Friday, February 6, 2015

Out of the Box: Kotobukiya's "Marvel Now" Hawkeye

I'd been catching up on Matt Fraction's run on Marvel's Hawkeye comics recently, and while I've been enjoying the series, I hadn't considered buying any tie-in products.  But then I read Traci's posts over at A Wild Review Appears about her Kotobukiya Nightwing and Green Arrow figures, and was taken by the amount of detail on them - so I started looking at Kotobukiya's back catalogue, and somehow (*cough*) this figure ended up in my cart.

Kotobukiya's figures are non-articulated, so it would be fair to call them statues rather than action figures, although I tend to see these as slightly closer to toys than decor (although they're clearly not designed to hold up to play, as I'll talk about later).  The figures come on a with a magnetic base (and magnets in his feet), which would be brilliant on an articulated figure since it increases the display options, but on this static figure, just means that the figure is never completely secure on the stand.


The figure is 7.5"/19cm and is styled in a way that is a combination of the movie and comic versions of the character (more like the movie version, but with the purple accents from the comic).
In the box.
Interestingly, even though the full series is portrayed movie-style, the rest of the box art consists of images from the comics (and uses the comics colour scheme).
The back of the box.
The figure comes in three pieces (upper body, lower body, left arm), as does the bow.  Each arrow is also an individual piece.

Inner packaging.
The pieces of the body snap together fairly easily, but keeping the bow both together and properly in his hands proved to be more challenging than I expected. I eventually managed to fit them all together long enough to take some photos, but as soon as I moved anything they all fell apart again.

Front view.
Side view.
Back view.  A  co-worker of mine (she knows who she is)
 asked me if  the figure had the same ass as the actor, so this is for her.

If I'd stopped here, I'd have been singing the praises of the detail work on this figure - but instead I decided to try to get some backlit photos to see how the silhouette looks.  And as soon as I  moved the figure, this happened:

Arrows everywhere.  And yes, that's the drawstring down there too.

That's the bow, half broken off in his hand there.
So other features aside, this figure definitely loses points for fragility.  Still, a little glue and a few extra minutes wrestling with the bow, and I did get those  silhouetted pictures I wanted:









14 comments:

  1. Too bad it's so fragile, and non-articulated! Glad you were able to put it back together. This Hawkeye seems to draw more from comics than from the movies. So can you tell me why Iron Man's suit is black?

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    1. Heh, buut of course! The black suit is called the "War Machine" suit and is meant to be an upgraded version of one of the secondary suits. I think it actually does show up in the Iron Man movies, but not in the Avengers one.

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  2. Oh, man, what a shame! It ticks me off when stuff like that happens.

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    1. Right? I'd been so pleased up to that point and then *boom*!

      The dog had to listen to me grumbling under my breath for a good half an hour! ;)

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  3. Shame about the damage, but glad you were able to fix it. I will have to keep my eyes out for these figures next Christmas, my son is a fan of this sort of thing and likes to display them :)

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    1. Thanks!

      Fragility aside, the detail on this figure is brilliant, so I can imagine it appealing to anyone who likes to display this kind of thing. :)

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  4. Wow, I can't believe it broke so easily! The back view, lol. I really like the detail of his clothing, bow etc, though. :)

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    1. Breakage aside, it's true - can't complain about the details! :)

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  5. Wow, that sucks that it's so fragile! He's really neat otherwise.

    Also interesting that he came in pieces... hmm.

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    1. Yeah, I was surprised to see it when I opened the box.

      I think this is an earlier release than the solid-built DC characters, so maybe they've switched to making the figures solid to avoid this kind of damage? And hey, improvement is encouraging, even if it doesn't help this particular one, right?

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  6. I think I would have been more than a little "ticked off" if it had been me. After all it wasn't a child playing with it!! Perhaps a letter to the makers might be worthwhile, they may possibly replace it for you...it's worth a try.
    Hugs,
    X

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    1. That's a good point - a letter certainly can't hurt. Thanks for the idea! :)

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