Healey Made Assassin (R-Complex) Healey Made, 2021
Day #2,334: September 2, 2021
Healey Made Assassin (R-Complex) Action Figure First painted release
Raider Action Figure
Item No.: No. n/a Manufacturer:Healey Made Includes:Tail, alternate head, blaster Action Feature:Swap heads, remove tail, mount rifle on back Retail:$25.00 Availability:July 2021 Other:Legend has it old Kenner guys may have been involved.
I skipped the unpainted prototype, but could not pass on the debut of the Assassin (R-Complex) figure with paint! I got the Shadow Raider a couple of years ago, and this one matches it pretty well - dark greys and purples with some green. Twinsies! This 3 3/4-inch figure is a little rubbery, but not in a way that makes the figure unpleasant - it just helps to make sure the tail won't snap and break.
For fans of old Kenner, this is a rare treat - although the treats are less rare, with Hasbro doing The Retro Collection for Star Wars and Marvel Legends 375 to keep the format going. This is a wholly original character, incorporating elements of Bossk and seemingly the Cloud Car Pilot or Lando's Skiff Guard helmet. They even have a closed hand like the old Kenner Greedo, Ponda Baba, and a few other figures!
The mercenary has two heads - the helmeted one looks like a pastiche of 1980s helmets, like the Cloud Car Pilot or a number of Cobra troopers, with a visor and what may be some sort of breathing gear. The unhelmeted head has painted lips, eye shadow, and a haircut that's either a nod to Jann Tosh and Thall Joben of Droids, or the popular undercut of today, which tends to have a very specific social signal. Given that this is a toy made for old toy guys, by old toy guys, it's hard to know exactly the message behind it but I'd like to think of them as all the things. Maybe they race speeders, maybe date girls, really, it's not my place to ask. We just know we love them and that's what matters.
The Assassin's torso is not obviously gendered - with the helmet, it's just armor, and without the helmet, I can see how you could see it as a femme-type torso. The arms are skinny, with amazingly good scale sculpting and some ribbing on the space suit that looks a lot like Kenner's 1978 Darth Vader once again. (Clearly, team Healey has a type.) The upper chest looks a lot like the similarly ambiguous Boushh's armor, with a costume that looks a lot like Bossk. If the directive was to make a genderqueer not-quite Trandoshan, they nailed it. I really like what they did here.
The removable tail does wonders to keep them stable, and it looks good too. The detail is sculpted slightly better than old Kenner figures, without falling into common traps like the terrible no-neck heads we got on some Leia figures and especially Kea Moll. "They look like an actual humanoid head" is a big plusand I very much appreciate the Kenner-style foot peg holes as well as the slot in the back so they can store the rifle on their back. Tip-top stuff. The painting is wonderful and brings out the detail, and I think I love everything about this one. I didn't adore the tail, but since I can take it off so I can put the figure in vehicles, problem solved!
I don't know what the future holds, but I would expect an orange flight suit to match Luke or Wedge, a grey one to match BoShek, and a brownish green body with a yellow suit for Bossk. I also expected a glow-in-the-dark deco but Healey has yet to do one for his Raider figure, so I assume it may just not be in the cards. (Confidential to Glyos' Matt Doughty and also Mr. Healey - if you have no plans to run glow on either, call me. I will buy a run and sell them.)
This figure sold out quickly on the Healey Made shop, and future releases are undoubtedly coming. And will also sell quickly. $25 + $5 shipping ain't cheap, but it's a wonderful figure and I'll probably only buy one or two more of this mold. (It's just too expensive for me.) $30ish for one, though, isn't terrible when it comes to subsidizing some guy in New York's art project. If Hasbro weren't already making new Kenner-style figures now, I'd say this is a must-buy for any aging toy fans... but for those wanting something beyond the typical licensed fare, you can't do better than this. You really can't. Nobody else is mass-producing anything like it.
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