March 24, 2026

JoyToy TMNT Turtle Van

By Joe
Apparently, I needed another Turtle Van.

The Batmobile. The Time Machine. Ecto-1. The Turtle Van! Yes, I am placing the iconic vehicle of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the same category as those unforgettable franchise vehicles. And the crazy thing is that of those four, only one of them has never existed in live-action and it’s, of course, the Turtle Van. The Turtle Van was created for the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mini series. I suspect, since that whole production was overseen by toymaker Playmates, it was a directive from the toy company to include a themed vehicle because they knew getting a vehicle to market for the kids to place their action figures inside was a priority. When the van made its debut in plastic it was as the Party Wagon. The more bus-like design was still recognizable, but not exact, to what was seen in the cartoon. As a kid, I honestly don’t remember that ever being a point of contention for me and I was the sort of kid who wanted his toys to resemble what I was seeing on TV. The undersized Technodrome with its purple eye topper bugged me, but not the boxy van. I think it’s because both designs got the major details right: the grimacing front bumper, the logo on the nose, the spoiler on the top, the shell pattern to the roof, the twin canons. Those were all the hallmarks of the Van/Party Wagon and it was great to have a toy of it. I got it as an Easter present from my grandmother (she loved any excuse to give her grandkids presents) and she can be heard boasting on camera how hard it was to get ahold of and that she really wanted to deliver it for Christmas the prior year (don’t weep for me, I got the sewer lair). I loved that toy and would get a lot of use out of it, but I didn’t get a show accurate Turtle Van until NECA made one in 2023. And now, thanks to JoyToy, I have another.

Let’s get things started with what you all came for: comparisons to NECA, Hasbro (Transformers), and Mattel (Hot Wheels)

JoyToy’s 1:18 scale line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has been a blast to collect. It was last fall we found out that JoyToy wasn’t content to just do figures, but vehicles as well. Or at least one vehicle, the mighty Turtle Van. Clearly based on the look of the vehicle in the original series, this 1:18 scale vehicle measures approximately 10.5″ long, 7″ wide, and 7.5″ to the top of the spoiler. If the NECA one is in 1:12 scale, that puts this one from JoyToy in approximately the same ballpark. The front of this design is rounded so it translates to about a 15′ long vehicle while the NECA one with its more stubby front would be 14′. The other measurements also translate pretty well. The JoyToy approach is to take the look of the vehicle on television, and dirty it up. Add some realism and incorporate as many display options as possible. The box it comes in is a big window and it’s very similar to the figure boxes we see. Some assembly is required out of the box as the spoiler needs to be attached. It comes in three pieces plus two covers for each side. It’s very easy to snap together and it’s configured in such a way that it would be extremely hard to mess up. It also requires two AAA batteries for what I think were unadvertised lights on the front and rear of the vehicle. After you get that stuff together you’re basically good to go.

We’ve got working lights, folks.

The Turtle Van is a plastic vehicle that does utilize rubber for the tires. There appears to be suspension in each tire as there’s a nice, springy, quality, but I can’t see an actual spring to know that for certain. Most of the vehicle is a pale yellow with a pretty heavy paint wash applied to give the vehicle a grimy appearance. They do park it in a sewer, after all. There’s the logo across the spoiler as well as on the front tire cover. The printing on the spoiler is very crisp and clean while the painted logo on the front (which is sculpted into the tire cover) is a little less crisp, but acceptable. There’s translucent, red, plastic in use on the top lights as well as the radar dish over the cabin. Unfortunately, those lights (as well as the dome light inside) do not light up. The side mirrors look like they may be a decal which, unfortunately, is not mirrored. There’s some nice black linework in parts and the wash is applied basically everywhere as well as on the interior.

In addition to the doors opening, the top of the cabin also comes off to make placing figures much easier.

And for the interior, we get a nice bench seat up front with seatbelts sculpted into the bench, but are otherwise non-functional. There’s sculpted details in the dash for the radio and clear plastic is utilized for the windows and windshield. If you were ever wondering, the Turtle Van has crank windows. I do wish the glass for the windows could pop off easily to simulate an open window, but at least I don’t have to worry about losing them. The rear of the van is accessible by opening the top of the van. The front of the roof can also pop off. Back there is a computer and some more equipment sculpted into the side walls. The center ladder can fold down into the floor allowing those in the back to see and communicate with those riding up front. As for other parts that open, we have the sides of the van with the driver’s side having the fold down platform and the right side swings open and has the laser canon mounted on it. The rear doors also open. They’re all easily accessible, though I do find it easiest to push from the inside of the vehicle. The rear doors feel sturdy while the front doors are slightly flimsy as the connection point is pretty small. If you have the NECA van the doors are very similar to that one in terms of feel.

The ladder can be pulled down and of course the rear doors open.

As for play and accessories, well there’s a lot to talk about. We’ll start with the canons on top which can pivot up and down. The barrel also pulls out to resemble the look of the guns in the show, but if you like the more compact look that’s there for you as well. The side turret is collaspable and once unfolded can accommodate a character sitting in it and firing away. Like the top canons, the barrel for this one can also be pulled out to better resemble the show and the two bombs underneath it are also removable. The front spare tire cover pops off to not reveal a spare tire, but a spot for the included pizza slice. Everyone needs an emergency stash. The panel is hard to remove the first time as it has a little gap at the bottom, but it’s quite close to the bumper so getting a fingernail in there can be a challenge. There’s a toolbox affixed to the exterior of the rear door and we get a litany of tools to put in it: hammer, two wrenches, two screwdrivers. If you don’t like it though you can pop that off and replace it with a spare tire which has a mount that holds it in place. Those rear doors are also a little on the flimsy side so you do want to exercise caution when trying to pry the tool box open or off when it’s on the door. For the guns, we do get effect parts. The two canons on top can accept a spiral blast done with translucent red plastic. There’s also two smaller blast effects that are red translucent plastic with some metallic orange paint sprayed over the base. There are also two smoke trail effects that are gray with a black wash. You can actually use all of these in three places: top canons, side canon, and the exhaust ports on the back. If you want a gun to look like it’s smoking from use you can do that. If you want the exhaust to look like it’s backfiring with a blast effect then go for it.

Just like in the show, the driver’s side has a platform for a turtle to attack from while the passenger side has a pop-out turret for when the turtles would rather use firepower than martial arts.

Inside the van we also get a few options. There’s a port in the middle of the floor which can accept a stool. It can also accept this big, mechanical, pillar which has two options for it. Option one is another turret that has three canons intended to be utilized with the three included grappling hooks. These hooks come on a wired piece to look like they’re being fire, but you can also remove the hook and insert that into the turret like it’s loaded as opposed to firing. What these turrets can’t do is accept any of the other effect parts unless you tip it up and let gravity keep such in place since the fit is too loose. And it is articulated so you can adjust the pitch of the turret. If you don’t want to use that though then you also have a platform. Yes, the very one from the classic TV intro that launches the turtles is finally realized in toy form. It has four peg holes on as well as four slots for an articulated armature which is also included. The armature can swivel and has three articulation points plus a grabby claw at the end so at least one of your turtles can be in mid-leap. It does get crowded if you want all four turtles on there and the pillar is a bit wobbly, but if you’re determined it can be done. There’s also a trio of included traffic cones and two fire extinguishers, with slots for them by the side panel of the van. There’s also a hazard marker for when the van gets a flat and the turtles need to pull over to swap out a tire.

Tool box, hidden pizza, safety first traffic cones – they have it all!

This sucker has a lot of function to it, but what most likely care about beyond the aesthetics is just how does it do with the figures? Overall, pretty good, but it does become apparent quickly that these turtle figures from JoyToy were never really meant to sit down. They have a lot of stuff on their thighs and belts that gets in the way, but you can certainly do it. The steering wheel is removable so you can place that in the hands of a figure before sticking them in the cabin if you find that easier. The characters sit pretty far forward on the bench seat, but it’s only really noticeable with the doors open. With a figure like April, she too sits forward and it looks a little silly from the side as there’s a gap of about 3/4ths of an inch between her and the seat back. I think this is a result of having to make sure the turtles and their bulky shells can fit. They fit more easily into the side turret, though basically all of the turtles should go without holstered weapons if being placed in said turret or in the cabin. In light of that, it would have been neat if JoyToy had built in storage for their weapons. The rear of the van is a little short in height for the turtles to stand up straight, but anyone who has been in a work van probably knows the feeling. It mostly only becomes awkward if you want someone at the computer. Could they have gone a little bigger with the design? Of course, but I don’t really fault the design here. It’s plenty big as it is when it comes to shelf real estate.

Grappling hooks, laser canons, and the ever popular turtle launcher!

To probably the surprise of no one who has experience with JoyToy, I think this van turned out fantastic. I just don’t have many complaints with this thing. The tool box and front cover are a bit stubborn. The hubcap on the passenger side front tire keeps popping off on me. I wish the interior light worked, but I get why it doesn’t since that portion of the roof is removable. One of my canon blasts is a little warped, but I bet I can fix that with a little hot water pretty easily. Aside from that – nothing. This thing looks fantastic. I think it’s easily the best Turtle Van ever released. Now, I don’t have Super7’s very expensive take on the Party Wagon, but I don’t feel like I need to have that in my hands to know I like this one better. This design is great. I like the rounded off front and it has all of the details that I think matter most. I love the inclusion of the platform and it’s great to get all of the extra stuff we got which is something that was really lacking with the NECA van. I like that one too and it’s great for my NECA turtles, but if I could only keep one I think I’d have to side with JoyToy. And that’s before I even get to the price which for me, shipped, was $153. I may have been on the high side too as some people are getting this for closer to $135. That’s a hell of a good deal in today’s market for a vehicle in this scale and at this level of quality. Of course, the drawback is you do have to buy it from an import shop as JoyToy isn’t licensed to sell TMNT product to North America. It hasn’t been much of an issue though and there are plenty of reputable shops to buy from. If you think this thing looks great, then I say go for it. I have no idea where I’m going to put it, but it’s a good problem to have.

If you want my thoughts on other Turtle Vans or wish to see more from JoyToy then check these out:

NECA TMNT Toon Turtle Van

It’s our last Turtle Tuesday before Christmas, though probably not of the year, and it’s a pretty big one: The Turtle Van! NECA solicited its version of the Turtle Van based on the same from the animated series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in April of 2022. It was originally scheduled to be released before…

by Joe

JoyToy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

It’s been said before and it will be said again: everyone is making Ninja Turtles. It feels like the list of companies not making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is smaller than the list of those who are. Viacom has not been shy about licensing the brand out to toy makers and it’s reaching a point…

by Joe

Transformers x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Party Wallop

The list of properties the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles haven’t crossed over with gets shorter by the day. When I look back to the 1980s, I view the big action figure lines as Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. TMNT has crossed over with Ghostbusters in…

by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

March 19, 2026

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Gamerverse Cyclops

By Joe
A new challenger has arrived.

A funny thing happened in 2025 where two companies revealed they were going to be making action figures based on the hit video game series Marvel vs Capcom only for neither company to actually mention the words Marvel vs Capcom. It would seem that neither Hasbro nor Bandai wanted to compensate the Capcom portion of that pairing so instead we’re getting “Gamerverse” figures based on “the popular video game series.” Yes, it was kind of amusing watching the people at Hasbro try to talk around that fact, but to the initiated these action figures are clearly based on that series of games which began way back in 1994 as X-Men: Children of the Atom before morphing into the tag team video game confrontation series it’s most known for today. To see Hasbro mine this franchise for characters was hardly a surprise. They had basically already begun as much with their release of a yellow and blue Cable in 2024 and the Iron Man with proton canon set that came before it. 2025 was just the year they leaned into it more heavily and it so far has produced some pretty nice results. As for Bandai, I’m not sure if anyone saw that coming. It makes more sense for the company since they have had the Street Fighter license in the past and seem to still do though their output has dwindled more recently (which probably has to do with that I.P. getting licensed out to several companies now). Making some Marvel characters to scale with those seems like a natural pivot, but I wasn’t sure if it was something they were allowed to do. Most of the Bandai figures I’ve seen are based on film franchises, but I guess someone at Disney felt that video games was a natural extension of that.

He’s shorter and stockier than his Legends counterpart, though the picture makes it look more apparent than it does in reality.

I’m not sure if either company had advance warning of what the other was up to, but it seemed to work out nicely for Bandai that their first ended up being the leader of the X-Men: Cyclops. Hasbro didn’t touch the character in their own Gamerverse line and even Bandai’s follow-up, Spider-Man, has so far not made an appearance for Hasbro (Wolverine follows who was the star of the Hasbro releases last year). The X-Men are pretty damn popular and it was their video game that got the ball rolling so it makes sense to turn to one of them first, though Cyclops can probably be thought of as a slight surprise. Wolverine will always be the expectation, but even someone like Gambit could have lead the way or even Rogue or Psylocke. Cyclops has been featured rather prominently in marketing materials though so it’s hardly an upset that Slim would get the coveted debut slot. And as a character who fires lasers out of his eyes, he tends to lend himself rather well to action figures. And then there’s the fact that Hasbro has kind of struggled with this design at times. I think most agree the figure based on his look in the animated series has been their best take, but that was a pretty bare bones release that was also a Pulse exclusive. He also has that controversial cel-shading much of the collector community seems to despise. The figure was essentially re-released to general retail as part of the X-Men ’97 wave of figures, but it had a new, and terrible, portrait. Many have taken to swapping the portraits between the ’92 and ’97 versions finding it’s much easier to remove the cel-shading on just a head as opposed to a whole figure.

He still looks down on a standard Wolverine, but perhaps not to the degree most would want.

As for me, my goal with my X-Men collecting is always to assemble that ’92 animated team on my shelf in the most authentic way possible. The Hasbro figure is fine, but it does bother me he has no effect parts and the portrait is pretty off-model for the show. Not terrible, but certainly not perfect. This Gamerverse Cyclops isn’t really going to get me closer to my ideal take on the character, but it did look like a figure that was just a whole lot more fun. There are caveats though. For one, he retails for around $100 for North American buyers. That’s a big price, and even though I was able to get that mark down to $89 that’s still an expensive action figure in this scale. He’s also shorter and there’s a question of scale where the figure is concerned. It wasn’t enough to get me to bail, but now that he’s in-hand it’s time to figure out if this was money well spent.

He’s got enough stuff to duplicate a lot of poses from the games.

The Gamerverse packaging is pretty much like any other SHF release. My box got pretty well mangled in shipping since I got it through Amazon and they decided that $100 figures should just be placed in brown paper bags (meanwhile, my sub $10 manga gets the box treatment). They’re lucky I’m not an in-box collector. Out of the box, Cyclops stands at around 6.125″ to the top of his hair. If Bandai is going for true 1:12 scale then this might be okay. This is video game Cyclops, not comic or cartoon Cyclops. In the game, he’s pretty much average height and if they’re saying he’s a bit over 6′ tall then that seems to conform well enough. Where it will cause issues is for those who just want to slot him in with some Marvel Legends figures. Compared to the VHS series Cyclops referenced earlier, he is indeed shorter as I have that guy at about a quarter of an inch taller. Is that a meaningful distinction? That I can’t really answer as it’s going to be pretty subjective. He’s still taller than the ’92 Wolverine and ever so slightly taller than my ’92 Jean (with a ’97 head). That’s in just a straight up and down stance for all figures. Crouch Wolverine down or put some bend in the knees of Jean and he starts to look taller. For me though, the real thing that stands out is that this is a thick Cyclops. He has a big neck and something of a square head. Cyclops traditionally has a taller, slimmer, head in this costume, but with this design the head is more in-line with the neck. It’s an all-together different silhouette. His torso comes across as more compact, though in reality it’s the same size as the Hasbro figure if not a little taller. It’s the thickness and his unique belt that give off the appearance of a stockier torso. The legs are indeed shorter than usual though while his arms might be a touch longer than average or it’s just his big mitts that make it appear that way. This is the point where I mention that some folks who have this figure have purchased an aftermarket double ball peg for the inner torso that does make the figure taller. I think his issue, if there is one, rests with the legs though so I’m not too keen to fork over the $30 for a piece of plastic to see if I like it better, but it’s out there if that’s your thing.

Cyclops has two blast options plus two additional neck parts to adjust the angle of his blast and provide more stability, though the default neck is pretty good at both.

The other thing that stands out with this figure when grouped with your Legends is the shade of yellow in use. With Hasbro, recent editions of Cyclops have gone very yellow – a bright, lemony, shade. With this figure we’re back to that orange-yellow which Hasbro used to use for Cyclops. It wasn’t super obvious to me in the solicitation shots, but in-hand it most certainly is. I prefer this costume go more yellow as it plays off the darker blues better, but his bodysuit also isn’t the same shade of blue that Hasbro has been using. For that, we get a lighter blue with almost a metallic finish. It’s subtle, but there’s a purposeful shine to it. There’s also shading in the lines for the muscles and around the joints which does look nice in person. It’s just a shame the orange-yellow parts lack the same care. Those parts are basically all bare plastic and some take on a non-purposeful shine that looks cheap. In particular is the crotch area where Bandai is utilizing hard plastic caps to fill gaps like we used to see with the Dragon Ball line. The visor, unfortunately, suffers from the same. The painted yellow at the thighs and wrists looks better as it absorbs more light while the boots, unfortunately are colored plastic though they’re not the same material as those harder pieces. The skin tone is also extremely pale, almost a bone white. The hair is unpainted, but sculpted in a very convincing manner that’s almost too realistic, but otherwise looks nice. I should also point out that this design uses the non-traditional “A” shape for the rear of the harness that’s true to the game (and if you had the classic Toy Biz figure it was the same there) while most illustrations of this costume just have the rear mirror the front without the X logo.

Bandai also threw in this cardboard accessory that’s…interesting.

Those unsure of the overall look of the figure will likely need to be sold on the next two parts: accessories and articulation. At least in the accessory department, this figure is a clear upgrade over most others. Cyclops comes with five sets of hands: fists, two-finger pointing, open, clenching, and chop. The two-finger pose is for when he manually activates his optic blasts at the visor and also his pointing gesture for a victory pose in the games. The chop also comes from the games where he makes an X with his arms before unleashing his super. They’re all good choices, but more exciting are the effects. For optional expressions, we get a teeth-gritting and a yelling head to go with his default neutral expression. The hair swaps to all of the heads while the visors do as well. And for those we get a total of four: standard, power “leaking,” short blast, and long blast. The standard one is just that, it’s a shiny plastic piece with a red line painted on. The “leaking” one has a translucent, red, piece which mimics a lot of the game art for the character and is a pretty fun look for your self. That is, if you can resist using one of the blasting visors. The shorter one is more narrow and kind of like a blade while the longer one mushrooms at the end. Both are done with translucent red plastic sprayed with white for a nice look. Both are pretty great and shelf space may be the driving force over which one you prefer. Or how they fit since that’s a bit of an issue. The optional visors have a hard time sitting flush with the portraits and can leave a tiny gap near the ear. Heating the head you wish to use and softening the plastic can help, as can just plain old elbow grease. I haven’t had any issues getting them to stay on and I even placed Cyclops on my shelf with the heavier of the two blasts for a couple of weeks before getting to this review and his head never drooped and the part never fell out. Still, after my experience with the interchangeable face plats on the recently released Super Saiyan Goku, it’s a bummer to see a similar issue here albeit one that isn’t to the same degree.

This seems like a more relevant size comparison than perhaps one to Legends figures.

Rounding out the package is a cardboard standee of Cyclops’ massive optic blast from the game. It’s two pieces of cardstock and I guess it looks fine, but it’s a pretty cheap presentation no matter the quality of the print. I suppose it didn’t cost them much of anything to include, but I can’t see using this thing. Of more note are the optional neck parts. Of which there are two. They pop in and out very easily and the intent seems to be to provide a more stable base for the heavier effect parts. Both basically remove the ability for the neck to do much where it meats the torso while retaining the head articulation. One piece is more straight on while the other is angled up slightly. It’s a good thought and a bit of a fail safe in case the default neck proved to be too loose, but I haven’t experienced any issues with the standard one. For my two week experiment from before, I kept the standard neck in place just to see what would happen and it held up fine. Would it still after six months? A year? I don’t know, but it certainly doesn’t seem any looser. These extra parts can perhaps get a more natural looking curve to the neck for those blasting poses so they’re not worthless or anything, just interesting. And in case you were wondering, even the longer one doesn’t materially change the profile of the figure. It sits lower in the torso and I still have him at 6 and an eighth with the longest neck in place.

Natural rivals.

The other most likely area for this Cyclops to shine when compared with the cheaper alternatives is with the articulation. It’s what Tamashii Nations has staked its reputation on. With Cyclops, he seems to follow a lot of the same design philosophies as the recently released Scarlet Spider and that’s not exactly welcomed news for me. We do get a mostly typical load-out for a SHF release: double ball head, ball neck, shoulder hinges that peg in, butterfly, bicep, double elbows, wrist ball-hinge joints, diaphragm double ball joint, hips, thighs, double knees, ankle swivel, ankle rocker, ankle hinge, toe hinge. What’s missing? A damn waist joint. Why is Bandai omitting waist articulation from its Marvel figures lately? I don’t understand it. With Scarlet Spider, the culprit is a lower back piece that’s part of the waist sculpt and seems to only exist to prevent gaps from appearing at the waist. The joint itself is a simple ball peg, like most SHF releases, and it’s just this spacer that prevents rotation. With Cyclops, perhaps it has something to do with these straps that go over the shoulders. They connect underneath the abdomen and there’s actually some play here. You can pull them out and push them back in to provide for more articulation in the diaphragm. It’s a sound concept, but practically speaking offers little. That joint is pretty limited as it mostly tilts and barely rotates. There isn’t an obvious spacer like Scarlet Spider, but there is a blue piece that appears to be doing essentially the same thing and that is preventing the figure from rotating. The hips with the old cap system in place at least work well going forward and back as well as out to the side – certainly more than a Cyclops likely needs. I do like the more traditional thigh cut instead of that hideous thing they’ve been giving us in the Dragon Ball line and the ankles work well. There is an exposed, metal, ring on the hinge at the ankles which some may not like to see. They also did the same thing with the shoulders as we saw with Scarlet Spider where the inside of the shoulder is quite flat. If you put him in a standard T-pose he’ll look pretty weird, but I guess that’s a pose you’re probably not likely to do so does it matter? The butterfly joint is okay and doesn’t break up the sculpt much so we’ll call it a plus. Really, it’s just the torso that blows, but that is kind of a big deal since the torso is most of the figure. Nothing is stuck or floppy so the quality control where articulation is concerned is at least a positive.

I have some nits to pick with a lot of the figures here, but I don’t hate how this looks.

At the end of the day, I’m a little conflicted here. This isn’t my ideal interpretation of Cyclops, but I can’t really say it’s off compared with the game it’s drawing inspiration from so I don’t think it’s fair to knock it for that. If you want to get more into it, this figure more embodies the artwork associated with the Capcom games as opposed to the sprite and that’s potentially a conversation worth having for those building out a Marvel vs Capcom collection. His scale is certainly off with Marvel Legends, but again, that’s not really this figure’s problem. Sure, I would have personally preferred him to scale better with Legends, but it’s not an expectation I can put on it either. It needs to scale with the figures Bandai is releasing though in that regard it’s impossible to say since he’s the first. He does seem to scale fine with Storm Arena which may matter more in this case for those building out that MvC display. What truly irritates me though is the articulation in the torso and the lack of paint on the yellow parts. He looks a little too cheap to be a $100 figure. Bandai doesn’t typically occupy that price range save for their more limited offerings, but maybe the Marvel tax is a significant one. If he were more at that mid-tier SHF price point, say $65, I’d feel better about the lack of paint, but at $100 this doesn’t really cut it. I’m left with a figure that I’m happy to have in my collection, but I don’t think he’s really worth the ask. I would not be shocked if this line dies because Marvel is fairly oversaturated at this point and the price is pretty insane. There may be deals in the future. I’m also less inclined to continue down this path despite my positive reaction to the Spider-Man they showed off. I need to think on that one some more and see how he turns out before committing to purchasing it. The same is true for Wolverine and whatever follows. If this line is one that interests you I’d recommend seeking out multiple opinions and going from there. Yeah, this hobby is an expensive one these days and six months from now you probably won’t miss that $100 too much no matter how you feel about this thing, but we probably should expect more for our buck.

There’s a lot of stuff I could list here that is likely of interest, but I can only select three. Maybe check out my Toy Review Archive if you want to know more of my thoughts on all of the figures that could relate tot his one:

S.H.Figuarts Across the Spider-Verse Scarlet Spider

In the two reviews I did of Scarlet Spider action figures I shared the origins of my love for the character’s design. To make it short, I found the appearance of him on a cover of a Spider-Man comic intriguing, but more is as a young artist I much preferred to doodle him in my…

Keep reading
by Joe

Marvel Legends Gamerverse Wolverine vs Silver Samurai

Video game inspired action figures are quite the hot ticket right now. I’m not entirely sure why that is, but maybe some of that is owed to Jada Toys and how well received their line of Ultra Street Fighter 2 action figures have been received. Hasbro, for their part, has had a “Gamerverse” subline of…

Keep reading
by Joe

Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Ken

One of my most anticipated releases of 2025 came out of no where. I was a kid during the early 90s and into video games so I know a thing or two about Street Fighter. Street Fighter II was everywhere and is pretty much the reason why the one-on-one fighting game became a huge genre…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in toys, Video Games

March 17, 2026

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Shredder (2003)

By Joe
Here comes the bad guy.

They say that breaking up is hard to do. I feel like I’ve been slowly breaking up with Super7 for a couple of years now. The relationship began with a “will they, won’t they,” feel when Super7 announced its line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! at the then high price of $45 each. Did I need recreations of the toys I had as a kid in a new scale and better articulation? No, then yes! Super7 and I kept it casual over the next year or so. I was never all-in, but I was always buying something. Then came wave five when Super7 raised the price to $55 and subsequently dropped the quality. One of my favorite designs from the vintage line, Sewer Samurai Leonardo, was done dirty. Sure, he looked fine, but the figure was a mess and damn near impossible to handle as a modern action figure. Things were pretty rocky from then on. Some figures, like Classic Rocker Leo, were great and reminded me of how good things could be between us while others left a lot to be desired. Super7 dropping the line in favor of the 2003 version of the franchise is probably where things need to end between us. The inaugural wave released last year was okay. The turtles looked the part, but the skimpy accessories and some terrible design choices made the wave more bust than boom. I was never going to be all-in on the line anyway, these turtles aren’t my turtles, but I wanted some representation for that era in my collection. And while I can pass on the likes of April and Splinter, I feel like no set of turtles is complete without the Shredder.

He’s got some size on the turtles.

Even with my belief that all turtles need a Shredder, I still wasn’t sure about this one. While I love the look of this version of the character, I was hesitant about the quality after handling those 2003 turtles. Super7 made the artistic choice to reference the actual show heavily in their design over prioritizing things like the key art. That’s fine and defensible, though personally I don’t know why you would settle for the worst version of the characters when it’s possible to match the better ones. That didn’t bother me as much as the engineering choices. Much was made of Super7 finally embracing 21st century technology and adding double joints to the knees and elbows, but one change they made is truly puzzling. They started using soft plastic for parts like the biceps, thighs, and pretty much all over the limbs like the figures are endoskeletons with soft plastic parts layered on top. Softer plastics are great for things that need to be pliable like the belts, bandanas, and even the hands since it makes gripping weapons much easier. For things like the thighs where the parts are going to rub against the harder plastic parts when doing just basic articulation it leads to gouging and damage. Is this how Super7 plans on doing all of its figures going forward? I wasn’t sure. I’ve even done the rare thing (for me) of watching a video review of this figure before I got it. You pretty much have to with Super7 as you never know what you’re going to get. I considered canceling my preorder, but decided to hang onto it more out of obligation than anything. I hate canceling on retailers that I like (I’ll cancel on Amazon anytime) and my desire for a Shredder outweighed my apprehension over the quality of the figure. And despite seeing that review, I still don’t really know how I’ll react to this one. I’m writing this (as I do pretty much all of my intros) before handling the figure and remain hopeful that it will be “good enough.”

Technically, this is the Shredder. What a little stinker.

Shredder arrives in the normal box we’re used to. There are no credits on it and the artwork appears to be stock art from Paramount. It takes up too much space, but there is a nice, big, window so if you like to keep these in-box (a very defensible position with Super7) it will look fine. This Shredder is big and imposing coming in at around 8″. It’s what I liked about him from the moment I saw the artwork for the 2003 show as this was no longer the bumbling doofus entrusting all of his lame schemes to the likes of Bebop and Rocksteady. This was a Shredder out to win and in order to win it meant he had to kill. This dude is a literal murderer and also not a dude at all. He’s an Utrom (spoiler?) named Ch’Rell who ended up on Earth a thousand years before the start of the show and managed to turn himself into a legend. The figure you see before you is just a suit of armor being controlled by Ch’Rell in the abdomen. If that sounds kind of like Krang to you know that it is. These are the guys Krang was based around when the original show was adapted from the comic books, though in the comic Shredder was never among the Utrom. Not that it was needed for the character, but having Shredder essentially be a robot works in the character’s favor as it explains how he can be so massive and how those eerie, glowing, red eyes can shine out from under his helm. It was a step in the right direction for the character and this Shredder begets the one we’d receive in the 2012 series who was also a vicious murderer, though that one was a human.

He’s a master of intimidation.

Super7 has always been good with size when it comes to their villains so it’s no surprise that Shredder comes out looking menacing. The body is largely black with some differing shades of gray. The main armor of the torso almost has a purple hue to it which, if intentional, is a nice, subtle, homage to his look from the original cartoon. There’s no cape on this Shredder, but he does have a sash, which Super7 elected to handle with soft goods. This comes as a surprise because this aspect of the figure was not apparent in the solicitation. The head-on shot made the sash look plastic, while the action shots look like they have a subtle texture to them implying that they could be soft goods. I’m not a huge fan of mixed media apart from capes when it comes to figures and this one won’t change my mind. The sash is clunky. Super7 wanted it to be wired, but whoever they contracted to make the sash used a thick material and the stitching around it is very apparent and amateurish. If you absolutely hate it you can pull it off, but I wish they included a plastic one like the old days of the line when Shredder came with a plastic cape and a soft goods one. The proportions on the sculpting is good and probably the figure’s strength. He does look like a Shredder that could kick your ass.

I don’t care for this curve.
The unmasked portrait is fine, but has some paint issues.

Where things are less great rests with the paint and materials used. Super7 is going all-in on these soft plastics as the shoulder pauldrons are like a very pliable rubber. It feels like the kind of material you might find in a hardware store used on cheap, plastic, products or in a gasket or something similar. It does what it’s supposed to in that it lets the arm move freely, but it looks really cheap as there’s no paint on it. I’m not sure if one can paint this material without the paint cracking. Super7’s approach to a toon aesthetic is basically solid, muted, colors. In other words, the opposite of what a company like NECA has done with its own toon line which uses a lot of paint, some line work, and shading. Paint just helps the figure to “pop” like the character would on an old animation cel (I have no idea if the actual show was done on celluloid or if it was all digital) and on your television screen. Super7 seems to think colored plastics get the job done and it just looks really bad in places. The pauldrons are one area and the crest on the helm is another which is that same, milky, plastic the company used for Raph’s sai. I know some would prefer a metallic silver, but I’m actually fine with white since animated metal often ends up being painted white in this case, but it needs to be actually painted. It at least isn’t shiny and the joints aren’t ugly, but a $55 collectible should look better than this.

These colors aren’t right.

Things get a little more off the rails when comparing this figure to the source. Super7 stated they were trying to match the look of the character in the show and that’s fine. However, this really isn’t it. I was trying to figure out what looked off about this guy right from the start and I think I’ve mostly figured it out. For one, his helm is a little narrow compared with the show. A lot of the time it’s flared to the side which exposes more of the jaw line. This one is a bit blocky by comparison. Not a big deal, but the kind of thing that does mess with your mind’s eye. The crest on the helm is also curved and I cannot understand why. At first I thought maybe it was a case where the character was drawn differently depending on the angle which wouldn’t be the first time that happened. I can find no evidence of that though. It looks like it should always be straight so having the ends curve was apparently a design choice and I don’t like it. And then the other issue I have are the colors used. They made the helm and the outer pieces of his skirt black. They were never black in the show. They should be gray. The only area of the figure that should be black are the arms, legs, and the face behind the mask. The character is basically just a bunch of gray, and some of these parts should be metallic gray. A good company would paint the embellishments the animation went with to create the illusion of a metallic surface, but instead we get flat colors or bare plastic. Maybe they ended up with this black, or almost black, in these spots because the gray for the main part of the torso is just a bit too dark. I mentioned that it almost has a touch of purple to it, but I do think it should be a little lighter. Am I being nitpicky? I don’t know – I’ll let you decide. I think the main issue is the lack of shading and painted details. With those, I think the colors would blend together better and these issues would be easier to overlook. This isn’t some $15 Playmates special though – this is a $55 figure in a line that’s getting bumped up to $65 after this wave. We should expect better.

Too bad he doesn’t have a scabbard.

Shredder is like a B or a B- looking figure, but unfortunately it’s the strong part of the package. The accessory load-out is merely okay. We get a pretty decent assortment of hands including sets of fists, gripping, and what look to be palm strike hands. The palm strike hands may be intended to function as an alternative gripping hand, but to grip what I don’t know. He also has a right, open, hand for gesturing to the Foot, I guess. It’s a solid spread – no complaints. He also comes with the Sword of Tengu. The sculpt is fine and there’s some painted yellow parts on the hilt, but the blade and the plastic between the painted parts are bare, gray, plastic. It’s that same milky, slightly translucent, plastic that they’ve been using for the weapons and the crest on Shredder’s helm. It almost looks like it’s supposed to be glow-in-the-dark (coincidentally, there is such a version for those who preordered the whole wave through Super7) and just another example of Super7 going cheap and letting down their sculptors. Shredder also has an unmasked head that’s a bitch to get on. That crest is kind of fragile so pulling off the head isn’t easy. The likeness is good though, but they left most of the flesh unpainted so it has a waxy appearance. There is, to my surprise, some shading on the cheekbones and inbetween the eyes, but they used an orange color that looks like someone smeared an orange rind against it. Maybe this is why they don’t often use shading since they’re bad at it? The last accessory is little Ch’Rell out of his suit and looking like he’s up to no good. It’s a slug figure that looks good, but again the lack of paint just keeps it from being as good as it could be. They painted the eyes and the scar over the left eye, but there’s no shading anywhere else. A dark wash would have really brought out the detail here, but instead it looks like the cheap throw-in that it probably is.

He kicks high.

Perhaps Shredder can impress with his articulation. After all, there’s more here than we’re used to with Super7 and unlike the turtles before him there’s no cumbersome shell to work around. The head is a double ball setup with another joint at the base of the neck, but it mostly just rotates and offers some tilt out of the box. I did find that removing the head and then reseating it helped to sit the head just a touch higher which opened up some more forward and back range. The higher sitting head also looks a little better to me (all of my pictures are after adjusting this so if you think his head looks too high know you could force it down further on the ball peg). Standard shoulder hinges are in place and he can raise his arms out to the side 90 degrees and rotate without issue. The elbow joint is like that old style NECA double-joint with a peg and hinge above and below the elbow. It doesn’t look as bad as some of those NECA elbows because they did sculpt a point onto the elbow so you don’t get that weird U shape when utilizing both hinges. There’s also less range to prevent that oddity as Shredder can only bend his elbows a little past 90 degrees. You do get a swivel point above and below the joint effectively giving you a bicep swivel and a forearm swivel as the bicep and forearm are basically plastic sleeves over the joint inside. This is actually quite useful for Shredder because of those forearm gauntlets so you can always make sure they’re aligned with the hand in a manner you like best. The wrists swivel and hinge with the gripping hands having a vertical hinge. Unlike the head, it’s quite easy to swap hands which I appreciate.

These two are destined to battle.

In the torso, we get what is probably a double-ball peg in the diaphragm. This mostly allows for rotation with minimal forward, nothing back, and only a little tilt. The waist twist is just a peg so it only swivels, but at least it’s there. The hips are standard Super7 hips with a hinged ball peg that also has a built-in swivel at the joint which works fine as a substitute for a thigh cut. The knees follow the same engineering as the elbows so you get a joint that will bend past 90 degrees, though perhaps not as far as you would have expected. In this case, I believe the knee pads play a bit of a role. There is also a swivel point both above and below the knee so you essentially have a double boot cut. It’s useful as if you always want the knee cap to align with the toes of the figure then you should be able to do so. The ankles are typical hinge and rockers and the range going back is very good and going forward is fine as there’s enough of the shin cut away to let the foot go forward. The ankle rocker is acceptable. Lastly, there’s that wired sash I mentioned back in the aesthetics portion of the review and even though it’s ugly, the wires at least function well.

Leonardo wins – always.

To my surprise, the articulation for Shredder is pretty good. It’s not perfect. I think the diaphragm could be a little better and a ball joint at the waist would have allowed for at least some forward and back, but he articulates better than most Super7 figures. And his leaner proportions mean his softer parts don’t grind against the hard plastic ones like the turtles. Out of all the Shredder figures I have from various companies he may even articulate the best. I definitely wasn’t expecting that. Is it enough to save the figure? Yes and no. Save is a strong word. I have criticisms of the presentation here, but I still think he looks good on a shelf and in the 2003 collection. It’s an appropriately menacing looking Shredder so Super7 at least accomplished that much. It still probably doesn’t earn the $55 asking price. In addition to my presentation criticisms, the figure still feels like a Super7 offering. It poses reasonably well, but not in a fun way. Everything feels stiff and kind of clunky. It’s a bad in-hand feel like a lot of Super7 figures. There’s no smoothness to any of the joints as most are clicky, almost ratcheted, but also with loose spots. Nothing is floppy, but nothing is smooth. It’s a Super7 figure and you’ll have to decide for yourself if it’s worth it to add to your collection. I wanted this guy to pair with the turtles and I at least don’t regret my purchase. Will I six months from now when Amazon has him listed for $35? Maybe. It’s not a given that will happen, but it is likely. I do think this is where I get off the Super7 train though. The other figures in this wave either don’t interest me or don’t look worth the asking price and I am definitely not going up to $65 for this company. If they return to the Playmates looks and finally put up that Heavy Metal Raph then they may get me for the full $65, but from here on out I’m only considering these things on clearance as they’re just not worth what the company is asking for.

“I’ll be back!”

Despite my criticism of Super7 I do have quite a bit of stuff from them:

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

Who isn’t making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures these days? It’s becoming a far easier thing to keep track of than just who is making them. For years, it was the domain of Playmates Toys and only Playmates Toys. NECA tried to get in on that TMNT action in 2008 and it ended prematurely…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Guerrilla Gorilla

It feels like the last few times I’ve made a Super7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles post I’ve wondered if it’s my last one so I’m going to stop trying to predict that. This one comes courtesy of Big Bad Toy Store and their generous summer of deals. I wasn’t going to pick up this particular…

Keep reading
by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Triceraton

My summer of discounts continues today with yet another Super7 Ultimates! release. Back when wave 7 of Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was unveiled I quickly locked in a preorder for three figures: Punker Don, Robotic Bebop, and Triceraton. By the time the line released way, way, late, I only ended up with…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

March 12, 2026

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan Goku – The Games Begin

By Joe
Hey look! Another Goku!

It was around 8 years ago that Bandai released an update to their Goku body. Dubbed the 2.0 mold, the company has since created many action figures of the legendary hero since then. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the sculpt, but some aspects of it have become dated. When Bandai wanted to do an update to Goku’s legendary Super Saiyan form, the company opted to completely redo the body rather than kitbash something together. New molds have been created for the likes of Gohan, Trunks, Krillin, and others and many collectors were left to wonder when Bandai would turn its attention to the protagonist of the series once again – a 3.0 body that it could then utilize for another round of different Goku figures.

This new Goku represents an upgrade over the 2.0 body (left) by incorporating some of the design changes implemented with the Super Hero Gohan (right).

That 3.0 body has arrived. And to debut the look Bandai turned to a pretty familiar look for Goku – that of a Super Saiyan. Dubbed “The Games Begin,” this Goku is specifically from The Cell Games era of Dragon Ball Z, an era of the show and manga most would describe as the peak of the show’s art. Those rounded edges of Dragon Ball and early Z were gone, replaced with sharp angles and well-muscled super men. I’m not here to say that everyone thinks this is the best of DBZ or Dragon Ball as a whole, but if you encounter licensing art outside the show chances are it’s going to resemble this era of the anime. And the franchise has basically retained this style ever since with the most radical departures being the Broly film and Dragon Ball Daima. Perhaps coincidentally, we did get a Daima Goku prior to this one – a figure I didn’t seek out. Some of the articulation tweaks Bandai made for that figure have been carried over to this one and it seems likely that these are here to stay.

Quality control is, unfortunately, a problem here as the faces struggle to fit the hair piece leaving behind small gaps.

The main difference in stylistic approach for this Goku update is the move away from an all sculpt approach to one that mixes sculpted parts with overlays. We saw Bandai kick the tires on such a style with Krillin and the Super Hero version of Gohan. There’s basically a sculpted base body with a rubbery overlay laid over the top of that for the upper portion of the gi. It presents better, and it removes the obstacle of trying to match paints to colored plastic as they no longer have to paint the exposed flesh of the chest, but it does change how the figures articulate. The other big change is the move away from those pegged-in sleeve cuffs Goku used to sport. The portions of the gi that covered his shoulders were always plastic caps that pegged directly into the shoulder. It made articulating the arm easy, but it did look kind of odd. The biggest change though is the move from a double-jointed knee to a single-jointed one. That is basically completely new and it’s the element of this design we saw on the Daima Goku first. Goku’s baggy pants always made sculpting the double joint a little messy and the shape of the pants also limited how much range the figure could get at the knee. Someone at Tamashii Nations must have been looking at that joint and concluded “What’s the point?” If it can only achieve a slightly better than 90 degree bend then why not try a single joint that basically does the same thing and presents better?

The alternate hair is arguable worse when it comes to gaps, and mine has a defect on that center piece of hair as well.

We’ll tackle the presentation element first. This new Goku stands at approximately 5.5″ to where I estimate the top of his head would be under all of the Super Saiyan hair. He’s essentially the same height as the 2.0 Goku when the torso hinge is not extended. If you were someone who liked displaying Goku with his torso stretched to the max then this one is slightly shorter. The faces look enough like Goku while the hair shape is appropriate. The sculpt on the body is more muscled and bulky which is appropriate for this era of the show. It does give him a slightly stocky look though. When I look at individual parts and limbs, it all seems fine, but put together it just looks a little off. Maybe his legs need to be a little longer? Is the neck too thick? There is a hinge in the joint where the head meets the neck and if the head is seated all the way down it makes the issue worse. I definitely prefer it extended. The torso uses some mixed media. We have the soft, orange, overlay with hard plastic underneath it. The overlay has a softer appearance that’s slightly pale compared with the harder plastic parts. It clashes a little with the orange of the lower torso and legs as the two have a different finish. The overlay also doesn’t include Goku’s blue undershirt so Bandai still needed to paint the exposed portion of his chest. The neck, face, and arms are unpainted for the flesh tone, but Bandai got pretty close with the painted part as far as matching the bare plastic goes. Like the overlay, it just has a different finish and thus reflects light differently so there’s a noticeable difference, but it’s not as extreme as we’ve seen with past releases.

The new knees at least turned out well.

The belt is a floating piece while the wristbands are now separate and unpainted. All of the blues on the upper body are different hues which is a little strange looking, but not necessarily inaccurate. The crotch area is done the way we’ve seen Bandai do it with more recent releases like Future Trunks.. Those floating, spacers, are gone and instead we have legs with obvious thigh swivels. Bandai cuts them out on a curve and has the side of the pants run higher than the front which seems needlessly complicated. It looks better from a straight side angle, but from the front it looks worse than an old-fashioned thigh cut. The single jointed knees do present cleaner and the boots are similar to the Legendary Super Saiyan Goku. Most of the paint on this figure is reserved for the details on the boots which is clean. The rest of the paint is mostly shading on the front of the pants which is heavier near the boots and lessens as it moves up the figure’s legs. The hair is done with pale yellow plastic and shaded with a soft orange which is a nice look and probably my preferred approach for Super Saiyan hair.

It would have been nice to get an effect part. I had to take this from a past Goku.

Did Bandai knock this one out of the park in terms of a visual upgrade? Not really. The arms definitely look better without those plastic caps pegged in, but I don’t like the look of the mixed media on the torso. There’s more front-to-back bulk in the torso which was my biggest issue with the old design, but the chest sill comes across as a little flat. The knees are definitely an improvement, but the thighs are not. I really hate this approach Bandai has been using lately. He also has that weird, droopy, butt Daima Vegeta has. I’m pretty conflicted here, so let’s move on to the rest.

This new shin joint is pretty weird.
Range is better, but it can get pretty gappy.

The accessory load out is pretty basic for Goku, but considering he’s in that more budget price of $35-$38 that’s to be expected. We get four faces for this one: stoic, teeth gritting, yelling, and a smirk where his eyes have that rounded-off look to them. We also get two hair pieces in the form of a standard one and a windswept one. Unfortunately, the windswept hair I received has a chewed-up portion on the center piece of hair on the front attachment. It’s pretty awful and I don’t know if I’ll ever display this one as a result. The faces and hair also do not go together well. This is a figure out of the Vietnam factory and we’ve seen that one have issues with the finer details of its output. With this one, it’s a struggle to get the faces to fit flush on either hair piece and you should probably just try and heat the hair first to see if that helps. The spikey nature of the hair also makes trying to use force to fit them together a painful exercise. Swapping the hair is also a pain as the ball peg in the neck will likely pop out first. I was able to pull the piece out of the hair without heat, but it left my fingers in some pain thanks to those spikes. For hands, there’s a set of fists, open, two-finger pointing, clenching, and Goku’s martial arts posed hands and that’s the extent of the hands. They come off and go on with relative ease, at least.

He can at least do a pretty solid Kamehameha pose.

Perhaps even more so than the aesthetics with this figure is the articulation when it comes to its selling points. Bandai has all kinds of silly buzz words associated with it, but what you need to know is this figure articulates a lot like the Gohan figure with only minor differences. The head is one such difference as we do have a hinge in there. There’s a little room cut out of the back of the neck to help with range looking up, but it doesn’t help much and exposes a gap under the chin. He looks down well enough and I can’t tell if the joint at the base of the neck is even doing anything here. The shoulders, the biggest selling points, are hinged ball pegs that plug into a cup inside the shoulder. That cup is on a hinge as well which gets us the butterfly articulation. The arms basically pull out to the side in order to have enough clearance to come across the chest. And it works! Goku can do a fairly convincing Kamehameha. There’s also the usual bicep swivel, double-jointed elbow, and hinged ball peg wrists.

Attempts at a pair of classic Goku stances return mixed results.

In the torso, there’s a ball joint in the diaphragm and a hinge below it for an ab crunch. The range is quite good in all directions, but as we saw with Daima Vegeta it does create large gaps pretty easily. The floating belt can be manipulated to hide it some, but it only does so much. The legs can go out to the side nearly to a full split and kick forward just a hair better than 90 degrees while going back is imepeded by his long, flat, butt. The thigh swivel does what one would expect while the single-hinged knee gets better than 90 degrees of bend going back. In a pretty weird move, Bandai put a joint at the boot, but not what you would expect. Instead of a swivel, it’s a hinge of some kind. It bends maybe 30 degrees forward and I guess it’s for adjustment posing in certain stances. It mostly seems to make standing the figure harder than it should be as this joint is pretty loose. Not floppy, but there’s little resistance. The ankles are ball-hinged so they swivel, hinge forward and back, and rock side-to-side. The range going forward is pretty much nonexistent on the hinge, but the rest is fine. There’s also a toe hinge if you value that.

The Cell Saga has been pretty well represented in this line.

All in all, this one is a bit of a mixed bag. I had high hopes when it was first unveiled and visions of replacing a lot of the Goku figures in my collection with updates on this body, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think I’ll be getting the base Goku and I definitely don’t need Super Saiyan 2 or 3 updates. I don’t really like my current Super Saiyan Blue Goku so I tentatively have the new one on preorder, but it may be one I seek out reviews on to see if some of the finer points are at least cleaned up. Overall, on the articulation front Bandai and Tamashii Nations mostly delivered here. I don’t see much reason for the odd shin hinge, but the shoulders work well and the torso has good range, even if it can get unsightly. I don’t like the head or the thighs and the thighs play a big part in the aesthetics, which I’m less sold on. The proportions and mixed media look best when posed-up, but then you have the gaps to contend with so there’s a feeling like you just can’t win with this one. The quality control issues are also not a point in its favor. The faces don’t fit together well and swapping the hair pieces is not a smooth process leaving a lot to be desired. This may be a budget release as far as the line’s standards are concerned, but it shouldn’t feel like one. And since this is undoubtedly a figure that’s going to be re-released many times over I can’t help but come away disappointed with the end result. If it’s one you want, I would recommend giving it some time. There’s a reissue going up in March and it’s possible some of the quality control issues will be addressed there like they were with Future Trunks. This is the one time where you should avoid buying from anyone who has stock at the time this post goes up and instead seek out a preorder. There are also three other Goku figures on this body due for release in 2026 (base Goku, Super Saiyan God, and Super Saiyan Blue) so maybe check those out to see if the quality gets better before committing to this one.

Interested in some of the figures referenced above? Then check these out:

Dragon Ball Daima S.H.Figuarts Vegeta

Dragon Ball Daima has come and gone, but we’re still getting action figures based on the limited series. When it comes to the Bandai/Tamashii Nations action figure line, that’s usually par for the course. It’s not like the classic movie tie-in toy line where product shows up in stores weeks before the movie hits theaters.…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Super – Ultimate Gohan Super Hero

As part of the promotion for the film Dragon Ball Super – Super Hero, Bandai released a wave of action figures from its S.H. Figuarts brand of characters from the film. The neat thing was, these releases were actually really cheap relative to other SHF releases with a MSRP of just $35. Of the four,…

Keep reading
by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Krillin – Earth’s Strongest Man

My Dragon Ball collecting was once simply focused on the original series, Dragon Ball, but has been expanding over the years. I’ve definitely leaned more towards Dragon Ball Super of late, but one of my Dragon Ball Z purchases last year was the event exclusive Nappa. I don’t know why I like Nappa so much.…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

March 10, 2026

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios The Shredder – Worms of Madness

By Joe
Bring on the madness!

NECA’s dance with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began way back in 2008 with a set of four turtles based on the first issue of the comic series. That set would then have other figures crafted around it of which most were cancelled, but when the license opened up and TMNT proved a hot seller they all found their way into the hands of collectors. A couple of years ago, NECA went back to the well and produced a new set of turtles based on their later look in the Mirage Studios run of comics based on the artwork of Jim Lawson. Those bigger, bulkier, turtles looked out of place with the old Shredder NECA produced based on his first appearance so it was all but assumed that an update would follow at some point. That update arrived in 2025 in the form of the Worms of Madness Shredder two-pack which was released at Walmart and also offered up to online retailers for the low, low, price of $60. More in some places. Despite my desire for a new Shredder based on his return appearance, I was not interested in this two-pack at that price. And that’s because the second figure in the set is basically a repaint of the initial one only shirtless and maskless so I played the waiting game. I knew it was only a matter of time before Walmart put this on clearance because they have a tendency to do just that, sometimes very quickly too. When the set was dropped to $30, I placed an online order and picked it up from my local store later that day. Mission accomplished!

2025 was really the Year of Shredder for NECA, and this isn’t even all of them!
He’s going to fit in well with your Lawson turtles.

This set probably looks weird to someone not familiar with the Mirage run of comics and the name Worms of Madness isn’t helping. What most TMNT fans are likely aware of is that the Shredder was never intended to be some evergreen opponent for the turtles. Truly, I don’t think co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird ever expected to do multiple issue of what was ostensibly a gag comic which is probably why the Shredder was killed-off in that inaugural issue. When the franchise made the leap to children’s television and the toy aisle, the desire for a standard rival was created and the Shredder was the best fit. Perhaps Eastman and Laird felt the same for they laid the genesis for Shredder’s return in the Leonardo one-shot published in 1986. Considering that Shredder was literally blown up, it was going to be a hard sell to the reader for him to be alive all of a sudden. Enter the worms! I don’t know if I ever quite understood where these things came from, but essentially the Foot mystics had access to some special worm that could take on the form of whatever it ate. They basically gathered up whatever remained of the original Shredder, fed it to some worms, and from that we got a new Shredder (as well as the malformed clones NECA has already immortalized in plastic). The only truly relevant thing to know here is that when Shredder was brought back he took on a different look that was more reflective of the evolving art style in the books. He was taller, broader, and all together just more imposing to look at. This is a Shredder that will fit in with your Lawson turtles, and considering that NECA never reissued those first appearance turtles, this is likely the Shredder most will want in their collection over what has been made available up to now which makes this two-pack all the more frustrating since the other figure may not be something most people want.

He’s imposing.
Shredder clones – assemble!

Shredder stands at a full 7″ and is another sculpt by Gurjeet Singh who previously sculpted the Foot Elite Assassin. The two are very similar stylistically and I would have expected them to share parts, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Yes, they likely share some as the musculature of the abs on both is pretty much the same, but the sash is different. Shredder is also pin-less at the knees and elbows so while the arms appear to be more or less the same, some updates had to be made for Shredder in order for him to be pin-less. That must have been a driver for NECA with this figure as they probably could have just reused the arms, legs, and maybe even the chest and called it a day, but opted not to. Shredder is mostly clad in a skin-tight, dark red outfit that has a vague hint of purple to it. It’s more purple than the Elite and the browns on the sash, boots, and gauntlets are a more Earthy brown than the Elite. The metal portions are all a shiny silver with an ever so slight hint of blue. There’s also some sculpted distress details like this is a guy who has seen his share of battles. The black linework is frequent throughout and I continue to love the completely black-out flesh beneath the helm as that’s how the character was colored in the comics. He’s long of leg with a slightly undersized head which really conveys that comic look. This is definitely a more intimidating Shredder and I’m content with the looks of it.

Back dat ass up!

For accessories, Shredder has multiple sets of hands: fists, gripping, chop, and open. For weapons, he has a pair of swords that you’ve probably seen before as well as the smaller version of the bladed polearm (I think this came with Karai too). There’s also a tiny worm since you can’t have a Worms of Madness set without the worm. And then there’s the other Shredder. He’s his own figure, but in a way feels like an accessory. In the books, the turtles tangle with Shredder and eventually he removes his shirt and all of the armor on his head and arms to reveal his weird, wormy, body. It’s basically just a textured body with lots of lines carved into it. I’m thinking maybe to mimic the look of an earth worm? I don’t know, but for the figure you get a duplicate sculpt with different forearms to remove the wraps and armor. There are lots of subtle grooves in the torso with a paint wash applied to bring them out. I don’t know enough about toy making to know if this necessitated new molds or if this distress could be added to the sculpt without cutting into steel. The head is certainly new as it’s an unmasked Oroku Saki and it looks fine with clean paints. He does lose part of his sash, the bit that hangs over the crotch and rear, which exposes the odd sculpt of the bum area. Shredder has a big, droopy, butt that has a lot of area around the thigh hollowed out presumably to allow for more movement forward and back. It looks fine on the regular Shredder since he has a way to hide it, on the second figure it’s just out in the open and kind of funny looking. I guess be mindful of how you leave him on the shelf, unless you want to accentuate the buttocks then by all means do so. This figure also has the same assortment of optional hands as the other Shredder.

Worm.
This diaphragm joint is no substitute for a proper waist joint.

Since we’re dealing with two identical figures from a structural standpoint, the articulation is going to be the same across both. We get: double ball head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, diaphragm, hips, knees, and ankles. To my surprise, there is no glove or boot cut like we’ve seen with toon versions of the character from NECA. There’s also no vertical hinge for the gripping hands, something I’ve basically come to expect with NECA as much as it irritates me. As previously mentioned, the elbows and knees are pin-less and work just fine. Range at the head is acceptable while the standard Shredder has the shoulder pauldrons which interfere with the shoulders. I don’t know why they don’t either pin them to the shoulder itself or use a loop through the shoulder peg. The diaphragm joint gets a little forward and back and rotates easily, but there’s no waist cut. I don’t know why NECA has been omitting waist articulation of late with its Shredders, but I don’t like it. Hide a ball-joint behind that sash and let us get this figure into more natural poses. The diaphragm joint isn’t a great substitute because the figure looks ridiculous if turned more than 45 degrees. He does get decent range at the hips though I find the ankles to be a bit tough to work with. The left bicep on my Shredder is also binding and not rotating. The right arm is fine as are both on the Saki figure. I’m not sure if heating it would do much good as that could make shearing it off easier. It’s at least the only trouble spot between the two figures as nothing is too tight or too loose. It’s still pretty basic articulation by today’s standards so don’t expect import-level posing or even Marvel Legends caliber. For this line, it’s mostly as one would expect.

Is this the update people were hoping for out of NECA where Shredder is concerned? I think so as it looks the part based on his appearance in the comic and he definitely looks like he can hang with the updated turtles. Did anyone want to pay $60+ to get this and the shirtless variant? That is probably less of a slam dunk. I know personally I did not want this other figure. At all. I assume NECA added it to the mix to basically make a cheap (for them) two-pack since it’s two figures using essentially the same tooling. It’s too bad they didn’t pair him with the Foot Elite instead. And I say $60, but a lot of places have this set at $70 which is an even worse deal. I do have to wonder if NECA had gone with a swap-able torso instead could they have convinced more people to pay $50 for the release than what they sold at the two-pack price? Would it really make a difference compared with the actual costs? I can’t answer that, but I feel like there was an opportunity to up the perceived value of the package, but maybe dropping half a figure from the set isn’t as big a cost savings as I would imagine. All I know is that their basic, single pack figure is $35-$42 depending on where you get it. I wouldn’t pay that for the extra figure in this set so I needed to wait for it to be essentially free to feel comfortable buying this one. And I was fortunate that I ended up getting Shredder for even less than that. If you think this figure looks neat and can get it for the same price then I think it’s an easy recommend. As a two-pack with mostly ho-hum accessories, it’s a much harder sell. You have to really want shirtless, wormy, Shredder and place considerable value on him to make it worth your while. Maybe if they had included something fun with the set, like a wormy stump for his neck, that could have made a difference. Instead, I could never shake the perception that this set was a money grab and we were being forced to pay extra just to get the new Shredder we wanted, but sometimes that’s how the toy industry works.

Leonardo always wins.

If you enjoyed this look at Shredder then here are some Shredder-adjacent reviews you may find informative:

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Elite Foot Assassin

NECA has gradually built out the ranks for Shredder’s Foot Clan via its line of action figures based on the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as published by Mirage Studios. The clan got started way back in 2016 with a box set released in conjunction with New York Comic Con. That set featured Shredder,…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Shredder Clones

NECA and Target’s Haulathon event which has seen a vast assortment of product dumped onto shelves recently was not content to limit the products to just the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Far from it, as an assortment of comic book based characters were also released and today we’re going to look at the first…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4-Pack

When it comes to the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot of the credit goes to Playmates Toys. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the characters born out of a joke. Credit them for having the vision to think this joke had appeal beyond their small circle as they self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

March 5, 2026

Saurozoic Warriors Staze Akiden and Javvik Mosa

By Joe
More musclebound dino dudes here to wreck your shelf.

There just isn’t enough time, money, or space for me to indulge in all of the temptations the hobby of toy-collecting brings me. A lot of my focus is tied up in the franchises I grew up with – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Spider-Man, Lego, etc. We live in a golden age of action figures, but there just isn’t enough space to devote to them all (in more ways than one). One victim of this has been Boss Fight Studio’s line of musclebound dinosaur dudes – Saurozoic Warriors. It was about 2 and a half years ago that I looked at a figure from the line’s first wave and came away mostly pleased. Despite that I’ve never found a chance to go back to it until this past December when Boss Fight Studio got my attention with a buy 1 get 1 free daily deal that I couldn’t ignore. I had always planned on getting more so the only question was just which two should I get? I was tempted to go for four, but wisely opted not to go overboard and instead grabbed the pair of Staze Akiden and Javvik Mosa.

For those who want to see how they scale with MOTU Origins and NECA TMNT.

Staze Akiden comes from the line’s second wave while Mosa comes from the third. I had always planned on getting Staze because I thought he just looked cool. He’s an ankylosaurus, everyone’s favorite dinosaur, with both guns and melee weapons while Mosa is an aquatic dinosaur who reminds me a lot of another character from a property Boss Fight Studio once had the license for. If you’re new to the line, Saurozoic Warriors is kind of like a dinosaur Masters of the Universe with updated articulation for modern times without going so far as to lose some of that retro charm. I don’t know if the line has a true scale, but if you collect something like Masters of the Universe Origins these might fit it to your liking.

There’s some nice shading on the spikes.

Let’s talk Staze Akiden first who is something of a samurai, I take it. There is a character bio on the box, though some of the charm with this line is that it isn’t tied to an IP and it’s fun to look and imagine what the character embodies rather than read it. This guy is only about 4.5″ to the top of his head while the back of his neck sits higher as he’s hunched over. He’s quite the chonker as there’s real heft to this guy even if he’s not particularly tall. He’s also very red as he’s clad in bright, red, armor with a pinkish hue to the ridges on his neck and back. The flesh is closer to purple and there’s some blue to balance things out under the armor and his gloves. There’s nice sculpt work throughout as his spiny appearance can be painful to squeeze and the armor features numerous dents and gashes. There’s some design work on the pauldrons though they’re left unpainted. There’s texture to his pants and the sculpt makes it appear to resemble denim, an interesting choice of material for an armored dinosaur. Paint is reserved for some of the detail work – the eye patch, teeth, guns, buckles, claws. There’s some nice shading to the spikes on his back, a piece that is removable if you prefer along with the neck spines, and there’s some air-brushing on the end of his tail.

I love the look of the helmet, but I wish these hoses were more pliable.

As for Mosa, he is an all together different color palette and size coming in at around 6″ in height. His skin is a turquoise with a touch of blue shading in places. The body suit he wears is an earthy tone, something of a red-brown, while there are some gray straps holding his armor and weapon sheaths in place. The helmet and apparatus on his chest is a metallic copper with a yellow oxygen tank strapped to it. He has a removable helmet as well with translucent, green, lenses over the eyes. There are two hoses that connect from the helmet to the chest piece which are done in the same translucent green. It’s a fun look and it reminds me of the Bucky O’Hare character Al Negator, a bright, purple, dinosaur creature with copper armor. The only thing I don’t like about the presentation are these hoses. The plastic is so rigid that you lose a lot of ability to pose the head when they’re in place as they’ll just pop out. There were renders of the character being able to look up with the hoses still in place like he was swimming, but such a feat is all but impossible. I’m tempted to heat the hoses to see if I can re-shape them a bit to provide more range. Aside from that, I enjoy the various finishes on the figure between the scales, wet suit, and the mechanical bits. I do wish they had painted the claws on his hands and feet, but the paint that is present is rather clean.

Mosa has weapon storage for everything which is cool.

Both characters come with a solid assortment of accessories. For Staze, he has a rifle, mace, and a short sword with a sheath. They’re all molded in a dull, purple, plastic with the blade of the sword painted silver. The handle of the mace is silver and there’s a light air-brushing of the same at the end of it. The rifle has a suppressor in the muzzle which has been hit with silver paint that extends past it. I think it’s intentional, but the way the spray of the paint just fades away is a bit odd looking on both the gun and the mace. Staze has two gripping hands, but the gun doesn’t have a traditional trigger molded onto it. I would prefer that it did and that one hand was molded as a trigger finger hand, but that was not done here. For Mosa, he has the helmet plus a pair of knives and his own gun. The knives are done in the same translucent green plastic as the hoses with brown wraps painted onto the hilt. There’s a sheath strapped to his left arm and right calf for weapon storage. His gun is molded in green plastic with a ribbon of large rounds extending from the bottom. Unlike Staze, this weapon does have a trigger and a trigger finger right hand to go with it. For both figures though, their hands are extremely rigid and getting them to hold onto anything will likely require heat the first time. Especially with Staze who does have paint on his hands that you would hate to see rub off. Mosa’s helmet is also a snug fit, but entirely do-able with added heat. Getting it off is arguably harder than getting it on and more heat may be required there.

The big feet help for running poses which is probably the most elaborate thing either figure can do.

Articulation for both is pretty basic. For Mosa, he articulates at the head, jaw, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. Elbows and knees are single hinges that also swivel while the waist swivel is a ball joint. The head has good range on the hinged ball joint there and his right hand features a vertical hinge while the left a horizontal one. For Staze, he has the same setup plus articulation at the neck and tail. His hunched posture means he needs that neck articulation to look side-to-side while the tail is pretty self-explanatory. That tail is tough to get in place without heat and once on fits very snug to the point where you probably won’t be posing it. He lacks a vertical hinge on either wrist which is a shame as it would be preferable for all of his weapons to the horizontal orientation. The limited articulation means two-handed poses are out of the question where weapons are concerned. The bulky proportions for both characters means you’ll likely be forced to stick with basic poses, though the oversized feet can help with one-footed stances.

It’s a fun collection of colors with this line.

Staze was the priority for me going in and was the figure I always intended to buy, but now that I have these two in hand, I think I prefer Mosa. I like the colors in use which are more evocative of the early 90s which is the vibe I liked most about the first figure in the line I purchased – Range Brakhion. Staze plays things straight, and while I like the design, it doesn’t have that outlandish factor to the colors. Mosa is also a bit more fun to pose, even with the hose issue, and I’d be lying if I said the similarity to the Bucky O’Hare character wasn’t charming me to a point. If the designs appeal to you and you don’t mind the limited articulation then these will add a nice splash of color to the shelf.

For more from Boss Fight Studio give the following a look:

Saurozoic Warriors Range Brakhion

These days, the buzz word in the entertainment industry is “content.” Everyone wants content, especially streamers. It all goes back to the value of intellectual property. It’s costly and difficult to turn a new product into a popular one. It’s far easier, and less risky, to just throw money at an existing brand and create…

by Joe

Boss Fight Studio Bruiser the Betelgeusian Berserker Baboon (Bucky O’Hare)

2019 was not a plentiful year for Bucky O’Hare product. After receiving my two-pack of Toad Storm Troopers from Boss Fight Studio on Boxing Day 2018, I had not received a new Bucky sculpt until now. Not that 2019 was necessarily light on Bucky developments, it’s just the nature of the game when a small…

by Joe

Boss Fight Studio Sam & Max

Sometimes a toy comes along that I just can’t ignore. There’s just something neat about it, or the aesthetic so on point, that I want to own it even if I have little or no attachment to the source material. Such is the case with the Boss Fight Studio release of Sam & Max. I…

by Joe

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in toys

March 2, 2026

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Mister Sinister – Limited Edition

By Joe
“My name is Sinister. Mister Sinister.”

When the topic of X-Men villains is broached the first name that comes to mind is Magneto. And rightly so, he was on the cover of the very first issue getting pelted by a snowball from Iceman (and Marvel wonders why the kids of the day thought the X-Men looked lame). When the X-Men were first brought to television in pilot form, it was Magneto that was chosen to lead the antagonistic group the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants removing all subtlety from the character and firmly placing him in the role of villain. That show never made it any further and when Marvel got yet another chance to bring the X-Men to animation it was, once again, Magneto placed as the big, bad, guy right there in the opening title directly opposing Xavier’s X-Men. He didn’t actually debut in the series until the third episode where he had a brief skirmish with just three members of the team before returning in the following episode for a slightly more combative showing that ultimately ended in defeat.

And then that was it. Magneto was never the central villain again past the fourth episode. He briefly teamed-up with Apocalypse for the “Beyond Good and Evil” arc, but otherwise he was more like a hostile ally which is why the first villain I think of when someone mentions X-Men – The Animated Series my mind goes to Mister Sinister.

Sinister is actually a little taller than Cyclops.

Mister Sinister was still a relatively new face when the cartoon series began having first been mentioned in 1986, but holding his full debut until 1987. He was the antagonizing force over the show’s second season either directly opposing the X-Men or lurking behind the scenes setting plots in motion. Apart from a brief truce with the X-Man Beast during the Phalanx confrontation, he remained a villain throughout because that’s really all you can be with a name like Mister Sinister. The scientist Nathaniel Essex was obsessed with human mutation, but his experiments were so controversial he was forced to do them in secret and on himself and his wife. This basically turned him into a mutant with somewhat undefined abilities. His body can restore itself almost instantaneously and he can produce energy blasts. He may even have some telepathic abilities as well as telekinetic ones, or maybe all of that was just for show in the cartoon. He is often allied with Apocalypse and one has to wonder if a thousand years from now his powers might evolve to more match that of the original mutant.

Oh, don’t be such a baby, Cyclops. You don’t need all of that DNA of yours.

Because of his lofty standing in the show, Mister Sinister was a must have for Mondo’s action figure line based on X-Men and X-Men ’97. The character does always pose some difficulties in bringing him to life due to his unusual appearance. His costume and portrait is pretty straight-forward, but it’s that cape that can give animators and sculptors fits. It basically consists of three, main, parts: collar, upper portion, and lower portion. The upper portion rises from Sinister’s body and then takes an acute angle towards the ground. The section below that is wider and basically does the same thing giving his cape a tiered appearance. To further complicate it, it isn’t just one or two pieces of material, but it’s broken out into strips. I have no idea what the material is intended to be, it could be leather, it could even be a thin metal, but it moves around like a cape. For the show, the animators basically just kept Sinister as stationary as possible. He wasn’t allowed to turn or do much in frame to reduce the need to animate that cape. Sometimes, they would drape part of it over his forearm which is about as fancy as they ever got. In toy form, the original Legends one had rubber strips of plastic affixed to his collar and didn’t really attempt that big “hump” the upper piece creates. When Hasbro attempted the character it did the cape in the proper shape, but also tried to keep it as few pieces as possible by essentially fusing the strips together in a manner that made it look like the cape was just bunched together. That approach worked fine for a 1:12 scale figure, but for a 1:6 scale figure there’s a greater challenge. You can’t hide things at such a large scale and the need for realism becomes more important. Mondo had to come up with a way to both have Sinister’s cape retain its shape while also not being brittle. Now that he’s here, how did they do?

This gesture, along with the glove cuffs, are very X-Men ’97 specific.

Before we get into it, I want to mention that this another figure distributed in a box with new artwork by series storyboard artist Dan Veesenmeyer. It’s also adorned with production artwork from the original series depicting Sinister which I think is from the episode “Till Death do us Part – Part 2.” Sinister foregoes the usual frontal flap and instead has his bio on the rear of the box. It’s again by the Lewalds, Eric and Julia, who worked on the writing staff of the original series. I’m curious if this is the plan going forward which is honestly fine by me. There isn’t much use for a window box on something most people buy online, and even less so for a Mondo figure as they always wrap their figures in plastic bags and tissue paper to protect the paint. It is one of the deeper boxes in the series so far as Sinister needs quite a bit of room. Once again, this is a sculpt by Alex Brewer with paint by Mike Pflaumer. Hector Arce is credited with art direction and Jordan Christianson packaging.

This portrait is also pulled directly from X-Men ’97.

Sinister to the top of his head is a little over 12″ putting more or less eye to eye with the likes of Cyclops, Gambit, and Magneto. His collar takes him higher, but more so is the depth needed because of that bizarre cape. Mondo elected to do Sinister’s cape with a hard plastic – I’m assuming ABS. It’s basically four pieces: you have two upper pieces each consisting of four strips and two lower pieces each consisting of another four strips. The pieces for each side, one upper and one lower, are glued together where the cape slots into the body of the figure so you effectively have two pieces to slot into the figure. They do not go in easy. The right side is more stubborn than the left on my figure and the challenge here is that this type of plastic has little to no give. It’s thick, probably a quarter of an inch, so you probably have to give it way more force than is reasonable to actually break it, but it’s hard to find a safe way to apply the pressure needed to fit it in there. I don’t think heating the actual cape will help as this type of plastic usually doesn’t work like that, but heating the openings on the back of the figure is an option. I tried lowering the upper body into some hot water, but I don’t think I got it quite hot enough. It still helped, but there’s a little notch on the side of the cape that I think should be flush with the figure’s back and it’s not quite there. And yes, that is the sort of thing that will annoy me as I do my best to ignore it. I feel like the top of the cape relative to the top of the collar looks about right though so I’m trying not to let it bother me. If this were a cheaper figure I’d consider cutting some plastic away on the entry points to get a smoother fit. Or, I’d attempt to file off the little lip they put on the cape itself.

Aggravations aside, the cape does look good and it’s pretty accurate to the show. The figure’s right side has red and dark blue highlights on the side while the figure’s left has white which follows the shading in the show. This material will also never warp, though shelf dives could be quite destructive so definitely do be careful with how you ultimately pose this guy. As for the rest of the figure, he looks pretty damn great. The sculpt is basically dead-on with a nice shape to the torso. He is mostly a dark blue with a lot of black shading and some white highlights. The horizontal stripes are sculpted in which is accurate to the show as his costume almost looks like metal banding around his body. The collar is wonderfully excessive and the design of the shoulder pads and how they connect with the chest was realized well.

This portrait, along with the controller on his belt, are pulled from the original animated series.

Sinister’s bone white visage is also done well with black lines accentuating his cheekbones which was always prominent in the show. There’s a blue-gray used to shade his face and his very square haircut is mostly black with blue highlights. His default portrait is a rather…sinister grin with his pointy teeth prominently displayed. This is one area where some fans may quibble with the look of the character. When I look at this portrait I very much see the X-Men ’97 version of the character. The differences between the two are very subtle and come down to the style of the show. Sinister’s mouth is just a little wider in that show, a little more cartoon-like. And that’s fine given that the box says X-Men ’97, but I don’t see a true original series portrait in the box. His other portraits include a scowl that’s basically a neutral portrait for him and it’s very ’97-like in appearance. He also has a portrait of his withered, old, look from the finale of the first season of X-Men ’97. The only other portrait is the one that I think looks the most like it’s from the original series. It’s a yelling head where his eyes are aglow with yellow energy. The energy is part of the sculpt and painted yellow, it’s not a translucent piece glued into the eye sockets like Rogue’s optic blast portrait. The yelling mouth, which has no hint of a smile, is like an equalizer in bringing the two designs together. Plus, I think this look is from an episode in the original series. It’s just a shame that it’s such a specific expression, though it is one I like and am happy to have. Personally, I have no use for that withered portrait and I wish instead we got a specific original series portrait that looks like the character turn-around art on the rear of the box.

This Sinister shadow accessory is neat, but also really small (other portraits inserted for scale)

Those are the portraits, and per usual we also get a bunch of hands. By default, Sinister has some style-posed open hands. They look like he’s reaching for something or maybe getting ready to blast some foolish X-Man. He also has a set of fists and clenching/gripping hands. There’s an extra left hand that’s pointing with a red diamond at the tip of the index finger which is from X-Men ’97. The most eye-catching hands are his blasting hands which he comes with two of. They have the blast effects glued onto them which adds some noticeable heft, but so far my figure has been able to support them just fine. The blasts are done in red, translucent, plastic which looks very similar to the blasts that came with Cyclops. I kind of wish they went with yellow or mixed some yellow into it to differentiate them more from Cyclops since they famously had a collision of blasts to close out season two of the original show. When Sinister came back in later seasons he had red blasts so the figure isn’t inaccurate, I just would have gone with something else. He also has optional cuffs for his wrists. By default, he has red bands around his wrists which is how he was depicted in the original series. The cuffs were added for X-Men ’97 which is what he had in the comics as well so if that’s your preference Mondo gave you the option. His other accessories include a translucent, yellow-green, clip-on part for his abdomen to depict his battle damage after getting blasted by Cyclops. There’s his control device that can clip onto his belt which he used to control Morph. And then there’s his gross tentacle thing with red lips. In one of the more bizarre scenes in the original series, Sinister makes one of these things just kind of grow out of the ground which he then uses on Cyclops and it spits out some amber-colored jelly bean. For an X-Men ’97 specific accessory, there’s also the shadow Sinister from the final episode which is done on smokey, translucent, black plastic with the red details of Sinister’s face painted onto it. It’s neat, but way smaller than it was in the show. This is more like a little buddy accessory like Nightcrawler’s Bamf doll. Everything is sculpted well and painted perfectly. Lastly, there’s the traditional Mondo stand with X logo on the base. Even though Sinister isn’t the sort of character who would necessarily need it, I do wish we got the new flight stand that came with Nightcrawler as that one just feels more sturdy and this is one figure I want to feel like is secure on my shelf.

Blast off!

That’s a ton of stuff and I honestly kept forgetting about things here and there and would go back to the pile to remind myself of what else came with this guy. For articulation, there’s much less to talk about. Sinister is a step back for this line as Mondo has gone back to single-jointed elbows with no bicep swivel. I guess the thinking was that Sinister didn’t need more? I’d disagree, but it does help to give him a cleaner look. He does have double-jointed knees, but even with those thigh high boots he wears (they’re more like double boots as he has cuffs at the ankles too, but no one ever said this design wasn’t “out there”) Mondo opted not to put in a thigh swivel. His thighs do rotate a little on the ball-joint at the hips, but it’s not much. The diaphragm joint does nothing while the waist is a little loose, but does rotate fine with a little tilt. The elbows are quite tight and come close to a 90 degree bend while the double-ball peg at the head works mostly as intended. The collar will limit his ability to look up and there’s paint rub to be mindful of, but it’s probably enough. The cape does have some play in the slots on his back so you can kind of adjust the angle of it if it suits your pose.

Like his onscreen counterpart, this Mister Sinister figure is largely a statue. He can raise his arms and take advantage of those blast effects, but he’s not going to do anything remotely exotic or dynamic. The only figure in the line more limited than him is Omega Red, who between the bulk and the costume really can’t do much of anything. That likely comes as no surprise for those who collect this line as the articulation and ability to pose the figures is a distant second to the aesthetics, and like basically all of the other figures in this line, Mister Sinister looks great. He’s a wild design and that cape is a pain in the ass, but Mondo’s solution for it is one that preserves the look of the character from the show.

“My body…”

Mister Sinister is advertised as a limited edition by Mondo that’s been restricted to 1,250 units. It has apparently not been a big seller because even though this went up for preorder last summer it has yet to sell out. Some of that is likely due to the price tag of $265, and that’s before tariffs, shipping, and any applicable sales tax. He is, without a doubt, the worst value in the line so far and I guess that cape is the driving force of the price. Not only is it a unique piece of engineering, it necessitates a deeper box and a bigger box means more space is taken up and more room in a shipping container is needed and so on. There’s also a lot of stuff in here fans might feel like they don’t need. The weird Sinister wave, the withered head, maybe even the tentacle thing – all things fans might be able to do without in exchange for a cheaper price tag. Given that this one hasn’t sold out, I wouldn’t necessarily count on there being a standard version of this character. Especially when one considers that the non-exclusive versions are usually only around 15 dollars cheaper. If Mondo can’t sell 1,250 Sinister action figures at $265, how many do they really think they can sell at $250? All that is to say, if you’re like me and feel that Mister Sinister is a necessity for an animated X-Men display then you probably should just bite the bullet and grab this version. The figure looks amazing and absolutely brings up the quality of the display. It does lead me to wonder what villains could possible be next after Sinister? Apocalypse? Juggernaut? They’ll both be huge and a lot more expensive. Mystique seems likely, or maybe they’ll go X-Men ’97 specific with a Goblin Queen? More importantly, where am I going to put all of these figures?!

If you want to read my thoughts on other X-Men offerings from Mondo then check these out:

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Nightcrawler

Yes, I’m afraid this is another toy review that needs to begin with a word about tariffs. It was the talk of 2025 in the toy collecting community because it caused considerable delays, disruptions, and worst of all, increased prices across the board. One line impacted by the introduction of these new costs more than…

by Joe

Mondo 1/6 X-Men ’97 Wolverine – Limited Edition

Back in 2021, Mondo unveiled for San Diego Comic Con a sixth scale Wolverine action figure based on the X-Men animated series from the 90s. It was a presale to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the show’s premiere and product went out in 2022 closer to that actual anniversary. At the time, Mondo wasn’t…

by Joe

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Cyclops – Limited Edition

After putting a real hurting on my wallet in 2023, Mondo decided to take it easy in 2024 with its line of sixth scale action figures based on the animated series X-Men which ran from 1992-1997 on Fox Kids. Two figures ended up getting released this year, Rogue and now the leader of the X-Men…

by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

February 26, 2026

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Stupid Sexy Flanders

By Joe
What are you smiling about, Ned?

There’s some mild debate about the “Golden Era” of The Simpsons, but most seem to narrow it down to seasons three through eight. A lot of that period saw the show do well and get mined for talent on the writing staff. It also coincided with the show becoming eligible for syndication and the daily episodes that followed certainly had an impact on the minds of viewers now able to consume many hours of the show per week. I also just think it’s objectively the best the show has ever been. That doesn’t mean there aren’t good episodes that fall outside of that range. In fact, some of the show’s most referred to and memed moments come from later seasons of the show and one I see pop up a whole lot is Stupid, Sexy, Flanders.

Ohh, that’s what you’re smiling about.

Season 11 gave us the episode “Little Big Mom” where Lisa takes on the role of homemaker when Marge suffers an accident at a ski lodge that requires hospitalization. The episode is fine, but what most remember comes from the opening moments. Homer, getting ready to attempt to ski, has a skier slide up alongside and kind of piss him off with his dusting of snow. The incredibly well built individual is sporting a skin-tight suit and a helmet that obscures his face. When Homer reacts negatively to this individual, he flips the visor of his helmet up to reveal he is none other than Ned Flanders. Homer is surprised, even though he’s seen Ned in more revealing situations before, but then calls out how revealing the ski suit is. Ned just gives a good-natured laugh then says it feels like he’s wearing “nothing at all!” Later, when Homer is spiraling out of control going down the slopes, he tries to recall what he was taught about skiing, but all he can think about is Flanders in his tight, revealing, ski suit (do you think this look could have been inspired by the NES game Slalom?) and cries out in frustration, “Stupid, sexy, Flanders!”

Scale is pretty much what you would expect.

Jakks Pacific, despite being the brand that sells to kids in the toy aisle of Target and Walmart, wisely decided that this often referenced moment was deserving of plastic. Honestly, I can’t believe Super7 didn’t get here in the short time they had the license, but they botched a whole lot more than that so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. The figure is labeled as Ned Flanders on the box, but shows up in inventory systems as Stupid, Sexy, Flanders which is pretty damn funny. I had to get this one, even though tracking down this line has been a massive chore. Luckily, this wave Ned is a part of received some distribution to online retailers, which is good because all of the stores I’ve been to in the last month have completely removed their Simpsons stuff from the toy aisles.

He can do more traditional ski poses if that’s your preference, but I doubt it is.

If you have a Jakks Simpson toy then there is little here to surprise you. This should also be rather quick since there’s not a lot to talk about which is why I usually review these as waves. Ned stands at 5″ and is depicted in his ski suit with the visor of the helm up. It’s not articulated and I guess because it would be impossible to fit his head inside the helmet without compromising the look. He has a smile on his face, but his mustache obscures most of it while his glasses are a separate piece with transparent, plastic, lenses. The body is a mix of red and blue plastic with paint details where needed. The main torso is blue, with the red painted on, while the limbs are red plastic with the blue painted on. The zipper down the center is also painted and Jakks did a good job of making sure the colors match each other. He comes with a pair of skis and his ski poles which are done up in all colored plastic. The handles of the poles remind me of push pins, but in checking the episode they’re pretty faithful to the look. The sculpt is pretty nice for what it is. The torso tapers in nicely, the buttocks are defined (though perhaps could have been exaggerated further to really sell the meme), the arms are muscled, and the legs are proportioned well.

“Go ahead, Homer, have a good long look!”

The only thing this guy needs to do is hit his signature pose and he can – kind of. Jakks loaded Ned up with articulation: head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, diaphragm, waist, hips, knees, ankles. The range at the hips, knees, and elbows won’t quite reach 90 degrees, but he can approximate his pose from the show. The real limitation is with the torso. To really hit the pose, he almost needs to bend up his torso in a J shape, but he doesn’t get enough rock forward at the waist nor can he really arch back on the diaphragm joint. He needed a ball joint at the waist rather than peg and swivel to really get it. He can mostly fake it on your shelf though and honestly what’s really missing is a companion Homer to react to it. The standard Homer doesn’t seem to mind the view.

And that’s probably good enough. For 12-15 bucks, I can’t really complain. He makes me smile when I see it on my shelf and I have elevated this Ned to winter time decoration in the main area of my house. I have no idea if I’ll be getting much more from the line. I don’t think it’s doing well if Target and Walmart are giving it the boot and I have yet to track down the elusive Carl figure. This Ned was stocked by Big Bad Toy Store and hopefully is still up if you’re reading this and wanting to get your own. It’s fine, and it’s the type of release I enjoy from a Simpsons line because there are just so many fun moments from the show worth immortalizing in plastic.

If you’re curious about the other Jakks releases I’ve covered then check these out:

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Deluxe King Homer

These days, The Simpsons is as synonymous with Halloween as candy and costumes. Via its annual Treehouse of Horror installment, which returns October 19th this year, The Simpsons has contributed more to Halloween pop culture than any other entity in my lifetime. Other shows have had memorable Halloween offerings, but none have taken over the…

Keep reading
by Joe

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Waves 3, a bit of 4, and most of 5

One thing I wasn’t expecting for 2025 was that the hardest line to collect would be The Simpsons by Jakks Pacific. It’s a mass retail release so, if anything, I thought it would be pretty easy. My assumption has been proven wrong and I think it’s because this is a line that is trying to…

Keep reading
by Joe

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons – The Rest of Wave 1 and Wave 2

Back in October, we took a look at the very first wave of action figures from Jakks Pacific based on The Simpsons. At the time, I only had two figures from that inaugural wave: Homer and Bart. It was a series of great interest to myself and other Simpsons fans since it’s existence basically meant…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

February 23, 2026

Marvel Legends Retro Card Mystique

By Joe
Mystique is coming to get you – bang! Bang!

This should be a relatively quick review because today we’re looking at what I was hoping would be an upgrade over a prior release. Mystique was one of 8 characters released in the Marvel Legends X-Men – The Animated Series subline and she was just one of two villains for the line (3 if you count Evil Morph). She was an interesting pick for the line, but in thinking over the major villains in the show, not unworthy. It was just a surprise to see her take a slot over someone like Magneto (Apocalypse was released on a retro card in cartoon colors as a sort of companion figure to the line) who is is thought of as the main rival to the heroes. Mystique did make numerous appearances and she had her hand in some stories, though she did mostly fall by the wayside post Season Two with the exception of the Nightcrawler return episode. All that is to say I had no problem with the character selection, but I did have a problem with the figure.

At least her blue matches Kurt’s now.
They just can’t seem to get her right.

Things got off to a bad start for Mystique when Hasbro advertised her using a render that was not accurate to the figure. There was a mix-up somewhere and the digital artist basically used the wrong base body for the render making collectors think they were getting a true upgrade on an old release. They did not. Instead we got the same old figure on the tubular body with a new, animated series inspired head. It had all of the problems of a lot of the female figures of the era where the knees basically bowed and the figure was limited with its posing. Now, we have a new Mystique and this time she’s exclusive to Target. The previous comic book version of the character was a Walgreens exclusive, if I’m not mistaken, so some fans had a hard time tracking her down. This time figures to be easier as she appears to be getting stocked in ample supply. It was my hope to bring one of these home and do a head swap, but once I got home I realized I had an issue.

Damnit…
It’s an improvement, but worth full price?

One of these things is not like the other. The cartoon version of Mystique had a grayish, blue-green skin tone while this comic book one is more of a royal blue. Oops. Still, maybe it’s an upgrade since this is on a newer body. Kind of. The arms are double-jointed now and the legs pin-less, but the torso appears to be the same with its narrow proportions. Mystique isn’t built like She-Hulk or anything, but I feel like she needs bigger shoulders. The original render is perfect in that her shoulders sit higher, or maybe the angle is just better. A lot of Legends females end up being too slight for my taste. They have the opposite issues of the men where head-on their proportions look fine, but from the side they’re lacking in bulk. Mystique has plenty of curves from a side view, but not the front. Anyway, she has sleeves up past her elbows and her boots are different so the costume isn’t exactly the same either, but it’s close enough that it wouldn’t have bothered me if the skins matched. They did a really odd thing where they painted some blue onto the butt area of the torso. Apparently someone took one look at this figure and decided she wasn’t showing enough ass and demanded a little stripe of blue be added. The same skull belt with skirt is still being utilized only now there’s a gold finish to the skulls which looks nice. The face appears to be the same, but the hair is entirely different. It’s a very late 90s look, almost like a Rachel haircut, and it’s okay. Funny enough, the back of the box once again has an incorrect render. There she has the animated portrait and the torso might even be different as there’s a sculpted belly button. Once again, we’re sold a Mystique that looks better on the box than in-hand.

What am I supposed to do with this?
“Whoa! You’re not getting me to take that!”

The double-jointed elbows are a marked improvement over the prior figure, but they don’t offer much more in a practical sense. With no butterfly joint and an ample bosom to deal with, she just doesn’t get really any clearance across her chest which would have been nice since she has a pair of firearms to utilize. They are new to me, but I’d guess they’ve been released before, and include a pistol and an assault rifle. They’re done in black plastic and seem fine while she also has a set of trigger finger hands and a set of open hands. She also has a very odd accessory in the form of Jean Grey as the Black Queen’s head. I think this was something that was locked away in a convention exclusive before or something, but I don’t like it. There’s nothing wrong with the head itself, but I’d much prefer another Mystique portrait. And you could say “Well, she’s a shapeshifter,” but what good is one head that’s a completely different color from the rest of her body? Yeah, I had fun with my Morph Toy Biz figure back in ’94 too, but that sort of gimmick does nothing for me now. If there was a surplus of White Queen figures out there then maybe I’d be tempted to buy one and paint it up, but as it stands this is just wasted plastic.

She doesn’t look bad alongside them…

Articulation is the same as the previous Mystique which was mediocre. The only change is now we get bicep swivels and double-jointed elbows. The knees aren’t bowed so she stands much easier and is an overall better release, I just wish that old head worked or we got the head that’s on the back of the card. I was tempted to try and heat and pry the hair pieces off of each, but I don’t want to risk ruining them in the process. That mediocre Mystique is now gone so replacing it if I messed up would be costly. I think I’ll just return it to her box and make this my display figure from now on. Maybe I’ll even add some shading to the dress – I don’t know. This is a figure only for those Legends collectors who must have a slightly better Mystique in their collection or for those who missed out on her. There’s nothing special about the figure itself and there’s a very good chance she hits clearance six weeks from now as most of the Target exclusives tend to do. If you’re on the fence then you probably shouldn’t pay full price. If I had been smart enough to actually compare my two figures before I opened this one I probably would have returned it. Oh well.

We have a whole lot more from Marvel Legends and the X-Men if that’s your fancy:

Marvel Legends X-Men Animated Series Mystique

The penultimate figure in this series is a bit of a curveball. When one thinks of the animated series X-Men, the first villains that come to mind are Magneto, Sinister, Apocalypse, Sabretooth, and then it gets muddled. Graydon Creed made quite the impression in the show’s second season and may even be the most hate-able…

Keep reading
by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men Retro Card Series Apocalypse

It is Halloween and that means it’s time for costumes, candy, and spooky fun. It’s also Halloween 2022, a pretty important date if you grew up loving those mutants who ran around in colorful spandex fighting for a better tomorrow. That’s because 30 years ago on this very night, the animated series X-Men premiered on…

Keep reading
by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men Animated Series Mr. Sinister

This week, the long wait for an in-person San Diego Comic Con comes to an end. For the first time since 2019, attendees, creators, and the like will be invited back into the city of San Diego for a celebration of all things comics, movies, and general “nerd” culture. One of the many panels this…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

February 19, 2026

Lone Coconut Plunderbeak Berserker Quervo

By Joe
Looks like they can fly now.

Lone Coconut is back with more characters for its line of little, pirate, monsters. It started with a Kickstarter for Plunderlings, little imp like creatures that came with weapons and armor pieces to form various factions. The line continued with new iterations including the Plunderstrong and Plunderlong and now we have Plunderbeaks. As you can probably guess, this is a bird version of the Plunderling, or more accurately, a bird version of the Plunderlong. They all have a bird-like head and feathery wings protruding from their backs and Lone Coconut is almost certain to come up with various takes on these designs just as they have done with the other figures they’ve produced. As someone who was instantly charmed by Plunderlings, I’ve continued to support Lone Coconut because I think their stuff is genuinely pretty good so I decided to grab one of the Plunderbeaks and my selection is Berserker Quervo.

He may not be a Plunderling, but the Plunderbeak is still a little fella.

Plunberbeaks come in a box similar in dimensions to the Plunderlong, and like the past releases, there’s little cardboard features in the box to dress them up. In this case, a set of wings to slot into the side. Quervo is basically on a Plunderlong body and out of the box will not have his wings attached. The whole goal of the line from a design standpoint is to come up with a few variations on a base body that can then be turned into many different characters. The only Plunderlong I have is Feral 8-Ball which actually does not share many parts with Quervo. Quervo has the rope belt across the chest and he has gloves, which I think the Tinker utilized previously. He also has boots which I think is a first for the line. The torso is essentially the same, but Lone Coconut had to modify the tools to accommodate the wings which attach via ball pegs.

Simple, but effective.
If you want him to be more like Batman.

What is obviously new is the head and Quervo has a large beak that looks like a parrot of some sort to me. I have no idea if that’s accurate as I’m not a bird person. It’s this really glossy purple with a hit of a lighter purple at the tip and it looks really nice. His main body is black and there’s no feather texture to it as this is apparently a race of creatures where only the wings are feathered (a clever choice if you want to save some money). He is the more drab of the available Plunderbeaks as the wings are various shades of gray as opposed to something more colorful. He has a rope harness with a little, gold, emblem in the center and the boot cuffs are nicely textured to give the illusion of soft leather. The paint is very clean and honestly a step-up compared with the other figures I have from this company. There’s just one blemish on the figure’s right cheek area. It’s a line of what I think is just excess paint, but it doesn’t scratch off easily.

This bladed weapon is pretty cool, but limited when it comes to posing.

The accessories for Quervo include the usual assortment of hands: fists, gripping, and open. Only one portrait this time, but it features an articulated beak. It’s really tricky to get into it though as there’s just not much room to get at it and I was afraid to scratch the paint. If your fingernail won’t do the trick, you may want to look for something to insert into the beak to pry it open, just pick something with a soft edge. The harness is removable if you want to remove the arms (I don’t) which makes it like an accessory, but apart from that his accessories are his helm and his blade. The helmet affixes to his head via a magnet, though the connection isn’t very strong. It’s strong enough to stay on, but you’ll probably knock it off a lot when posing the figure. The blade is interesting in that it’s connected to a rope. He can’t hold it like a sword because there’s no handle for him to grip. The real rope actually looks really similar to the plastic rope harness and it’s an interesting way for him to carry his weapon, though it’s limited in what it can be posed doing. A plastic, bendy-wire rope might have made more sense, but the blade is so big and chunky it may not have worked with a bendy wire. Still, it’s a weapon and it’s a unique one. The only thing missing for me is some kind of flight stand which would have made sense for a line of bird people.

He looks so much happier with his beak open.

The articulation for Quervo is basically the same as the Plunderlong, with just a few differences. One I already mentioned in the beak which is cool. Even though it’s hard to get at, it adds personality. Another change is the addition of a toe hinge and as far as toe hinges go it’s fine. The big change is obviously those wings. They are a little hard to pop on out of the box. I heated them up and they snapped-on easily after that. The wings are made of three pieces and each section is connected to the other via a dumbbell joint. This lets the section rotate and basically hinge in and out. It’s a smart way to do it and the only downside is you do get some gaps in the wing sections and there’s no way to get a natural looking bend to the wings. The only way to do that would be to make them with a bendy wire, but I’m okay with this approach. These are toys, after all, and they don’t have to completely hide that. The wings do add some weight so he’s a little harder to stand with the wings on, but the ability to bend them in and such helps redistribute it.

Not a bad looking crew.

I only have the one Plunderbeak, but I assume the others are the same and, if so, these are nice little figures. They’re little 5″ guys that articulate pretty well and definitely look unique in my collection. They’re charming and even more so in-hand than they are in pictures. Even my daughter was smitten with this guy right off the bat and after we watched the teaser video on YouTube (the figures comes with a QR code to access it) she demanded I get one of the Plunderfrogs when they go on-sale. Good news for her is I was already planning on it and I suspect they’ll be coming soon. I got my figure directly from Lone Coconut, but you can also get this on Big Bad Toy Store for $35 which feels like a very fair price to me (Lone Coconut charges $30, but shipping came out to a little over $8 for me so it’s essentially a wash). If you like what you see or just want to support a small toy maker, definitely give one of these a look.

If you’ve never heard about Lone Coconut before then take a look at these:

Plunderlings Nomad Goyle & Hatchlings

Last April I posted a review of the Plunderlings Raider Fwush from Lone Coconut. I was pretty charmed by the little goblin-like creature and found the action figure to be pretty fun. It’s also always a little rewarding to know that in buying such a toy I’m supporting a small shop like Lone Coconut. When…

by Joe

Plunderstrong Captain Blackjak

In 2020, Lone Coconut, a small company out of the Dominican Republic, launched a Kickstarter campaign for a line of original action figures called Plunderlings. They’re basically little imp-like creatures with a pirate motif that have a very charming design. From an engineering point of view, they made for a smart toyline because every figure…

by Joe

Plunderlong Feral 8-Ball

When Lone Coconut came back last year with a new Kickstarter to build out its Plunderlings universe, I was immediately smitten with the brutish new Plunderstrong. The big, chunky, boy looked like a fun character type to pair with the diminutive Plunderlings. The Plunderlong, on the other hand, took a bit for me to get…

by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in toys