You'll never guess what text is on the back of this packaging!
Celebrate the season with specially designed Star Wars figures from The Black Series.
Okay, maybe you will, because that's the same thing that's on the back of all the boxes. But like always, existing molds mean there is text out there for them, somewhere: Brought to life by the sinister majik of the Great Mothers, Night Troopers are a macabre fighting force. See? Much better. And awfully convenent for me that Hasbro never got around to releasing the regular Night Trooper yet, so this is my first experience with one. Even better, the solo release Night Trooper won't use the same molds as the two-pack version, so this figure will get to remain unique in my collection.
It is still a bit of a let-down, honestly, because the two-pack
Night Trooper is not nearly as cool as the single. The idea of the Night Troopers is that they were the ones who happened to be aboard Thrawn's ship when Ezra teleported it away, so they've been stranded on the far side of the galaxy for more than a decade, with their armor and equpment getting damaged and repaired over that time - cracks filled in with gold, kintsugi style, and chunks of armor lashed together with strips of cloth.
It's that last feature that inspired this Halloween Edition release. What else gets tied up with strips of cloth? Mummies! So this Stormtrooper gets painted a dusty ecru and mint green combo,
with black still present for the undersuit the armor is worn over. A few of the sculpted strips still get painted, but most, annoyingly, get left undecorated. The thought there was obviously that we wouldn't notice the absense of those paint apps, because the figure completes the "mummy" look by getting a new, layered, softgoods piece that runs all the way from the right ankle to the left wrist, creating the look of him actually being wrapped up in cloth! Although separate, the wrappings aren't removable - you'd have to disassemble the figure to do it. The eyes on the helmet are painted yellow, and there are a few pink patches as well - not sure what the idea was with those. The thin black stitches on the helmet may seem a bit more "Frankenstein" than "Mummy," but they beat leaving it blank; the helmet
is already a brighter white than the rest of the armor.
Handily, the "wrappings" are loose enough that you can shift them around a little bit to get the look you like best (which is also how we know the other sculpted bandages aren't painted), but that also means they won't get in the way of the existing articulation. Balljointed chest? Hinged pecs? Doesn't matter, they can all work just as well as if there were nothing over top of them. It's not like mummies are the most dynamic characters in general, so it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if some of the joints were limited, but they're not.
His accessory is cleverly on-brand: he has Xizor's staff, done in gold with white wrappings. That isn't specifically anything Egyptian, but it does call to mind the Staff of Ra from Indiana Jones, with its straight body and round headpiece. So not strictly "mummy," but still definitely archaeological. So it works.
All the Black Series Holiday Edition
figures come with a pack-in, to help up the value. There are only so many miniature things available, though, so we see a lot of the same things over and over. In fact, between the Giftsmas and Halloween figures, this is the eighth porg, with more on the way later this year.
This is the "standing" porg mold, with visible feet and little
balljointed wings. It doesn't really feel like it belongs with the Mummy Trooper, though: it's painted brown, with yellow eyes and two white fangs jutting up from its bottom lip, and the lower half of the body is painted blue, like he's wearing pants. This matches up with the way 2022's Were-Wookiee's bogling was decorated, making the two of them look like more of set than either of them look with the figures they came with: two little werewolf beasts that just happen to hang around with other monsters.
Like the first use of this mold, the Halloween Edition Night Trooper is a Walmart exclusive. It didn't ship as weirdly early as the Imperial Royal Guard did, but I actually managed to find it in a store instead of having to order it online! Checking Walmart's site, it said a (somewhat) nearby store had it in stock, so I drove up there to see if that was true. They had a whole display near the toy section full of Hasbro and Mattel exclusives and collector-aimed figures you normally never see in person (MotU x Thundercats, Marvel Retro Collection, etc.) That trip was worth it! The other Night Trooper body would have been a better base for this Halloween Edition figure to be built upon, but it's still a pretty good offering.
-- 10/18/25
When will they give these poor porgs a rest? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
|
