The General Grievous series artwork could be A LOT better. I just picked up #3 (along with Republic #76) at lunch time and I'll be reading them tonight.

I did thumb through the GG #3 and to be honest, what I was looking forward to more than anything else was that Grievous' "experiment" actually came to fruition. While I know to some people that may seem cruel, but a month or so later from the time period of this book, all of the Jedi children are slaughtered anyway, so to see the technology of GG's body wedded to one of those younglings would have been a dark and interesting look into how truly perverted and evil Grievous is.  I think the series in general would have been better served with (a) better art and (b) a more adult storyline as opposed to (a) kindergarten level art and (b) a kid-friendly story.

The TRU near where I work has the shelf tag but alas NONE of them in stock.   

This is a piece I will proudly display on my desk for quite a while so I am seriously chomping at the bit to get two of 'em so I can open one of them up!

Picked up the two I wanted of this vehicle today. Can't wait to open it up tonight when I get home from work.

Even though I already had four preview Wookie Warriors by the time of the 4/2 launch, I picked up a fifth one back on the 2nd (just 'cause the TRU had a bunch in stock still) for the express purpose of putting him in the rear-gunner seat. I can't wait to see if the preview Wookie fits - since the Chewie and Tarful figures don't bend at the knees, to me it seems like they would be awkward in the vehicle with their legs straight out.

I too was able to get these for less than $12.99 each - and since I bought two complete sets, it was a great savings.

They weren't scanning at the register and the clerk said "do you know how much these were?" to which I replied "$6.99" 

She then proceeded to punch in a DPCI number that was all 9's and entered in the price of $6.99 for them! Much more appealing to get them for that price and save $36 on the total purchase!

And the thing that gets me more and more is that they don't just do "ultimate" versions of the main characters and just reship them over time if demand is there....You'd think one figure that can be reused/reissued umpteen times would be more financially sound in the long run, but apparently Hasbro has some book on economics that I don't know about.

I don't know if it is as much economics as it is Hasbro's fear of putting the stake in the ground and saying "This is the final, ultimate version of ___________" (insert character name)

As far as I'm concerned a Tatooine Luke decked out with articulation and accessories as described by DoctorPadawan above would indeed be an ultimate version of this character, there will always be some jerk who thinks that (a) the figure could have more articulation, (b) could have included more accessories or (c) a better sculpt.

You could do this with LOTS of figures and at times Hasbro has shown us that they COULD get there if they wanted to - anytime a figure includes extra arms, legs or a second head, to me that is one step closer to the ultimate version.

Ultimate Luke from ESB --
Arms:
1 Set in the Bespin Jacket Sleeves, fully articulated and have a removeable right hand
1 Set bare-armed like he was during training on Dagobah, again fully articulated with two sets of hands, one regular to hold things and the other spread out to duplicate the hand-stand pose

Torso:
1 for the Bespin Jacket
1 for the tan "muscle" shirt seen during Dagobah training

Legs:
1 set of legs & boots that would be fully articulated with ball joint hips, knees and ankles

Head:
1 Head Regular
1 Head with "Battle Damage" from the fight with Vader
1 Head for when you want to put him doing a Handstand

Accessories:
Lightsaber lit
Lightsaber unlit
Equipment Case
Lantern
Foodkit
Removeable belt with working holster
Blaster that fits in the holster
Backpack for the "ultimate Yoda" figure

Come out with a 4" SW figure that covers all that and I'd gladly pay $15 - $20 for that figure, but instead if you made that the be-all, end-all of Lukes from ESB (with the exception of Pilot and Hoth Gear) then you could keep re-shipping this figure over and over and over and over again.

Like I said, Hasbro is trying to get there - look at ROTS #50 - the Anakin Skywalker on Mustafar figure - interchangeable Arms and Head just like the OTC Dagobah Luke - but the arms aren't articulated and neither came with articulated legs - so they take some steps to solving the problem and then fall short in others.

There must be a govenor on how much any one figure can cost - if a figure exceeds cost to Hasbro of $1/figure then they must scrap the idea of making that figure altogether. That's the only thing I can think of. As we already pointed out however, if you're shipping that one figure from now until 2018 what's the difference, the more you make and sell the overall cost per figure goes down. Simple econ 101. At least I think it is, but what do I know. 

Still sucks though! 

Agreed.

Like Matt - this will cost me $100 just to have an open Silver Vader #3 - BTW - I revise my original guess, it is definitely a Throne Room Vader in there.

Anyway, this set is just plain stupid.

To someone who wants to give a kid a collection "starter" the Silver Vader is sorta like, "What the f**k, why isn't my Vader black?" and to the regular collector it's "I gotta get all these other f**king figures again AND pay $50 just to get ANOTHER Silver Vader?!"

Whoever at Hasbro sold them this sh*t earns Salesman/woman of the year IMHO.

Jesse - it's in the same assortment as the Boga, Barc and AT-RT so it's price point is $14.99 - $19.99 (depending on where you get it).

It might even start to show up on Hasbro's Toy Shop soon at that price - they had the AT-RT there for $14.99 when it was impossible to find in many stores.

Something else occured to me regarding these three-packs...

Clones are colored in this movie not really by rank so much as unit. Sure there are commanders and captains for individual units, but for the most part a clone with red markings (like the Shocktrooper) does not mean they are all Captains.

So why didn't Hasbro make the clones like this:

Set 1 - All White
Set 2 - All three with the rust/red/brown markings
Set 3 - All three with the green markings
Set 4 - All three with the blue/gray markings

Afterall, the idea here is to "build your army" - well the Grand Army of the Republic doesn't have only ONE clone with Rust/Red/Brown markings, it has an entire squad of them!

For the CW sets this was fine 'cause the majority of the clones were white and only the ranked officers had specific colors. Someone needs to clue in the team who makes the deluxe figures that these crazy color paterns don't indicate rank, but instead indicate squad.

So again, to add insult to injury, not only does the one-variant per set, one set per case situation suck a$$, there's really going to be no way to have squads of ANY of the units represented by these color variants.

IMHO - they should have passed on doing this again and just picked three key colorings from the movie, like:

Should we not have orange Cody clones, blue 501st temple raid clones, and red coruscant clones instead?

And made three variants to Clone #41 and then shipped out cases where an entire case was either 12 Orange, 12 Red or 12 Blue and then just be done with unit designations. None of the others developed for background or put in and then dropped in the editing room even deserve to be immortalized in plastic.