Easter's over so let's talk about Yak Face again-- will Hasbro give us a vintage update? How much direction does Hasbro take from Sideshow, and vice-versa? And where oh where has my little Gamorrean Guard gone? And what's up with the Clone Wars Chronology we mentioned a few weeks ago? All this and more await you this week in Q&A!

1. I would like to ask your opinion on when you think we'll see a Yak Face update? It's been years since I've asked you about it...at which point you gave the obligatory "Hasbro may do it in the future, but I doubt it's on the short list" (you were right). Anyways, here we are years later and I feel we as the collective community are ready for a new super articulated Yak Face action figure. Can we all imagine it now in sweet Vintage packaging? Yak Face is one of the Holy Grail action figures from the old days and deserves the status of a Vintage update.
--Joe

This is one of the more commonly asked questions I get these days-- I'm almost surprised Hasbro hasn't just decided to repaint and recard the 1997 figure at this point for an easy sale. (I don't even collect carded and I'd buy it.)

Hasbro's track record of updating "modern" characters from Jabba's Palace is spotty-- since 1995, the only ones to get fully updated sculpts are Jabba, Oola, Salacious Crumb, Bib Fortuna, and the Gamorrean Guard. (We have received alternate versions of the Nikto and Weequay, but not really updates.) With that in mind I almost wonder if it's more likely we'd get some sort of "specially packaged exclusive reissue box" rather than a new Yak Face. While I'd love a new one-- especially a new one inspired by the incorrect look of the 1980s Kenner release-- I don't know that Hasbro finds that old look and coloring as charming as we do. And if they could card the Blue Snaggletooth while they're at it? All the better.

2. I am out of the country for the year, but have managed through ebay and online stores to pick up most of the Clone Wars and Vintage figures released since last summer that were of interest to me. The figure that I have missed out on is the Gammorean Guard. The prices for the Gammorean Guard are high on ebay~$20 + shipping. I heard a rumor that the Gammorean Guard would ship again in a new case. Is it true? When? If that fails, I am not above waiting a couple years to pick up the figure cheaper on ebay. Some figures drop precipitously after their initial demand. Other figures remain pricy for years. Any thoughts on this approach for the Gammorean Guard?
--David

Hi, David! I have good news for you, sort of. In the case of the Gamorrean Guard, Hasbro has told its retail partners that it plans to reissue the figure in what is being called Wave 3, Revision 11. The assortment is essentially all of wave 3 proper, plus the delayed Wedge Antilles and Yoda figures. As of this time nobody has found any evidence that these have shipped, and online retailer Entertainment Earth has it listed as "presold out." What does this mean as availability goes? Not sure yet. But I'm optimistic Hasbro will get more out there, after all, they gotta get those Wedges out.

3. I know I have asked in the past whether Hasbro piggy backs sideshow and vise versa and want to know if the cystal ball has a new VC Commander Bly on the radar, I just thought I would ask because we have been seeing him as statues and premium format dolls and such, but I wouldn't mind a real nice version for my shelf, any thoughts?
--CAP

I personally believe that Hasbro will revisit every named Clone Commander over time-- Bly in particular begs for a new figure because the original release of the figure was the wrong deco, and while the late-run variant had the correct coloring all subsequent releases of the figure went back to the original, incorrect, brown-free deco. So I would bet on this one getting some love eventually, as Clone Troopers are still big sellers for Hasbro from both kids and adult collectors.

...although, funny enough, do you know what the most common figure I'm seeing from Wave 6 of Vintage is lately? That super-cool all-new Clone Trooper figure. I'm sort of surprised... although I know when I got my batch, it was the new Luke that got me the most excited.

4. I was wondering where can I find a complete list of all of the Kubrick's Star Wars figures ever made?

I just started to collect them again and wanted to know if there is a store that carries them (besides e-bay)?

--Fernando

While slightly out of date, the great JediDefender.com has an in-depth guide to Kubricks including chase pieces, convention-only carded figures, the infamous Early Bird Kit, and many others-- WITH pictures. The site devotes a lot of love to Kubricks, so it's worth watching just for news angles. I also suggest stalking the video game import site NCS, which carries a large amount of imported Japanese knickknacks including this line.

This forum posting has a Japanese toy magazine scan showing off groupings of the figures, which may also be of some use to you and seems to be very, very close to complete and up-to-date. Basically, use Google-- it took me about two minutes to find all this stuff. There is no ultimate Kubrick store, and in this day and age eBay truly is the best marketplace for this kind of thing. You can also visit our forums-- or other forums which have more traffic-- and post your wish lists. I suggest if you're new, don't buy single figures-- go after an entire collection. Entire collections tend to sell more cheaply because few people are willing to shell out several hundred dollars at once, but if you can swing it, the net pricing will be much cheaper than buying (and shipping) single figures over time.

5. Well, it's not really a question, but a response to this week's Q&A. I've been trying to map out a timeline of The Clone Wars, and this is basically what I have. It's sometimes easy to tell where two or three episodes relate to each other, but not where they fit in the overall timeline - for instance, is "Clone Cadets" right before "Rookies," or do some other non-related episodes come in-between? At any rate, it's attached.
--John

Thanks, John! In addition to your list, readers James and Ty were kind enough to send in their chronological lists, and I've decided to compare them and see if they're in agreement-- they are not.

So while I was really hoping to post this, there are a lot of issues where I don't know for sure if we're seeing simple continuity errors (i.e., "the first meeting" may be a mistake on the part of the writers or Todo 360 might have been rebuilt, for example) or direct cause-and-effect. I have no doubt that these were written out of order and without a fine-toothed comb to find errors (look at the comics, or the novels) so as much as I'd like to think that there's a riddle we can solve when it comes to episode order, these three lists you guys sent-- and I appreciate your hard work compiling them-- do help to prove that we simply cannot agree on an episode order.

I think we can assemble clusters of events which go together, and I appreciate the "grown-up looks" of the main three heres to place them in the future, but the one episode that seemed to be harder to place was "ARC Troopers," season 3, episode 2.

While not a satisfying conclusion for you guys, I think here there's only one answer we can all accept at this point: the chronology is whatever we want to pretend that it is, until someone from the production actually publishes a list. A CHALLENGE TO THE STAR WARS INSIDER MAGAZINE: I will promote the everloving crap out of you guys if you can arrange for an article explaining the chronology of the show, or can point me out to a place where (as of the end of season 3) this has been done. Thank you!

FIN

There are a few new Spring exclusives up Hasbro's sleeves but nothing has shown up just yet. What a drag, man. At least some stores are running some nice sales about now, and Gentle Giant has some great new stuff on deck-- including a new exclusive or two, I'm sure, which you may be hearing about real soon. (Shhhhh.)

Got questions? My mailbag's pretty much empty.

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? I bet you do. Email me with Q&A in the subject line.