Cluck

"Cheep cheep cheep, cheep cheep b'kaw." This 25-year old hatchling is searching for the Yolk of Destiny. He's determined to use his mastery of eggsplosives to show the galaxy that he's no chicken. Sometimes the skins in a Fortnite Battle Pass make sense with the season in which they're released. Interdimensional bounty hunters? Cowboy guy, space guy, hunter guy. Absolutely, that tracks. But other times, things just seem to get tossed in randomly. Chapter 2, Season 6 was all about primeval landscapes and beings getting deposited on the island. So while we did get at least one cool cavegirl (who was wearing cut-offs and sneakers, so she was at least somewhat acclimated to modern life), we also got someone who had vaguely interacted with dinosaurs before, and... a lifesize humanoid Easter chick? Because the season started in the spring, I guess? Players could unlock Cluck at Level 61, but they probably saw him before then: in addition to being one of the skins, he was one of the NPCs living on the island. You could talk to him, get missions, hire him as an underling, whatever. He's a large character, on par with Meowscles, but definitely has the face of a newly hatched chick: large black eyes, a short orange beak, and of course fluffy yellow feathers. Cluck is an oddly proportioned character. Presumably it's meant to be thick, fluffy down, but it gives him a very large upper body and spindly shins and forearms. He's turned the shell of his egg into makeshift armor: a helmet with two straps hanging down the sides, pauldrons, kneepads, and a pair of trunks held up by brown suspenders. His left leg has some kind of brown brace around it, while the right is just covered by a little pink sock. Four painted eggs are strapped to his left thigh like grenades, and a pair of dog tags hang around his neck. Thanks to the massive shoulders and the scrawny legs, this figure has trouble staying balanced - it either wants to fall forward or back, depending on whether that butterfly on the other side of the world is flapping its wings up or down. The articulation is good, so you can try to find a balance spot, however. Cluck moves at the head, neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, chest, hips, thighs, knees, left shin, and ankles. The suspenders are molded as part of the body, so they look broken if you twist him too far to the side, but at least they don't slip out of place like Meowscles' did. His shoulder-armor is designed to move with the arms, so it doesn't get in the way of them movig forward or back, and it's even hinged a little so it doesn't stop the arms from raising to the sides. Nicely done! Cluck is a very Eastery figure - that's why his "Wing of the Hill" Loading Screen portrays him fighting all the other paschal characters. Like a baby chick, his feathers are yellow, but the egg shells he wears are painted pink with blue stripes. There are two alternate versions of this skin in the game, meaning Hasbro could release variations in the future if they want to reuse this Dan Mitchell sculpt: the first is black with red markings and a grey camouflage shell; the second makes him translucent blue, with all the shells now looking like shattered Slurp barrels. The toy's accessories are from the same Eggsplosives Expert set as Cluck. His Back Bling is a round leather backpack with a pink shell on top, the Hatch Pack ("He got it from his mom"), and his Harvesting Tools are the smiling chicken drumsticks called the Drummies ("Don't forget the dippin' sauce"). One of the Drummies has a big, cartoony bite taken out of it, while the other just has a split in its golden-brown skin. Judging by game footage, the "bite" one goes in his left hand, and the "split" one in the right. And since this is a third-person game, the happy smiling faces technically face toward Cluck, not toward his enemies - the game wants you to be able to see them while you play. Finally, he gets a nicely detailed (if under-painted) Primal Shotgun, which was introduced the same season he was and showed up in his promotional art, so that makes sense. We have plenty of Halloween decorations and Giftsmas decorations, but Easter? That doesn't get much. Cluck's good enough on his own, and it'll be interesting to see which of the variations Hasbro chooses to make for him, but he gets extra coolness points as a holiday display item. Besides, if you stick him deep into some Easter grass, falling over won't be as much of a problem. -- 05/12/23