50th Anniversary General Hawk

By KansasBrawler

General Hawk from the Eagle’s Edge three pack was the only Pursuit of Cobra re-release that I didn’t have in some form. That meant I definitely had some pretty high expectations for him. I liked this look for Hawk back in 2011 and I was honestly pretty disappointed I was never able to find him at retail. This is a great battle-ready version of General Hawk and while there are a few things I wish they’d done differently in the paint department on this version, I’m still very glad to finally have this figure in my collection thanks to the 50th Anniversary line.

General Hawk pulls his parts from a wide array of modern era sources, but everything works exceedingly well together and creates a relatively cohesive figure. The legs come from Pursuit of Cobra Recondo and they work surprisingly well for this figure. Recondo was a big guy but Hawk still looks proportional, even with his thickly-built legs. The boots are nice and I love the armor. It really helps sell this is a battle-ready version of General Hawk. As a kid, I always remember loving that Hawk was a guy that fought right alongside his soldiers. It meant that the character could still be in charge, but unlike someone like Dress Blues Gung-Ho, he wasn’t too fancy-looking to be out in the field with the team. Hawk’s torso comes from the 25th Anniversary Resolute Duke. The high collared design reminds me more of a jacket than a regular shirt and considering Hawk’s most memorable look is his bomber jacket look from 1986, I like that being referenced here. To help disguise the fact that he and Duke wear the same shirt, he’s also got two great pieces to wearing over it: a chest harness and a belt. The chest harness comes from one of the Resolute figures. I’m thinking it might be Beachhead rather than Duke because it’s got the hole to plug his radio into. I’m thinking that’s where Resolute Beachhead’s knife plugged into on the initial use. Regardless, it’s a piece we’ve seen before, but it’s still a nice modern set of webgear and chest armor. There are a lot of great pouches, but he doesn’t seem too overloaded (at least there). To make the reused webgear look a little more unique, he’s also got the same non-functional shoulder holster than the 25th Anniversary version of 1986 Hawk wore. It’s a nice little nod to that classic Hawk figure though, as I’ve said before on other figures that shifted back to non-functional holsters, I do wish they’d made it a functional piece. Finally, around his waist, Hawk has got a belt with a functional pistol holster. This is the one spot where the figure looks a bit overloaded. The big pouch on the right side of his webgear rides right over the holster. It looks a bit awkward and it’s rather difficult to get that pistol in or out of the holster. Add in the fact that the added bulk on his right side means that Hawk can’t put his right arm down at his side naturally and he looks just a little off. Hawk’s arms come from Pursuit of Cobra Dusty and each time I see these arms used, I find I like them just a little more. They’re great pieces, but I don’t know how well they work for Hawk just because the Resolute Duke torso is more like a lightweight jacket and I don’t know how many people wear a lightweight jacket and then roll up the sleeves. Beyond that, though, they give Hawk the look of an appropriate level of strength. It’s clear he’s a guy that’s out in the field just as much as his troops and so he’s still a tough old guy but at the same time he’s also not a ridiculously strong person like Roadblock. Finally, his head comes from the 25th Anniversary version of the 1986 Hawk. It’s a nice enough head, but I still don’t love it just because he looks way too young. This looks like the face of a kid fresh to the Joe team, not their experienced leader who cut his teeth in Vietnam (or probably more likely the first Gulf War to retcon the story to keep everyone at around the same age they were during the original comics) and then drew the attention of the top military brass and was tapped to lead America’s new highly-trained special mission force.

The color scheme is good and makes sense since this version of Hawk was a City Strike figure, but I do find myself wishing they’d done something a little different with him here to bring him more in line with his classic look since this is a 50th Anniversary figure. Hawk’s pants are a standard woodland camouflage color scheme. It’s a great basic military look and is very similar to the pants the 1986 figure had. The leg armor over it is a light gray with some dark green areas on them. The left leg’s dark green doesn’t quite mesh with the molded lines so that’s a little bit of a bummer, but the look is still okay. Up top, the figure gets a little confusing for me. Underneath all of his gear, Hawk’s torso is a light gray. This matches the armored shoulder pads, however I think that’s a little strange. You’d think that the jacket would be the same color as his rolled up sleeves, a very light blue. This was the way the Pursuit of Cobra version did it as well, but that doesn’t make it any less strange. Over the jacket, his chest armor is a nice greenish-brown color. It meshes very well with his green pants and the leg armor. The skin tone is a molded color so that means it looks good without being too gloppy. However, there are a couple little issues on Hawk’s head. First of all, his right eye didn’t get the same paint line for the eyelid that his left eye did. As such, it leaves him looking a little facially asymmetrical. Plus, it leaves that right eye looking a little wider than the left. It’s not that noticeable when he’s on display, but even the first time I pulled him out of the box, I could tell that something was a little off about the eyes. It wasn’t until I got right up in his face to review him that I could accurately point out the culprit. The other issue is in his hair. While I still think the overall head sculpt looks too young, at least the 25th Anniversary version did throw in a little bit of gray in his hair to try and make him look older. It wasn’t a great solution but it still was a nice effort. They didn’t do that here, so it just adds to my criticism that Hawk comes across as too young. The gray is continued up onto his helmet and so it gives him a great urban operator look. The paint work is fine, but of all the re-released figures, this is the one I really wish they’d done something different on his overall color scheme. Low Light and Blowtorch still looked like their classic counterparts. With a simple change of colors up top, Hasbro could have really made this version look a lot more like the 1986 Hawk the used on so much of the 50th Anniversary art. Just changing the jacket and sleeves to brown and turning his helmet green (and maybe using the same dark green for his shoulder armor as well) would have really helped bring this figure back to his 1986 roots while still being a slightly different take on the classic
look.

Since this figure was originally a Pursuit of Cobra figure, that means he gets a lot of great gear. Starting off small, Hawk has the radio that plugs into his webgear. It’s a nice little piece and it fits well with Hawk’s character. He may be on the field, but he’s still going to be the one giving orders, so he’ll need to be in contact with his team at all times. There’s also a pistol to fill his holster. It’s a basic piece, but it still looks good in Hawk’s hand and in the holster. For a little larger weapon, he’s got the same submachine gun that we first saw with the Cobra Shock Trooper. It’s small but it’s also a good fit for urban operations since it’s compact and maneuverable. Hawk also carries a computer case into the battle. Much like the radio, I appreciate that Hawk has this with him. It can be used to communicate with the team, but it could also prove useful in receiving orders from higher up or making some tactical changes on the fly and getting the information to the rest of the team. Inside, there’s also another larger submachine gun. I can just see some poor Cobra Trooper thinking he’s gotten the drop on the good general only to take a three-round burst to the chest from this hidden weapon. Hawk’s primary weapon is a large rifle. I’ve loved this piece since we first saw it with Rise of Cobra Hawk and I’m really glad this version is carrying. It looks rather imposing in his hands and I can see someone like Hawk being quite adept with a rifle like this. While he may not be a fullfledged sniper like Low Light, I can see him being one of the team’s better marksmen. This rifle looks like it’s got some stopping power behind it and it’s great that a battlefield commander like Hawk can lay down some serious cover fire in support of his troops. Unlike a lot of modern Joes, Hawk also got a backpack. It’s a nice basic piece, but it’s nice that Hawk is equipped with a backpack to lug around a little more gear. Rounding out his gear load, Hawk is wearing a helmet with a set of removable goggles on top. The look is much more streamlined than when they did this with Dusty, but it does mean that the goggles can’t actually slide down over his eyes. I’m not really sure that’s a bad thing since it didn’t look amazing on Dusty, but at the same time, I liked having the option of doing it.

Being a figure that I missed the first time around, 50th Anniversary Hawk had a lot to live up to. Mercifully, the design was good enough that he really did live up to my somewhat lofty expectations. This is probably the best-equipped Hawk has ever looked. Yes, the 1986 look is a classic for a reason, but I think a commander like Hawk would want a little more gear than just a bomber jacket and a pistol. I love my 1991 jetpack Hawk, but I’ll be the first to admit that the jetpack is a little fanciful. This modern Hawk, however, has all the gear that someone out on the battlefield would want but still clearly looks like a commanding officer. There are some nice nods to earlier versions of Hawk in here, but I think this is probably the quintessential version of the Joe’s commander and I’m glad I finally have him in my collection. Parts of me do wish they could have changed up his paint scheme just a little to make him look more like the Hawk they’ve been using in a lot of promotional images, but it’s still a good figure with a great color scheme and makes a fine representation of General Hawk.