When Darth Vader recruited six of the most elite bounty hunters in the galaxy to track down the Millennium Falcon, one of those hunters was Bossk. This reptilian Trandoshan has a well-deserved reputation as a highly skilled tracker unencumbered by scruples or even a thread of decency. After all, he acquired part of his powerful reputation by killing and eating his own father. His species is able to re-grow lost limbs, adding to his already considerable aura of invincibility. Bossk sees his ruthless and cold-hearted hunts as an elementary function of his professional vocation. But he also considers them a step toward everlasting glory, for one of the major deities in his religion lavishly rewards successful hunts in the afterlife. His desire to find the Falcon was not only for the bounty being offered; Bossk hungered for the opportunity to capture Chewbacca and add another Wookiee's pelt to his collection.
I will never get over how much text toy companies used to put on the back of their cards, and now we can't even get a single line. We used to be a country, a proper country!
The 2002-2006 Star Wars Unleashed line was Hasbro's attempt to peel off some of that McFarlane Toys money and success by offering larger, unarticulated Star Wars toys. Ultimately, this foray into the larger 7" scale worked about as well as their prior attempts to break into the 12" market. Part of it was the price: imagine thinking anyone in the public would be willing to regularly pay as much as $14.99 for an action figure! What a dark day that would be!
That said, there's no denying the sculpt is very good. Bossk has never looked more threatening, with his lizardy mouth open and hissing,
and his tongue curling up slightly. He's wearing his traditional reused Doctor Who space suit, and not only does it have all the right hoses and gaskets, it's also been given wrinkles that make it look like a baggy garment worn over a body beneath. The texture on his exposed limbs get plenty of detail as well, much more than any previous Bossk had enjoyed. Such are the advantages of scale! (Uh, that's "size" scale, not "reptile" scale. Or, well, "both," I guess. It could work for both.)
Unleashed Bossk gets really nice paint,
with a supremely strong contrast between his dark olive skin and bright icterine suit. The suit has black cuffs and a gray vest, and white straps hang around his legs just like on the Rebel pilots' suits. He's got colorful patches on both shoulders, and a bit of a rust color on the padding around his neck to break things up. They painted all his sharp little teeth, and his tongue, and the eyes actually manage to look like eyes instead of just plastic on the front of a mask. Well done!
None of the Unleashed figures have great articulation, but Bossk is one of the ones with fully zero joints - not even anything
for fine-tuning the pose. Heck, his gun can't even be removed from his hand! He does have a really cool pose, admittedly, hunched over as he scrambles over the scenery, twisting to the side with his gun in front of him and his left arm held out behind. Considering his big moment of action in the movie was "slightly flexing his toes," this is a massive improvement. All of a sudden he looks like someone Wookiees might have reason to be afraid of!
Bossk connects to his display base via metal rods emerging from his feet. That means you can take him off the base and still have it be a fine standalone piece on its own. Normally we'd favor the peg being
on the base and the hole being in the foot (cf. Icon Heroes' Thundercats statues vs. NECA's MotU), but since his pose is so extreme, he'll never be standing anywhere but on the base anyway. The base is some non-descript chunk of concrete permacrete, a rounded piece that looks like it's part of some kind of standing ring. There are large cracks in the surface, sculpted rubble in the frame, and pieces of rebar sticking out one side. The debris on the front is painted, but not on the back, and though there are bullet holes on the back, it's the front that gets a painted blaster scorchmark.
The Black Series Bossk was a better action figure, obviously, but the Unleashed version is pretty awesome in its own right. This was the first time Bossk ever felt even a little bit like a character rather than just a costume design, even if not a single piece of the figure can move at all.
-- 09/20/25
Should Boba Fett have survived, or no? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
|
