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REVIEW:
STAR WARS COVERT OPS CLONE TROOPER
By Thomas Wheeler

Clone Troopers are always good for variants, including exclusive variants. Given that Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith showed us Clone Troopers with green trim, red trim, yellow trim, orange trim, and blue trim on their uniforms, to say nothing of a wide range of color schemes and patterns, there's a good chance that over the course of the Clone Wars, a wide range of color schemes for Clone Trooper armor emerged, without changing the basic appearance of the Clone Trooper armor all that much.

And let's face it, we hardly saw the full scope of the war. Coruscant, Kashyyyk, Utapau -- and some quick cameos on half a dozen other worlds after that tragic Order 66 had been given.

Somebody at Hasbro figured this out. Somebody also figured out that once you've got a few good sets of Clone Trooper molds, you can pour just about any color of plastic into them that you want, and paint them as you please, and come up with some really impressive stuff that might not have officially been in the movie, but still looks darn cool. And that such unusual Clone Troopers -- would make good exclusives.

One of these exclusives went to an online store called StarWarsShop.com. It certainly lives up to its name. You can get just about anything there. Books, toys, clothes, posters, and replica props. It's probably no surprise that an online store like this would have quite a bit of exclusive merchandise including a very distinctive Clone Trooper.

This is the COVERT OPS CLONE TROOPER, one of two really unusual, really distinctive exclusive Clone Troopers, the other being the black-armored Utapau Shadow Trooper that wound up at Target (see separate review). At least I didn't have any trouble finding him!

The package card for the Covert Ops Clone Trooper doesn't explain much about what sort of covert ops he might be involved in. All it really says is, "Inspired by the specialized trooper armor seen in Revenge of the Sith, the Covert Ops Clone Trooper was created to celebrate the release of the final chapter in the Star Wars saga on DVD and VHS."

In short, this is Hasbro saying, "Yeah, we know that there weren't actually any Covert Ops Clones in the movie, but we've got a cool design here, so what the heck? There were certainly enough OTHER color combinations in the movie." And obviously, someone at LucasFilm agreed.

As for celebrating the release of the movie on DVD and VHS, I suspect this was a matter of timing more than any direct connection.

The only other wording on the packaging is a sort of generic statement about Clone Troopers in general. "Clone Troopers once served as the highly skilled army of the Republic. After the secret execution of Order 66, the clone troopers turn on their Jedi commanders and are ordered to eliminate them all. Now they serve as the official army of the first Galactic Empire."

In short, then they all had to turn in their fancy armor and dress in that drab, all-white Stormtrooper outfit. If George Lucas wants to do something unusual for the next DVD release of the classic trilogy, he could spruce up the Stormtroopers a bit...

Anyway, the COVERT OPS CLONE TROOPER certainly has an impressive outfit. It's largely a dark metallic grey, with multi-colored grey camouflage on the helmet, shoulder pads, chestplate, and boots. Some purple lines of trim across the uniform round it out. The painting stencils for this toy must've involved some extensive work. The figure is molded in the metallic grey, and it is quite metallic in appearance. The camouflage and purple lines are painted in a flat finish, and the end result is clearly a highly specialized Clone Trooper that is going to be used for some very specific and unusual missions.

The figure is also of the "Super-Articulated" molds, which means he has a considerable range of motion. About the only problem area in this set of molds is the leg armor comes so close to the lower torso, that the legs don't move very far. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned. The rest of his moving parts easily make up for this, and are as extensive as you're likely to find on almost any action figure these days. I'd put him on a par with a Marvel Legends figure in this respect.

The packaging is unique. It's not the curved-at-the-top card design that we've come to expect from single-carded Star Wars figures. Instead, it's a square card and a square figure bubble, and the card backing doesn't have the same "lava" effect. Instead, it shows a red-reflected Darth Vader head, with the faces of Padme, Anakin, and Obi-Wan in the foreground. The entire package is packaged in an additional protective bubble.

Of course I give this COVERT OPS CLONE TROOPER my highest recommendation, but with the provision of, "Good luck finding him". I don't know whether he'll turn up on StarWarsShop.Com again, and your only other real recourse is other online shops or auction sellers that probably had to buy theirs from StarWarsShop.Com, and they're going to expect to see a profit. How much of one they get depends, I suspect, on how much you're willing to pay.

But I can promise you this -- the COVERT OPS CLONE TROOPER is an extremely impressive, highly distinctive, and very cool Clone Trooper, that has my definite recommendation. Any Star Wars fan, especially one who enjoys the action figures, will like the Covert Ops Clone Trooper.