Monday 24 April 2023

Toybox REVIEW: Star Wars Black Series Grand Inquisitor

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Release Date: July 2022
RRP: $24.99/£25.99

Between The Bad Batch, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi: Fallen Order and its sequelJedi Survivor, the Dark Times is quite a popular focus point of the Star Wars universe right now. As the Empire began to truly consolidate its power, the remaining Jedi were hunted down and killed by the Inquisitors – former Jedi that pledged themselves to both the Empire and the dark side of the force. After initially appearing in both Rebels and the ongoing Marvel comic series, the Inquisitors finally made their live-action debut in Obi-Wan Kenobi. Among them their leader, the Grand Inquisitor – a Pau'an and former Jedi Temple Guard. As a popular character across various Star Wars media, it's great to see Hasbro release the Black Series Grand Inquisitor so soon into their run of Obi-Wan Kenobi figures.

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Another Obi-Wan Kenobi release, another character that gets a generic series bio rather than a character-specific one. One can only assume this is just due to the level of secrecy the series had combined with the speed they got some of these figures out, but is it just the case for these "early" releases or will all the Obi-Wan Kenobi figures have it? It's especially frustrating for characters like the Grand Inquisitor, who has plenty of background through his prior Rebels appearance. That rant aside, the Black Series Grand Inquisitor is the ninth release in the Obi-Wan range, the box sporting the same blue highlighting as the rest of the figures from that series. Both the diagonal spine and back feature some great artwork of the Grand Inquisitor, and then inside the figure is neatly stored on a moulded plastic tray.

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When the Grand Inquisitor's live-action look was first unveiled there was a lot of vigorous debate online about how it looked, both compared to the Rebels version of the character and the Pau'ans we previously saw in Revenge of the Sith. While I certainly wouldn't say no to an alternate head that reflected the Rebels version a little more, regardless of how he looked in Obi-Wan Kenobi that is the version this figure is based on and the likeness is great. While personally I'd have liked a little more menace in the expression, it's a good resemblance to actor Rupert Friend and they got the cold stare of the character down perfectly. But while the head design between the live-action and animated versions might be very different, the uniform itself is surprisingly similar. Parts are a little more exaggerated on the animated version and the torso armour covers a lot more in live-action, but fundamentally it's very much the same. The black body armour is made from soft plastic, giving it a degree of flexibility over the hard plastic body. The soft goods cape on this release is really nice too, hanging down from each shoulder and sporting a dark red lining. Like the other Inquisitors he doesn't have a whole lot of paint apps, but those that he does have are bold and neatly applied. 

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When it comes to articulation the Grand Inquisitor is much the same as the Fifth Brother, who in turn is pretty much standard fare for current Black Series figures. Altogether he features;
- Ball jointed head, neck, torso and hips
- Butterfly joint shoulders
- Swivel hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, knees and ankles
- Thigh swivels
One big way the Grand Inquisitor differs from his subordinate though is that you can actually make full use of that butterfly joint shoulder movement, as the shoulder pads are free-floating soft plastic parts rather than built into the torso armour. This gives the arms far better rotation too, perfect for all those elaborate lightsaber-wielding poses. Everything else here is very much business as usual though, and that's by no means a bad thing. The wider use of ball joints on these figures makes for far more fluid movement, and even though the swivel hinge elbows/knees are a bit of a step down from double joints (not that they were previously universal across the line anyway), but they do the job well enough. Something more than a 45 degree bend would have improved what's already good tremendously though. 

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The Grand Inquisitor's only accessory is his double-bladed lightsaber, which shares the same circular hilt design as the other Inquisitors but on close inspection has its own unique detailing within that template. Unfortunately the Grand Inquistor's lacks a lot of the silver paintwork the others have (instead being unpainted grey plastic) but there's some good moulded detailing along with some black and red paint to keep it interesting. Both blades are removeable (giving him the option of wielding it with a single blade as well), and the hilt can also be clipped onto the back of the figure's armour between the shoulders. Unlike the Fifth Brother's which has one thick plug, the Grand Inquisitor's attaches via two tiny tabs – making it much less unwieldy when it comes to the figure actually holding the weapon.

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While it might not be everyone's preferred version of the character, the Black Series Grand Inquisitor is another great release from Hasbro and adds to the steadily growing collection of Inquisitors. The likeness to the live-action interpretation can't be faulted, and overall the presentation of the figure - from the soft goods cape to the implementation of the lightsaber hilt storage, shows its a figure that had a good bit of thought put into it. Any issues it does have (aside from the fact that he just looked a billion times better in Rebels) are the usual issues you'd find amongst modern Black Series figures. The Grand Inquisitor being one of the better Inquisitors Hasbro have put out so far works rather well, since even if you aren't that bothered about picking up all of the rest he'll look great alongside Vader, Reva or the Rebels cast.

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