Thanks for checking out the picture gallery and I hope you enjoyed it. Wave two of the 6″ Black Series is set to come out in November and will include Greedo, Han Solo, Slave Leia and Boba Fett. I’m looking forward to seeing what customizable options will be possible (Slave Boba?). Until then, happy hunting.