Holiday Edition Phase II Clone Trooper

Run, run, as fast as you can! Celebrate the season with specially designed Star Wars figures from The Black Series. In the first series of Black Series "Holiday Edition" figures, there were five releases, at GameStop, Target, Best Buy, Walmart, and Amazon; this year there are six, with Best Buy out and two "shared" exclusives in: Entertainment Earth and BBTS with a Protocol Droid, and ShopDisney and Hasbro Pulse with this Phase II Clone Trooper. And since all the Holiday Edition boxes have identical text on the back, here's some info lifted not from the original Clone Trooper's packaging (because we already did that once), but from Hasbro Pulse: Clone Troopers were so symbolic of the times, the galaxy-wide conflict that saw their debut took its name from their ranks: The Clone Wars. Mostly the same, minorly different. The Phase II Clone Trooper just got a Holiday Edition figure for Halloween, so we're really starting to see some overlap among the molds they're choosing for the line. Presuming they're sticking to generic characters (ie, we're not going to be seeing any named humans in the line), there really are only so many things they can do. (And on that note, if you're on the fence about this year's C-3PO, the odds are great that they'll be doing an R2 to go with him at some point in the future; better to get in now than try to back-track later.) While the 2020 figures were all about Santa and Elves, this year's are branching out slightly. They're still overtly Giftsmassy, it's just that they're now venturing outside of Saint Nick's workshop. We already had Bumbalmoarruaw, aka Bumble, aka the Abominable Snowman, and now we've got this Clone Trooper. Rather than being red and green, his armor is tan - no, he's not some sort of new desert trooper, he's some sort of new dessert trooper. He's decorated to look like a gingerbread man! Oh my gosh, this is so cute and clever! The visor in mis helmet that would normally be black is white, like icing, with matching stripes around his wrists and ankles. Instead of having a black bodysuit under the armor, it's just a darker brown (which is hard to see under normal light). There are four round, green buttons running up the center of his chest, and he's painted with a red bowtie that has a little bit of shading to give it depth; wonder where they came up with that idea? Even his blaster gets in on the fun! Most of the Holiday Edition figures' weapons have been designed to look like Nerf products, and while there was a Nerf Clone Trooper rifle, it had more colors than this. This is pure white, with the only paint being a little orange at the tip. So it feels less like a scaled toy, and more like a decoration made of icing. Thematic! The first Black Series Phase II Clone Trooper came out in 2014, as part of an exclusive four-pack, and was never released by itself. This mold was introduced in 2020, but has only been used for colorful variations, not yet a plain white Clone. Being that new does mean this toy gets the improved articulation: swivel/hinge ankles, swivel/hinge knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge shoulders, a balljointed neck, and barbell-jointed head. The shoulder pauldrons are soft PVC so they can flex enough to slide up over the torso when you raise the arms, and the knee- and elbow-pads are made from the same stuff, though they wouldn't be in the way of the joints anyway. All the Black Series Holiday Edition figures come with a pack-in, to help up the value. The Gingerbread Trooper's pack-in is a porg, which is less common in Series 2 than in Series 1: only two of the figures come with that, rather than three. Since we already had the standing porg, this one is the seated porg. You may think, keeping with the "dessert" theme, the porg in this set would be turned into a gumdrop or something. That'd be really easy, they're the same basic shape: just paint it a speckly red or green, and you'd be all set. Then do a Phase 1 Clone in this same style next year, and give its porg the other color. But no, this one has a normal head, then a red body with a white stripe around the neck and down the center. It's a Santa Porg! Or at least a porg in a little Santa sweater. The Phase II Clone Trooper is a real standout among the Holiday Edition figures - yes, he still has red and green paint apps, but not to the extent of the other figures. He almost feels like part of a different collection (in a good way): you've got a whole bunch of North Pole residents... and then one foodstuff. This could really help the line's longevity, too. Oh, you've already got a Holiday Mandalorian? Well, you don't have a Mandalorian cookie. You already did C-3PO in festive socks? You didn't do him as a cookie! We wouldn't want this to take over the line entirely, but getting at least one gingerbread figure per assortment would be nice. -- 12/03/22

Tweet