REBEL COMMANDO

Accessories:
-Blaster rifle
-Blaster pistol
-Removable helmet
-Removable backpack
-Removable trench coat
Articulation: ball-joint neck, shoulders, elbows, knees and ankles; swivel wrists and waist
Wave Designation: Wave 3 - Return of the Jedi (2010)

Hasbro's finally giving us some decent Rebel army builders! The latest addition to our Rebel armies is quite good. The new Rebel Commando figure's pretty much got all of the accessories we could have asked for: a great removable soft goods trench coat that's even got a couple pockets, two different weapons including a blaster pistol that fits into the working holster in his belt, and the removable helmet and backpack we've gotten with most past versions of the Endor soldier. Another important thing to note about the weapons is that the blaster rifle is made with a plastic that thankfully isn't too gummy, which is a big issue we've seen in the past with larger weapons like this. There is one little issue with the accessories. It's very difficult to plug the backpack into the hole in the figure's back when the Rebel Commando is wearing the trench coat, because the hole in the soft goods trench coat has to line up perfectly with the hole in the figure's back. But once it's in there, the figure looks great walking around with it and fortunately despite being such a large accessory the backpack doesn't give the figure any difficulty standing up properly. The figure's also very poseable, with the standard fourteen points of articulation we've come to expect. Rebel Commando re-uses the legs from 2009's Major Panno figure. I'm happy with the figure's articulation for now, but Rebel Commando could benefit from the addition of ball-jointed hips in a future release to allow an even greater range of motion for action-packed battles. Another important change I'd like to see in future releases is for the Rebel Commando to have a more generic looking headsculpt. This is a figure lots of people (myself included) really want to army build, but not all of the Rebel soldiers on Endor can be bald guys with beards. In the upcoming SDCC exclusive Revenge of the Jedi boxed set, the Rebel Commando figure has a new black headsculpt with a mustache (re-used from the black headsculpt variation of 2006's Endor Rebel Soldier figure) which will add a little more variety, and hopefully we'll eventually see the figure re-released with a new headsculpt that doesn't have any facial hair. Despite the very few issues I found with this figure, it's definitely worth picking up! (I've already purchased ten and plan to swap out the headsculpts with other figures at some point). Oddly enough, this figure along with Wooof seems to be the bigest pegwarmer of the Return of the Jedi wave, which is weird for such an army builder that seemed so highly anticipated by collectors. Oh well...more Rebel Commandos for me!
Review by David Delgado.