Ah, the 90’s. It was in that decade that I reached adulthood and I often look back on it as that asshole of a decade that was unworthy to follow the blinding greatness that was the 80’s. Still, if you asked me to give you one good thing about the 90’s, I’d undoubtedly reply with two words: “comic books!” The comics of the 90’s were wondrous, ridiculous, and full of excesses. To borrow a phrase, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times. Obviously, I mention the 90’s because our figure today is based on a character was created at the early end of that decade, and he had a pretty good run for four years and about 50 issues. Let’s check out Darkhawk!

Darkhawk shares a slot with Vance Astro as one of the Masters of the Mind. It’s a stretch, but I think they were going for Christopher Powell’s ability to use his mind to control the Darkhawk body. A little less tenuous is his link to The Guardians of the Galaxy. They hob-nobbed in the pages of War of Kings, and he’s certainly part of Cosmic Marvel. Hell, the dude even got the stamp of dis-approval from the Shi’ar and branded the “Galaxy’s Most Wanted.” With all that having been said, I largely forgot Darkhawk even existed until I encountered him in my Marvel readings a little while back. I’d like to tell you that he was a favorite of mine, but that just wasn’t the case. Amazingly, this is not Darkhawk’s first outing for Hasbro, as he got a 3 3/4-inch figure in the Marvel Universe line a little while ago. I never did find that figure on the pegs, so the Legends 6-inch will be the first version of the character in my collection.

I’m so totally in love with Darkhawk’s design and I think this figure pulls it off beautifully. The body is a generic buck with a gorgeous glossy, dark blue finish that goes perfectly with the lovely shade of silver. This is a perfect example of less being more. The two colors just compliment each other perfectly and with the exception of a little red for the chest piece and the visor, that’s all that’s needed here. Original sculpted parts include his belt, his wrist bracers, shoulders, collar, and of course his wings.

The wings consist of four separate pieces, which connect to the backs of his biceps and forearms. You could argue by designing them as separate pieces they aren’t as faithful to the comic art as they could be, but what it lacks in authenticity it makes up for by not impeding the articulation. In the end, I’m perfectly fine with the decision they went and I can’t get over how great this figure looks. The simplicity of the suit and the grace of the wings makes Darkhawk look like an art deco sculpture.

The head sculpt is as simple as the rest of the costume. There’s a reinforced mask with a crescent shaped red visor that gives him the wonderful feel of a futuristic knight. My one complaint here is that I wish the reinforced area of the mask got the same beautiful silver paint as the collar. Instead, it’s bare plastic. It still looks OK, but it could have looked even better.

As already mentioned, the articulation is  not compromised by the wings, so what we get is standard Legends pose-ability. Darkhawk’s arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and double hinged knees. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, and finally, the torso features a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge, and the neck has both a hinge and ball joint. I can’t even tell you the fun I had playing around with this guy and discovering new poses.

Other than the Titus BAF part, Darkhawk doesn’t come with any accessories. With how much I love this figure, I feel bad nit-picking, but I can’t help but think it would have been cool to do something more with his grapple hook. As it is, it’s just three bendy claw-like tendrils coming out of his arm bracer. That’s fine, but it would have been cool to enhance it a bit.

Initially, I’d say my anticipation for this figure was fairly tepid. I really enjoy getting the more obscure characters for my Legends shelf, and I always liked the look of the character, but I didn’t think he was going to be all that special or impressive when I got him in hand. Besides, it’s not like I really had any nostalgia for the character. Little did I know that once I picked him up, he’d be so hard to put down. I probably ended up shooting three times the pictures I needed for this review, just because I was having such a blast playing around with him, and I’ll be honest, when I get past all the technical stuff about sculpt and paint and all that jazz, a great figure for me is the one that I can’t stop playing with. And its there that Darkhawk succeeds triumphantly.