REVIEW: The Black Series NED-B

The Black Series has failed to get me excited for a few years now, partly because I’ve not been enjoying the newer Star wars media perhaps. I enjoyed the sequel trilogy but not enough of the characters popped enough for me to want to collect them.

I’m not a fan of prequel era so the recent animated series don’t do it for me. Mando was great but I thought the Book of Boba Fett was dreadful. Kenobi had some good elements but overall I found it disappointing. However from that show, I did like the design of one particular new droid that featured, not very prominently, in a couple of episodes.

The big yellow guy was put up for pre-order during the shows run and I couldn’t resist. He arrived at the back end of 2022 daring to crash my top 5 figures of the year list (Though he didn’t quite make the cut). Let’s check him out.

NED-B  comes in a larger than usual box at a larger than usual price (£35); he’s a premium figure it seems. So you could maybe forgive me for expecting him to be 7” – 8” tall and have a good selection of accessories.

In fact NED-B measures at about 6.5 inches which does make him suitably taller than most black series figures. But notably shorter than say K2SO or Chewbacca. I actually think he is proportioned very nicely and scales perfectly with other figures, but why the big box?

As for accessories, he has a nicely detailed large hammer. He’s seen carrying this in the episodes he appears in; so it’s appropriate and looks very nice. Some great sculpting and has multiple colours, with the brown handle leading to a black grip. The business end is more of a gunmetal colour.

In addition to that there’s also a blaster included. Strange choice since he does not have a hand capable of holding it in a meaningful way. It lacks any of the colour detail that the hammer has – as is standard for blasters like this in Black Series figures.

So That’s 2 accessories and a figure shorter than Chewbacca at a premium price that came in a largeer box for some reason. The reason I mention that is because I think it could be misleading to anyone buying this off the shelf. I picked up a Wookie figure recently, a full inch taller in a much smaller box.

NED-B does have a backpack, I’m not counting that as an accessory (Hasbro do not either in their description). It comes detached and is easily connected via a peg in the back and then two cables. This could be part of the reason for the larger box… but it’s not that big.

I think I have banged on long enough about that and I want to get on to the good stuff, because despite my moaning above, this is a really good action figure. Part of that is the design by Lucasfilm/Disney, but Hasbro did an excellent job of bringing that design to toy form

The sculpting great throughout, the head and torso especially look exceptional and I am pleased with the level of detail both in the sculpt itself and in the paint. The head is another fantastic design from a galaxy far, far away. An expression that’s both vacant and fun at the same time.

The bright yellow of the figure, broken up by silvery scratches and scuffs, and the blue accents really make NED-B pop on the shelf. His mechanical innards seen on his neck and midriff could have benefitted from some paint detail but at least the sculpted detail is good. You could argue the yellow is a little too bright, I like him how he is though, perhaps he could have had a bit more weathering on his legs to reduce the impact of the yellow a little. That’s a nit-pick though (I’ve always got to have at least one).

Articulation is surprisingly good for this slightly bulkier figure. Much better than a Wookie figure for example. His shoulder pads are separate parts that flap out to allow arms a wider range of motion, wrists hinge and rotate nicely. His elbows, knees & ankles are pin joints offering a great range of motion… even in the wrong direction. Torso and head articulation is a bit more limited but I was still able to get most poses I wanted.

This droid could have really used some alternative hands for more posing options, something I have come to expect from Marvel legends but I know is pretty rare for Black Series. I just think at the price point Hasbro should be offering a little more.

Despite my gripes about value I cannot help but love this figure. I had a lot of fun posing and positioning him on my desk before and after my photos were done. Hasbro partially luck out here because I just love the design, much the same as I do with K2SO from Rogue One. But like with K2SO, Hasbro have done an excellent job of turning something from the screen into a really fun 1:12 scaled figure.

I didn’t expect a droid from Kenobi to be my only Black Series purchase this year since I was really trying to stick to figures from the Original trilogy/Mando time period. Maybe I can also collect droids, I do like that little B2EMO fella from Andor…