Black Series Review: Val (Vandor-1) | Solo: A Star Wars Story

Thandie Newton’s outlaw brings the awesomeness to Hasbro’s latest Star Wars figures

Hasbro’s newest wave of Black Series action figures has just been released, it includes Val, L3-37 and the Imperial Patrol Trooper from Solo: A Star Wars Story. This far, all the figures from this movie have been absolutely fantastic and Val continues the trend in stunning fashion!

Val is a character I really love and I hope we’ll see more of her in future stories, a mini-comics series with her, Tobias Beckett and Rio Durant showcasing their adventures before the events of would be very interesting! So I’m happy Hasbro has made a figure of this character. She has a great outfit that they have been able to reproduce into a figure form accurately. It’s all amazingly detailed. Despite the cable-lining on her arms, the articulation range isn’t impacted, they used a plastic that allows you to move the arms without breaking the cables, which isn’t something that you find on L3-37 but as L3 is a droid that’s a bit more difficult as there are too many cables. Val has 19 points of articulation including the new neck articulation that Han Solo (Bespin) utilised to great effect, it’s something more figures should have from now on.

Once again with the digital print technology, Hasbro has nailed it. The sculpt and this tech have delivered another stunning action figure on par with the quality of Hot Toys. It looks exactly like Thandie Newton, the actress playing Val in Solo. Seeing what they’re doing for Solo, I can only imagine how good figures are going to be for Star Wars: Episode IX. Like for all recent figures, the hair is a separate piece of plastic which is a lot better.

I only have good things to say about the figure, however, that’s not the case about the accessories. Val comes with her blaster but in the movie, this blaster is enhanced with the grappling she uses in the Conveyex train heist. And Hasbro has not included the grappling enhancement in this set, which is odd. She also uses a blaster pistol to fight the Viper Probe Droids but this is another weapon that’s not included with the figure. I just don’t understand why Hasbro didn’t include these accessories. It wouldn’t have cost them much. They absolutely need to work on this and it’s not the first time I’ve highlighted this issue.

Up Close:

Black Series Review: Val (Vandor-1) | Solo: A Star Wars Story

Final Thoughts:

Val is an absolutely amazing figure, Hasbro is getting better and better, the head sculpt feels like a mini-Hot Toys. However, when it comes to the accessories Hasbro have let us down once again.

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