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Edward Hopper must be rolling over in his grave.
Originally a member of Squadron Sinister,
the wealthy Kyle Richmond has a change of heart and joins the Defenders.
The Squadron Sinister were the evil pastiches of the Justice League - and thus, Nighthawk is the Batman to Hyperion's Superman. He was once just a normal guy, until the Grandmaster rewrote history to turn him into a super-athelete. Which is funny, since his real-world creation involved rewriting history, too: a fan named Richard Kyle (Richard Kyle, Kyle Richmond, get it?) tried to get a fanzine to publish a hoax article about a proto-Batman character who had appeared in some forgotten pulp magazine; the fake character's name was Nighthawk, and so Roy Thomas used that for his Marvel Batman stand-in.
Being a rather standard guy, Nighthawk uses a rather standard body. He changed his costume when he became a good guy, getting brighter colors: rather than a Williamsburg blue
costume with a black bird symbol on the chest, he now wears a navy blue suit with bright yellow gloves, boots, and chest symbol. The ridiculous cape has always been red, though. We've been seeing these pirate boots since day one, but Nighthawk has claws coming out of the backs of his hands (they're part of the gloves, like Wolverine's originally were, not something inside hm, like Wolverine's are now), so the fists are new.
Nighthawk's original evil costume had a mask that looked more strignine than accipitrine, thanks to the beak on its nose and its pointed "ear"... feathers? The heroic mask is the more traditional head sock with an exposed mouth and nose, but it's distinctly his because no one else has wings under their eyes. You read that right: Nighthawk has wings on his eyes like Captain America has wings on his ears. It's weirdly goofy, but it works.
This toy seems to be a blend of several different
versions of his costume: at no point did he ever wear these gloves with this mask and that shape chest symbol. All of them have separately been paired with that giant cape, though! It's a new mold, because no one short of Spawn could have lent him their mold. There are times when, say, Thor will be drawn with his cape doing something like this, but that's just artistic license - it seems Nighthawk's cape is meant to really look like that, jutting up off his shoulders so high. The lower edge is pointy, like Batman's, and the folds are generally meant to make it look like feathered wings. Because of the size of it, you'll have to be careful when posing the figure; he's plenty playable, but if you expect him to stand for very long, you'll need to find the right balance point.
Other than the cape, Nighthawk has no accessories - but he does include two pieces of this series' Warrior Thanos Build-A-Figure: the right arm and a sword.
Unlike Batman, Nighthawk does have at least a small amount of super power: he used alchemy to develop a serum that increased all his natural abilities, but only between dusk and dawn. And also in space. Comics are weird. And he's a weird choice to get a Marvel Legend - certainly not at the top of anybody's wishlist - but between him, Hyperion, and Speed Demon, we only need Dr. Spectrum to be able to complete the original Squadron Sinister lineup!
-- 06/09/19
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