I finally broke down and got this thing.

What I really wanted was the Wicket Attakus statue,* but unfortunately I don't have that kind of money to blow on myself right now. However, I could easily afford my next best choice, Holiday Vader. What the hell is this thing?

Honestly, I think the figure looks tacky. Like he's been dipped in melted candy cane or something. Of course, I'm sort of a sucker for tacky-meets-Star Wars. Forget Jaxxon. Forget Lumpy, forget Wicket in ice skates, forget Waru... the image of Vader building a snowtrooperman, with carrot in hand, on the back of this carded figure is hands down the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in Star Wars.

I love it.

This'll be only the second action figure I've bought in four years (I bought a long-desired Expanded Universe Imperial Sentinel at Celebration III), and the first that I've bought from a current Star Wars line since I quit cold turkey. (I thought I'd go out on top with Amanaman and Salacious Crumb, two of my favorites). What brought me out of retirement?

Well, if I'm a sucker for tacky, and a sucker for the Expanded Universe, I'm a jolly old fool when it comes to Christmas.

And apparently, so is Vader. Here's the first line of the text from the Holiday Vader cardback:

"It's a festive time for the Empire."

Right about here, you start having a bad feeling about this. But the tongue-in-cheek tone that follows actually acquits it...

"After a rough year of crushing Rebel uprisings, terrorizing the Outer Rim, and choking incompetent underlings, Darth Vader decides that even a Dark Lord of the Sith needs to give in to the fun side of the Force."

I think whoever wrote this deserves a medal. Is it true that Vader donned his "most celebratory red armor" to go throw a "Hoth Holiday bash" with his troops for some R&R, and personally made "the most detailed ice sculptures in the Galactic Empire"? Most likely Imperial propaganda playing up the victory on Hoth, but who really cares! That's the beauty of it. Like the Inaugural Edition of HoloNet News, the presentation of this collectible, from the figure itself, to the accompanying art and storyline, is so deftly tongue-in-cheek I couldn't convince myself I didn't need it.

You always seem to get something special when you mix Star Wars and holidays.

Happy Holidays folks! As Jabba would say, HO-HO-HO! ~ Abel G. Peņa

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*And I was just informed of this disgusting thing. I want it too.

BLOG INDEX

MYSPACE PROFILE