Over the last week, we have been just thrilled to see some of the newest variant covers for Marvel’s Star Wars #1.  The new series is set to debut in January with no less than 39 (and counting) different covers so far. It goes without saying that the one that has got us giddy with excitement was none other than last Friday’s reveal of the “Action Figure Variant”.

Action Figure Variant

 The amazing cover by artist John Tyler Christopher is a great tribute to Kenner’s vintage packaging.  The image of the figure itself has more of a modern sensibility yet still retains the vintage (and most recently) 5 points of articulation. Our friend Michael over at Retroblasting was quick to jokingly point out that Luke has a screen accurate blue saber and not the yellow saber from his Kenner figure.

This variant will be available at comic book shops who are planning on moving high quantities of Star Wars #1 as Marvel set special order requirements for shops in order to receive this variant. Now one variant though that may be a bit more difficult, and perhaps spendy, to obtain will be Preview’s exclusive cover for next year’s New York Toy Fair. This fantastic version uses Hasbro’s 6″ figures from their The Black Series line and includes characters that have yet to be released at retail.

Star-Wars-1-Hasbro-PX-Variant-f8492

This cover is absolutely second on our list to get and will retail for $4.99 and is limited to 10,000 copies.

Marvel has used Hasbro in the recent past by using their Marvel Legends figures on their variant covers so this move with Star Wars is not entirely out of the blue. The speculation that immediately comes to our minds is if Hasbro can swing Marvel over to their toy line, as they did with Dark Horse Comics, and revisit the highly popular comic book 2-pack line. The comic 2-packs had a very healthy run with Hasbro and you can find a complete list of those comics in our article, “Action Figure Comic-Packs – A Hasbro/Dark Horse Affair“.

Its clear that Hasbro is still open to bundling comics with their products as IDW comic books are currently being sold in Hasbro’s Transformers line. Also other companies have begun this practice as Playmate’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle line currently has a Toys ‘R’ Us exclusive pairing of figure and comic. We would be happy with any form of crossover Hasbro and Marvel would like to pursue whether it be action figure 2-packs, mini-comics like those in the vintage Masters of the Universe line or even stories on the back of packages. We are crossing our fingers that with tons of new Lucasfilm Story Group-inspired media on the horizon these two companies can continue and expand their current collaboration so that we may see once more comics included with our figures.

Thinking of getting all of the variants of Star Wars #1? The fine folks over at Rebelscum’s Jedi Journals has a thorough list of where you can view all of the ever growing number of cover variants.

Until next time,

May the Figures be with you!