NECA TMNT Cartoon Captain Zarax and Zork

Lets end 2020 on a familiar topic for the year: looking at another set of NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Wave 4 of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the vintage cartoon brings to us the most obscure release of the line thus far. Here today is Captain Zarax and Zork, officers in the Triceraton army who appeared in one episode of the show. It was one thing to receive the Triceraton infantryman in the previous two-pack release since that character’s design was based on the Playmates action figure many are familiar with, while these two guys are pretty much their own thing. Yes, they’re still space dinosaurs and triceratops at that so their design is pretty familiar, but their overall look is unique to the show.

Given that, some may be wondering why NECA chose to release these two guys relatively early in the line’s life. Well, the simple reason is cost. Both Zarax and Zork should feel very familiar as they’re essentially the same figure as the infantryman. They arrive in the same styled window box as the rest of the line, only now it’s bigger than ever since these guys are pretty beefy. I didn’t bother to include a photo this time around since the packaging should be rather familiar at this point. NECA was able to likely save quite a bit of money by not needing to create new molds. The only new parts are the individual headsculpts, feet, and the soft, rubber, armor that fits over the torso. Some collectors look down on flagrant parts reuse, but it’s hard to argue it’s not good business and it helps keep the price consumers pay for the product down. Plus, these two guys impart enough personality that it doesn’t feel like a disservice to reuse the same mold. Helping that is the fact that both characters feature articulated jaws. I criticized the infantryman for not featuring that, since that figure was considered an “army builder” and an articulated jaw is a simple way to add variety to a display, and I am at least happy to see it here.

Aside from the jaw articulation, these figures are the same as the previous one as far as articulation goes. The head features terrific range of motion for what one would expect to be a bulky figure. These guys do have shoulder pads which can get in the way a bit, especially with the yellow one, Zarax, but it’s still quite good. The shoulders are on ball-joints with double-jointed elbows and bicep swivels. The hands are hinged and can rotate while the upper torso has good play due to what is likely a ball-joint underneath the armor. Zork does feature a shoulder strap that goes across his chest and abdomen that you’ll want to watch out for when rotating his upper body. The tail is ball-jointed, but doesn’t afford much range of motion as it sits quite far inside that joint. It basically just hangs out. The legs can go out, forward, and back pretty freely and swivel above the thigh. The knees are double-jointed and the feet are on ball-pegs and can swivel and rock side-to-side. It all works quite well for such big brutes and is pretty typical of this line as a whole.

Not only is the sculpt for these guys familiar, but so are the accessories. They come with the same layout of hands as the infantryman which is a pair of open hands, a pair of gripping hands that also work as fists, and a single, right, trigger hand. The weapon loadout is also familiar as they come with the rocket launcher, machinegun, and rifle to share between the two of them. The only difference are the blades for Captain Zarax. Pop off his hands and you can slide his bracers off and replace them with the bladed ones which he featured in the cartoon. It’s a cool look for him and I assume many will pose him with his blades and Zork with the guns.

The two dinosaurs looks pretty nice and mix well with the infantryman. The quality control appears to be satisfactory as well as the joints were all pretty free and easy out of the box and the paint is largely clean. There’s a little bit of slop on Zork’s armor and around the horns, but nothing egregious. His horns also aren’t level with each other with one pointing lower than the other. I have no idea if that is intentional or if they’re suppose to align, but it’s barely noticeable. Zork has a curious feature too where his hands are the darker shade of green used for the shading on his body. The other two triceratons have their hands cast in the lighter shade of their flesh and I’m not sure why Zork is different. The prototypes that NECA showed off back at Toy Fair featured the lighter green for the hands, so my guess is this was either a late change or a factory error that NECA decided to run with. Both characters also feature the same paint short-comings with the feet as other releases where the hinge is a different color than what is painted over it. In this case, both have these booty things over their feet and when you bend the foot forward the flesh colored hinge becomes visible. It’s the one consistent complaint about this line that I have, but it doesn’t appear like one that is going to be corrected anytime soon. My Zork also has the green of his flesh peeking through the foot covering along the inside of his ankle and handling the two figures will produce a lot of yellow and green paint flakes. Don’t eat them. Zarax’s bladed gauntlets are also a bit tricky to get on, but it wasn’t too bad. There’s a notch cut into them so they go on properly. I am left wishing the blades were a bit longer though. I saw numerous comments about their jaws being hard to work with, but I guess I lucked out because I’ve had no issue there, but buyer beware.

These guys may not have been high up on anyone’s “wants” list from the show, but it’s hard to argue they didn’t turn out well. Both have a pretty mean presence on a shelf as they’re big, dinosaur, men. I wish that NECA had changed up the weapon loadout a bit, especially considering the other set was meant to be an army builder so we’re really swimming in these weapons now. On the plus side, if you want to pair Bebop and Rocksteady with their weapons (the rifle and machinegun were both handled by the pair in the cartoon) you should have plenty of extra laying around if you got this and multiple versions of the prior set. And you get yourself a little Triceraton squad.