The Star Wars: The Black Series Archive Collection is a series of reissues of popular Black Series 6″ Scale Figures, all in new carded packaging. While these are mostly the same, the non-helmeted characters look to use Hasbro’s upgraded digital face painting technique that we’ve seen on the last few waves of Black Series figures. The images, courtesy of Yakface.com, features in and out of packaging images of Series 1. Included are:
- Luke Skywalker – Pilot
- Boba Fett
- Bossk
- IG-88
The (likely) next wave will include Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and the Biker Scout. Pre-orders should go live on January 1st for the first wave. See the images after the jump.
Star Wars: The Black Series Archive Collection Wave 1 Official Photos
Sweeeeeeet! Now i dont have to pay ungodly, ricockulous scalper prices for fett, iggy and bossk.
'Tis the season for miracles...
THANK YOU Hasbro for re-releasing these AND implementing that new face tech.
*bows low and gives wallet*
Does Luke look weird to anyone? I was going to upgrade my original with the face printing one but it just looks odd. Like he's wearing makeup.
Yeah pretty soon he'll be wearing all black and lashing out at his dad but I'm sure it'll pass when he gets older.
Total make-up department fail!
Total make-up department fail!
When will they do Fett in ROTJ colors?
I'd be down for a Fett in Kenner colors.
These new pics of Luke don't look AS bad, but still bad. I don't understand why HasBLO is calling this line "Archive" when they're updating, and ruining, some of these figures. If I ever happen to see one in person, I'll reserve final judgement until then. So far, the "upgrades" leave a lot to be desired, which will drive the secondary market prices up on the original figures even more. "Archive" was a case where straight repacks would have been welcome. Oh well.
The Luke sculpt keeps getting better. This is a big step up from the initial "bodybuilder" Luke from 1995.
Good work all around.
Off the top of my head, HasBLO also "updated" the paint on IG-88, which was not needed and pissed some folks off. I'm lucky to have the first release, which, even though I know it's comparing real life to images, I think looks much better. I'm not sure of any other changes, but if there are, someone will bring them up, lol. Archive should not have such drastic changes, but whatever. HasBLO's gonna HasBLO.
I can't really see how they are ruining anything here. I hate re-releases as much as the next guy, but if anything they are doing many of us a service by re-releasing these guys, because some of them were difficult if not impossible to find in retail when they launched. I ran into Pilot Luke all but one time in stores, and NEVER saw the other three. The upgrades to these also have been really minimal from what I can tell. Outside the face printing, the color differences so far are fairly minute and the sculpts are identical. Maybe they can fix the plastic quality that the original IG-88 had with the warped legs that caused him standing issues several of us had.
I don't think this is gonna drive the prices up on the original figures at all either. If anything, it's gonna cause them to drop. The only way they will go up is if some sucker completionist gets baited into it. If you need proof of this, just look at the secondary market on several Marvel Legends con exclusives that have been re-released over the past year or two. Several, if not all have dropped drastically in price...and while you will see one or two on ebay priced ridiculously high, most have dropped because a toy realistically is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, and when there are cheaper alternatives out there of essentially the same product, people will most often go with the cheaper one.
where's a good place to get these at retail pricing? only seeing some ebay presale gouging going on right now.
Apparently someone in California already found these at Target.
Dorkside and BBTS have the figures up for preorder right now.
Yeah there's almost zero reason to pay retail for SW Black Series figures. I waited and waited and got the Death Star Trooper and Range Troopers for $7 from Amazon.
Full Thread: Star Wars Black Series Archive Wave 1
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