For many years, one of the most talked about subjects in the world of movie sequels was the prospect of a Ghostbusters 3. The original film was released back in 1984 and a cultural phenomenon was born. It was a huge hit for both its comedic acting and for the (at the time) incredible special effects. It blossomed from there into a franchise that appealed mainly to children via the DiC production The Real Ghostbusters. That was my introduction to the franchise as a little kid. I’d park myself in front of the TV every weekday for that cartoon. It was the last one of the day as usually my mom took over the TV soon after to watch the evening news. I can distinctly remember being seated on the carpet of my living room floor with our big, chunky, RCA console television with the keypad channel select in-front of me as the sun gradually went down and the house grew progressively darker. The light from the TV during the closing credits was often the only thing illuminating the room when the show concluded in the fall and winter months and the sounds and smells of my mom preparing dinner would filter in.
Ghostbusters was my first love when it came to a brand. I had a collection of action figures, vehicles, and the ever important fire house play set at my fingertips. And slime, lots of slime, which stained my clothes and ruined carpets. It’s smell is as familiar to me today as it was back then. Like all kids, I eventually drifted away as I was seduced by some reptiles who practiced ninjutsu, but of course I’ve held a fondness for the property my entire life. I would eventually be introduced to the original film, and when the sequel came out I was in prime Ghostbuster-loving form. As an adult, I certainly appreciate that original film more than I did as a kid and it’s rightly held up as a classic.
To best sell the Ghostbusters brand in 2021, the film wisely turned to the spirit of old Amblin films as well as modern interpretations such as Stranger Things. Finn Wolfhard being present in both is either smart casting or coincidence.
Still, when it came to the concept of a Ghostbusters 3, I was decidedly lukewarm. Over the years, it became apparent that not everyone wanted it to happen. Actor/writer Dan Aykroyd very much wanted to do a third film, and it certainly sounded like Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and director Ivan Reitman were onboard. The main holdout was Bill Murray, who seemed to have no desire to revisit the franchise either because it didn’t interest him or due to personal conflicts with some of the other parties involved, in particular, Ramis. I know a few fans who were angry and disappointed with Murray over his stance, but I personally never was. You can’t do Ghostbusters without Peter Venkman, and you can’t recast the role either. If his heart isn’t in it, then why force the issue? The existing sequel already wasn’t very good, so maybe the world didn’t need more Ghostbusters?
Murray’s reluctance didn’t stop the franchise from moving forward. Eventually, a compromise was reached in the form of the Ghostbusters video game for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and other consoles. It featured the voice cast from the films and put players in the role of a new Ghostbuster. Some encounters from the films were rehashed and then the plot moved forward into a realm that the movies probably never would have gone. A reboot was also released in 2016, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, which featured cameos from the original cast in different roles. It received a mixed response, some of which was due to misogyny as millions of man-babies scoffed at the all-female cast, which is unfortunate. Sony declined to turn it into a bonafide franchise, despite it being a profitable film. Apparently, it didn’t make enough money or maybe the toy sales failed to meet expectations.
The film might also be looking to “Baby Yoda” for marketing as well.
What changed things was, unfortunately, the death of Harold Ramis in 2014. It was during that time that he and Murray apparently made-up and a new wave of nostalgia flowed from the property. It probably helped in getting everyone onboard for the reboot, but when that failed to become a franchise it seemed to put a third film back into focus. It ended up being Jason Reitman, son of director Ivan Reitman, who was able to come up with a script for a third film with his writing partner Gil Kenan, and get everyone onboard for a new film. It wouldn’t be a reboot, but a sequel with the aim of restarting the franchise with a new cast of Ghostbusters. It wouldn’t require the original characters and actors to do the heavy lifting, which is probably what interested Murray the most, and it would also give a new generation a chance to succeed as Ghostbusters.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the result of all of that. The film was originally slated for 2020, but COVID happened and the release was delayed until late 2021 as Sony likely expected this to do big numbers in theaters. Reitman would direct with his father on-hand as a producer. Adolescent characters are the focus of the film, so naturally Finn Wolfhard was imported from Stranger Things to play Trevor, McKenna Grace was cast as younger sister Phoebe, and Carrie Coons was cast as their mother, Callie. The three are evicted from their apartment at the start of the film and forced to move to the desolate town of Summerville where Carrie’s absent father lived most recently up until his passing. The film actually begins with her father, who is quite obviously a Ghostbuster (and it’s pretty obvious which, but I’ll refrain from spoiling it), and his final moments.
McKenna Grace steals the show as Phoebe.
The family is not particularly happy about their new home, but they adapt. It soon becomes obvious that something weird is going on in Summerville. Phoebe is the film’s center as she makes friends fast with a kid who calls himself Podcast (Logan Kim) and attracts the attention of her summer school instructor Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), a seismologist just collecting a check while trying to figure out why a town positioned on no fault line has daily earthquakes. Phoebe soon has odd encounters with the paranormal in her new, spooky, house and this sets the kids on course to finding out who their grandfather was and what he was dealing with up until his death.
And Paul Rudd is here doing Paul Rudd stuff to the film’s benefit.
Because of its focus on the kids, Ghostbusters: Afterlife very much feels like Stranger Things meets Ghostbusters. The kids spend the bulk of the film investigating and uncovering the supernatural, and it’s a solid approach for this kind of film. It is a bit unrealistic that the kids are completely unfamiliar with the events of the first two Ghostbusters films, but the movie tries to offer a plausible explanation for that. Ultimately, it’s not that important as it’s more fun for the kids to be mostly unaware. Rudd is the stand-in for the older, male, audience likely flocking to see the film as, unlike the kids, he knows who the Ghostbusters are and he geeks out over the items Phoebe finds in her house. He’s a fanboy, and he remains in the picture partially because he takes a liking to Phoebe’s mom. He’s his usual, likable, self though with great comedic timing.
The Rudd/McKenna pairing is one of the few things from this film that left me looking forward to a sequel.
The young actors all do a terrific job, but it’s McKenna Grace as Phoebe who steals the show. The film asks a lot of her, but she’s up to the task of playing the brainy, socially awkward, pre-teen. She begins the film as a paranormal denier, but she’s also inquisitive and willing to investigate everything her new home throws at her without prejudice. Anyone even remotely familiar with the original film knows where her journey will take her, but she’s such a likable character that we’re onboard with following her and invested in her own journey.
Fan service is on the menu.
Because this film is designed primarily to appeal to those who grew up on Ghostbusters, it does contain a pretty sizable deal of fan service. There’s lots of easter eggs present in the film, some are tied into the plot and others are just for fun. There’s no real mystery where the film is going, but like an amusement park ride that’s on display for all to see, I think most are onboard with knowing the destination even if it’s plainly obvious. The film drip feeds the audience with the nostalgic moments, saving the big payoff for the final act, and it’s a satisfying ride. You’ll laugh, you’ll cheer, and yes, you will probably cry before it’s all over.
Special effects were a huge component of the original film, and they’re obviously a part of this one as well. The film doesn’t rely on them as much, since special effects are basically in everything, but they are done pretty well. The film incorporates practical effects where possible which helps in not making it look too far removed from the original film. There’s also still plenty of computer-aided visuals and they all look fine. The soundtrack very much invokes the memory of the first film, and yes, the classic theme song will make an appearance at some point. What’s perhaps even more successfully nostalgic are the recycled sound effects we all know and love. Proton packs, traps, the Ecto-1 itself all basically sound the same or near enough to fool me.
Almost 40 years later, and busting still makes me feel good. This guy probably can’t say the same.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is very much a fun, nostalgic, trip back through the franchise that offers a clear path forward as well. It’s not so focused on nostalgia that it can’t entertain someone unfamiliar with the franchise, but it likely won’t land as hard for them. This is the fan service reboot I think a lot of people wanted. It’s not exactly what some may have envisioned of a true Ghostbusters 3, but I think it’s the best possible sequel we could have got. I personally did not want to see a bunch of old guys running around New York again trapping ghosts and that’s partly why I was never personally hung-up on the prospect of a third film. This film approaches Ghostbusters as something to be revered, without taking itself too seriously. There’s plenty of heart and laughs and it does set itself up for a new round of films focused on a younger cast. There may be some who wanted to see more of Ray, Pete, and Winston, but I think the vast majority of people who sit down to watch this will enjoy it. It’s definitely more interested in serving those older fans, so even though Reitman clearly wants to continue with this new cast, I’m not sure the majority of fans will walk away eager for what’s next. Those stories can be figured out later though. For now, this is a wonderful tribute to the late Harold Ramis, and unfortunately has become one for the recently passed Ivan Reitman. I think it’s a film that everyone connected with the property can feel proud of, and it’s a sweet goodbye to these classic characters.
One of last year’s biggest announcements in the world of action figures was NECA’s acquisition of the Gargoyles license. It had been decades since Gargoyles figures occupied real estate at the toy and hobby shops of America and fans of the series were eager to see what NECA had cooking. It being 2021 though, collectors were forced to be patient as delays seemed to impact the roll out of product. NECA had indicated they had multiple figures sculpted and ready to go, and a teaser video following the Goliath announcement depicted the nefarious Demona. It was later in the year that NECA would show off Thailog, the villainous Goliath clone, which seemed to suggest he would follow Demona. Instead, he leap-frogged her, sneaking out to some stores in December with a wider release following in 2022.
I don’t know what NECA’s original slot for Thailog was in the grand scheme, but I don’t think he was supposed to be the line’s second release. Being a Goliath clone, Thailog is essentially the same figure as Goliath with only minor differences. That’s not an issue as why should NECA do anything different with the sculpt for a character that is a literal duplicate of another? It’s just that most companies don’t like to dip into repaints right away with a new line, but if the factory was running behind, it may have made sense to go right from Goliath to Thailog since the same molds are in use, nothing needs to be tested, and the machines don’t need to be refitted with the molds of another. That’s what I think happened, but I have no inside information, it’s just a theory that makes sense. Either way, Demona is still coming (along with a bunch of others) and right now we have two figures released that look pretty similar to each other.
He’s Goliath with a smile. Oh, and he’s evil.
Since Thailog is basically the same as Goliath, there’s not going to be a lot to talk about here. The sculpt is identical excepting the face. Goliath came with two portraits: stern and angry. Thailog has just the one and it’s a mischievous, sinister, grin. Aside from that, he comes in the same window box with character specific artwork and product shots on it. The massive wings that came with Goliath are here as well, along with the bendy tail. Even the loincloth is the same.
And he’s also packin’ heat.
Where Thailog is different from Goliath is primarily in the deco. His skin is a dark blue-gray that almost looks black under certain lighting conditions. The hair is a silver-white with some black dry-brushing added for effect. Portions of the body are shaded with black as well and the loincloth he wears is a light blue. The wings are basically all one color as opposed to Goliath who has black membranes with a purple bone structure. His eyes are also red, which just makes it all the more obvious that he’s a bad guy. He’s a cool looking character and if you like the sculpt for Goliath you’ll like it here as well.
These two take up a lot of real estate.
The good news, all of the good details Goliath embodied are captured here, but that also means the not-so-good aspects of Goliath are also still present. The biggest criticism that has arisen from this line definitely concerns the wings. They’re huge and they’re a hard plastic so there’s not much that can be done with them. Either they take up a ton of real estate going out to the side, or you can angle them back and distribute some of that behind the figure. Either way, it’s a lot, and it’s a position that really only works for gliding poses. Standing on a shelf is not really what they’re made to do, but NECA doesn’t include a flight stand so you’ll have to buy your own or try to hang these suckers from the ceiling. I don’t know what the solution is, NECA is planning on including caped wings for Goliath with Bronx, but we need some more options. At least a more casual, standing, pose for the wings. My assumption is they looked at articulated wings during the development stage and either ruled them out for aesthetic reasons or cost ones, but it’s something that should be considered, at least. The other drawback to these wings is they peg in under Thailog’s hair which restricts the movement of the head. His head is tilted down a bit and he can’t just look straight ahead, which is kind of annoying. Turn his head too far and you’ll probably knock a wing out of the socket. The hair either needs to have room for the wing joint sculpted into it, or it needs a hinge. It’s disappointing that this couldn’t be addressed following the release of Goliath.
These beasts have a fair amount of articulation, but the wings and unique gargoyle anatomy are definitely restricting when it comes to dynamic poses.
The other area Thailog gets to differentiate himself from Goliath is with his accessories. He comes with a similar assortment of hands: open hands and fists. Like Goliath, he has a fifth hand and for Thailog it’s a traditional gripping hand as opposed to Goliath’s clawed grip. That’s because Thailog has two accessories he needs to be able to properly grip in the form of a briefcase and gun. The briefcase is rather cool as it’s a matte black with metallic accents. It snaps open and inside is a bunch of sculpted money and a set of keys. Nothing is removable, but it also doesn’t need to be. Thailog can either grip the handle with his gripping hand, or you can just dangle it off of a claw on the open hands which you will probably want to do because his other accessory needs to be gripped.
This dude’s loaded!
Thailog comes with his own sidearm. It’s a smallish handgun, but it fires a cannister or missile. I assume it’s from the show, but I haven’t seen the episode featuring Thailog in awhile. It’s simple, but it looks fine, and NECA has a little something up its sleeve with it. The cannister at the end actually pegs in and can be removed and replaced with a blast effect. It’s pretty big stretching to nearly ten inches and pegs into the barrel of the gun. There’s a sculpted plume of smoke at the barrel with some sharp blasts behind it. When the cloud ends there’s just a long cylinder with another smoke trail wrapping around it before it ends in another blast. It’s there the cannister can be reattached to complete the illusion of the gun firing. It’s very well painted and looks fantastic. It’s also a rigid plastic that is somewhat light, but it’s still a lot for the figure to handle. I find his wrist and elbow need to be positioned carefully or else the gun will start to droop. NECA didn’t include a little stand with this one like it did the Turtles in Time Baxter to help support the blast effect, but so far it’s holding up all right. I do worry that overtime his arm will start to droop, but I guess that’s tomorrow’s problem. It is an impressive display piece though, and it’s one I expect to see NECA make use of again either in this line or another.
Because the figure didn’t already occupy enough space with the wings. At least this effect piece is undeniably cool though.
That’s basically it though. I don’t feel the need to rundown the articulation on this guy since it’s the same as it was with Goliath. I will say there are no stuck joints with this figure and most of them feel fine. There is some looseness in the right arm and right foot so I’m finding it hard to get Thailog into the proper standing pose for his breed as the right foot tends to want to drop all the way to the surface. Stands and his tail can help, but I might have to go with a flying pose to mitigate this, which I don’t really want to do as I think the gun effect works better with a standing pose, and I definitely want to make use of that. I will add his articulation isn’t great for a gun wielding character. He doesn’t have a butterfly joint in the shoulder and his pectorals prevent him from bringing the gun out in front of him where I’d like to position it. And the wings interfere with the head so I can’t get him to hold the gun out to the side while looking down his arm. Again, this stems from this figure being Goliath who has no need for guns so such poses didn’t have to be considered, but hopefully Demona is better equipped to wield a firearm than Thailog.
This is a bit of a short review, but it’s also the type of release that most know what they’re in for. If you’re all-in on this line, you’re getting Thailog. If you liked the Goliath figure, then you’re probably getting Thailog. Some more casual fans will probably pass on this one as Thailog wasn’t a huge character in the show and there will also be some hoping for an armored version from NECA that they’d rather have. I liked Goliath when he came out, so naturally, I like Thailog, but some of the issues with Goliath I was willing to overlook due to excitement for a new license are a bit harder to overlook here. There’s room for improvement and it starts with those wings so hopefully NECA is listening to the fans and has something up its sleeve. Currently, Thailog is shipping to Target stores and should be available at specialty as well. Demona and Bronx are tentatively scheduled to release sometime in March, but no solicitations have gone up as of this writing so take that news with a grain of salt. 2022 should be a pretty big year for Gargoyles, and I’m definitely eager to see more!
It was back in April of 2021 that NECA did a month of preorders. Each week, a new item (and some restocking older items) was added to NECA’s webstore and they would stay up for about 10 days and anyone who wanted one could order one to be delivered later in the year. The first one that went up was the Ultimate Pizza Monster and I eagerly jumped on it not realizing the format. The following week, Ace Duck and Mutagen Man were added and the Pizza Monster was still up. Frugal shoppers noted that you could order both in a single order and save on shipping (15 bucks an order, not an insignificant sum) so when that set went up I held off. It worked out, because next week Antrax and Scumbug were put up so I bundled the two-packs together, hit submit, and returned to my life not realizing that by doing so I would delay getting the Ace/Mutagen Man pack by a good six weeks while waiting for the bugs to come in stock.
Was it worth it to save 15 bucks? Realistically, yeah, but while other collectors were getting their toys I was definitely feeling left out and a little jealous. The wait is over though as my order with both two-packs has arrived and now we can talk about the duck and…guy? Both of these characters originated in the Playmates toyline. In some ways, Ace was like the original toy creation as he wasn’t from the comics and he wasn’t created for the show. I think his design even originates with Varner Studios, but I could be mistaken. At any rate, most know him from the old toy because his appearance in the toon was a very brief cameo. In that universe, Ace Duck is a movie star. I get the impression he’s an Indiana Jones type and I assume he’s played by an actor in a costume and isn’t an actual mutant, but I suppose it also doesn’t matter. He shows up for all five seconds and then never again, a real blink and you miss it moment. As for Mutagen Man, he too started off as a toy that was then brought into the cartoon for his own episode. He followed a similar arc to other characters as he’s tragically mutated and then taken advantage of by Shredder making him a villain at first, before the turtles set him straight.
Maybe not the most fearsome dudes on your shelf, but they try.
In terms of toys, one of these is quite conventional and one very much is not. Ace Duck is a humanoid character who just so happens to be a duck. He’s got sculpted feathers, large wings on his back, and a duck bill on his face. When I look at him I can’t help but think of the Howard the Duck movie from the 1980s. His engineering though is fairly familiar. I think a lot of what’s here is present on Vernon with the most obvious part being the hips and legs. As such, he’s basically right around the normal human height in the line at 6.5 inches. Ace is apparently a pilot with pale yellow feathers and a bomber jacket. The jacket is an overlay with the arms being fully sculpted. His default expression is in-line with the Playmates figure as it’s a bit neutral with exposed teeth on the sides. The hat is removable and just rests on his head as opposed to keying in to a slot. His belt is a separate piece that hangs loosely while his wings peg into his back in a manner similar to Baxter Stockman. They are removable, if that’s your preference, but he’ll obviously be left with a pair of holes in his back if you do so. Surprisingly, he doesn’t have a tail of any kind instead presenting a normal, human, butt.
Ready for action!
Ace basically looks as one would envision and he features a lot of the trademarks of this line. NECA uses lighter shades of paint on the front of the figure and darker ones on the back. They did not opt for any shading on the yellow portions of the figure so nothing on the wings or head. The wings do feature some black linework which helps them to pop, while the feathers on the chest and neck area do not. Basically every inch of this guy is painted so you will encounter some flaking and stuck parts. The only flaking I’m not a fan of is at the ankles where the orange feet were apparently sculpted in either a pale color or clear. Basically, I’m trying not to move them a ton and preserve as much of the paint as possible There is some nice linework on the belt and I like the bomb illustration on the back of the jacket. A series of feathers beneath it appears to represent Ace’s kill count. As mentioned before, the hat just sort of sits there, but it looks fine. It’s fully painted and really the only blemish on my figure is some paint slop just above the bill of the hat. The belt hangs a bit looser than I would like, but otherwise looks fine. It is removable with the tab being hidden by the ammo box. There are two loops on the back for Ace’s grenades and a holster on the right hip that best fits his revolver. There’s even a tabbed flap that can be secured over it. Wouldn’t want it to fall out during flight!
This is a duck that’s killed before.
Ace comes with a pretty loaded batch of accessories. There’s the previously mentioned revolver as well as a 9mm handgun. Both are grey with some black lining and look just fine. I definitely prefer the classic look of the revolver, but I also like having it holstered. It’s a conundrum. Ace also has a movie reel and a VHS tape perhaps simply owing to his nature in the toon as opposed to being direct callbacks to anything. I don’t know what I’ll do with either, but they definitely look terrific. Ace also has a pair of white grenades that kind of resemble the egg ones the vintage toy came with. They slot nicely into the belt or can be handled by the figure. There’s also another Ace Duck movie poster included like the ones that came with the street scene diorama. This is a new picture and it’s printed on a thicker cardstock so it should be more durable, but might be harder to adhere to the diorama as a result. I have a second diorama on order so I’m going reserve this for when that one arrives.
He’s got a fowl attitude.
Or maybe not?
Out of the box, Ace comes with a neutral expression and he has a second head with angry eyes and a yelling beak. The beaks actually can be removed and swapped so you really get 4 expressions out of this guy, which is pretty cool. It’s basically the same idea as the Boss Fight Studios Dead-Eye Duck from a few years back. Ace also comes with 8 different hands he can use. In the box, he has a trigger finger left hand with a vertical hinge and an open right hand with horizontal hinge. The extra hands include a right gripping hand with vertical hinge, set of fists, a set of “finger bang” hands, and a left thumb’s up hand. Only the gripping/trigger hands have the vertical hinge, which is acceptable. The right gripping hand has a slight trigger finger pose, but it’s not as severe as the left hand. He has enough to dual wield, if you like, while also having a fair amount of expressive options.
When a gun just won’t do.
Finger bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ace is similar to Vernon in terms of some of the sculpt, but also when it comes to articulation. He’s basically the same concept as he has the ball-jointed head and independently articulated neck. The shoulders are ball-hinged and the elbows feature those odd looking NECA double-joints that seem to only look passable on figures with sleeves. The hands swivel and hinge, while the torso features a ball-joint at the waist. This allows him to rotate and tilt, but the overlay prevents any real forward and back. And like many figures in this line, he might have a joint in the diaphragm, but it’s functionally useless. The hips are the now standard ball-joints and they’re a little loose, but not unacceptably so as we’ve seen with some other figures. The thighs do swivel a bit and the knees are double-jointed. The ankles feature hinges and rockers and they work fine, just watch out for the paint. Lastly, he has the wings on his back which are just like Baxter’s as they can swivel and hinge.
“Hi, I’m Mutagen Man…”
Which brings us to Mutagen Man. He’s certainly the more interesting of the two because his design is just so unique. And what do you do with a unique design? You make a unique figure. Mutagen Man is essentially a tank with arms and legs. He’s a bit stubby, as a result, making him shorter than a lot of the line at roughly 5.5 inches. The tank has a purple frame to hold it in place and is translucent from the front. Inside is poor Seymour Guts who is basically just a brain and a spinal column and a collection of stomach acid or something. He doesn’t appear to be too pleased with his mutation as he sports a concerned look out of the box. His limbs are at least intact, though they’re spotted with purple splotches here and there and something horrible happened to his feet. One is encased in a steel boot while the other is framed-up for support and features three, clawed, toes. He’s definitely a bizarre one, though the animated take on this character is far less grotesque than the original toy. It is, however, more emotive and thus more sympathetic.
This whole contraption lifts off rather effortlessly, allowing one to pull out the transparent tank plastic to access the head.
Even with this guy being less detailed than the old figure, he’s still an attention grabber simply by virtue of how weird his design is. NECA did a great job of visualizing this guy as a toy, so my hat is off to the duo of Tony Cipriano and Josh Sutton, the credited sculptors for the set. The whole housing for this figure can come off. The hoses that peg into the front of the tank pop out and the shoulder harness is hinged and comes right off. This allows the user to pop off the front of the tank to manipulate, or swap out, the head inside. The green goop is all sculpted and the spinal column pegs into it and the head pegs into the back of the tank to hold it in place. You can move it a bit so that Seymour is looking left or right and the jaw can be manipulated too. You can also pull the whole thing out and swap it for an angry expression. It’s a little tricky to do the first time, but not scary. I will say, NECA probably should have included some instructions though as some might be left feeling confused about the whole setup (same with Ace’s swappable beaks). The only downside to this system is the left hose on my figure does not want to stay in the hole in the tank. The top hose and right one are fine, but the left constantly pops out and I don’t know if there’s anything I can do about it since glue is not an option.
Definitely a creative setup.
The torso is pretty unique, but the limbs are also a bit funky too. Both arms feature these bands at the elbows, and the left arm has some weird handle just sticking out of it. It’s part of the character’s design, but I kind of hate the thing because I’m afraid it’s going to snap. The same can be said with the unusual mechanism on the figure’s left ankle. He basically has a brace, and in order for the articulation to work, the sides of that brace needs to be able to move and slide around. They’re kind of like pistons, but it’s just another thing that looks like it could be prone to breaking. He’s also got this funky left knee that looks like a chin. I wonder if he was supposed to have exposed bone in the cartoon, but the animators decided not to paint it as such? He also has these purple spots here and there on his arms and legs, and part of me feels like NECA missed an opportunity by not casting the pegs in purple plastic to make them appear to be part of the figure’s aesthetic, but then that probably wouldn’t have been consistent with the show.
And now he can be angry! Note how the hose on the figure’s left refuses to stay in place. It’s already driving me nuts.
Since Mutagen Man is so bizarre a design, he definitely doesn’t have the most articulation in the line. The head can turn a little and the jaw opens a bit, but aside from that, you get nothing in the torso and head/neck. The shoulders rotate and are hinged and he does have a biceps swivel, which was super tight on my figure. I had to heat up the right biceps to get it to budge. The elbows are technically double-jointed, but those bands he wears will limit the range to about 90 degrees. The hands rotate and swivel and all of his hands feature a horizontal hinge. My one, consistent, complaint with this line is the lack of vertical hinges. Ace Duck is proof that NECA is aware that a vertical hinge works best for basically any weapon, but they often go with a horizontal hinge anyway. Mutagen Man’s legs are likely on a ball and socket system, but they sit pretty far into the crotch so the range is very limited. The knees are double-jointed, but again, you’ll be hard-pressed to do better than 90 there. That’s partly due to the bulky right boot, and the delicate left ankle brace. You do get your hinge and rocker, but be careful and go easy on that left one.
This ankle scares the crap out of me.
This gun is rather wacky, in a good way.
The actual points of articulation are okay on Mutagen Man, but functionally he’s more of a neutral pose character. That doesn’t mean NECA still didn’t include some accessories for this guy to play with. I already mentioned the other head, but he also has some hands he can swap. He comes with fisted hands in the box, but he also has a set of wide, C-grip, style hands, a right trigger finger hand, left open palm hand, and left standard gripping hand. The wide gripping hands are here for his tank accessory which in the show contained a solution that would basically keep him alive. The tank is nicely painted and snaps right into those hands rather effortlessly. The trigger hand is for this wild looking gun that is sort of intended for the figure, but as we saw with Muckman, this weapon is actually from a different episode. In that episode, Baxter wields it after I think he steals it from a fireman or something. It’s basically two tanks strapped together and it looks like it would either blast water or some kind of gas. The very D.I.Y. look of this weapon actually pairs well with Mutagen Man so I think I’ll display him with it. It is designed to be gripped with two hands though, and Mutagen Man just doesn’t have that kind of clearance in his arms to pull that off.
They seem to scale just fine with the rest of the line.
Ace Duck and Mutagen Man certainly are an unlikely duo, but they make for solid action figures. Ace is a testament to the consistency of the line. It knows what it wants to do and there’s an aesthetic this line is going for which Ace captures. The articulation is solid, the accessories numerous, and the overall package is quite good. It’s really the design of the character and the impact it had in the cartoon that holds it back from standing out more than it could. Mutagen Man does not suffer the same as his design is quite out there. It’s really fun seeing how NECA managed to work around the character’s design and create a figure worthy of the “action” description. It’s not a character that’s as fun to handle as some of the others in this line, or even Ace for that matter, but it’s certainly one that demands attention. The way in which the character’s expression can swap is ingenious, though I feel kind of bad because I’m unlikely to ever swap from that concerned look he comes packaged with. I would be surprised if either Ace Duck or Mutagen Man end up being anyone’s favorite in this line, but they’re hardly lacking and those who did purchase this set are probably pretty happy.
“Hey man, wanna swap beaks?”
NECA offered this two-pack up on its website in April of 2021 as a pre-order item. That opportunity has obviously come and gone at this point, but the set should still hit Target at some point so if you missed out you’re not out of luck just yet. When they will ship though is anyone’s guess. I haven’t heard of any sightings of this or any of the other preorders showing up at retail so it’s possible the presale was so successful that nothing was left. Possible, but maybe not likely. Keep your eyes open though as once it does hit I don’t think it will fly off of shelves just going by the recent side character releases and should be rather attainable. It’s definitely a worthwhile set for those who are all-in on the toon line or have a nostalgic attachment to the old toys.
“Hey, little fella, where’s your wings?” “Where’s your butt?!”
When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays experienced by many industries just played a large role in delaying product intended for the event to sometime after. I talked about this in my review of the NECA Toys San Diego Comic Con set for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The wait for that seemed long, but it wasn’t as long as it was for my most anticipated release related to the event: Mondo’s 1/6 scale Wolverine!
Each box is individually numbered and comes with a slipcase featuring storyboard art for the show’s iconic intro.
Halloween 2022 is going to mark 30 years since the premiere of X-Men on Fox Kids. The animated series was the introduction to the famed superhero team for a generation of fans. It was what helped vault the already popular team of mutants from just a comic book phenomenon to something bigger. Since then, the X-Men have seen their standing relative to other costumed superheroes falter some, largely due to Marvel selling off the film rights to 20th Century Fox leaving them out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe which has turned also-rans, like The Avengers, into some of the hottest properties in the world. Seriously, as a kid if you told me The Avengers would one day dwarf the X-Men in popularity I would have looked at you as-if you had two heads. It was just unheard of at the time that Captain America or Thor would ever have that kind of appeal.
Am I really going to open this?!
Well, 2022 is apparently the year the X-Men will attempt a comeback! In celebration of the animated series turning 30, we can expect a host of new merchandise to mark the occasion including a series of action figures from Hasbro. And it will spill over into 2023 with a new series set to launch on Disney+ continuing the adventures of the animated universe which ended in 1997. The appropriately titled X-Men ’97 is still shrouded in mystery, but we know a lot of the voice cast is returning to reprise their roles and there seems to be an energy about the franchise that hasn’t been there in recent years.
Oh my god, that’s perfect. How can I open this?!
The first of this new wave of merch is now upon us. Mondo’s take on Wolverine from the show was the first such figure I saw announced. I’ve been pounding the drum for a dedicated line of figures based on the show for years now, and seeing Mondo enter the market was a huge development. Mondo is a company I’m not personally familiar with. I certainly know of the company and their wares, I’ve just never owned any as they tend to stick to larger scales. And larger scaled figures come with larger price tags and larger space requirements. Do I necessarily want a sixth scale version of the X-Men? No, but seeing how it’s just the first of what I hope will be more toys based on the property I had to jump in and support it. And to make the package even more special is the SDCC theming which positions Wolverine in his longing pose on a cardboard bed pining over his unrequited love for Jean Grey. It’s a scene, and a meme, brought to life and it certainly put a smile on my face. What didn’t was the hefty price tag of $200 plus $20 to ship it. I wasn’t certain of the price until I got into the website to order it, and by then I was past the point of no return. At least with Mondo charging upfront some of that sting has subsided in the ensuing six months since I ordered this item. Any bruises have been replaced by my own longing to get this thing in-hand and see how it turned out.
I opened it.
First of all, the packaging is quite fetching. It almost feels like a crime to open this guy. It’s an elaborate window box positioning Wolverine on his bed, photo of Scott and Jean in-hand, looking pretty miserable. He’s got himself a nice pillow propping him up, and it’s the type of package that I see many people never opening even though he’s got an assortment of parts for a more traditional display. If the price tag wasn’t so high, I’m sure more would entertain the idea of leaving this figure sealed and buying another for display. This is the SDCC exclusive, while a standard release is expected to follow that omits the packaging and some of the accessories that will cost less. How much less is still unknown as the figure has yet to go up for order anywhere. I am very entertained by this package, but I can’t leave him in place, so out he comes!
He’s out! Though he doesn’t look any happier. Mondo included a stand that is unnecessary, and kind of boring. They couldn’t put a big, red, X, on that base and dress it up a little?
First of all, getting Wolverine out without destroying this box was a challenge, but one I successfully navigated. The ties on his torso aren’t actually twisted, so they can be pulled off once you slide the display out of the window box. Getting at the other stuff was more challenging as it’s under the bed and you need to open it up. I found going at it from the foot of the bed easiest and was able to slide out the inner cardboard box and the bagged accessory piece as well. From there, I found it easiest to just snip at the other ties holding him down to the plastic bubble. Mondo wisely put paper inbetween the ties and the figure so you don’t have to worry about scratching it as you remove them. The hands and picture frames are wrapped in plastic to hold it in place and that has to be just torn off. Once the restraints are removed he lifts out rather easy. The pillow is also tied down and I just left it for now. It’s funny, when the figure is in the box I never noticed that the pillow is basically just suspended in air on top of the plastic bubble, but once the figure is out it’s definitely noticeable.
Wolverine towers over his Fox Kids contemporaries.
Now that Wolverine is out, I can tell you he stands at about 10 3/4″ to the top of his head. The “ears” take him to around the 11 1/2″ inch mark. The sculpt is very neat as there’s not a lot of articulation showing. The cel-shading is also done in a manner where it goes from lighter on the figure’s right side to darker on the left. It’s most noticeable on the gloves as the top of the left hand is almost entirely painted in a dark blue while the right hand has just a bit of that on the left side and palm. The head features shading on just the left side of the yellow portions and it’s very subtle from the front. The exposed flesh on Wolverine’s face has some shading on the left side and above the chin. True to the show, the black ears feature no blue accents. The rest of the figure follows the same pattern with the paint getting progressively darker as you move from one side to the other. There are three shades of red and three shades of blue on the belt and trunks to accomplish the effect while a more saturated, honey-like yellow, is used to outline some of the muscles. It looks pretty damn terrific and accomplishes what it set out to do. One could quibble with the chest area as the shading is least pronounced there. Maybe adding in some white would have accentuated that as that was a common tactic in the show, but sometimes less is more.
Bring in a quarter scale turtle though and he’s dwarfed. He’s still got bragging rights on Venom though.
The overall sculpt for Wolverine is also quite nice. His ears really fan out and are a bit narrow in keeping with the show’s look. It stood out in images to me as being a little odd, but in-hand the likeness seems more realized, or I’m just charmed to finally have it. He’s broad-shouldered and the musculature looks rather true to the show and not overdone. I like how they did the hair on his arms entirely with paint which keeps with the somewhat flat look of animation. The X logo on the belt is sculpted and is rather clean which does a fine job of drawing attention to it. Everything looks well-proportioned too, though it will be interesting to see how much taller future figures are in the line given that Wolverine is among the shortest characters on the show. Mondo pretty much nailed the look of the character and it’s nice to see.
As far as I can tell, the “Come here” hand is best utilized to recreate this legendary cover. Too bad he doesn’t have a smiling, unmasked, head.
And that’s just out of the box with the sad face and no clawed hands. Underneath that bed is the other stuff. For starters, Wolverine has an open right hand and a relaxed, sort of gripping, left hand for the packaging setup. In addition to that he has the following: left open hand, left curled index finger hand (maybe for a “Come here” gesture?), a right gripping hand, clawed fists, and clawed fists with the sparking effect arcing between them. The gripping hand is here for the turkey leg accessory, another frequent meme or gif shared on social media, and it could also hold the picture frame if you really want it to. The clawed hands feature long, hard, grey, claws. I think one could argue they should have been white in keeping with the show, or white with some blue shading, but they look okay. The claws on the arcing piece are perfectly straight and it’s a great looking item. The sparking part is a translucent blue plastic and it’s soft and bendy which helps make it easy to pop the hands in place. I’m surprised they didn’t just make the blue part removable, but maybe they feared people breaking the claws when putting it on. Swapping hands is mostly easy, but those claws are tricky to work as it requires some force to remove the hands and you have to be mindful not to break the claws (or stab yourself). I’ll probably display him with the arcing effect for at least a little while. The picture frame is really well done and you can remove the picture from it via a slit in the top. It’s not probably not going to be easy though as it doesn’t seem to move around at all in there. It might be easier to just continue to use photoshop instead.
Of course, it’s a lot easier to swap the clawed hands if you just take the claws off first! I actually had forgot about the teaser images for this figure which featured Wolverine with un-clawed fists or with just one claw extended to carve the turkey. The claws are in there pretty snug out of the box, or at least they were on one hand for me. Maybe swapping hands around caused the other one to loosen, but either way, I was able to pull them out of one hand easily enough while the other I dipped in hot water first. It’s a great idea for a figure at this scale since the claws can be thick and durable enough to withstand such use and they’re not tiny and likely to get lost. All of the channels on Wolverine’s hands feature holes for the claws, but they definitely do not go in easy. I think if I really wanted Wolverine to have claws in the non-fist hands I’d probably have to insert a paper clip or something into the channels first just to widen them and push some of the paint out of the way, but it’s probably do-able. I don’t particularly think he needs to be able to have claws on his non-fist hands, but I do like the option to have his fists without the claws if I want. It also makes it easier to straighten the claws, as they probably won’t look perfectly straight out of the box. Of course, I took most of my pictures before realizing I could even do this, so if you think his claws aren’t straight enough in my images at least you know that’s something that’s adjustable.
Snikt!
Wolverine also has extra portraits to work with. The default one is the sad face which is mostly good for a laugh, but isn’t one you’re likely to display outside of the pose he came in, but it will probably be something fun to use with photography. He also has a neutral head and a teeth-gritting, angry, head. Both expressions work very well for this version of the character and it’s hard to pick a favorite, or would be under normal circumstances, but I’ll explain that in the next paragraph. Wolverine also has an unmasked head that looks…okay. He’s making an odd shape with his mouth and I don’t know what Mondo was going for. Something more neutral would have likely looked better. I do like the shading on his hair though and his mutton chops are on display. It’s not terrible, but hard to imagine many using it.
The hair looks good, but I don’t know about that expression.
Lastly, we have another odd, but welcomed, head in the form of Morph. He’s depicted with his black hair and a slight smile. His facial structure looks good, but the eyes are a bit off. They painted black lines on the bottom of the eyes and then additional lines below that and it makes them look like they’re upside down. I don’t think they needed the added lines for this particular expression and they probably should have outlined the whole eye. Still, it’s something people are unlikely to make much use of since Morph never changed his body to look like Wolverine in the show while leaving his head unchanged. He did the opposite with Gambit, though. I know Magneto is slated to come with an Evil Morph head, but beyond that I don’t know what the plan for the character is. Seems unlikely they’d go full build-a-figure with him at this scale, but who knows? Maybe they’ll just do Morph eventually and he’ll completely different portraits and these will be bonus extras for those all-in on the line.
This is actually a Morph figure with a bunch of Wolverine heads.
Hey, another use for sad Wolverine and the Morph head!
Where things do come apart at the seems a bit with this figure is with the overall paint job. Bigger figures mean more opportunities for shading, and also more opportunities for things to go off the rails. The main figure is largely good, but there are parts where the paint gets a little iffy. The black teeth, or claws, on the torso aren’t always sharp. The worst spot is on the figure’s right just below the pectoral where the yellow and black meet to form a little green. There’s also a little paint rub on the left thigh where it meets the blue trunks. Yellow is tough to work with as any little instance of rub is going to show, but it’s still disappointing. By far though the worst is with the neutral expression head. That has a bunch of the black paint mixing with the yellow over Wolverine’s left eye. It looks like what happens when you go from using a black watercolor and dip it into yellow without cleaning the brush well enough. It’s terrible looking and renders that head unusable, as far as I’m concerned. I did reach out to Mondo in hopes of getting a replacement because it’s not acceptable for any figure to have that bad a paint app, and certainly not one that cost 200 bucks. All of the other paint imperfections I can live with and find acceptable, even at this price point, but not that head. I haven’t heard back as of this writing, save for an automated response, but I’ll update this post accordingly should I hear from them. UPDATE– not five minutes after this post went live I was contacted by Mondo to say a replacement was on the way and should arrive within five business days. Nice!
UPDATE Part 2 – A week and a day following my initial reach out and I had my replacement. Only, Mondo didn’t replace the one head I had an issue with, they replaced the whole thing! Yes, they sent me a whole other, unopened, still sealed, unit. It’s kind of crazy and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I want that head, but do I want it enough to open another one of these or should I just keep it sealed and deal with the initial crummy one? I did take the bad head out of the baggie it came in to find it’s more like a glue that is on the head. I don’t know if I can remove it without damaging the head further. I’m tempted to try and then paint it, or I could just open the new one and see if it has a better neutral expression then ship it off at cost to someone I know would like to have this and might not care about a bad head. Regardless, that’s certainly good customer service, even if I think Mondo is kind of crazy to not just have some spare parts on-hand.
Well, that’s not good.
The articulation for this figure might be the only other area collectors are likely to find fault with. Mondo likely prioritized the overall aesthetic for Wolverine with articulation taking a back seat. Personally, I’m happy with that decision and I think it’s the right choice as the animation was pretty stiff. Wolverine’s head sits on a double ball-peg so you get rotation and the ability to look up and down slightly. There’s also some tilt. Some of the heads seem to have more range than others as I could get sad Wolverine to look up a bit, but angry Wolverine not really at all. The unmasked heads are a pain to get seated properly on the peg and sit quite deep so their range isn’t any better. At the shoulders are standard ball-hinges and you will want to take care not to rub the shoulder pads. They come out to the side a decent amount, but not 90 degrees. There’s no biceps swivel with Mondo instead opting for a swivel just above the elbow hinge. It works okay and I admittedly like the look of his arms so I’m fine with the trade-off. This does mean the elbows are single-jointed so that’s a bummer as you’re not going to do better than 90 there. The hands are on ball joints so they at least move around just fine. Removing the default ones was a little scary and I did dip them in hot water just to air on the side of caution, but I have not had any issues swapping them.
Posing isn’t going to be this figure’s strong suit, but he does balance really well.
In the torso, Wolverine has a diaphragm joint and a waist twist. The diaphragm joint is quite noisy so there’s a lot of rubbing going on so do be careful. It lets Wolverine tilt back a fair amount, but he doesn’t crunch forward hardly at all. You do get some twist too, but again, lots of rubbing and you have that black paint right underneath. The waist twist is just a twist and doesn’t feel like a ball joint. The belt and trunks are also all one piece so, again, be mindful of potential rubbing. At the thigh, it feels like we just have a simple ball and socket joint. Again, and I sound like a broken record, lots of rubbing on that crotch piece so how far forward he can kick is largely dependent upon how far you want to push it. There’s a twist there too which works fine and the knees are double-jointed, but really just present a 90 degree bend. At the ankles we mostly have a pivot, or rocker, joint as there’s very little up and down because of how deep into the foot the joint was set. He stands just fine, though Mondo did include a stand, but doing a running pose or something similar would be a challenge for Wolverine. The joints are all at a good tolerance. Nothing is loose, and none felt scary to move out of the box. It’s just not the most dynamic assortment of articulation, but it is very low profile. And really, the only thing that would have made him more exciting for me would have been butterfly joints so he could really reach out with those claws. Those tend to be ugly though so I understand why they aren’t present. Others may feel differently though.
Ultimately, this just looks like Wolverine from the show and I think that will make a lot of people very happy. Plus, that packaging! They even included the reference art on the back of the box!
Mondo’s first foray into the X-Men animated universe is mostly positive. Objectively speaking, this figure has some problems. The articulation isn’t great and certainly the paint on one of the heads is not acceptable. I also assume the more minor paint issues will vary from figure to figure and there are more subjective things to critique like some of the shading choices or the expression on the non-masked head. For me personally though, this figure is a ton of fun to both look at and handle. He looks like the character from the show I loved as a kid and I couldn’t be happier that this exists. Certainly, I wish he didn’t cost 200 bucks as this line will get very expensive if all of the figures are priced at that level. This is the San Diego version, but also the brown costume variant was priced at 200 so who knows what the going rate is going to be? On the other hand, if they only put out one or two per year then that certainly makes it a lot easier to budget.
Wolverine is lonely though. Imagine Sabretooth at this scale?!
This version of Wolverine was a convention exclusive limited to 3,250 pieces. If you want him, you’ll have to go to the secondary market or hope that Mondo does indeed release a stripped down version in the future. Again, Mondo has been pretty quiet about that release and future ones so I don’t know if that’s still the plan. The secondary market is basically you’re only source for this one now where it will likely cost more than the $200 Mondo charged. How much more remains to be seen. Right now, the listings are pretty high, but I don’t know if they’re actually selling. This is a rather niche item because of its scale and there’s a very real possibility that those hoping to make a buck have to settle for far less than they expected. Over three-thousand units isn’t a small number for this sort of thing so keep your eyes open if you want him. As for me, I can’t wait to have a more robust X-Men collection to display. Between Mondo and Hasbro, it figures to be an eventful 2022 for the almost 30 year old show.
That was a long one, I could really go for something to eat. Who wants turkey?!
Longtime readers of this blog might have noticed something in my review of the Turtles in Time Bebop and Rocksteady – they were paired up with the Turtles in Time Leonardo and Raphael. I’ve never reviewed those figures and they’ve been out for a long time. Well, I held off. Initially, I just wasn’t convinced I needed them. They’re straight repaints of figures I already have, but those figures feature some dated engineering. And initially, I wasn’t sure how deep I wanted to go on NECA’s video game line. I never got the original comic con exclusive sets, and I thought I might be happy with just select figures from this line. Eventually, the display widened. Another figure I added, but never reviewed, is Leatherhead simply because he was the only missing piece (aside from the Foot Soldier). What changed my mind on the turtles though was an exchange I had with NECA’s Randy Falk on Twitter. It had been noted that re-releases of Slash featured the updated articulation the company introduced with the Turtles in Disguise set so I asked if the current pre-orders for re-releases of the Turtles in Time turtles would feature the same. The answer was “Yes,” and that was enough to get me to pounce.
Leatherhead is the only figure in this line I haven’t reviewed, and I don’t plan to. He’s the same as the toon one, only the quality feels lesser. His joints are super tight and this is basically the only pose he will stand in. He’s mediocre, and I only bought him to complete the set (excluding the Foot Soldier). The pixel deco on his knife is probably the best use of the deco in the entire line though.
NECA’s Turtles in Time line of action figures are specialty shop exclusives that present some familiar figures in pixel-deco to simulate the look of the classic video game, Turtles in Time. The actual turtles are designs by NECA’s Trevor Zammit for the cartoon line, even though they were first released as figures based on the original arcade game. They’re unmistakably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but I’ve always wondered what the actual reference art was. Their head shapes and expressions strike me more as Playmates inspired, but they’re coloring and body proportions are definitely in-line with the toon. I’ve always liked them, never loved them. I think the Turtles in Disguise look better captures the spirit of the cartoon’s later years, though we could still use some true Season One, or opening credits, turtles.
Anyone who has played the game knows the best strategy vs Slash is to surround him.
Since these sculpts were intended to function as cartoon turtles, they’re basically being repurposed here for Turtles in Time. The look of that game is pretty close to the show as advances in sprite-based graphics since the original arcade game’s release had progressed quite well. The actual expressions worn by these figures though aren’t really representative of the game. Basically, all of the turtles look the same when walking in that game, a sort of neutral, concerned, look. The idle pose is likely what most fans, and certainly I, remember most from the game. Donatello, with his somewhat stoic expression, probably works the best and if you squint Mikey looks close too, though he should be sporting more of a smile. Leo has this weird look in the game where he’s got his head tilted at an angle, and admittedly, it probably wouldn’t translate well to a figure. Raph is practically off model in the game as he has this huge smile that he turns into a pointed “O” mouth expression. That’s the one I miss the most, maybe not so much the weird proportions, but the smirk. This Raph is instead rocking that toothy grimace.
It kind of looks like Donnie’s special move, right?
The headsculpts are not perfect for the source material, but the rest of the figure pretty much is. This is that same turtle body we’ve seen for years now and it still looks fine. On it, this time, is the pixel deco from the game. These figures are a bright green with dark green “pixels” painted on. The shell follows the same look with pixels down the middle of the chest and all over the rear shell. The presence of the deco means these figures present best when posed like they would be in the game: frontal view, posed like they’re moving from left to right. A lot of the dark green is on the back of the limbs and from some angles can look like too much. That perception is minimized when on a shelf. Like a Monet, these figures look better from a bit of a distance just like those sprites look better on a CRT television. In addition to the pixel deco, the colored masks and pads are slightly different from the toon release. Donnie, Leo, and Raph basically just have a brighter look, while Mikey is more muted. The original arcade game gave Mikey yellow accents, which was weird, while Turtles in Time corrected that to his traditional orange. The figure is barely orange though and he definitely would benefit from a more saturated look. The paint apps are mostly clean, with some slop here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. My Donatello does have this odd blob on his inner thigh that looks like glue or something that’s unsightly, though not bad enough for me to try and seek a replacement.
Pay no mind to the use of the Dragon Ball stand.
In terms of accessories, these guys are pretty familiar with one obvious new addition. Each figure comes with their weapon of choice. For three of the turtles, the weapons are the same as the toon release. Mikey’s nunchaku and Donnie’s bo have a lighter paint job, but are otherwise the same. Mikey even retains the spinning ‘chuk effect piece which is always fun to have. Leo’s swords are the same, only painted all gray. Raphael, on the other hand, gets new sais. They’re painted gray with some pixel deco on them shaded in dark gray, but the sculpt is all new. They have a much harder look as opposed to the loopy toon ones. They remind me of classic Playmates sais and I think they look terrific, though not at all accurate to the game. Raph’s sais in the game are these awkward, wide, things where the center blade is barely longer than the other ones. I think the toon sais are a better representation of the game, but I prefer how these ones look, if I’m being honest, so I’m fine with the change. The other inclusions are a set of extra hands for each turtle. The default are gripping hands (Leo and Raph have vertical hinges, Mikey and Don have horizontal) and between the four you get two sets of pointing hands, one set of open hands, and one set of thumb’s up hands. The choices aren’t really reflective of the game, but I’m not really missing anything. Maybe one more set of open hand for a group high five? The only thing I feel we are missing is an effect part for Raph. His attack animation featured a twirling sai at the end and that would have been a neat inclusion. It would basically be the same idea as Mikey’s twirling ‘chuk effect, only pinned into an open hand.
It’s not a pixelized pizza monster, but it will have to do.
The big accessory though is the hoverboard included with each turtle. The board is from the third level in the game, Sewer Surfin’, and each includes a stand. The sculpt looks spot-on to the game and they color coordinate with each turtle. The stand is a simple, and effective, structure that’s just transparent plastic with a ball peg at the top. The board snaps on, and the ball design allows it to tilt in basically any direction. The board is relatively thin so the ball can only sit so far into it which limits the tilt to some degree, but overall I think you get a solid range here. Each board has one foot peg and it’s definitely on the snug side, but once on, the turtle is unlikely to fall. It’s pretty cool, and it’s going to be hard to resist just posing all four on their included board.
These figures definitely do not represent NECA’s finest work.
Lastly, we have the articulation to speak on. These guys articulate exactly the same as the Turtles in Disguise set. If you got the original release for these, then they articulate like the older Target two-packs and comic con releases. The difference is minor as above the waist everything is the same on both, it’s just the hips and ankles that have been altered. NECA swaps the old hips for the new ball and socket joint and it works great here. Nothing is too lose and the range is plenty adequate. The ankles are the new hinge and rocker joint and they too work just fine. My only articulation complaints with these four is just the tightness in the arms. The elbows are a bit scary to get moving and for some reason the right biceps doesn’t sit as flush as the left. It’s especially problematic on my Donatello and I keep having to push it in. Some of the pins in the legs aren’t perfectly aligned either and it’s a little bit of an eyesore in places. Raphael’s belt wasn’t seated properly in the cut-out behind the belt buckle before it was glues so he looks like he’s been stabbed. Worst of all though, is my Leonardo is a pain to stand. I couldn’t figure out why initially, since the others were okay and they’re all essentially the same figure, and then I finally noticed: he has two right feet! I bought these through Big Bad Toy Store and I reached out to them following my discovery. They didn’t have any spare parts, and didn’t offer to replace the figure, but did issue me a refund. That has left me to try and get a new foot/leg from NECA directly and they weren’t any help. They just referred me back to BBTS. In the end, I got a free Leonardo, but I would have preferred to pay full price for a non-defective one. I could put the refund towards a Raph or Michelangelo at BBTS, but they cost slightly more than I paid originally and I’d essentially be spending 28 bucks or so for a little, green, foot. Overall, excluding the foot issue, the articulation is good enough, but there is a part of me that wants to see NECA do a complete redo of the turtle engineering. At the same time though, there’s a reason why these are 25 bucks and not 35.
Yeah, I probably have to display them this way.
The NECA Turtles in Time edition of the famous heroes basically do enough to get the job done, on the surface. They’re not a perfect match to the game, but it’s also obvious what the company is aiming for by virtue of the deco and included hoverboards. They pose as well as any other 1/12 version of the turtles from NECA, but the quality control seems a little lax and that’s something I’ve noticed with this line as a whole. Again, they’re not priced like the company’s Ultimates line of figures so they are a cheaper product, but it’s a shame that shows in the quality as opposed to just a reduced accessory count or something. Three out of the four turtles had what I would consider quality control problems, enough so that I don’t think I’d recommend anyone buy these sight unseen. One thing working in this line’s favor is that these are pretty easy to get ahold of, though they may not be much longer as NECA pivots away from the Turtles in Time figures. They’re all sold separately, single-packed in the Turtles in Time themed box, and should be around 25-28 bucks from most places, though I’ve seen some local shops try to upcharge them more severely. And a few are only offering them in bundles. For this line, it pays to shop around.
2022 has been a year of catch-up so far for me. A lot of stuff I preordered a year or more ago is finally coming due, and often without the actual preorder! The NECA quarter scale toon Donatello from the classic cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is yet another preorder that just didn’t get fulfilled and was cancelled because I found another avenue. Though in this case, it was my buddy Mikey (@JehutyZero) who found this Donatello just hanging around a calendar store. And to make it sweeter, he was 50% off! Now, that was 50% off of an up-charged price to begin with, but I was still able to get him for well below the MSRP of $125. If waiting a few extra months saved me around 50 bucks every time then I’d be happy do it, so thanks again to Mike!
Where there was one, there is now two.
The quarter scale line was NECA’s reintroduction to the TMNT brand. That’s how we first got to experience the figures based on the 1990 movie and I loved those, and still do. I wasn’t sure about the cartoon line when it was announced, but the callback to the old Playmates Giant Size turtles and just how nice Raphael looked is what got me to bite. And If you get one, you kind of need all of them, right? When Raph dropped, he was our first taste of NECA’s retooled cartoon turtle with the mix and match expressions and updated articulation. Now, that’s old news since that’s been done in the smaller scale, but I’m still eager to see where this subline goes.
“It’s a little me!” “It’s a bigger me!”
Like all of NECA’s TMNT figures, this one is pretty familiar because Donatello is essentially the same figure as Raphael. The only difference is the choice in color for the various pads and such and the belt which features a holster for his bo staff on the back and the big “D” belt buckle. And that’s fine, because the turtles all looked the same in the show. And it’s also fine, because that Raph figure is great! These guys weigh around three and a half pounds and stand pretty close to 15″ tall. They are impressive and demand attention no matter where they’re placed in a room. The paint apps are sharp and NECA does a great job of hiding the articulation so they have a very clean appearance. It’s a challenge to settle on a display pose and expression because no matter how you pose them, they look great.
This is a picture I couldn’t do with Raph since he came out before the Turtles in Disguise set.
With Donatello being largely the same as Raphael, he really can only separate himself via his accessories. NECA is apparently going to include two slices of pizza with each turtle. They key-in to each other so eventually you’ll be able to form an entire pie if you so desire. And Donnie comes with the box to store it in. The Vinnie’s Pizza box is made of paper, but it’s laminated so it’s not pitifully durable, though it would have been cool if it was plastic. Then again, at this scale the paper goods box does look a bit more authentic than a plastic one would. Another paper good is Donatello’s issue of Genius Quarterly. It’s just a piece of glossy paper with a crease down the center. It’s fine, but it’s so thin that it doesn’t really look much like a magazine. Donatello also comes with the same Turtlecom as Raph, which really opens and closes and is a lot of fun to just mess around with. And for hands he has three sets: gripping, open, and pointing. Of note, the gripping hands are the same as Raph’s with the wider finger placement. All of the hinges are horizontal though, which is a bummer as some vertical ones would have been nice (I’m guessing Leo will at least have those). And then there’s the trusty bo, which just like the smaller version, can separate in the middle which can help make it easier to get in and out of the holster. It’s fully painted and looks about as good as a stick wrapped in tape can look.
Enjoy it before Mikey gets here, boys.
Donatello also gets to separate himself with his expressions. Like Raph, Donny has two sets of eyes: normal and angry. Unlike Raph, he comes with three mouth expressions to mix and match with: a smile, neutral, and yell. Donatello can look serious, grim, surprised, angry, and frightened. And these are all interchangeable so if you wish you can use any with Raph or use Raph’s open mouthed smile with Don. The act of mixing them up can be a shore as the fit is rather tight. I had to heat them up to get them together, but I suppose it’s better than the too loose issue I had with Raph. As I said earlier, it’s hard to pick a favorite expression. Right now I’m going with a battle pose and giving Donnie an angry yell, but I may switch it to something more light-hearted eventually, perhaps incorporating the pizza more.
He moves much better down there.
Being that Donatello is the same figure as Raphael, the articulation is also the same. Or is it?! Well, yeah, it is, but with Donatello it works a little better. In my review for Raph, I stated there wasn’t a thigh swivel, even though it looked like there was one. Other reviewers noted the same, but credit to YouTuber Anthony’s Customs for getting me to revisit the subject when he insisted there’s a thigh swivel, it’s just stuck. I was prepared to break out the hair dryer with Donatello, but I actually didn’t need to. It seems NECA applied some extra lubricant to the thigh area this go-around, and while there’s still some tightness, I can confirm that thigh does twist. I still haven’t accomplished the same with Raph, but I probably will apply some heat and see what happens. It definitely helps in getting him to stand to have as much flexibility in the legs as possible. Everything else works pretty well. A lot of the joints are tight, but that’s because the figure is so heavy. I also love the double-jointed elbows and I really wish NECA could get those to work at the smaller scale. You get a solid 90 degree bend and the elbow pad hides the joint nicely.
It’s a simple enough thing, but those facial expressions really bring these figures to life.
This is just a very aesthetically pleasing release from NECA. Donatello is large and commanding, despite that not really being his nature. I feel compelled to get all four turtles, but really, just one of these guys has enough presence to tie together any TMNT display or to just be a one-off. The only downside is it can be hard to find room for a toy this large and that MSRP of $125 isn’t insignificant. I do think the value is solid for what you get, and the extra stuff that comes with Donatello really helps in that regard. Up next in this line is Leonardo, the best turtle, but when he’s coming is anyone’s guess. I think COVID really hit this line hard as the goal was to release all four in 2021, but that clearly didn’t happen. Hopefully 2022 is the year, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. I’m curious what else we’ll see for accessories. Leo, given that he has two swords and probably requires different hands, might not have any surprises, but will NECA do a quarter scale turtle hook with Michelangelo?! That could be a lot of fun. Until then, Donatello and Raphael will jut have to hold down the fort until their brothers arrive.
Donnie, I have a hard time believing that magazine is going to sustain you until Leo arrives.
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 I concluded that review, I wasn’t sure what my future with the brand would be. I was happy to have the little blue guy, but did I need anymore? Well, the answer is apparently “Yes” as I’m back with another Plunderlings review and this time it’s the nomadic Goyle.
The Plunderlings line originated as a Kickstarter that was popular enough to get the attention of online retailers like Big Bad Toy Store. When the initial backer amounts sold out, Lone Coconut went back to the factory to place another order for an assortment of characters and that’s when I decided to place an order for Goyle. If you’re new to the brand, all of the Plunderlings are essentially the same. They’re little goblin, or imp, creatures that stand a little over 4 inches tall and are mostly differentiated by the color of their skin. In terms of the two I have, there is no difference between the two in the sculpt aside from Goyle having some slits in his ears. Some have different pants, but that’s largely it. The characters are further differentiated by the accessories they’re outfitted with, and there is a mix and match element at play here, if that’s something you want to do. Some may cry fowl at the blatant reuse of molds which coincide with a fairly hefty price point of $40, but it’s basically what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been doing for years and no one seems particularly bothered by that.
He’s got a hood and cape so he’s basically the Plunderling equivalent of Batman.
The theming for Goyle is that of a nomad, or rogue. Rogue is the word I keep coming back to with him as he has a removable hood and cape and he’s armed with a pair of short swords. His complexion is gray with some subtle purple shading in places to go with brown trunks and a purple cape and hood. His nails and eyes are painted a glossy black and there’s a little white added to the eyes to give them personality. He’s always sporting a smile no matter which portrait you opt to roll with and all imply a mischievous personality is at play here. He comes in his own themed window box that has optional cardstock ears inside if you like that sort of thing. It’s a cute package and is yet another box I find difficult to dispose of.
The weapon storage for Goyle works much better than it did for Fwush.
What I like about this line, aside from the overall aesthetic of the base figure, is that Lone Coconut opted for magnets when it comes to the clothing accessories. Rather than deal with pegs and clasps everything goes off and on rather painlessly. The cape is just a semi-pliable plastic with a hole to fit over the ball-peg in the neck, so it’s really only the hood that’s reinforced with a magnet here. With the hood, the magnet just adds a little extra stability as it slides over the ears and is a pretty snug fit. Unfortunately, the factory had some issues with the magnets this go-around and they all ended up getting flipped around. This means the magnets won’t work with the first run of figures and the same is true for those accessories with the second run. Apparently, Lone Coconut has posted a tutorial video on how to flip the magnets yourself, but I haven’t sought it out. I have no plans to put the hood on Fwush or the tri-corner hat he came with on Goyle so it’s not a big deal for me, but I can see it being an issue for others more interested in the mix-and-match aspect of the line. There’s also a little hook included in the box that can peg into the cape. Once inserted, this hook can accommodate one of the swords if you don’t want your Goyle to dual-wield.
The oversized feet help these guys to balance real well.
If you want a full rundown of the articulation, check out the Fwush review I did. I will say, these guys can be pretty tight out of the box, so take care breaking them in. Lone Coconut recommends using heat to get them going, but I never had to resort to that. The trickiest joints for me, with both figures, were the knees. Usually, only one hinge in the double-joint wants to go and getting the other one to work in tandem can be tricky, but not impossible with patience and gentle force. In addition to the hood and swords, Goyle also comes with a black frog or toad. It’s quite glossy and I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be alive or dead. It’s fine. He also has two gripping hands with vertical hinges and two open hands with horizontal hinges.
Aww, they’re so cute!
The reason why I felt I should do another Plunderlings review is not really because I like Goyle (and I do), but because this time I picked up some Hatchlings to go with him. Lone Coconut sells these direct, but they’re really an ingenious idea. The Hatchlings are essentially two, headless, bodies designed to be Plunderlings who just hatched (apparently they’re an egg-laying species). The little bodies are slightly crouched with ball-hinge joints at the shoulder and a big ball-peg in the neck. Aside from that, they’re non-articulated. They come with a set of fist hands that can be used with a regular Plunderling or with a Hatchling body and they’re color-coordinated to an existing Plunderling. The purpose of these little guys is to give you some place to put your extra heads and hands. Between one two-pack of Hatchlings and one Plunderling figure, you end up with three sets of hands and three heads. This way, each head and hand set have a place to go and it’s a fun way to make use of parts that otherwise end up in a box or drawer. The heads pop on easy enough and since it’s just a ball-peg you get a lot of range right there. The hands are a little tougher to get into the Hatchling mold for some reason, but not impossible. Now I have a trio of gray-colored Plunderlings on my desk! Currently, Lone Coconut is only selling Hatchlings that match the figures they recently made available again and each set costs 10 bucks.
Not so cute right out of the box.
Plunderlings are turning into quite the fun little line. I say “turning into,” but all of this stuff was already available to those who backed the project originally so it is old news for them. Currently, six varieties of Plunderlings are available to buy now, with a pair of new ones available for pre-order that have a sea monster thing going on. Lone Coconut has also shown off new models in the line, a tall skinny dude and a big beefy one, that I assume are supposed to release this year. The only drawback to this line is that price point of 40 bucks each. It’s not a price out of whack with some other smaller shops, but a little pricey for something that’s not being licensed from another party. If you like the aesthetic, I think these are fun, little, figures that any collector would enjoy. And if you do grab some, I definitely recommend the Hatchlings set (if available) as it’s modestly priced and makes for a nice addition.
Gross. That’s the word I hear all of the time associated with the vintage Playmates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures. Back then, articulation was kept pretty simple and this allowed studios like Varner to go nuts with sculpting. They could include all kinds of details in their figures. Sure, much of it would go unpainted, but at least it was there. And for whatever reason, the aesthetic of the time was to be gross. Characters with boogers and slime were quite common, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line soon embraced that. It wasn’t really from the start, but over time, characters that embodied an unpleasant aesthetic were introduced and none captured that more than Muckman.
The standard Super7 box, only probably 20% bigger.
Muckman is literally supposed to be mutated garbage. A walking trash pile with a little eyeball buddy paling around in a bucket jammed in his back. If action figures could smell, then surely Muckman would smell horrible. He, along with Mutagen Man, stand out in my mind as characters so gross that I almost didn’t like to look at them. I played with them, but if I spent too much time thinking about these guys I’d start to get sick to my stomach. Now, I reflect on that Muckman figure with renewed appreciation for those sculpted details. It was pretty incredible what the artists got into that guy, and all just for some 4 dollar lump of plastic kids were going to toss around, lose, and cover in legitimate muck.
Has something so gross ever looked so beautiful?
Super7’s line of Ultimates! based on that vintage line is perfectly suited for a figure like Muckman. The upscaled nature of the line, combined with modern paint apps, is designed to bring figures like Muckman to life. When it comes to this line, I find myself wanting Super7 to take what’s old and improve upon it, but with Muckman little improvement is needed. Just make him bigger and paint him up while adding in some modern articulation. And guess what? That’s exactly what Super7 did.
There’s so much going on with this guy.
Muckman and Joe Eyeball are exactly what I want from this line. Muckman is huge, standing around 7.25″ to the top of his head, and 7.75″ to the top of that banana peel he has on his head. He’s shorter than Bebop and Rocksteady, though he’s also designed to be stooped with his head practically in the middle of his chest. He’s substantially thicker though and quite a heavy beast. I suppose his upper body isn’t much thicker than Bebop’s, but it feels more substantial because of all of the stuff going on. Almost every spot on this guy is sculpted to resemble something. Some of them are basically nondescript tendrils of green yuck that resemble tentacles to a degree. There’s lots of lumpy green stuff, bugs, refuse, and the like. Just about everything is painted now which helps bring him to life. It’s also amazing how some of the stuff looks so familiar, like the frog on his left thigh. I haven’t held the original Muckman in 30 years or so, but it’s amazing how some of the details came roaring back the second I got this figure in-hand.
He grows his own mushrooms.
The sculpt is the real star with this figure, but the paint is a close second. So much of it is applied in a clean manner. Apple cores, fish bones, soda cans – it all looks awesome. There’s one fishbone on the back of the figure’s right calf that they were able to sculpt and paint across two textures, his frayed pants and this trash bucket that’s wrapped around his ankle. It looks spectacular and there’s a nice gradient for the green that dominates the figure’s “flesh.” The only blemish on my figure is on his “moustache” where there’s a little scuff, but that’s basically it. It’s an unfortunate spot to have your own imperfection, but it’s not enough to take away from the overall presentation. This is one well done figure.
One of Muckman’s ooze holes.
Like the vintage figure, the other ooze holes are found on the head.
Now, this big, heaping, lump of garbage isn’t exactly friendly when it comes to articulation, but Super7 managed pretty well. His head, being in the center of his chest, can’t do much up and down, but he can look to the side really well because his neck is surprisingly long. It seems like not much, but it adds a lot of personality. The shoulders are simple ball hinges that can rotate fine, but he can’t raise his arms out to the side much. The elbows are single joints with a swivel and they work well and he can just about bend his elbows at a 90 degree angle. The swivel on his left arm is a bit more limited though because he has some sculpted ooze that hangs over it. At the right wrist, is the typical Super7 swivel and hinge, but because the bones of his left wrist are exposed, they had to do a ball joint there that pegs into his left hand as opposed to the hand normally pegging into the wrist. It’s a smart solution and I kind of prefer that joint to the usual. He has a waist twist, though it rubs against the soft plastic “diaper” he’s outfitted with so you may want to be careful. The hips are the standard ball-hinges that peg in. Their appearance is the one thing I don’t love because too much of that ball is visible, but they work all right. The knees are single hinges with swivels and the ankles hinge and pivot very well. It’s pretty damn fun to pivot that big manhole cover left foot because it just looks so ridiculous.
And with him, as always, is Joe Eyeball.
Muckman is probably a very costly figure for Super7 given the amount of plastic in him as well as the paint. For that reason, it’s probably not a big surprise that his accessory count is small, but at the same time, it’s pretty substantial. His main accessory is Joe Eyeball. Joe was a little slug character in the vintage line that’s been brought to life. Super7 upscaled him and he now stands close to 2.75″ to the top of his head, but 3.75″ to the top of his tallest eyeball. Super7 painted his eyeballs, mouth, and teeth and even squeezed in some articulation. His head is probably on a ball-peg, but it’s pretty tight and mostly just allows for some swivel. His two arms also swivel. I wish his eyeballs could swivel as well, and I’m a little surprised they didn’t give him ball-hinges at the arms, but it’s nice to have a little something here. Joe rides in the trash bucket that snaps into Muckman’s back, which is painted to appear like it’s full of green goop and has some garbage stuck to it as well. Super7 didn’t include it, but if you have slime you can even fill the bucket like the old toy and it will ooze out of the figure’s chest. The top of his head also still comes off so you can pour slime through there and have it come out of his mouth.
If you need just a bit more muck out of Muckman you’ve got these extra hands.
Lastly, we have a couple of hands and Muckman’s trash-zooka. His default hands are gripping ones, with the left hand having more of a trigger finger quality to it. The alternate hands are just designed to make him even more gross. The left hand has a handful of goop, while the alternate right hand has some garbage membrane between the index finger and thumb. My one disappointment with this figure is that this alternate right hand didn’t turn out quite as well as the prototype, which made the membrane portion a lighter green. It’s still pretty awesome though and I’m definitely keeping that on. Muckman’s gun is, like him, assembled from garbage and like many of the figures in this line Super7 did skimp on the paint here. I wish they’d fully paint the weapons like they do the rest of the figure because this barrel is clearly composed of various bottles and cans and would look really nice if fully painted. There is some green goop on it and some chrome fasteners, but the rest is just gray.
Mikey just can’t help himself when he sees pizza laying around.
I was fully prepared to be impressed by Muckman, but I wasn’t prepared for him to become my new favorite figure in this line. He just turned out damn near perfect and I can’t put him down. He’s a joy to mess around with because nothing is too tight or too loose and I feel like I’m always noticing something in that sculpt that I didn’t before. He’s easily the star of Wave 4, and other than Donatello, he’s the only one I got from this wave or intend to get. And if you’re going to get just one, non-turtle, make it Muckman! This dude is going to be on many “Best of 2022” lists and the only lists that don’t include him won’t because they were able to get him in 2021. Even if you have the NECA Muckman, this one is still worth having because they’re two different animals. That Muckman had to have its “muck” deemphasized to accommodate animation while this one is free to just go nuts. And it’s the rare figure in this line that feels like a steal at $45. If you’re even the slightest bit curious about this figure, get him now because he may never get re-released again and he’s sure to go up in value on the secondary market. And if Super7 ever does do another run, it’ll probably cost more than $45. Go on and get mucked!
Sorry Bebop, you’ve been dethroned. Mikey, leave that pizza where you found it! You’re gonna get worms!
It’s no secret my preferred take on the world of Dragon Ball created by author/artist Akira Toriyama is the original one: Dragon Ball. Of course, in the manga it’s just all Dragon Ball up until the more recent Dragon Ball Super, but for anime viewers there’s Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super. Of the four, I feel comfortable declaring Z the most popular, and after that might actually be Super. Dragon Ball is the more adventure-focused of the anime. Being that these unfold chronologically (well, except GT, but we don’t need to talk about GT), Dragon Ball is the one that features a kid Goku before he becomes a super powerful Saiyan warrior. I like the more grounded action, even though it’s still not even remotely realistic, and there’s a ton of humor spread throughout. All of these shows have a formula, but with Dragon Ball, I feel it’s less obvious.
Dragon Ball has never been super popular in America. We got both it and Z in the mid 90’s, but with far more emphasis placed on the sequel series. That one famously bombed out of the gate too, with Ocean Group dubbing around 100 episodes and so much material was cut that the episode count differed from the Japanese version. One of those casualties was the character Lunch. She appeared in Dragon Ball fairly regularly, but her appearance in Z was more like a cameo. It was apparently deemed not necessary, and since she totes a gun perhaps it was also considered too violent. As a result, Lunch was a character I only ever read about for a long time. There was a long hiatus in dubbing the series so us American fans had to either buy bootleg tapes or just be content reading about the series online. I mostly read about it, and Lunch was always a character I wanted to see in action since she sounded quite unique.
She looks like a nice girl.
Because I read about her first, I’m still conditioned to refer to her as Lunch. When Dragon Ball was eventually dubbed and released in America, her name was changed to Launch. It’s actually a pretty clever update as her personality is centered around her “launching” into a fit of anger. Lunch, by default, is a kind, sweet, and rather meek young woman. She’s also quite shapely and a natural target for the perverted Master Roshi, and unlike Bulma, she takes his crude advances in stride. However, anytime she sneezes she transforms. Her hair changes color from blue to yellow (is Lunch the original Super Saiayn?!), but that’s not the most dramatic part of the change. Her personality also completely morphs turning her into an enraged, gun-toting, maniac! Seriously, where does she keep that gun normally? Once she goes blonde, she just whips it out from somewhere and just starts blasting. When her target is Roshi, it’s hard to argue the old man didn’t deserve it, but she’ll also perceive basically any male in her sight a threat and often poor Goku will bare some of the brunt as well.
Someone looks excited.
The Dragon Ball subline for Banda’s S.H.Figuarts line of collectibles has decided that Lunch is the only worthy entry for 2021. It hasn’t been a fast moving line like Z or even Super, but just one figure in 2021 is a little disappointing for Dragon Ball. I’m sure some are also disappointed that lone figure wasn’t a desert bandit Yamcha or a first appearance Tien, but for me, I like getting another female character into the display. The franchise is pretty short on them, and we can only have so many versions of Bulma, so Lunch feels like a solid inclusion. Unfortunately, she came with a decent price hike as the MSRP on this one is $65. Such a price is not unheard of for this line, but as we’ll get into, this isn’t one of the more over-stuffed releases we’ve received in the past. Costs went up like crazy last year, so this could be a symptom of that. Or, Lunch carries a small premium because Bandai doesn’t figure to sell a ton of figures of her. The Super Saiyan 4 Goku comes with more stuff and is five bucks cheaper and might even feature less parts reuse. The real answer is probably both, but given how small the Dragon Ball line is I wasn’t about to pass on Lunch just because she was 5-10 bucks more expensive than I would have predicted.
Uh oh. She sneezed…
Lunch comes in the typical SHF window box and in her default persona. She stands a tick over 5″ to the top of her hair putting her right in-line with Bulma, whom she likely shares some parts with (most notably the legs). This means, like Bulma, she doesn’t scale well with Goku or even Roshi, but that’s because they seem to exist in their own scale as a means of keeping the kid characters from being tiny. She’s also sporting her traditional attire: green, spaghetti-strapped tanktop, yellow short-shorts, brown gloves, green ankle warmers, red sneakers, and a red ribbon in her hair. The tank top is just painted on, but it looks quite clean and the green matches the ankle warmers rather well. They have little buckles on them which are also painted cleanly and the yellow stripes on the shoes are also well done. The only issue with the paint is that crotch piece for the shorts is cast in yellow plastic, while the rest on her thighs is the same, but it’s likely PVC and the result is there’s a color variance. It’s subtle, but it’s also there and a disappointment. The blue hair appears to have a wash applied to the bangs area which looks nice, but is also the only shading to be found on the figure. That’s not a surprise given this is SHF and this figure features a lot of bare skin, but the blonde hair would have benefitted from the same.
Time to run, old man.
And she does come with both portraits because this is Lunch and that’s pretty central to her character. The default one is her smiling and it looks like the character. She can also swap to an excited look and to the all important sneezing face. For her blonde look, she has a smirk and a side-eyed glare. The only one I’m not sold on is the smirk as her cheeks look rather puffy for some reason. The glare is probably my preferred expression, but I do wish we got one more for the blonde version of her yelling and just looking really pissed off. Like I said, we needed both versions of Lunch in the box, but I’m slightly bummed the blue-haired look got three portraits to the blonde’s two because I think most will display her as a blonde.
Now he’s in trouble!
And most will likely opt for the blonde look because she only has two accessories and the favored one works with that look. And that’s her submachine gun. She comes with fists in the box, but has a right, trigger, grip for the gun and a loose gripping left hand to sort of cup it. The other optional hands are two open hands which are good for a sneezing pose or to hold the last accessory: the all important Dragon Ball. Lunch comes with the pearl painted ball which is what SHF has switched to after releasing 7 translucent balls already. There’s a lot of plastic here just in the two heads alone since her hair is so big, but there’s no covering up that this is an underwhelming assortment of accessories. Especially at that higher price point. Another portrait for her blonde look would have helped, and maybe a blast effect for her machinegun would have gone a long way.
This setup is definitely interesting.
The articulation for Lunch is familiar, but also introduces some new things. And that’s mainly at the head. Her head is connected via a double ball peg that actually pegs into her hair, and not her head. It has a bend in it so her head sits low enough, but it is a bit of a pain in the ass to swap heads on this figure because that peg wants to move when you’re trying to fit it into the hair. It’s a lot easier on the blue hair, because that’s how the figure shipped. It’s also definitely easier to swap with the face plate on it as that helps to prevent the peg from moving too much. At least it’s a sturdy ball peg so I never feared breaking it, but it was annoying. Swapping the faces requires pulling off the bangs first and it can be a challenge to get the face off without popping the hair off of the neck, which can be a touch frustrating. Once in place, it moves around okay. Her hair obviously is going to limit her range, but there is a hinge in the back of her hair to help alleviate some of that. She can look up and look down a bit with the usual rotation and some tilt. I think you get enough, but it is a bit weird to look at initially.
She can’t quite aim her gun convincingly two-handed, but she still poses all right with it.
Beyond the head, the rest is pretty much in-line with both versions of Bulma released in this line. The shoulders are on ball pegs so they rotate rather well. There’s no butterfly joint, but her bust would probably have impeded one anyway had it been installed. The elbows are single-jointed on these disc-like pieces that I’ve never liked that much. The range is great, but when the arms are extended they look kind of funky. The wrists are ball-joints and with the gloves there’s plenty to hide them so no complaints there. There’s a diaphragm joint that works in tandem with a ball joint at the waist. Lunch can tilt up there well and she can bend backwards probably farther than you need her to, but there will be some gapping issues under her shirt. Crunching forward is not great and it exposes a gap near her waistline on the back of the figure. It’s hard to imagine her needing to crunch forward more than she can, but it’s always a bit bizarre to see figures that can go back better than forward. At the hips we have standard ball joints, but the cuffs of her shorts limit their range. She can’t do a split, but can nearly reach a full horizontal kick. Her buttcheeks prevent her from kicking back really at all, but you do get a thigh twist. The cuffs on her shorts can be a bit finicky as sometimes they leave a gap in crotch area and I find myself tweaking the left leg, in particular, often to try to mitigate that. At the knees we have basically the same situation as the elbows, only here the disc piece is on the back of the figure and basically hidden. The ankles are ball-jointed so you get great range there and they also included a toe hinge, if you feel it’s needed.
This is definitely my favorite expression in the set.
I’m pretty happy with how Lunch can move around. The only thing she can’t do well that I wish she could is a two-handed firing pose with the gun. Her bust just gets in the way which is a character design issue more so than a figure one. I suppose it helps that her portraits aren’t really firing portraits which lend themselves better to casual stances as opposed to action ones, not that Lunch never fired her gun with nothing but a smirk in the show. Her hair does make her more top heavy than the Bulma figures we have so I’ve found her a little tougher to stand, but nothing dramatic. It’s just something you have to be aware of and take into account when posing her.
The scale is a bit wonky in this line, but she fits in with Bulma, at least.
I think Lunch turned out pretty well. I have come criticisms, but most of them are of the value nature and not direct criticisms of the figure itself. And where I do have them for the figure, I chalk them up mostly to me being nitpicky, but that’s what a review is for! She looks terrific on a shelf amongst my other Dragon Ball figures. She looks better when paired with Bulma than she does Krillin or Goku, but she can also handle being near Master Roshi too. She would look even better though with Tien, and I do hope there’s more in store for Dragon Ball as far as S.H.Figuarts is concerned. There’s still plenty to mine from that series, and a few characters that I would definitely deem essential, but time will tell what Bandai has planned.
When I reviewed the Super7 Donatello last month, I noted how it was one of the longest waits I’ve ever had between the time I ordered something and the time I received it. Well, it’s already been topped. NECA’s Turtles in Time series of action figures based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game is the less celebrated wing of the company’s TMNT figure lines. It’s a specialty shop exclusive that largely consists of repaints of figures that have already appeared in the company’s cartoon line. There are some exceptions, like the Baxter Stockman figure, but largely it’s the most niche line based on the popular IP. The Bebop and Rocksteady set, based on their appearance in the Super Nintendo version of the game, is sort of the capper to the line. It’s the line’s only two-pack and it features two popular characters in amusing pirate attire. It went up for preorder in October of 2020, the same month as Super7’s wave 4 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and if I didn’t cancel my preorder and grab this set elsewhere I’d still be waiting. For whatever reason, the online retailer Big Bad Toy Store has been slow to get some NECA product. I’m still waiting for the quarter scale Donatello to come in stock despite that, like this set, being available months ago in other places. When someone pointed out to me that Amazon, of all places, had this set in stock I jumped on it. Sorry BBTS, I’ve waited long enough.
“Say your prayers, toitles!
Bebop and Rocksteady are a bit unique for this line. They’re not just repaints, but they’re also not too far removed from the figures we’ve seen in the cartoon line (which came out back in 2019). The actual figures are largely the same and what’s been changed are the soft, plastic, overlays, that NECA uses to differentiate characters. It’s how they can basically use the same molds for Bebop, Rocksteady, and Leatherhead without it being really obvious. Of the two, Rocksteady is the most different. NECA had to add his pirate hat so he actually has new ears. His overlay on his torso is vastly different from the tank top the other figure features as it’s a dashing, captain’s, shirt and coat with ruffled shoulder pads. The arms had to be changed to accommodate this look since he’s now wearing sleeves. Everything else is the same which is a good and bad thing. Good, because the older Rocksteady is one of the best looking figures in this line still. Bad, because that figure used the old hips which are prone to breaking and difficult to pose. This guy is hard to stand and I’m currently using two NECA disc stands to keep him upright.
It’s still pure horror underneath those glasses.
Bebop is also sporting a pirate look, but his look isn’t as drastic a departure as his buddy’s. It’s almost entirely limited to the overlays as he has a new bandana on his head in place of his hair and he’s wearing a striped shirt with a pink vest. The arms are the same, but NECA ditched the real chain-link bracelet in favor of sculpted ones on both wrists. The only real difference comes below the knee as Bebop’s pants end in tatters and his stylish high-tops have been replaced with what look like loafers with a big, yellow, buckle on each. He also doesn’t have a belt any longer, but still has his turtle shell shoulder pads and weird, skeletal, necklace. Unlike Rocksteady, Bebop is easier to stand as the new shoes actually work better than the old ones, though he too can still be a challenge as he’s very top heavy. I think with Rocksteady he’s just even more top heavy and his feet aren’t very large in relation to his body size. My only critique of this look is that Bebop’s shirt and glasses are more of a hot pink than the purple they appear to be in the game. You can also see his purple ponytail in the game, but NECA removed his hair to make room for the bandana on his head. And his eyes are still solid black under the glasses which is a bit of a bummer because his eyes become visible in the arcade game when hit and it would have been cool if we could simulate that as well.
The pixel deco isn’t too intrusive here and actually works pretty well from a distance.
Both figures feature NECA’s pixel deco and I think it looks okay here. With Rocksteady, the effect is played up rather well on his torso. I like how the gray and white on his vest turned out and there’s just enough on his arms and legs. His flesh is purple, which is in keeping with the game. His black hat is basically ignored when it comes to the pixel look which is accurate to the game as well. The paint is clean and sharp and if I have one criticism it’s that there should be some white near his eyes. As it stands, NECA basically painted them all black with a triangle of purple and it’s a bit freaky. Bebop is also well-painted, though his pixelization feels more understated. NECA could have done more with it on his chest, especially, but opted not to. If not for the gray patches on his legs he wouldn’t really appear pixelated at all when on a shelf. I suspect this bothers few though as, if anything, I see more people complaining about the pixel deco than praising it.
This isn’t the most dynamic pair of action figures around. Most will just set them and forget them.
As far as articulation is concerned, these guys are exactly the same as the previous releases. They’re nearly the same base too so they articulate the same, which is to say, not very well. They’re not statues, but the articulation has always been something I’ve had to overlook with these guys. The head is on a ball or ball-hinge and doesn’t offer much range. The jaw on both is articulated and it offers a fair deal of personality, though Bebop can’t really close his mouth all the way. There’s a ball hinge at the shoulder that’s super tight on both figures. The shoulder pads both sport make it difficult to rotate the arms, and with Bebop, it’s basically impossible. There’s a biceps swivel on both and double-jointed elbows. The wrists swivel and hinge though the hinge isn’t very functional with Rocksteady due to the cuffs on his sleeves. There’s probably a diaphragm joint on both, but the overlays render it useless. You get a waist twist with some tilt, but nothing really in the way of an ab crunch. The hips are the old peg system where the peg on the right leg goes through the crotch piece into a cylinder in the left leg to join them. You get a thigh twist at that joint, which is a ball hinge in the top of the leg, with double-jointed knees below that. The feet have a hinge with limited range on both figures and it does rock side to side a bit, but not a whole lot.
That upper peg isn’t doing it’s job and, as a result, a lot of the joiner in between the thigh and calf is visible on Rocksteady.
These guys are a bit of a stressful pair when first opened. A lot of the joints on mine were pretty tight or stuck. I plunged both into a hot water bath before doing much of anything with those hips. It’s basically the same old story where the joints are painted, which causes them to lock-up in shipping, but this old leg system would be tight even without the paint. And there’s a lot of paint on these guys and it looks rather thick in places. You definitely want to exercise caution when breaking them in. And even being careful, I still popped Rocksteady’s arm off at the biceps joint due to the shoulder hinge being so tight, which isn’t typically an area of great concern. It thankfully popped right back on, but it’s become a chronic issue where anytime I try to move a shoulder it will pop off if I’m not mindful of how easy it is to do. I also have an issue with Rocksteady’s left knee. The peg that holds the leg together above the knee looks like it went in at an angle and doesn’t go straight through. There’s more separation there as a result and might be contributing to some of my issues with standing the figure since I need to put the leg perfectly straight in order to hide some of the gap created above his kneecap. It’s not super obvious, but it is obvious enough that it bothers me and I do worry about the joint eventually falling apart.
Obviously, the rabbit one is the best one.
Since these guys are based on one boss battle in the SNES game, it’s probably not a huge surprise that they don’t come with much in the way of accessories. Both only used a single weapon each in the game: a sword for Rocksteady and a whip for Bebop. The sword looks fine. It’s a long, skinny, thing with some pixel deco applied. Rocksteady though doesn’t have the right hinge in his hand to properly wield it, though it’s likely his sleeve would have interfered anyway. Bebop’s whip is very similar to the one that came with the Punk Frog Napolean. It’s soft plastic with a wire inside so you can bend and position it as you see fit. Because of that it doesn’t have much in the way of a deco on it, it’s just brown with a black handle, but it’s fine. In addition to the weapons, both figures come with three sets of hands: fists, gripping, and open “style pose” hands. These are the same as the other releases with the only difference being the lack of a trigger finger hand, which is understandable given the weapons loadout here.
Doing these comparisons has given me new appreciation for those oversized rabbit feet.
The Turtles in Time version of Bebop and Rocksteady is an okay release. NECA largely handled the look and presentation fine, which is what I assume most collectors are interested in. Anyone hoping for an improvement over the past figures will be let down and I do think NECA missed an opportunity to do just that. This is a fun, silly, version of the characters and the encounter in the game was one of the more memorable ones. It’s a big reason why the SNES version is superior to the arcade one which did not feature the two. Where the figures do come up short is in the articulation and some of the dated engineering. They’re just not fun toys to pose as a result. I suppose it’s a good thing they’re from a video game as most will probably set them in a pose similar to their default sprite and let it be. I do think it’s silly that NECA didn’t at least update the hips. They already have the upper leg pieces from the Triceratons, but they might have needed to do a new crotch piece since that figure was equipped for a tail. Still, Bebop and Rocksteady figure to be among the most popular characters in the line and are a candidate for a re-release so why not re-configure the hips for such?
That’s a lot for the turtles to deal with, but there could always be more.
This two-pack figures to be the last release in the Turtles in Time line for at least a little while. NECA is still planning on releasing a color variation on the Foot Soldier, but no solicitation has been made available and I’m not sure if that release is from Turtles in Time or the original arcade game (chances are, it works for both). There’s also a two-pack (I think) planned based on the first arcade game featuring Traag and Granitor. It was shown long ago at Toy Fair, but it was during NECA’s negotiations with Viacom to bring a cartoon line to retail and once that was secured they basically abandoned the idea of doing the rock soldiers. Since they’ve done them for the toon line, it’s not a huge surprise they’re going back to them in 2022. Like the Foot though, no solicitation has gone out yet so who knows if they’ll actually be released in 2022 (NECA is planning on doing more Mirage Studios inspired figures which is effectively taking the place of the Turtles in Time subline) or if there’s any room on the release calendar. If this is it for Turtles in Time, NECA has definitely given collectors enough for a worthwhile display. They could always come back with Krang or the duo Bebop and Rocksteady took the place of in the SNES version of the game, Tokka and Rahzar, or even Metalhead. It’s easy money to just repaint existing figures with a video game look, so it definitely wouldn’t surprise me to see the line make a comeback some day.
The Nostalgia Spot 