MARVEL’S BLACK KNIGHT

MARVEL UNIVERSE

For quite some time, I’ve felt that The Avengers was the greatest super hero team ever. Well before the team became a big hit with their recent movie, I was desperately seeking out the random trickles of Avengers characters amongst ToyBiz’s many 5 inch Marvel lines. I know lots of people don’t care for it, but Avengers: United They Stand excited me to no end because its toyline gave me access to figure versions of Falcon, Tigra, Wonderman, Vison, and Kang. Those slightly lower tier characters are what make the Avengers for me. Sure, Cap is still essential, and Iron Man and Thor are both important too (Hulk, on the other hand, really isn’t. Until recently, his status as an Avenger consisted of 3 issues. Out of 500.), but for me the Avengers were Scarlet Witch, Vision, Hawkeye, and the like. So, for quite some time, I’ve been doing my best to find the best collection of all those lesser known Avengers in one scale. Hasbro seems to be finally delivering on that, with their pretty decent roster of Avengers from their Marvel Universe line. The line has recently “ended” and was rebranded under an Avengers name, which I’m totally cool with. Before MU ended, they got out one last series of new figures, which featured today’s figure, Black Knight, one of those lesser known Avengers I discussed. For more info on him, go here.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Black Knight was released as part of the final series of Marvel Universe. He’s based on the Dane Whitman version of Black Knight, and is depicted in Dane’s first costume. The figure stands about 3 ¾ inches tall and has 20 points of articulation. He’s built on the medium sized male buck, which I believe first appeared on Captain Marvel, a few years ago. It’s one of Hasbro’s better pieces, so I’m not gonna complain, though I do wish the arms went down a bit further. He features a new head and hands, plus add-ons for the belt/scabbard and cape. He also reuses the “pirate boot” feet previously seen on several versions of Hawkeye. The new pieces look pretty good, especially the head, which seems pretty spot on to the classic Black Knight look. The paint work is pretty much the usual faire for a Hasbro release. Not perfect, but there’s no really noticeable instances of slop or bleed over, which is nice. Dane’s one accessory is his Ebony sword. It’s made of very soft plastic, so it comes out of the package pretty bent. It’s also a grayish-silver, which is odd, what with it being an EBONY sword and all. Oh well, guess the figure doesn’t have to be perfect, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like so many figures these days, I purchased Black Knight from Amazon. I’m very happy to have the figure because it’s the Black Knight figure I’ve wanted since I was a kid. Previous Black Knight figures were always a bit off, so I’m really thrilled by how well it turned out!