After a pretty wild time at New York Comic Con 2013, I’m back to continue on with my Marvel coverage of the event! One booth I was particularly interested in checking out was the Kotobukiya booth. Since Kotobukiya fully-revealed the Avengers Now Black Widow ARFTX+ statue about a week ago, I figured we’d be seeing the painted Marvel Now Captain America statue on display joining her at NYCC 2013. I was totally wrong. At the 2013 NYCC, the brand-new sculpts for the Kotobukiya Marvel Now Hawkeye and Thor ARTFX+ statues were revealed!

One of my first stops within the opening half hour of my trip to New York Comic Con this weekend was the Kotobukiya booth, where I beelined straight to the Marvel display case. Since we had seen prototypes of the ARFTX+ Avengers Now Hulk, Black Widow, and Captain America statues at SDCC 2013, I assumed we’d be seeing a completed ARTFX Captain America at the show (since Hulk and Black Widow are both already up for pre-order).

Nope! Not only was a completed Kotobukiya Captain America ARTFX+ statue not on display, but the Captain America sculpture wasn’t even at the show in any capacity! Instead, two brand-new statues were on display: the Kotobukiya Thor and Hawkeye ARTFX+ Marvel Now statues.

I had a couple moments of confusion and disappointment when I first looked at the 2014 Kotobukiya Avengers statue lineup, because it initially appeared that all the other Avengers statues–even Black Widow and Hawkeye–were as tall as Hulk!

After a few moments my brain warmed up, however, and I had the realization that all of the other figures were propped up on wooden bases, whereas Hulk was just standing on the floor of the case. Thus, Hulk looked shorter than he really is and should still tower over all his comrades once released.

While Kotobukiya was displaying the unpainted prototype of the Marvel NOW! Hulk ARTFX+ Statue at New York Comic Con 2013, the Hulk ARTFX+ statue has actually already been shown off fully-painted. I’m really not sure why Kotobukiya brought the old, unpainted Hulk to the show, but oh well! We all know what Hulk looks like in color by now anyway.

I was really pleased with the looks of both the Marvel Now Thor Kotobukiya statue and the Kotobukiya Hawkeye ARTFX+ statue.While the Hulk statue disappointed me by not being very inspired by Hulk’s Marvel Now appearance, both the Thor and Hawkeye statues are very accurate to their current appearances in the Marvel comic books.

I know there are a lot of haters out there for the modern, sunglasses-wearing Hawkeye costume, but I’m honestly having a hard time not laughing at the old masked Hawkeye costume when I see it in old comics now.

With the success of the current Hawkeye ongoing comic book series by Matt Fraction, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Marvel Now Hawkeye 1/10 scale statue be the breakout hit of this whole Kotobukiya series of Avengers statues.

The Avengers Kotobukiya Marvel NOW! Hawkeye and Thor ARTFX+ statues should be released in mid-2014, and are likely to go up for pre-order around the end of 2013. I’ll add updated photos of the painted prototypes and more specific release information about the ARTFX Avengers statues as more details surface about them in the coming months, and you can ‘Like’ Marvel Toy News on Facebook to have future news, updates and photos sent straight to your Facebook Newsfeed.