'Expanded Universe' Basic Figure Line (1998)

I was re-organizing and selling off some of my modern collection so I took the opportunity to snap some shots of the very best of the Kenner (Hasbro) line from the 90's.

I'd say these and the 'Shadows of the Empire' figures are my favourite (if not the only figures worth looking at) from POTF2, and I've got all of them on card. The characters are from “Dark Empire” comics and the Dark Forces game mostly, so now that these character incarnations are all "Legends", and its all pre-disney, they are even cooler IMHO. This sub-line also features the first Thrawn figure. One thing that's nice about these is that they are just slightly past the 'He-Man' sculpt era, and since they're EU none of them had a vintage equivalent.

I also have an issue of Star Wars Galaxy Collector which featured these figures for their 1998 release, and I've included the relevant pages here.

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This is one of my favourites, the Imperial Sentinel, this is from the Dark Empire comics, but it may be familiar to those who know about the post-potf pitch that Kenner made to Lucasfilm around 1985. This design was going to be used for a new character called "Atha Prime". Technically both Atha Prime and this Sentinel are based on unused concept art for the ERG.

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A re-imagined Sentinel made an appearance in the new graphic novel "Shattered Empire" and the Battlefront 2 game as a droid body which played pre-recorded messages from the emperor so he could guide the Imperial remnants in the event of his death.

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This is a Japanese import sticker, it's on the back of my 'Dark Empire' Leia.

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AND here are the relevant pages of SWG Collector that I mentioned earlier, from issue #3. The article covers some interesting details about the conception of the line.

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I like the Imperial Sentinel Chris looks like a Star Wars version of Maximilian from The Black hole

Yeah, and the young clone palpatine with a blue saber is pretty interesting too.

And this sub line is 20 years old now. Weird.

very interesting mate, I have a couple of them loose including the Luke, wasn't sure where he fit into the line, the sentinel is pretty cool to as is the young palpy clone, 20 years old huh? wonder if we will ever class these as vintage toys, give them another twenty years maybe then, but for me there is only one true vintage line

It's also weird that they're from a pre-prequel world lol The Luke is pretty nice too, some people were claiming that there was some design inspiration from that version of Luke and Kylo Ren's robes in ep7.

Also, I forgot to mention the fold out 3D play scenes that they somehow made into the card back, I've never seen one of these folded out, shan't be doing it to mine. You can see the Thrawn one on the last page of the magazine.

Great post!

I love the magic behind this Expanded Universe line.
I have acquired the complete set on card about a decade ago and intended to display them with their cardboard backgrounds one day.
Later I decided to keep them on card, as I just could not open these twenty year old items.

Chris it is possible to have a PDF of that article?
I would like to read it but the letters are too small (or my eyes are too bad ).

Cheers
Marco

I scanned it myself but perhaps I uploaded it too small. I’ll see if I can find the scans when I get back from my work trip next week.