Okay, kids, lock up your Sudafed (or any other red pills you may have in your medicine cabinet) because Nuke is coming to town!
One of the things I really dig about Marvel Legends is that the line continues to give us the heavy-hitters and a-list characters, but it also gives us the more obscure guys as well. Granted, I am very happy to get figure upgrades of the main guys, but in general, I gravitate more to the guys who occupy the C-lists and below when new assortments are announced. That being said, even I had a “WTF?” moment at SDCC last year when Nuke was announced as a figure that was coming soon, even though an inferior version was shown as a prototype some years ago. It’s not so much that he is super-rare-and-never-used in the comics, but I was not quite sure he was very demanded in terms of getting a Legends figure.
Granted, the character has had a bit of an awareness boost in the new Netflix Jessica Jones show, but now he is part of an ML assortment that is out in support of (arguably) the biggest movie of the summer in Captain America: Civil War. I think it is safe to say that 2016 is the year of Nuke, and even with my initial reaction to his announcement, this is another one of those cases where a figure based on a character I don’t have any attachment to turns out to be my favorite of the assortment. Yeah, Hasbro pretty much knocked the ‘Murican crazy out of the park, and he makes for one fun action figure.
Frank Simpson, wait – why is it that with Marvel, so many of their resident psychos have the name Frank? Frank Simpson, Frank Castle, and even Nuke’s creator Frank Miller all share the handle, so it makes you wonder about the mental stability of anyone with that name. Frank in Accounts Payable, I’ve got my eye on you… Nah, I kid, I kid – however, there is no denying that Nuke has a pretty shattered past, but that was pretty much the motivation for the character’s creation.
Debuting in the Daredevil title in the 1980s, and like the aforementioned Punisher, Nuke was another one of those guys whose characterization was a comment on the decade’s dealing with the fallout of the Vietnam War. Movies about the topic were dominating cinemas at the time, so it is no wonder that comics followed suit. Sure, there is a LOT of caricature with Nuke, but his creation was certainly a product of the times and a comment on everything that went wrong with a brutal war. While brief, he actually has a fairly interesting history in the comics, and as you can probably tell, he has crossed paths with some of the big guns, Captain America included.
Now, nothing says “Murica” like having the flag tattooed on your face, but in Frank’s defense, it was original carved on there in a form of torture, and now the guy needs different colored pills just to maintain semi-normal human function. Those red pills give him the extra shot of adrenaline he needs to take out an entire small village, but so long as we can get him to take his blues and whites too, he can usually be kept in check. The dude is also walking around with cybernetic parts and an extra heart (!!!), but I guess that is the price you pay to be unhinged and super-powered. Since he has a history with Wolverine, I can tell you that I would not want to even be on the same continent when these two dudes are having a beer, let alone fighting it out.
As I eluded to, despite not being really attached to this character, his new Legends figure is positively great, and I really dig it. Nuke is a big dude, and that is made strikingly apparent here, and as you can see from the pictures, he is going to be able to treat most of the rest of your Legends like the dolls they really are. There is plenty of detail and a lot of appropriate part reuse going on here that makes for a solid construction and a base that could be used to put together a whole squad of jacked-up custom commandos, a la Dutch’s team from Predator. This figure really highlights the fact that we have a pretty massive parts library built up for Marvel Legends at this point, and the compatibility between them all is really fluid, so it is great to see characters we once though unable of getting plastic representation get consideration now.
Like I said, Nuke is a big dude, and, from what I can tell, his figure utilized the Hyperion upper body to really drive that point home. Of the base choices that were available, I think this was the appropriate selection as the Grim Reaper torso would have likely been too small. Nuke makes Captain America look scrawny again, so I would not have wanted them to share the same build. The rest of the figure’s frame is made up of appropriate military pants and boots, and in true ’80s fashion, a vest that can show off his muscle-bound torso.
I like a lot of details in the vest, with the grenades and bullets attached, as well as the belt, strap, and holster detailing on the pants. I do wish we would have gotten a bit more paint detail on these things to help really highlight all that is going on, but I am sounding like a broken record at this point. Really though, I wish we could get a few more paint applications on our ML figure because I believe that would really help close the deal. At any rate, they still have a lot more than the recent Star Wars Black Series figures.
The real highlight of the figure, though, is the sculpt and detail that has been put into both of the included heads. Nuke’s standard look is the, again, stereotypical 1980s military flattop to properly complement that American flag tattoo on him mug. The gnashed teeth help complete the look, and as much as I lament the missing paint applications on the rest of the figure, there are quite a few here, and the work on the flag is pretty much flawless. The alternate head shows off Nuke’s shorn-headed look, along with some pretty significant flesh wounds that help to show off the cybernetic skull he is hiding underneath. The big cut over the eye is definitely the best part, and the fully exposed eyeball just adds to the crazy visage. I mean, if Marvel ever wants to put Nuke in a movie, they can tap the WWE and have Brock Lesner play the flattop version and have Stone Cold play the bald.
Finally, Nuke comes with two weapons – I know, that doesn’t seem like very much for him, right? First, he has the giant gun that came with the AIM Scientist (IIRC) repainted like Old Glory itself. It is definitely a, um, patriotic (?) gun in the sense that I can totally see him defending a Walmart with a Hooters girl on each arm as an army of bald eagles spell out “Death from Above” against anyone that Moe Szyslak might dub an “immigant,” but otherwise it is little ridiculous. I have an entire cache of more traditional death machines that I will probably lend to him instead. Otherwise, he has a great knife that is worthy of taking on Crocodile Dundee in a game of “You call that knife?” And I much prefer to outfit Nuke with this over the gun. He seems like more of hands-on guy when it comes to the type of work he does, so it helps to keep things a bit more personal. Oh, and he also comes with his Giant Man chunk in the form of a disembodied torso that actually doesn’t look out of place just packaged alongside him in the blister.
Right, so Nuke is definitely one of those characters whose entire existence has occupied about 20 minutes of my thoughts up until getting this figure, but, damn if he isn’t my favorite of the figures from this wave. He obviously has an interesting look, but the figure came together so well in all facets that it is hard not to include him in a more prominent spot on the shelf (I expected him to go right to the back). He poses well to fight Cap or Logan, and American face tattoo be damned, he is dynamic and looks scary in a fight. If you want to build Giant Man, you are going to have to pick this guy up, but really, he is a great figure. I was going to skip him originally, but I am glad he is now part of my collection.
