Walgreen’s has quickly become a pretty hot spot for toy collecting. They have continually been getting some really good exclusives for Star Wars and Marvel Legends and more recently Transformers. These often, though not always, aren’t just mild repaints or useless variants of other characters from a mass release, especially on the Marvel Legends side. They also have started having a good track record of getting waves earlier than other retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Target. The Punisher here is one of those exclusive figures.
This Punisher is such a mixed bag of hit and miss. He’s mostly good, the skill and belt bits work well, Punisher often has the same problem of Venom, where his large chest logo overlaps a waist cut and gets ugly when the waist is turned. He has a decent assortment of accessories, with his two guns and rocket launcher. He even gets two heads.
The heads though could be a little better. He’s The Punisher, he really could use one good grimacing head. Both of these heads seem a bit too… heroic, and almost friendly.
The worse offender though, which pretty much makes this figure a pass unless you are a huge Punisher fan, is the hands. Let me reiterate, in case I have not done so enough yet, this is The Punisher. His “super power” is pretty much 100% “Bad Ass Mother Fucker with Guns”. His hands DO NOT HAVE TRIGGER FINGERS. Of all of the figures who get trigger fingers who don’t use guns or need them (Daredevil), the Punisher absolutely needs trigger finger hands.
You can sort of fake it but cutting the index finger free with a razor blade, but the tension and sculpt just isn’t quite there and it just doesn’t work. It’s such a travesty that a mostly decent figure is pretty much rendered complete garbage by a simple oversight.
So yeah, he’s nice, if you’re clever you can cut the finger or maybe even swap hands with another figure (Maybe Nick Fury who shares a mold I believe), but out of the box, he’s ruined by his inability to properly use is included accessories.
