Review: Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

The Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher action figure features a near perfect sculpt and comes loaded with accessories!

[NOTE: This figure was provided to us for review purposes by Sideshow Collectibles.]

Holy crap this action figure is really ready for action. Just like the comics, the Punisher has almost an entire armory on him and he’s ripped and ready to kick teeth in. The figure feels heavy and stands really easily. And in addition to all the belts and holsters, this Punisher figure has more real pockets than most girls’ jeans. Let’s get this party started!

Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure – Packaging

Peeling back the cardboard box to reveal the Punishers scowling face was accompanied by small angels singing and an Excaliber-esque beam of light from shining down from Marvel heaven. Suffice to say, the whole office gathered around to “ooh” and “ahh” at the packaging for a good while. So let’s relive the magnificence together!

Front Panel

If women can stare daggers, the Punisher is stareing roundhouse kicks to your face from the front of the matte gray box. Printed in a comic book style black and gray pointillism, the Punishers torso covers the majority of the box, holding a gun that could be his Hog, the M60 Vietnam era machine gun. The top half of the skull logo on his shirt is glaring at you as well, making opening this package very intimidating. Printed over his gun and arms is a small red Marvel logo and a big reflective silver foil “The Punisher” logo which is scratched and dinged like it’s been through some battles. Beneath that in the bottom left corner is a silver Sideshow Exclusive sticker over a light gray bar that goes around the box that says “sixth scale.”

Sides

The right side is mainly the same gray as the rest of the box, and the bottom has a little bit of the Punishers shoulder and bicep hanging over the edge. The light gray band from the front is continued along the bottom.

The left side has a bit more going on; it has most of the Punishers other arm bent at the elbow holding his machine gun, which shows some more detail on his textured shirt and built in shoulder and elbow pads.

Top and Bottom

The top and bottom of this box are the same, gray like the rest of the box with a reflective raised Punisher skull stamped onto it. It’s pretty epic when it catches the light, I gotta say.

Back

The back of the box is mainly black with a smaller and darker repetition of the Punisher image on the front of the box. It’s really cool because it shows a bit more of the image: instead of just head, shoulders, and the butt of his machine gun, it shows his whole torso, nearly his whole gun, his gloves, the pistol strapped to his hip, and the waist of his pants. The bottom of the box is the same gray as the front, with a thin white line separating the image from the legal stuff and barcodes at the bottom. The more I look at the Punishers face staring at me from this box, the less inclined I feel to become a criminal. It’s scary.

Suffice it to say, the badassery emanating from this box is tangible. I say 4.5 out of 5! Sic vis pacem, para bellum, and let’s open this box up!

Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure – Sculpt

His face is so detailed I can no longer refer to the Punisher figure as an “it.” To be honest, with the look on his face I’m inclined to call him Mr. Punisher. Turning his head around to check articulation (I’m skipping around a bit, sue me) I noticed he has an Adams Apple. Cue an actual jaw-drop. The sculpt detail is beyond belief. He has veins in his temples, and it’s not even the same vein on both sides! They literally took the time to create different wiggling veins on his forehead. What the actual hell? That is dedication, I tell you.

Not to mention all the wrinkles in his forehead and lines along his clenched jaw. And I’m not just talking big wrinkles, he has all of the tiny barely noticeable only-in-the-right-light details that blow my socks off. You can see and feel the lines in his lips, and even his pores!! His hair is slicked back and looks and feels excellent. His ears are ultra-realistic and stick out just like a normal human’s, which is not to say Frank Castle is a normal human, but you get the point. And did I mention he’s ripped?

If you want an action figure that can beat up all your other action figures, then you should take a look at this guy. His back and arms are B A N A N A S; you can feel his biceps and triceps, not to mention his massive shoulder muscles and the sculpted veins trailing down his forearms. This guy eats pushups for breakfast. And those pecs are just stupid awesome, and the chiseled 8 pack isn’t anything to scoff at either. For extra realism, Sideshow designed his oblique muscles and part of his ribs to be part of the upper torso, so when you bend him at the waist it looks and feels like a human being. His quads are also massive and biologically accurate, and his butt is made out of soft plastic so it feels very real. I mean. It… So it won’t limit the legs backward movement. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

Moving on from all that, Mr. Punisher has the slickest boots this side of Central Park. Nearly knee-high, the white non-removable boots look like they were designed to be splattered with blood. They’re lace-up, with a Velcro-looking strap over the laces at the top of the boots and over the bridge of his foot. The shoes were sculpted with many wrinkles and folds to make them look very worn in. The bulk of the boot has a nearly imperceptible cross-hatch pattern, and the straps and other accents are meant to look like smooth leather. The rivets and laces are highly detailed, as well as the tread on the bottom. Based on the soles, I’d guess these boots to be steel-toed cleated boots specially designed for curb-stomping.

Overall, Mr. Punisher gets a 5 out of 5 for sculpt, because it is mind-bogglingly good. I can’t find anything I don’t like about the sculpt, it’s awesome!

Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure – Paint

First the good, then the bad. Along the jawline, Mr. Punisher has tiny little specks of light pink paint (like invisibly small) that give his highly-detailed skin a freshly shaved look, unlike so many other action figures that give their characters 5 o’clock shadow. His face, especially the minute details in his eyes and eyebrows, is astounding. His blue eyes are perfect: the iris grows slightly lighter around the pupil, as is often the case with most people, and they took the time to color the waterline on both the top and bottom eyelid. They managed to do an excellent job painting the naturally occurring pink color along his cheekbones without making it look like he’s wearing blush, and on his forehead and lips without looking sunburned. He is very tan, mostly likely due to his Italian heritage. The paint on the boots mimics the scuffs and scrapes of hard use, especially along the back.

However, I have a couple qualms about the paint, as tends to happen. Firstly, the boot laces seem very sloppily painted when compared to his face, and not just in an attempt to make them look worn in. The silver paint on the rivets has some white paint bleeding onto it, and the black laces are nearly as white as they are black. (Also, on the left boot it looks like someone painted or scratched a small smiley face onto it? I don’t know if it was intentional or if I’m being crazy, but once I saw it I can’t unsee it). On that same page, the tread of his boots has some really minor white splotches, like he stepped in some paint, but unless you’re posing him doing a handstand, no one would ever really notice.

Moving upwards, while inspecting his abs and arm veins, I realized every part of his skin, other than his face, is just black plastic, no paint. I wouldn’t really mind if he was a spandex-suit wearing hero, but when the sleeves of his knit turtleneck roll up (lifting a gun into the air or chucking a grenade), it exposes the black plastic. It would have been nice to see at least his wrists painted skin tone, so it doesn’t look so strange, but it could be worse.

Speaking of which, though, I noticed some pretty icky looking brown paint bleeding in front of his right ear, and behind his left ear. I know this is very nitpicky, but there’s an obvious brown line painted into the crease of his left nostril/cheek area. I know it’s supposed to be shading to imitate depth, but I think it bled or maybe they just got a little carried away painting him. Additionally, along the left side of his hairline on his forehead/temple, there’s a distinct line of dark brown (lighter than his hair color, darker than his skin color) paint where the hair sculpt starts, and then a bit back from that the real dark hair color starts, leaving a weird strip of lighter brown on his hairline.

Overall, the paint on Mr. Punisher gets a 4 out of 5: very nearly perfect, but with some small noticeable issues. And I kinda think not painting the rest of his skin was somewhat lazy.

Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure – Articulation

Now for the fun part; playing with the figure! His head rotates 360 degrees, has pretty minimal upwards tilt, but he can look down pretty far. His head does pivot, but it is also fairly minimal. You can pivot it just enough to make it look like he’s deciding whether to waste his time kicking your ass or not. His double jointed shoulders have 360 rotation and can go straight up and almost straight down (limited by his bulging plastic muscles) if you hold and rotate the shoulder joint and the bicep individually.

Be warned, though, it’s really hard to put his shoulder back in the normal position once you rotate it, mostly due to having to manipulate it through his shirt (which doesn’t come off). His elbows are double jointed but do not rotate. He doesn’t have articulated wrists, but his interchangeable hands are soft plastic and articulated (ball joint with tilt inside the gloves) so you can pose them however you want, as long as you do it carefully! They are prone to falling off.

He has very, very impressive ab crunch. Like, limbo champion status. I say limbo because he bends backward super far, but not so much forward. His upper torso rotates independently of his abs, and his abs can rotate independently of his hips, all 360 degrees! His hips/butt also appears to be double jointed, allowing him to raise his legs out to the side to do the splits or something. The Punishers knees are also double jointed, but they don’t rotate. His boots do, however, which essentially accomplishes the same thing.

Overall, Mr. Punishers articulation gets a 4.5 out of 5 from me, because the Punisher comes with a ton of articulation and double joints out the wazoo.

Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure – Accessories

Alright, buckle up because he has a #@$%-ton of accessories to help him fight his war on crime. Let’s count ‘em: 2 knives, 2 revolvers, 2 pistols, 1 rifle, 1 submachine gun, 4 hand grenades, 7 mags, a shoulder holster, and a belt with leg straps and half a million pockets/holsters/pouches, a bullet-proof vest with the Punisher skull, and 5 total sets of interchangeable hands.

Both knives come with black leather-looking sheaths with metal clips to attach them to the Punisher pretty much anywhere. He comes with one smaller serrated knife, and one larger Bowie knife. The serrated knife has wrapped textured hilt, and the Bowie has a smooth black hilt with chipped metal details for realism. The blades are silver paint with minor scuffing and brushed steel details.

The revolvers are really cool and are equipped with actual revolving chambers. It also comes with hinged flap-thing in front of the trigger guard that moves, but I don’t know to what end. (If you’re a gun aficionado, please educate me in the comments! I’d love to learn.) The revolvers are mainly painted black with silver “damage” to imitate wear and tear. This is an incredibly picky thing to point out, but the guns have the exact same silver damage, down to the tiniest scratch.

As I just mentioned, I’m not a gun expert, but these pistols seem huge! They have a very detailed sculpt, every rivet, latch, sight or handle has texture details, no matter how small. Both pistols are black and feature identical silver damage, just like the revolvers. Oh, and they have removable mags with ACTUAL BULLETS STICKING OUT. They’re black with silver damage details, which is an attention to detail that I was not expecting at all. The pistols have 3 mags each (6 mags total), and the extras fit into the utility belt, but we’ll get to that in a minute. It is a very, very snug fit, so don’t be afraid to use a little force to pull them out.

The rifle is super badass. Firstly, it has a nylon strap with really working tiny little buckles on either side that wraps around the front and back of the gun. It has so many texture details and sculpted latches and hand grips and sights and more things than I have names for. And it also comes with 3 total removable mags with huge copper tipped bullets sticking out the top. It’s mainly black with the most realistic silver “damage” marks of all the weapons.

The submachine gun is probably my favorite weapon, but I’m not really sure why. (Also, keep in mind that the submachine gun is a Sideshow Exclusive accessory, so you’ll want to order the exclusive version through them if you want it. Good news? It doesn’t cost any extra!) Probably years of using the “spray and pray” technique has conditioned me to gravitate toward automatic weapons. But regardless, it’s objectively a really cool accessory. It has a giant removable mag with silver and copper colored bullets, and a movable hand grip covered in sculpted divots. It has a really fat barrel and a shoulder rest and looks like it can tear %$#@ up. Like the others, it is also black with minor silver “damage.” For some reason, the Punisher only gets one submachine gun magazine, but I’m sure he’ll use his bullets wisely.

The hand grenades have a nice detailed sculpt and are painted the traditional army green, with a silver metal pin ring (which you can pull out, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be… I had to check! In the name of science!) The safety lever doesn’t move, but you can use it to attach the grenades to the belt, holster, pocket, you name it.

The shoulder holster is made out of black leather-like material, with three rivets down the back of it. The revolver holsters are attached to the leather straps with nylon straps, and the revolvers can safely stay in the pockets because of the magnetic strap that goes over the hilt.

The utility belt has 8 total pockets, including 2 holsters for the pistols which are all closed with magnetic straps. Unfortunately, the glue holding the magnets on isn’t very strong, and we’ve lost a couple already. If they fall off and you don’t lose them, you can easily just super glue them back on. All pockets, pouches, and holsters can be moved along the belt, but cannot be removed. The bottom of the pistol holsters have nylon leg straps with working buckles, to secure the pistols for the vigilante on the move. The belt buckle is hard plastic painted gunmetal gray and closes with a simple clicking mechanism.

Mr. Punisher also comes with a Velcro-closure “bullet proof vest” made of a thick/padded waterproof feeling material (like a tent or a windbreaker), with a painted on Punisher skull. There are two hooks at the shoulder, probably to attach the grenades to. It velcro’s on both sides and both shoulders, so you can separate the back and front into two pieces if you so desire.

The five sets of hands are soft plastic white gloves with a wide Velcro-style strap around the wrist, gray padding on the knuckles and the back of the hands, specially designed for hand to hand combat. They also feature some other paint details to make the gloves look heavily used. Naturally, the 5 sets of hands include a pair of punching fists, which are my absolute favorite. Tightly clenched, the right fist is sculpted to have the middle finger slightly forward, so he can really break some faces. He has a set of relaxed hands with straight fingers, presumably for karate chopping, a set of hands specially designed to hold the rifle, a set of hands to hold the knives, a set with proper trigger fingers for the pistols and a set for the revolvers. No matter how you intend to slaughter gangsters, the Punisher has the hands for the job!

Alrighty, last but not least, we have the foundation of this whole set… the stand. Get it? Ha ha ha..

Well, it’s kind of just really boring in my opinion, especially compared to the rest of the figure and accessories. It’s a plastic hexagon base that’s a sort of urban-concrete-jungle mottled gray, and a hole to fit the stand in. Behind the hole is the Marvel logo and some tiny writing with the website and “made in china.” They really should have put that on the bottom, at least the website and made in China part! It takes away from the whole vibe of it.

Overall, though, it would be impossible for me to give these accessories anything other than a 5 out of 5 bad-ass interchangeable hands.

Final Thoughts – Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure

I had such a blast reviewing my first ever Sideshow Collectible. The quality is outstanding and the sheer amount of accessories had me tripping out. If the stand was cooler and the paint had fewer mistakes, I would have to give the Punisher a 5 out of 5, but as it stands (dun dun TSH!), he gets an overall 4.5 out of 5.

Order Your Very Own Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure

This awesome figure is available now, and you can pick one up at Sideshow. They have both a regular and exclusive edition, both for $239.99, the difference being that the exclusive version is only available through Sideshow, and comes with the additional Submachine Gun accessory.

Order the Sideshow Exclusive Sixth Scale Punisher

Order the Regular Punisher Sixth Scale Figure (if, for some reason, you hate submachine guns…)

More Photos of the Sideshow Collectibles Sixth Scale Punisher Action Figure