By Pete Vilmur
While it can be said that IG-88's debut performance in The Empire Strikes Back exhibits about as much personality as a flagpole in the rain, you gotta admit, the guy looks pretty menacing, even if he is essentially set dressing. Sure, he's tall, thin-limbed, and has a head that's repurposed bar apparatus from the Mos Eisley Cantina (set dressing's apparently in his DNA), but those two guns he's packing aren't pea-shooters. And that red-on-gunmetal gray deco hints at the sinister droid aesthetic from a bygone era -- think spider droids, probe droids, and buzz droids. IG-88's Empire performance was admittedly a bit, er, stiff, but thanks to The Clone Wars, we've gotten a taste of just what the formidable IG- class assassin droids are capable of (see "Downfall of a Droid"), and look forward to seeing more of them as the series unfolds.
But even before the assassin droid's recent re-emergence in the Star Wars galaxy, IG-88 did manage to inspire a modest handful of cool collectibles in the 30 years since Empire, some of which actually, um, move. Here is a sampling.
(Be sure to check out our earlier coverage on bounty hunter collectibles: Greedo and Bossk)
Kenner 12-inch Figure
Hands down (a pose IG-88 fans are familiar with), the most famous, or rather notorious, toy cast in the form of the brooding bounty hunter is Kenner's 12-inch action figure from 1980. The last in the original 12-inch series of figures released, IG-88 (actually 15 inches tall) and fellow henchman Boba Fett were the only figures in the series packaged in an Empire Strikes Back box. And since Boba had a head start -- released first in 1979 with Star Wars packaging -- IG-88 is by far the rarest and most sought-after figure in the line.
