If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would one day be desperately searching for a Hawkeye figure I would have laughed at you.
If you had told me a couple of years ago that I would one day be desperately searching for a Jeremy Renner figure I would have laughed at you. And then asked who the heck Jeremy Renner is.
But now I’ve seen Jeremy Renner do an awesome job playing Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye as a total badass in Avengers and I not only like the character but also the actor. Enough so that I’m going to check out the new Bourne movie whenever I can, and I’ve never watched any of those.
I know, I know. Everybody loves the Bourne movies. I just can’t find it within myself to buy Matt Damon as any kind of action hero.
So anyway, Avengers was great (and the sky is blue and the grass is green and baby pandas are cute) and I definitely needed a Hawkeye to go along with the Nick Fury, Iron Man, and Captain America I already had as well as the Hulk and Loki I was hoping to find. You might notice the lack of Black Widow. It looks like Hasbro isn’t making a Black Widow figure in this scale. I guess because girls are stupid? I dunno. They’re also not doing Agent Coulson, which I think borders on being a federal crime.
Anyway, I lucked out and came across Hulk, Loki, and Hawkeye the other day so my team is as complete as it can currently get.
First Glance: That is a spot-on likeness of Renner. And for some reason this costume looks tons better than Captain America’s.
Sculpt: Hawkeye is a one hundred percent new sculpt.
I just had to ask a co-worker about bows. I don’t know anything about how to shoot an arrow. It turns out Hawkeye must be a southpaw because his arm gear is set up so that he holds the bow with his right hand and draws with his left. He has the wrist guard thing to keep the bowstring from tearing the skin off his arm on the right forearm and he has the little protective glove on the left. Also, his wrists are articulated differently to facilitate handling the bow. His right swivels with an up and down pivot and his left swivels with a left to right pivot. This is some pretty amazing attention to detail, particularly considering that the figure can’t really draw the bow.
Okay, so for the rest of the articulation Hawkeye has ball joints at the neck, shoulders, abdomen, and hips. There are swivels at the biceps and thighs. The elbows and knees are all double jointed pivots. Hawkeye’s ankles are this weird new joint that Hasbro has been using at this scale. It’s a pivot with a sort of odd swivel at the foot. The connection point is kind of angled so that the foot turns in an odd fashion. I can’t wrap my head around this one, as it doesn’t move quite like a real foot and seems like an odd way of doing it. Bit it’s still better than just a pivoting ankle, so I’ll take it.
All in all the articulation works very well and the figure can be posed just about any way you might want. The abdominal articulation mostly makes up for the lack of a waist swivel and in my opinion looks better anyway. It’s definitely an improvement over a pivot.
The actual sculpt of this figure is as good as it could be. The head is easily the best likeness of this scale of movie figures. Even with the sunglasses it is instantly recognizable as Renner. Even the hair has that salon-fresh gelled look.
The costume is accurate to what was in the movie. It has all the various textures that make movie costumes so much more interesting to look at than their comic book counterparts. There are zippers and buckles and stuff to break up the design, as well as a sculpted-on belt at the waist. Everything is very even and well-placed and sculpted around the articulation. I’ve said before that aesthetics are more important for figures based on live action than ones based on drawings and I think Hasbro are the masters of maintaining this balance.
The harness for Hawkeye’s quiver is a separate piece made of softer plastic. It doesn’t come off, but I do like that it isn’t just built into the figure. It adds a little more depth and realism. The quiver plugs through a hole in the harness into a hole in the figure’s back, so everything stays in place very well.
Design: I’d be very curious to see the difference in paint application processes between Hasbro and Mattel.
Hawkeye’s paint job is as close to perfect as you’re going to get on an action figure, which is pretty much the standard for Hasbro at this scale. Just so I don’t come off like I’m kissing Hasbro’s collective rears too much, I will point out that they fail regularly in the smaller scale.
The head is a gimmie, as all that was required was color for the hair and black for the shades, but it is done well. No blotches or anything. The costume is a different story, with a couple of different colors present and some zippers and whatnot to detail. Everything is in its proper place and it all comes together to give the figure a very real look while still clearly being a superhero. This is really more to the credit of the costume designers on the movie than anything Hasbro did, but the toy company did capture the colors and design perfectly.
Accessories: Hawkeye comes with a bow, his quiver, and a stand.
The bow is sculpted very nicely out of a plastic that holds the shape but isn’t too rigid to be used a little bit. It’s all black plastic with no painted detail. I might have liked at least a couple of different glosses of black on it or maybe a gunmetal in some places. I also have to give Mattel credit for coming up with a much better bow design – the one with their Red Arrow figure from the Young Justice line has a loop at each end rather than a sculpted-on string so that you can string it with fishing line (or whatever).
The quiver is also a flat black cast in the same plastic. The little tines on top where the arrows come out are a bit bent on mine. There also just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of detail. Then again, all I remember from the movie was the close up where they showed the mechanism that placed the heads on Hawkeye’s arrows and they couldn’t very well have done that on a toy this size. This quiver might be as accurate as it could be for the scale. Again, I wouldn’t have minded just a little bit of variety in the colors.
I’m a little disappointed that Hawkeye doesn’t come with any arrows, but at the same time it’s not like you could really do anything with them. They wouldn’t fit in the quiver and the figure can’t really draw the bow. But still, Mattel threw several arrows in with a couple of their archers. I have to give them the edge there.
The stand is a new one made specifically for the Avengers movie figures. I don’t particularly care for stands, but this is a neat one. It has a couple of pegs and the teeth on the sides allow you to connect as many of the stands together as you like. The Avengers “A” is painted on the top. It’s a cool design, but I still won’t be using these.
Packaging: Just your basic blister card with the edges of the bubble taped to the back. The ones for the Avengers toys are a bit more eye-catching than the previous movie toys because each one features the character within.
Overall: This is about as good as you could expect Hawkeye to be at this scale.
The lack of arrows is only mildly disappointing and while the bow doesn’t give the appearance of functionality that some other figures’ bows might; it does still look good. Other than that this figure is nigh perfection.
4 out of 5
Hawkeye is a darn good figure and certainly one that should be sought out. You need him in your Avengers team.
-Phantom
