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The first two Star Wars Legacy comic packs must have been successful for Hasbro, because we're back in the future again.
Darth Krayt is not pleased; Admiral Stazi of the Galactic Alliance Remnant has stolen the Sith Lord's powerful new warship Imperious. Unknown to Stazi, Imperial Knights Sigel Dare and Treis Sinde have sabotaged the ship, hoping to ruin Krayt's plans. Now Dare must warn Stazi before the bombs planted on the ship explode!
This set, like #22, features characters on both sides of the good/evil divide. Battle in a box! Beats that lovey-dovey crap some of the other comic packs are selling! This is Sparta Star Wars, not Star Peace!
The baddie in this set is Darth Krayt, a name which won't mean much to you if you haven't read Legacy. Basically, he's their version of Emperor Palpatine -
or maybe more accurately their version of Carnor Jax, since he took the throne by force. [Don't you mean "by Force?" --ed.] He's the big evil force driving the story, and the leader of the Sith. Of course, he's done away with the Rule of Two, so his Sith are an entire army, not just some old feeb and his half-robot sidekick.
Darth Krayt wears silver armor that makes him look like a cross between Shao Kahn and Super Shredder. Actually, it's Vonduun crab armor, same as the extra-galactic Yuuzhan Vong wore. It's actually a living creature that latches onto and grows around its wearer - so sort of like the bugs that Darth Bane was being eaten by. The armor is detailed well, and you can even see his skin poking through in just a few places. The skirt is a separate piece, as are the shoulder pads, which attach to the figure via pegs that allow them to move out of the way of the arms.
Counting the horns on his helmet, Krayt stands 4¼" tall. He has a balljointed head, swivel wrists, waist and hips, and swivel/hinge shoulders,
elbows and knees. Really, the only major joints he's missing are the ankles, which isn't much of a loss. The joints are rubbery, however, so getting them moving took some effort. He has two red lightsabers with his distinctive organic hilts, but neither hand is really molded to hold them properly. What's up with that? While the blades and hilts are a single pice, you get the feeling the original plan was to have the blades removable. Why? Because Darth Krayt carries his sabers crossed on his back, and the sculpt of this figure allows him to do just that... except that the blades are always there. Lame!
So why does Darth Krayt break the tradition of Sith lords (and every other villain, for that matter)
named blatantly after fancy words for evil? Nihilus, Bane, Plagueis, Sidious, Maul, Tyrannus... you get the idea. So why's this one named after a shipping container? Well, he's not: he's named after the dreaded Krayt Dragon of Tattooine. Remember the scene where C-3PO is wandering though the desert and passes that giant skeleton? That's a Krayt Dragon spine, and that's where Darth Krayt gets his name.
Of course, the reason he has such an obscure reference in his name
is that he's from Tatooine, which means that's two Sith lords who have come from one backwater planet. Maybe there's something in the sand. Of course, we didn't know that at first - Krayt's true identity was a secret in the early issues of Legacy. Eventually he unmasked and revealed himself as A'sharad Hett, a Jedi from the Clone Wars era who had managed to keep himself alive for 156 years past the end of the war. The toy's helmet is removable, allowing you to see Hett's distinctive tattoos and his heterochromatic eyes - one brown, one blue (the left eye is a prosthetic).
If you recall our Antares Draco & Ganner Krieg review, you'll
remember us asking who the female Imperial Knight was. Turns out she's Sigel Dare, and she's the good guy in this set. Well, "sort of" good guy: Darth Krayt may have declared himself emperor, but he also deposed another emperor. One who had overthrown the Alliance in his rise to power, and sent the Jedi into hiding. Not exactly a great guy himself, you know?
As explained in that other review, the Imperial Knights were Emperor Fel's bodyguards. They were Force-sensitive, but not Jedis. Sigel, like all the active Knights, wears crimson armor based loosely on Palpatine's Royal Guards. There's a black softgoods cape with a hood, but it looks even worse on Sigel than it did on Antares and Ganner. Best just to leave it draping down her back and forget it's there.
Sigel wears her hair in one of those complex buns that seem to be a perennial fashion "do" (and, for that matter, a fashionable 'do) in the Lucasverse. Her eyes may be a bit over-large (due to the iris/upper lid being painted just a bit too high on my figure), but she's not at all ugly. Paint is good, with a skintone that's not overly dark, and her lips are only slightly pinker than the rest of her. There's a molding artifact on her jaw,
but it's small and out of the way enough that you shouldn't be bothered.
This figure shares most of her articulation with Darth Krayt, though she does have the added benefit of ankles. Yay her! Like her fellow Imperial Knights, she's armed with the plain-hilted silver lightsaber. It's a new sculpt, though, because the blade isn't removable. She can hold it fine in her left hand, but the right is far too loose. The red of her armor is slightly more metallic than the previous knights - did Hasbro misplace the color guides from last year?
This set, #44 in the series, comes with a reprint of Star Wars Legacy #22, an issue which not only features one of Darth Krayt's evilest moments, but has a lot of Sigel Dare running around, too. Only downside is that she's not in her armor. If you've never read any of the story, this issue does a really good job of introducing the characters and showing us their motivations, as well as setting up the three-way conflict going on in the galaxy: Sith Empire vs. Galactic Empire vs. Galactic Alliance. Aww yeah!
Hasbro has released some real stinkers when it comes to these comic packs, but the Darth Krayt/Sigel Dare pairing is a good one. Both figures are new, as sculpts and as characters, and that counts for a lot. The set has been out for a few months, now, but it's still very hard to find. However, we can gladly affirm that the hunt is worth the effort.
-- 12/19/09
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