Commander Ponds - TCW [R] - Basic (Exclusive)

Clone Commander Ponds battles to liberate the Separatist-occupied world of Ryloth. The commander and Jedi General Mace Windu lead clone troopers in a fight to clear a way through battle droids to capture Lessu, the planet's capital city.

If you have seen the exhilarating The Clone Wars episode called The Zillo Beast, you have witnessed Commander Ponds donned in his clone trooper gear. It was the first time we saw him in clone trooper gear, but it wasn’t his first appearance in the series. He appeared in garb similar to Admiral Yularen (CW07) in the Innocents Of Ryloth episode and little did we know then that he was one aggressive clone trooper out in the field. Hasbro decided to make an exclusive action figure (for Toys R Us) based on the clone trooper armor design and we have to admit that this is one sweet action figure. Kit-bashed from multiple already existing varied clone trooper pieces in Hasbro’s rich catalogue of parts, Commander Ponds is still amazingly a refreshingly new action figure in the line and we aren’t so sure ourselves why we have fallen head over heels for him. While you know our rants inside and out by now about how we are completely unhappy with clean clone troopers, Commander Ponds is somewhat forgivable in this aspect for us. For starters, Hasbro didn’t go “cheap” on the figure’s design. He has all of the complicated and high quality articulation points you’d expect him to have and for the little bit of brick red paint on his armor, it’s enough to make him look unique in the line. In this scenario and little absolutely goes a long way. Ponds is antiseptically clean and there isn’t a blemish on his armor. The brick red color flashes are in the lines and don’t bleed onto the white (although we did find a very small sampling on other samples in the store) and his helmet isn’t yellowing which is an issue that has reared its ugly head again starting in 2009.

Ponds is super-articulated and even comes with some better-than-average joints. Most notable are his ball-jointed wrists, an articulation point that we are exponentially growing to love. These types of wrists are particularly useful for making the clone trooper hold their helmets. And if your clone trooper doesn’t have a removable helmet, well, you just have an infinite amount of options on how to make him hold his gun then. No matter which way you look at it, ball-jointed wrists are a gift and we wish Hasbro would be able to include this feature on all of their action figures. While Commander Ponds clearly has the same head sculpt as a million other clones, Hasbro has cleverly given him his own personality and we love it. He has an extreme crew cut hairstyle and Hasbro has paid attention to this detail by lightly shading some subtle inferences of hair growth on his noggin. This same method was also applied to the beard and mustache areas giving him that four o’clock shadow look. He has big and thick eyebrows (which we have also seen before on other clone trooper head sculpts, but it looks crisper than on the average clone and he has probably one of the most confident profiles we have seen on a clone trooper to date. (We honestly don’t know if this is an all-new head sculpt or not, but whatever Hasbro did to it, it has quickly become one of our most favorite clone portraits to date. (Just look at the profile shot in our gallery. Doesn’t he just look amazing?!) Commander Ponds may not have the notoriety of Commander Bly (CW39), but we think he ranks pretty high as on of the best designed clone commanders in The Clone Wars line for sure.

Commander Ponds looks to use the most of the Captain Rex (No. 4) body but there are some parts that appear to be different. It’s hard to keep all of the clone parts straight now because of how many are out there, but we think it’s a safe bet to say that he is mostly Captain Rex (No. 4). Just like Rex, the kama limits some ideal movement, but please let it be clear that this figure has quite a bit of options when it comes to posing it. And we love all of the fine details Hasbro gave it in the paint job, especially for having a very simplistic color scheme. For example, the all-red calf sections of the armor look fantastic against the white cone armor backdrop. And we love the teardrop marks on the sides in the chest section. The back of the helmet is all red except for the white circle in the middle. It just looks awesome! But we are especially taken with the hash marks on the bottom of the back of the helmet. Whether these are stick men for the number of enemies he defeated on the battlegrounds, or some personal memento or insignia, we think it looks totally cool. Commander Ponds, formally known as CC-6454 is perhaps one of the best made clone trooper figures we will receive in The Clone Wars line. Everything about him is well done and although it’s slightly surprising, it’s nonetheless encouraging that such a simply made action figure can standout as one of Hasbro’s finest efforts. If you want our unsolicited opinion, Commander Ponds is an absolute must-have action figure. (And we are not even the biggest fans of The Clone Wars series.) We suggest giving him a chance if you can find him. He’s all that and a bag of chips.