It’s been awhile since we last took a look at a figure from a wave of Super7 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! It was back in July 2024 that I gave a rather glowing review of the first of a presumed four turtle figures based on the old Playmates Rock n’ Roll Turtles – Classic Rocker Leonardo. Leo had the distinction of being the first released from that set, but the first solicited was Super7’s take on Punk Rock Donatello, or Punker Don. I ordered this figure way back in March of 2022. He is part of Wave 7 of this line. Leo is part of Wave 10. What the hell happened?! I don’t know. Super7 never provided any real updates or reason for why this wave lagged so far behind the rest. There were some big figures in the wave, there could have been issues with licensing, or maybe it was funding? I don’t know. Brian Flynn of Super7 mentioned that they probably undercharged for one of the figures in the wave (which we’ll talk about in due time) so maybe they more aggressively factory-shopped to get the best rate they could which maybe pushed them to the back of the line? I don’t know, but Wave 7 is here and has been out for a little while now (we’re still clearing out a backlog here) so hopefully the extra time in the oven did some good.
Punker Don has always been an amusing release to me. Each turtle needed to be matched with a genre of music for this set. Leo as a fan of classic rock? I suppose that makes sense since he’s always been displayed as the closest to his father, Splinter, and classic rock is essentially “dad rock.” Raph a fan of the loud, aggressive, and abrasive heavy metal? Sure, makes perfect sense. Mikey as a hip hop artist needs no explanation, but what does Donnie listen to when he’s working in the lab? Punk rock? It doesn’t really jive for me. Donatello would probably be into prog rock. I see him being way into Rush or King Crimson. The problem there is prog rock isn’t as popular a visual as punk rock. Not even close. I’m not sure any genre of rock is more visually interesting than punk with the crazy hairstyles, spiked jackets, torn pants, and smashed up instruments. It works too well as a toy, so someone had to be the designated punker and it fell to Donnie.
That’s not the only reason why this design is so amusing to me though. The other is the chosen instrument: the keytar. I don’t really know if the keytar truly belongs to any genre of music, but I know it does not belong to punk. I get it. Leo and Raph both came with guitars and while they could have given Don a bass, a bass guitar isn’t exactly visually distinct from a guitar. Especially since the guitars included with the others aren’t accurate to the actual instrument when it comes to string count. I wish he came with a drum kit, but maybe Playmates saw that as too expensive back in the day? And sticking a lone drum around his neck like the Little Drummer Boy would have looked just as ridiculous as a punker with a keytar.
All that being said, this is a fun release. It was back then anyway, and it should be now. This Donatello is a pretty faithful recreation of the vintage figure with some minor differences. I don’t have the old one for an easy comparison, but we do have the good old internet where such pictures exist. The main differences here are that some sculpted details on the old figure are now off on their own. The necklace is the most obvious as here it’s an actual necklace on a real chain. There was also a sculpted chain on the left arm of the old figure and that has been turned into an accessory. He still has his big mohawk and classic turtle grimace. The color of said mohawk seems a little more yellow this time around as opposed to orange, but it’s a subtle change and probably not even an intentional one.
Mostly, this is just a new version of an old toy. The details have been upped and the paint hits increased. The leather jacker looks especially good with a nice finish. The part of it on the torso is a soft overlay and even the parts of the shell showing through on the back are part of it. It blends well with the harder plastic arms where the sleeves are sculpted and the trim work with the silver paint is very crisp and clean. The “NO” button on the lapel is painted now which was probably a reference to the War on Drugs which was quite popular back in the day. The knee and elbow pads are sculpted to look like they’ve been tied on and they’re separate, soft, pieces. The belt is part of the sculpt and only what’s visible is what’s sculpted, which is fine. The underside of his boots are sculpted like LL Bean boots and it’s quite sharp.
Not everything is great though. The jacket is well painted, but the paint hits elsewhere aren’t so clean. The pink portion of his pants is a little thin so you get a sense of the blue poking through. The green boots with yellow laces are also really sloppy. There’s little specks of yellow throughout the pants that seem to have transferred from there and the laces themselves look pretty bad. The left boot, especially, is really poorly done on my figure. The ripped portions of the pants are painted all right, not perfect, but mostly I don’t like the finish on the pants. I can’t tell what these are supposed to be. They don’t look like denim so I guess they’re spandex or something. They’re just bare plastic and look really cheap. The T patch on the right thigh has also been left unpainted, like it was on the old figure, which is a shame though with how bad the detail work turned out on the laces maybe that’s a good thing? These pants needed a wash or something though because they look really out of place compared with the rest of the figure.
What bothers me more with this release is the articulation and an old enemy has resurfaced. These figures are never great when it comes to articulation, but at this point we should be able to expect the same level of quality on the turtle figures especially since they’re all basically the same from an engineering point of view. I was really happy with Classic Rocker Leo, but the same is not true for Punker Don. The articulation points are all the same: double ball head, ball-hinge shoulders and hips, single jointed elbows and knees, and so on. What suck is the range in the arms seems less than what we had with Leo. He’s a little harder to pose with his keytar than Leo was with his guitar. The right elbow, especially, doesn’t bend well and it’s frustrating. What’s worse though are these dreaded Super7 hips. Yup, they’re floppy again. There are slip points on both sides where the legs just won’t stay. Now, I have been able to get him to stand without falling over, so it’s not as bad as perhaps it could be, but it’s still unacceptable. I was hoping Classic Rocker Leo was a sign of things to come, but Punker Don didn’t get the memo. Get your shit together, Super7.
The good thing about this figure being from way back in Wave 7 is that it still has the old Super7 amount of accessories. There’s not a whole lot missing from this package. We even get the rare triple portrait approach. There’s the default head, and then there’s another mohawk head with an open mouth and goggles sculpted on. It looks pretty fun, though the paint between the eyes is a little iffy. The third head contains a totally different hairstyle with big, purple, spikes and a tongue hanging out the side. He’s biting down on his tongue which feels very “vintage” and the hair is certainly very punk rock. The paint is a little sloppy in that it doesn’t go all the way to the roots. Still, I like it and I might even like it more than the classic interpretation.
We get the customary allotment of hands as well. There’s a set of fists, gripping hands, pointing hands, and a set of keytar hands which is basically a C-grip left hand and an almost open right hand. All of the hands have horizontal hinges which is less an issue for Donatello being a bo staff handler. And he does have a bo staff. It’s basically Donnie’s bo repurposed as a recorder or clarinet. It has little holes or buttons and an end with a mouthpiece on it which is clever. The old figure may have referred to it as a flute, but that is not a flute mouthpiece. He also has a record with a purple center label, a direct callback to the vintage toy. It’s really thick and not convincing, but it’s fine. There’s also a tuning fork, a new accessory, which I guess is a decent way to reference Donnie’s more nerdy tendencies, though is really out of place for a punk rock guy. There’s also the chain I mentioned earlier. Previously part of the sculpt, it’s now just an accessory. It sits very loose in Donatello’s hands and feels a bit pointless. I wish they had rigged up a way to make it function like a wallet chain or attach to the figure in some way, but oh well.
Donatello also has a repeat accessory – his mic and mic stand. It’s the same as the one included with Leonardo just with a new deco. I liked it with Leo, and I like it here. Lastly, we have the most important accessory for any punk rocker: his keytar. Like the vintage figure, it’s sculpted in yellow. Unlike the vintage figure, the keys are painted. Unfortunately, that’s all that’s painted. This thing is really well-sculpted as it looks like it’s held together by tape. Leonardo’s double guitar received a fantastic sculpt and paint job, but this looks like shit. The sculpt is great, but the lack of paint is so cheap and I feel bad for whoever sculpted this because Super7 did them dirty. Someone needs to tell Super7 that no one cares about the extra stuff like the chain or tuning fork if the keytar, the featured accessory, is going to look like crap. In their defense, this is how it looked in the solicitation so it’s not like they did some bait and switch, but it looks bad and I’m calling them out on it. It looks so poor beside Leonardo’s guitar that I’m thinking of just returning it to its box and making Donnie the vocalist of this fake turtle band.
There is a lot about Punker Don that disappoints me, there is also a lot that I like. This is basically a mid tier Super7 release in that the sculpt is there, most of the paint is acceptable, but there’s enough eyesores and poor articulation to dampen the enthusiasm in the end. It’s just a shame because Classic Rocker Leo turned out so well and gave me hope for this one. Maybe Super7 had finally ironed out all of the kinks after ten waves of Ultimates! and this was the level of quality we could expect going forward. Sadly, that’s not the case here. It’s not a bad figure and I mostly am happy with what is on my shelf, but it could and should be better. This one will also set you back $55. Is it worth it? That’s hard to say. If you’re on the fence then you can probably safely wait for a discount to come at some point. Since this is Wave 7 there’s really no danger of the ordered amount being impacted by the massive discounts we saw on Super7 products in the past year. There should be plenty to go around. If you’re like me and love these silly rock n’ roll variants and can’t wait any longer then you may have a touch of buyer’s remorse, but hopefully it fades with time.
There are plenty more reviews of Super7’s TMNT offerings, both good and bad:
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