#34: Star Wars Clone Wars Nahdar Vebb

About 6 to 8 weeks ago, I sent off for this figure. It arrived in a timely fashion, which is good. Captain Rex and the crystal skeleton both took forever, but the Qui-Gonn/eopie seemed to arrive in good time, so I guess Hasbro has their act back together on sending out mail-order figures. Nahdar Vebb here showed up in oneepisode of The Clone Wars. He was Kit Fisto's former padawan, but he didn't make it through the episode alive. So why is a one episode Jedi getting the special mail-away figure treatment? He's a Mon Cal Jedi, that's why. For all we know, this guy is Admiral Ackbar's uncle.

Similarly to Captain Rex, Nahdar's packaging folds out into a small diorama, which helps set him apart from any regularly released figure. The scene features General Grievous, and there's a pop-up Magnaguard droid that makes it a little more 3-D.

The figure itself is really cool. It does a good job of capturing the look of the character as he appears in the cartoon. One cool piece of design on him is the collar on his outfit which is reminiscent of the one on Ackbar's outfit. The only quibble I can come up with for this figure is that it lacks ankle articulation. Considering that many of the non-clone figures for the Clone Wars line don't even have knees, it's not that big a deal. The knees don't really look like it, but they are actually ball jointed. What's really cool are the shoulders. They have some sort of double ball joint that I've never seen before, so they can move up and down, or to the side, so they have a wider range of motion than other figures with ball jointed shoulders. I don't know if my explanation makes it clear how they work, but they are pretty nifty.

I think you still have time to send in for this figure, so if you are interested, I would definitely recommend doing so. For now, that is the only way to get it. But who knows, Captain Rex was eventually released to retail, so maybe Nahdar Vebb will find his way into stores too. But maybe he won't.