Bossk - TBS [P2] - Six Inch Figures (#10)

Bossk is one of the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to search for the Millennium Falcon and its Rebel crew.

After two solid years, we’re still not completely on board with The Black Series 6” line. Yeah. We know that’s quite a sentence to open up an RDR with but we’re a little bit disappointed with the way Bossk turned out. We also don’t understand all the raving over him either. Let us clarify. It’s not because we’re against the new scale. That’s not true in the least. We even feel that there have been some real gems in the range and there are many we like very much. But with this expensive line Hasbro has one chance to shine. This can’t be a line where they will have time to fix what is wrong or correct what mistakes they made. And we feel with so many of these figures that mistakes, albeit honest, are eventually going to pile up into resentment by collectors and they’ll one day ask themselves, “What were we thinking?” That’s not intended to foretell the future nor to sound dramatic in any way. But we just don’t understand how there isn’t more criticism for glaring errors. Generally speaking, Bossk is a fine figure. But he is not perfect at all. In fact, we’d be inclined to even state that he is far from perfect, which hurts us more than it hurts you to say. The Black Series 6” hits it out of the park as far as articulation is concerned. And we’d even claim for the most part Hasbro does an excellent job of working the complex articulation into the sculpts. So if they can master these difficult things, then how can some things like “much too small body parts” and “incorrect paint operations” plague an otherwise perfect action figure? For that we are without speech.

There is no doubt at all. Bossk at first glance looks rather marvelous. It’s probably only under close inspection where things have gone awry. (We noticed it on the prototypes when others did not.) What is up with his tiny hands? Is it because we’re so used to seeing Bossk with articulated forearms that we have never noticed this before or is it that Hasbro actually tooled hands (that articulate at the wrists for the first time ever) that are distorting our view? No matter the point of view, there is no way anyone can say otherwise that his hands needed to be larger. To a lesser extent his head is also too small. This issue is much less pronounced thankfully, but it still needed to be a tad larger. We don’t understand the opening jaw gimmick. Just a few toy versions of Bossk have been sculpted with his mouth shut and almost smiling, but most have his mouth open which is the state we prefer best. It could be just our sample, but the jaw doesn’t articulate well at all for us. Upon close inspection it does appear there is a crack in the jaw line. Perhaps that’s what is inhibiting the full range of movement here. In fact, keeping his mouth completely closed is nearly impossible. And what's up with his bright white teeth? Is he posing for a toothpaste commercial or something? His teeth are nearly yellow in the film. Also of issue, the collar interrupts the full range of movement of this point of articulation, so the inclusion of this hinge-jointed jaw is essentially moot. Thankfully, Bossk does has a fantastic likeness and fans of this Trandoshan will likely forgive his shortcomings rather easily to get this bounty hunter is a new and fun scale.

Before we jump into the positive aspects of Bossk, we’d also like to point out while we think his coloring is good to excellent, we’re not entirely please with the paint operations giving his skin a wash. The wash collects in odd spots. In fact, it looks like one of the other bounty hunters played a joke on Bossk and got ink on his nose. There is also some unevenness on his arms. The great news is that there is little to no over-spray or running on the costume which would have been a huge issue for us overall. They really did a good job here except for one or two issues. The sculpt of Bossk is excellent as well. The costume to perfect. The white bib lays against his unforgettable yellow flight suit and there are a ton of wiring, tubes, and costume details that have been expertly replicated. His feet are simply amazing. They’re appropriately large and well articulated with “rocker” ankles and allow the figure to balance itself for many aggressive positions. That leads us to the rest of the figure’s articulation. The articulation system is quite impressive. We wish that Hasbro would abandon the ball-socket hips and go with ball-jointed hips instead because they don’t give the movement we want them to give us, but overall we have very few complaints with how Bossk has been articulated. He comes with his signature strapped blaster rifle which can be held in his left hand effortlessly. It’s his right hand that is essentially useless. Overall, Bossk isn’t terrible. But he should have been perfect. We’re not getting him again and this was Hasbro’s one and only chance to deliver us a perfect one.