Star Wars The Black Series Hera Syndula figure review
Hera Syndulla remains a rarity in the Star Wars universe as the sole ace female fighter pilot and captain of The Ghost from Rebels. I missed my first chance at getting the Rebels crew and happily got them all in one shot. I would 100% be down with a HasLab Ghost vehicle BTW. Let’s see how the captain and leader of Phoenix Squadron fares with her latest release.
Packaging: It might be redundant at this point, but the purple accent color and character portrait on the sign is a dramatic improvement over the old packaging setup.
I’m a huge fan of the new packaging scheme. It just looks so much sharper and more appealing than the previous black and red setup. The Rebels characters get the purple accent with terrific artwork on the side. Hera’s bio is also very nicely done summarizing her leadership role with her crew.
Likeness: Hera looks amazing. She might be the hardest to have gotten right since she’s an alien, but designed as an attractive character in keeping with other Twi’leks we’ve seen in Star Wars.
Her outfit is deceptively simple, but Hasbro added a surprising amount of detail from the texturing in her vest, the folds in her shirt. Hera’s goggles are a separate piece although they do not come down over her eyes.
I like Hera’s pants/strap setup as it’s reminiscent of the standard Rebel Alliance X-Wing and Snowspeeder gear.
Paint: The paint work is the main reason why Hasbro was able to justify a re-release. They went with a Photo Real application, which is most evident with the paint work around her face.
The eyes, eyebrows and lips look more realistic. This new paintjob tones down the gloss on her skin tone providing a more natural appearance.
There’s a lot of colors here, but for the most part there’s not much cross blending of the colors and they’re restricted to one area besides her tails, which have spiral patterns throughout. The more precise details like her buttons and the collar came off well. There was a slight bit of overspray on her cowl.
Scale: Hera was about the same size of Kanan, who’s my reference point for the rest of the characters. She’s appropriately sized although she could have been just a tad taller than Sabine.
Articulation: Hera has very fluid articulation. She moves well, but the only hitch is her smaller feet make finding the sweet balancing spot trickier than I’d like.
Her belt straps don’t restrict her leg movement since they have enough give to account for deeper stances.
Hera Syndulla has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Hera was the pilot, but would get in on the action frequently. She didn’t have a massive blaster like some of the other Rebels and favored a more accurate smaller weapon.
Even with the smaller scale, Hasbro’s paint work here is immaculate with the silver, black and gold trim. That’s mighty impressive work at that scale.
The blaster is small and it needs to be notched just right to avoid falling out of her hand, but when you find that place it’s notched in with no trouble.
Worth it? I didn’t want to wait for a sale and risk paying more a few months later so I got Hera for $20. That’s a good price considering all the work that went into the sculpt.
There weren’t many accessory options to provided additional value, but I’d love to see Hasbro included some background elements like drums and ammo packs.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Hera is yet another winner from this Rebels subset line from Hasbro and well worth tracking down.
Where to get it? For now, Hera and The Ghost crew are all over (online). I wouldn’t wait long if you’re interested since they’re not showing up so far at retail. You can order from LMF affiliates Amazon and Entertainment Earth. As affiliates I get a portion of qualifying purchases.