Review – Ghost Hawk II!
The Highs: Realistic body colors, powerful-looking engines, heavily armed, cool harness play feature, first Joe vehicle with a true refueling boom.
The Lows: Neon missiles, difficult stickers, wings and missiles fall off WAY too easily, would be a LOT cooler if it was bigger. Also, is Hasbro cutting cost in the names department too?
The Verdict: The only truly new member of the Joe vehicle line is also one of the best.
I admit to going “Eeeehhhhhh” when seeing the lineup of the new Retaliation Joe vehicles. While I like the HISS and the Fang Boat (and the AWE/Ninja Commando 4x4 is ok) the Ghost Hawk II REALLY caught my eye. It was the only truly new vehicle, and I’m a big fan of Joe vehicles that (pretend) fly.
I was initially worried that the Ghost Hawk II would be a revamp of the Black Dragon VTOL mold, but my fears were quickly assuaged. I thought the Black Dragon was too small and skinny to be a legitimate transport vehicle. Sure, it was kinda neat and had some neat features, but it just looked too small for my taste. Though the GHII is just slightly larger (beefier body, as well as slightly longer nose to tail and wingtip-to-wingtip) that little bit makes a lot of difference. The extra room also means that the GHII has a few neat additional features that the Black Dragon simply couldn’t fit.
The Ghost Hawk II is decorated in a fairly military color scheme of gray, green, and gunmetal. The lower hull is gray, the upper hull and wings are green, and the refueling boom, engines, and skids are gunmetal. There’s also a bronzetone canopy. Various black and yellow stickers work to set the colors off.
Speaking of the refueling boom, it gives the GHII a feature no Joe vehicle before it has carried: the capability of pretend mating with an aerial tanker for refueling. This is a simple little touch, but really gives the GHII a long-range transport feel. Continuing to the rear, the canopy opens to reveal a HUGE cockpit…which unfortunately only fits one figure. That figure though, has plenty of room to move around on those transcontinental flights. There’s some decent detail molded into the cockpit, but alas there is no cool HUD sticker or anything else to add color and detail to the cockpit. Just aft of the cockpit are the wings. The wings sport plenty of hard points on either side of the fuselage for multiple missiles and bombs, as well as a set of spring-loaded launchers molded into them that fire dual-warhead missiles. On the outer part of the wings are four massive engines, one on top and one on bottom on each side. The engines can be rotated to give the GHII true VTOL capability. Short wingtips clip onto the outer sides of the engines, completing the winged look. I must say here that I really admire the engines. Their beefy size give the GHII a great sense of power, and make you think that a somewhat portly-looking transport vehicle could in fact be very fast.
On the underside of the GHII (below the cockpit) sit a pair of gunmetal skids. While the skids are just a bit too thick for a figure to grab onto, there is enough space for a figure to wrap their arm around the skid. This would be useful in those emergency, hot LZ evac situations. Moving to the rear, the rear belly features an opening hatch. Inside the hatch is one of the coolest features I’ve seen on a Joe vehicle in a while: a harness with a backpack post attachment hooked to a string. When not in use, the string wraps around a hidden hook in the tail, and the handle used when pulling the string clips to the interior underside of the tail section, securing the harness.
This harness is a neat idea and an awesome play feature. Perfect for quick and clandestine inserts and extracts (as well as another hot LZ option) the harness can be used to secure just about any Joe figures. However, this excellent idea is somewhat hampered in its execution. First, the harness doesn’t tightly fit all figures. In fact, it truly only tightly fits some of the larger ones. This could lead to the unfortunate situation of opening the belly hatch during play only to have the figure inside take an accidental free-fall. Further, figures cannot wear their webgear and the harness at the same time, a potentially major equipment issue.
The Ghost Hawk II also carries a fairly large amount of ordnance. Each wing sports three medium sized missiles and a bomb underneath, as well as a larger missile and the dual-warhead missile in the launcher on top. There are a couple of problems with the missiles besides them being neon orange. First, they suffer from the same small attachment points as the 30th SkyStriker, though they do admittedly stay on better than THOSE missiles (I’m sure changing toy safety regs had something to do with that). Those small hardpoints mean it is very easy to knock a missile off the wing accidentally. The second issue is with the way the wings themselves attach to the fuselage of the GHII. While secure enough for regular play, it is way too easy to push the wings completely off the vehicle while trying to re-secure a missile to the underside of a wing. Doing so will leave you with ALL the missiles, the engines, and the wings themselves scattered about, as well as a possible bruised foot.
My only other major complaint with the Ghost Hawk is with the stickers. Just because of the way several of them are made, some of them are quite hard to get lined up symmetrically. I love me some stickers…but I hate when putting them on is overly frustrating. Also, I know Hasbro keeps trying more and more to emphasize the ninja elements of GI Joe, but I could have done without the Arashikage symbols on the sides of the GHII. When did the ninjas start running things? Shouldn’t those be GI Joe symbols? And Hasbro, remember what happened the FIRST TIME when you got too ninja happy?
I will take this opportunity to note that the terrible 5 POA figure included with the GHII is called “Duke” but could easily be called “Crappy Generic Pilot.” He’s bad, but not as terrible as the Snake Eyes from the Ninja Commando 4x4. And that’s all I’ve got to say about that.
Look Ma, no articulation!All in all though, I really like the Ghost Hawk II. Sure, the stickers and the wings/missiles can be frustrating. Yes, the missiles are neon and the harness isn’t as cool as it could be. Granted, the name is unoriginal and the vehicle would look even better if it was bigger. Despite those flaws, I really like the Ghost Hawk II. Even the neon missiles don’t bother me as bad as they did when I first got it (you could say I’m almost used to them now). This is a solid addition to the Joe line, and definitely worth a look…especially at a $20-$22 US price point.
