Luke Skywalker - EU - Basic

Prepare to jump to lightspeed with Kenner's Expanded Universe, now offering the most memorable characters from Star Wars Dark Horse comics, Bantam novels, and LucasArts video games. Finally, the entire galaxy can be yours!

Six years after the destruction of the second Death Star, the galaxy is thrust into turmoil. A reborn evil threatens to enslave the galaxy, and the Republic's closest friend – Luke Skywalker – may become their greatest enemy.

Freed from their detention cell, a group of rebels begin their escape from the Imperial planet Byss. But the sudden appearance of Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master, could mean unfortunate news for the Rebels. Has Luke fallen under the spell of the dark side?

In 1998, the collective Star Wars collecting community was drooling and foaming at the mouth for the recently announced Kenner Expanded Universe figures that would be coming a little later on that year to a store near us. That fantasy became a reality before we knew it and one of the figure characters to be stalked was Luke Skywalker based on his appearance from the Dark Empire comics. In these comics, Luke Skywalker wore an outfit that both channeled Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. This couple with the grayness of where his loyalties lied made him a provocative character and the interest in him piqued at all new highs. To finally realize that this dark character would be part of an action figure line was truly a dream come true, and most collectors couldn’t add him soon enough to their collections. At least for us that’s the way it went down. With an phenomenal sculpt, slightly enhanced articulation and paint operations to make you say “Wow!”, Luke Skywalker was such a treat and entitled action figure at the same time. Things were certainly only going to get better from here it seemed!

Luke Skywalker is an all-new sculpt which comes with seven points of articulation. The “extra” seventh point is a swivel right hand. The hand is also removable for additional play value, but the point here was to allow the lightsaber to be wielded believably. The sculpt of the figure and its accessories is divine. Luke Skywalker has a most interesting hairstyle and his outfit is sharp and borders on looking a little Gothic, which is interesting since it mirrors the timeframe of American pop culture at the time which the comics were released. The sculpt is excellent. Kenner designed a robe shell which is removable. Underneath is more excellent sculpting which will never be seen by those who don’t open up their action figures. Also included with Luke Skywalker is a red lightsaber and blaster weapon. The red is very faded and almost looks pink in most lights. But the interesting black hilt makes it look like no other lightsaber we have seen to date. The blaster pistol is also very unique. His right hand has been sculpted to accept the blaster, while his left hand has been designed to hold the lightsaber. But his right hand also holds the lightsaber quite well too.

The best part of the Expanded Universe line was the pop-up 3D diorama contained in all of these figures’ packaging. Luke’s was no exception either. With a backdrop inspired from the pages of the comics, Luke Skywalker seems right at home in the storyline of what is being portrayed. Just a simple cardboard backdrop like what is included here provides an inordinate amount of depth and background to a character that you may or may not know about from the comics. In short, it’s a perfect augmentation of the characters represented by the action figure. One of our most favorite action figures of all time, Luke Skywalker captures forever a time when collecting was an extremely fun time and when Kenner listened to the adult collector very carefully. Luke Skywalker may not mimic the exact appearance of his comic's counterpart, but that doesn’t really matter when the toy line is making these characters a reality with so much care, extra value and dynamic sculpts. Luke Skywalker will hold its own over time. You can guarantee this will be the case for years to come.