1980. New wave was in. Early video games were about to reach their apex. And best of all, Star Wars was back – not the original, but a new movie following up on the original, taking us to new places and new adventures. Life was truly good. And so were the first figures from that sequel.
The Empire Strikes Back had such a diverse spread of locations and climates and environments that the first figures – released just prior to the movie – left you wondering just what the heck was going on if you, like me, were a kid whose only bona fida spoiler about Empire consisted of the TV commercials advertising the movie. Princess Leia was in quite the attractive evening dress, Luke Skywalker looked like he was on safari, and Han Solo was dressed for winter in Wisconsin. Or Hoth. Which, around mid-January, might as well be the same thing.
Also new to the mix were droids, though unlike more modern figures that practically give you a character’s biography and resumè on a cardback or in a booklet, there was no context. We didn’t know if IG-88 was good, or FX-7 bad, or vice-versa. Nor did we know why the Rebels and the Empire were decked out for a snow day. Nor did we have any idea who Lando Calrissian or his moustachioed Bespin Security Guard were.
Before all of these hit the store, however, one first-wave figure escaped early: Bossk was issued by mail-order for a limited time for those loyal collectors among us who had our proofs of purchase and a couple of bucks ready to send in to Kenner. The reptilian bounty hunter arrived in the mail several weeks later, again without 
much context as to who he was in the movie. (As it turns out, in a true Star Wars action figure tradition-in-the-making, Bossk had something on the order of 90 seconds of screen time and one line of un-subtitled alien dialogue.)
After both the first wave of Empire figures and the movie itself had been out for a while, Kenner quietly released one extra figure to that wave, having held back to keep the movie’s plot a surprise: Yoda arrived on everyone’s toy shelf, and the tiniest Star Wars action figure of them all was a more-than-welcome addition.
