Avengers Black Widow and Hawkeye

I don’t know about you, but when I watched The Avengers, my second favorite character after Hulk (of course) was Black Widow. After her, it was Hawkeye. Sure Toy Stark’s vicious string of barbed comments are fun, but the big three heroes felt a little less filled out as characters than the “normal” members of the team.

This is probably because Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor have all had recent hit movies under their belts so not as much exposition about them was required. Still, it felt like a Hulk/Black Widow/Hawkeye/Coulson movie to me.

Not that I’m complaining. One cannot have too much of the Son of Coul.

As I mentioned when I reviewed the Battle Hammer Thor I’m not a fan of the Avengers Movie toy line. despite how much I loved the movie. The first two waves included the big three of Marvel, plus Hulk, Loki, and several other silly alternate versions of the characters. There was a Hawkeye included, but he was based on the odd looking, 90s-ish, Ultimate Hawkeye. I passed every time I saw it on the shelf, even if I knew how popular it was.

For some reason, Hasbro decided to save Black Widow and the movie version of Hawkeye until wave 3. They’re lumped in with more variations of the previous Hulk, Iron Man, and Loki figures, as well as a pretty swell-looking Skrull, which was thankfully packed 2 per case! Black Widow (being a girl with cooties) was short packed at 1 for every 12 figures.

I was surprised that despite what looks like smaller orders for the wave 3 figures, and the short packed Widow, stocks for the two figures seemed to be fairly easy to get. They were at one of the distribution events several weeks ago, but it didn’t look like many were interested in them. Maybe, like me, they could not stand the fact that the rest of the 4” Avengers line sucked hairy gamma-irradiated balls. In any case, they showed up on the pegs again at the distribution event in Galleria two weeks back, and have been spotted at Toys ‘R’ Us branches around the metro since.

It’s a good thing too, since I really do like ‘em.

Package-wise, the line isn’t anything to get your man panties (manatees?) in a bunch about. The logo is small, as is the artwork, they tried to stuff a photo in front (even though the figure is right there, in plain view, through the transparent plastic bubble), and there’s an awful lot of text about things people don’t care about.

Or at least I don’t care about.

For instance, Hawkeye’s got 3 launching arrows. Will anyone buy this toy for 3 launching arrows? Will those 3 launching arrows go anywhere but that limbo where all crappy accessories go, never to appear again? I don’t think so. It doesn’t help that I already have one of these retarded looking hammerhead “grapple launchers” from Harpoon Blade Fandral. It hasn’t gotten better in time.

The back feels just as crowded to me, and it looks as if Hasbro’s back to the boring old “here are all my accessories!” product shots. But don’t write these off just yet. They’re a mixed bag, but for a 4” collector who likes the movie, these are pretty damned good.

 

I like Black Widow the most between the two. She has the superior articulation (more on that later), though she gets lower marks for her (non) likeness to Scarlett Johansson and her poorly-fitted accessories.

This is a very nice female body, probably the best that Hasbro has put out in their Marvel 4” lines so far. I find myself hoping they’ll use this to field other leather clad female characters in the 616 universe, like Viper, or… Catwoman?

If you look closely at the face of the figure, it looks as if the likeness of the actress is actually there. The round jaw, the full lips… it’s just that they’ve caked the figure with a layer of opaque, orange-ish skin tone and red lipstick. The colors kill make her look completely different from Scarjo.

The body looks similar though.

I'm sure everyone remembers that scene. Hawkeye is the opposite of Widow. He LOOKS a lot like Jeremy Renner looks like in dark sunglasses.

Of course, having sunglasses, he kind of cheats his way out of the likeness issue, but it does make this figure a lot more enjoyable than it normally would have been. It doesn’t help that his articulation is way below par. You can basically pose him as if he’s just released an arrow… and that’s it.

Widow is really only missing a waist or torso swivel to get her to that sweet spot where all the joints come together for perfect poseability. Hawkeye is so far from that point that it’s not even worth calling him articulated. Hasbro not only dropped the waist, it dropped wrist articulation and ankles. He has that one pose and that’s it.

At least he can stand well. I’ll give him that.

But what he lacks in playability, he makes up for in detail. Just looking at this figure makes me glad I bought him. There are all sorts of doos and dads and thingamabobs that pop out at you while you’re looking it over. Not literally of course: aesthetically. He has the kind of detail I’d expect from a Marvel Select figure. Or a G.I. Joe.

I just wish he could pull an arrow to his cheek.

If you liked the Avenger movie, then these two are worth the pick-up, especially if you missed out on the Marvel Legends version of Hawkeye. You’ll need to find yourself some other Avengers to tag along for pictures though.