After dedicating the entire first wave of their Indiana Jones Adventure Series figures to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hasbro have begun a wider focus on the first three Indiana Jones movies via their exclusive release route and in an apparent deal with Target stores in the US. Out of the four Target exclusives released in early Summer 2023, three are taken from The Last Crusade including this suited version of the main protagonist of the movie, Walter Donovan. For those outside the US, these exclusives are sold via Fan Channel retailers - including Hasbro Pulse. Walter Donovan arrives in the same format, plastic-free, window-less packaging as the main line releases, and references the other releases to date on a checklist on the side spine.
Walter Donovan is depicted in his field outfit from the final sequence of The Last Crusade, a light grey piece with a belted coat and flared trousers, and knee-high boots. Said trousers may look familiar, and the fact they are double-jointed and pinned indicates re-use. They are in fact Imperial Officer trousers from the Star Wars Black Series, specifically from Grand Admiral Thrawn. This is the first re-use in the Adventure Series (that we know of) from another of Hasbro’s 6-inch collectors line and it works, while also providing a slight nod to the fact actor Julian Glover also played General Veers in The Empire Strikes Back.
The outfit is cast in the primary colour with paint application seen only on the belt buckles, suit buttons, and lapel pin. The coat is a soft plastic jacket with a shirt torso underneath in black with a black & white striped tie around Donovan’s neck. The head sculpt is a strong likeness to Glover - certainly better than his General Veers figure - with photo-real decor applied to the blue eyes in particular. The skin tone is perhaps a tad too tanned and the hair paint doesn't quite work in terms of looking like it is thinning, and instead looks more like the paint has rubbed.
Donovan has 18 points of articulation which includes double joint knees thanks to the legs using the older Black Series parts. He also gets the butterfly shoulders as seen on the other suited figures to date, but does not appear to have a dual joint neck with only the joint between neck and head mobile. Donovan is not the most dynamic of characters but has plenty of options for posing with all the joints doing what they are designed to do with no looseness which was a worry considering the age of the donated legs.
Accessories include his handgun, which like the other guns so far in the line looks a tad undersized. It is cast in silver plastic with a painted grip and lacks any significant details. The more impressive accessory is the Grail Marker, the stone tablet that Donovan shows Indy at the start of the movie. This is a sandstone coloured piece with engraved wording and a partial Knights Templar symbol - with these wordings washed in a darker brown to make them stand out.
The final two accessories go hand in hand when you consider Donovan’s fate in The Last Crusade. The first is the False Grail Cup which is a gold plastic cast piece with embossed patterns on the base and around the rim of the cup. Like the other ‘golden’ items in the line like the Lost Ark and the Golden Idol, the colouring is not quite right and maybe a painted gold effect would have added a bit more realism. To go with the false Grail is an alternative head for Donovan to replicate his rapid aging after drinking from the cup. This includes taught skin, bulging eyes, and a receding hairline all accentuated with greying paint application over the skin tone. Like the Toht ‘melting’ head this piece allows collectors not only to build the Indiana Jones Universe but also to recreate key scenes from the movies.
Walter Donovan is another strong release in the Adventure Series, albeit slightly tainted by the Exclusivity - although here in the UK he has been easy enough to get hold of. The figure does re-use some older Black Series parts, and that is forgivable considering the inclusion of a set of key accessories and the alternative head. I suspect we will see a further Walter Donovan figure in the future using the Club Obi-Wan tuxedo body, but for now, this Grail Temple version is perfectly serviceable as we await more key Last Crusade characters for our display.
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About Me : As a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force) and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licences - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...
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