#StarWarsSmugglersBounty Review: March 2016

Even in an off month, The Star Wars/Funko Smuggler's Bounty sub box is never dull.

Review by Matt Cummings

As the nature of geek boxes continues to pan out as we expected - with whipsaw efforts from now-lesser boxes - Star Wars and Marvel Collector Corps continue their unequalled dominance. This is more true when you look at March's Star Wars box. Although there's no new movie out - and none planned until December's Rogue One - the box is far superior to those by Geek Fuel and Loot Crate (which we've now cancelled). With this month's theme as CANTINA, we see SB giving us a nice collection of items with only one item failing to connect.

Before diving in, let's review the details:

The cost for a Month to Month is $25 (plus S/H), or $150 (plus S/H) for a one-year subscription.

You get one box every other month, with SB promising $50 in value and no fluff.

If you choose the Smuggler membership (yearly), you are promised an additional gift on your anniversary. Guess which one we chose.

Again, this month's theme is CANTINA, highlighting some of the tough customers who frequented Tatoonie's Mos Eisley Space Port. Check out our unboxing below and we'll meet you on the back end to share some thoughts:

Winners
Where to start...the Hammerhead shirt (one of of four), the pin/patch set, or the two exclusive Funko Pop! figures? Obviously, so much in here screams gobs of quality. Say what you want about the side entries in these boxes, these Pop! figures continue to shine. Although we did not get one of the Blue Snaggletooths, we loved the elder Ben Kenobi. No wonder why SandwichJohn himself collects this line with such ferocity. We're definitely going to look on the secondary market for the other shirts, especially the Han Solo one. Maybe I can trade some of the lame Geek Fuel items? That's what it's come to these days, but let's hope Bounty eventually offers these shirts for sale like Loot Crate does with some of its gear (because they never sell out due to their general lameness).

Losers
Unlike January's hack Funko C3PO mug, the only lame item is the throw-in Chewbacca pen. It's not awful, but that's a Hot Topic item if I ever saw one. Even with that small hiccup, we're generally happy with this box. That news might be more worthy than what's in the box! We're actually smiling right now, which should also be a surprise.

Back on Track?
The third outing for Smuggler's Bounty delivers another solid box, complete with all the elements that have become hallmarks of this line and Marvel's Collector Corps. The shirt is cool (I want more!) and the figures are nice (as always), but I hope the throw-in pen isn't the shape of things to come. These boxes are clearly more for adults and older teens, so let's hope they keep the silly down to a minimum. On the whole, it's still a win, and we can't wait for next month's BOUNTY HUNTERS.

The big question going forward is whether this and other boxes will succumb to the no-fluff promise. With a monthly plan in place SB needs to step it up with more consistency than it's showed. I'd rather have smaller, better quality boxes than the sometimes hodge-podge nature we've gotten. There's little doubt that quality is high (on most items), but we'll see if BOUNTY HUNTERS makes our case or not.

Want to read our other sub box reviews? We've got them all listed below:
MARVEL COLLECTOR CORPS
May
June
August
October
December

LOOT CRATE REVIEWS
March
April
May
June
July
August
December

GEEK FUEL REVIEWS
September
October
November
December
January
March

Discuss this review with fellow SJF fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJohnFilms, and follow author Matt Cummings at @mfc90125.