Sunday, April 1, 2012

IG-88 (ESB 1980-82)




IG-88 is yet another bounty hunter in our arsenal of figures. In the movies, we only get to see IG standing with the other bounty hunters as Vader talks to them about capturing the Millennium Falcon and its crew. That's it. However, for as little screen time as he gets, IG-88 gets quite the weaponry. He gets not one, but two blasters. Yes, two blasters! The stormtrooper-type that is so ubiquitous among the figures, and a blaster rifle. Now, I have no idea why he gets this when even the big guy Boba Fett only had one, but I won't complain.

As previously stated, Iggy came with a blaster and a blaster rifle. The figure came on both ESB and ROTJ cards. The earliest releases had a grey finish, but later releases had a kind of glitter in the paint to make it look more metallic.

Why should you get this figure? Five reasons:

1. Out of all the bounty hunters, he looks the most logical, so he's guaranteed not to take any of your crap.

2. He's tall. If you like that sort of thing.

3. Two blasters! Name another figure that came with two. Yeah, that's what I thought - nobody!

4. Bounty hunter. Have to have 'em.

5. Where are his eyes? I don't know - do you? How do you know he isn't watching you now? On second thought, get rid of the creepy thing.

Backstory:

IG-88 was built by Holowan Industries, based on the earlier models that were guards to General Grevious. Four were built, one activated, who moments later killed all of his creators and copied himself into the other three models. All the copies took turn being bounty hunters, but IG's main goal was a droid revolution to overthrow organic life.

During the events of ESB, one of the IGs was destroyed in its ship by Boba Fett, after trying to destroy him in turn and get the Falcon. Another IG was destroyed by Boba Fett on Bespin, and can actually be seen in the scrap heap in the movie (where Chewbacca recovers C-3PO). Dash Rendar destroyed a third copy during the events of Shadows of the Empire.

The fourth copy uploaded himself into the second Death Star in an attempt to use the battle platform as the ultimate tool to control and guide the droid revolution. However, before he could take full control, the death star was destroyed by the Rebels over Endor.

Want the full story? His Wookieepedia article.

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1 comment:

Bill said...

"Where are his eyes? I don't know - do you? How do you know he isn't watching you now? On second thought, get rid of the creepy thing."

Not sure why this struck such a chord with me, but I've been laughing at this comment for the last five minutes now!