Friday, July 28, 2006

Hasbro is running out of ideas

Now this is just weird. It's no secret that Hasbro has been repacking their Star Wars figures for years ("She has a new hat!"), but it seems that even Hasbro realizes they need to make the repack thing less obvious. It appears that some marketing wizard in a toy-pitch meeting came up with a novel way to put new paint on old walls. Just look at this - they went back to the old Marvel comic books and decided to paint repacks in the colors of the original artwork. Check out these examples.


I'm not at all impressed with Han and Chewie, they look exactly the same.



Okay, I like Tarkin's color and the red eyes on the stormtrooper are pretty sweet, but not sweet enough to own ("He has new eyes!").


I'm kinda digging the Rebel pilot and, godamnit, I like the Darth too. I'm really pleased that Hasbro is bringing back the cloth capes.

Here's what Rebelscum has to say about it, "Hasbro officially announced last weekend at Comic-Con a new series of 2-packs based on the Expanded Universe series of comic books. These sets will retail for $9.99 and will include a reprint of the original comic, plus 2 action figures.

The initial wave will focus on the classic Marvel Comics Star Wars series, and will be made up of repacked figures from the past, painted up in the same color scheme as they appeared in the panels of the original comic books, complete with shadows and highlights painted on.

Rumor has it that a Luke Skywalker (Stormtrooper disguise) & R2-D2 is also on tap from the Marvel era. No word yet if all 6 issues will be part of this series.

The next batch of these sets will focus on characters from the Dark Horse series of comic books. This time however, instead of repaints of previous figures, these will be made up of new sculpts.

While the internet-exclusive Kir Kanos & Carnor Jax will serve as a precursor to this series, look for the following sets in 2007:

Quinlan Vos & Vilmarh Grahrk
Obi-Wan Kenobi & ARC Trooper Alpha (rumored)
Mara Jade & ???"

1 comment:

Octopunk said...

That is SO bizarre, especially to include shading (???)

Really, that's just weird. I'd much rather have them do more animated style Clone Wars figs, or really go completist on the Cantina dudes (there's still more, I swear).

But...dammit! Stormtroopers with red eyes...that's so cool!