Clone Commander Doom

Fools! None may command but Doom! Serving under Jedi Masters Tiplee and Tiplar, this Clone Trooper Commander leads his unit in an attack against Separatist forces in the Battle of Ringo Vinda. After The Clone Wars was stupidly cancelled by Cartoon Network, it was picked up by Netflix for a bonus half-season. The first story arc was a real heartwrencher, but it opened on the new world of Ringo Vinda (which had a manmade ring orbiting it), introduced the new Jedi Master twins, and their assigned Clone squadrons. Though their Clone Commander wasn't named on-screen, it was still easy to spot his inspiration - and sure enough, when the episode guide went up on StarWars.com, he was officially identified as "Doom." Doom's armor is fairly basic equipment - it's just the cool colors that set him apart from the crowd. Okay, "mostly" the cool colors that set him apart from the crowd. He's wearing standard Phase II clone trooper armor (aka, the "we're nearly to the Stormtroopers" design), but has added an ARC Trooper-style kama to the waist. He's also customized the heck out of his helmet. The underlying structure is a normal unit, but he's added a visor above the eyes, an antenna on the right side, and a small black flashlight mounted on his forehead. The black paint on his eyeslit should extend all the way up to the visor, not leave a white stripe, so that may require some fixing. The green on the toy is slightly darker than on the show's renders, possibly in an effort to duplicate the way he tended to hang around in poorly illuminated chambers during his brief appearance. He has white stripes on his right shoulder, and around the edges of his kama, then yellow ones around the sides. There's a yellow triangle on his chest and another on his visor; it's the symbol of his unit. The cartoon gave him a lot of scuffs and scortch marks, but the best the action figure can do (for budgetary reasons, no doubt) is just paint the "white" areas a flat gray. When this figure was announced last year at SDCC, I was afraid it was going to be one of those crummy 5-POA figures Hasbro has been putting out recently. Thankfully, no! He's got all the articulation he should have: swivel/hinge joints at the ankles, knees, wrists, elbows, and shoulders; swivel waist and hips; and a balljointed head. The hips and waist are slightly disappointing, but the kama limits them pretty well anyway. He's armed with two DC-17 hand blasters, which holster nicely in his skirt (but seem just slightly too large for his hands). Commander Doom, with his fun homage backstory and one-episode appearance, seems an unlikely candidate to become an action figure - especially one with only minimal corners cut. You've got to wonder if the reason Hasbro could do it was that Disney owns both Marvel and Star Wars, or if they would have been able to do the same thing had the character been a red-and-blue Commander Clark. But this is a cool toy, with the only flaw being that you're not likely to ever see it in a store, thanks to terrible distribution. -- 06/21/15

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