Hasbro has announced the upcoming launch of a new range of 6'' tall Star Wars figures.
Dubbed the ''Black Series'' (presumably due to the packaging and not some form of racial profiling going on at Hasbro) the new line sees Hasbro ''doing a Marvel Legends'' with their hottest property and will feature a range focused primarily on the original movies, although ''key players'' from the prequels will also appear.
The first wave of four figures - that's Luke Skywalker in his pilot outfit, R2-D2, an Imperial Sandtrooper and, erm, Darth Maul - is scheduled to land at retail around August, with each figure clocking in at the $19.99 price point.
According to USA Today - who broke the news - the Vintage line of 3 3/4'' tall figures is also set to be re-branded to form part of the ''Black Series.'' Whether this means they'll also be narrowing the focus of the series to be more Han Solo and less Bif Oomla remains to be seen.
I'm really excited about this. I've all but completed my TVC focus, and was wondering where to go next with collecting Star Wars - the timing of this announcement couldn't have been any better for me. Roll on August!
ReplyDeleteI was considering collecting the Vintage series as it stands, but only buying figures I owned as a kid (or wanted but never had) so I did find it interesting that they're claiming they'll be focusing on the original trilogy (even if Darth Maul is in there.)
DeleteThat's a big selling point for me - if the ratio stays 3:1 in the OT's favour I can see the line really keeping my interest. No clones, at least for the first few waves, would make me very happy!
DeleteI know since the earliest waves the line has always had ''secondary'' characters in it. Hell, as a kid Snaggletooth and Hammerhead were two of my favourite characters, so I'm fine with the ''extra'' characters, so long as they're cool/interesting. I just don't think Vim Flooma or Wep Chonto or whoever all these prequel characters are make any kind of impact - certainly not like the Cantina aliens did - so I'm really not interested in figures of them.
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