Star Wars The Black Series Asajj Ventress review
Long before I got swept up in the long-form Clone Wars series, I was fascinated with Gennedy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars serials. That micro series prominently featured Count Dooku’s Sith Apprentice Asajj Ventress as Anakin Skywalker’s chief rival during the Clone Wars.
After I got into the longer Clone Wars, Asajj became one of the characters that couldn’t arrive in Hasbro’s Star Wars The Black Series line fast enough. It’s taken longer than I would have anticipated for a character of her status, but we finally got her. Let’s see if this Sith Apprentice is worthy of recognition in the Jedi archives.
Packaging: The new packaging was such a refreshing visual change of pace for this line. In keeping with the color coding for the various eras and themes, the Clone Wars has a yellow gold accent. Asajj’s drawing conveys her serious threat level. As usual, the write up neatly sums up her status during the Clone Wars.
Likeness: I love the head sculpt. You can read several different emotions out of it despite the neutral expression. Asajj always seemed like she was about to tap into her rage and this sculpt makes it look she’s reached her end point.
Asajj had a cool design with the covered neck, random boob window and wraps along her arms and waist. Couple that with the X-shaped belt and ornate front skirt and you’ve got a very creative design.
Hasbro knocked out this design with good texturing on the wraps, covering all the intricacies of the belt/skirt section along with the wise choice of going with cloth for the main skirt.
Paint: I’ve seen exactly two Asajj figures. The paint was too shaky on the first figure for me, but the second was noticeably cleaner if still far from perfect.
Interestingly, the paint on both of them had stellar work on the head/face. Asajj’s milky skin tone is nicely done and the dramatic eye shadow and tattoos were sharp. Ditto for the dot matrix application on the eyes.
The outline on the boob section has some paint overspray and the wrap paint coverage is somewhat shaky.
The top skirt portion is messy with the gold sloppily applied. Given the setup and the mass market nature of this line it’s fair to wonder if any Asajj figure will have this turn and all the other elements properly painted.
It might be a matter of just having one look good enough. Then there’s the matter of actually having a choice of figures, which makes it even more difficult.
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Scale: Asajj was naturally shorter than the taller Count Dooku and Anakin Skywalker. She didn’t frequently come face to face with Obi-Wan Kenobi, who I think is closer in height to her.
Articulation: Asajj has pretty solid articulation. Newer Black Series figures may lack some of the articulation points of Marvel Legends figures, but the range of movement is often comparable enough that you can achieve the same poses.
Asajj’s articulation is only mildly limited since her skirt is cloth and not a hard plastic shell. It does tend to stay tight so there’s not as much give as I’d like. Thanks to her double-jointed knees she can hit some deeper stances than a typical Black Series figure.
She’d definitely benefit from an up and down articulation point on her wrist.
Asajj Ventress has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- hips
- thighs
- knees
- ankles
Accessories: Asajj only needs two accessories — her dual curved lightsabers. The blades are removable.
You can also pull off her connected lightsaber trick. This wasn’t something she did all that often, but it’s nice to have the option.
Worth it? I was able to get Asjj for the regular price of $20. She’s not the value of some other figures just for the lack of potential accessories, but she’s still a very well done figure.
Rating: 9.7 out of 10
Hasbro really knocked Asajj out and it’s nice to have another core villain from The Clone Wars era in the collection. Cleaner paint and better wrist articulation are the main aspects that hold her back.
Where to get it? I haven’t actually seen Asajj at Target unlike the rest of her wave so going online might be the better play with her. You can go the GameStop, Amazon and Entertainment Earth options. As an, affiliates I get a portion of qualifying purchases.