Hawkgirl is a confused woman - but she dates back to the 40s, and any comic book character who's been around that long inevitably racks up a thoroughly addled backstory, replete with reboots, reimaginings, attempted (and failed) fixes, and good old-fashioned bad ideas along the way. Today's Hawkgirl is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, except there's this bunch of hawk-hero aliens she's involved with as well, and she thinks she's a girl called Kendra, but in fact she's herself, but with Kendra's memories, except for her superhero abilities which remain intact... and to top it off she's stuck in Justice League of America, which stumbled through its relaunch, briefly found hope in the form of Dwayne McDuffie, only to see it cruelly snatched away as DC shoved a bunch of fill-in issues our way. It's fair to say that, what with all that, I've never really cottoned on to Hawkgirl. Luckily she looks damn good, so I bought her figure anyway. This is an excellent example of how to make a comic book action figure look true to its comic book roots, but good as a three-dimensional piece of work at the same time. Kendra (or whoever it is rattling around in there) stands tall and bold, with a distinctive and eye-catching costume rendered in bright primary colours. Her yellow/green/red combo could easily have looked over the top when taken off the comic page and brought to physical form, but DC Direct cleverly used a striking-looking metallic green, which catches stark highlights and has deep shadows out of the light, which offsets the purer yellow of her top and red of her boots, and makes the whole ensemble look just that little bit more realistic. It used to be that Hawkgirl and Hawkman had actual eyes in their masks, which looked thoroughly goofy, but luckily these days Hawkgirl sports detailless golden eyes which strike a much better balance between cohesion with the hawk-style mask, and consistency with the human face beneath. There are some minor paint issues, largely to do with staying inside the lines on the fine edges, like the black markings on the mask and the golden detailing on her costume, but by and large she's a good job. Her wings are especially nice work, with a drybrush that's perhaps not the most sophisticated, but works effectively to bring out the good quality sculpted feather details without going overboard about it. The only real disappointment are her bracers, on which the silver spots for the studs are quite a bit too small, leaving the sculpted edges of the studs showing as brown - it makes them look murky overall, in one of the few areas on the figure that isn't brightly-coloured, and thus could ill afford it. Her arms are sculpted at a slightly odd angle, with the biceps turning inwards towards the torso - it's not unrealistic (it's a tough-looking posture, in fact) but it doesn shoehorn her into a certain kind of body language. Luckily the arms are where DC Direct decided, in a moment of (rare) ambition, to add to their standard articulation layout, so she has swivel wrists that allow the effect of the bicep position to be emphasised or downplayed, however you prefer. Added to those she has the standard joint set: ball joint neck and shoulders, peg elbows, hips, and knees. The wings are mounted on ball joints, but there's not a lot of motion in them since they're clearly sculpted to sit upright behind her back. These DC Direct figures don't often come with accessories, but Hawkgirl bucks the trend. Not only does she have her trusty mace (Nth Metal, I believe) which fits snugly into her purpose-moulded left hand, but she also comes with a tiny Starro starfish, about the size of the palm of her hand. For those who don't know, Starro is the Justice League's oldest and silliest-looking enemy, a giant space starfish that spawns baby starfish, which then clamp themselves over people's faces and mind-control them. Like invasion of the body snatchers, only you can tell who's evil, since they have sealife stuck on their foreheads. The Starro starfish with Hawkgirl is a simple piece with a basic paint application, and no way of attaching to her (unless you use a dab of blu-tack or suchlike), but it's cute that it was included with the figure, so kudos to DC Direct for that.