Obi-Wan Kenobi (The Phantom Menace) — Star Wars The Black Series #85
The Black Series Obi-Wan Kenobi in Phantom Menace Padawan configuration — Red Line #85, 2019. Young Ewan McGregor portrait with Padawan braid and blue lightsaber. Collector guide.
Overview
Red Line #85 is Obi-Wan Kenobi in his Phantom Menace Padawan configuration — the youngest Obi-Wan in the Black Series, Ewan McGregor at approximately 25, with the Padawan braid, the shorter Padawan robes, and the blue lightsaber of a Jedi still completing his training under Qui-Gon Jinn. This is Obi-Wan before he becomes the Jedi Master who trains Anakin, before he watches everything he built turn to the dark side, before he spends nineteen years in Tatooine desert exile. The starting point of the longest individual character arc in the entire franchise.
The Ewan McGregor portrait is pre-Photo Real at the 2019 production standard, approximating the specific younger face features at this scale. Blue lightsaber. 17 total Obi-Wan releases. MSRP $19.99.
The Padawan Configuration and What It Represents
The specific visual markers of the TPM Padawan Obi-Wan — the Padawan braid, the slightly different robe cut from the ROTS Master configuration, the younger face — are all present in this figure. The Padawan braid is the franchise’s most specific rank indicator: worn over one shoulder, it marks a Jedi learner who has not yet passed the Trials. Obi-Wan’s specific braid placement and the specific face of someone who hasn’t yet seen what he’s going to see are the details that distinguish this figure from the ROTS configuration at P2-08 and the ANH Old Ben at #32.
At TPM, Obi-Wan is Qui-Gon’s Padawan — he disagreed with Qui-Gon’s decision to take Anakin but follows his Master’s judgment. His promise to train Anakin at Qui-Gon’s dying request is the specific moment this configuration precedes: the young Padawan who is about to become a new Master before he was ready, taking on a student more complicated than he knew.
The Obi-Wan Arc in Seventeen Releases
Seventeen Black Series Obi-Wan releases cover every era of the character’s canonical life. The TPM Padawan at #85 is the earliest in-universe Obi-Wan in the numbered sequence — younger than the ROTS configuration, younger than the ANH configurations. Displaying TPM Padawan (#85) alongside ROTS Obi-Wan (P2-08) and ANH Old Ben (#32) creates the complete three-configuration arc: the beginning, the middle, and the end of the longest continuously depicted character journey in the franchise.
The Naboo Duel Display
The TPM configuration specifically creates the Darth Maul duel display option: TPM Obi-Wan alongside Darth Maul in the Theed generator core. The fight where Qui-Gon dies, Maul seemingly ends his threat, and Obi-Wan defeats him by using the same move Maul used on Qui-Gon — a lightsaber bisection, but reversed — is TPM’s most iconic action sequence and the specific context the Padawan configuration references.
Secondary Market
Above-retail secondary market prices sustained by consistent demand for early Obi-Wan configurations. No production variants documented.
Verdict
Buy for the TPM Padawan arc display, the Naboo duel pairing with Darth Maul, or Red Line sequence completion. The youngest Obi-Wan in the numbered sequence.
Obi-Wan at Twenty-Five vs Obi-Wan at Sixty
The specific quality the TPM configuration captures — the young Padawan who hasn’t yet experienced the defining losses — is precisely what makes the display argument for this figure compelling. Every subsequent Obi-Wan configuration in the line shows a man shaped by what happened: the ROTS figure carries the grief of the Purge and Anakin’s fall; the ANH figures carry nineteen years of desert exile and the specific weight of watching from a distance. The TPM Padawan has none of that yet.
The Ewan McGregor TPM face is the franchise’s most optimistic Obi-Wan face — not naive, but genuinely without the scar tissue that the remaining sixteen releases all carry. For the collector who wants the complete Kenobi arc in three figures, the TPM Padawan (#85) at one end and the ANH Old Ben (#32) at the other end frame everything that happens in between.
The Padawan Braid’s Significance
The Padawan braid — worn over the right shoulder in the standard configuration — is the physical marker of a Jedi still in apprenticeship. Obi-Wan’s specific braid in TPM reads as slightly coarser than the ideal, consistent with a Padawan who has been in the field rather than in the Temple. Qui-Gon’s unconventional teaching methods produced an unconventional Padawan, and the specific texture of the braid is the figure’s most quietly detailed element.
The Red Line’s Prequel Obi-Wan Slot
The Red Line’s earlier Obi-Wan at P2-08 was the ROTS configuration — Ewan McGregor at approximately 38, the full Master, the robes of the Clone Wars era. The TPM Padawan at #85 fills the younger slot: the same actor, thirteen years earlier in the character’s life, before everything. The seventeen-release Obi-Wan catalogue is one of the most extensively documented single characters in the line, and the TPM configuration is the earliest numbered entry.
Obi-Wan Kenobi at #85 also establishes the 2019 wave’s prequel-heavy closing sequence: TPM Padawan Obi-Wan (#85), followed by Rebels Ezra (#86), followed by the Doctor Aphra comics trio (#87-#89). The five consecutive figures span three completely different corners of the Star Wars canon — prequel film, animated series, and comics — demonstrating the Red Line’s final stretch as the most eclectic production window in the numbered sequence’s history. No production variants documented.
Secondary market prices hold above retail. The Ewan McGregor pre-Photo Real portrait approximates the younger face at shelf distance; the Padawan braid is the most immediately readable character-specific detail. For collectors who want to trace Obi-Wan from beginning to end, this figure is the beginning.
The complete TPM display trio — Obi-Wan Padawan (#85), Qui-Gon Jinn (#40), and Darth Maul — represents the Naboo duel’s three principals at consistent 2017-2019 Red Line production quality. The teacher, the student, and the Sith who killed the teacher and was killed by the student — all three figures, one shelf, one of the franchise’s most narratively loaded fights.
Part of Star Wars The Black Series | Red Line. Related: All Obi-Wan Kenobi figures | Qui-Gon Jinn P3-40 | The Phantom Menace | Jedi Order faction.