Jaina Solo

"What? Han Solo ain't never had no sex with Princess Leia in the Star War!" Jaina Solo is the daughter of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo. She is strong in the Force, as is her twin brother Jacen. An accomplished pilot with an aptitude for mechanics, she becomes an apprentice to Mara Jade Skywalker. The reason that she's into mechanics is that authors Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta (of the Young Jedi Knights series of books) didn't want to make her a "typical girl" character. So instead, she takes after her dad - she hung around with him and Chewie while she was growing up, since her mom was always off running the galaxy or whatever. While Jaina's brothers were indecisive or impetuous, she was the most pragmatic of the three, though she was also stubborn and had something of a temper. Jaina Solo was part of the final series of the Legacy Collection, along with Shaak Ti and the Spacetrooper. She was due to be released in 2009, but became an exclusive in 2010, instead (amusingly, the series wasn't released until after the mailaway offer advertised on the front of the packaging had expired). In theory this figure represents Jaina around the time of the Yuuzhan Vong war. She's wearing her Jedi robes, so she's all done in shades of brown. The sculpt is nice, with a large belt and a shawl accenting the design. Her arms are reused from 2008's Stass Allie, but everything else is new. Since she's not based on a real person, there's no judging Jaina's likeness by how much it resembles any specific face. Now, granted, a clever artist would make sure she looks like a cross between Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford, and most of the novel covers seem to do just that, but the best we can say about the figure's sculpt is that it doesn't look blatantly wrong - it's just too small to worry about any more accurate detailing than that. She's cute, though not quite as cute as the new art on the front of the card (the art on the back of the card, from the Japanese cover of Force Heretic III: Reunion, makes her look slightly too adult and more than a little bit like Kristen Stewart). Articulation is on par with every other modern Star Wars toy, with a balljointed head, swivel/hinge shoulders and elbows, swivel wrists, swivel waist, T-crotch, and swivel/hinge knees and ankles. Her only accessory is her lightsaber, which for some reason is pink rather than the appropriate purple. Why, because she's a girl? There's a hole on her belt where you should be able to plug in a separate hilt, but the figure doesn't include one. The figure comes with a Build-A-Droid part, BG-J38's torso. But since the Dark Trooper, Spacetrooper and K'kruhk were way too hard to find, I'll never get to complete the poor guy. Anybody want to buy a droid body? Barely used, only had one previous owner. No? Didn't think so. Anyway, Jaina Solo is a quality figure of a pivotal EU character who's never been made in plastic before - what more could you want? -- 11/14/10

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