Since I freely admit I wasn't on top of the Etherian and Eternian warriors of the 1980s all the time, Sea Hawk was a little unknown to me when I started seeing him just a few years ago. He was on promos on the Qubo channel, which for some reason showed a limited selection of old Filmation cartoons on a late-night programming block. The red-headed sea pirate looks pretty much the same on the cartoon as he does as an action figure - maybe he's a little thinner there, but the Four Horsemen and Mattel did a bang-up job of capturing the colors far, far more faithfully than I could've expected.
You get the same 7-ish-inch figure size as always but there are tons of new parts here. The shirt has an ascot, the sleeves are tattered. His gloves are new, his boots are new. The shield is new, the sword is new. Oh, and he has a swell ring on his gloved left hand too - this is a figure that feels fully-realized.
Sea Hawk's head sculpt is fantastic - you get bright red hair, a mustache, dashing 1930s movie serial star eyebrows, and a beard that would make you think that maybe, just maybe, this could be an alternate universe Conan O'Brien toy. It's clear that the animation models were followed closely, and the hair detail seems a little sharper than on many of the other releases. The black headband is a nice touch, too. Like most better figures in this line, his eyes are just a tiny bit glossy, so you can see a shimmer of life when they're properly lit. As someone who tends to gripe and groan about She-Ra characters, I gotta say this is a dynamite head sculpt with a lot of personality.
His costume's execution is quite clever. There's a black torso under his snap-on brown shirt, to give the illusion of an undershirt. The upper arms have been resculpted to feature sleeves - a rarity in this line - while the gloves have some added blue detailing on them that looks quite nice. Extra metallic blue details were added to the boots and belt as well, which makes me glad this figure came out at a time where cost cutting wasn't an issue. The aforementioned snap-on shirt looks great with the popped collar, blue shoulder enhancements, and metallic blue zipper. The figure has wonderfully stiff joints, so there should be few to no worries about him toppling your displays in an out-of-control domino effect.
As I've mentioned before, it can be tough to nitpick good figures - Sea Hawk turned out pretty much exactly like it should. The big yellow shield and clear red sword add a little visual oomph to this one, and while it lacks the high piece count of Bow I'd argue it's a more appealing figure. (Shirt tends to beat no shirt, no cape tends to beat cape.) Walking a fine line between boy's toy throwback, girl's cartoon romantic lead, and mid-range collectible is a tough job and one that Mattel's crew pulled off admirably. Now that Loo-Kee is coming and I have most of the Horde, I honestly can't say there's much else I'd want out of the She-Ra family - but Mattel has proven me wrong before, and I look forward to being proven wrong again.
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