Once you have a Han Solo sculpt and a Storm Trooper sculpt then the obvious next step is to do a Han in Storm Trooper armour - same applies for Luke who is coming in the next wave. For Hasbro it's a no brainer as the sculpts are both done, and for fans the figure is generally welcomed as it allows them to replicate a key scene from A New Hope.
It seems an age since we got any new figures in the 6" Black Series, but May has finally brought us Wave 7 which comprises of two new figures and two re-issues. For the reissues check out our Chewbacca review from wave 5 and our Tie Pilot review from wave 6.
Han arrives in the usual Black Series, blue trimmed box. He is numbered #09 which a continuation of the reset numbering system that Hasbro applied when they launched the Blue trim in wave 5. On the rear of the box you will find the usual Black Series art-work as well as a bit of blurb about the figures role in the film.
Once opened Han arrives packed with his Storm Trooper helmet and a standard blaster.
The sculpt of Han's head is identical to the standard Han release and is a decent enough likeness. It also seems to be much better painted to those we saw in wave 3, so maybe Hasbro have addresses the sloppy paint issues that plagued them last year. Moving to the neck and there is a separate neck piece slotted over the existing black neck. This is different to that on the normal StormTrooper and ensures Han looks realistic when posed without the helmet. This neck piece does still allow for some general movement in the head so you can get Han looking up,down and to the sides.
The arms are articulated at the shoulder, elbow and wrist with the wrist being a pivot as well as rotational. This means that even through the arms are restricted a little by the armour, Han can hold his blaster with both hands. The blaster itself is plain black and can either be held, or slotted easily into a holster on the rear of Hans utility belt.
Hidden under the chest piece is a further ball joint, but due to the nature of the armour you cant get much movement from this other than a bit of a lean forward and backward.
Legs, like arms, are jointed at the top middle and bottom and with double jointed knees you can get Han into crouching poses with a bit of playing around.
All through the figure the paint is pretty crisp, although as with the original Storm Trooper the pins in the joints are black plastic painted white. This means that there is a slight colour variation at the joints, but nothing that spoils the figure.
Height wise Han is comparable to the Storm Trooper figure and of course his original figure and is therefore just a straight head swap with no sculpt adjustments. This is of course pretty accurate to the film, and our hope now is for Hasbro to ensure that the forthcoming Luke has been tweaked so he is "a little short for a Storm Trooper"
So onward to the elephant in the room - the helmet. Firstly lets look at what we got, and that is a soft plastic helmet which fits snugly over Hans head. Because they have re-used the Storm Trooper hands it is also difficult to get Han to hold the helmet under his arm or even to hold it casually hanging by his side.
A removable helmet as a play feature is a nice touch, and although a little elongated it is much better than we expected after seeing some early shots. However, it is not perfect and Han easily stands out in a crowd of standard troopers.This is the same issue as the wave 5 Vader where sculpt/looks were sacrificed for a working helmet. For me this is fine on a smaller figure and for kids is a nice play feature. But if this is a collectors line, then we should accept that plastic heads don't work like real heads and any helmet that fits on a 6" plastic head will always look stretched or too big. I think my preference would have been to go down an alternative head - similar to how they tackled Maul.
In summary this is an obvious cheap figure for Hasbro to put out, but is a nice figure for any collection and once paired with the corresponding Luke and the Chewie figure it will look great on display. It is not perfect with some niggles over the colour of the joints, and the biggest issue is the helmet which works, but certainly doesn't look right.
I give Han a 3 out of 5 and my advice, considering Han is only just landing on UK shores, is don't overpay for him (I have seen him as high as £35). As a £20 figure he is OK and value for money, but I wouldn't pay much more. The fact he is being repacked in wave 8 should make him relatively common in the coming months and I believe the price will come down to RRP or below.
