Vintage Star Wars Custom 54-Back Project

This weekend I managed to finish the follow-up project to my 28-back custom project: My The Empire Strikes Back 54- back set of customs. Like my previous project the goal was to create something that fit in with the original Kenner line. A "What-if" an additional set of figures was produced between the Empire and Jedi figures.

The first figure I decided to include was a Dagobah Luke Skywalker. As a child, the Bespin Luke was passable for Dagobah, but I always wanted a t-shirt wearing Luke to go with my Yoda. And now he exists :p.

The second figure was another fairly obvious choice: an Imperial Technician. Imperial Bad Guy... check... Useful with an existing playset - the Star Destroyer... check. Featured in both ANH and TESB... check.

For my third figure - it had to be Lando. I don't know why but I have a thing for the character... he's got a suave swashbuckler attitude. Plus it's Billy Dee. This was another figure I wanted as a kid - his Bespin outfit was too flashy for searching for Han and this would have been far more fun playing out those missions in the years between movies.

For the fourth figure I wanted another main character to anchor the line and Leia got tapped. The escape from Bespin was the climax of the film so it was a logical choice for a line extension.

Admittedly the fifth figure was one I DID want as a child, but NOT until I had awareness of him with Return of the Jedi. Wedge Antillies is a bit of a stretch but after two film appearances, it made sense to add him into the lineup.

My final choice was The Spirit of Obi Wan Kenobi. Of all the figures, this is the one that LEAST fit with the concept as the thought of a spirit Obi Wan figure never materialized in my head until AFTER the release of the Anakin figure in 1984. But since it went with the Dagobah playset (meeting my criteria of allowing for Kenner cross sells) and the lack of other unmade TESB, Ben got the nod...

Like my previous set, the cardback was redesigned to include my new figures and featured playsets related to the figures I made.

More pictures can be seen on my website