The Background

During the Power of the Jedi line in 2002, Hasbro began creating action figure exclusives for the Disney Parks’s Star Tours ride. Each figure was based on an actual droid from one of the four Star Tours locations. Wave 1 consisted of three droids: G2-4T, R3-D3 and RX-24 “Rex”. These figures were released on Power of the Jedi cardbacks. They were followed by a second wave of figures also in 2002 which included: DL-X2, R4-M9, and WEG-1618. These figures still bore the POTJ cardback.

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As Attack of the Clones debuted in May of ’02, Hasbro transitioned all of their packaging designs over to a generic blue Star Wars cardback which has now come to be known as the “Saga” line. In 2004, Hasbro released the third wave of Star Tours figures, this time on the blue Saga cards. These figures included R5-D2, G2-9T, SK-Z38.

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It would then be the following year during the Original Trilogy Collection, that Hasbro would release their final wave of individually carded Star Tours droids. The wave consisted of 3T-RNE, G3-5LE, and MSE-1T.

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Additional non-droid, multipacks, and vehicles for Star Tours would follow but we’ll save those for another day in order to present the mystery.

The Mystery

Last month, our friend, @laserpants_toyshots hooked us up with a piece he discovered at a local thrift store. The piece in question is a completely sealed and carded Star Tours DL-X2 on a blue Saga card dated 2003. This figure was exclusively released on a green Power of the Jedi card in 2002 and according to our databases was never released on a Saga cardback, as seen below.

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After chatting with some fellow completist collectors, I then turned to the databases of our friends at Rebelscum, Jedi Temple Archives, JediBusiness, Yakface, and Endor Express. Despite the 1,000s and 1,000s of figures listed, no mention or image of a Saga DL-X2 could be found. Following our databases plunge, we turned to a basic image and eBay searches for the droid, to no avail. We then lastly but the call for info out on social media and after numerous conversations the trail went cold with the exception of a being pointed in the direction of a popular prototype site. While we have yet to uncover the story of this figure, we now have our two hypotheses on its origin.

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The Hypotheses

Our first hypothesis if fairly straightforward. This figure was reissued for international audiences on the same Saga cardback and because of its limited release overseas, it did not receive widespread attention and therefore was missed by collector’s stateside.

The second hypothesis centers on this piece being an unreleased production sample which somehow ended up in a personal collection which was then donated to a local thrift store. This possibility seems more likely because of the website Prototype Archives. This site catalogs early Hasbro action figure prototypes and details how of some of the 2005 OTC figures were originally slated for release in 2003 with Saga packaging but were delayed. This particular DL may have been scheduled for reissue like Rex but was delayed to the point of cancelation.

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If you have any information regarding this figure, please drop us at a line at 4LOMKUSS@gmail.com.

Until then,
May the Figures be with you!