A couple of months ago, I purchased a Green Ranger from Hasbro’s Power Rangers Lightning Collection line of figures. The intent was to sort of replace my vintage Bandai Green Ranger following an unfortunate encounter with my children. I never intended to assemble a full team of Rangers on my shelf, but I am a fool. I was mostly impressed with that Green Ranger figure, and after weeks of seeing him all by himself on my shelf I found myself getting the urge to find him some company. Soon enough, I found myself scrambling to assemble the entire team of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the only incarnation of the show I watched as a kid. And while I enjoyed the show, I lusted after the toys which were supremely difficult to track down and I never had a full team. I had a head-flipping Green Ranger and my sister had the Pink Ranger and I honestly can’t remember if we got anymore. Now some 30 years later I have the means to assemble a team and Hasbro is willing to throw this line out there for folks like me with arrested development.
No one wants to be lonely.
That original team of Power Rangers consisted of the following colors: red, blue, black, yellow, and pink. The Green Ranger was added shortly after the show started as a villain, who would soon become an ally. You’re probably aware at this point about the show’s unusual development. It’s a Japanese show called Super Sentai and what Saban, the production company with distribution rights outside of Japan, did was cast American actors to play the alter egos of the Power Rangers. They’d shoot that stuff in the US, and then just splice in footage of the rangers in action from the Japanese program and overdub the voices. Since all of the Power Rangers wore helmets, it was easy to dub. The problem with this format is that once you run out of footage you’re kind of screwed, and that’s basically what happened with the Green Ranger. To fix this, they wrote him out of the show by having him lose his powers. They then brought back the character of Tommy Oliver (played by Jason David Frank) as a new Power Ranger: the White Ranger! Only this was even weirder as the White Ranger was from a different iteration of Super Sentai so he looked quite different from the others and often found himself taking on the minions of Lord Zed by himself. This was all stuff I was not aware of as a kid or even noticed, but as an adult it’s kind of fun to go back and watch this stuff with that knowledge.
This is the standard packaging release. There’s also the slightly more fancy “spectrum” packaging sold at Target, but the contents are the same.
In order to assemble a team of Power Rangers on my shelf, you could argue I don’t need both the White and Green Ranger. Well, the White Ranger was one of the easiest to find on store shelves and I do like his design and I’m profoundly weak, so here we are! This figure is quite similar to the Green Ranger as they basically all use the same body as the base of the figure. Hasbro then gives each character a unique headsculpt and weapon while also modifying the sculpt where necessary. For the White Ranger, that means sculpting new forearms and boots as his gloves and boots feature gold cuffs that require new sculpting. He also has gold armbands that are different enough from the Green Ranger that he needs some new tooling there as well. The black and gold vest he wears is a soft plastic addition that just fits over the main body of the figure. He also has a distinct belt and scabbard for his sword making him the figure with probably the most unique tooling in the line as far as the Mighty Morphin brand is concerned.
Ready to throw down.
From a purely aesthetic point of view, Hasbro absolutely nailed this one. Even more so than they did the Green Ranger, who I felt looked pretty damn good as well. For starters, the helmet looks great. There’s a lot of fine detail on it and it would not have surprised me to find paint slop in this area, but it’s all really clean. It’s striking, and I like how his head sits on the body in tandem with the vest, or shield, or whatever that thing is. With the Green Ranger, I felt his head sat a bit too low and his torso looked a little too long, but I think that was caused by the presence of his shield and the White Ranger’s vest mitigates those problems. The sculpting and detail on the vest looks terrific as does the belt and other gold accents on the costume. The hands and boots both feature the same sculpting as the Green Ranger as do the other parts of the body so he has some folds and creases which really bring out that authentic look. The only visual flaw with my figure is the presence of a smudge or scuff on the lower, right, side of his vest that’s barely visible because it’s all black. I did see several of these figures at the store and not all of them were as clean looking as this one, so definitely try to pick him up in person if you want this thing rather than order online. Overall though, I’m quite pleased with how he turned out.
Can he stand on one foot? Hell yeah he can!
While the White Ranger’s sculpt may differ a bit from his green predecessor, his articulation does not. This figure features the same articulation as that figure, but I won’t make you go back and read that review to get a rundown. His head is on a ball-joint and he can look up, down, rotate, and tilt a little. The shoulders are ball-hinged and also possess a butterfly joint which the vest works really well to conceal. There’s a biceps swivel above that gold armband and double-jointed elbows. The hands swivel and have horizontal hinges, which we’ll talk about in a minute. There’s a ball-joint inside the torso that provides great tilt and range of motion and there’s an ab crunch below it if you really want this guy to lurch forward. There’s no waist swivel, but that diaphragm joint works pretty well and I don’t really miss it. You have ball-hinges at the thigh with a thigh swivel just below on each leg. The knees are double-jointed and you get a boot cut as well above the gold cuff. The ankles are hinged and also have terrific “rocker” action as they pivot easily from side-to-side. Really, the only thing I miss is a set of vertical hinged hands, or even just one hand, for proper sword wielding. That’s a fault with the entire line though and not something unique to the White Ranger.
The problem with a talking sword is you never know how to hold it.
The White Ranger comes with a few accessories, but a little less than what the Green Ranger came with. He has his trusty sword at his side, Saba, the weird, talking, tiger thing. It’s his signature accessory and really the only one he actually needs, but it might bug some purists when they find out that Hasbro took some liberties with it. The shape of it looks fine and is largely as I remember, but rather than have a white, tiger, face on the hilt Hasbro chose to paint it all silver. It’s cast in white plastic so maybe someone felt it looked too boring being in white, but it doesn’t really bother me. Again, I’m not a Power Rangers super fan or anything, so others may be bothered by it. The stripes are painted black and are relatively clean. One side of his face is gold, while the other is left silver. I think both sides should be gold and, but I don’t believe this is an error on mine as a quick search of other reviews seems to produce the same thing. I think it would have looked cool if they added a little red to his eyes. I think they would glow in the show, or maybe I just wanted them to. Overall though, it looks okay and it fits in his scabbard if you’re a monster and actually want to pose this guy without the sword in his hand.
He also has this thing for the end of his sword. Is it an energy effect that didn’t exist in the show or just supposed to mimic light shining off his blade? I don’t know.
Aside from Saba, the White Ranger just comes with some additional hands, head, and an effects piece. Out of the box he comes with a right gripping hand and a left karate chop hand. In the box you will find a set of fists. It’s weird that he doesn’t have a left gripping hand, but I guess Tommy was a righty. Since he needs to be able to hold his sword, I doubt most will make use of that right fist, but it’s there if you want it. And it’s good that I’m lukewarm on it because the right hand snapped out of the hinge joint when I tried to remove it. The break was clean and I was actually able to get the hand back into the the joint, but it was a bummer. The second head is an unmasked one, as is the case with all of the figures in this line. It’s Tommy, but with a pony tail which is appropriate for this era. I believe this head was also released with the first Green Ranger Hasbro did, but was then replaced with a more appropriate head in the single release from late last year. The likeness on it is fine, but I’ll never use it once this review is done. I also had trouble getting the helmeted head off of the figure, and after what transpired with the hand, I just cut my losses and let it be. This line is technically for ages 4 and up, so it’s probably cool for kids to have the second head as they play, provided they can actually get the other one off. Lastly, White Ranger has this blue effects piece. It’s very spiky and the plastic is translucent and it has a little slit in it so you can stick it on the end of the sword. I guess it’s supposed to be a shimmering effect? I think that’s what they were going for, but it doesn’t quite work.
Everyone does the pose with the unmasked Ranger holding their helmeted head, but how many do the opposite? This is the content you come here for.
The White Ranger is a pretty fine release. It’s a twenty dollar figure that has mostly great paint, solid articulation, an attractive sculpt, and enough accessories to make him feel like a complete release. If I’m being objective, this is probably a better release than the Green Ranger I reviewed last year, but I’m partial to that character so I don’t know that I enjoy this one more than the other. Basically, I think Hasbro could have done a little better with the hands and effects piece, but otherwise this figure checks all the right boxes. My only real complaint is a lack of a vertically hinged sword hand. I think that’s a problem for the entire line though, so for whatever reason, Hasbro just doesn’t like vertically hinged hands. And then of course the quality control issue I had with the hand is not ideal. The pegs connecting the hands to the forearm are almost needlessly long and in this case the hinge gave out before the peg could be freed. It surprised me because this guy had been out of his box for nearly a week before I really messed with him so he had plenty of time to warm up. I’m tempted to return this one for another, but the hand went back on fine and the hinge is functional so I’ll probably just keep it considering the paint app was solid. This guy is not exclusive to any retailer though and should be pretty easy to get ahold of if you’re looking for him, so get get him if Power Rangers are your thing.
Today we are celebrating ten years of The Nostalgia Spot! It’s not ten years to the day, the actual anniversary was about a week ago, but it’s close enough. In those 10 years, there have been 750 posts here on a variety of subjects, pretty much all of which could be labeled as nostalgic to someone my age. One such topic though has never been broached, and it’s Star Wars. I have nothing against Star Wars and actually consider myself a fan. The first Star Wars film I ever saw was The Empire Strikes Back when my dad was watching a television broadcast of it in the early 90s and beckoned me to watch it with him. I enjoyed it, even though I thought Darth Vader looked like a rip-off of The Shredder, and my dad made sure to rent The Return of the Jedi for me shortly after our viewing. I don’t think I’d see the original film for a year or so though, and that inaugural viewing was a broadcast television airing too.
I thought Star Wars was pretty great though, and while it never really threatened Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for number one in my heart, I would eventually become a bigger fan later in the 90s. The special edition of the trilogy was heavily marketed as was the novel Shadows of the Empire. Kenner re-launched its Star Wars action figure line and I dabbled in it. I had versions of all of the main cast, as well as a few vehicles, some Micro Machines, and other assorted toys. I got into the Expanded Universe and read quite a few books during that time and also played the video games. I even unironically enjoyed Masters of Teräs Käsi for the PlayStation and sunk several hours into it. And when the prequel trilogy was announced, I was pretty pumped and my family and I made sure to see The Phantom Menace as soon as we could.
Hasbro knows nostalgia.
Ever since though, my fandom has certainly waned. The prequels turned out be rather poor, and when I moved on from toys I largely left Star Wars behind as well. I never stopped liking the original films, but the fandom certainly became exhausting and I’ve never been able to bring myself to care about the franchise in the way a self-described “fan boy” would. To me, it’s just a fun world and fun collection of movies. I have made no grand plans on how to introduce my own kids to it or anything, I’ll just show it to them when they finally show enough interest to care. And so far, they’re fine with not really interacting with it outside of the Disney Infinity game. On the subject of this blog though, I’ve just never felt like I had anything important to say about Star Wars that hasn’t been said somewhere else. It’s a huge topic with a lot of opinions and you can find Star Wars blogs and YouTube channels in astronomical numbers. Anything I post here would just wind up in an echo chamber. I haven’t been actively avoiding the subject, I just haven’t really found anything worthwhile to say on the subject.
If you don’t like the modern stuff, there’s a Luke to keep you happy.
In celebration of ten years blogging though, it felt fitting to finally tackle something related to Star Wars. And today, we’re looking at a toy! The Star Wars: Vintage Collection from Hasbro is a throwback line of action figures meant to remind collectors of the Kenner days. And since Hasbro owns Kenner now, they can even toss the logo right onto the package! The Kenner line was a 3.75″ scale line, though it might be more accurate to say that was really the height and not the scale as the characters did not scale well with each other. They were also articulated in a simple manner with just five points of articulation: head, shoulders, and legs. It was limited, but not in a manner that stood out for the era as a lot of lines offered little articulation. A Toy Biz X-Men figure, for example, often only had four more additional points of articulation at the elbows and knees. I think the line is actually more memorable for just having some amusing sculpts and oddball characters. The original Luke, based on his appearance in Star Wars, had a massive, barrel, chest on him that looked ridiculous. There were also numerous peg warmers of characters no one wanted as the line went on as long as it could often pulling background characters into the limelight. It was a flawed line of figures to be sure, but I had a lot of fun with it and even still have all of my figures to this day.
And with him, as always…
For The Vintage Collection, Hasbro wisely did not just emulate Kenner. These are not ReAction figures. This is a 3.75″ scale line of figures with modern articulation and a lot of the bells and whistles collectors today are used to. I do not collect anything Star Wars today, but it looks to me like this line works largely in tandem with Hasbro’s The Black Series, a 6″ scale line, with these figures just being scaled-down versions of figures from that line. I do not know if that’s true of every figure, but it certainly appears to be the case with Din Djarin, better known to most as The Mandalorian.
This is awesome.
The Mandalorian has been a big hit for Disney and its streaming service, Disney+, pretty much since day one. The second season just finished at the end of 2020 and a third season is expected later this year along with a spin-off series concerning Boba Fett. Like basically everyone with a Disney+ subscription, I have watched The Mandalorian and I’ve found it pretty damn enjoyable. It’s probably the best Stars Wars thing Disney has done and I think that’s due to it keeping things simple. Some of the episodes get a little too formulaic and feel like video game quests or missions, but for the most part the show is anchored by the relationship between its title character and The Child, a toddler of sorts who bares a strong resemblance to Yoda, hence why many just refer to him as Baby Yoda. The Child was given a name in Season Two, but I’ll refrain from including it here since it’s not printed on the package and because I don’t need to spoil it for anyone. This set features both characters and appears to be partly inspired by the final episode of the first season and is very similar to a set from The Black Series that also includes both. And because Hasbro needs to please all retailers, that Black Series set is exclusive to Target stores while this one comes from Walmart. I don’t know if any of these have actually made it to physical stores as it seems everyone who got one did so via Walmart’s online store where this set was made available as a pre-order (which Walmart cancelled many orders of). I did not get a preorder and was actually hooked-up by a fellow collector whom I met on Twitter via the #CollectorsHelpingCollectors group so a special shout-out and thanks go to Jay (@TMNT_MOTU_RGB)!
He’s got a spot for his rifle.
This set comes packaged on a retro-inspired blister card. The card itself is really attractive and features a shot from the series and a cross-sell on the rear. It looks so nice that I almost hate to open it as this is a classic blister and not something that can be resealed, but this wouldn’t be much of a review if I kept it mint-on-card. Once freed from his plastic confines, Mando stands almost right at that 3.75″ mark coming in a tick over. This makes sense as he appears to be a character of approximately average height for the setting. He’s in his beskar armor and he looks like he’s been in a fight as I think this is modeled on the Season One finale. There’s a nice graphite quality to the beskar with just a hint of a pearl finish on it. Black scuff marks and dirt smudges provide the distressed quality the figure is going for while the rest of the figure is mostly an earthy brown and gray-blue. He’s quite detailed for such a small figure and it’s incredibly rewarding to just sit an admire all of the little touches sculpted into the belt, armor, gloves, and boots. The amount of paint on him is rather impressive as there’s lots of little touches, especially on the belt or the shells strapped to his right calf. And it’s remarkably clean for the most part. The only areas I have some paint slop are the fingers and inside of the glove. The trigger finger of his right hand has some turquoise on it that I don’t think is supposed to be there, and it’s the only paint slop I’d consider an eyesore.
Or if you prefer, a jetpack!
Like the detail work on the sculpt, the articulation is rather impressive for such a small figure. His head is on a ball peg and has great range of motion. He can look up and down and tilt as well as rotate. The cape doesn’t really get in the way too, which is surprising. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he has single-jointed elbows with swivel right above the hinge. Even without a double joint at the elbow, he can still bend his arm a bit past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and his left hand is a gripping hand while the right is in a trigger position. There’s a ball-joint in the torso with some nice range of motion that affords forward and back bends and plenty of twist and side-to-side action. The bandolier across his chest is loose enough that it doesn’t restrict the torso at all. His legs are on ball hinges which is certainly different. You can get him to kick forward and back as long as you line that hinge up the way you want it to go. This means he can swivel at the top of the thigh, plus he has a thigh cut just above his armor so you can finagle a kicking pose, for example, by spinning the top joint to orient the hinge properly and then twisting the thigh so his leg doesn’t look like it’s been contorted in an impossible fashion. I don’t know why they don’t just use a ball-joint, but this is okay. He has a single hinge in each knee and can swivel below the knee for an effective boot cut. The ankles are hinged and can rotate, but don’t appear to have an ankle rocker of any kind. And really, that’s probably the only thing I miss. An ankle rocker just adds stability for more spread out stances, but this guy stands pretty well and I am just impressed that Hasbro got as much articulation into this one as they did.
The best I could do with the rifle. Note how his jetpack can stand on its own though!
The ever important beskar.
Since this is Mando, he needs to come with some accessories. And obviously, important to him are his weapons and tools. He comes with a blaster holstered at his hip which fits snugly in there, but is also easy to remove. The sculpt on it is quite nice, but the paint is understandably simple. It’s just gray with a brown hilt, but there is a touch of pearl in the finish on the gun metal. He also has his rifle which he can either hold or have pegged into his back. The sculpt of the rifle is great and it’s painted or sculpted in that same graphite gray nearly matching his beskar armor. The stock of the rifle is more of a copper than brown and there’s some gold portions where the scope is fastened to the barrel. It looks rather nice, though there is a couple of spots of missing paint on the stock that I don’t believe I caused when trying to pose him with the rifle. His articulation means he can hold it in a ready position, but struggles to hold it in a firing position, but that’s common for six inch scale figures as well. He also comes with a container that probably has a special name, but I don’t know it. It opens at the front with a hinge and the top can also come off. It’s off-white with a little gray paint and looks like something from Star Wars. It’s mostly here to store his stash of beskar. He has a single brick he can hold in his left hand and a molded stack of bricks to put in this container. It might sound stupid, but even this little, plastic, brick is sculpted rather well as it even has the Galactic Empire insignia stamped into it. The finish is the same graphite color as his armor. He also comes with his jet pack, and it’s done in the same graphite color. I’m not sure if this is painted or just the plastic used, but it’s nice. It pegs into his back just fine too.
A canister, some space metal, and a kid.
“I love you, little buddy.”
Of course, there is one other accessory and it’s The Child, or Baby Yoda, whatever you refer to him as. He’s in scale with his much taller buddy meaning he stands at just three quarters of an inch. He is tiny, and yet somehow he’s just as cute as he is on television. The face is perfect and his eyes are a shiny black so they really capture the eyes of the actual character. There’s a little paint in his ears, but otherwise he’s kept pretty simple. His robe is two-toned and has some nice sculpted details in it. Best of all, he’s articulated which the Black Series two-pack can’t even boast. His head is on a ball-joint and it can rotate all around. He can look up and down slightly, but the way the robe is sculpted won’t allow much. That’s the only disappointment since he can’t really look up at Mando. The arms are ball-jointed too so he can raise his arms out to the side a bit and rotate forward and back. I don’t think his hands can move, but they look like they could be pegged in. Maybe they were strengthened with glue. He is beyond fantastic as far as I am concerned though. Somehow, Hasbro got more personality into this tiny chunk of plastic than some of the much larger versions of the character I’ve seen out there. The only downside is he lacks his little, floating, bubble (pram?) stroller of a device which would look nice beside Mando. He’s also so small that he basically can’t have his little steel shifter-top from the show.
What’s in the box?!
SHIT!
And one last thing! Mando also has an alternate head. If you prefer your Mandalorian unmasked you can pop the helmeted head off and replace it with this unmasked version. Once again, I am left floored by this figure as the likeness to actor Pedro Pascall on this tiny, piece of plastic is better than a lot of the larger scaled figures out there. It’s also a far better solution than the Black Series which made the helmet fit over the head thereby smooshing the nose of the actor and leading to a slightly imperfect fit. I can’t imagine ever displaying him with his unmasked head, but it’s nice to have the option. It’s also worth noting that this head features no battle damage as one may have expected given the rest of the figure. And I suppose now is as good a time as any to mention that his cape is removable. One you have popped off the head, simply slide it off, if you desire. It’s well positioned though so as not to interfere with the jetpack slot or the rifle slot so I doubt most will want to remove it. Plus, everyone looks cooler with cape!
He’s so small that it’s hard to get a camera to focus on his face.
If you can’t tell already, I am in love with this release. It’s the best Hasbro figure I’ve ever owned. It makes me want to check out more from the Vintage Collection, though presently I am not after any other characters. Instead, maybe I’ll just quietly hope my son or daughter falls in love with Star Wars and wants to start a collection of these or something. I definitely don’t feel the need to acquire other characters based on The Mandalorian, at least not the characters who originated in the show. I can think of one character from the Season Two finale that might tempt me, but otherwise I think I’m all set. We’ll see. Time has a tendency to make fools of us all. For now, I have this awesome set of figures that I’m really excited to find a home for in my house. I don’t know where they’ll be displayed, but it will be somewhere prominent, I suspect. This set is being sold by Walmart and is presently sold out, but considering how popular these characters are I expect a restock is underway. There may even be a reissue that omits the battle damage and is distributed to other retailers, so if you missed out don’t despair just yet. And if you’re not interested in The Child, there are single card editions of just The Mandalorian available. It also should go without saying though, if you’re a fan of the show or a Star Wars collector you absolutely do not want to miss this!
I feel like we should end this on a comparison shot, just in case I didn’t properly convey how small this figure is. Left to right: Lightning Collection Green Ranger, Mando, Funko Scrooge, NECA Leonardo
It might be hard to convince younger people today that superhero movies were once huge financial risks for production companies. It might further surprise them to learn that only one comic book company seemed to figure the whole thing out, and it wasn’t Marvel. While Marvel struggled to get Hollywood interested in its characters, Detective Comics did not. That’s because DC held what were easily the two most identifiable superheroes in existence: Superman and Batman. Both had successful runs in theaters as serials or theatrical animation. Both also made the jump to television and in the 1970s the most recent to find success on both the small and big screen was Batman by way of the Adam West starring show and film. That Batman, created in the 60s, was the definition of camp. It was pretty delightful, but come the 70s audiences seemed to want something else. The comics pivoted back more towards a serious tone, though it would take Hollywood awhile to do the same. In the 70s though, one hero was available to take comics to new heights on the big screen and his name was Superman.
I don’t think it’s a great stretch to say Superman is the most recognizable superhero in the world. He’s the first thing that comes to mind for me when I hear the term “superhero” and he can do all of the things I think of when I hear the term “super.” He can fly, he’s incredibly strong, invulnerable, absurdly fast, and to top it all off he can do other things like shoot lasers from his eyes and has super…blowing…power. There’s no way to phrase that without sounding awkward. Throughout the years, Superman also has been known to possess what is basically a super constitution as he fights for truth, justice, and the American way all without ever telling a lie (except for those that protect his secret identity). He’s so pure a character, that it’s hard not to take a cynical approach sometimes when interacting with him. And depending on the current temperature of society, it can make the timing difficult. Maybe that’s why Superman has mostly spun his tires in the world of modern cinema, but apparently 1978 was the perfect moment for him to hit the big screen because the film, Superman, was a massive hit.
This is a long movie, partly because we apparently need to see every decision made before this baby was sent rocketing through space.
Directed by Richard Donner, Superman is a film that had a long development cycle. There were numerous script rewrites and it took a long time to develop the proper techniques to convince an audience that what they’re seeing was plausible. Making a man fly is almost ho-hum in this modern world full of computer-generated imagery, but in the 70s it had yet to be perfected. On a technical level, Superman was extremely ambitious, but apparently that wasn’t enough. The visionaries behind it, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, together with producer Pierre Spengler, decided it wasn’t enough to make one movie and settled on filming two at the same time. It was a laborious process that was always behind schedule and over budget leading to constant conflict between Donner and the Salkinds eventually leading to the director’s firing before the sequel could be completed.
Jeff East plays young Clark and they try to make him look like Reeve, but it’s not very convincing.
The film also assembled a pretty large cast of actors, some of which were heavy hitters and others were virtual unknowns. Christopher Reeve was cast in the lead role of adult Clark Kent and Superman after a lengthy search. Looking over the list of actors offered or asked to audition is pretty entertaining as Donner and the producers tried to find someone who could both act and look good in spandex. To give the film star power, the Salkinds brought in Marlon Brando to play Superman’s father, Jor-El, and paid him a princely sum to do so. Fellow Oscar winner Gene Hackman was cast as antagonist Lex Luthor while Margot Kidder played Lois Lane.
The film makes no attempt to hide the fact that Metropolis is just New York City.
Superman as a film is designed to introduce the audience to the character as if it were the first time. This necessitates a rather laborious beginning where we see the events that lead to planet Krypton’s demise while Brando chews up screen time looking rather disinterested the whole time. Following that, the setting shifts to Earth where we need to see John and Martha Kent (Glenn Ford and Phyllis Thaxter) happen upon the young boy who spent years traveling to their planet in an odd-shaped pod. The film is forced to fast-forward to Clark’s teenaged years (where he’s awkwardly played by Jeff East with Reeve dubbed over) before we can finally get to Clark’s adult years when he officially dawns the cape and blue tights. It’s a long process to get to our hero, and it’s awkwardly paced. Donner clearly had some bullet points he wanted to hit, but the speed at which he hits them reduces their impact. When Clark’s adoptive father suffers a heart attack at the farm, we’ve only just met him and it’s hard for the actors to get the audience to feel the dread and fear of the moment the way their characters do.
Kidder is a lot of fun as Lois Lane, especially when paired with Clark Kent, even though that pairing feels nonsensical at times.
At least when we finally get to Metropolis and the main meat of the film, it starts to soar. Kidder’s Lois Lane, who embodies a manic, hyper, persona as a go-go-reporter livens the film up and she plays off of Reeve’s bumbling Kent very well. Their first scenes together are movie magic and I wish we could spend more time with them, but the film is well over an hour at this point and needs to bring in its hero. Superman and Lane’s scenes together are far less interesting. There’s a romantic angle imbued into them that’s forced, and made painfully obvious during the infamous flying sequence where Lane recites a poem in her mind via voice over directed at her new super beau.
The Daily Planet just making it easy for Lex.
It’s also at this point the film’s main antagonist, Lex Luthor, is introduced. Hackman is charismatic in the role and he plays off of his bumbling sidekick Otis (Ned Beatty) and the dashing Eve Teschmacher (Valerie Perrine) in an entertaining fashion, but he doesn’t get enough time to convince us of his evil genius. The film just basically gives him kryptonite, and his scheme to create some expensive real estate for himself comes together quite rapidly. He’s at least wise enough, and I give the film credit for this, to know that Superman will be his enemy and that he needs to have a plan in place to deal with him before Superman is even aware of his existence. And his plan, at least as it pertains to Superman, is a good one. His overall plan though comes across as a bit camp, which is something this movie sort of struggles with. For much of the picture it plays things pretty straight, only slipping in a corny little line from the comics here and there, but Luthor’s plan feels like full camp to me. Some of Superman’s scenes are similar and it’s hard to know how the movie wants them to be interpreted. I think in most cases they’re playing it straight, but years of Superman parodies have left me damaged.
Kryptonite is not his only weakness.
I don’t want to spoil the ending of the film, even though it’s over 40 years old at this point, but it is a problem with the film. The only aspect of the ending that I like is it asks Superman to make a decision that is essentially the character choosing to take the advice of his adoptive father over that of his biological one. Brando’s Jor-El hangs over the film as he’s able to pass on knowledge to his son via some crystals he packed in his space pod. The two even appear to have actual conversations which is rather confusing and feels like an unnecessary cheat. It’s hard not to make a biblical connection here as well as Jor-El gifts his only son to humanity for he sees potential in mankind and that child is Superman. The only thing missing is a resurrection angle. At any rate, the ending is setup early via a quote from Jor-El to his son, but it still feels kind of cheap and like a deus ex machina.
Show off.
When Superman soars though, it’s pretty damn fun. The special effects have obviously aged quite a bit since 1978. You know you’re looking at an old movie when you watch it, but it’s not so aged that it takes the viewer out of the fantasy. The flying stuff looks fine, the only aspects of the effects that really stand out are the miniatures used for much of the climax. In fairness to them, no one ever envisioned these scenes being viewed in HD when they were shot and I suspect that’s a major part of the problem. Possibly the best part of the film occurs when Superman outs himself and is just soaring around Metropolis knocking off conventional crooks. There’s also a more extravagant scene where he saves Air Force One from a crash landing. It probably didn’t need the added drama of having the airplane be Air Force One, but it’s a great scene. It was so good that nearly 30 years later Superman Returns went back to that well to reintroduce the audience to Superman. The only issue with the film is it takes so long to get to that point, and it’s a relatively small portion of the film, but the moments are at least captivating enough to enrapture even the youngest viewer.
The score for this film is fantastic, except for maybe this scene. Though there it’s not really the score’s fault.
A part of the film that has not aged at all is the score. Composed by the renowned John Williams, Superman has what I consider a perfect score. There has never been a character or franchise more perfectly suited for its theme than Superman and the Williams composition. It’s triumphant, wonderous, and jubilant. Is it controversial to say this is the best main theme John Williams has come up with? I love the main theme from Star Wars, and Jaws is an all-timer, but Superman takes it to another level. I have to assume Williams had the old Superman theme, from the Fleischer cartoons, in the back of his head so a hat tip to those classics should be granted.
The film probably makes you wait too long to get to these moments, but at least when it does it pays off.
I had not seen Superman since I was a kid before re-watching it for this film. It was my choice for family movie night, and in that role is probably miscast. It was tough sledding for a five and a four-year-old to sit through for two and a half hours, even with an intermission. Thankfully, I didn’t go with the three hour cut. Yes, this film has multiple cuts at this point, but the original theatrical cut is probably still the best. The scenes Donner added back in years ago aren’t memorable and just increase the film’s already generous running time. The film also suffers for being shot with its sequel. There’s a sense one gets when viewing this that a lot is being intentionally held back to introduce in the sequel. It just feels like a setup for Superman II, a far more confident and direct film that many prefer to the original. It’s also a film I have not seen in decades so I’m not certain it’s the superior film, but I’m fairly certain it is.
Superman is the type of hero who can save the world from a super villain like Lex Luthor, but also finds time to help a little girl get her cat out of a tree.
Superman is still a worthwhile watch in 2021 and it’s better than any of the films starring the hero to come since the year 2000. Superman is a pretty simple character with a simple premise, but modern filmmakers struggle with him when they become fearful of how powerful he is or fail to see the character’s appeal. To make a moody, timid, Superman is to totally miss what’s appealing about him. He’s the ultimate hero who is nearly infallible. He doesn’t have to be perfect, but he’s a character that is always striving to be perfect. And even though I was probably more let down by this re-watch than I was rewarded, whenever that familiar John Williams score kicked up and the character came into view, I was a kid again and I was completely enthralled in what was playing before my eyes.
Sometimes a toy comes along that I just can’t ignore. There’s just something neat about it, or the aesthetic so on point, that I want to own it even if I have little or no attachment to the source material. Such is the case with the Boss Fight Studio release of Sam & Max. I am only aware of the existence of Steve Purcell’s Freelance Police duo. I mostly remember them from advertisements in video game magazines since their point and click adventures were fairly popular back in the day, at least, as popular as that genre ever could be. I’ve seen a little of the animated series that aired on Fox Kids and even covered the Christmas episode in 2019, but that’s the most in depth I’ve ever gone with the property. Still, I always found the duo pleasant to look at and I am drawn to the property as it certainly sounds like something I would enjoy (in particular the graphic novels), but I’ve just never taken the plunge.
When Boss Fight Studio started teasing these figures back in 2018 I mostly had no reaction. When the full reveal took place in February of 2019 I thought they looked nice, but was able to just file it away in the back of my mind. As time went by I’d get more and more looks at these guys and they just started to really captivate me. When they were finally released in late 2020 I was fully onboard and intrigued enough that I knew I wanted them, and I held out until Boss Fight Studio revealed their Christmas deals. Even though these guys weren’t on sale, I used the excuse of free shipping and the desire to add another Bucky O’Hare Storm Toad to grab a pair.
Sam & Max began life as a comic, but has since migrated to other forms of media.
It’s probably a good thing that I wasn’t hooked from the get-go, as you probably noticed in that last paragraph that there was a lengthy development cycle associated with this duo. I don’t know if there were any challenges that pushed things back on the development side. I would guess since these guys are very much their own thing it takes some time to get stuff together at the factory. Boss Fight may have elected to wait for the pre-orders to clear a certain amount before going into full production to ensure profitability. And then, of course, COVID eventually messed things up. In the US, we tend to think of COVID as a 2020 problem, but for toy makers it was a 2019 problem as well when factories in China shut down as the virus spread and didn’t restart for months. And when they did restart it was with skeleton crews that persist to this day. Even big toy producers were hit hard, so a smaller shop like Boss Fight was especially impacted. Patience is a virtue though, and as the old saying goes, good things come to those who wait. Sam and Max have arrived, and hopefully for fans of the property, the wait was worth it.
Both Sam and Max come packaged in a very attractive window box. It features new artwork from Steve Purcell with a comic strip printed on the back. There are some product shots as well as a summary of the items on one side. Max is labeled as 01 and Sam 02 and I do not know if there are any plans for more figures in this line. My guess would be some variants are probably under consideration so that Boss Fight can squeeze a little more value out of these molds, but even if it’s just a duo, it’s a nice little display piece for collectors. And the box is attractive and it’s easy to reseal should you desire to. I’m a big fan of the resealable blister Boss Fight has utilized with Bucky O’Hare, but this is pretty nice too!
Max, resident “Rabbity Thing” and most of his stuff.
Since Max is considered the first figure in the wave, we’ll start with him. He’s rather diminutive and would be even in the smallish Bucky O’Hare line. He’s roughly about 3″ in height not including the ears. Since he’s essentially all white, or a slightly off-white, he has a really clean and simple appearance. The articulation is not overpowering so there’s very little that breaks up the sculpt. Even though the character is fairly simple in design, Boss Fight sculptor Daniel Rheaume should still be credited with nailing the expressions for Max. He comes packaged with an open mouthed, toothy, grin that imparts just a touch of Max’s somewhat maniacal nature. It’s never easy to go from 2D to 3D, but I suspect the video games aided in finding the right way to position the mouth, eyes, and nose on a spherical head.
I enjoy the juxtaposition of the rather violent gun display with the peace sign.
The articulation for Max is fairly basic. His head sits on a ball-joint and can rotate freely with a little bit of room to move up and down. His shoulders are in sockets with hinges and he rotates above the elbow which contains a single hinge. The hands are just pegged in and can rotate. There’s no articulation in the torso or at the waist. His legs are on ball-joints with single-hinged knees. While I like how clean the sculpt is, I do think there’s room for more articulation with this guy. Boss Fight did say they tried to do something with the ankles, but apparently it wasn’t working. It seems strange since we have Bucky O’Hare, a fellow rabbit-thing, to compare to and he has ankle and toe articulation, but maybe they just didn’t like how it looked with Max. The other aspect of the articulation that’s a bit odd concerns the knees. Max is drawn with pronounced kneecaps so I see why Boss Fight sculpted those on, but it does look a bit weird when he bends his knee as the kneecap is attached to the lower leg. This is where a double-joint actually would help the sculpt as the kneecap can kind of exist in-between, but Boss Fight stuck with a single-joint. I think it may have looked better to have the kneecap affixed to the upper leg instead, but it’s not a big deal.
“Hello?! You’ll have to speak up, I’m dealing with a rat problem!”
Less elegant than the gun, but it makes a satisfying crunch!
Max comes with an assortment of accessories to dress him up. Being that he is a mere 3″ and retails for $40, he kind of needs to justify his pricepoint with a lot of stuff and Boss Fight mostly delivers there. For starters, he comes with two extra heads. One has a huge grin and the other features no mouth at all. I will say, I love all 3 heads and choosing a display is tough. I actually like the no-mouth look for comedic reasons, though I can’t see myself going with that. Toy photographers will probably have a lot of fun with it though. Swapping heads is not exactly fun as his head is on there real tight. Heat it up and apply consistent force and you’ll get there. Getting the others on is also trying and requires both heat and patience. It’s a sturdy joint so the risk of breaking anything is probably minimal, but be careful. I did find that after swapping heads for the first time the joint appeared to be more loose. His head is rather heavy relative to the rest of the sculpt and it is just barely supported by the joint. One little touch on either side will cause it to bobble. The ears pop out and in easy enough though as they’re shared with all of the heads. Boss Fight also labeled them so you shouldn’t have any trouble remembering which is left and which is right. The hands are also quite tight and when removing them you will want to make sure you secure the figure’s forearm to prevent applying too much force to the elbow joint. If done incorrectly with a Bucky O’Hare figure, the peg above the elbow will usually just pop out and can be re-inserted, but I do not know if this figure is constructed in a similar manner. His arms are very thin so you definitely want to be as careful as you can. The good news is, switching hands will leave your own fingers a little sore and likely discourage you from putting too much stress on the figure over a short period of time.
The mouthless head works to convey a shocking phone call.
Also useful for when Max wakes up in the morning to find his ears missing.
In addition to the extra heads, Max also features 6 extra hands. He comes packed with dueling trigger fingers, but also has a set of open hands, fists, and one pointing right hand and one “peace sign” left hand. He’s also got some stuff he can hold with those trigger hands like his trusty pistol of German origin and a hammer, because a hammer is always useful. He also has an old rotary phone and I absolutely adore it. It has a spiral chord on it that’s plenty pliable and Max can hold the receiver just fine with his trigger hands. If the actual dial could spin, I’d be doing backflips. I don’t know why, I just think it’s neat. Lastly, there’s a rat. He’s painted really well for a non-articulated little figure and he’s holding up a finger. I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be taunting Max or how the two are supposed to feel about each other, but he looks pretty nice. It’s enough stuff that it makes settling on a shelf pose rather challenging. I like the expression hands like the pointing finger and peace sign, but I also like the accessories he can hold. They’re pretty easy to work into the hands too, which is certainly a plus. I almost feel like the fists are wasted as I don’t see myself ever posing him with those, but it’s always nice to have extras!
Sam is very happy with the size of his gun.
Figure number 2 is the canine shamus Sam! He is much bigger than his little buddy as he stands about 5 1/2″ without his hat. Popping him out of the box immediately feels a lot different than taking Max out. This is a chunky, dense, figure with a pretty intricate sculpt. He comes packaged with an open mouth happy face and he has three pieces of hair/fur sticking up on his head that the hat fits over. His torso is sculpted and painted all around it, even the parts hidden by his suit jacket, which is pretty impressive. No corners were cut here. His dress shirt looks so lifelike that it’s almost a shame to see it hidden under the coat. And the coat itself is soft plastic over his body with the sleeves part of the sculpt. This is a pretty common approach for jacketed characters and it works well here. The tie is soft plastic as well and can be moved and manipulated as needed since it’s attached to the collar which just slips over the ball-joint for his head. If you wanted your Sam to be more casual and ditch the tie you can just slip it off. He certainly looks the part and it’s hard not to be blown away by this sculpt.
He can get a bit angry if you take that gun away.
Sam is articulated a bit more extravagantly than his partner. His head sits on a ball peg that can move around which would typically allow for more up and down movement, though his collar and jacket limits him there. At the shoulders, it looks like his jacket should keep his arms from being able to come out and up at his sides, but it’s engineered really well and the sleeve will actually dip under the shoulder pad in his coat pretty easily. Maybe if you do this a lot there will be some rubbing damage, but you should be safe to pose him however you wish as long as you don’t go nuts. The arms can go all the way around too and there’s the usual single-hinge with a swivel at the elbow and the hands are once again just on pegs. He has a nice ball-joint at the waist so he can not only swivel all the way around, but also tilt forward and back and side-to-side. And the sculpting of the shirt works in tandem with the articulation here and slides easily behind his belt and over it. It’s really satisfying to mess around with. His legs are on a barbell joint and can come out to the side quite a bit, though not a full split. There’s a swivel at the knee and a single hinge. At the feet, he has a hinge and a generous bit of tilt so he can rock side-to-side and swivel. And what I love about both figures is that their feet are nice and big so they’re very easy to stand.
Poor Sam found himself injured. Max was fairly amused by it.
I did have one issue with Sam though, and it was a pretty big issue. His paint looked great and all of his joints were quite free and easy out of the package except for those knees. They just peg into the thigh with the hinge below the peg. I’m not a fan of this method of knee articulation, and it’s something I didn’t like about the Super7 Raphael back when I reviewed that. When I bent a knee on that figure, the peg popped right out without much warning. I wish that had happened with Sam, for when I went to bend his left knee it snapped. There was really no warning either, it was just a quick, clean, break. I then tried the right knee with a little heat from some hot water and a more delicate touch – snap! That one left a bit of the peg still on the lower leg and just for shits and giggles I tried heating that stub up and seeing if I could get that hinge to budge and I had zero success. I then went to YouTube to see if I could find some video reviews and see how people handled theirs on camera and noticed most of the reviewers received a letter with their set basically warning them about tight joints and to just go ahead and heat these guys up. It sounded like Boss Fight wanted them to not even attempt to work the joints at all without first applying heat. They did not include such a letter with my order. I wish they did, but also I have to say every other joint on both Sam and Max worked great right out of the box. It was only these knees that offered any resistance so maybe I’m just unlucky and got a bad Sam.
“Well, no sense letting this go to waste. Think I’ll try a stew.” “Hey!”
I reached out to Boss Fight via email and it took them a couple of days to get back to me. When they did, the rep from their store apologized and promised to get replacement parts out to me soon. It was nice to not have to deal with any condescension as I was half-expecting a lecture on proper action figure handling. Maybe they saw how many orders I’ve place with them over the years without any quality control issues and took me at my word that I know what I’m doing. While waiting for the new parts to arrive, I was able to have a little fun at poor Sam’s expense. Max, to his credit, found it all very amusing.
A week later, Sam’s new legs arrived at no additional cost to me. Each one was in a separate bag and the knee was bent on both probably to make sure the joint was fine. Getting the old stumps off of Sam was pretty easy and getting the new legs on was no trouble at all. All in all, a minor inconvenience that was remedied by the manufacturer and that’s all you can ask of toy makers.
After all of that trauma, Sam deserves a little treat.
Sam comes packaged with a fair amount of accessories, as did Max. He comes packaged with gripping, trigger, hands and in the box are a set of open hands and a set of fists. Removing and swapping hands is easier than it is with Max, largely due to Sam just being a more generously proportioned creation. He also has a pseudo-extra hand in the form of a brown bag puppet with Max’s face on it. I believe this is from an episode of the cartoon, but the bag looks pretty great and has a peg inside of it so it can peg into Sam’s forearm. There’s also a set of orange, melty, popsicles that I take it Sam is a fan of. They’re pretty easy to position in his hand since the stick end is rather small. Lastly, Sam has his massive revolver. The barrel on it is curved slightly to really give it a toon quality and I absolutely love how it turned out. The handle on it is pretty substantial, so you’ll probably end up warming one of Sam’s hands up to fit it in properly. Once you do, chances are you won’t want to take it out.
The “Ooo” mouth works well with the Max puppet accessory.
Sam also comes with a pair of extra heads. His default look is an open-mouthed happy expression and Boss Fight chose to give him the same, but with angry eyes, as one option and another where he’s making an “O” mouth, as if he were talking or whistling. I don’t think of Sam as the angry type, so I’ll probably stick with the happy look. The whistling head is pretty tempting though as it’s quite cute. Popping Sam’s default head off is pretty easy and you’re likely to do it by accident when testing out the range of articulation at his neck. Getting the others on is definitely a struggle. Even just examining the different heads, the opening on the default head appears to be larger and there’s a gradual slope to the front of the opening that would appear to exist to facilitate swapping. The angry head has that as well, while the whistling one just has a hole. You will want to heat the heads up when swapping if you want any chance of getting them on properly. It was still a bit odd as they didn’t seem to “pop” into place even after heating, but just kind of slid on. It’s a real workout for the thumbs.
The Freelance Police stand ready for action!
Sam and Max are mostly what I expected. Swapping parts has never been the strong suit of the Bucky O’Hare line and it isn’t here either. It’s kind of a chore, but I’m still glad to have the extra parts as they do a lot to liven up a display. The issues I had with Sam’s legs was something I did not anticipate, but to Boss Fight’s credit, they rectified it at no cost to me and without hassle. As a wise man once said, no harm, no foul. As for the figures themselves, what we have here is a tremendous representation of the characters in plastic form. Sam is easily the star for me, even with the broken legs, as he looks great and is a lot of fun to mess around with. Max also looks good, but his very basic articulation is a bit of a bummer. He’s kind of pushing it at $40 too, considering he’s a three inch figure. Niche license and a small company often means a bit of sticker shock. I know I had it with Bucky, and Sam & Max fans probably felt it a bit here. I suspect the Sam & Max diehards (and most fans might fall into that category) are okay with the cost. I obviously bought a set and I’m a casual at best fan and the cost didn’t deter me. Other, more casual, fans may want to wait a bit and see if there’s ever a promotion at Boss Fight or one of the third party retailers who are stocking this set. One likely isn’t coming anytime soon, but they probably won’t retail for $80 forever. As for me, I like these figures and I’m further comforted by the fact that I’m supporting a small toy maker that is also local to me. I think Boss Fight Studio runs their business the right way, and I like to support them and I intend to continue supporting them in the future.
So I swear I do not want this to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy blog. It’s definitely looked like one ever since Christmas ended though and that’s partly because of new releases and some technical difficulties. I have some posts I’m working on, but they’re not ready to go up yet and it’s a situation where it’s out of my control. However, this is a post I have wanted to do for awhile and it’s just been a matter of when to do it. In the review of the most recent release, Splinter vs Baxter set, I mentioned that particular set was the end of the essential figures for some folks. Not me, as I’m sticking with this line for awhile, but it was a sentiment I’ve seen expressed online more than once within the collecting community.
Given that, it’s a perfect time to take stock of where we are with the line. And specifically, what characters have been done well and which may have been underserved. I will say upfront that this line has largely been very good. Ignoring complaints about scarcity and scalpers, this line has delivered a great assortment of characters from the classic cartoon series and will be the measuring stick going forward for a lot of TMNT related releases. The old Playmates line of action figures was great, but most of the characters did not resemble their cartoon counterpart and that’s a void NECA has filled. And I have liked every figure so far, just some more than others. Despite what you may read online, a NECA figure is also not destined to fall apart in your hands. By all means, if you have bad experiences with NECA toys your opinion is valid, I just feel the need to point out that I own a lot of NECA product at this point and I have yet to have anything break. I have had one quality control issue so far and it was with the cartoon Slash who arrived with a detached strap on his backpack, something easily fixed with a dab of superglue. That doesn’t mean I don’t think NECA has room for improvement, but my overall experience has been very positive.
With that said, let’s move on to the rankings! I’ll link to my individual review and write-up where appropriate (but only once, so I don’t have four different links going to the same thing) if you want to read more of my thoughts as what is presented below will be a summary. And in some cases, my opinion may be slightly different than what it was originally since we’re going back a few years at this point. Let’s get started though with what is probably the consensus worst figure in the line:
She doesn’t look great, but at least she comes with a bunch of stuff!
April O’Neil – April is an essential character to the cartoon and I think fans and NECA are in agreement there, but for whatever reason, NECA just didn’t get her right. Depending on who you ask, either her head is too big or her body is too small. It doesn’t really matter which is the true issue (it’s the body) as in the end we have a miss-matched figure that looks pretty goofy. Even absent that, her face just doesn’t really look like April. It’s very round and her expression is pretty blank. When I think of April I think of a fearless, cocky, go-getter reporter and that’s just not here. She isn’t terrible as the articulation is good and I like the paint app. She also has some great accessories. I’ll continue to hope for a redo on her though, maybe as a deluxe release with swappable parts referencing the times she was mutated on the show. I don’t expect that to happen, but a man can dream.
He’s not nothing without his body, but he’s definitely lesser.
Krang (Bubble Walker) – Krang was originally released as part of the San Diego Comic Con 8 – pack and then again as a two-pack with a turtle and once more as a two-pack with Shredder. For what he is, he’s fine and I like that this version of Krang really resembles the Season One depiction of the character. He is a little on the small side, but that wasn’t really apparent until the new version came out so I don’t consider that much of a strike against him. He’s mostly ranked here because he’s just limited by his design from the show. He’s just a brain with tentacles and his bubble walker doesn’t really do anything. The legs move, but they lack “knee” joints which is unfortunate. By far the coolest thing this figure did was have easily removable tentacles that could plug into the bubble walker, a much better way of doing things than what the classic toy did.
The Turtles (Style Guide Colors) – The brothers four saw themselves re-issued as part of the second wave and have the dubious honor of being the only figures on this list that I do not have (hence why there’s no link or pic). I just have no use for them. They’re the same figures from the SDCC set and Wave One, but painted a bright green to match the style guides put out for the property in the 80s and 90s. These were the colors utilized for notebooks, t-shirts, lunch boxes, etc. and because the property was so popular it’s this look that some people most associate with TMNT to this day. There was even enough demand for NECA to release them as two-packs (Leo and Don, Raph and Mikey) with a few extra paper goods thrown in for good measure. Again, I personally have no use for these, but acknowledge that some people probably get more out of them than I would.
These robots may not blow you away, but they sure do look pretty great for what they are.
Roadkill Rodney – Like Krang in his walker, Roadkill Rodney is a figure that’s just limited by its design from the show. It’s a robot with no arms or legs that rolls around Gizmoduck style and has extendable tentacles. NECA packed two of them in with the Triceraton Infantry figure in what was the line’s second army builder bundle. For what they are, these robots are cool and NECA nailed the likeness. The swappable parts, while unnecessarily challenging to make use of, look great and were a good idea. I like them enough that I bought a second set, this is just a figure that really had no chance to be one of the best in the line.
Regular or extra smashy.
Foot Soldier/Bashed Foot/Slashed Foot – No line of TMNT action figures would be complete without the lowly Foot Ninja. NECA included two with the SDCC set and packed some in with Wave One turtles and as a two-pack, army builder, set in Wave Two. Wave Three then saw the introduction of the variants, bashed and slashed, and there’s actually a deluxe version still to come. This is a solid figure that really nails the likeness of the source material, it’s just hard to get too excited about a Foot Soldier. I do wish it had more articulation as this figure would really benefit from some torso articulation. The variants, of course, can’t have that, but the standard Foot would benefit greatly. The bashed variant is definitely the lesser one as it just has some exposed metal and circuitry inside it. The slashed variant is pretty great though and I love it for what it is. I wouldn’t mind a few more, though I doubt NECA would ever release a two-pack of slashed Foot and I don’t need more bashed ones.
He comes packing heat.
Triceraton Infantry – The Triceraton is best known from the original Playmates line, and the infantry ranked dino-alien is the one that resembles that figure the most. And that’s because it’s a big, orange, triceratops in an armored onesie. This figure is one of many to make use of the general body created for Bebop and Rocksteady, only it has Leatherhead’s tail with hands and feet to call its own. I do like how this guy turned out, and my main complaints were with some inaccuracies (the tail should be smooth, there are pants wrinkles because of the parts reuse) and the fact that this was an army builder not designed to be an army builder. A proper army builder should have some variety, but this figure has just one trigger hand and it only works well with the rocket launcher. The other guns, which resemble what Bebop and Rocksteady used in the show, work with the gripping hands and look kind of stupid without a trigger finger. I also wish he had an articulated jaw, something the other Triceratons possess. Still, on his own, this is a striking figure on the shelf and I liked it enough to buy two.
They’re here, but they don’t impress like their many rogues.
The Turtles – the Turtles have the somewhat dubious honor of being ranked in the back half of this list, despite being the stars of the show. They also have the added challenge of competition. Few companies have done a proper Shredder or Traag, but a lot of companies have taken stabs at doing figures of the Turtles. And these ones are showing their age. Originally released in NECA’s arcade set, the Turtles have been re-released a few times with little or no added engineering. Their articulation scheme is dated compared with the rest of the line, and they also stand out as many of the villains to follow feature a lot of paint given them a real matte finish while the Turtles are a bit glossy due to the presence of colored plastic. And I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the general shape of these figures works better as a representation of the classic arcade game than it does for the cartoon. That said, while other companies may be able to boast that their Leonardo or Donatello is better than NECA’s, few can compete on price as these guys are basically $25 figures instead of twice that. And as we speak, NECA is prepping a release that’s a four pack of these figures with soft goods, new heads, and some re-tooled articulation. Maybe Raph will have better sais and the other boys holsters for their weapons (only Leo can accomplish that) to help move them up the ranks. For now, they’re fine, but there’s some obvious room for improvement here as well.
The only way to display this guy is with those blades!
Zarax – The Triceraton Captain who few remembered. He’s essentially the same as the Triceraton Infantry, only yellow and with different armor. He has an articulated jaw which works great and I love what such a thing can add to a display. He also has removable bracers for his wrists and can swap in some bladed ones which look pretty cool. Aside from that, his accessories are the same from the previous release and any faults that other figure had, this one does too. Only this figure does have different feet which unfortunately are plagued by NECA’s paint woes. The ankle hinge is painted to match the bootie this guy is wearing, but the paint will flake off almost immediately and the plastic underneath is flesh-colored (which in this case means yellow) and it looks bad. He’s not the first figure to suffer from this issue, just the most recent. Hopefully he’s the last.
I just prefer my dino aliens to be green.
Zork – Zork is the other Triceraton released with Zarax. I rank him ahead of Zarax because I just think he looks cooler. He’s green and has his own headsculpt which is a bit wider and spikier than the others. Any con is shared with Zarax, so I won’t repeat those. The pros are also the same, I just prefer green to yellow apparently.
Slash is here and he’s armed!
Slash – A lot of folks seem to hate on the cartoon version of Slash, but I for one enjoy him! Sure, the comic depiction that Playmates sourced from is cooler, but not every villain needs to look cool. Slash was a bit of a goof in the show, and NECA really nailed the likeness with the head-sculpt here. The body is recycled from the video game Slash, which was recycled from the other turtles only with spikes added to the shell and claws to the feet and hands. That does mean the articulation could be better, and Slash wears these half gloves that suffer from the painted hinges issue mentioned earlier, but the figure is able to bring it all home with an assortment of awesome accessories. He’s loaded with a pair of futuristic-looking guns, a pair of bad ass katanas, his precious binky, and an unmutated version of himself. And since his box mate has yet to appear on this list, you can basically infer that Slash has been part of one of the best two-packs so far. The only true criticism I have for this figure, and what keeps him from being higher, is just the reuse of the turtle body. Slash should be squatter, and chunkier, and reusing that mold did him a disservice. Not enough to truly disappoint, but it’s also something that comes to mind every time I look at the figure.
“I’m Casey Jones, and I’m here to fuck you up!”
Casey Jones – A fan favorite, Casey Jones has been there since the beginning. It’s no surprise that NECA turned to him relatively early and even felt he could anchor a two-pack all by himself since he was packed with one of the Foot variants. Casey comes equipped with an assortment of weapons he apparently acquired from a sporting goods store and a golf bag to store them in. He also has a bunch of extra hands and all in all looks really good. The only cons with this release is that this was the start of the painted hinge problem and it affects both his feet and his hands. And he’s also made of a really soft, bendy, plastic that gives the figure a cheap feel. His knees are prone to bowing as a result and he’s a more challenging figure to stand than most. Thankfully, most of the figures to follow have not been of this construction, though the paint issue will persist.
“I swear, I only want to talk to him.”
Granitor – Granitor had the distinction of being one of the earliest villains introduced in the show to never receive an action figure. NECA showed off a version of this figure a few years ago as part of its video game line, but it was before the cartoon was on the table for retail and it was apparently cancelled when the cartoon line took off. Granitor is a cool figure though who shares a lot of parts with his box-mate and fellow rock soldier, Traag. The only reason why I rank Traag ahead of Granitor is because I think Traag better reflects his cartoon appearance. Granitor has a lot of the parts in place like the pointy nose and big shoulders, but something is off. He probably should be taller and slimmer than Traag, and his head might actually benefit from being smaller. He looks good, but more so than the figures to come (and actually some that came before) NECA just didn’t quite nail the likeness. His rather lofty ranking is a testament to how fun he is to handle and the fact that he’s been missing in action since 1987.
“Tonight I dine on turtle soup!”
Shredder – This was the figure that really impressed in that initial SDCC 8-pack. Which means that for a little while this was the best figure in the line. Shredder has since been topped, but he’s still the definitive take on the cartoon version of the character. Like the Turtles, he was adapted from a previous arcade release, but unlike them it all works perfectly. He also gets a new headsculpt and NECA’s paint app on it looks great. Like the Foot, I do see opportunity for more articulation that could have been incorporated into his torso, but for the most part I have no complaints. He just looks a little dated now for the same reason the Turtles do as he has more colored plastic and less paint. Again, I’m not against colored plastic in place of paint (Bandai pretty much shuns paint and they put out great stuff), but it makes Shredder look more toy-like when positioned amongst the later figures which better capture that “ripped from the screen” look.
The disciplinarian has arrived.
Splinter – The most recently released two-pack brought us the first cartoon accurate Splinter. And once again, NECA really nailed the cartoon likeness. Splinter scales well with his surrogate sons, and I welcome the use of soft goods with the kimono. And more than anything, this guy has tons of accessories. Some no one asked for, but it’s still nice to have them. I didn’t have much to complain about when I reviewed him, and he’s ranked here because he’s just not as fun to mess around with as some other figures. Because of who he is, he lends himself better to simple poses as opposed to dynamic ones, but no one can deny that this is a rat that belongs on the shelf.
Traag is the general because he’s superior to Granitor in every way.
Traag – Krang’s general, Traag, got a figure in the old Playmates line, but it looked nothing like the character in the show. This was the first time we got a proper cartoon Traag and NECA knocked it out of the park. The only negatives with the figure is just the lack of accessories, but that’s because there’s so much plastic in the sculpt (and he was bundled with Granitor) that it likely prevented NECA from adding much else. He moves well though and has tremendous presence on a shelf. He’s basically the surprise sleeper of the line so far as I don’t know that many had Traag high up on their list of wants, but anyone who got him is probably pretty happy with him.
The only figure in this line capable of kicking some ass and then cleaning up the mess afterwards.
Metalhead – The first deluxe figure in the line, and thus the first solo release, was The Mighty Metalhead! And he’s awesome, a true cartoon-to-plastic creation that’s big and beefy with some fun parts. The more recently released Android Krang does make him appear a little less “deluxe” than he did before, but he was also cheaper. He was also a real pain in the ass to find last summer, but at least NECA put him up for order on their site leading to scores of people like me ending up with two by accident. Nonetheless, I’m not down on having two as he is a great figure. The only real negative is his articulation isn’t great due to the shape of his arms and such, but he also doesn’t need a ton and he’s perfectly capable of looking imposing on your shelf or tidying it up with his vacuum attachment.
“You’ll have to speak up, I’m wearing a towel.”
Krang (Android Body) – Bubble walker Krang is nice, but this is the Krang everyone wants. Krang in his weird body is a natural for NECA’s deluxe line. He snuck in just before 2020 ended and nearly stole the show. He’s big, he’s got a new Krang to go inside him, and he comes with a bunch of extra stuff. The only thing that stinks about him is that he has so much paint on him that he is prone to chipping and factory defects. He’s definitely the kind of figure you want to come across in-store in larger quantities so you have a chance to pick the best available. Thankfully, that’s what happened to me and I was able to find one with pretty terrific paint, but literally every other one I left on the shelf had some ugly smudge or chip somewhere. He’s a truly goofy looking figure, made more so if you slap that shower attire on him, but that’s TMNT!
Lets see you get out of this one, Leo.
Leatherhead – More so than any other figure, Leatherhead surprised me. I wasn’t really looking forward to him even though I like the character, but once I had him in hand I was pretty blown away. He looks awesome and he’s based on the Bebop/Rocksteady body so he’s big and moves well enough. NECA gave him an articulated jaw and also packed him with some fun accessories like his weird ketchup gun and shackles. I love this figure, and the only issue I had with him is the damn painted joints. The issue is just more pronounced with Leatherhead because his legs and boots are blue since he’s wearing hip waders, but for some reason they were cast in white plastic which really shows up in the ankles when the blue paint flakes away. Supposedly, there has been a running change with this figure that fixed it, but I haven’t seen evidence of that. I’ll be curious to see if it’s no longer a problem when NECA ships out its made-to-order Leatherhead/Slash sets next month. Despite that annoyance though, this is a great figure, just watch that hook on his belt which appears to be prone to popping off.
He’s about to say something stupid!
Rocksteady – The moronic duo of Bebop and Rocksteady were staples in the cartoon, and they were part of the first offering of figures from Playmates back in the day. They were, however, never toon accurate until NECA stepped in. Rocksteady, to put it plainly, looks perfect. He’s chunky, he’s got a gut, and his eyes capture that “dangerous but stupid” expression he seemed to always wear. When I lucked onto a set around Thanksgiving 2019, I had nothing to really complain about. He could have come with a helmet, but he rarely wore that so I don’t know if I would even use it. He’s probably a little oversized when compared with the Turtles, but he looks so good this way that I hesitate to really complain. This is the Rocksteady I wanted when I was a kid, and I’m really happy to have him now in my 30s.
Oh I do love this little fly boy!
Baxter – Old Baxter is a character I just have a soft spot for. I’ve always liked his design, and like with many figures in this line, I always wanted a cartoon accurate version of him for my collection. He’s tiny, but packed with articulation and, more importantly, personality and I find myself charmed more and more each day that passes with this guy in my possession. NECA gave him some great accessories and he’s one of the few figures I really don’t want more from. The only real criticism I had was the lack of articulation in his purple appendages, but it’s not a deal-breaker, by any means. Just a wonderful little figure that does what it needs to and more!
Trust me, this is not a mug only a mother can love.
Bebop – The mutated wart hog is my pick for best figure in the line. Like Rocksteady, I just had nothing to complain about with this figure. He has all of the screen-accurate details I expected and his size and proportions are even better than what we saw with Rocksteady. Sure, you can quibble with that size as far as being too big goes, but he looks great and I wouldn’t mess with him. Literally the only thing that bugs me with this figure is his wrist chain, which is a real chain. It looks wonderful, but it will fly off when you swap his left hand and it’s hard to get it to look as good as it did out of the box. If they had sculpted the chain on his arm it probably wouldn’t look as good, but it would also work better, so it’s both hard to complain and praise the decision. Otherwise, he’s fantastic and I’ll never need another Bebop. Oh, I’ve definitely bought more that you’ll get to read about some day, but I didn’t need any more. For now, Bebop is the high water mark for this line and if NECA never tops it that’s honestly okay, but I hope they do at some point.
The New Year holiday is a time for both reflection and looking forward. Almost every publication, network, YouTuber, blogger, etc. does some sort of “Best of the Year” segment or just a feature that recalls the events of the past 365 days (or in the case of 2020, 366) because it can be both fun and it’s easy to fill time during a period when everyone is looking to take time off. Toy producer Boss Fight Studio is no different in that regard for it did a webcast on its Facebook account recalling the events of 2020 as it pertained to its line of toys. It featured the partners and some of the designers at the company and it gave them a chance to maybe spotlight something that fell through the cracks and also draw attention to what collectors could look forward to in 2021. As a rabid collector of Boss Fight Studio’s Bucky O’Hare line, I tuned in to see if there was any news on that front. Captain Mimi LaFloo was released at the end of 2020 and it was the first figure in the line to see release without an announced figure in the pipeline. It’s a bit of a cruel reality for toy designers that once a new figure is put out fans immediately turn to ask “What’s next?!” but that’s the way it is.
Needless to say, the update on the Bucky franchise was not what I would consider promising. To paraphrase, the update (which is archived on Facebook) was that there is no update! There are plenty of figures in stock and ready to order, but the company is not ready to announce another figure to follow. It was, of course, stressed that they love Bucky and have enjoyed their relationship with the license holder, Continuity Comics, but that doesn’t change the reality that there appear to be no plans for Bucky O’Hare at this point in time. Sure, things can change and maybe something gets announced in the future, but for an industry that works on lags of more than a year from conception, to announcement, to release it can certainly be inferred that there will be no new Bucky product in 2021, and if there isn’t an announcement of some kind before the end of the year then you can probably write-off 2022 as well.
2020 was not a good year for a lot of people and things, but for Bucky O’Hare it was a significant improvement over 2019. 2019 was the first year since the line launched that there was no new Bucky product released. Anything that might have released in 2019 was pushed to 2020 due to a variety of reasons, one of which was undoubtedly COVID. It was pretty fruitful though as Boss Fight released two new characters, Bruiser and Mimi, as well as a fun variant of the Storm Toad Trooper. I, of course, got all three and even in the case of the Storm Toad I got two. I am all-in on this line and that pretty much includes new sculpts and variants at this point.
Boss Fight Studio has given us a wonderful assortment of figures, something I never thought would happen with this property.
It should be noted that Bucky O’Hare was the first license Boss Fight Studio acquired. Since then, the company has added a bunch more and has released or is preparing to release action figures based on Sam & Max, Flash Gordon, Zorro, and more. It’s a small, Massachusetts-based, company that sells a lot of its product direct to consumers with a few internet outlets and comic shops also stocking product. Space is a real constraint for a company of Boss Fight Studio’s size and I took the comment from the Facebook Live event about having plenty of stock to mean there physically is not any more room for Bucky O’Hare figures in their warehouse. At least, the company does not want to devote more space to the line. Bucky O’Hare is, and I’ve said it many times, a niche license. The fanbase is small and has been given no reason to grow over the past few decades as pretty much the only new Bucky merch have been the toys of Boss Fight Studio. And being that this is a small company, it can be assumed the figures are being sold at a price that is as low as it can be, and at $35 a figure, it’s not priced to invite a casual fan that may have a fading memory of the old Hasbro line or Konami game. And the fact that they’re not in a lot of physical stores also means the company loses out on impulse buys. That’s all to say that Bucky O’Hare is dependent on its fanbase, and it’s a small, limited, fanbase.
If that sounds negative, I don’t intend for it to be. I think of it as a realist point of view. From what I understand in speaking with people who have some inside info on the line, it’s that it’s a pretty flat line in terms of sales. In some respects, that’s good as it implies that the fans have bought basically every character Boss Fight has put out in roughly equal numbers. They know what to expect, and since they’ve released 6 sculpts in the line they must not be losing money on it or else why keep putting figures out? Boss Fight Studio isn’t Hasbro or NECA where it can take on some pet projects that maybe just break even or actually come in at a loss, so the fact that the line has gone as long as it has tells me it’s not a loser. It just doesn’t appear to possess any growth potential, and when the company is launching new licenses that maybe have more active and excited fanbases, it’s easy to push Bucky aside. And it can also say to the company that if they do indeed come back to it they know what to expect sales-wise
The villains has found it tough sledding as far as getting action figures is concerned.
All of this is to say that I’ve had this line and Bucky on my mind in general for the past few weeks. I’ve been in a reflective mood when it comes to this toy line. When Boss Fight Studio announced this toy line back in 2017, I was both surprised and psyched. Up to that point, Bucky O’Hare had come to feel like a forgotten property not even worthy of a true DVD release in the United States. It’s legacy seemed destined to be constrained to the retro gaming circle where the old Nintendo game was both praised and a bit of a hard-to-come-by item. If someone had told me I could have a modern Bucky O’Hare action figure I would have taken it and happily paid probably a dumb amount of money for it at that. A whole line though was a dream come true. I was also guarded from the moment it was announced though. The only other Bucky announcements from the 2000s had ended in cancellation before anything was officially produced. As a result, I’ve always approached this line with the thought that whatever figure I get could be the last one. An announcement or prototype unveiling didn’t necessarily mean I’d ever get my hands on the product, and that has even been true of this line. Boss Fight showed off additional variants of both Bucky and Dead-Eye that have gone unreleased, alongside a line of mini figure and vehicle combos that are apparently cancelled at this point.
Even though I’ve always had reservations about this line’s survival, it didn’t stop me from compiling a wish list for where I wanted the line to go. And even as I made that, I mostly acknowledged that the chances of seeing every character on that list get made was remote. Now that we’re at what can best be called a pause in the line, it has me wondering what it would take to end this whole thing on a happy note? To bring it all home, so to speak.
For some collectors, recreating the old toy line is all they’ve wanted out of Boss Fight Studio.
For most collectors I know who have been into this line, they’ve largely wanted to see it re-make the characters Hasbro did and if they could have got to Commander Dogstar’s crew then all the better. For me, I have a lot of nostalgic attachment to the cartoon so I’ve always wanted to see that embraced more than the classic toy line or even comic. A character like Mimi was one that excited me, but appeared to disappoint others. That said, we have presently received the following figures: Bucky, Jenny, Dead-Eye, Bruiser, Mimi, and the Storm Toad. It’s a selection heavy on good guys and naturally my greatest wants are bad guys at this point. The lowly Storm Toad Troopers have no one to lead them, and they’re hardly formidable even with leadership so without they’re just laser fodder. As much as I would love a Toadborg or Al Negator, it pains me to admit they’re now low priority, because if we want to end the line with a sense of closure, and only have room for a figure or two, I think we need to focus on Bucky’s crew.
When both the comic and animated series begins, Bucky’s crew consists of the following: Jenny, Dead-Eye, Chief Engineer Bruce, and A.F.C. Blinky. Bruce is the brother of Bruiser and he gets killed off rather quickly and is essentially replaced by Bruiser in the cartoon’s second episode. Bruiser, being a marine, is not really equipped to take over for Bruce and Bucky is forced to turn to the displaced human, Willy DuWitt, to serve as his new engineer. I am not a huge fan of the Willy character, but I can’t deny he is a member of Bucky’s crew after that first episode and is pretty essential for a toy line based on the property. Hasbro already provided the blueprint for a successful Willy figure back in ’91 and that’s to put him in his space suit (a holdover from Bruce) and equip him with his silly squirt gun. For Boss Fight, this does mean a whole new sculpt which isn’t a new thing for this line as basically every character is entirely unique. He possibly could reuse Bruiser’s feet, but that’s it. And it would mean the standard roll out of accessories: alternate hands, head (masked and unmasked), and a gun. And seeing how the glasses of the old Hasbro toy always seemed to break or fall off, it would be really cool and appreciated if he came with a spare set.
Those damn glasses…
More important than Willy though, is that other character who was there from the start. Little Blinky was always a favorite of mine. He just has a nice, clean, and even cute design being that he’s a little robot with a giant eye for a head. The old Hasbro figure was not in-scale and he was the same size as everyone else when he should be noticeably shorter than Bucky and is absolutely dwarfed by the likes of Bruiser. I’ve wondered if the fact that he’s so small has turned off Boss Fight from doing him since he’d look so tiny beside the other figures, but would probably still need to retail for the standard MSRP. As we saw with their release of Max from Sam & Max (a review from me is coming, I promise), it seems like the solution there is to pack the figure with some more accessories, but with Blinky what do you give him? In the original comics and cartoon, he really doesn’t use anything. No guns, no signature items, and being that his head is just an eye he doesn’t really demand additional faceplates or heads. Sure, you can get creative and play with the size of the his pupil to illustrate surprise or even fear, but that’s all. Hasbro gave him a jetpack with a gun and I assume Boss Fight would just do the same, but what if they didn’t have to? He’s still a figure needing a unique sculpt, tooling, and production and being that I’m not an industry insider I don’t know how much cost accessories add to the package, but what if they could do a two-pack?
A final release in the line of just Willy and Blinky together as a two-pack would be a neat way to put a bow on the whole toy line. Could they price it closer to Bruiser’s retail? That I don’t know. Is there enough fandom to consider a made-to-order release? I suspect “no,” in that if Boss Fight solicited such a thing there might not be enough orders to satisfy a factory order at a tenable cost. And as neat as a two-pack would be, I don’t know that it makes any real financial sense since anyone who spends $35 on a Willy action figure will probably spend $35 on a Blinky. And honestly, if they could do a Blinky on the cheap compared with the other figures produced thus far I’d be totally fine with the company putting him out at the usual price-point to boost the profit margin on the line in hopes that it could help finance a Willy. Simply put, a two-pack makes sense only if Blinky has little or no accessories and if Boss Fight just wants to do one, last, release that completes the team.
Blinky has become my line in the sand. I would like a Willy, Toadborg, etc., but if Blinky fails to materialize it’s going to haunt me whenever I look at my collection.
As much as it would pain me to see this line come to an end, I’d feel a lot better about it if it ended with Bucky having his whole crew together. I think Boss Fight could do an awesome Toadborg, but I understand their reluctance considering he’d have to be another deluxe figure. If Bruiser underperformed relative to the other figures, it would make sense that the company would have little interest in doing another figure with a $55 price tag. Even though I personally think the fanbase would be more excited for Toadborg than it was Bruiser. If Toadborg can happen one day then I’ll jump for joy, but my focus is on the crew and I hope it’s a goal Boss Fight and Continuity has as well. We don’t know how the license works. It could have an expiration on it, it could expire if the company doesn’t release new product within a certain window of time, or it could be totally at-will with both parties able to cancel at anytime. It’s not like Continuity is fielding offers from other toy makers looking to get in on that Bucky “action.” My guess would be the license is Boss Fight’s until they no longer want it, but sometimes company’s can be unrealistic about the value of their property so who knows? Hopefully both parties have the same goal and can work towards that. For now, at least we have a great selection of characters that, in some respects, shouldn’t even exist! I’ll continue to hold out hope for more and if there’s any Bucky O’Hare news you’ll definitely be able to read about it here.
I didn’t intend for so many TMNT reviews to hit one after the other, but Christmas pushed a bunch of stuff into the final week of December and then some surprise difficulties with another review has moved this one up. So be it. 2020 had a final surprise in store for collectors of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. NECA had previously announced all of Wave 4 of its cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure line would release in the fall, before having a change of heart. The two most anticipated releases of the wave were pushed to 2021, the deluxe Android Krang and the two-pack of Master Splinter vs Baxter Stockman in his mutated fly form. In addition to being some fan-favorites, these two releases were important to collectors as they represented for many the last essential release of the line. Everyone’s mileage is a bit different, but I think all can agree that the most important characters in the show are (in some order): the turtles, April, Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang, and Splinter. You could certainly make a strong case for the generic Foot Soldier, and maybe some would push for Irma considering she was in a lot more episodes than you may recall. No one would argue though that those 10 previously mentioned characters are not essential.
I guess these two were paired-up because of their similar height?
Well, as I said, 2020 had a final surprise and it’s that both the deluxe Krang and Splinter vs Baxter two-pack arrived early. They first popped up in California Targets in the middle of December and gradually worked their way east before the end of the year. I actually found my Krang on New Year’s Eve, but had to wait on Splinter vs Baxter until 2021. While it’s always nice to get something earlier than expected, I definitely wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of running out to stores and hunting for action figures during the holiday rush, COVID or not. The whole pandemic thing just added another layer of anxiety, but I suppose there’s enough fool in me that I did go out. I masked-up, armed myself with a ton of hand sanitizer, and went through stores as quickly as possible until I found what I was looking for. In the case of this particular set I’m reviewing today, I never actually found it myself and was helped out via the CollectorsHelpingCollectors hashtag on Twitter so a special shout out is reserved for user og3 (@OG_mulch) for helping a fellow collector out!
Check out the sculpting around the base of Baxter’s wings and extra limbs.
Splinter vs Baxter comes packaged in the standard NECA window box. It’s a thinner box than some of the more recent releases as these are two of the smallest figures in the line so far. The only one smaller is the Roadkill Rodney. Not that we’re going to hold their size against them as these two boys more than make up for their small stature. And perhaps to compensate, there’s a ton of stuff included with this release, most of which belongs to Splinter. Some of it should be very familiar, but some of it is pretty obscure and I’m not even sure where it all comes from, but I’m happy to have it! More than accessories though, I am just thrilled beyond belief to finally have cartoon accurate depictions of both of these characters. The old Playmates line featured a Splinter that didn’t really resemble any version of the character. There was a slight resemblance to the Mirage Studios depiction, but he was kind of his own thing. And there weren’t a ton of Splinters to follow, and none really resembled the cartoon look. As for Baxter, his Playmates version was close, but like a lot of that line there was a lot more detail and grotesqueness with the figure that the cartoon chose to ignore. Playmates also wasn’t that concerned with scale so even though he was a fly he was the same size as basically everyone. For the cartoon, they took the already short Baxter Stockman (he was the same height as the turtles, pre-mutation) and shrunk him further when he was mutated resulting in a rather diminutive villain. They also gave him a sweater vest, but kept the bowtie, which just further separated him from the action figure.
Enter: The fly!
I get the sense that Splinter is the figure fans are most excited for, but I want to talk about Baxter first. I touched upon it a bit in my review of the Super7 Baxter Stockman, but this character was one of my favorites in the cartoon. And since I never got the original toy, it actually made me drawn to him more. He was used sparingly in the show, and he was able to be a sort of perfect villain for the show because he could be threatening, funny, and even sympathetic. He was as much a villain for the turtles as he was for Shredder, whom he blamed for his transformation into a fly. And I love the design! He’s got that big fly head with tiny wings and those purple appendages coming off of his back. He’s just a fun design.
Aww, he brought flowers!
And he brought a friend.
For this figure, NECA absolutely nailed it. First off, I love his size. Like a lot of characters in the show, he could be inconsistent in how he was portrayed, but generally speaking, Baxter should be shorter than the turtles. And he is here as he stands around 4 3/4″ when standing upright. The proportions also look pretty good with Baxter having a rather large head given that he has those big fly eyes. The paint though is where this thing shines. The way NECA painted the eyes is especially striking. This line does a great job of really giving the impression that these characters stepped out of a television set, but Baxter might be a new highwater mark as far as that goes. And I think it’s partly due to the fact that Baxter is basically fully clothed as the shading NECA has utilized for this line works really well here. NECA also matched all of the hinged pieces to the appropriate color this time around, so no paint-flaking that reveals the wrong color underneath as we saw with Leatherhead and the Triceratons. Oh, there’s still plenty of flake though as NECA continues to paint over joints, but at least once removed it doesn’t leave behind an eye sore.
“Hey, dude, you’re lucky I left my fly swatter in my other shell!”
“Lucky, am I?”
Little Baxter comes packed with an impressive array of articulation. Mine did feature some pretty stiff joints out of the box. Some of that is likely due to arriving rather cold since it did come by mail to the north east in January, and some of it is just the usual assortment of stuck joints this line is known for. Strangely, the joint that gave me the most trouble out of the box was the head which is just a simple ball-joint. I held him under running, hot, tap water for a bit and was able to get it to move. It sounded like there was some paint or something just holding it fused and once broken his head spun just fine. He has good rotation up there with a little ability to look up, but he can look down quite far which is useful if you intend to place him on a flight stand. His shoulders are pretty standard, ball and hinges, but at the elbow he features NECA’s somewhat unique double-joint. There are two hinges at the top and bottom and the arm can swivel at the top joint. He can bend well past 90 degrees as a result, but be a little careful as after the head this was the part that was toughest to free up. The hands are pegged in and can swivel. There’s also a hinge, but the hands sit fairly deep into the cuff of his dress shirt so it doesn’t do much. There’s what seems to be a ball-joint at the waist hidden under the vest that allows for some rotation and a little pivot. The legs are secured via a ball-joint, but they lack the usual amount of swivel we see in this line. He can swivel his thighs maybe 45 degrees or so, it’s not much. The knees are double-jointed and his feet are hinged and can rock side-to-side. The feet are also stuck pretty well on mine, so be careful. Lastly, Baxter has those wings and extra limbs on his back which are all attached via a ball-joint and hinge. I wish NECA had added additional hinges to the purple “arms” and some pinching articulation at the claws, but they’re largely just decorative.
I hear people enjoy comparisons.
Baxter is able to move around quite well which comes in handy since he has plenty of stuff he can be posed with. For starters, Baxter comes packaged with fisted hands, but he also has a pair of gripping hands and a pair of trigger finger hands. I’m glad NECA gave him trigger finger hands since it could have been argued he didn’t need to come with them since his main weapon, the trans-mutation ray, doesn’t have much of a trigger. You may recall this weapon from the cartoon as it allowed Baxter to mutate Shredder into a fly and Michelangelo into a gerbil. It’s mostly white and features a dial on the rear of the gun by the sights that allowed Baxter to select what animal he wanted to apply to his victim. It’s well-painted and looks great, though I wish that dial could actually move. Mine has a black blemish across the top too that I hope to rub off. Baxter’s hands are painted purple and are pretty stiff so it’s probably not a bad idea to heat his hands before trying to insert this gun into them lest you want ugly purple smudges on it. Baxter also comes with his computer buddy who helped him escape Dimension X. I don’t remember if he had a name, but he’s basically a computer monitor with attached keyboard. The screen is a lenticular image so he can display different emotions and it’s pretty cool. He has an opening for a socket underneath, so I’m curious if NECA will sneak a body into another pack for him, even if it’s non-articulated. The doku flower is also included, which poisoned April in the same episode Baxter debuted his fly form. I’m actually not sure if this is a Baxter accessory or a Splinter one, as it could be the gazai plant which was used by Splinter to cure April. Both plants looked identical in the episode. What will likely entertain people the most though is the included fly Shredder and gerbil Mikey. Both are non-articulated, but they look pretty great. The paint is applied well and Mikey is actually quite cute.
“What the devil?!”
It’s an impressive haul for Baxter, and like I said, I appreciate NECA including proper trigger hands with him so he can also wield any of the other guns from the show (like the small handgun that apparently belongs to Splinter, but kind of looks like the gun Baxter used in “Enter: The Fly”) with ease. Maybe some wanted a goofy accessory like a stack of sugar cubes and I know people are aching for Mousers, but I suspect those will be included one day with a human version of Baxter. I’m happy with this loadout and it’s cool that his computer buddy could even just function as a computer in a display for someone like April, if it’s so desired. The inclusion of the trans-mutation ray also makes it more fun to compare this figure to the Super7 version since that one came with the same weapon, albeit, unpainted.
Your ninja training has begun!
Baxter is impressive, and his box-mate Splinter is much the same. He stands basically at the same height as Baxter with his ears taking him up to approximately 5″. This is a depiction of Splinter from early in the show when his fur was a lighter brown and his kimono a deeper magenta. In later seasons, his fur would change to a much darker brown and his kimono lightened to a shade of pink, or maybe it just looked lighter by comparison. This is my preferred look though and it makes the most sense since the main turtle figures we have feature that olive flesh-tone from the show’s early seasons. Splinter has a rather stern and serious expression on his face which is appropriate for the character. NECA’s toon shading they utilize is blended really well with the sculpted fur which is different as it’s usually more pronounced. I think it works quite well. There’s a minor paint imperfection on my figure where a blob of the light brown is present on the back of his neck, but it’s partially hidden by the kimono. His body doesn’t have the toon shading on it and is painted the darker brown as it’s hidden by the kimono. His hands though are cast in the light brown so it looks odd when his wrists are visible. The kimono itself is a soft goods addition which I think is the way to go with this figure. I just wish NECA had done something different with the belt as it’s just a black ribbon tied in a knot. It sits too high on the character’s chest as his lower abdomen is very round making it hard to put it in the right place. A plastic belt like the old Playmates toy or the more nylon one Super7 used might have worked better. Or they could have sculpted a channel for the belt to fit in. It would have made the figure look a bit ugly when disrobed, but who is going to display Splinter without his kimono? They also could have just made the figure less round which probably would have worked the best.
Well, he apparently didn’t put much thought into their names.
The articulation on Splinter comes largely as expected. He has articulation at the base of the head and where the neck meets the torso. It’s very stiff on mine even after heating it multiple times so I’m not sure if this is just my figure or if the articulation is doing what it’s supposed to. He can look down, but I can’t really get him to look up and turning his head is also a bit challenging. It’s hard to get just the head to turn without the lower joint trying to as well. And that one is sculpted fur to fit over the body so it’s a bit rough and definitely not a fun joint to mess with as it feels like it’s rubbing quite a bit on the torso. His jaw is articulated, but mine looks miss-aligned. It’s like he has a cross-bite and I’m tempted to see if I can get it into a better position with a heat gun, though I’d probably have to remove the soft goods lest I want to set them on fire. The arms are standard joints at the shoulder and feature double-joints like Baxter’s. They move very well considering you have to contend with the soft goods. My only concern is that the top pin holding the elbow joint together on the left arm of my figure looks pretty jacked up like it was damaged during insertion and pushed in too far. I’m only pointing this out because it seems to be rather widespread with this figure. He moves fine right now, but I’m definitely being careful there. The wrists are the same peg and hinge joints we’re accustomed to. There is a diaphragm cut and the legs are joined with standard ball-joints. The shape of his rump prevents him from kicking back, but he can kick forward and balance on one foot so ninja kicks are still on the table. His knees are double-jointed in a very rat-like manner as they angle backwards. There’s a hinged joint at the ankle and also a toe hinge. Thankfully, that ankle joint is cast in white so no paint blemish down there, but the toe hinge is a bit ugly as there’s a gap between the wrappings and toes. Lastly, Splinter’s tail is connected via a ball-joint and moves much better than any of the other tails we’ve seen in this line. It’s also a wire with plastic sculpted over it so there is some bendy quality to it. It’s not a lot, but better than the movie Splinter from NECA.
Splinter, I think it’s upside-down…
Splinter probably won’t demand a ton of posing ability from most collectors, but he is a ninja and should be able to move like a ninja. I think NECA did just okay in that respect. I really wish they could have figured out a scheme that allowed him to cross his legs in a meditative pose or got some more torso articulation into him as well. I feel like they could have taken advantage of the fact that this is a robed figure, like they kind of did with the movie version, to fit torso articulation into him that may not have been super aesthetically pleasing, but would have been covered up. He looks the part, which is most important, he’s just not quite the homerun I was expecting after seeing the promotional images.
That’s a lot of stuff for both figures.
Even more so than Baxter, Splinter is loaded with extra goodies. He comes with gripping hands instead of fists, but also has five extra hands to work with. I should clarify they’re more like relaxed gripping hands as he has a set of tighter gripping hands he can swap for. He has a set of what I would call martial arts posed hands, or maybe even meditative hands. One even looks like Bart Simpson’s infamous Touch of Death. The other is a two-finger pointing hand. And lastly, he has a right, single-finger, pointing, hand. All of the hands are painted light brown and feature sculpted fur and claws, though the claws are unpainted (which is consistent with the show).
When a walking stick literally won’t cut it.
Splinter has all of those hands because he has a lot of stuff to hold. The relaxed gripping hands work great with his books and scroll. He has two books, one is open and features depictions of the artists that inspired the names of the turtles and the other is closed. The scroll, which is from an episode of the show and did something, is unfurled and he can hold it via either end. He also has his walking stick which the relaxed hands can fit over for standing poses. The tighter gripping hands come into play with the sword and gun. The sword is the Sword of Yurikawa taken from the episode of the same name. It looks a lot like one of Leo’s non-stylized katanas, which is to say it doesn’t really look like an actual katana. It has a yellow-gold hilt and short blade, but best of all, it comes with a flaming effect piece which is cast in translucent orange plastic and slides over the blade. It’s pretty cool and if you prefer your Splinter to be less of a pacifist this should work. If you think that blade is too elegant though, there’s a gun. I don’t recall where this gun came from, but it’s a small pistol. Splinter also has a Yin Yang medallion that he can wear and a dojo mat to meditate on. The mat is kind of cool as it’s made of a springy, foam-like, material instead of paper of cloth. Lastly, we have a little rat. It might have made more sense for a Hamato Yoshi to come with a rat, but I’m not complaining. The martial arts pose hands can even allow the rat to sit in Splinter’s palm.
When necessary, Splinter can turn up the heat.
That’s a lot of stuff, and there was so much in the box that NECA had to put the extra hands on their own, separate, tray and tape it to the underside of the main bubble tray. It’s something I really appreciate about NECA and this line as when figures seem to come in under budget they fill the set with extra stuff until they hit their standard baseline. They could have just shipped a set with a larger profit margin than usual, but didn’t, and that’s cool. I give a lot of credit to brand manager Trevor Zammit for spending probably far too much time with this cartoon to find all of this stuff and to director Randy Falk for encouraging him. Of the two figures, I think I prefer Baxter as he both looks fantastic and has the articulation needed to make him wonderful. I do wish he had a little more articulation in those purple appendages he’s got, and I wish NECA in general would start supplying vertically-hinged hands for proper weapon wielding. And I also largely like what we have with Splinter. He looks like the character from the show, and while I found more room for criticism with him, I still think he turned out well enough. You won’t hear me asking for a better version anytime soon.
And when that doesn’t work, he’s also packing heat.
This puts a capper on NECA’s release schedule for 2020 as far as TMNT is concerned. It was quite a year for the line with lots of frustration, but also lots of damn good toys. Trying to figure out a favorite is an exercise for another day, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s next. Next up is a Rat King and Vernon two-pack and I am super stoked to add a cartoon accurate Rat King to my collection. Also announced are the punk frogs, Ace Duck, Mondo Gecko, Muckman, Chrome Dome, and a four-pack of turtles all featuring cloth goods trench coats and new headsculpts. There’s also the cartoon city scape diorama set to ship to those who ordered it last year sometime this quarter. 2021 is going to be busy, but hopefully rewarding. Once again, thanks to those in the collecting community who helped me secure this set and good luck to the rest of you. Remember, don’t feed the scalpers! Good luck, and happy hunting!
We’re back for 2021, and right now it looks like a lot like 2020 as we have a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure to talk about – Android Krang! Hopefully, this doesn’t mean 2021 is a lot like 2020 going forward, but if it’s going to copy anything from 2020 then let it be the toys. There were a lot of toy releases in 2020 that caught my fancy, so much so that this blog is practically a toy blog 11 months out of the year and a Christmas blog the other month. As long as the toy releases remain this good, then that’s fine by me!
One of the weirder characters from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon is Krang. It’s easy to lose sight of just how weird he is because he’s in nearly every episode. He’s overexposed so it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that he’s largely portrayed as a rather large, thick, dude in a Speedo with a brain in his stomach. Krang was obviously inspired by the Utrom from the original line of Mirage Studios comic books, but in the hands of Fred Wolf Productions he became quite an intriguing character. An oversized brain with a face and tendrils, he was there from the start and Playmates quickly introduced an action figure into its toyline. That version of Krang was depicted in his “bubble walker,” which was basically a bubble with robot legs he could sit in. The toy also had robot arms that could be attached to it, though when it came to the cartoon I do not recall ever seeing such a thing (the bubble walker in general was rarely seen). From the moment we meet Krang in the series, he’s demanding Shredder create a body for him based on some blueprints he keeps waving around. By the end of the original mini series, he has that body and that was the version of Krang we came to know and love.
When NECA first tapped into the cartoon property for a comic con exclusive set, it included Krang with that same bubble walker Playmates had run with for its first version of Krang. All probably assumed NECA wanted to do a proper body for Krang, but at the time no one knew how far the company was going to be permitted to go with this property. When the inaugural wave was first unveiled, NECA referenced the expected body with their version of Krang waving a set of blueprints in action figure Shredder’s face. The following year, the body made its debut! Titled “The Wrath of Krang!” this release marks the second in what NECA calls the deluxe line of figures following last summer’s release of Metalhead. The deluxe line is essentially reserved for larger figures and figures that require their own unique tooling that won’t bare fruit later. Metalhead retailed for $30, while Krang retails for $35 likely due to the amount of accessories included and the figure’s increased size. It’s still a Target exclusive, so if you’re sick of hunting for toys at that store I’m afraid Krang is no different. However, if a figure was worth the trouble it might be this one as Krang in this form is definitely an essential character and one no TMNT collector likely wants to go without.
The only downside to NECA’s retro packaging is you’ll likely want to keep it.
Krang comes packaged in NECA’s Ultimates styled packaging which is the five-panel window box. The artwork on the box is a direct homage to the TMNT VHS releases by F.H.E right down to the font and art style for the characters depicted. Credit for the concept goes to brand manager Trevor Zammit with the actual packaging and illustrations credited to Chris Raimo and Dan Elson. It’s really a sight to behold and definitely hits all of the right nostalgia notes for those who grew up with the property. I’m able to bring myself to toss the standard two-pack boxes, but I can’t trash these ones. They’re just far too charming.
The original Krang (left) really captures the season one look while the new one is designed to fill-out the opening in the body and is more reflective of the other seasons.
The new Krang may be larger, but he still fits in the bubble walker. His tendrils are more secure in his body too, which I assume to is to prevent them from dislodging inside the body.
“Krang, would you shut up about that stupid body!”
Krang is relatively easy to remove from his package and presumably would be easy to re-insert should you desire. Once removed, he stands around eight and a half inches tall before inserting the antenna into the top of his head (which he comes with an extra, in case you lose or break one). Krang is packaged separately from his body and needs to be placed inside the body’s stomach opening. To do so, you have to remove the top half of the body from the bottom above the yellow cavity. The body is pretty rigid and NECA did not include instructions. The easiest way I’ve found to take him apart is to push from the inside against the side wall to release the body from a little tab in each side and front. Once you get one side out, it comes apart easy, but definitely don’t force it or you could scratch the paint. Once apart, Krang can be placed inside it and has a little plug that will hold him in place to a point. He can’t be shaken or turned upside down and expected to stay put, but if you’re sticking him on a shelf he should be fine. There are two joysticks inside the body to simulate Krang’s control over the body and they can slip inside his tendrils. They’re both on ball-joints and can be manipulated which is a really cool touch. The Krang figure is also brand new as the previously released one was deemed too small to work. He has a different expression that I’d say is fairly neutral and his tentacles are shaped to work with the joysticks. He still fits in the bubble walker though, if that’s something you want to do.
Some assembly required.
He looks happy (you’ll have to take my word on that).
The first thing you’ll notice once in hand, aside from the size, is that this guy has a lot of paint on him. NECA seems to love paint with this line and very little on this guy is just colored plastic. Even the body’s flesh tone is paint on top of a similarly colored plastic. The end result is a figure that looks like it was ripped from a cartoon, but it also means he’s susceptible to paint imperfections, chips, and the like. I was lucky to find this figure at retail along with five other sets so I was able to look at them all and choose the best one. Of the six, only two featured minimal imperfections. The others had eyesores on their chest or arms that couldn’t be ignored. Would they have stopped me from buying one had they all been like that? Probably not, but I might have kept the figure in box in hopes of finding a better one later. It’s definitely something to be aware of and if you’re buying one online or receiving via trade or something then buyer beware.
You’ve got to admire Krang’s confidence in his choice of fashion.
The handle and “butt port” seems to imply it’s also been built for fun!
Aside from the paint issues, the only other item to concern yourself with are the joints. I’ve seen many reports of tight or stuck joints, and that’s usually a symptom of the paint getting into them. I didn’t have any stuck joints, but I did have the usual paint flaking from the elbows and knees as I worked them a bit. I probably worked this one less than most NECA releases as his joints were fine on mine and to avoid more paint flaking. I don’t need him to do anything too extravagant, so I didn’t push it. The actual look of the figure is very cartoon-accurate. I like the scale quite a bit and I think NECA settled on the appropriate height and mass for the figure, which is tougher than it sounds as his size fluctuated a lot in the show. And I’m not referring to the few times he literally grew in size. All of the little touches I recall are present too, like the handle on the back of the body and even a port, which I don’t remember, right on his ass. Was this for charging the body? He has red hands, which I believe were quickly changed to flesh colored in the cartoon, though it wouldn’t surprise me if they went back and forth as that show was not a model of consistency. The sculpt is great though, and the only room for criticism resides in the face. When the figure was first shown, he had a more pronounced frown with the mouth shaped a little differently. I’ve seen some express a preference for that, but I don’t really care or feel that one is any more appropriate than the other. The only other oddity is with the eyes in which the left eye slit is larger than the other. This also wasn’t present with the prototype and I have no idea if it’s intentional or not. It’s one of those things that you may not notice, but once you do, it cannot be unseen.
“Bring me my rock soldiers!”
“I said rock soldiers!”
Krang articulates in basically all of the manners necessary, though he’s functionally a bit more limited than most of the other figures in the line. The actual Krang features ball-jointed tendrils that can be popped out if you want to make use of the bubble walker. The body features a ball-jointed head that mostly just rotates. The shoulders are hinged and on ball-joints, but the oversized shoulder pads restrict a lot of the range. The shoulder pads are soft so you can force the arms higher, but keep in mind it will probably put stress on the paint on those shoulder pads. The elbows feature a single hinge, but do swivel. The hands swivel as well and have a hinge, but they sit pretty deep and that hinge is largely rendered moot. There is a waist swivel below the yellow compartment for Krang. It’s a little loose on mine, but I was able to seat it a little better out of the box and there’s no gap issues. The thighs are are on ball-joints and the red underwear or trunks is a soft plastic that can be moved around, but you’re still not going to get a ton of range from that area. The thighs do swivel and the knees are double-jointed. The feet are on hinges and I think they should rock side-to-side, but mine may be stuck and I don’t want to push anything. If this figure is going to have durability issues it will likely be with those feet as I’ve seen a few broken ones on social media. This guy isn’t really meant to be posed in too dramatic a fashion. He doesn’t need to as his size alone gives him plenty of shelf presence since he’s easily the tallest in the line (a title that will be short-lived as NECA is prepping a Chrome Dome for 2021). He can be made to look like he’s swinging one of his arms or aiming a blaster and that’s really all he needs to do. He stands all right by himself, but he’s definitely a top-heavy figure and those tiny feet do not do him any favors. Because of all the paint on him, I think I will also reinforce him with a stand as one fall could really do some damage to the aesthetics of this one.
Ready to bust shells.
For when a gun seems too clean.
Krang comes packaged with a whole mess of optional parts and items. Way more than what came with Metalhead. For starters, he comes packaged with open hands and comes with two sets of gripping hands. One set is a relaxed gripping hand and the other a tighter one. He doesn’t actually come with anything that he needs to grip, but if you wanted to give him a gun or communicator you have the hands to do it. It would have been cool if one of the sets of hands was flesh-colored to match his other appearances in the show and it’s a detail I’m honestly a little surprised NECA didn’t capture. In addition to the hands, he has other attachments that can take the place of his hands. He has a set of lasers that definitely look like something that would be featured in the cartoon. He also has a pair of flails with actual chains that look really neat, though I wish one had a rigid, plastic, chain for style-posing rather than both featuring the real thing which just hangs from the arm. There’s also an axe head that can be attached to one hand and a circular saw to the other. The circular saw is pretty cool as it actually spins, but sadly a factory error means every saw was assembled incorrectly and the back of the blade is exposed. The only way to fix it is to break it and re-assemble as it’s on a peg. The reverse side is properly painted and looks awesome if you have the courage to do it, but I’m still getting there. I’m not expecting NECA to offer replacements and if it does get corrected it will be with the next factory order so we’re probably on our own with this one.
Only slightly more ridiculous than his usual look.
Aww, what a cutie!
In addition to the assortment of weapons, Krang also comes with some fun stuff that’s definitely on the lighter side. Remember the episode where Shredder contacts Krang on their video communicator only to find Krang recently emerged from the shower? If that’s something you do remember fondly, you can recreate that look for your Krang! NECA included a shower cap that rests on his head. Just remove the antenna, put it on, and replace the antenna! There’s a bar of soap on a rope that fits around his neck and a blue, felt-like material to wrap around him for a towel. It’s goofy and I love it and it might make people want to buy two so they can display both versions. Krang also comes with the blue prints for his body and what looks like the Foot Knucklehead. They’re printed on paper and might look nice in a diorama. Lastly, there’s also a mini figure of Baby Shredder. He gets exposed to a fountain of youth or something in one episode and reverts to a toddler. The figure has a great, bratty, expression on his face and even features some articulation. The head is on a ball-joint as are the arms. There’s also a hinge in the middle of his torso so he can sit or stand. The paint is nice and clean and his shoulder blades feature mud, or sand, which is a reference to the episode. It’s silly, but fun, nonetheless.
He’s got a day care business on the side.
PSA from Krang: normalize breast feeding.
The deluxe, or ultimate, release of Krang largely lives up to expectations, which were pretty high for this guy. NECA nailed the likeness and made sure to include a ton of optional, but worthy, accessories. It’s really tough to settle on a display for him because there are just so many options and the desire to have multiples is pretty strong. He looks great beside his fellow rogues or in combat against his enemies and I do get the sense that NECA went the extra mile to really make sure that this figure felt special. And that’s a great feeling to have with any purchase and especially with collectibles. The only drawbacks I really find with him rest with the paint and the saw error is a bummer. There’s no denying that all of the paint utilized for this figure helps give him that cartoon look, I just wish it could be applied more consistently. I also wish it was a little easier to separate the two halves of the figure, but once I have the figure inside I don’t really need to pull it apart anymore. He’s easy enough to reset, it’s just getting his tendrils around the joysticks that often necessitates more intervention.
“So, do we like, look at the head of the brain in the stomach?” “I don’t know, Mikey, just hit him!”
NECA’s The Wrath of Krang is currently a Target exclusive. There is some hope that eventually NECA will offer a made-to-order method of production with this one as it figures to be a figure that’s very much in-demand with collectors, more so than other releases. NECA is currently still working to fulfill all of the made-to-order items it offered last summer so I wouldn’t expect any news on that front until late winter or spring, at the earliest. The other silver-lining though is that both Target and NECA seem to be on the same page with this release and he’s being shipped in far greater numbers than we’re used to. Most stores appear to be receiving one or two cases with each featuring six Krangs. There’s still some confusion on how they’re being stocked though as images have circulated on social media of the shipping containers indicating that these are to be stocked and handled by Target employees. This differs from every other NECA release which is handled by an independent rep. Normally, that rep comes in once or twice a week and puts out new stock and Target employees largely have little to do with it. With them being handled by Target though, this means stock actually gets scanned into inventory and employees may be more willing to help collectors find them. It’s still a free-for-all though as my nearest store appears to still be leaving these to the rep. Target has yet to offer this release online as it has for every other TMNT release so if you’re having no luck locally you at least have an online release to (hopefully) look forward to. And if you’re really having trouble, get on Twitter and look for the CollectorsHelpingCollectos hashtag. Chances are, someone will have access to this figure and will be willing to help you out without any mark-up. It’s a great way to beat the scalpers and it’s nice to know that fellow collectors are looking out for each other. Good luck, and happy hunting, as this is a release not to be missed!
Lets end 2020 on a familiar topic for the year: looking at another set of NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Wave 4 of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the vintage cartoon brings to us the most obscure release of the line thus far. Here today is Captain Zarax and Zork, officers in the Triceraton army who appeared in one episode of the show. It was one thing to receive the Triceraton infantryman in the previous two-pack release since that character’s design was based on the Playmates action figure many are familiar with, while these two guys are pretty much their own thing. Yes, they’re still space dinosaurs and triceratops at that so their design is pretty familiar, but their overall look is unique to the show.
Still rockin’ those gator tails.
“I never realized how beautiful your eyes are…”
Given that, some may be wondering why NECA chose to release these two guys relatively early in the line’s life. Well, the simple reason is cost. Both Zarax and Zork should feel very familiar as they’re essentially the same figure as the infantryman. They arrive in the same styled window box as the rest of the line, only now it’s bigger than ever since these guys are pretty beefy. I didn’t bother to include a photo this time around since the packaging should be rather familiar at this point. NECA was able to likely save quite a bit of money by not needing to create new molds. The only new parts are the individual headsculpts, feet, and the soft, rubber, armor that fits over the torso. Some collectors look down on flagrant parts reuse, but it’s hard to argue it’s not good business and it helps keep the price consumers pay for the product down. Plus, these two guys impart enough personality that it doesn’t feel like a disservice to reuse the same mold. Helping that is the fact that both characters feature articulated jaws. I criticized the infantryman for not featuring that, since that figure was considered an “army builder” and an articulated jaw is a simple way to add variety to a display, and I am at least happy to see it here.
“I can siiiiiiiiiing!”
That’s a lovely shade of green.
Aside from the jaw articulation, these figures are the same as the previous one as far as articulation goes. The head features terrific range of motion for what one would expect to be a bulky figure. These guys do have shoulder pads which can get in the way a bit, especially with the yellow one, Zarax, but it’s still quite good. The shoulders are on ball-joints with double-jointed elbows and bicep swivels. The hands are hinged and can rotate while the upper torso has good play due to what is likely a ball-joint underneath the armor. Zork does feature a shoulder strap that goes across his chest and abdomen that you’ll want to watch out for when rotating his upper body. The tail is ball-jointed, but doesn’t afford much range of motion as it sits quite far inside that joint. It basically just hangs out. The legs can go out, forward, and back pretty freely and swivel above the thigh. The knees are double-jointed and the feet are on ball-pegs and can swivel and rock side-to-side. It all works quite well for such big brutes and is pretty typical of this line as a whole.
Zarax’s bladed bracers will probably be the star accessory for most.
Ready for some blade-on-blade action?
Not only is the sculpt for these guys familiar, but so are the accessories. They come with the same layout of hands as the infantryman which is a pair of open hands, a pair of gripping hands that also work as fists, and a single, right, trigger hand. The weapon loadout is also familiar as they come with the rocket launcher, machinegun, and rifle to share between the two of them. The only difference are the blades for Captain Zarax. Pop off his hands and you can slide his bracers off and replace them with the bladed ones which he featured in the cartoon. It’s a cool look for him and I assume many will pose him with his blades and Zork with the guns.
It’s a small army.
The two dinosaurs looks pretty nice and mix well with the infantryman. The quality control appears to be satisfactory as well as the joints were all pretty free and easy out of the box and the paint is largely clean. There’s a little bit of slop on Zork’s armor and around the horns, but nothing egregious. His horns also aren’t level with each other with one pointing lower than the other. I have no idea if that is intentional or if they’re suppose to align, but it’s barely noticeable. Zork has a curious feature too where his hands are the darker shade of green used for the shading on his body. The other two triceratons have their hands cast in the lighter shade of their flesh and I’m not sure why Zork is different. The prototypes that NECA showed off back at Toy Fair featured the lighter green for the hands, so my guess is this was either a late change or a factory error that NECA decided to run with. Both characters also feature the same paint short-comings with the feet as other releases where the hinge is a different color than what is painted over it. In this case, both have these booty things over their feet and when you bend the foot forward the flesh colored hinge becomes visible. It’s the one consistent complaint about this line that I have, but it doesn’t appear like one that is going to be corrected anytime soon. My Zork also has the green of his flesh peeking through the foot covering along the inside of his ankle and handling the two figures will produce a lot of yellow and green paint flakes. Don’t eat them. Zarax’s bladed gauntlets are also a bit tricky to get on, but it wasn’t too bad. There’s a notch cut into them so they go on properly. I am left wishing the blades were a bit longer though. I saw numerous comments about their jaws being hard to work with, but I guess I lucked out because I’ve had no issue there, but buyer beware.
I’m desperate for shelf space, and these giant tails don’t help.
The view from the turtles’ perspective is looking rather dire.
These guys may not have been high up on anyone’s “wants” list from the show, but it’s hard to argue they didn’t turn out well. Both have a pretty mean presence on a shelf as they’re big, dinosaur, men. I wish that NECA had changed up the weapon loadout a bit, especially considering the other set was meant to be an army builder so we’re really swimming in these weapons now. On the plus side, if you want to pair Bebop and Rocksteady with their weapons (the rifle and machinegun were both handled by the pair in the cartoon) you should have plenty of extra laying around if you got this and multiple versions of the prior set. And you get yourself a little Triceraton squad.
It took awhile, but the second in the series of 3 TMNT Loot Crate releases has finally arrived.
The Covid-19 pandemic that has gripped the entire globe in 2020 has really thrown a wrench into release dates and windows. Virtually everything has been impacted that requires global transportation with certain items becoming hard to get, or even impossible. As a result, it’s no surprise that the 2020 releases for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle themed Loot Crates has been pushed back repeatedly. The first of three crates was originally scheduled to arrive in June, but slipped to August. The second crate was originally supposed to release in September, but Loot Crate pushed it back to October. Then November. And here we are in December, the month most consumers finally received their second crate. I’m pretty understanding when it comes to delays, but it was hard not to get annoyed as Loot Crate kept moving the release window, only to move it again. Just say it’s coming in the fourth quarter! How hard is that?
The view for me upon opening the crate.
Making things worse is that I was definitely looking past this crate. From day one, my eyes have been on the third crate which will ship with not one, but two NECA action figures. And those figures look to be exceptional. This crate was announced as being an arcade themed crate with an image of the original arcade game used to promote it. That ended up being a red herring of sorts as the crate is actually themed around the second arcade game, Turtles in Time, and features a figure from NECA based on that game. And that figure? An electrified, “shell shock,” turtle, which while certainly unique, is not exactly something anyone was asking for. NECA’s approach to these crates, and NECA owns Loot Crate, is to pack-in a figure that is not essential for TMNT collectors, but is fun or offbeat. The first crate contained a repaint of the previously released Mirage Shredder, which was probably more “essential” to collectors than this figure as that Shredder had only been made available once before in a convention exclusive box set. This one is definitely more of the offbeat variety and definitely feels like a middle release as it’s not as desirable as a new take on the Mirage Shredder, nor is it as fun and goofy as the Easter Bunny Bebop and Rocksteady coming with crate 3.
A t-shirt! This one features long sleeves.
Before we dig into that action figure, lets talk about the other stuff first that comes in the crate. The crate arrives in a black box with a sticker on it which announces the theme of the set. It seems like a bad way to distribute these as there is no additional mailer box so if you’re not home this thing just sits by your door announcing its contents to anyone who happens to take a look. And considering this arrived during peak porch-robber season, it strikes me as a dumb way of doing things. I didn’t want to interrupt the Christmas stuff on this blog for a post about a Loot Crate release, but this one took about a week to get to me after shipping and I’ve had it since early December.
The pins.
Stickers.
The contents of this crate is a lot like that of the first crate. Turtles in Time is the prevailing theme of everything and it’s a better theme than a made-up TCRI company picnic as this crate doesn’t overuse the same logo on everything like the previous one. Like the first crate, you get: a figure, a t-shirt, a keychain, and a pin. In the case of this crate, you get two pins! One features Krang on his little pedestal thing from when his body is blown up in the game. The other is a slice of pizza and both are heavily pixelated to mimic the look of the game. There’s also a sheet of puffy stickers each containing a buzzword associated with the game: Cowabunga, Shell Shock, and Attack! The keychain is a metal, spinner, design featuring the silhouette of a pizza sewer monster. One side is the monster jumping to the right, and the other is the inverse only he’s also swiping his claw. The metal is heavy and the pins are metal with enamel and look pretty sharp. I’m not a pin guy though, so I don’t know what to do with them. The keychain is nice, and probably more durable than the one in the Mirage crate, but I don’t want it to get messed up in my pocket so I’m hesitant to actually use it.
A spinning keychain.
The new stuff this time around sort of follows the same pattern as the other stuff. It’s kind of neat, but functionally useless. First up is a gold coin. It’s about the size of a silver dollar and pretty heavy and comes in a little Ziplock styled pouch. One side features a turtle head like the turtle icon next to the health bar and it says “Cowabunga Dudes” across the top and bottom as well as “In Pizza We Trust” along the side and 1up below the turtle face. The reverse features the same pizza slice the pin appears to be based on and says “Pizza Power” across the top and “Radical” across the bottom. The same “In Pizza We Trust” is on it as well plus the legal stuff. It looks fine, but again, what do you do with such a thing? Stash it in a drawer, I guess, and hope it’s worth something in a decade or so.
A one-up token.
The reverse side of the token.
The included t-shirt is a bit different this time around as well. The previous one was a white t-shirt with the TCRI stuff on the front in black font. This time around we actually get a long sleeve t-shirt in a pretty loud shade of blue. I love blue, so this isn’t a negative for me, but some might wish for something a bit more understated, I guess. The image is the same turtle face from the coin, only now all four are present and it says “Turtle Power” in a yellow, pixel, font. It’s cute and something I’ll wear so that’s cool.
The included TV is pretty cool. I’ll find something to do with it eventually.
The last unique item other than the figure is kind of like an accessory for the figure. It’s a little, plastic, television set with a lenticular image on the screen from the game’s intro. It switches from April O’Neil with the Statue of Liberty in the background and an image of Shredder from the TV set the turtles actually watch in the game. It’s sharp, and if you’re a NECA collector it should be familiar as this has been released a few times already and is actually a part of an upcoming accessory set based on the first movie. It has an 80s look to it with a bunch of dials and it’s real boxy. The dials do not function on it so don’t try and crank them. The Shredder image is definitely the more dominant of the two, which is fine as I would have been happy if it was just this image of Shredder. Oddly, this item is not listed on the index card that comes with the set which details the contents so I’m curious if it was a late addition. Maybe someone felt this crate needed a little something extra, maybe the costs came in lower than expected, it could be this was thought of as an accessory for the figure that didn’t fit in the box, or it could just be a simple oversight when it comes to the index card. Whatever the reason, I actually like this and I hope NECA comes through with a sewer lair in the future because I will definitely put this in there if it doesn’t come with one. Maybe I can even add a mini, to scale, Super Nintendo as well!
That’s everything in the crate with the exception of the thing you’re probably most curious about: the action figure. The Shell Shock Turtle comes in the same Turtles in Time box as the other releases in this line. The back of which features some product shots of Shredder blasting the turtle as well as a green foot soldier (unreleased, as far as I know) shooting him. The figure itself is the same turtle body that’s been released several times now in the cartoon and arcade line, only the belt has been removed and its cast in glow-in-the-dark, semi-transparent, plastic. Where the belt used to plug in on the front and back has been filled and it kind of stands out when in-hand, but not really when placed on a shelf. The various pads are painted black and there’s a black, skeletal, deco applied as well. The only new sculpting is the head, which is in an almost horrifying looking shape. The mouth is open nearly 180 degrees with a tongue protruding from it that can rotate. The eyes are big, black, spheres and the knot in the mask is black as well. There’s even some sculpted teeth in the mouth that may not show in pictures since it’s black on black. This is also the same head-shape the turtles make in the game when shouting “My toe! My toe,” so maybe a painted variant will arrive one day. Probably as another Loot Crate.
That head makes me think of the old Reach toothbrush commercials.
You can see the spot where they had to fill the shell as a consequence of removing the belt.
A close-up on the horror!
Since this figure is the same as the other turtles, it’s articulated in the same way. The head can still look up and down and rotate, just not as much given the irregular shape. The shoulders can rotate and the arms can come out to the side, not quite 90 degrees though. The left shoulder on mine doesn’t want to budge at the hinge, but I don’t really intend on posing this one differently than how he was posed in the box. As such, I haven’t spent much time applying heat to it, but what little time I did spend at the faucet didn’t help much. There’s a bicep swivel and single joint at the elbow while the hands rotate and feature a hinge in the middle. There’s a joint in the diaphragm that’s now more visible given the lack of a belt, but the shell still prevents it from having really any functional application. The legs can go out, forward, and back with the rear of the shell hindering them some there. The knees are double-jointed and the feet are on ball-pegs. It’s a sculpt that could really use a refresh as the lack of double-joints at the elbows hurt it and the feet need some more love. For this figure though, it’s not really an issue as it’s designed to basically display in one pose.
“My toe!”
As far as accessories go, there’s little to speak of. The figure comes with open hands and there’s also a set of gripping hands if you want to give this thing a weapon. It’s better than nothing, but I’m honestly never going to use those gripping hands. It’s a Loot Crate toss-in, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I was really hoping for a stand of some kind. This guy is designed to be displayed as he comes in the box, which is impossible without some kind of a stand. If you were hoping to utilize a Roadkill Rodney, think again, as that figure is far too light to prop this one up. NECA does sell stylized stands and it would have been nice if they tossed one in. I’d trade pretty much anything in this crate, except the TV, for one. Since they didn’t include one, I grabbed one when I was last at Target and while it’s not really designed to support a turtle, it seems to be working well enough.
Let it glow!
Obviously, the main feature of this guy is the glow-in-the-dark aspect of it. And, yeah, it works. When I first saw images of this thing I was curious if it would come with some kind of lighting device like the Spirit of Splinter crate, but no such thing was included. It has me wondering if glow-in-the-dark was the best way to capture the look this figure is going for. It was certainly the easiest way, and probably the most cost-effective as well, it’s just limited. It leaves me feeling like this figure is just missing something. I kind of wish they had used a different packaging that instead was louder and displayed the figure akin to how it is on the product shots. Then I would have just left it in-box and been content. As is, I feel like it needs a proper backdrop like a diorama. Something lit with the big, yellow, electric, spark behind it. I’m left feeling the figure was a better idea than it is an actual action figure.
If you want to display this guy, I recommend a stand.
The Turtles in Time Shell Shock crate from Loot Crate arrives largely as expected. Most of the contents of the crate are done well, it’s just also a bunch of knick-knack styled items that serve no purpose beyond merely existing. Some people love that stuff, and some don’t. I’m kind of in the middle in that I like little, useless, things as long as they display well. I haven’t found a way to display much of the stuff from the first crate and I suspect the same will be true here, but if you’re concerned about quality know that at least that seems to be present. The t-shirt is something I will wear and I do like how it came out and the TV is cool and I’ll find some way to incorporate that into my TMNT display. The figure is the real selling point for these crates though, and if you only had interest in the figure then you might feel a little let down since these crates retail for twice what a figure would. It is what it is. NECA didn’t want to include must-haves in these things, and they certainly pulled that off here. This figure is the kind of figure that would normally be a GameStop exclusive or something that eventually winds up on the clearance rack. It’s not for everyone. If you have a vibrant arcade TMNT display then you’ll probably enjoy this one more than most. If you’re like me and have only a couple figures from that line and only subscribed to this Loot Crate bundle for the bunny boys then you’ll probably just put this thing somewhere and start looking forward to that third crate.
The Nostalgia Spot 