Clone Commander Deviss - LC - Basic (BD37)

Clone Commander Deviss first sees action on Geonosis as part of the Hawkbat Battalion. He is one of the few in his battalion to survive the brutal fighting. His heroic actions earn him a medal, a new command, and the right to wear the elite ARC Trooper armor.

Clone Commander Deviss. He brings such happiness and vexation to us! That is a bit of an exaggeration because he is a great figure, but we are not sure how well he fits into the Legacy Collection. Certainly meeting today's standards of articulation, he lacks a bit in the decoration department and we also think there are better choices of figures needing release (or rerelease) that were nixed in favor for him. Don't get us wrong, we recall how exciting it was to receive our first phase II (and rather generic) 2005 ROTS Clone Commander (III 33) figure and it was indeed quite momentous. At the time, we were surprised that Hasbro's first clone commander choice was based on a design that never appeared in the film. But we have to chalk that up to the references materials they were given by Lucasfilm, Ltd. After all, quite a few of the action figures from the 2005 line never appeared in the film. The 2002 SW "Saga" line missed the boat on getting a lot of cool clones out to the mass market, so they attempted to make up for it in the 2005 ROTS line. (But that is another story.) By the end of the line, Hasbro did their best to get out two more clone commanders that were in the film (2005's ROTS Commander Gree (III 59) and 2005's ROTS Commander Bly (III 57) – and additional repaints) via a repack/repaint wave but the original (Deviss) will always have a special place in our collective hearts, whether it be simply because of his novelty or his nod to a concept reference in the Revenge Of The Sith: The Visual Dictionary. Besides, rumors abound that Clone Commander Deviss was the original concept for Commander Bly, so perhaps Deviss is (or can be at least considered) a "concept art" figure (loosely).

Clone Commander Deviss is the same old sculpt as the 2005 figure. Loaded with 21 points of articulation, the figure's posing options fare quite well in comparison to many of his other 2005 collection mates, but he could certainly use ball-jointed hip to make him extra awesome. The sculpting of the figure has held up well and remains almost ageless after a short four years, so Hasbro was good to us the first time. But for 2009 however, Hasbro decided to match the red slightly better to the reference photos (see below) and have repainted the figure is a much darker and deep red, perhaps to match better his more expansive appearance in the Expanded Universe source Star Wars: Purge. The new color is much more authentic and looks great on the figure. But you may notice an error that was neglected AGAIN with the 2009 release. And this ignored error and lack of fix still annoys us (come on Hasbro - please get this right, juts once?) today. His chest stripe thickens as it goes up his chest and stops at the breast (when it should go straight up equidistantly). If you look at Deviss' reference photos, you will notice that he is essentially a red 327th Star Corps Clone Trooper and the patterns match quite well; they are not meant to be different. Check out your Evolutions or TLC Clone Trooper (327th Star Corps) (BD 29) figure and see what needs to be done to make Clone Commander Deviss completely accurate. Hasbro went a few steps backwards too because this time around, Deviss comes with red ankle joints. (Interestingly, Hasbro got this right in 2005 with white joints, so why they made them red now after four years perplexes us.) After all the time Hasbro spends on enhancing figures, we honestly don't know how they missed this fine but very important detail. You may see this as no big deal, but we were very much hoping for a thorough update on this figure.

We have come across multiple samples of this figure at retail and have been completely shocked by how poorly the helmet/visor area has been painted. We recommend exercising extra care when picking out the sample for your collection. The figure seems to have another enhancement (but on a much smaller scale). The kama attached much better and more tightly than the original release. This may have been an unintentional improvement, but it is certainly worth pointing out. We would have loved to see a few scuff marks placed on Deviss, but he is as clean and white as the clones come. The choice of Clone Commander Deviss to include in the basic line surprises us quite a bit for obvious reasons. Commander Bly has seen release as a basic figure and as part of 2007's TAC Betrayal On Felucia TARGET exclusive Battle Packs set. But if you recall, a very rare variant was released at the tail end of the ROTS line where brown details were applied to Bly's helmet and legs and his chest stripe was also colored brown. (It shipped during the same time when Gree's visor was darkened, but in much lower numbers.) Since that version was significantly more movie accurate and he is such a popular clone commander, we wish that specific version would have gotten released instead. And perhaps Hasbro could have continued to fine tune him for the basic figure line. Long story short, we would have preferred getting Bly instead of Deviss. And with other great clone commanders released in the red phase of the Legacy Collection like Clone Commander Cody (BD44) and Commander Bacara (BD47) , we think Commander Bly would have been the icing on the cake. We are happy to have Clone Commander Deviss in the basic line again, but we would have just preferred to see a reissue of the Commander Bly figure instead. (Hopefully he is in the parking lot because that would be very sweet.)