Hawkeye

Bro. Seriously. Seriously, bro. Are you seeing this, bro? Look at it! Is Hawkguy, bro! None can equal the marksmanship of Hawkeye, the world's greatest sharpshooter! I... huh. Well, we've got to admit, that bio actually says something about the character, and tells you who he is. Kind of. Granted, it can't compare to the utter WALL of text printed on the back of the first Marvel Legends Hawkeye (which was also the last Marvel Legends Hawkeye). But next to the useless blatherskite we've suffered through for the past few series, having 1) the character's name and 2) his skill set included in the bio blurb is like getting the frigging Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe at this point. Hasbro's gotten real lazy about the copy on their cards, we're saying. This figure does not depict Hawkeye in his traditional costume (any of his traditional costumes), but rather his current, gosh-wasn't-Hawkeye-cool-in-the-movie costume. The face even looks like Jeremy Renner! We've had a toy showing Clint Barton's bare face before, so shouldn't this one have at least a little similarity to that? The new design isn't very impressive, all things considered: there's nothing that says "superhero costume." He doesn't even have an Avengers belt buckle or anything! He's wearing purple sunglasses, a black short-sleeved shirt with a purple chevron on the chest, black gloves (with the protective bits on the wrong side of the arm), black pants, and black boots with purple shapes on the front. This outfit could just as easily say "I want to look like an aloof badass at the Olympic tryouts" as "I'm here to save you from Stilt-Man." Even Ultimate Hawkeye had a better costume than this (this one, not this one)! Hawkeye is built using the Bucky Cap body introduced in ML2, which is a decent choice for him - he's more muscular than any human would be, but he's not as huge as the chemically enhanced Steve Rogers. His belt is the same one USAgent wore, but he also gets a new harness to wear around his shoulders. His hands and feet are shared with the Archangel nobody could ever find, and all his costume details are just painted on. As per usual, the figure's articulation is very good. He can get into a decent archery pose, which we've talked about so many times now (usually in the context of Mattel doing it wrong) that we're sure you know what it entails: bow arm held straight, drawing arm bent all the way up to the face. It would be better if the hinge joint in his left hand was angled thumb-to-pinky rather than palm-to-back, so you could get the bow perpendicular to the ground without having to bend the elbow, but that would require a new mold. Manage those expectations, bro. Marvel Legends Hawkeye comes with the same bow that Avengers Hawkeye came with, which is okay but not ideal. Jeremy Renner is a lefty, and so that's now he shot his bow; Clint Barton has probably practiced to the point where he's functionally ambidextrous, but he's naturally a righty. Now he's using a left-handed bow, which means the arrow rest is on the wrong side and the offset of the grip pushes the whole thing out of his hand, so it doesn't look like he's holding it securely. His other accessory shows that unlike Mattel, Hasbro isn't too proud to fix its mistakes. It's the same quiver movie Hawkeye came with, with a metallic purple paint app around the top edge. But more importantly, it has arrows in it! Everybody's complaint about the movie toy's quiver was that it was empty - this one definitely corrects that! There are 16 arrows sculpted sticking out the top. They're not removable, obviously, but just having them up there is a big improvement. Hawkeye doesn't come with a piece of the Series 5 mini Build-A-Figure, Rocket Racoon, but he doesn't really need one - this figure is cool enough to sell on its own without the help. There's allegedly a variant coming, featuring... well, it's similar to his comic costume, but not an exact match. And given Hasbro's track record, it's also not going to come out, so you might as well forget it was ever shown off. Plus, thanks to the use of add-on pieces rather than a sculpted body, the ML7 Hawkeye is still a better representation. This version though, in his modern costume, is unlike any Hawkeye released before, and a nice representation of Clint as he's seen in his current, highly awesome solo series. -- 09/30/13

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