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Cripes, who ever would have thought that a day would come when there were so many Puck toys that we'd be struggling to come up with something to say about him? But hey, when in doubt, open with a joke:
Recognizing that they had a hit on their hands with Wolverine,
Marvel was desperate to make lightning strike twice. They figured if he was short, hairy and Canadian, then they'd just go ahead and make a character who was even shorter, even hairier, and even more Canadian-ier!
Eugene Milton Judd was born in 1914 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and during his long life as an adventurer and soldier of fortune has been acquaintances with Ernest Hemingway, Natasha Romanova, and many others. His own physical prowess has been honed through years of experience and practice. He was in prison on a murder charge when James MacDonald Hudson found him and arranged for his parole, believing that his years of experience would be a great help to the fledgling Alpha Flight team.
When he was created, Puck was described as a midget - the term wasn't seen as pejorative back then, like it apparently(?) is now. "Midget" also had a specific meaning: a little person whose body was proportional (as opposed to a dwarf, who had small limbs but "normal" sized body and head). So while this figure's head is smaller than other toys', it's not wrong.
Like Rocket Raccoon, Puck is an up-scaled and improved version of the Marvel Universe figure. The toy is 3½" tall, which is the perfect
height for a 6"-scale figure! Considering how bad Hasbro has been with that recently, this is a nice change of pace. The only real difference in the sculpt between the two figures is the hair on his arms and legs; if it were just the same thin lines doubled in size, they wouldn't look very good, so those were redone. We don't know if Puck was sculpted traditionally or just done digitally, but either way he's looking good. The proportions of the body look like what we saw in the comics - short and wide, but very muscular - but hiss butt is higher on the left than the right. Is he meant to be leaning permanently to one side?
One thing this Puck does have over the Marvel U figure is the articulation. Many of the joints are the same - balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel wrists, balljointed hips, swivel boots, and swivel/hinge ankles - but he also gets the addition of swivel/hinge joints for the elbows and knees. That just makes it even easier to pull off a handstand! We definitely think they could have worked in a torso joint, especially at this larger size, but that might have messed with the idiotic way Hasbro was releasing the pieces.
There are only four figures in this series, and they're
sold eight to a case. So you'd think that there would be two full sets in a case, right? Don't be silly! There are two Cyclopes, two Sabreteeth... then one Emma and three Wolverines. Honestly, how do you fail at casepacks that badly? That should be Casepack Rule One: if there's a BAF, all the pieces are shipped in equal numbers. Wolverine doesn't even come with a piece! Yes, he's a good figure and is going to be popular, but now no matter what,
there are forever going to be 50% too few Puck torsos to go around.
I'm glad I completed Puck, though. This is only our third ML Alpha Flighter (though there are prototypes for two more), but he's a recognizable and unique Marvel character, and the odds of seeing him released in any other form are low (I say, pretending to be an expert, when we opened this review by talking about the crazy number of Puck toys available recently). Getting an official 6"-scale toy is better than having to customize one, even if it's a sculpt we saw before. The worst thing about Puck is the difficultly you'll have completing him.
Cyclops | Sabertooth | Emma Frost
-- 12/16/13
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