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We already had three Comic Packs and one box set dedicated to Star Wars: Legacy, did we really need any more? Hell yes we did!
A powerful Sith warrior and a savvy ship's mechanic are caught up in the attack on Princess Marasiah Fel. Darth Nihl battles Cade Skywalker, the son of a Jedi that Nihl killed in the Massacre at Ossus. Deliah Blue repairs the Mynock so that its crew, the Jedi and the gravely wounded princess can flee the attacking Sith.
Deliah Blue is a female Zeltron, a species known for its hedonistic ways. Their art and literature were the most sexually explicit in the galaxy, and their home planet, Zeltros, was a luxurious getaway for people looking to have a good time. Now, knowing all that, imagine how wild Deliah must have been to earn a reputation as a "party girl" by their standards!
She's not a shallow, one-note character, though; rather than just make her an airheaded pleasure seeker, writer John Ostrander made her the chief mechanic on Cade Skywalker's ship, the Mynoc. So basically, she's Kaylee and Inara rolled into one. She can fix anything, and that's part of what attracted her to Cade: she could sense there was something broken about him.
Zeltron skintones tend to be in the "red" range, and
Deliah is a vibrant pink. Her clothing, as is typical for Zeltrons, is tight and revealing and done mainly in neon colors that complement her natural tones. She's wearing purple knee-high boots and a matching sash at her belt. Her arms are covered in strappy black opera gloves, and she has golden braclets with purple gems inset. Her shirt and pants are black, blue and neon yellow, with additional green stripes on the top. Her shirt is a tank, showing off her belly and upper chest, and she of course has a cleavage window with a few strips of cloth stretched across it.
Deliah's face looks very nice. It's distinctive, and not really "cute," per se, but you can definitely see why Cade would be attracted to her. Her lips and hair are blue, and though her eyes are shown as violet in the comics, the head is too small to worry about putting color on there anyway. Some figures have it, sure, but most can do without it, especially at this scale.
She's armed with a large blaster that's been molded in dark grey and has a green app on top. She has a loop on her belt that the gun can fit into, but it sits too high for the loop to work as a holster - it hangs out, unsecured. Articulation is standard for modern Star Wars toys, and nothing has been skipped. She has a balljointed neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel waist, swivel wrists, swivel hips, swivel/hinge knees and swivel/hinge ankles. Everything moved well and was not stuck.
Deliah's facing off against Darth Nihl, a member of Darth Krayt's New Sith Order - rather than following the Rule of Two, Krayt started the Rule of One: thousads of members, all serving the Sith order itself. The One Sith comprises dark side users from throughout the galaxy, all active at the same time. No lurking about in shadows and working through intermediaries for them, no sir!
Nihl is a Nagai, a race of beings from outside the galaxy. They invaded almost immediately after the rebels destroyed the second Death Star, spurred on by Lumiya, but were swiftly defeated and welcomed into the New Republic. They don't have much empathy for anyone beyond their own families, which makes for an interesting character contrast with the outgoing Deliah Blue.
Darth Nihl (not be confused with Darth Nihil) wears quite the interesting outfit: for one thing, he's showing more skin than the sexy woman in this set, so let's have a round of applause for gender parity. His upper body is well armored, with a rather organic-looking piece covering his chest, back and shoulders. His midrif looks to be protected by nothing more than cloth or leather, though there some pearly silver bands (Metal? Bone?) around his ribs. His legs are bare, save for the strips of his loincloth, and his shins are covered with dark wraps leading down to what must be short boots.
The Nagai (who were named after manga artist Go Nagai, the father of both giant mecha and magical girl genres) have a pale elven appearance, so everything on this figure that's white is skin, and everything that's grey is tattoo. He's one of the only Legacy-era Sith not to have any red skin, probably because his natural corpsish look was intimidating enough.
Darth Nihl's signature weapon is a long-handled lightsaber - long enough that it could almost be called a lightstaff.
The handle is longer than the blade, and seems to be made of Yuuzhan Vong yorik coral. There's a ring on the end, and the blade is removable - which is good since, like Krayt, Nihl can store his lightsaber on his back, and without the blade being permanently attached, he doesn't look as stupid. His left hand is angled to allow him to wield the blade double-handed; to accommodate that, the wrist joint in that arm is at the top of the glove, while the joint on the right arm is right at the wrist.
By Hasbro's reckoning, this is Comic Pack #49. It includes a reprint of Legacy #7, which means the story picks up right where the comic
included with the Antares Draco/Ganner Krieg set left off. The cover features the Force ghost of Luke Skywalker, for some reason - it's not like he appears at all in the story. We do get to see a lot of Deliah Blue and Darth Nihl in action, though, so that's a plus. According to Wookiepedia, the original printing of this issue included a coloring mistake, but it's been corrected for this version. Take note, completists!
The Legacy books brought us a whole slew of interesting new characters with cool designs, and it's a shame that so few of them were made into action figures. The unlikely pairing of Deliah Blue and Darth Nihl are a welcome addition, though, and there's nothing saying there will never be any solo-carded releases in the future.
-- 01/09/11
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