But Hasbro arranged for 501st members to get their hands on copies of the figure that didn’t include the Comic-Con signage. In July of 2006 Hasbro released a limited edition action figure featuring the 501st Legion Stormtrooper! The figure was an exclusive buy at Comic-Con in San Diego. I can only guess they had not secured permission from us yet to use our name and found this description a good compromise. If you’ve seen more feel free to contact me and we’ll add it to the list.Īt some point in late 2005 / early 2006 a blue clone trooper figure appeared in Japan stores featuring the title “Vader’s Legion.” This may seem a coincidence, but the bottom of the package left no room for doubt: amid the Japanese lettering, it read “501” in the description. So here’s a quick and incomplete list of the cool items I’ve seen come out. Every so often I browse a toy store or a convention floor and out of nowhere there’s 501st merchandise for the offering. Since 2004, Lucasfilm has owned the rights to the 501st Legion name and I couldn’t be happier. The story of how the 501st became Star Wars canon is a story for another blog. But to imagine the fans themselves being welcomed into the canon is just inspiring.
Thousands of artists, authors, and editors have contributed to populate it to George Lucas’ standards. Here is a fictional universe that one man imagined and countless millions have enjoyed. It’s both exciting and humbling to witness.
As a corollary to that, the 501st Legion was the first Star Wars fan club (or fan club of any franchise, really) to see itself plugged right into the product line of the very universe it sought to celebrate. Nowadays every big kids’ movie has an obligatory toy line, but Star Wars was the first to see its potential. Not only that, but it recast how the business of movies could be run by revealing the power of merchandising. When it first came out in 1977, A New Hope was wholly different from any science-fiction story ever told and it broke the mold.
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