It’s a Marvel Monday triple-play today with a look at one of the fairly recent Marvel Universe 3-packs. Since I spent this past weekend reading Moon Knight’s exploits on the West Coast, I thought it would be timely to check out this West Coast Avengers set. It contains Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and War Machine. It seems like they could have come up with someone other than Hawkeye, someone more West Coast Avengers exclusive, but given he’s the main reason I bought this set, I won’t complain too much.

If you’ve seen any of the previous multi-packs, you should know exactly what to expect here in terms of packaging. It’s the same style of window box we saw with the Fantastic Four and the Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s some nice character artwork and the figures come spread out on a tray in various action poses. The package is quite collector friendly, if you’re inclined to keep it for storage or display. Let’s start off with Hawkeye…

Hawkeye’s been available twice before in the Marvel Universe line: Originally in a Secret Wars comic pack and again as Dark Avengers Hawkeye, which was really Bullseye in costume. Ok, I guess technically that’s only once. This version is a slight repaint of the Secret Wars release with some resculpting to the arms. He’s a pretty complex figure for the MU line in that he includes a harness and tunic sort of thing over the regular MU buck and a removable quiver of arrows that slings over his shoulder. I like the head sculpt well enough, although it is a tad soft. There’s some slop around the face, but otherwise the paintwork is nice and clean, presenting him in his iconic purple and blue deco. All in all, this is a solid representation of comic Hawkeye in figure form and I’m pretty pleased to finally have a comic accurate Hawkeye on my shelf.  In addition to the quiver, you also get a bow and arrow.

Because Hawkeye is based off an older figure, there’s a little less articulation than what we’re seeing now. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and the elbows are hinged. The legs feature double hinges in the knees, swivels above the boots, and hinges in the ankles. There’s also a ball joint in the torso. It’s not a bad degree of poseability, although it’s frustrating that you can’t really get his arms down.

Next up is Mockingbird and she is not a bad pick up for the MU roster. She uses a very standard female buck, so she does feel a little dated. The only original sculpting on the body is in the tops of her boots. Still, Hasbro makes up for that with a really great head sculpt. Her mask looks terrific and her long hair is sculpted to fall both in front of and behind her shoulders, and doesn’t inhibit her neck movement too badly. Her costume is painted on with a simple black and white deco. There’s a little bit of slop along the lines. It’s definitely not the cleanest paint job in my MU collection, but I’ve seen a lot worse… I’m looking at you Ms. Marvel!  She comes with her fighting stick, which can separate into two and I’m pretty sure it’s just a repaint of the weapon that came with Daredevil.

Mockingbird features the older style female MU articulation, which means no swivels in the biceps or thighs. You do get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, and hips. The arms have hinges in the elbows and swivels in the wrists. The legs have double-hinges in the knees and hinges and swivels in the ankles. She can swivel at the waist and has an additional ball joint just under her chest. Honestly, the dated articulation bothers me the most on this figure because I’d like my Mockingbird to be able to pull off some cooler moves than she’s capable of.

And last up is War Machine. I’ve saved him for last because he is a straight repaint of the Iron Man 2 figure, which I have in my collection and featured waaaay back in March last year. Hey, I’m not complaining, because this is a great sculpt and I adore this new paint job. Rhodes is done up in his black and white deco and holy crap it looks awesome. The black has a subtle metallic finish and the white parts are a beautiful pearlescent white. I’m not big on double-dipping on repaints, but this one was well worth it… he’s gorgeous! War Machine comes with the same two effects parts as the Iron Man 2 release, which fit over his weapons to simulate firing. As is often the case with MU effects parts, I can take them or leave them. I’ll concede, however, that these are better than the usual translucent blob that goes over the hands or that terrible energy funnel that has come with most of the Iron Man figures.

War Machine features ball joints in the neck, shoulders, elbows, and hips. His wrists have hinges, but there’s no bicep swivels. The legs have double hinges in the knees and swivels and hinges in the ankles. There’s some kind of ball joint or swivel in the torso, but it barely moves. In addition to the regular articulation, War Machine’s shoulder weapons are hinged to angle onto his back and his shoulder armor pieces are hinged to allow for greater arm movement.

Yes, this set features some classic double-dipping and the figures feel rather dated compared to the current MU single carded offerings. But these sets are all about value so a lot of this is to be expected. I got mine for $20 and that’s not bad for three MU figures these days. Both Hawkeye and Mockingbird fill some holes on my MU shelves and the War Machine repaint is just bad ass enough to have warranted a purchase, even if he was alone. Granted, if you already own Secret Wars Hawkeye, this set might give you pause, but even then it’s probably worth it if you can get it for an Andy Jack. It’s definitely the most accessable and least expensive among the current crop of these multi-packs. I’m still hunting for the others at a more reasonable price than what I’m seeing.