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Who.
Crimelord Leland Owlsley vies for a piece
of New York's criminal underworld, squaring off against Spider-Man and Daredevil as The Owl.
Yes, and he almost got shuffled to X-Factor, as well. The first few issues of the comic introduced a group of mutant villains called the Alliance of Evil, who were working for a mysterious leader. That leader turned out to be Apocalypse, but only after the writers changed; he was the creation of Louise Simonson, while Bob Layton had originally intended it to be a revamped version of The Owl. Layton's idea was that Owlsley had basically undergone a secondary mutation and become "a cannibalistic Nosferatu-like creature that feeds only on mutant flesh." So while X-Factor would have been trying to gather newly identified mutants as a way to help those people, Owl would have been trying to gather them for lunch. Wild!
Owl was created so early, Daredevil was still wearing his yellow costume when he debuted. He was the first supervillan created specifically for DD (issue #1 was the generic gangster who fixed his father's fights, issue #2 was Electro, issue #3 was The Owl). He was originally the worst kind of villain, a Wall Street guy. When an IRS audit revealed how much
illegal business he was involved in, however, he dediced to ditch the charade and become a mob boss full time. Of course, he already dressed like a weirdo and called himself "The Owl" even in his professional capacity, so it wasn't a major lifestyle change. He even styled his hair into two little points, meaning he beat Wolverine to this look by 12 years (though the Legion of Superheroes' Timber Wolf, who was of course Dave Cockrum's test-run for his eventual version of Wolverine, did have similar in 1973's Superboy #197). After Wolverine got popular Owl started to have big sideburns ans well, but this is a more modern look, adding a bit of beard on the chin to connect the two sides. In fact, it seems to be based specifically on Lee Bermejo's variant cover for Daredevil #114, right down to the sneer.
In the first few appearances of the Owl, Daredevil kept going on about how fat he was. According to the Official Handbook, he's 5'11" and 200 pounds, which is... like, nothing? Sure, that's minorly overweight, but certainly nothing special today. If anything, he'd stand out for
being slightly tall more than for being slightly heavy. Heck, Daredevil's best friend, Foggy Nelson, is one inch shorter and wighs 20 pounds more! Of course, these stories were being written at a time when the Great Depression and the privations of World War II were still fresh in living memory, so anybody who was over 5'7" and 140 pounds was probably regarded as the second coming of Goliath. Back then he wore a green opera cape with a big red cartoon bow on his neck; in the '90s they tried to make him cool, with techno goggles and some mechanical armor on his limbs; this is a more design, which puts him in an overcoat and a scarf. Two overcoats, in fact - he's got a second brown one beneath the green one you see immediately.
If you remove the outer coat,
you'll immediately know what body this figure uses: it's No Way Home Doc Ock, just without the mechanical arms or the waist piece that hid the joint. What a startlingly clever choice! It's a bit surprising they made his green coat a new sculpt. Obviously they had to make it a new mold, since it doesn't have four holes in the back for metal octopus arms to stick through, but they still made it an entirely different style instead of just adjusting the existing digital file. Color us impressed!
Over the years, Marvel has gone back and forth on whether Owl is a mutant or not. His power, such as it is, is to fly... sort of. Really all he can do is glide. Like, if he jumps off something high he can go quite a distance, and he uses his cape (or coat) to help him steer, like Arkham Batman, but he's not zipping around at high speeds or even taking off from a standing start - think "hang glider" more than "jet plane." To facilitate this, his internal anatomy is more bird-like, with hollow bones, extra vertebrae in his neck, less fat tissue, a higher resting heart rate and body temperature, his fingernails are more like claws, etc. Originally he got his powers from a serum, but then later they said that he only took his serum in an effort
to increase the powers he already had, and eventually that got changed so he was simply a "human mutate," which is Marvel-speak for "if we don't do this, Fox will have the right to use the character in their movies and TV shows" (see also Squirrel Girl, Cloak and Dagger). Him trying to improve his abilities has been a running thread with the character, though none of the attempts - chemical or mechanical - work out for him for long, and usually he ends up worse than he was before. Like, at one point he was nearly paralyzed, and could only walk, painfully, with the aid of braces on his legs. This figure still has all the same articulation Otto sported, but the design of this coat, with the little shawl bit over the shoulders, makes it hard to raise his arms the way he does when he's flying, and it's too stiff to flare out behind him like wings. Really, the only way to do it justice would have been softgoods with a posing wire in the hem. Or an alternate cape like that Marvel Rivals Moon Knight is getting.
Really leaning into the Wolverine comparisons, Owl showed up in Spectacular Spider-Man #73 witha new weapon: a set of three steel blades that strapped to his arm under his coat, and poked out just far enough to reach past his knuckles. To show that, Owl gets new hands that have the claws.
They are, unfortunately, sticking out of the backs of his hands rather than his sleeves, but surely he was drawn like that sometime? They're separate pieces, and removable in the sense that they're not glued in: to do so leaves massive gaps in the hands, and other than during his kewl '90s phase they weren't retractable, but you could have him barehanded if you wanted. Interestingly, the claws are held in place by just two tabs, while the hands are molded with three slots; presumably doing away with that miniscule amount of plastic added up to some worthwhile savings over a full-sized production run. These hands are molded with frilly sleeves sticking out, which was a feature when he was using the claws, but that was also when he was wearing his cape, not a coat. The alternate "clawing" hands are what really belong with this look.
Because the Owl is basically a Batman villain who somehow lives in the Marvel Universe, he's big on strignine theming: he lived in an owl-shaped building, he has various owl-shaped aircraft, killer owl robots, and eventually even had live trained owls hanging around him.
Fittingly, this figure comes with an owl. A barn owl, specifically. It's a solid piece, basically just molded in tan plastic (too light a tan, if we're being honest), but its distinctive white face and black eyes have been painted, so we can tell what species it's supposed to be. It'll be interesting to see if they find some way to reuse this in the future. Is a single-carded Snowbird in the works? The bird isn't designed to attach to the human at all, not even loosely: its feet are totally flat, not curved to perch on an arm or shoulder.
It's possible that without the Owl, Daredevil would never have gotten Kingpin. I mean: a heavyset mob boss with a veneer of respectability and more physical fitness than it seems he'd have? That sounds awfully familiar! While we'd have preferred his Silver Age look, with the big bow, I can't help but notice how great this coat would be as the start of a Terror Inc. figure - he'd really just need a mechanical/armored left hand and a new head with his spiky catfish whiskers, and we'd be all set. Make it happen, Hasbro!
-- 05/06/26
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