A new wave of Silverhawks Ultimates are on their way to me from the Limbo Galaxy, so I better get cracking on wrapping up my look at the first wave. And yes, technically this is the second wave, with the intended first wave being the one on the way. So far I have checked out Mon-Star and Bluegrass and today I’m having a look at the first of the Steelhart Twins… Steelwill! Strap in fellas, this one is going to be a rollercoaster of a ride!

Here’s Steelwill in his package. Just like Bluegrass, you get a silver foil sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box. The packaging looks outstanding and does a great job displaying the figure and all those goodies packed inside. And now is about as good a time as any to say this is the second time I’m opening this figure because the first one’s right bicep joint snapped. Keep in mind, I already knew this was an issue so I soaked the arm in hot water worked it a bit, rinsed and repeated, working it a bit more and it still eventually snapped anyway. I contacted the retailer and they sent me off another one. I repeated the ritual, but no matter what I did, I was pretty sure it was still going to snap again, so I didn’t risk it. Between the two figures, I’m able to make things work, but it’s still absolutely unacceptable and it makes me fearful of whether the same will be the case with Quicksilver and Steelheart. It wasn’t an issue with Bluegrass, because the bicep has to be swapped out for the wing mode, and Bluegrass doesn’t have wings. Anyway, I’m tossing this out at the beginning of the review, because I’m going to have some nice things to say about this figure, but none of it makes this kind of QC issue OK.

So here’s Steelwill out of the box and I think he looks great! I discussed the paint that Super7 went with when I reviewed Bluegrass, and I’m not going to go through all that again. Suffice it to say, Super7 went for something that looked close to the cartoon appearance as opposed to the super shiny toys, and I think they nailed it perfectly. The blue finish has just a bit of sheen to it and I think it matches the animated model quite well. Keep in mind, I watched the show as a kid, but never had the toys, so this is definitely the style I was looking for. You get plenty of musculature sculpted into the body leaving no question that Steelwill is a powerhouse of a jock. His left arm is still flesh and blood with a nice warm flesh tone painted on, and he’s got metallic blue bands painted on his right bicep and right thigh. I had a few minor blemishes on my Bluegrass figure, but both of the Steelwill figures I wound up with are pretty close to immaculate, save for some paint rubbing around the joints.

You get three different heads to choose from. The first being a fairly serious expression, the second is smiling, and the final is his football-helmet masked mode. The unmasked heads really capture the character and personality very well. The sculpts are solid and the paint is very sharp and crisp. Yes, Bluegrass came with three expressive portraits and you only get two here, but Bluegrass also didn’t have a mask in the cartoon, so here the third head is used for Steelwill’s masked mode.

The masked head is pretty fun, with the face guard bar running across the center of the plate, a thin visor and face plate itself mostly featureless. There’s a wide blue stripe running down the center of the helmet with white trim on either side. I always loved this helmet and Super7 did a nice job recreating it here.

The articulation here holds nothing new. You get all the same points found on Bluegrass. I will say that I dig that the Silverhawks use a ball joint under the chest as opposed to the ab-crunch hinge they went with for the GI JOE line. It doesn’t have as much range, but it looks much cleaner and blends very well with the armor. Apart from the aforementioned bicep snap, the rest of the joints work fine. Even the bicep on my second one will turn about 90-degrees in either direction before offering resistance and I won’t force it. On the downside, because of his pronounced muscles, Steelwill’s elbows can’t quite even manage 90-degrees, and that’s a bit disappointing. You get a total of five pairs of hands, including fists, relaxed, fingers tight together, and some accessory holding hands. OK, Steelwill… LET’S WING IT!!!

The wings come on completely different arms with no articulation in the elbows and the open gun ports on the shoulder piece. The only reason to swap out the shoulder pieces is if you want to give gun ports to the articulated arms with no wings. This gives you the option of having the gun ports open in either mode. It’s a pretty minor concession that caused a big problem, but at least I can appreciate what they were trying to do. Neither of my figures had an issue with sapping out the shoulder piece on the flesh arm, so I’m thinking the problem lies in the blue paint gumming up the works, but who knows? The wings look great and I think they look much better than if they had tried attaching them to the back of the figure. In the cartoon the characters would simply touch their arms to their sides and the wings would emerge as they brought them back up and this replicates that pretty well.

There are translucent blue laser beam effects that plug into the open gun ports on the shoulders and these stay in place very well and look cool. These are the same piece that came with Bluegrass to plug into his guitar. There’s some question over whether the starbursts are supposed to be positioned as the lasers leave the gunports, or if they’re supposed to be impacting on something. Official solicitation photos suggest the latter, but you can really make it work either way.

Steelwill comes with two additional weapons, a big cannon and a comical chattering teeth gun. I’ve been through my DVDs of the whole series again last year, and have been watching some episodes sporadically this year, and I still don’t remember either of these, but I’m sure they’re in the show somewhere. The regular gun is green with a big black barrel and some yellow indicator lights painted on the side. It also has a translucent blast effect that can be plugged into the barrel.

The chattering teeth gun has two sets of teeth: One open and one closed. This bizarre gun is super silly but it’s a really nicely sculpted and painted piece so I’ll allow it. I’ll also have to watch a shit ton of episodes again so I can find it. Maybe I’ll end up giving this one to one of my McFarlane Jokers.

Steelwill’s bird buddy is Stronghold and just like Sideman with Bluegreass, you get two versions of Stronghold: Wings closed and wings spread. These are static pieces, but both them are absolutely fantastic looking birds. I love the sculpt and paint on these, and Stronghold has some nice big talons to grip around Steelwill’s beefy arms.

Steelwill is an absolutely awesome figure held back by those pesky QC issues that are confined to the removable shoulder gimmick. If I had only one break, I would have noted it as unfortunate and moved on, but with the second ready to do the same, it’s clearly something that should have been looked at before sending the figure to production. Even if it meant sending out an extra set of arms so those pieces didn’t need to be swapped. At $55, this isn’t a cheap figure, and for that price I don’t expect these kinds of shenanigans. I’m still very happy with what we got, but I’ll confess to being a more than a little worried with running into similar problems with Steelheart and Quicksilver. Next week, I’ll finish up this wave with Windhammer, and by then the new figures should be here!