Clone Commander Cody - TSC - Basic (SAGA 024)

Fans were foaming at the mouth when Hasbro announced Clone Commander Cody for The Saga Collection. And both the images as well as the prototype shown seemed to promise collectors a truly special action figure. The final figure however left collectors with a little more than modest disappointment because the figure failed in so many ways. And what was more perplexing is there were previously established super-articulated clone trooper sculpts Hasbro could have used to retool a knockout version of Clone Commander Cody. At worst, it was great to finally have this long overdue clone commander in our collections, but we wonder what went wrong in the figure’s planning and why it just didn’t thoroughly impress us all. Clone Commander Cody suffered from inferior articulation, color flashes that were multiple shades off from what they should be, and the figure was terribly out of scale to most other action figures, especially the 2006 TSC Clone Trooper (SAGA 026) figure and most of the other clones which was really a crying shame because your battalion should not tower over you, especially when you’re all clones of the same source. Clone Commander Cody is an admirable jumping off point we suppose, but Hasbro has a lot of work to do before any of us will be satisfied with an action figures based on Clone Commander Cody.

So where does Clone Commander Cody specifically fail? He is too short and he has a pea-sized head. We understand Hasbro wanted to ensure that a removable helmet would not be large and bulky and fit over the figure’s head with relative ease. But they clearly over-compensated and the final result was a dramatically small portrait which doesn’t fit in with the rest of the line. And that, coupled with his shorter stature, does not create a positive aesthetic for an action figure that should be comparable with all other clone troopers. Collectors joked that clones appear to shrink over time and that has certainly been the trend. But a character like Clone Commander Cody who is ultra popular should get the finest treatment when he finally gets a spot in the basic figure line. Clone Commander Cody’s articulation is also frustrating. Hasbro opted for swivel (yes we said swivel) shoulders. As you can imagine, 360 degree articulation is just not acceptable for a Star Wars character of this prominence. And then his legs are in a slightly awkwardly sculpted pose and they do not have ankle joints. You are pretty much stuck with one option to pose his legs. This is another unfortunate decision Hasbro made for this action figure, so we have to air our grievance with this too. The good news is that helmet is in proportion to the figure. If you leave the helmet on, all should be right in the world with regards to this figure.

The color of orange used for both Clone Commander Cody and the [Utapau] Clone Trooper (SAGA 026) is incorrect. At least these figures match however. But the orange is too neon (bright) for our liking and a duller orange would have worked so much better. Clone Commander Cody comes with a healthy selection of accessories. His removable helmet is nearly perfect and in perfect proportion to a clone trooper without a removable helmet. He also comes with a DC-15 blaster rifle, DC-15 blaster pistol, and a removable jetpack. The jetpack will fall off if you look at it funny because it has a very small plug keeping it in place on his back. The battle damage carved into his left thigh and chest looks pretty cool and the little bit of dirt applied to his calves isn’t anything revolutionary, but does accent the figure nicely. And we have a hard time swallowing when Hasbro produces a figure with premium ball-jointed elbows but then inhibits this with the inclusion of swivel shoulders. It makes no sense at all. It’s just that a better version of Clone Commander Cody will be needed before we can consider that we have a definitive version available to us. We’d like to say this version will do fine until then, but that would be misleading. (Editor’s Note: Hasbro came through in November 2009 in the Legacy Collection and brought us a super-articulated Clone Commander Cody (BD44). It had some minor issues and was tweaked and rereleased in 2010’s The Vintage Collection as Clone Commander Cody (VC19). Right now, the TVC version is the definitive version of this character.)