Sometimes, a character design so fun and outrageous can be enough to motivate one into dropping $35 on an action figure. Such was the case with NECA Toys’ Bellybomb figure from its subline of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures based on the characters from the Archie Comics series. Of course, in this case it helps that I’ve been collecting most of the TMNT figures put out by NECA so I was predisposed to getting this guy when he dropped, but mostly I wanted him because he just looks so weird. I know next to nothing about the character. He’s some kind of alien or Dimension X creature and he’s a bad guy for the most part. Mostly though, he’s a dude with his mouth in his stomach and eyeballs in his palms – he’s a freak!
Bellybomb, to me, looks like a character that belongs in The Real Ghostbusters toy line from Kenner back in the day. A big eye, sharp teeth, and a wacky design. I remember having a football player in that line and his entire back lifted to exposed a monstrous mouth. Bellybomb can never pass as human or anything, but his anatomy is so very Ghostbusters. I wish I knew who created him so I could properly credit the artist responsible for this design, but I wasn’t able to find anything online. Maybe it was Chris Allen? Ryan Brown? I don’t know, whoever did though my hat is off to you. The character has been brough to life by sculptors Brodie Perkins and Tomasz Rozejowski. I believe it was Perkins who did the main figure and I’m guessing Rozejowski either did the gun or his little buddy (we’ll get to that). Paint is done by Geoff Trapp and Mike Puzzo and once again Ken Mitchroney is on hand to do the artwork on the box.
Bellybomb is a figure that gets by on this outrageous design. He stands around 6.375″ to the top of his…head, and is closer to 6.75″ if you factor in the horns. He’s a bit of a chunker since the torso is just a giant mouth with an eyeball rising out of it. His skin is a very fleshy color with numerous wrinkles and if you want to compare him to a certain piece of male anatomy there’s little I can say to dissuade you. It’s a valid comparison and just adds to the grotesqueness of the character. There’s lots of black linework while his clothing is pretty basic, but also bright colored. He has a blue dress shirt which is obviously unbuttoned to expose that massive maw. The hot pink pants and blue boots make him look like a creature out of the 80s, though he’s technically a 90s invention as far as I know.
The two things that stand out with this sculpt are the mouth and the eye. The mouth is full of sharp, white, teeth while the interior is painted black with a big, red, tongue. The teeth are legitimately sharp so if you want to open the mouth try to push on the lip instead. He has a big, blue, eye at the top of his head that’s well-painted and sits cleanly in the socket. It’s moveable as well. It feels quite loose, but it stays where it’s supposed to as long as you’re not shaking the figure. Each of his hands also has an eyeball sculpted and painted on the palm which is done very well. Even the fist hands leave the eyeballs exposed which is a nice touch.
And aside from that, there isn’t much else to talk about with Bellybomb. His neck, I guess, which the eyeball sits on is articulated at the base and at the top. It can be positioned very well with plenty of room for nuance. The mouth opens and closes and it looks pretty good in both positions. The rest of the figure does very little, The shoulders are standard ball-hinges while I can’t get the elbow hinges to do anything. There’s rotation there, but that’s all. Hands swivel and hinge with the trigger hand being vertically hinged so that’s a plus. There is a waist twist while the hips and knees, despite being double-jointed, are pretty limited. The ankles hinge forward and back a bit with an ankle rocker, though the right ankle on mine is pretty loose.
Bellybomb is mostly going to just stand there and look at stuff with his big eye or maybe stuff things in his mouth. He also doesn’t come with much. He has a pair of fists, gripping hands, open hands, and a trigger finger right hand. He has a big rifle that’s nicely painted and appears to be accurate to the comic, but he can only hold it with one hand and there are no effects for it or anything. The only other thing he comes with is his little buddy and accomplice in crime, Krang. Krang in the Archie books features the same, general, design as the Krang from the cartoon except he’s a whole lot more adorable. He’s a cute little blob, and I love the very toon-like eyes. His tentacles can be posed a little bit and the underside of the figure is sculpted to be curved so he can sit in Bellybomb’s hand or on Slash’s shoulder, which is how he got around for a time in the comics.
Bellybomb is basically a slam dunk of you’re into this design. He looks awesome, I’m smitten with it, so it’s an easy recommend. He’s not going to pose as well as some of the other figures in your collection, but I think the figure more than makes up for it. Maybe the package is a little light on stuff, but the included Krang is a nice touch. And if you’re turned off by the coloring, NECA has a blue variant of this figure on the way based on his look from one of the covers. I was able to track this guy down at Target. He wasn’t advertised as being part of the Cowabunga Collection from August, but he arrived at basically the same time. I never did encounter this one in-store though and had to stalk the online listing where he’s been going in and out of stock since August. It’s likely a wider release will follow at some point so if you’ve been having a hard time tracking this one down just be patient as he’ll likely wind up on online retail outlets soon enough.
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