Although not my favorite characters, I am glad these two did make it to figure form since they fit in nicely with various generations of DC characters. But there’s not a lot of complexity when it comes to the figures themselves. Both Hawk and Dove are using the basic male and female buck bodies with only their heads and capes being newly sculpted pieces. At first I thought Hawk’s cape might be a reuse of Azreal’s, but it actually has a slightly different shape with the individual streamers having much more definition around his collar.
I actually really like Hawk’s head sculpt. Gritting his teeth angrily, he looks ready to throw down at any second with anyone. Dove’s head sculpt is appropriately calm looking. I like the detail they gave to her hair and ponytail, but her head seems a bit too small overall. But that might just be the thick collar of her cape.
The designs of both figures’ costumes are done entirely with paint jobs. Hawk’s is the more detailed figure. The white areas of his costume are actually a light gray, with a darker wash given to emphasize the muscle details. Unfortunately, I had some issues with red flecks of paint on his face. Dove’s face turned out fine, but has some gray flecks on them. Also, the whites of her costume tend to fade at the edges instead of being a crisp line.
Both figures have the basic DC Classics articulation which we’re all familiar with. There were a couple of issues though. Neither figure could look upwards very well. Surprisingly Dove could do it a bit better than Hawk though, even with her ponytail. The only other issue I had was that Dove’s right hip won’t move straight out to the side. Hopefully this isn’t something that was prevalent in all Dove figures.
Both are very basic figures. Neither comes with an accessory, just the Nekron pieces. If you’re a Hawk and Dove fan, you should be pretty happy with these two figures. Even if you’re not, they’re still a decent addition to a DCU shelf since they’re in their pre-nU costumes.
-Vault
Always liked how these two characters were portrayed in the JLU cartoon. The comic continuity recap on the 1st page was really something, though. Terrible, absolutely convoluted stuff driven by an obsessive need to have things line up, instead of a need to simply tell good stories.
Great pictures, BTW, I’m always impressed with how well you guys do images of white-dominant, semi-glossy action figures.
Thanks Zulu. It’s taken three years of trial and error, but I think I’m finally getting this picture taking thing down. 🙂
Wow I can’t believe all that back story. I’m glad I didn’t know that before haha. The JLU versions were much simpler and straightforward.
And he didn’t even get into Holly Granger…
It was a bit difficult to condense all that convolution into a single bite. I didn’t want to take it further off track by getting into Holly Granger.
Yeah, JLU did a great job of bringing them back to their essentials.
To make that last panel even more Liefeld-esque, just crop the feet out of the picture.
Oh, and thanks for a great review!
Lol, thanks Tony
The last picture is a hoot. Two things though are needed to make it Liefeld accurate. 1) Remove the wrist bend and ankles. 2) He must be staring straight at the reader, no head turn EVER!
Have you ever heard of the Rob Liefeld drinking game? What you do is get a bottle of liquor and a Rob Liefeld comic. Start reading the comic, and take a shot every time you see a muscle group that doesn’t exist in real life. No one’s ever made it past the first page.
Nice! I’d have to be half in the bag to even start looking at a Liefeld book…
Why couldn’t they have given us Don? They could have done either Don or Dawn as a varient, then spared us from WL Super… er… Flash. He’s one of the only figs I’ve had who went directly into the storage bin, besides a few Bats and Hal versions.
yeah, there were at least six things wrong with this wave, and not making the Flashes variants for one slot was the first. Many would have appreciated a Don variant for the Dove slot, even tho he wasn’t part of Brightest Day theme (his grave *refusing* the call of the Black Lanterns WAS a plot point in Blackest Night, tho!!)
Yeah, a Don variant would have been a better choice than that useless Flash.
LOL, poor Liefeld. I didn’t know he sank to drinking game status.
Hawk and Dove were the 2 characters I was super excited for in wave 20..before I stopped collecting the line but seeing these pics makes me wish I still had some dcuc so I could buy these guys!
Great job as usual Vault!
Thanks Doc. I bet if you look hard enough you’ll find this wave on clearance eventually. 🙂
I feel like I probably would have broken down and picked these up if it had been the Don Hall version of Dove.
It would have been neat to see that. But I think they’d have to use a teen body, and unfortunately I doubt the budget was there for a new head sculpt.
My experience with Hawk and Dove come from the DC Versus TCG. This duo was an awesome pair in my Teen Titans deck. Other than that, I didn’t know anything about them so thank you for the re-cap.
I laughed at that final picture.
Thanks Bigbot. Glad to help with the recap, even if it was a bit convoluted.
“Nekron Week” is turning into “Convoluted Character History Week”. That’ll all go away when you guys get to Green Arrow, right?
; )
lol, actually GA turned out pretty well. It probably helps that I focused more on the figure than the character. 😛
I’m actually a little curious after the crazy recap – where was the story of Hector being conceived told and where does Holli fit in?
I’m aware of the Lyta/Hector story in JSA, but not of how it got there.
Great review of solid, if slightly dull, figures.
Jo
I don’t know about the Dawn/Hector bit, I just remember a “woman” being in the hospital and giving birth, but it wasn’t revealed who she was that I recall. Of course, Hector later joined his wife Lyta in Morpheus’ realm for no reason other than Geoff was leaving JSA wouldn’t let anyone else play with his toys. @_@
By “Holli”, do you mean Dawn’s never-before-mentioned-sister-who-became-Hawk? Yeah, Liefeld did a Teen Titans two parter introducing her, which I intentionally skipped (just like his now cancelled DCnU52 H&D series), so basically she pops up out of nowhere and assumes Hank’s mantle.
Yeah, it was around that same time in JSA. They used the excuse of Mordru’s magic was keeping her hidden.
It didn’t really make sense at the time either…
Can you tell us where you got those great flight stands?
Those look like FIGMA flight stands, but I may be wrong.
Actually, they could be Figuarts stands. They kind of look like the one that came with my Monkey D. Luffy figure.
The base is a figma stand, I can only assume the arm is as well.
You’re all right!
The bases and arms are Figma stands. The clip holding Dove is from Figma Append Miku, while the clip holding Hawk is from Figuarts Skyrider.
Good eye guys.
Great review! What a crazy back story for these two. Also, it’s good to know that Hawk’s cape won’t work for Azrael. I had planned on picking him up just for this reason.
Thanks. It really surprised me they were different pieces.
So I’m the only one who’s followed these two since forever? 🙁
I think my only complaints are the whites are too grey and look dingy, and Dove’s cape needs to be longer.
And I still think they could have given these two variants, in Kestrel for Hawk (same figure, just purple/black) and “Light Dove” (yellow instead of blue), but I had to buy extras and break out the paints for these two. Doing “Chaos Beast Hawk” is a lot harder. the recent ML Loki has a nice furry “shawl” I can use, but CBH also has loose hair on his head. :/
I always wanted DCD to do a 3pk or a Titans wave with these two (with those variants! or at least Kestrel), but they never did until both Brightest Day waves were announced at roughly the same time by DC and Mattel. D’OH! Now I’m trying to think who a decent buck for Don would be? (w3 Sinestro?)
btw, I made a custom DCTAS Dawn from a BTAS Batgirl and I think I finished that BTAS Hawk…? (I still have her, not sure about him?) both of those were before JL(U) hit, and when we got H&Don then, I immediately bought a second set to custom Kestrel. LOL!
No clue who the new villain pair running around in the DCnU52 series was. He looked like Kestrel and she had the yellow “Light Dove” costume. I saw in blurbs that they were both named but neither was “Kestrel” (I think she was Sparrow??), and it looked like Rob changed Hank’s white to grey?? gah.
oh yeah, is that Azrael from the Batgirl 2pk? I saw that ONCE, and passed it up, thinking I would see it again later. NOPE!
Wow, sounds like you’ve been waiting for these two for a long time, Brain.
It’s technically the first release of Azreal from the DC Superheroes line, but I don’t think the two pack one is any different.
I definitely wouldn’t have minded seeing a variant Kestrel figure. Especially since he’s so easy to do once Hawk is done.
I agree on the colors and Dove’s cape.
I’d also have bought variants if they were Holly and Don. Mattel could have doubled their Hawk and Dove dollar.
YES to Don, HELL NO!! to Holly. That came out of nowhere (aka Liefeld’s ass) and was a worse idea than the short-lived Grunge Dude Dove/Military School She-Hawk in the 90s. Did those two appear anywhere outside their mini and the Titans one-shot with Gar’s Titans West membership drive?
That mini-series was awesome! That is all!
I love these figures and I have wanted them for years. I really enjoyed the Hawk and Dove mini-series that happened right after Crisis (the first one) and where they were college students in DC and fighting Kestrel. I never read their ongoing series and I’m glad I didn’t because it probably would have ruined the characters for me.
Yeah, that last bit of their continuity really wasn’t necessary. Although, they were awesome in Birds of Prey.