Tag Archives: Hawkman

#3210: Hawkman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

HAWKMAN

BLACK ADAM (SPIN MASTER)

Despite both of their backstories heavily involving ancient Egypt, Hawkman and Black Adam haven’t had a ton of interacting over the years.  They were both present on the JSA for a bit, but otherwise, they kind of get steered clear of each other.  All that said, the fact that the do both have that ancient Egypt thing going (and despite the fact that the vagueness of “ancient Egypt” could very well place the two of them hundreds of years displaced from each other in the timeline) does make it *seem* like they should be a little bit related.  So, I guess it’s not an incredible surprise that Hawkman is one one of the JSA members joining Black Adam for his cinematic debut, portrayed in the film by actor Aldis Hodge.  As with the rest of the JSA team, he got toy treatment, and I’m looking at his figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkman is another part of the first assortment of basic figures from Spin Master’s Black Adam line.  He’s available both as a single and packed alongside Black Adam with the big jet thing.  It appears the two figures are identical between the two releases.  The figure stands a little over 3 3/4 inches tall and has 17 points of articulation.  Of the three I’ve grabbed from this line, Hawkman’s definitely the most restricted on the articulation front.  He gets the new style of hips, which I’m still iffy on, and his shoulders also wind up being rather restricted by the armor.  I was also a little bummed to discover that the way that the wings peg into place doesn’t allow them to be posed in any way, but they are at the very least two separate pieces.  Hawkman’s sculpt is a unique one, based on his design.  Like yesterday’s Atom Smasher figure, he’s closer to the source material than the earlier Dr. Fate figure, due again to Hawkman’s costume appearing to be largely practical.  The design’s not a bad one, checking off most of the basic Hawkman requirements.  The chest armor’s something we’ve seen crop up on every live action Hawkman, so it’s hardly a shock here.  The only thing I’m not really into is the red pants, which just feel too far removed from his classic green ones.  That said, it’s a pretty minor thing, really.  The sculpt on this guy is alright.  Probably the weakest of the three I’ve looked at.  The details feel just a little bit softer this time around, and the helmet winds up looking a touch too goony.  He also just looks really scrawny compared to the others.  Aldis Hodge isn’t a huge guy, but I also don’t feel like he’s quite this small in the role.  The figure’s paint work is generally pretty basic.  Nothing too crazy, just standard color work for the most part.  It’s all fairly clean.  The eyes again fall into that goony territory, but it’s not awful.  Hawkman is packed with his usual mace, in silver, as well as axe, in gold.  Both are just pretty standard issue, which is fine by me, even if I do low-key kind of miss the goofier accessories like we saw with Atom Smasher.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Fate and Atom Smasher are the only two from this line that I felt like I definitely had to have.  Hawkman’s fine and all, but I didn’t feel like I *needed* him.  When Max found me Atom Smasher, he also found this guy, and given the price point, it didn’t really make much sense to skip him.  He’s my least favorite of the three, but that doesn’t mean he’s bad.  In fact, I do kinda dig him.  And now I feel like I kinda have to buy the other two, just to round out the set.

#2721: Hawkman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , ,

HAWKMAN

FIRST APPEARANCE (DC DIRECT)

“Archaeologist Carter Hall discovered that he was the reincarnation of ancient Egyptian Prince Khufu in 1940’s Flash Comics #1!Using an experimental antigravity metal, Hall took flight as Hawkman!”

In the Golden Age, comic books were still very much periodicals in the vain of the pulp magazines that inspired them, with multiple features in each book.  For the most part, the earliest appearances of the heavy hitters only got one notable stand out per book; no one’s really talking much about the characters that were backing up Superman and Batman in Action and Detective.  However, there were a few instances, especially as they get into that slightly lower tier selection, where multiple characters might share their first appearance.  For instance, while Jay Garrick’s The Flash headlined the first issue of Flash Comics, also debuting in that same issue was fellow JSA member, Hawkman, who I’m taking a look at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkman was part of the second series of DC Direct’s First Appearance line.  We’d gotten just one Hawkman from DCD previously at this point, and he was specifically the Silver Age version of the character (albeit one that happened to included a second, Golden Age-inspired helmet), as had all prior versions of the character in toy form.  The figure is approximately 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 13 points of articulation.  Like Alan, he got to keep those extra wrist joints that the Series 1 figures had been lacking, plus he had the extra added joints of the wings.  Hawkman’s sculpt was technically all-new to him, though I’ve actually looked at a lot of it previously, when it was re-used for the ReActivated! Hawkman.  Of course, that being a review from my first month of reviewing, I didn’t actually, you know, really review it.  It’s a rather nice sculpt. It’s got nice, balanced proportions, and does a respectable job of capturing Dennis Neville’s illustrations of the character from the interiors.  The head and wings are the notable changes between the two releases of the mold.  This one’s been designed to include a removable helmet, which is quite nicely handled.  Both the helmet and the underlying head work well together, with neither being too oddly scaled.  Additionally, the wings on this version are designed for more easy removal, and to also more resemble the original intent, where they were more of a glider set-up.  As such, they’re a little flatter, lack the more overt feather detailing, and have a connection via pegs, rather than the ball joint set-up of later figures.  It’s not going to be getting many killer poses or anything, but it does mean you can have a much more dressed down Carter Hall.  Following in Flash’s footsteps from the first series, Hawkman is the one figure in his set that doesn’t feature any cloth parts, mostly because, exactly what would you use them for?  He’s not exactly overly clothed.  Hawkman’s paint work is bright, colorful, and clean, and he’s got some nice variation, especially on the yellows and reds, which have two differing sheens, depending on where they are.  Hawkman’s definitely the best accessorized of the line up to this point, with the previously mentioned removable helmet and wings, as well as a dagger, shield, stand, and reprint of his portion of Flash Comics #1.  Compared to the others, his assortment definitely feels more all-inclusive.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

At this point in my collecting, my dad and I were still kind of sharing a DC Direct collection, so we’d usually split any given assortment of figures.  When Series 2 was released, we got a full set, but Hawkman wasn’t one of the two I got out of that.  I wound up getting one of my own later down the line, under the same circumstances as the Flash figure I looked at earlier this month.  I actually do quite like this figure, even if Hawkman himself has never really been one of my favorites.

#2658: Hawkman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

HAWKMAN

SUPER POWERS (KENNER)

“Hawkman’s wings enable him to fly and his belt enables him to defy gravity.  He uses weapons of the past from the museum he curates, matched with futuristic weapons, and criminology from his home planet, Thanagar.”

Oh man, I haven’t written a review about Hawkman since #0029.  Not only is that from the site’s first month, but it was also the review where I instituted my old randomized list I used to pull from.  Man, I used to talk about that thing all the time!  What a crazy trip down memory lane.  Well, it’s fitting that I’m doing this whole trip down memory lane, because I’m also doing that in a greater sense with the contents of today’s review.  Yes, I’m taking a look at another Super Powers figure today, specifically the aforementioned Hawkman.  Like last week’s GL, he was a character left out of Mego’s treatment for DC Superheroes, and was therefore making his debut in action figure form courtesy of this line.  And I’m looking at that figure today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkman was released in the first series of Super Powers in 1984.  As I touched on in my GL review, the line-up for that first series was very much inspired by Challenge of the Super Friends, and Hawkman’s inclusion here really goes along with that, given he was probably the most obscure character in the first assortment.  He’s the tallest figure in the original line-up, at 4 3/4 inches tall, and he’s got 8 workable points of articulation (the wings technically have two joints each, but on each of them one of those joints is explicitly tied into the action feature).  In addition to height, Katar also was just generally bigger in size than the rest of the Justice Leaguers from the first set.  It’s pretty fitting, since he tended to be drawn as a little bit bigger, and it helped to sell him as a little more alien.  It also gave a nice variety of height and build to the male members of the Justice League right out of the gate.  Super Powers‘ handling of uniqueness of build has always been one of my favorite aspects of the line, and it’s ultimately why I feel it holds up as the quintessential DC line, even in light of lines with deeper character selections.  The detail work on Hawkman is really pretty great, with the best work being on his mask and wings, both of which get some great texture work.  His wings are also large enough to not look too dinky, while also being small enough that he doesn’t have major issues with stability, which is something later Hawkman figures would struggle with.  The paint work on Hawkman was, like the rest of the line, very clean, very bold, and very bright, all of which are good things.  Mine’s taken a little bit of beating on the front of the nose, and has a little bit of discoloration on the torso, but has for the most part held up well.  Hawkman was packed with his mace, and also featured “Power Action Flight Wings.”  When you squeeze his legs, his wings flap.  Not a bad feature at all.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Hawkman’s one of the earliest when it comes to my Super Powers collecting.  I got him for Christmas, I want to say in 2000, which would have made him I think my third or fourth Super Powers figure.  It was the year prior to GL and Manhunter, I know that for sure.  I had my Total Justice Hawkman at the time, and he wasn’t really doing it for me as a classic Hawkman, so my Dad found a small little lot of figures, which included him, and gave him to me that year.  He’s a good one.  Kind of an odd one for me to have so early on in retrospect, but a good one nevertheless, and certainly high on the list for the character’s figures.

#0029: Hawkman

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

HAWKMAN

DC REACTIVATED (DC DIRECT)

Okay, so today’s review marks a slight change in the format of the blog.  Up until now, I’ve been actually picking the figures I review, with a little bit of purpose, plus a slight bit of alphabetizing , with the occasional review of a figure I just got.  Well, here’s the thing:  That’s a lot of work.  And I’m lazy.  So, from here out, I’ve created a randomized list of all the stuff currently in my collection that I’ll be working from, with possibly a few deviations.  New stuff will still be filtered in when I get it, as that makes life easier.

On to today’s review!  We’re looking at Hawkman from DC Direct’s Reactivated! line.  This was a line where DC Direct would reuse older tooling with a few new pieces in order to create various classically styled versions of the characters.  The line was pretty well done, though it had the ability to be a bit hit and miss.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hawkman was part of the fourth series of the Reactivated! line.  He’s depicted here in the costume his Earth 2 version* wore during the many Justice League /Justice Society team-ups of the 60s and 70s.  It’s pretty much just his basic costume, but instead of a helmet that resembled a hawk, he had a generic yellow cowl.  At least it had a hawk symbol on the forehead, I guess.  It’s far from his most memorable look, but it was a look he had for a good chunk of time.  Anyway, that’s the look this figure’s based on.  He stands about 6 ½ inches tall, which puts him in scale with some of DC Direct’s other lines.  (They weren’t really good at picking a consistent scale and sticking to it).  He’s got 13 points of articulation, and a basic translucent blue stand with the Reactivated! logo on it.  His sculpting is solid, with good proportions all around, and the paint is nice and clean.  The wings are nicely textured, and have a nice wash over them to bring out the details in the sculpt.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got this figure because I wanted a Hawkman for my JSA, and I was always really liked the old team-ups that this look was featured in.  That’s pretty much it.

*In the sixties, DC comics decided to relaunch a number of their characters, such as Green Lantern, Flash, and Hawkman with new takes on the characters.  When they decided to bring back the original versions of those characters, as well as explain why characters like Batman and Superman could be in their 30s in both the 40s and the 60s, DC decided to come up with the concept of the multiverse. They dubbed the main earth “Earth 1” and the older earth “Earth 2.”  This concept allowed them to tell stories on both earths without having to infringe upon the validity of the other.