Adam May is not attending Comic-Con this year. “I’ve only been to Comic-Con once,” he tells me on the line from his home in Atlanta. “I have a panic attack just looking at photos! It’s sensory overload for me.”
 
Adam May who describes himself as “Atlanta’s answer to the wrong question” has the distinction of being the first openly gay Star Wars action figure. Many are called; few are chosen.

Adam’s plastic obsession began the first time he saw Princess Leia. “Carrie Fisher with those buns on her head – she really was my first gay experience.” Star Wars helped Adam grow up, in a manner of speaking: he had a speech impediment as a child, and by repeating Luke Skywalker’s lines over and over he helped himself “talk it out.”

[Redacted overlaying segment of copy directly unrelated to subject, see OUT Magazine, October 2009 — Featuring the Fabulous Donatella Versace Cover. Page 51 is the best place to start.]

Other gays mostly recoil in horror though when they discover Adam’s plastic habit. “They typically assume I’m some strange man-child. I joke that the ’80s jingle—‘I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid!’—wasn’t just a jingle. It was an oath!.”

“I’ve reached the point where I don’t care what anyone thinks about my toy [obsession]. That said, I do try to keep my gay friends away from the Three Story Toy Box. I have a collection of about 10,000 action figures* — with all of the accoutrements that go with them (space ships, play sets, lightsabres). The stairwell in my house has a wall that is 2 1/2 stories of shelving, acrylic risers and every Star Wars figure that Hasbro has made.”

As one of the few characters in the EU (hey, Lucas approved the name and back-story) with an active voice, Stormy Sevenspire is officially throwing his hat into the ring to be your Expanded Universe candidate.

Stormy Sevenspire actively supports the resurrection of the Jedi Order, and, along with his assistant, they weave among thieves to salvage important Jedi artifacts and send spy reports to the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire.

When I was a very, very, very young 20-something, we had a Space Trooper that was the same size as everything else, it looked like it was made from hair gel, and we liked it that way! Now the kids won’t even glance at a figure with less articulation than the average human being has.

So here comes this new la-di-da Space Trooper that actually looks like something that might be worth spending $5 on, except now he’s $8! What?!? Does he have a cool diorama backdrop? No? Someone get the smelling salts. At least it’s very likely that his helmet comes off and he’s sporting a cool backpack, and that warms me up to about $6, so I’d better get some of them-there Clone Cash Coupons and save some money up.

This next part I am presenting as a hostile witness situation because I would just post pictures of the figures and blink at them. Yes, it’s an Expanded Universe wave, but that doesn’t mean two boring, white kids have to be….

Here’s Shabby Blue for the defense:

After years of hoping for two of the most significant Expanded Universe characters to be immortalized in plastic, we finally have the Solo Twins, Jacen and Jaina. [Blogger's Note: Where's Gleek?] Just as Hasbro promised, they produced this pair as depicted on the popular Japanese cover art of the New Jedi Order novels.  My only minor complaint is that Jacen’s likeness isn’t sculpted to more closely resemble the late actor River Phoenix, who was clearly the model for the character’s likeness on several of the New Jedi Order novel covers. I guess I’ll have to make use of the Young Indiana Jones headsculpt instead, with his hair repainted to match his doppelganger.

This is an auspicious start to a very new year. (That just sounded like a good way to end this.)

This figure is truly a show-stopper! When the skirtless photos popped up, I was taken aback (hell, I was thrown aback) by the bulky joints and awkward posing, but seen as she was MEANT to be seen, she is a work of art. I will have to compare her a bit to my Slave Leia with Cannon figure, which is a truly beautiful vision of the actress (the amazing Carrie Fisher) and the character. When I was a little kid, my father would ask (jokingly, I think), "So when is that Slave Leia going to get a figure?" My gay sensibility would shudder at the thought, and I’d say, "That would really be something!" (I’m sorry, but a Kenner version of Slave Leia would give me the creeps — it would be like a PlayMobil harem girl, or a Fisher-Price Little People Belly Dancer.) Now… light years later (or something) I will snap up one of these to send to dear, old Dad, and he can display her with his Stormy Sevenspire figure. Maybe he can sleep better knowing that the two of them are together? The only two women I could imagine in that costume are Angelina Jolie and (Carrie Fisher‘s mom) the incomparable Debbie Reynolds. (All of my people know that Debbie Reynolds can work anything.)

OK, so, to review something I don’t own, I have had to look at a lot of photos (even the less-flattering photos). For the truly spot-on likeness, Hasbro – that means Dave – sculpted a truly unbelievable likeness (as the same sculptor did with the Unleashed Slave Leia). The figure has more joints than Snoop Dogg, and she can clearly kick some Nikto, Barada, and Klaatu butt. The addition of the Slave Leia in repose (the lower half thing) makes my dream of a Jabba The Hutt with Dais that much closer to existence. (Yo, HASBRO, you’ve been making modern figures for 14 years now, and you haven’t made Jabba The Hutt, an iconic character if ever there was one, with his signature dais! Everyone else has! We’ve waited a LONG time, so it had better be over-the-top special, too!) Ahem! Sorry, I get a little worked up about that.

Slave Leia (2009 Remix) comes with one of those "electro staff" things (that we’ve never seen actually doing anything) and – very importantly – a glass, which seems to further indicate Jabba The Hutt with Dais is coming soon. The glass may be a dig at another company that offered that as the "exclusive" part of their set. (Mine arrived broken, and I’ve yet to receive a replacement.) There really was no logical way to make this figure look elegant while resting with her legs… well, like they are. The "additional" half is the best work-around ever. I applaud Hasbro for going that extra step to "make it work".

Next up is Jedi Master K’Kruhk whose name (ever since the comics) makes me think of the word "crunk", and, well, there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s a monster of a figure with excellent use of softgoods and plastic to give him an overall "smooth" look. (Lando Calrissian would be envious.) He looks like he stepped out of the pages of the comics.

There’s one MAY-HAY-JOR problem, as the ever-tenacious Shabby Blue pointed out, he’s missing his HAT.

As of August 2007 Hasbro was asked in a Q&A at TheJawa.com:

[Question] tykrazen – Given the fact that the Whiphid Jedi, K’Kruhk has appeared in comics set in both the Old Republic, Clone Wars and Legacy eras, it seems likely that we will eventually see a figure of him. The real question is will you give us his awesome hat as well?
 
[Answer] I would hope that when we eventually get to K’Kruhk – and the chances are good – that he would have his awesome hat as well.

So someone please let the replacement parts team know that they will be flooded with calls for THE HAT!

I’m going out on a limb here, but it’s safe to say that his head and arms are ball-jointed. His wrists seem positionable. The big question is, does that cloth skirting hide some bending knees and/or ball-jointed hips. I suspect the knee joints for sitting, and I’d also assume he has ankle joints. That level of articulation on a figure with that kind of heft could lead to a few other plus-sized figures. We already have Hermi Odle and Ephant Mon, of course, but they had to be one-offs because their bodies were so large and unique. Then again, Hasbro has delivered a fully articulated Malikili, so anything is possible.

The Force Unleashed video game is packed with characters and scenes that make most fans drool. Some people (hi Brian!) say that it’s "more Star Wars than the prequels". No matter what, it’s a tremendous hit, and the clamor for more toys has been deafeningly loud.

Moving away from the fleshier aspects of Star Wars, we have the Phase 1 Dark Trooper which "was primitive but relentless" (according to the New Essential Guide To Droids). When the original Dark Trooper came out in the sparse Expanded Universe Collection, fans were a little befuddled about its small stature, but Hasbro has made up for that with the massive Dark Trooper in the current Wal*Mart exclusive Droid Factory series.

Getting back to the Phase 1 Dark Trooper, it is an awesome likeness of its Guide To Droids diagram. There’s no telling how large this figure is just yet, but schematics base the machine at 2.56 meters. That would be about the size of C-3PO with R2-D2 on top of his head. (The next two phases roll out at 2.82 meters, which is roughly the height of two Protocol units.