HAWKEYE

RETURN OF MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“None can equal the marksmanship of Hawkeye, the world’s greatest sharpshooter!”

In light of the success of 2012’s Avengers film, and how it served to highlight pretty much the whole cast, Hawkeye actually managed to get his own solo book for the first time in a good while.  Written by Matt Fraction and pencilled primarily by David Aja, the series delved into Hawkeye’s more down-to-earth status compared to the rest of the Avengers, and has become quite the definitive take on him, even serving as a clear inspiration for his upcoming Disney+ live action show.  To keep the character at least a little more in line with his movie counterpart, he got a radical redesign (as far as the 616 version of the character was concerned; it wasn’t too far removed from the Ultimate version’s standard gear), which actually got a pretty quick turnaround on toy treatment.  In early 2013, it found itself getting the Legends treatment, and I’m taking a look at that particular figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkeye was released in the Rocket Raccoon Series of the Return of Marvel Legends, which was in fact one of the last assortments of that incarnation of the line.  It was quite scarce on the distribution front, and was so ill-supported by retailers that its refresh cases never went into production, meaning that Hawkeye’s swap figure, a more classic version of the character, wouldn’t get released until the Allfather Series in 2015.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Rather amusingly, I’ve actually reviewed every single piece of this figure before, though, in his defense, a number of the parts were actually new at the time.  He’s build on the Bucky Cap body, and has the novelty of being only the second re-use of it.  Subsequent Hawkeye’s have followed suit, which makes sense.  His harness came from Commander Rogers, and his belt came from US Agent, although I’ve looked at both via their many other releases since.  New to this figure were the head and quiver.  The head would eventually be re-used as Yellow Daredevil’s unmasked head.  It works better for Clint than it did Matt, and actually does an okay job of merging Aja’s very distinct Clint Barton design with something more in line with the rest of the line.  At least it’s not too Hasbro-face-y.  The quiver was a re-working of the movie version, but was tweaked to actually give him arrows, and wound up being re-used on the Allfather version (as was intended when he was just a swap as well).  All in all, it’s not a bad set-up, and clearly there were a lot of worthwhile parts here.  In terms of paint, this figure’s not bad.  He definitely emulates the “house style” version of this Hawkeye suit, more so that Aja’s design specifically, since there’s a more involved design on the chest, and more purple on the boots.  It still works pretty well for capturing the feel, though.  Hawkeye was packed with his bow, which was re-used from the movie release, and would continue to see use later in the line as well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I never once saw a single figure from this set at retail.  I don’t know that I would have bought this one if I’d seen him at the time, since I still wasn’t back into Legends, and I probably would have been waiting for the variant anyway.  That said, I do like a good Hawkeye no matter what, and when this one got traded into All Time a few months ago, it was hard to say no.  It’s funny reviewing something I’ve reviewed all of the parts of beforehand, but they do really mesh well here.  He’s quite a nice figure, and still holds up very well.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.