I’ve been collecting action figures in some capacity for my whole life, and it occurred to me now that I’ve never owned the Fett man. That’s Boba Fett, who is one of the most iconic characters from Star Wars and also pretty noteworthy in the world of action figures. I am not the place for Star Wars history, but it’s my understanding that the original Boba Fett figure was hard to come by as safety standards prevented its release because of the missile firing action it possessed. Or it was released, then recalled, something like that. Needless to say, that original Boba Fett is a prized possession for vintage Star Wars collectors and the notoriety surrounding it has only added to the character’s popularity.
I didn’t collect the original Kenner line of Star Wars toys, but I did get into The Power of the Force which debuted in the 90s. My interest in it was somewhat of a passing one. I think I got a bunch of money for a birthday to do as I pleased and saw it as the right time to build up a Star Wars collection. Following that, it didn’t move much farther so I had plenty of gaps in my collection (the only Han Solo I had was the mail-away one in Storm Trooper armor you could get via Froot Loops), but the only one I was a little bothered by was my lack of Boba Fett. He just wasn’t in stock that day, and really, not a ton was as I ended up with quite a few figures from the Shadows of the Empire line. I would have opportunities to get Boba Fett later, and his spaceship, but when push came to shove I just didn’t want it enough.
I’m guessing a lot of folks leave these on card because it does display well.
As an adult, I don’t buy many Star Wars figures, but I do have a trio from The Vintage Collection. This is the Kenner homage line, but with more articulation and more paint. I liked the Mandalorian I picked up, but I really didn’t care for the Dark Trooper. I was so unimpressed with that figure that when I went to post my review I couldn’t be bothered to retake my photos which had come out rather blurry. I almost didn’t post it, but I took the time to write it so I let it slip through. I thought I was done with The Vintage Collection, but then I came across this Boba Fett the other day. I had previously considered getting the Kenner colors version of basically the same figure a few months back, but Hasbro wanted $26 for it so I wasn’t all that tempted. For some reason, $20 felt that much better when it came to this new one so let’s talk about it.
I just find the little guy charming and he does kind of fit in with the Christmas figures.
This Boba Fett is labeled as the Vintage Comic Art variant. As far as I know, the sculpt is 100% reuse from past Boba Fett figures and it’s part of a wave of Fett variants because the guy sells. This one is exclusive to Target which is where I found it. For some reason, it didn’t scan when I tried to buy it, but it wasn’t due to a register lock, so an associate just entered a price for me. I got it for $20, which is actually a buck cheaper than it’s supposed to be (thanks Target employee!) so I guess I have a tiny bit of surplus value in it. I’ve actually had that happen a couple of times at Target where I tell the associate the right price and they give it to me for less anyway. One older woman let me have a $4 Hot Wheel for a buck because I think she just felt that’s what it was worth which amused me.
Just look at that guy – such a bad ass!
Anyway, I don’t know where this look for Boba Fett comes from, but I’m going to assume it’s from a comic book adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back since that’s what’s listed on it. Again, other places could better inform you on the history of this thing, but what attracted me to it was the colors. This figure is cast mostly in a rich, dark, green with mostly red and white mixed in. Maybe it’s my love of Christmas influencing me a bit, but this color scheme works for me. It just pops, and I like where the red is utilized. What really works though is the helmet which has this blue shading on it between the black and white. And that little dot of white on the top of the helmet is just – chef’s kiss! It looks great! And I found myself taking it to the register against my better judgement. I think what also works in its favor is the size. As an homage line, we’re talking about a 3.75″ figure, give or take, where that colored plastic look comes off better. On the few Black Series figures I have, the red plastic in particular comes across as cheap, but it’s not as noticeable in a smaller scale.
I’m not in love with the soft goods or the appearance of the jetpack, but it’s not like they’re displayed prominently.
The presentation is rather lovely for this scale and the figure also comes with a couple of accessories. There’s a non-removable soft goods cape affixed to the back of the figure’s left shoulder. It has some holes in it so that it looks weathered, I suppose, though it does throw off the look of the figure a little bit. On the other hand, the plastic cape on the Din Djarin figure is a bit of a pain to deal with so I can’t say I mind too much. On the figure’s back is the jetpack with a non-removable missile, which is a little disappointing. The paint on it isn’t super detailed, but I’m guessing it wasn’t in the comic it’s based on too.
“Stick ’em up, unless you can tell me where I can stick this handgun then please help me!”
For weapons, Boba Fett gets a sidearm and a short rifle with a sling on it. The handgun is basically cast all in a light blue, while the rifle is solid purple. It’s an interesting look, for sure, and it works for me as a toy. There are no optional hands, but both hands are trigger-finger hands so he can hold a weapon in either hand. He can casually hold the rifle in two hands, the classic Boba Fett pose, though he can’t aim it with two hands. I like both, but I’m disappointed that he doesn’t have a holster for the sidearm. Now, he doesn’t have one on the card art, but maybe just give him one anyway? Or find a way to include one on his back or something. I feel like he has to be displayed holding the handgun or else it will get lost. The rifle at least has the sling so it can go over a shoulder, but the handgun has to be just shoved somewhere it’s not supposed to go if you want to store it.
Articulation is just okay. It’s a bit of a bummer that he can’t really do a two-handed, gun-firing, sort of pose.
The articulation on this guy is exactly the same as Din Djarin. I’m guessing some of the parts are the same, but there’s plenty that isn’t. This figure is going to pose much better than those old Kenner figures and really about as well as The Black Series. The limitations the Holiday Mandalorian I have possesses are pretty much the same here. It’s the torso that’s limiting since Fett wears armor so you don’t get anything in the diaphragm. The lack of butterfly joints at the shoulder prevent some of those gun holding poses you would like to have and the knees and elbows are single-hinged. The only joints I don’t like really are the hips, which are hinged ball pegs. Ball and socket joints would work better and I don’t see how they would cost anymore other than the expense of switching from one thing to another. The feet are a little on the small side so this guy might fall over here and there, but once you find a pose it seems to be fine.
The big thing with this series and figure is just the cost versus what you get. Should a 3.75″ figure cost over 20 bucks? I think in the minds of most the answer is “No.” I do wish we got a little more for our buck like maybe an effect part for the jetpack. This one doesn’t even have holes to accept the effect parts that came with the Dark Trooper which did bum me out a bit. A removable missile or a blasting missile effect would have been awesome too. I’d have taken that over the sidearm. My feeling with a lot of what Hasbro is doing (and it’s worse in the Marvel Legends line) with its prices is that they’re going up without the consumer feeling like they’re getting something extra. In fact, they seem to be cutting back on a lot of paint apps, accessories, etc. This one isn’t that bad as we at least get two guns and a fun paint job, but there’s no way to really downplay that the asking price is more than we’re used to.
At least he can handle this pose.
As someone who never owned a Boba Fett before, I’m happy with this being my first. I think he looks cool, he looks fun, and he adds something to my modest nook of Star Wars figures. It’s the appearance that sells this, so if you like it go out and grab one. If you’re not a completist though, maybe double-check and make sure you don’t prefer a different variant as there’s no shortage of Boba Fett these days. This figure is exclusive to Target in the US and my store at least got a whole bunch so I don’t think it will be super hard to find, but it might be the type of release where if you wait too long you could miss your chance.
If you would like to read more Star Wars toy reviews, I’ve got a few more you can check out:
I’m back with another Star Wars action figure review! Actually, I don’t do these very often. This is only the third such review out of me because I usually don’t collect Star Wars. Sure, I think the franchise is fine and I did collect figures as a kid, but it’s not something I’m drawn to…
We’re getting to Christmas coverage at The Nostalgia Spot one day early this year with this look at one of the latest in the Holiday Collection from Hasbro’s Star Wars line of action figures referred to as The Black Series. I have previously looked at a figure from the very popular streaming show The Mandalorian…
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…
I thought the string of Turtle Tuesday posts was going to end with last week’s item, but then I got a surprise email from Best Buy. The Synja Patrol Bot I had preordered months ago was actually getting moved up instead of bumped out, and to my surprise, it was going to be delivered in two days! I was pretty skeptical, but sure enough, two days later I had my action figure before I had even finished my morning coffee.
The Synja Patrol Bot is like the Foot ninja of The Last Ronin, the comic story about the very last Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle from IDW Publishing. These are the guys the titular character has to deal with upon his return to New York and they seem a bit more formidable than its predecessors. I read those books over a year ago at this point so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think they’re cybernetically enhanced humans. Either way, they have an aesthetic that I really like of the techy ninja. Think the Cyborg Ninja character from Metal Gear Solid. I’ve always liked that look, and since these guys have a blue and gray color scheme to them it makes me like them all the more.
Army builders need heads, and this figure has you covered. Plus it has this weird, white, robot, thing.
This figure is essentially an army builder and it’s the first release for this mold. There is a second on the way that’s mostly black and white and I’m not sure what the plan on that is as far as release goes. This one is exclusive to Best Buy and it’s one of three that went up in the spring. The other being Michelangelo as “The Wanderer” and a three-pack of IDW re-colored Shredder clones. I have never bought an action figure from Best Buy prior to today and I would have to say the experience is a bit mixed. On one hand, the order was fulfilled and in a very timely fashion which is better than some big box retailers. And then on the other hand, the box came smashed to shit. It was one oversized, empty, cardboard box and the figure was inside that without anything else. I am not an in-box collector, but if I was I’d be pretty unhappy because the figure box was beat up pretty well. If you are an in-box collector, I guess buyer beware.
Ninjas don’t always stick with swords.
The patrol bot was sculpted by Paul Harding and comes in NECA’s Ultimates packaging with artwork from IDW’s Ben Bishop. The box is numbered “6” though this is the third figure based on The Last Ronin to see release thus far. Out of the box, the figure stands at approximately 6.375″ in height. The sculpt is largely a mixture of turquoise and black plastic with gray and silver paint as needed. There’s also a lot of black paint to fill some of the gaps in the character’s circuitry and linework customary of NECA’s comic-inspired offerings. It’s a very nice sculpt all around with lots of detail and great proportioning. The paint is applied fairly well, though there’s some spots here and there that are imperfect. The only one that bothers me is this tiny dot of silver almost dead center on the figure’s chest. There’s also a little scuff mark on the front flap which covers the crotch, but overall it feels acceptable for a mass-produced item.
“He killed my buddy!”
The accessory load-out with this figure makes it clear that NECA wants you to buy more than one. The default head features a metallic visor with a red grill over the mouth. I’m not certain on the hierarchy of the patrol bots, but there’s another head that features a large, red, visor and antennae. Both look pretty nice and the paint is quite sharp. I love the lens flash on the antennae head, though that head is really hard to get onto the ball joint and will require heat. There’s also a third head that’s a battle-damaged version of the default head. It has an exposed, left, eye and the look of shock implies this guy has taken his last breath. Part of the skull is also missing exposing some wiring and what appears to be a socket of some kind. It comes in the box affixed to a stump of a neck with wiring hanging out of the bottom of it. Getting the head off of such a small piece was a little bit of a challenge, but do-able. And since it came on a ball socket of its own, getting it onto the figure is a piece of cake. To further differentiate any additional patrol bots you may add to your collection, NECA also included a small sticker sheet. It has just two stickers and they both appear to be a badge or symbol signifying rank. They go on the left breast, if you want to use them. I’m not sure that I will.
I don’t know if I’ll use the stickers, but this is from the back of the box and shows you where they go. Photo by Stephen Mazurek.
In addition to the heads and stickers, the patrol bot also comes with three sets of hands and a pair of weapons. For hands, we get these open, clenching, hands by default plus a pair of fists and trigger/gripping hands. The clenching hands are a bit odd as they don’t really work with anything. He can hold one of the extra heads with it to a point, but they’re mostly of the style-posed variety. The trigger hands are intended to be used with the included handgun and sword. The handgun is painted with a gun metal finish and looks pretty nice and slots into the hands easily or can be stored on the right thigh. The sword comes with a scabbard that plugs into a peg hole on the left shoulder blade. The blade has a metallic finish and the handle is done in gray with a little black paint on the design. The black isn’t the cleanest, but it’s not terribly applied either. Lastly, we get this creepy looking head that looks like an evil version of the Fugitoid. I don’t really remember it, but the Baxter Stockman of this universe made more than just Mousers so I think it’s something like that. It’s all white with red eyes and some black linework. There is a peg hole on the underside so maybe it will have a use down the road. I don’t know what to do with it though, and I imagine it’s the one accessory army-builders won’t be excited about.
He can kick high, though his slender feet mean you’ll probably need a stand of some kind to keep him upright in such a pose.
For articulation, the Synja does some things different, and some things as expected. The head is on a double-ball peg so you get plenty of range there, especially because the neck is on a ball peg as well. The shoulders are the standard hinged-ball pegs and they rotate fine, but can’t quite hit a horizontal pose out to the side without some help. That’s because the shoulder pads get in the way, but you can pop the arms off relatively easily and re-insert the peg so that the shoulder pad is tucked into the shoulder joint to get that full “T” pose, if you desire. There’s a biceps swivel and single jointed elbows, which is a bummer. You will get a 90 degree bend out of the joint, plus a swivel, but I don’t know why NECA felt like it couldn’t do a double-joint here. The wrists swivel and hinge and, unfortunately, all of the wrist hinges are of the horizontal variety. The gripping hands, at least, should have vertical hinges. This is a freaking ninja robot that also has a sidearm, it’s begging for vertical hinges!
The diaphragm joint allows for some nice nuance.
In the diaphragm, we have a double-ball peg setup. It allows the figure to rotate there as well as bend forward and back and get some side-to-side tilt as well. The amount it bends forward isn’t terrific, but it’s better than we’re used to with NECA. It does get gappy though. At the waist is a standard swivel joint which is a little bit of a bummer. Another ball peg here would probably give us that forward and back crunch we’re really looking for, but oh well. The hips are the ball and socket joints NECA is known for and since NECA decided to forego a “diaper” piece over the crotch we get some nice, unobstructed, range here. Full splits and the ability to kick forward and back. The little flap in the front hanging off of the belt as well as the butt cheeks on the rear are both soft plastic that don’t offer much resistance at all, a very wise decision on NECA’s part. There’s a full thigh swivel on this guy where the ball pegs into the thigh and double-jointed knees below that. The knees are a tad gummy though and getting both hinges to work is more challenging than it should be, but get them both going and you will get better than a 90 degree bend. Be warned, it looks like the hinge is turquoise plastic painted black so it will probably flake eventually, though it’s holding better than usual on my figure. It’s also possible the turquoise I’m seeing is paint rub from the kneecap. At the ankles, we have a hinged ball peg which pegs into the shin. This lets you rotate at the joint as well as make use of the hinge which has good range going forward and back. There’s also a rocker which works great.
A vertical wrist hinge would help a whole lot even with the sidearm.
Even with some of the figure’s limitations, two-handed sword poses are still possible.
You’re not going to confuse the Synja Patrol Bot with an S.H.Figuarts release, but it does articulate better than most NECA releases. I really like how the diaphragm joint turned out, and even though I wish it had double elbows, it is possible to get the figure to grip the sword with both hands. The lower half is pretty fantastic with my only issue there being the overall gummy feel to the knees. If this figure had a ball-jointed waist it would really take it up a notch, and the missing vertical hinges at the wrists continue to be a sore spot for me when it comes to NECA’s TMNT releases.
Sorry pal, but you’re on your own.
The Synja Patrol Bot is a nice release from NECA. It’s definitely going for that army builder crowd with the extra heads and even the added stickers to differentiate the figures from each other in your display. The only slip-up there might be with the included white, Mouser, thing, head as another battle-damaged part would have been more useful for the army builder crowd. For those who want even more variety though, the white version will provide for that. As for me, I don’t intend to get more than one. I sort of forgot I had even pre-ordered this figure and since doing so I’ve come to the decision that I’m likely not going to continue with The Last Ronin. The figures are great and all, it’s just an issue of resources. And it’s not just the money needed to acquire the whole collection, it’s the space. I’m not the type who wants to just buy stuff and toss it in a closet. I want it out and in the open, but that’s just not possible with so much TMNT coming from not just NECA, but other places as well. The figure of the Last Ronin is a great stand-alone piece and now it has a friend too. I still intend to continue buying the toon, Mirage, and even the Archie stuff so rest assured there will be no shortage of TMNT on this blog.
Interested in more Last Ronin coverage? Look no further:
When it comes to multimedia based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we find ourselves in a rare dry spell when it comes to television and movies. The final episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aired in 2020 with no new television series announced since. The show did receive a long-delayed finale…
A few years ago, Mattel launched a new subline of action figures based on their most famous IP: Masters of the Universe. The subline was titled Origins and it basically took the vintage toys of the 80s and updated them with more modern articulation while still preserving that vintage aesthetic. And ever since then, collectors…
I don’t read a lot of comics these days. Actually, I suppose I never truly read a lot of comics even when I was very much into X-Men and Spider-Man. Back in the 90s, I received most of my comic lore from trading cards. They were cheaper and fun to collect. When it came to…
Wait! Why is Spider-Man wearing a hoodie? Answer: it was the 90s, baby!
When I was a kid, one of my favorite past times was drawing. Like most, I started really young with a box of crayons and coloring books. I’d eventually start keeping markers, colored pencils, and other instruments in a plastic McDonald’s case that came from a Happy Meal. It was blue and had a map of the United States on it, if you’re the curious type. As I got older I got into comic books and those characters became my inspiration for my drawing. I’d draw Marvel characters as well as my own, which usually looked an awful lot like an existing character because, hey, I was a kid!
One of my favorite subjects was Spider-Man. He’s a pretty popular guy and he certainly was with me. The problem with drawing Spider-Man is he has all of those web lines on his costume. Now, I’m not criticizing the man’s threads. That costume is iconic and one of, if not the, best superhero costumes of all-time. I just didn’t like to draw it because it was time consuming and definitely a little tedious. Enter the Scarlet Spider! Scarlet Spider debuted during the infamous Clone Saga in issue 52 of Spider-Man. I still remember seeing the cover to Web of Spider-Man #118 with Scarlet Spider on the cover. I took one look at that costume and said “Yeah, now that I can handle!” It was basically the same general idea as Spider-Man, only all red and no web lines. Easy! The clone of Peter Parker, Ben Reilly, had created his own persona and it had a bit of a D.I.Y. vibe to it with the exposed web shooters and blue hoodie, and it worked for me. The Clone Saga itself was a bit of a mess and probably ran too long. It also ended with the reveal that it was Reilly, and not Peter Parker, who was the REAL Peter Parker leading to Ben Reilly’s turn as Spider-Man that brought back the web lines and I personally didn’t know how to feel about it. Like Wolverine losing his adamantium, I wasn’t crazy about the guy I knew as Peter Parker being revealed to not be Peter Parker.
The figure comes with three different portraits, two of which I will never use.
Like most things in comics, eventually the status quo was restored. Ben Reilly was a clone after all, and then he died. Then he came back, because no one ever dies in comics. I honestly haven’t read much Spider-Man since the 90s so you’re better off heading to a wiki at this point if you want to know more, I’m just here for that costume. Scarlet Spider became a favorite of mine to draw and as a result I have a nostalgic attachment to the costume. The character was never done justice by Toy Biz back in day as his figures were always lame repaints. I had a 12″ version of the character with the hoodie painted on and some rubber overlays added to the wrists and ankles of what had previously been a Spider-Man figure. The inaugural line of Spider-Man Classics, the precursor line to Marvel Legends, also featured a Scarlet Spider repaint that I believe was exclusive to a retailer, possibly KB Toys. I never got it, or any other Scarlet Spider that followed. When I started getting Spider-Man figures here and there again starting with the Pulsecon exclusive Venom, my appetite for a Scarlet Spider came with it. Unfortunately, the Marvel Legends version (which actually looks pretty good from what I’ve seen) is a little old at this point and prohibitively expensive on the aftermarket. I’m not paying an inflated price for a Hasbro figure, but a Medicom one? Now that was intriguing.
I think the figure in the middle is unquestionably superior to the other two, but is it $70 better?
When Medicom unveiled their version of Scarlet Spider under their MAFEX branding, I decided to give it a go. The price is awful, as it was for the only other MAFEX figure I own, the Hush Batman, but I’d rather overpay for a boutique figure than something previously sold at Target. I had some nits to pick with that Batman figure and my overall attitude towards MAFEX is that it’s too expensive. The Marvel license probably doesn’t come cheap, but in general, I think Bandai makes better figures than Medicom and they’re usually at least in the $65 range. This figure will basically set you back about 100 bucks if you reside in the US, and I’ll tell you upfront it’s not a figure that justifies its price tag. That doesn’t mean it can’t be good as one could pay 50 bucks for a perfectly cooked steak and find it delicious, but overpriced compared with a chain restaurant’s $25 prime rib. It’s more a question of “Do you want to pay $75-$90 for a loose Marvel Legends figure, or $100 for a brand new MAFEX version of the character?”
Yeah, I wish the spider logo was bigger, but damn does he look cool or what?
Obviously, you know which option I chose and now I’m going to tell you how happy (or not) I am with that decision. Scarlet Spider comes in the MAFEX window box with artwork from the comic on the front and product shots of the figure on the sides and rear. This one is branded with The Amazing Spider-Man in the traditional font with the actual name of the character off to the side in a rather unglamorous and understated fashion. This isn’t the type of figure mothers at Toys R Us are going to be confused by, but it was somewhat amusing to me. Right off the bat though, Medicom is doing Medicom things which is namely using character art that doesn’t match the figure inside. The picture of Scarlet Spider on the top left looks to be from his early days. The red, or scarlet, of his costume is dark with lots of black shading and the hoodie has the big, spider, logo across the chest. The figure inside is a bright red, no shading, and has a small spider logo over the heart. It’s my understanding that this version is a later version of the character as he’s come and gone over the years. Why the person designing the packaging wouldn’t choose a better representation of the figure inside is beyond my understanding. And if Marvel dictated that this version of the character be featured on the box, why not make the figure match? It’s puzzling.
The hoodie is fine, certainly fine enough to not want to spend more money on a different one.
Right off the bat, we’re kind of off to a bad start. Not because the picture is wrong, but because the figure seems to be based on a version of Scarlet Spider that isn’t my favorite. And I don’t get the sense that I’m alone in that regard. Is it a deal breaker? Obviously not since I bought it anyway, but I wish he had the character’s original hoodie. The belt is also different with this one having a more traditional buckle instead of the red-buttoned belt. I’m honestly less irritated by that change, but felt it was worth pointing out. The shape of the eyes on the mask are also more of a traditional Spider-Man eye shape, but this is rendered moot by the inclusion of a head with more of a 1995 look to the eyes so I won’t count that as a knock. Still, I have encountered multiple collectors in the market for custom hoodies for their $100 figure to get the right logo on it. I can’t bring myself to drop another $30 on an already expensive figure in an attempt to improve it, but if it really bothers you there do appear to be some nice customs out there.
Is Scarlet Spider a little big or Venom a little small? Both things can be true. This looks okay to me though.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about the actual figure. Scarlet Spider stands at approximately 6.25″ tall making him a little oversized. The MAFEX line is a 1:12 scale line so that would make the character about 6’3″ which is on the tall side for a Spider-Man clone. At the same time, if you’re looking to fudge him into a Marvel Legends display this should work pretty well as most of those Spider-Man figures are around the same height, with a few exceptions. The figure is basically cast in all red plastic with very little paint. The paint is limited to the eyes, belt, and little pouches on his ankles. And at the ankles, it’s not as fine as it could be as the top of the straps wasn’t painted over leaving them red. A nitpick, perhaps, but this is a $100 figure, after all. I can’t tell if the web shooters are painted or not, but they’re a nice, lustrous, silver. They’re definitely separate pieces from the arms, but they may be painted over for added effect. On the body itself I’m not detecting any shading which is a bummer. I think some dark red over the bare plastic would have helped spruce this one up. Personally, I would have loved an ambitious paint job with a lot of black shading, but I’m not surprised we didn’t get that. Medicom did do a comic paint Spider-Man years ago so maybe we’ll get such a variant in the future (do I really want to be tempted by such), but for this release Medicom is definitely playing it safe. I also would have liked some outlining around the eyes, be it dark red or even black to add a little pop to the presentation. They are at least raised as part of the sculpt, which is better than nothing.
He’s got you now, Ben!
The overall sculpt is definitely going for a lean, but muscular, build suitable of Scarlet Spider. The soft goods hoodie is done well and I rather enjoy the almost metallic sheen it posseses. The logo is printed on, and despite being too small at least looks fine. There’s no logo on the back. The drawstrings are connected to the hood and don’t actually function, but respond a bit to posing despite lacking a wire. The hood itself is wired and the figure looks good with it on or off. I will say, the hoodie helps add a little extra bulk to the torso which is a good thing as without it I think he’d look too lean and shapeless. The torso doesn’t taper much from the chest to the abdomen so he would probably look stupid without the hoodie. Maybe that’s by design as we wouldn’t want him to look frumpy either, but if you’re someone with a lot of money looking to utilize this body for custom action figures you may be letdown. I do like that the hoodie fits tight enough that we can see some of the muscle definition showing through. If you did want to get a custom hoodie I’m not sure how difficult it would be to get this one off given its tightness, but the head is easily removed and he can raise his arms up to the heavens to it’s probably more than manageable.
The paint may be basic, but at least the figure makes up for it with a whole bunch of stuff.
The costume is a rather simple one, which is basically what drew me to it. Simple can be nice, and Medicom did a fine enough job capturing this particular version. I think his chest could be bulked out more and maybe even the abs to a degree. He looks fine from the front or back, but viewing the figure from the side makes him look rather thin. Aside from that, the proportioning looks good and while the paint doesn’t impress, what’s there at least isn’t sloppy. How much you enjoy the look of this figure will be determined by how much you like this particular version vs the original Scarlet Spider costume. Even if you’re someone who doesn’t like the over-articulated aesthetic of a MAFEX release, the hoodie, web shooters, and belt hide some of the seams on this guy and the only minor eyesore resulting from the articulation is that the knees and elbow pieces are an ever so slightly different shade of red from the rest of the figure. Under a white light, you’ll notice it more, but in natural lighting it blends fine.
This figure comes with too many web effects to make use of at once, which means your Hasbro offerings can finally get some decent webs!
For accessories, Medicom did what Hasbro don’t and loaded this guy up with plenty of hands and web effects. We do get three heads: standard eyes, wide eyes, and what I’ll call “classic” eyes. The classic eyes look more like the box art (even the image of the figure on the front of the box is using these ones) and those early first appearances of the character. The default eyes look like standard Spider-Man eyes to me and the third set are even larger and a bit more expressive without getting as stylized as some Spider-Man eyes tend to get. For hands, we get a set of fists, thwip, gripping, open, and relaxed hands. There’s also another set of open hands with magnets in the palms and a set of feet with magnets in the soles so he can scale a metal wall or refrigerator. All of the extra hands and feet come on little acrylic stands to I guess make sure the openings on them don’t warp in the package. The fists are what come on by default, and as such they slide off and on the easiest and actually won’t really fit on any of the little acrylic pieces when not in use. The extra hands, for their part, go on easily enough and at no point was I afraid of breaking anything. The heads require a bit more effort, but aren’t too bad either. I was a little apprehensive about the feet, but they too go on and off with little effort. Overall, a much better experience than the one I had with Batman.
He has magnetic hands and feet if you want him in a wall-crawling kind of pose provided you have some metal on your wall. It stayed in place for me, but I personally wouldn’t trust it longterm.
To go along with the extra bits are a whole bunch of web effects. We get two short “thwip” effects and two longer ones. These have a little loop on them and are meant to be slotted over the wrist peg and then the hand can be placed over them. It’s a simple, and effective effect made easier by the exposed web shooters this costume features. We also get two “L” shaped webs which basically feature handles for the gripping hands. I wish there was a little nuance to the handled part, but it works fine. We also get two additional “L” shaped webs where the handle portion is actually a spiral of web. There’s a loop where the long portion ends and the spiral begins that a hand can go through with the rest of the spiral portion riding up the forearm.
I really like these web lines that coil around the forearms, but I wish he could grip this figure 8 one better.
Lastly, we get another swinging web that basically ends in a figure eight. It has a lovely look, but the issue with this figure is that the gripping hands are lumps of plastic with a hole through them. The fingers are connected to the palms, so the only way for the figure to grip the webs is to start at one end and slide them through. I would like to have the figure grab an inner portion of the figure eight, but it’s essentially impossible without some modification to the figure or the accessory. You can try to use the relaxed hand instead like he’s in the process of letting go, but making the fingers flex on the gripping hands would have been the way to go. As for the effects themself, the web lines look the part. They’re just white plastic with some knots and such sculpted into them. I’m happy to have so many, as Hasbro is terrible about giving us web effects with its figures so the extra will be put to good use. Of course, Hasbro also doesn’t give us gripping hands so they’ll only go so far. Medicom also packs in a display stand so you can actually display your figure in mid-swing. It’s just a plain, acrylic, stand, but it gets the job done. It articulates at the base, the midway point, and at the “claw” where the figure slots in. There’s also a straight peg included and a second, narrower, claw that I believe is more for grabbing a thigh instead of a waist. There’s also yet another piece that’s basically a “J” shape with a peg above it. I don’t see how that peg plays a role in posing this figure, but the J piece acts like a seat if you want to try and balance the figure on it as opposed to having a claw piece grab it.
Some of these leg poses were tricky out of the box. I had to hit this one with some silicon spray to get them moving well enough that I wasn’t afraid of snapping anything.
Medicom’s major boast with its MAFEX line concerns articulation. This is a “super” articulated line that should blow away anything you’re likely to find at a brick and mortar retailer. With this guy, we get a double-ball peg setup at the head. Medicom likes to use this angled peg that I don’t think adds much, but combined with the ball-peg at the base of the neck means you get a figure that can look up, down, and packs some nuance as well. The shoulders are ball-hinges which peg into a socket inside the chest. You get some up and down play, and the arms raise out past a horizontal position. There’s a butterfly joint here as well which allows for some back and some forward range, but not a ton. At least with this figure, we’re not dealing with any aesthetic trade-off with the joint as the soft goods hide it. There’s a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbows that bend well past 90 degrees, and ball-hinged wrists. Either the hinges at the wrist are really tight, or the web shooter interfere with their range as I can’t get much out of them which is unfortunate.
Do I want to put this figure on a shelf or on the fridge? Shelf? Or fridge?
In the torso, we get ball joints in the diaphragm and the waist. This allows the figure to bend back rather far as well as crunch forward. There’s tilt and rotation at both joints and overall I would say this is a very well done torso. It also helps that we once again have the soft goods to hide any ugliness these joints might create. I’ve never been a big soft goods guy, but maybe this figure is winning me over? The hips are where I lose a little bit of my enthusiasm as Medicom loves the drop-down hinged joint with ball and sockets. They’re finicky, and they’re the only joints that scare me as sometimes I feel like they’re fighting me, especially the left hip which might actually be stuck. Kicking forward is a chore and he gets to about horizontal when you get everything in proper alignment. Drop the hip and you get just a little bit more range which is why I don’t really like the design. He can at least do splits and the thigh swivel at the socket works great. The double-jointed knees are fine and at the ankles we get more hinged ball pegs. They can bend forward and back plenty fine while the ankle rocker is a little more cumbersome, but functional. They’re also tight enough that the figure has no issues standing on its own.
Shelf, it is!
Aside from the hips, I mostly like what this figure does as far as articulation goes. I can’t quite get him into some of the deep crouches Spider-Man is known for, but part of that is the stuck left hip. I may try to hit it with oil to see if lubrication helps alleviate the issue. If it didn’t have the more delicate drop-down setup, I’d just pop the leg off and try to diagnose the issue that way. Or if it was 70 dollars cheaper, I’d be more aggressive with it. I can still basically get the figure into the poses I want, especially since I’m mostly interested in using the stand, but it’s never much fun to fear moving a part of an action figure like I do with the hips on this guy.
Is the MAFEX version of Scarlet Spider worth the $105 asking price some retailers have it listed for? Probably not, but what 1:12 figure could be? None really, this is an expensive commodity, but given the lack of alternatives I can’t say I blame anyone for just going for it. That’s what I did as I’m not a regular MAFEX buyer nor am I amassing a giant collection of Spider-Man stuff. I just get things here and there so for me I was able to rationalize the occasional splurge with this one. I certainly don’t blame those who can’t, and given the frequency of higher budget releases this year, one could easily argue that I should have passed on this one all-together since I don’t make any money off of this blog, so I’m collecting just for fun as opposed to content. At the same time, if you do grab this figure and can look past the price and the fact that it’s not based on first appearance Scarlet Spider, I think you’ll be plenty happy. There are things that could be better, but at the end of the day it has enough stuff to make sure it looks good on your shelf and it probably will get the attention of anyone who comes looking. And that’s definitely what you want from an expensive collectible.
Interested in more Spider-Man figures or maybe you’re curious about another MAFEX release?
When I was a kid, my dad took me to some local convention or trade show. I have no idea why because my dad wasn’t the type who would go to such an event. He liked car shows, but from what I can remember this was more of a hobby show. It was early in…
It was in 2021 that Hasbro released a PulseCon exclusive Venom figure on a Spider-Man retro card. The retro card series is meant to stir-up nostalgia for all of the adults who were buying toys and watching cartoons in the 90s as the retro card is a facsimile of the old cards Toy Biz used…
You may have been wondering why I decided to devote an entry earlier this week to a nearly twenty year old action figure of mediocre quality, and if so, now you know why. I wanted to take a look at the DC Direct Batman based on his appearance in the Jeph Loeb written, Jim Lee…
You probably heard, but Hollywood is essentially on strike right now. Two large unions are fighting for better pay, benefits, and assurances that they won’t be replaced by artificial intelligence while major studio heads like Bob Iger are tossing stones from their golden mansions. I am firmly on the side of labor when it comes to most strikes, but this isn’t a strike post. It’s a comic con one as the just recently wrapped San Diego Comic Con of 2023 had a decidedly different feel to it in light of the work stoppage. Unions frown upon any of their members even promoting their projects right now, and with good reason. Without the glitz of Hollywood, it meant Comic Con could go back to being about comics for at least one year. Though for me, every year is all about the toys!
I don’t know when it started, but Comic Con has become a huge spot for toy producers to show off what’s coming in the next few months to a year and 2023 was no exception. I sat glued to my phone once preview night started and fought with myself to put it down all weekend since I couldn’t be there in person. Now that it’s over, I’m going to tell you what I think because my opinions are very, very, important and the fate of the companies involved, nigh the entire industry, is dependent upon securing my approval.
NECA TMNT
That is one big ass Krang! Photo: Pixel Dan
Let’s start with the old standby – NECA and their many versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In some respects, this year’s display felt slightly subdued, but I think that’s because NECA has really branched out beyond just the cartoon and movies. They basically showed off a little bit of everything and undoubtedly they’ve held stuff back for the conventions to come. And that’s fine by me, I was kind of happy that I took one look at the new TMNT toon stuff and didn’t feel like I necessarily needed any of it. And some of that is tempered by the fact that I know I have a major expense in the sewer lair diorama to look forward to. On the toon side though, I’m definitely in for the street turtles. While I prefer the season one street looks to these, I’m still happy to have what they showed. That’s it though. I’m probably going to get more, and the giant Krang was certainly the show-stealer, but I’m definitely in more of a wait and see how I feel mode when some of this stuff starts becoming available.
These wrestling turtles so perfectly nail that Archie aesthetic I love. Photo: The Fwoosh
On the movie end, we just had some new Secret of the Ooze figures to look at. There was kick-boxing Keno, some new Foot, and two versions of Professor Jordan Perry. Is that too much of the professor? For me, yeah, and I can probably ignore all of these. Oh, and there was a pretty neat Shredder throne on display, but that’s another thing I don’t need. The comics end was far more exciting with a bunch of new figures based on The Last Ronin shown. They all look pretty damn good, but I may be out on that subline for the simple reason that I can’t buy, and display, everything TMNT from NECA. The Mirage line is getting some new figures as well, with the big one being Rat King who looked fantastic. That is definitely going on the “must buy” list. As for Archie, that may have stolen the show with a brand new Mondo Gecko unveiled and the much demanded Wrestling Turtles! Even if the models shown for the turtles were so early that they didn’t feature any articulation, I couldn’t have been more excited! I’ve wanted that black suit Raph ever since I was a kid and my dad bought me TMNT Adventures #10. I must have read that thing cover-to-cover at least a dozen times.
As for disappointments, there wasn’t much to be found. All of the new stuff looked good, so any disappointment was likely just the result of something not being shown. And the big one, for me, is Tempestra. I thought there was a very good chance we would see her from the toon line, especially after the profile boost given to the character thanks to Shredder’s Revenge, but she remains the elusive final member from the Night of the Rogues. I feel confident she’s coming though, so I’m not that broken up about it. I’d also like to see a new toon Shredder, or an Archie one, but again that’s probably coming, we just don’t know when. And hey, that Turtle Van is looking pretty sweet!
Super7
All right, when can I have them?! Photo: The Fwoosh
Super7 has cast such a wide net these days that maybe I should break their display up, but then again, there wasn’t a ton for me. The biggest though, by far, was the official unveiling of the new line of Misfits figures. These are being done in a retro, Masters of the Universe, style which is pretty cool. It means they won’t be as expensive as Ultimates, but definitely better than ReAction. I’ve felt for awhile that Super7 needed something in between those two lines, and maybe this is it. Would I like an Ultimate Glenn Danzig some day? Sure, as long as it’s good, and some of the figures Super7 has done of real people haven’t turned out so hot. This line, which features Skeleton Danzig, Jerry Only, The Fiend (aka Crimson Ghost), Samhain Danzig, and early 90s Danzig, already has hit on some great designs. We just need a Doyle to round things out. I’m also amused by how Super7 is basically just following the Medicom blueprint when it comes to Glenn Danzig.
On the disappointing side, well, there just wasn’t anything from the other lines I care about at Super7. Well, they did have TMNT Wave 8 on display and that’s looking fine, but there was nothing from the Disney or Simpsons Ultimates or even any new ReAction that I saw for either. Super7 usually doesn’t unveil new Ultimates at Comic Con, and they also don’t always go with a robust display. If they have something anticipated that they just got from the factory or something, they may bring that, but not always. I’m just concerned for both of those lines. The most recent Disney wave based on The Rescuers failed to secure enough preorders to go into production. Is the line in jeopardy? Sort of similar is that The Simpsons Wave 4 is still listed with an ambiguous “TBD” on the pre-order status page. It could be an oversight and they just haven’t updated it, or it could mean that no progress is being made and until it goes into production it should be considered as “in jeopardy,” as far as I’m concerned. It’s not exactly a star-studded wave and features two figures at $65 so nothing would surprise me.
Hasbro
Now that’s a figure worthy of the Master of Magnetism. Photo: The Fwoosh
I am certainly not the biggest Hasbro fan, but the company had my attention going into the convention because we knew that Marvel Legends based on the highly-anticipated X-Men ’97 were likely to be shown. And they were! Coming in Wave 1 is Wolverine, Rogue, Gambit, Storm, Bishop, and Magneto all with new sculpting to make them better resemble the upcoming show. For me, someone who collected the VHS line of X-Men based on the 1992 cartoon, I wanted to see if some of these could be fudged into that line. We have no assurances that Hasbro intends to come back and finish that team, so plucking Gambit and Rogue from this one might be our best option. And, for the most part, they look okay. Rogue has her green jacket and black headband and Gambit has a more “toon” appearance to his face. Neither face-sculpt looks truly like the ’92 show, but Hasbro was unlikely to give us that in the VHS line anyway. There is no cel-shading though, so that might throw off the display a bit, but given how half-assed Hasbro’s approach to that style was maybe it’s for the best? Wolverine is essentially the same as that release too, just now he has an unmasked portrait and pin-less limbs, so collectors waiting on a non-cel-shaded version of that figure should be happy. I personally don’t need it. And with Storm and Bishop featuring new hairstyles, I can pass on them as well. That Magneto though is a must have and I’m happy to see that Hasbro shaded his face. He could use some accessories, but this is Hasbro we’re talking about so that’s hardly a surprise.
I don’t know if I’m as happy as Pixel Dan is about this Crystar, but I’m definitely in “gimme gimme gimme” mode! Photo: Pixel Dan
Hasbro also gets credit for one of the biggest surprises as they showed off a figure of Crystar! Yes, Crystar The Crystal Warrior is coming to Marvel Legends and the figure looks pretty sweet. It’s all done in translucent plastic with a blue hue and he has his sword and shield to round things out. The comic he hails from is pretty forgettable, except for the fact that the iconic Danzig skull was lifted from the cover of issue 8. Naturally, this is one I need for the Danzig collection more than anything.
And that’s pretty much it for me. I did see other great stuff like Jada’s Mega Man line and NECA had some new Gargoyles to show, but the above stuff is what really stood out for me and got me excited. Mondo also unveiled an Omega Red in their sixth scale line based on the X-Men animated series and he looks unsurprisingly spectacular, I just wish they’d slow down a bit as that line is killing me financially. Special shout out to all of those working hard during the convention covering this stuff for people like me who can’t go. I’m talking about The Fwoosh,Pixel Dan, Toy Shiz, Toy Bro, and loads of others. The excitement is now over, we have lots to look forward to, and the next convention or show lurks on the horizon. This golden age of toy collecting appears to be going strong, weap for my wallet!
In the late 1980s the arcade scene in the US was still going strong. Classic style arcade games like Donkey Kong and Pac-Man were being overtaken by a new genre of quarter-munching pain: the brawler. Or the beat-em-up. If you’ve played one, then you can picture what I’m talking about. It was usually a one…
There’s been a hole in my Danzig collection for quite some time. It was a hole that was easy to fill and actually quite cheap considering most Danzig records fetch well over $100 these days, but an important piece was missing. And that piece is not what one would necessarily expect, but I would assume…
Wednesday, August 18th, ended up being quite an eventful little day in the world of toy collecting. There were some reveals from major toy companies, leaks, and even those long neglected Street Sharks fans got something to get excited about late in the day. Personally, it was a good day for me too as I…
When NECA started down the path of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the 2008 release of the four titular characters, it didn’t go very far. After the turtles came April, but as a convention exclusive, and then nothing else. It would be years before their Shredder, which was shown off at the very same convention April was released at, was released as a con exclusive himself along with three of his henchmen. And it seemed to take the success of the eventual cartoon and movie lines that pushed NECA to go back to the original comics. It’s been an interesting line as it started with perhaps less-requested characters with the Fugitoid and Renet, but now we’re getting to those heavy hitters fans were dreaming of fifteen years ago. And some of those heavy hitters come in pint-sized packages like the beloved Master Splinter.
He’s a little guy.
Splinter sets the bar as shortest figure in the line. Coming in at a tidy 3.5″, he’s very much a little guy. Especially when placed with the recently released turtle four-pack who are taller and bulkier than the 2008 figures. I said he comes in a pint-sized package, but that was an embelleshment on my part as the actual box he’s in is the same as most of the other single releases. It features new art by Kevin Eastman which matches the look of the figure pretty well. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I do believe first appearance Splinter in the books was a bit more fuzzy and frayed looking than the figure here, but that would be very hard to pull-off in plastic.
If you prefer your Splinter with the 08 versions.
He apparently got a boost in size when making the leap to animation.“You have got to be kidding me.”
I noted Splinter is 3.5″ tall, but I should add that is in his neutral stance which features bent knees. It’s basically how he came out of the box and how he likely should be posed, but someone who wanted him to be taller for the sake of being taller could get a little more out of him. He’s sculpted all in brown plastic with a lot of black dry brushing over him. The black is heaviest on the top of his snout and extends to around his eyes which creates a striking portrait. It’s a solid approximation of the comic art and if there’s anything I think could have been done better with the sculpt and paint it’s the claws on Splinter’s hands and feet. They’re a bit soft in sculpt and all brown so they just blend into the fingers and toes. It matches the art on the box so I can’t knock the figure for its accuracy, it’s just one of those design choices that works better in print than sculpt.
This is probably a better foe for the sensei.
The shading on the figure covers the entire body, but it’s almost irrelevant since Splinter features a soft goods robe. Just like his cartoon and movie counterpart, the robe is wrapped around him and fastened with a brown ribbon. It’s a maroon color and it looks fine. It’s a lot of material and a little frumpy looking. It might have been neat to see it look a little more worn since this is a rat who lives in the sewer. I don’t like the ribbon used for the belt as it just doesn’t look like any belt one would expect a robe to fastened with. It’s a criticism I had for the movie and cartoon Splinter. A piece of stretchy material, like the additional belt on the Foot and Shredder movie figures, with a knot glued onto it would have been my preference, but it’s fine.
Since he doesn’t have much, Splinter gets all of the pre-mutated guys and some ooze too.
The figure, despite being small, has most of the same articulation one would expect of a NECA figure. The head feels like it’s on a double ball peg and it has great range in all directions. The shoulders are ball-hinged and can raise out to the side fine, but rotation is going to be limited by the robe. It’s something that can be worked around though as that’s the benefit of the robe being slightly oversized. The elbows are single-hinged with a swivel and will bend to 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally as well. In the torso is a diaphragm joint that feels like a ball-joint, it could be a double, but you get rotation, a little forward “crunch,” and some tilt. The hips are ball-jointed and can go out to the side for splits. They kick back rather far, but not really forward a whole lot. There’s a little thigh pivot and the knees are single-hinged and swivel. You do get about a 90 degree bend at the knee, but again, he’s meant to stand with his knees bent to about 45 degrees so the practical range is limited. The ankles hinge and pivot with the ankle rocker being a bit flat, but functional. The tail is connected via a hinged ball peg so you get rotation and the hinge can direct it a bit. The tail itself is also bendy, though the wire only goes about halfway through it so it’s a bit limited.
And he also comes with this guy.
Splinter has decent articulation, though it’s hard to argue that he’s not meant to mostly just stand there on your shelf. He can hit a few battle ready poses and also stand on one foot if you want to place him in a side-kicking pose. I’m a little surprised that NECA did not include an articulated jaw as they did with the cartoon Splinter, but I don’t hate the exclusion. The profile looks good so if they felt they couldn’t get that joint in there without harming the presentation then that’s a decision I support. I only mention it as some may have expected it based on past versions of the character and may miss it.
The old and the new. The Utrom on the left came in the Foot four-pack and the turtle on the far right came with the 08 figures.
Since Splinter is such a small figure, he does come with a pretty robust assortment of accessories to justify his price tag. Big figures cost more money for both NECA and the consumer, but that rarely applies to small figures. To get more plastic into this, Splinter comes with three sets of hands: relaxed, gripping, and pointing. The gripping hands have the less desireable horizontal hinge. I’m surprised we didn’t get flat, chop, styled hands as well. Splinter also has his walking stick and that he can grasp with the gripping hands or the relaxed hands. The relaxed hands can also rest on top of the stick too so you have some options when posing him with it. There’s a small tea kettle with articulated handle and a little cup to go with it. The kettle has some nice black linework on it while the cup is blank. Splinter can hold the kettle by the handle and palm the cup well and it’s a nice little pair of accessories. I do wish NECA had ripped-off Super7 and included a steaming effect for the cup, but it’s fine as-is.
Cartoon Splinter is bigger than comic Splinter, but the opposite is true for the Mouser.
Those are the accessories for Splinter, the rest are basically extra characters. Up first is a brand new Mouser. It’s painted all in gray with some light blue shading on it to create a metallic effect that looks really nice. It’s also covered in the usual black linework and looks rather sharp. As far as I know, the entire sculpt is brand new as it doesn’t share any parts with the cartoon Mouser. If it shares any parts with the Mouser released back in 2008 I’m not sure as I don’t have any of those. It functions just like the toon one with an articulated jaw that features a fully-sculpted interior, hinge at the base of the head, ball-jointed neck which allows for a lot of rotation and tilt, leg swivel, hinged knee, and hinged ankle. The hinged joints in the legs are plenty tight so the figure has no trouble standing and overall it’s a nice addition that I’m sure collectors will want more of.
Who’s for tea?
Splinter also comes with an assortment of slug figures for accessories. We get a new Utrom that has more of a surprised expression on its face. It’s very close in size to the previously released stand-alone Utrom that came in the Shredder convention set, it just drops the articulation entirely. It’s well-painted with a lot of dry-brushing that makes it look dirty and gross. We also get a pre-mutated Splinter that’s in sort of a martial arts pose. To go with him are four, baby, turtles. Stylistically, they’re very similar to the pre-mutated turtles the 2008 figures came with, but they’re all new sculpts and noticeably smaller. They’re nicely painted and they almost look like they’re smiling so they bring a cute factor to the package. The last item is the broken cannister of ooze. It’s a new sculpt and it’s basically upside down with a big puddle of the stuff spreading out from it. It serves to create a nice little display with the other slug characters and I prefer it to just a plain cannister.
“Michelangelo! You have neglected your training for too long!”
And that’s NECA’s take on Splinter. It’s a small figure with a bunch of stuff that NECA hopes will offset the price of the figure. I got my figure at Target where it retails for $37 which is about the same price as figures like Jagwar and Dreadmon, but less than Zog and the Shredder clones. Is $37 too much? It’s hard to blame folks who feel like it is. The added accessories are nice, but would I trade some of them to knock this release down to $30? Sure. As for the figure itself, I think it gets the job done. I think it could have more hands and a better belt, but this Splinter will look nice on your Mirage Studios shelf which is rapidly becoming shelves in many collections. It’s an essential release if you’re a TMNT Mirage collector, and if you can stomach the price I think you’ll be happy enough.
Fancy yourself a collector of NECA’s TMNT Mirage line? Here’s some more reviews to take a look at:
Haulathon 2023 has brought some pretty big releases to NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. And I mean big in a literal sense. REX-1 was tall and hefty and the multi-armed clone of Shredder was no slouch either. Those two seem to pale in comparison to Zog, the Triceraton warrior from NECA’s…
NECA and Target’s Haulathon event which has seen a vast assortment of product dumped onto shelves recently was not content to limit the products to just the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Far from it, as an assortment of comic book based characters were also released and today we’re going to look at the first…
Where there be turtles, there be Casey Jones – the bad ass vigilante of New York City! Casey was an early addition to the comics and he’s basically been included with every iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since. And in all of them he tends to wear a hockey mask and bludgeons bad guys…
When it comes to the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot of the credit goes to Playmates Toys. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the characters born out of a joke. Credit them for having the vision to think this joke had appeal beyond their small circle as they self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984. It was basically perfect timing from there as the product quickly got the attention of Mark Freedman and his Surge Licensing brand which, much like Mirage Studios, existed largely in name only. He saw the property’s potential as a kid’s product and was able to get Eastman and Laird to grant him permission to shop the IP to toy companies. Aside from a prototype created for Mattel, no major producer bit, except for Playmates. Known more as a doll company, Playmates wanted to get into the action figure business and took a chance on the franchise. They co-developed a television mini series with Fred Wolf to help sell the toys, and the rest is history.
New artwork from TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman!
A nice window box to show you what’s inside.
Because of that early involvement and ridiculous level of success, Playmates has been intertwined with the TMNT franchise ever since. And for a long time, they were the only ones to make action figures based on the property. Then, in 2008, NECA Toys released it’s own version of the brothers. Marketed to collectors and sold outside the usual avenues occupied by Playmates, NECA sent to market a version of the turtles that had never really been done before in toy form. Based on their original appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, the turtles hit retail with hopes of more Mirage inspired characters to follow. Then, it stopped. Details are murky, but some have blamed Playmates for stepping in and essentially squashing the toy line by exercising its contractual rights as the master toy license holder. It also could have just been poor sales. NECA’s Randy Falk indicated years ago that the comic turtles weren’t big sellers. Anecdotal evidence suggests he may be correct as I personally can recall seeing both the standard issue and black and white variants hanging around comic shops for years and only finally vanishing after hitting clearance. It’s possible NECA was just a little too early and TMNT nostalgia just wasn’t ready to take off in 2008. Only a select few know for sure why the line was ultimately cancelled.
The biggest weakness of this set is the amount of stuff in the box.
Flash-forward 15 years later and NECA is back with a new iteration of the Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If fans weren’t ready for turtle nostalgia in 2008, they certainly are now. The property is now owned by Viacom who has wielded its mighty powers to loosen the toy license and we’re basically swimming in TMNT action figures from various companies. And since then, those 2008 figures have become far more sought after. Where once they could be had for clearance prices, they now command over 100 dollars a piece on the secondary market. This helped turn them into a magnet for bootleggers and some have even suggested that the physical molds were swiped from whatever factory NECA had been using. If NECA felt their dance with TMNT was over, it’s possible they let them go. Either way, because of a desire to do something different or because the figures have been bootlegged to hell and back, NECA decided to forego ever reissuing them. Instead, they opted to do new turtles based on later issues and for fans who have been dying to get ahold of some affordable Mirage turtles their wait is finally over.
If you’re wondering the answer is “No,” the arm, blaster, thing does not fit on the new turtles.
These old figures have some outdated engineering, but still look pretty damn cool.
The original 2008 figures have commonly been referred to as the Peter Laird turtles by fans. That’s likely due to Laird being the one who worked with NECA at the time when they were in development. They also seem to clearly be based on a singular image from the first issue which has been credited to Laird over the years. I have no idea how much of that is true as Eastman and Laird had a unique drawing style in which the two literally drew the same issue switching off in an unconventional manner as they passed papers back and forth. That’s why it’s just easier to consider them first appearance turtles. As the franchise took off, Eastman and Laird moved to the business side and away from doing the actual art which allowed for other artists to come into the fold. One such artist was Jim Lawson, who would go on to do pencils for a number of TMNT books. Initially, his take on the turtles was to emulate what Eastman and Laird had settled on when he stepped in while adding a little of his own influence. Eastman and Laird both loved Lawson’s work and have heaped praise upon it over the years. With their encouragement, he brought more of his own style into the books which can easily be seen during the City at War arc. His turtles were rather blocky, their heads almost resembling inverted mushrooms, and it’s that style that I think most comic book fans associate with the name Jim Lawson.
My attempt at recreating the TMNT #4 cover. Most know that as the cover to the first NES game.
For this release, NECA hired Paul Harding as the sculptor and directed him to design the turtles based on Lawson’s art, but not his later work as seen with City at War, but his earlier stuff when he first started on the book. Because of that, this set is being marketed as the Return to New York Turtles, though Harding clarified on Twitter that he didn’t expressly design them based on that story. It’s an appropriate shorthand though to place these figures into an era of the original comics. NECA’s approach to comic figures, unlike some companies, is to be very stylized and to try and emulate a certain artist’s approach rather than adapt a character from a generic model sheet or reference material. American comics have almost always allowed for an artist to imprint their own style onto established characters and such can be seen across basically all of the major comic books published by the likes of Marvel and DC. It’s both a cool approach for fans and a wise one for a toy producer since it opens up the possibility to re-release popular characters like the turtles over and over with slightly different looks.
I love how NECA handled the deco on Leo’s swords.
With all of that background out of the way, lets finally talk toys! This long-awaited NECA four-pack has recently started showing up at Target and was even sold online via Target’s website on June 25th. It seems like Target may have actually purchased stock from NECA for this release in contrast with the usual vendor-driven system they usually have in place for NECA. That’s likely due to this being timed with the drop of new toys by Playmates for the upcoming Mutant Mayhem film and because this release is the actual turtles, not some obscure side character that could possibly shelf-warm. This set will sell, even at the steep price of $150. The real question is – is this worth that steep price? If you’ve been waiting years to get a set of official Mirage turtles, that answer might be an easy “Yes” regardless of how this set turned out. If you are like me and have those 08 figures, or maybe even bootlegs you’re happy with, do you need to drop a bunch of money on yet another set of turtles? Read on.
Don’t mess with this pair.
The turtles come packaged in what is essentially NECA’s standard four-pack box. It’s an oversized version of the Ultimates, or Deluxe, releases with a front flap and window on the package. It’s adorned with new artwork by Kevin Eastman which looks great. This is the type of box that will display well for you in-box collectors. For the rest of you, you probably only care about the contents. Each turtle is on the same buck so you basically have four nearly identical figures inside. The main difference between each is the headsculpt which just features a different expression for each turtle. Since this is a Mirage set, they’re all in red bandanas with brown straps and pads giving them a very uniform look. There’s also a different deco applied to the plastron of each figure with Raph’s featuring the most “scuffs” than the other three. They’re done with black lines as opposed to being sculpted in.
The Mirage line has been rapidly expanding over the past year.
The turtles stand at approximately 5.875″ in height. They’re quite chunky in appearance and fully-painted in a fairly neutral shade of green with lots of black linework to emulate the comic art. The linework is present on the pads, bandana, and belt and really sells the look well. It’s all relatively clean and consistent across the board. The only area I see as being a bit uneven is the linework around the bandanas. On a shelf, it’s fine, but up close there are some parts where there’s a smidge of green in-between the black line and the start of the red mask. My Michelangelo also has what looks like a scuff behind his right eye so there’s a little green showing. My Leonardo also has a speck of brown on his right bicep, but in general, I don’t see much in the way of color transfer throughout the four figures.
The paint is acceptable as is the level of quality control present throughout my set. Harding did a really good job of honing in on a design style for the turtles and capturing that with his sculpt. The only thing I personally would have changed are the legs which look really chunky. I think they could have been shrunk as the calf muscles basically extend outside the profile of the thigh muscles. That’s more of a subjective critique though than an objective one as these look quite close to the source material from what I can tell.
Shredder is looking a bit dated by comparison.
I think these figures are pretty much a homerun from a presentation point-of-view and that’s definitely where NECA’s strong suit lies. Where it often does not is with articulation, and these guys aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re not likely to wow anyone. Since the figures are essentially the same, they articulate the same as well. The heads are on a double ball peg (and in case you ever mix-up the heads, they’re stamped with the character’s initial inside) and the range is solid looking up, down, and all around. The shoulders are hinged-ball pegs and they can’t quite raise out to the side all the way. They rotate fine until they hit the shell, and past that is a biceps swivel. This joint was the only joint I had any issues with as 7 out of the 9 biceps joints in my set were stuck. I used the hot water to cold water method to get all of them working. The peg for the joint is pretty snug so I also pulled out a little before twisting and it required a pretty forceful twist. The peg is rather thick, so it should be pretty durable, but if you leave the joint in a hot water bath for too long and then try to twist it you could shear it off, so be careful. Once I essentially broke the seal on the joint it was fine.
Despite that, he still looks pretty good opposite these figures.
With that out of the way, the elbows are the next spot and NECA opted for double-joints this time. This is a welcomed addition as the cartoon turtles feature hinged pegs for the elbows and I wasn’t sure what to expect with these. The addition is worthwhile too as they can bend past 90 degrees at the joint. The wrists swivel and feature horizontal hinges. There are no vertical hinged hands in this set at all. That’s disappointing as the toon turtles had vertical hinges for the hands. The Turtles in Disguise set I believe came with two sets of vertical gripping hands, and this continues to be a problem with NECA. Where they once did a decent job of including the proper hinge, they seem to have essentially abandoned it for TMNT. Gargoyles characters get it, so I don’t understand the oversight. This is a set where essentially one set of tools creates four figures and it’s also something they’re likely to reissue many times so the fact that they couldn’t find it in the budget is absurd to me. It’s my biggest pet peeve with NECA of late.
For those who would like a more direct comparison.
At least at the waist we get an improvement over the 2008 turtles. NECA included a waist twist which they set fairly high behind the plastron to conceal it. It’s not going to provide the same amount of range a waist twist would with a non-shelled character, but it works all right. NECA added a “diaper” over the hips as well, but it doesn’t seem to get in the way. It does have the tendency to shift a bit though and my Leonardo has more of the part visible on his right leg than his left by quite a bit. The legs can kick forward past 90 degrees before the leg wants to go off to the side while the shell keeps them from kicking back. They also can hit a split. After that it’s pretty typical as we get a pivot point for the thighs where the ball connects with double-jointed knees past that which bend just a touch beyond 90 degrees. The ankles have the hinge and rocker setup, though the chunky nature of the ankles does restrict some of the range, but there should be enough to keep your figures flat-footed in most stances. These guys also have tails and there is a swivel point there if you want it. The bandana tassel also pegs in, and while it doesn’t really spin freely, you can reposition it if you want by removing it and re-inserting it even if you can’t get it to swivel.
Nothing is stopping you from swapping heads, but the default is (Clockwise from top left): Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael.
The level of articulation is acceptable, aside from the lack of proper hinges for the gripping hands. Where this set surprises in the wrong way is with the accessories. If you have the Turtles in Disguise set or most of the other four-packs NECA has done over the past few years then you’re accustomed to getting a bunch of stuff in these boxes. With these turtles, despite the amount of tooling needed to produce these guys, we don’t really have much. Each turtle comes with a set of gripping hands out of the box, and then there is one set of fists, open hands, style pose hands, and gripping hands with more space between the fingers. Those hands are intended for use with Raphael when he grips his sai with the middle blade going through his fingers. Since it’s four sets the boys have to share, you can’t have all four turtles with their hands in a style pose or chop. There’s at least an entire set of four alternate bandana tassels that can be swapped in and out. The figures come with the bandana draped over their right shoulder and each one has a straight bandana piece to swap to.
There may not be a ton in the box, but at least they didn’t screw up the weapons.
Of course, the main accessories are the weapons. Each turtle has his signature weapons and they all appear to be new sculpts. For Leo and Raph, the metal portions of their weapons are painted the way I’ve wanted metal to be done for a long time now: white with light blue shading. It looks so good and is much better than the flat gray so many companies use. Even the very expensive Mondo sixth scale Wolverine has flat gray claws. I attribute it to the idea of metal being white as “wrong” since we know it isn’t white in real life, but that’s how it often looks in print or in animation. With Leo, the effect is perfect, though with Raph the blue shading is basically all over. I think if they did it exactly how they did Leo’s katana it would have turned out better, but it’s minor. Mikey’s nunchaku are done similar to the movie figures with brown, plastic, handles connected via black thread. Donnie’s bo is done in an orange-brown with a slightly lighter brown wrap, which is an interesting choice. Perhaps an off-white would have contrasted more, but basically every Donatello figure does that with his signature weapon so I don’t mind the difference. There’s also three gear-like throwing weapons included painted in the same light blue as Raph’s sai and the shading on Leo’s katana. Why three instead of four? It’s an odd choice, but one I can’t get too worked up over since I’m not going to use these anyway.
You get three of these buzz saw things, if that’s something that interests you.
Lastly, we get a couple of accessories that are specific to Raph from the comics. His bandaged right arm is included as a swappable piece, but since all four turtles are the same mold, it can actually work with any turtle. The right arm pops off easily (the left does not) to facilitate swapping. The bicep was stuck on this arm as well, but I was able to free it up. Also included is Raph’s hood which is done in a soft plastic. It slides over his head easily after you remove the bandana piece and it’s a cool look for him. There’s a texture to the hood that helps sell the illusion it’s made from a rough fabric and it has some black linework as well. It looks good enough that I think I’m going to use this for my display since it does break things up a bit.
Raph’s sneaking outfit is the most substantial accessory. Since all four turtles are essentially the same, they can all wear this thing and the right arm on all four pops off with ease.
That’s it though. Four extra sets of hands for four figures, an extra set of bandana pieces, three throwing weapons, and Raph’s hood and arm. The melee weapons are a given because every set of turtles needs to include those, but why so skimpy on the hands? How about an extra head for each turtle? Especially since they’d function as an extra head for any turtle given they all look the same. With so many shared parts and the high price tag of $150, it feels light. It’s like we’re paying an undisclosed “Turtle Tax” since this is a set NECA knows will be in high demand and can make a larger profit on. Maybe I’m completely wrong and the profit margin is unchanged from past four-packs. And maybe I’m just still salty about the lack of vertically hinged hands.
“All right, Round Head, let’s go bust some skulls!”
Basically, what I said several paragraphs ago is what applies most here: if you’ve been waiting years for a set of Mirage turtles then you’re going to get this set. And you’re probably going to be relatively happy with the outcome. The figures are fun to handle and pose and look great together. I think they pair well with most of the other Mirage releases, though placing them with Shredder does make me wish we had a beefier Shredder for them to fight. They’ll look great with Zog though or the Shredder clones or even just off on their own. In spite of the inflated price point, I do think they’re worth getting even for those who have the original Mirage turtles given the difference in style.
I figured I’d end on a pic of these two, for no particular reason…
If you’re on the hunt for these boys you can keep an eye on Target’s website. Set alerts for if they come back in stock as you never know. They also have shipped in waves to Target stores so keep checking there. If your store is like mine, they’re being stocked on an endcap in the toys section rather than in the usual NECA section. Since these are a Mirage release, it also stands to reason they’ll be sold in other places after this initial Target run is over. NECA hasn’t come out and said that, but it would be crazy for them not to make the actual turtles available to as many customers as possible.
A dozen years ago, toy company NECA dipped its toe into the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time, and shockingly it failed to stick around. That’s incredible to hear for collectors currently chasing down Bebop and Rocksteady at Target, but it’s the truth. There are a lot of folks at NECA…
Haulathon 2023 has brought some pretty big releases to NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. And I mean big in a literal sense. REX-1 was tall and hefty and the multi-armed clone of Shredder was no slouch either. Those two seem to pale in comparison to Zog, the Triceraton warrior from NECA’s…
NECA and Target’s Haulathon event which has seen a vast assortment of product dumped onto shelves recently was not content to limit the products to just the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Far from it, as an assortment of comic book based characters were also released and today we’re going to look at the first…
It’s not Spider-Man vs Venom, but I guess it’s the next best thing?
Last year, Hasbro celebrated the 30th anniversary of X-Men, the animated series that premiered on Halloween 1992 and would become a ratings hit shortly thereafter for the Fox Kids Network. It was responsible for getting a lot of kids into the X-Men and Marvel comics in general and the first, prime, benefactor of that rise in popularity was Spider-Man. Spidey had taken a couple of swings at television and found modest success, but certainly nothing on the level that some of the other prime kids’ shows that were contemporaries. I personally recognized Spider-Man more from his public service announcements or the Marvel Productions animatic that would follow a show like Muppet Babies. With X-Men being a hit though, it opened the door for more Marvel cartoons and Spider-Man was next in line arriving in sneak peak fashion, just like the X-Men, in the fall of 1994.
You guys still into the VHS inspired packaging? I think I still am, but this would have been way cooler if it was actually two boxes and a slipcover instead of just one, big, box.
The Marvel Legends VHS series for X-Men must have been received well for the company to do the same with Spider-Man. That is easy to understand. What is not is why now? The X-Men wave has almost sold out on Hasbro’s website and it’s expected the remaining figures will eventually get there (Cyclops was just added to shopDisney in April) which suggests that a second wave is certainly in order. The 8 figures Hasbro did release hit on some members of the team and some notable villains, but more remain. Why not come back around with another 8 in 2023, 30 years after the show really took off since only 3 episodes premiered in ’92, and then come back with Spider-Man in 2024 to, you know, coincide with that show’s 30th anniversary? It seemed like it was setup perfectly for just that, but apparently Hasbro and the Legends team got impatient or they feel like they need to space the X-Men releases out more or that line is dead and they’re not ready to admit it. I personally don’t get it and I will be a little ticked off if they don’t come back to X-Men to finish off the team, at least, even though that product line was rather poor. I’m a sucker for that cartoon though so I was committed to filling out the roster, as imperfect as it was, and not having the likes of Gambit, Rogue, or Magneto leaves my shelf feeling incomplete.
It’s Spider-Man once again, who is the same, but different, as the last black-costumed Spider-Man we saw.
That aside, Hasbro’s approach to Spider-Man could be described as the same, but different. We’re still getting VHS styled boxes with TV show inspired artwork, only now they’re apparently coming in two-packs. I guess that’s great if you didn’t like the gap in releases between the figures in the X-Men line, but it stinks if you only want one of the two figures (and I think that will be true for many with the upcoming Doc Ock and Aunt May two-pack). Hasbro doesn’t think it’s worth their effort to credit the artist on the box, but good thing we have social media as I was able to find out that it’s Harry Moore once again who did the art on the retro card release too. The box is designed to look like a slip cover with two VHS tapes in it, but it’s just one box with the two figures inside. Like the X-Men line, this one is likely to be a collection of repaints with minimal investment made in the tooling of new parts. These figures aren’t direct adaptations of the characters you saw onscreen. It would have been great if that was what Hasbro committed to, but at this point no one should be surprised. A big feature of the X-Men line was also the cel-shading approach to the paint. It was something that was not applied consistently from release to release. Some figures looked okay, some looked terrible, but it mostly came down to the application being cheap and unfocused. With this line, we’re going to have two figures where one is shaded, and the other is not. It looks like cel-shading isn’t going to be as big of a focus here, but it’s hard to know why with anything Hasbro does.
Yeah, it’s pin-less and has some toe joints, but the only reason to get this figure is if you like the shading.
We’ll start with Spider-Man first. This is the symbiote, or black suit, Spider-Man from the show since we already received a standard, animated, Spider-Man via the retro card release late last year. Thematically, it makes some sense to pair symbiote Spidey with Carnage, a fellow symbiote, though anyone who watched the show can point out that Spider-Man never fought Carnage while wearing the black costume. Interestingly, this Spider-Man is a repaint of the figure that came in the Renew Your Vows two-pack last year. The animated Spider-Man from last year was on the noticeably smaller Amazing Fantasy figure mold making this figure basically not scale with the other Spidey. Cool. The sculpt is also much more cut than that one so this is a Spider-Man that looks almost absurdly ripped and lumpy for this source. The head appears to be the exact same as the retro card black costume Spider-Man and so are the hands, and for that matter, the torso. Whatever your preferred body is, none are particularly great for the animated Spider-Man as he was very broad shouldered and full in the chest which neither figure is. This one is pin-less in the arms and legs, so it has that going for it.
I don’t consider myself a Legends collector, and yet I now have 5 Spider-Men (Web-Man and Cyborg version not pictured).
“We’re the same guy, just in a different costume.” “If you say so.”
What is going to be most divisive with this release is probably the paint. The figure is cast in black plastic so the only paint present is the white and the blue. Yes, blue, as this figure is shaded like the show. Or rather, like basically every version of black-costumed Spider-Man. Just doing him in all black won’t show up on print or on TV, so he (and Venom) have always been shaded blue. In the show, Spider-Man was outlined in blue and the muscles were also done in blue. For the figure, Hasbro appears to have tried to outline the abdomen with blue while also hitting both clavicles. For the limbs, it’s just a few lines down the meat of the arms and the front of the legs. There are a couple of lines in between the eyes, and almost nothing on the back of the figure. There’s also none on the hands. It looks okay, but there doesn’t appear to be a ton of thought put into the blue on the arms. And, as usual, I think the figure would have benefitted from a little more. Something on the crown of the head would have looked nice, and maybe some under the pecs. And maybe just more curves to the lines would have helped with the biceps looking the worst out of all of the spots, but it’s probably as good as we could have expected out of this line. The rest of the paint is reserved for the eyes, hands, and the spider logo which has some gray shading. That is not consistent with the show, but it looks okay on the front, though I don’t know what they were going for on the back. The spider itself is pretty clean, though the white on the hands is too thinly applied. The eyes, which have a little luster to them, look okay.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Nice split, spider dweeb!”
There’s no point in devoting a full paragraph to accessories for this guy as he just comes with the standard array of hands: fists, wall-crawling, and thwip. The thwip hands are useless since this version of Spider-Man shoots webs out of the back of his hands so why not drop them for a set of gripping hands? Or web accessories? It’s like the people who design these figures have little or no attachment to these characters, but any average fan would say “This doesn’t make sense.” Anyway, this guy should be pretty familiar when it comes to articulation too since he’s like most of the other Spider-Man releases. We get a double ball peg at the head that feels rough. It has some gapping issues and they did that thing where they cut out a chunk of the rear of the neck which shouldn’t be necessary for a figure that has no hair. Even with that, he doesn’t look up all that far and the head just wants to fight me for some reason. The shoulders are ball-hinges on butterfly joints. He can raise his arms out to the side fine while the butterfly joint provides okay range going back and forward, but nothing crazy. They also didn’t continue the paint on the spider logo on the rear so when the arms are all the way forward you get a gap. There’s a biceps swivel and the elbows are double-jointed. I cannot get the top hinge on the right arm of my figure to budge, but I was able to get the left one to move. He gets a little better than 90, so nothing impressive, but it doesn’t look ugly. The wrists swivel and hinge.
Go web! (Web not included)
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense, but they look good when they’re matchy-matchy.
In the abdomen we get a ball joint that lets the figure bend back and forward a little bit. It creates gaps in both directions so it’s better used for rotating and pivot and the range going to the side is pretty good. Below that we have an ab crunch that does what it’s supposed to and at the hips we get the utterly useless drop-down hinged hips. With the hinge up, he can kick forward about 90 degrees and he doesn’t really kick back due to the sculpted butt cheeks. With the hinge down, he kicks forward…about 90 degrees. Maybe a little better and more straight, but you’re gaining practically nothing. With the hips up or down, he can’t achieve a full split. It’s pretty crazy the amount of figures I have that can do a split, and yet none are Spider-Man. There is a thigh cut, but not only does it break up the anatomy it breaks up the blue shading as well. The double-jointed knees work better than the elbows and they go well past 90. There is a boot cut if you want it, but again, it breaks up the sculpt and the shading. At the ankle, we get a hinge that lets the feet go forward and back an acceptable amount, though it’s kind of ratcheted so finding those in-between positions is a challenge. The ankle rocker works well and we also get a toe hinge which is fine. Aside from the addition of the toe hinge, this figure moves as well as the previous symbiote Spider-Man which I would categorize as good, but not good enough for a Spider-Man figure. There’s plenty of things to nitpick, but mostly it’s just scrap those garbage hips. Ball and socket hips would work better and cost less than the silly hinge. The whole thing also has a gummy feel and ultimately posing this guy isn’t really a fun experience.
This entry won’t have the maximum amount of Carnage, but it will have enough.
He wanted a picture with his daddy.
Okay, that’s enough about Spider-Man, let’s talk about Carnage. This figure is a partial reissue of the Monster Venom wave Carnage from about four years ago. Some stuff is the same, while some stuff is different. The head, hands, and probably the arms are the same while the torso and legs are actually different. That older figure lacked butterfly joints while this one has them. It appears to be the same torso we saw with Web-Man, who shared a torso with Spider-Man 2099, if I’m not mistaken, and probably several others. He is a very bright red, which isn’t really what I’d call show accurate, and the black paint for the various swirls and lines on Carnage is understated compared with a comic version of the character to attempt to match the show. The head is clearly the comic inspired head so it doesn’t really match the show aside from the amount of black on it. The Carnage in the show had a much stubbier head as opposed to the elongated one from the comics. There was one shot of the symbiote right after it attached to Cletus Kasady that looked like the comic book character, but that was pretty much it. I think there should actually be a bit more black on the torso to really match the look of the show, but that’s not Hasbro’s goal apparently so I don’t why I feel the need to point out the inaccuracies. This figure also has some tendrils plugged into the arms and a removable one that slots into the back. That aspect of the character wasn’t seen much in the show where animation and the ability to do it well is a concern, but I prefer Carnage with them so they don’t bother me. I think he looks okay, he just doesn’t really look like the character from the show. He’s much too lean and suffers from that Marvel Legends “tiny shoulders” syndrome that so many figures in this line possess. The figure also struggles with trying to be somewhat inspired by the animated series without looking cheap. It seems to me if they just committed to a more toon-accurate paint job that would have solved that issue to a point, but I’m just some guy with a blog so what do I know?
Why use the regular hands when you can use these?
I basically feel the same way about this head as I do the hands. Plus it’s a pain to get on anyway.
When it comes to accessories, Carnage fares better than Spider-Man. Again, these are all reused from past releases, but you get a second head that’s of Kasady and he looks pretty creepy. There’s no paint on the hair, so that’s a bummer, but at least the face appears to be done with face printing making it much better looking than the original release. It’s a comic inspired look, but you probably could have guessed that. If you have the older figure, it might be fun to have this head on that, but I’ll probably never use it. For hands, Carnage has two open hands by default where his fingers look long and bladed. They’re basically style posed, though the right hand is more curled like it’s trying to grip something. The fingers on that hand also don’t end in points and are rather stubby so they look stupid. You’ll never use it though because the optional hands are way better. For the left, we get a more exagerrated, clawing, hand that also has some added tendrils on it. I think it looks great save for the added blob on the index figure which is just a bizarre design choice as it makes it look like he has six fingers. For the right hand, we get a fisted hand that’s affixed to a big, symbiote, axe head. I like how it’s sculpted to have slime separating the fist from the axe and then the axe head itself has a neat design with a little hook in it. It’s painted too so we get some black lines that look nice and help sell it. They also gave the figure a vertical hinge on this hand which is appreciated. The only downside is it is pretty heavy, and the hinge fairly loose, so posing it can be a tad frustrating.
Spider jump!
For articulation, we have a pretty standard Marvel Legends figure. The old ball hinge is in place for the head and the figure can look up and down without issue as well as rotate. He even gets a touch of tilt on the ball, so that’s okay. The shoulders hinge out to the side less than 90 degrees so that’s disappointing. Web-Man can get his arms out to the side without issue which has me thinking these two share a torso, but the arms are actually different. The butterfly joint provides for solid range going back, but not much across the chest. There’s a biceps swivel and the double-jointed elbows will let the figure bend past 90 degrees there. The wrists swivel and hinge and all except the axe hand hinge horizontally. In the torso, we get an ab crunch that works well going forward and back with no gapping issues present. Hasbro also continued the black paint so that looks good. The waist has a twist which looks pretty ugly because there’s nothing to hide it, but it does work. At the hips we get the standard ball and socket setup and, what do you know, he can do a split. It’s a miracle! There’s a thigh cut below that which works fine, but breaks up the black paint. The double-jointed knees also work fine and you get a boot cut if you want it. The ankles hinge forward and back all the way and rock side-to-side just fine. I think the legs are basically the same as the old release, they just don’t have the plug holes for more tentacles. In other words, more old Spidey parts shared with Web-Man and other Spider-Man figures. Aside from the shoulders, he moves well enough. There’s still gummy-ness to the joints with Carnage, but it isn’t as pervasive as it is with Spider-Man.
Spider kick!
Overall, this release is basically what I expected it to be. It’s a bunch of parts reuse, with a different paint job. As a kid, it always bothered me that every Venom figure I bought was just black plastic when in the comics he was clearly blue. Obviously, that’s because an all black look wouldn’t work, so he had to be shaded blue and even some artists made blue his dominant color (he was very much black in his first appearances though). Because of that, I always wanted a Venom or a Spider-Man in the symbiote costume that took a similar approach so that’s what drew me to this set. Plus, I did like the cartoon series and it’s where most of my Spidey knowledge came as prior to that it was all from Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends and the occasional stray comic book. This figure from Hasbro has its problems, but it comes close to satisfying that urge for me and I think it looks better than the more plain release from the retro card line. It’s pretty absurd that he’s so much bigger than the red and blue Spider-Man when they’re supposed to be the same character from the same show and the accessories blow, but at least the base figure looks fine.
Worth it? Eh, I guess if you like what you see, it’s okay given the apparent new going rate for Marvel Legends.
With Carnage, this is a character all new to me in figure form. Well, new in the sense that I had not purchased a Carnage since the Toy Biz Carnage II figure from the Spider-Man line way back in the 90s. I was never a huge fan of the character, he was just Venom without a conscience, but he did look cool and I certainly spent many hours playing Maximum Carnage back in the day. As a figure, he’s fine. He looks good, moves well enough for the character, and I like the optional parts. I like them so much that I consider the main hands rather useless, but it’s fine. And when I got that animated Venom in 2021 I knew I wanted to add a Spider-Man and a Carnage to my little display so I at least achieved that. As for this series going forward, I might have been interested in that Doc Ock, but the Aunt May he’s bundled with looks bad and I’m not paying for her. This set retails for $53 on Hasbro’s Pulse website. If you’re a member, you get free shipping, but if you’re not then tack on the price of shipping as well. This was the last order I made with my subscription and I don’t intend to get more. At this price, it’s something a fan of the show can possibly talk themselves into. The box is nice, if that interests you at all, and the figures are I guess the usual level of quality for Marvel Legends. Had they just given Spider-Man some worthwhile accessories it would have been much easier to recommend, but since they didn’t it puts this one squarely in the niche category. Few Marvel Legends are worth their asking price these days, and these are no exception. If you’re primarily a comic book collector and already have these figures, then don’t bother. If it looks like something you like and you know what to expect, give it a shot. Or wait awhile for the next warehouse sale when you can probably get it for 40-something where it would be a much easier recommend. That’s probably not going to happen for awhile though. There’s also shopDisney which is supposed to carry this and may be more aggressive with its sale prices if it hangs around a few months. You can also get free shipping there, though you have to spend $75 I think. If you time it right, and have a wife or kids that love Disney, it’s not a tough threshold to meet. At least it’s easier to get than the stupid Walmart exclusive.
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When I was a kid, my dad took me to some local convention or trade show. I have no idea why because my dad wasn’t the type who would go to such an event. He liked car shows, but from what I can remember this was more of a hobby show. It was early in…
It was in 2021 that Hasbro released a PulseCon exclusive Venom figure on a Spider-Man retro card. The retro card series is meant to stir-up nostalgia for all of the adults who were buying toys and watching cartoons in the 90s as the retro card is a facsimile of the old cards Toy Biz used…
One of the most iconic costumes in the world of superheroes is definitely that of Spider-Man. I put that classic red and blue with webbed detailing right up there with Superman and Batman. I would argue that there’s no more iconic costume in the world of Marvel than Spidey’s, and the crazy thing with Spider-Man…
We’re almost done with all of these NECA Haulathon drops from March and up today is the last of the single-packed figures, the Mighty Mutanimal Dreadmon! Technically, he’s the third figure in NECA’s line of figures from the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures since he’s listed as number 3 on the box. However, Dreadmon was the most recent to actually hit stores as Man Ray and the actual number 4 figure Jagwar were released on the first weekend with Dreadmon following a week later. I don’t know why they shipped out of order, but it hardly matters in the end. Like Jagwar, this is Dreadmon’s first go at plastic. I could not confirm if he started off as action figure concept art like Jagwar did, but like Jagwar, Dreadmon has basically only existed in comic form. He started off with Archie in issue #15 in an adventure where the turtles and Jagwar encounter him and he’s also made the jump to IDW, albeit with a pretty substantial redesign. As another member of The Mighty Mutanimals, Dreadmon continues to put us on the path to one day assembling the full team which is something a lot of fans have been dreaming about for 30 years now.
Dreadmon comes in the same style box as Jagwar featuring new artwork from Ken Mitchroney, who was also the illustrator for Dreadmon’s debut issue. Out of the box, Dreadmon stands around 6″ to where his head most likely would end and 6.75″ to the highest point of his mane. I’m measuring him with his legs bent slightly as he’s intended to be posed, but you could possibly get him a little taller, or shorter, depending on how you position the legs as he’s one of those characters that really stands on his toes. As for what he is, he appears to be some sort of wolf man. The newer version of the character has clearly landed on jackal, but wolf seems fine for this version. Like Jagwar, he’s not a mutant and is actually a thief who was magically turned into this beast by a talisman. He’s of South African descent and his family escaped apartheid to Jamaica where a young version of Dreadmon became a street thief before eventually turning a corner after his encounter with the good guys. Even though the Archie books always had a reputation for being like kid version of the more serious Mirage comics, it’s pretty cool how a lot of the characters born within those books have a pretty mature backstory.
These two share quite a few parts. And a love of fruit.
Dreadmon is a character with a pretty neat design. He has a wild mane of hair on top of his black face that is supposed to be dreadlocked. There’s some evidence of that where the hair is twisted and slid through tiny skulls two of which hand over his shoulders with three more on the back of the head. There’s a lot of black linework in the hair to add some character while the sculpted texture looks more like thick fur to me. There’s even a curve to the back of the mane and from the side it looks a little spiky giving me images of Sonic the Hedgehog as I look at him. The ears and face are black with the nose and inner ear painted purple. It’s a fun look and the paint is really clean. The inner portion of his mouth is also painted and looks clean. For his attire, I’m not really sure what he’s wearing. He’s got this black tank top and a three-ringed necklace. Unlike a lot of figures from NECA, the torso clothing appears to be part of the sculpt instead of an overlay. He has a belt that looks like it’s wooden slates bound together by hemp rope and there’s a purple skirt sticking out below that. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an actual skirt or was conceived as the end of a tunic, but it’s essentially a skirt and I think he pulls it off.
Obligatory scale shot – I’d say he looks fine.
A lot of the body outside of the torso on this guy is actually shared with Jagwar. The shoulders, biceps, hands, and thighs are the same which is fine. They don’t need to be different and this sort of reuse is what companies should be doing to keep costs down. And the parts are well-sculpted with a fur texture applied and they’re painted a matte brown. There’s also some black lines applied here and there and it’s a nice touch. The forearms are unique so that Dreadmon can have tufts of fur which are done in a redder brown to match his mane. He has some black spots there as well and there’s some on his thighs too. The lower legs had to be different to accommodate his canine feet so the calf is shorter because the foot is longer with a hinge in the center of it. He stands on his toes, though if you wanted to you could flatten the feet and stand him that way, but it looks pretty silly. He does have a tail which is a unique sculpt and it’s a bushy one the color of which matches the mane and there’s some linework applied as well. He looks nice as the paint is once again really clean and has the appropriate finish. The darker palette certainly adds some contrast to the display, but he still has that “pop” factor by nature of the design and those little hits of white and purple help. About the only thing, aesthetically speaking, that bothers me a little is that it’s hard to get him to look like he’s staring straight ahead. His head seems to always be tilted down and it’s hard to pose away and that’s basically due to the hair. We’ll get into that more with articulation, but that’s pretty much it. You do have to watch out for paint rub too as the white skulls that hang over his chest can leave behind streaks on the torso. I had some and I did lightly hit his torso with a dry Magic Eraser and it mostly came off, but I also don’t want to take off too much of the black either as everything is painted on this guy.
I did not have much luck with this particular accessory. The one on the left came with Jagwar and is missing the jaw while the one on the right came with Dreadmon and has a horribly misaligned eye.
A lot of Dreadmon’s accessories feel similar to Jagwar’s in both concept and because they are quite literally the same. That includes the hands as Dreadmon comes with the same, three, sets: fists, open, and gripping. NECA painted some black linework around the claws which does make them look a little better when compared with Jagwar’s which lacked that detail. Dreadmon also has the same Malignoid worm thing. The one I got with Jagwar was missing the lower jaw, while the one I received with Dreadmon has a terrible paint job. The black lines weren’t lined up properly so it looks stupid. I guess I can’t win when it comes to this thing. Dreadmon also has a fruit bowl, but it’s different from Jagwar’s as his bowl is a bit more distressed and also features some intestines under the fruit. He is a wolf or coyote or something and they do enjoy their entrails! It looks appropriately gross, though not exactly realistic, so it doesn’t throw off the vibe of the property. If it’s too nasty though you get a pair of bananas that he can hold. One is intact while the other has been partially peeled and is ready to eat. He has a blue can of something. There’s no indication of what’s inside it so someone more familiar with the property will have to clue me in, but it looks like a soup can. There’s also an unmarked grave. It just sits on a surface and looks foreboding though I have no idea what significance it holds since it’s unmarked. The Mutanimals did meet an unfortunate end in the books so it could just stand for that. Lastly, Dreadmon comes with a second set of eyes. His default ones are wide open and have a bit of a toon vibe to them while the alternate set is narrowed and more menacing. I like the look of both so I haven’t decided what I’ll ultimately settle on for the shelf, but it’s nice to have options. Swapping them is also pretty painless, provided you keep your thumbs clear of those pointy ears.
“Uhh, got anything without entrails?”
After being pleasently surprised with the articulation on Jagwar, I’m sorry to say that Dreadmon is a bit of a step back. Much of that is unavoidable based on his character design, but it is what it is. The head is probably on the standard double-ball setup we’ve been seeing with NECA figures of late, but the hair isn’t going to let you do much with it. You get some rotation and a little tilt, but virtually no ability for the figure to look up. There is a hinge at the base of the neck which will allow the figure to look down pretty far. The jaw is articulated and it’s fine as it looks good when open or closed. The shoulders are the standard ball-hinges we’re used and they rotate just fine and allow the character to raise its arms out to the side to a horizontal position. There’s a biceps swivel plus single-hinged elbows that have some room to swivel. He can hit a 90 degree bend, though I remain surprised that NECA opted not to use a double-jointed setup here. The wrists swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. In the torso, we get just a ball joint at the waist with no diaphragm cut. He can rotate freely on that peg and crunches forward a bit, but doesn’t go back at all which is a bit surprising. There’s some tilt as well, but it’s pretty limited. The legs are ball and socket joints and NECA put slits in the skirt to keep them pretty much unencumbered. Dreadmon can just about his a full split and he kicks forward to about horizontal and kicks back a bit too. There’s some twist on the ball joint so you have some play there followed by the usual double-jointed knees. After that comes the ankle hinge and rocker followed by the mid-foot hinge. That hinge is a little loose for my liking, but he’s standing okay so I guess it’s fine for now. There’s also a ball hinge for the tail that gives him some pretty good range there as well. Because he has a bushy tail, it’s not wired for added posing like Jagwar’s or Man Ray’s. It’s also too short to be relied upon as a third leg of sorts unless you put Dreadmon in some really low poses.
It’s just pragmatic to have a blank tombstone onhand. You never know when you’re going to need it…
Dreadmon’s unique leg situation and the more simplified approach to the torso means he’s not as poseable as Jagwar or even Man Ray. The unique nature of the legs can also make him a bit tricky to just get straight up and down. You have to make sure both hinges in the knees are bent at the same angle in each leg and then the same is true at the ankle and foot. Often times, I find myself placing Dreadmon on a surface and he’s taller on one side than the other so I have to mess around to try to get his shoulders more level, unless I’m going for a more angled look. And then there’s the previously mentioned annoyance of just trying to get him to appear to be looking forward. I wish the waist joint could bend back to help with that as the range going forward just works against what I’m trying to do. As far as tightness goes, everything felt pretty nice out of the box. The joints are all tight in a satisfying manner. The only ones that are a bit on the loose side are the waist and foot, but neither are failing to hold a pose. He is going to be a little harder to stand than the other figures in the line, but if you’re having problems he does have peg holes on his feet. I’ve done a couple of poses with him so far to just leave alone and he’s fallen over a couple of times. Other times he’s been fine, so there’s a nuance to it when it comes to finding a shelf-safe pose that will last longterm.
That’s hardly a bad looking group.
Dreadmon gets us one step closer to assembling the entire Mighty Mutanimals squad. Slash was associated with them, but most consider the core team to be Man Ray, Jagwar, Dreadmon, Wingnut, Screwloose, Leatherhead, and Mondo Gecko. NECA has yet to indicate what’s coming next, but it will be interesting to see if they continue with the Mutanimals or if they pivot to something else. They have stated that evergreen versions of the turtles aren’t really in play right now as they’re design is very similar to the cartoon, but it was suggested that some of their other looks from the comics might be in play (think wrestling attire). Could that be next? Maybe, though I wouldn’t be shocked if such a set started off as a convention exclusive or something. I hope they don’t dick around though and just continue with the Mutanimals as a lot of people have been waiting a long time. Mondo and Leatherhead from the toon line can kind of fake it as Archie versions, but Wingnut and Screwloose most certainly cannot so it’s for that reason that I’d like to see them be next in line. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long.
If you’re looking to add Dreadmon to your collection of NECA TMNT figures then you shouldn’t have too hard of a time. Haulathon has come and gone at Target, but Dreadmon is not exclusive to that event or store. He should start showing up at other brick and mortar locations and will also be solicited to specialty retail. At Target, this figure cost $35 so the specialty shops will likely tack on a few bucks, but if you missed the initial drop your patience should pay off eventually.
Want to know more about the other TMNT Adventures action figures from NECA?:
The next figure in NECA’s line based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic series is a much anticipated one for fans of those books and its spin-off The Mighty Mutanimals. And that’s because this character is making his debut in plastic. Previously, we looked at Slash who has been pretty well-represented in some…
Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a…
As NECA continues to find success with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines of action figures, the company has sought to branch out beyond the usual source material in an effort to give collectors more of what they want and also likely to just keep the hype train rolling. NECA started first with doing figures…
The next figure in NECA’s line based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic series is a much anticipated one for fans of those books and its spin-off The Mighty Mutanimals. And that’s because this character is making his debut in plastic. Previously, we looked at Slash who has been pretty well-represented in some form or another in most versions of the franchise. Last week was Man Ray’s turn, and while technically a new debut, he’s basically Ray Fillet from the old toy line so the anticipation level wasn’t quite the same. For Jagwar, we’re talking something completely new to the world of TMNT action figures. Like a lot of characters that make up the expanded universe of TMNT, Jagwar began life as an action figure concept for Playmates since Mirage Studios and its artists basically were churning those out in the 80s. He was rejected, for one reason or another, but he got a second chance at life with the comic series. In that, he was actually not a mutant jaguar, but the result of some lady getting it on with a Jaguar god. I guess that makes him a demigod or something? I don’t make the rules, so call him what you will. He’s a crusader for the Brazilian rainforest and his exploits have a real world connection in that they were influenced by activist Chico Mendes, who was unfortunately assassinated for his work in saving the rainforests of Brazil. He was even made an ally of Jagwar’s in the comics and he’s basically carrying on his legacy which is pretty cool.
Who doesn’t want to be friends with a jaguar demigod?
Jagwar would befriend the turtles and then go on to become a founding member of The Mighty Mutanimals, and it’s from those books that this action figure from NECA appears to take most of its inspiration. During Jagwar’s earlier depictions, he was drawn with solid spots on his body and I think he even had a skull pattern on his forehead, but later the the spots turned to ring shapes which this figure utilizes and the skull was dropped. Jagwar, like the other figures in this line, is also based on the art of Ken Mitchroney so he’s somewhat stylized to resemble how he would draw the character. He also did the box art and the shape of the box is more in-line with what we saw with Slash as Man Ray had to go with an oversized one to accommodate his added bulk. Jagwar was first released as part of the Haulathon event with Target which is over at this point, but he may still be getting shipped out to Target stores. He is expected to eventually show up elsewhere including other big box retailers as well as specialty retail so if you missed out on this guy just keep your eyes open at other venues as he’s not likely to be too hard to come by.
I like that both he and Man Ray come with “sexy” faces.
Out of the box, Jagwar stands approximately 6.25″. He’s a mostly naked jaguar guy who just wears a necklace of leaves to go along with the same at the wrists and waist. The necklace is a separate piece that pegs into the back and chest so it doesn’t move all over the place. I assume it’s reinforced with glue, but I could be wrong. It definitely doesn’t appear to want to come out. The leaves at the wrist are more of the floating variety and could be slid off if desired while the leaves at the waist are done in a similar fashion to the necklace so they’re pretty locked in. The body is done in orange and painted over as well, which NECA often does. The only other paint needed are for the spots and some black linework here and there. The spots are done in brown, which seems consistent with the books, and my only critique here is that the opacity seems to vary between the limbs and torso giving some rings a darker look than others. There’s also no paint on the hands aside from the orange which makes them look a bit plain. I would have at least liked some linework around the claws and I’m going to assume having the claws match his fur is consistent with the source material. The head, which features a comical expression, has some nice linework and the eyes are rather cleanly applied so that is all in order. I think the expression some may take issue with as it is a bit odd, but we do have another head to talk about when we get to accessories so I think it’s fine. It has that toon vibe I associate with the Archie series so I don’t mind it.
“Am I supposed to eat this?”
And for those accessories, we have some interesting stuff and some pretty typical items. For hands, Jagwar has a set of fists, gripping hands, and open, style posed, hands. The gripping hands have a standard horizontal hinge and feature a pretty wide grip and they’re not really suited for much of what he comes with. And as for things he can hold, we get a little Malignoid slug, baby, worm, thing. It’s painted in blue and has a rather wicked head on the end of it. Mine is defective in that it’s missing its lower jaw, though it’s not something I even knew about until I saw another one. It’s pretty fat though so it doesn’t fit into his gripping hands effortlessly and you’ll probably end up leaving some orange paint behind on it when pulling it out. His other item for gripping is a stick going through a purple fish. It looks fine, but it’s almost too thin for the gripping hands. At the fattest portion, the figure still can’t really get a good grip on it, but you can position it to stay in his hand. The paint is really nice on the fish though I’m a little surprised he doesn’t have “X” eyes. Jagwar also comes with a little campfire to cook his fish over. It looks fine and the fire itself is done entirely with paint as opposed to translucent plastic. There’s also a bowl of fruit for when he’s not in the mood for fish and it looks fine too, but in the end, is just a bowl of fruit. There’s also a baby Jagwar so he can hold a baby version of himself and create a wicked time paradox. Lastly, we have a second head and in keeping with Man Ray there’s a cockyness to this expression. His eyes are narrow and I can’t decide if he’s ready to throw down or looking to attract a mate. It’s fun though and I have a feeling a lot of people will use this head in place of the more cartoonish one.
“Now that’s more like it!”
The accessories for Jagwar aren’t terrible, but do feel a bit lackluster. He did sometimes use a blow gun so I’m surprised to see that omitted, but regardless, he can make up for that with the articulation. Jagwar is pretty much all new tooling, and if anything is repeated it’s not obvious to me. As such, it will be interesting to see how he moves. The head is on a double-ball peg and it has terrific range. He can rotate, tilt, look up, look down, the whole nine yards. There’s no joint at the base of the neck, but he doesn’t seem to need it. The jaw on both heads is articulated, but it doesn’t open as far as I’d like on either. It doesn’t get ugly though, so that’s a plus. The shoulders are the customary ball hinge joints and Jagwar can raise his arms out to the side to about horizontal and rotate freely. We have a biceps swivel and single-hinged elbows. I’m a little surprised at the lack of double elbows here, but he can at least achieve a 90 degree bend. There’s a slight swivel at the joint too, but it doesn’t have much range and I don’t think the goal was to get much there either. The wrists swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal. They were also the only joints I’d consider stuck, but I was able to get them moving without having to resort to heating them. In the torso, we get a diaphragm joint that mostly allows for rotation. You get a little bend back, no crunch forward, and some tilt. The waist also has a waist twist. At the hips, we get the ball and socket joints that allow for the figure to almost hit a full split, but the leaves at the waist prevent the legs from going out to the side as far as they could. There is a little thigh twist there and the legs kick forward to almost horizontal (again, the leaves get in the way) and kick back a little. The knees are double-jointed and work fine while the ankles have the customary hinge and rocker combination which also works fine. Lastly, we have a wired tail on a little ball hinge that rotates and can be positioned pretty well. The wire is also strong enough that you could use the tail to help stabilize the figure if you so wanted to.
“I am freaking out here!”
And this isn’t even the “camping” variant of Jagwar!
Jagwar moves pretty well for this line. I’m a little disappointed that NECA didn’t separate some of the leaves at the waist to provide some pathways for the legs as I’m sure they could bend further without the obstruction. We saw a similar situation with the Chakahachi figure from the toon line where the sculpt has room to be modified with the goal to achieve better range at the hips, but NECA opted not to do so. I’m guessing they were worried about the durability of the soft plastic if they had cut into it, but I think they could have found a way. The diaphragm joint also could be better as I’m surprised it gets virtually no range bending forward. This is a character who should have a lot of articulation so while I normally go soft on the criticisms when it comes to that area, I think this is one of the few characters that should have a bit more. Even with those shortcomings, he still poses pretty well which is a good thing because his accessories don’t offer a whole lot there. You can have him holding a bowl of fruit or roasting a fish over a fire, but that’s not likely to be how most assemble the Mutanimals on their shelf.
The Mutanimals are starting to come together…
Was the wait worth it? Considering fans of Jagwar have been waiting for over 30 years for this I would have to guess that the answer is “No,” because how could it have been worth it? So many versions of TMNT have come and gone since without a Jagwar and that’s pretty surprising. If we’re just going back to when NECA got the license then I think the answer is “Yes.” Jagwar looks pretty cool and he’ll look good with his buddies, the ones already out and the ones likely to come. There’s certainly some room for improvement, but at the more normal price of $35 I think I can safely recommend Jagwar to fans of the Archie universe of characters and to those collectors that just want to mix him into their toon display. Archie fans, at long last your wait is over.
As NECA continues to find success with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines of action figures, the company has sought to branch out beyond the usual source material in an effort to give collectors more of what they want and also likely to just keep the hype train rolling. NECA started first with doing figures…
2022 is nearly in the books. As we countdown the final hours and minutes until 2023, it feels good to say that the new year will begin with no further Loot Crate obligations. That’s because after a delay of more than a year, the second crate in Loot Crate’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of…
Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a…
Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a commercial. When the toys and cartoon took off, more episodes were ordered and certainly more toys were created, but the comics remained as they were. Which is to say they were pretty much intended for an entirely different audience. Enter Adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, whatever you want to call it. It was a comic that started off as an adaptation of the animated series, but pretty quickly became its own thing. Published by Archie Comics, it was the kiddie comic though it would actually get far more mature than the cartoon series ever did. Characters created for the toy line would show up in the cartoon and sometimes in the Archie books as well. When that happened there tended to be differences and we saw that with the first figure in this subline from NECA: Slash. Now we have another one in Man Ray, who non-readers likely know as Ray Fillet. The character is credited to Stephen Murphy and Ryan Brown, and it’s my understanding that the concept of Ray Fillet came first for the toyline, but was imported into the comic as Man Ray. The two look very similar, but there are some differences. As for the cartoon version, he was named Ray and really couldn’t be much more different. If we ever get a Ray toy we’ll get into that there, for now, let’s talk about Man Ray.
Do you prefer your Man Ray angry or sultry?
Man Ray debuted in issue number 5 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures and he had a fairly standard origin for this kind of property. Marine biologist Jack Finney touches a manta ray, comes in contact with the mutagen, and is turned into a mutant superhero. He looks like a humanoid manta ray and he can command sea creatures like a more famous hero from the pages of Detective Comics. He fights for all of the usual stuff, but also has an ecological bent which I can appreciate. Of course, we’ll ignore the fact that we’re talking about a mass-produced lump of plastic in the character’s image which is doing who knows how much harm to our present environment. Man Ray would also go on to join The Mighty Mutanimals, the offshoot series for TMNT, where he’d work alongside the likes of Slash, Leatherhead, and more. As the second release in the Adventures line, Man Ray is a logical choice. He seems to have a pretty strong following in the fanbase as a lot of people my age really liked that Ray Fillet figure, myself included. I also had his origin story, though I don’t think it was the comic, but rather an adaption as a children’s book that I have long since lost track of. And since he didn’t really appear in the cartoon series it also makes sense to get to him early as collectors will want the character as either the Archie Comics character or just as a stand-in for Ray Fillet in their toon display.
Man Ray comes in a slightly oversized box relative to Slash which once again features original artwork from artist Ken Mitchroney. I personally love Ken’s art and I think it has the right aesthetic to really separate it from both the work of Mirage Studios and the cartoon. The figure itself is also based on Ken’s style and this one is presently showing up as part of NECA and Target’s Haulathon. Unfortunately, by the time you read this the online drop will have past and possibly even restocks at the store as Man Ray was part of the initial wave of product. If he’s anything like Slash then he may hang around so it shouldn’t be too hard to get your mitts on this figure. And if you miss him entirely he should eventually show up at other retail outlets. He’s just debuting at Target, he’s not exclusive.
Flight stands are going to be tricky with this guy.
Once out of the packaging, Man Ray stands at approximately 6.5″ to the top of his head and closer to 7″ if you factor in the…horns? I don’t know much about manta ray anatomy. He’s clad in his green and yellow suit which I suppose is the character’s default look. He had several looks in the comics so bigger fans would have to tell me if this is the most appropriate. His skin is a very rich shade of blue and it’s what really stands out the most. I love it, but I also love the color blue, and all over his body are little areas of sculpted-in scales. The scales ate outlined in black, as are his muscles, and he has a very superhero look to him. The paint is super clean given the abundance of it and I’m really impressed with the piping on the costume and how well NECA handled the white stripes. He has those big fins on his back which are permanently affixed and there’s a tail that has to be inserted by the user. The tail and fins are done in a light shade of blue which contrasts nicely with the main body. The sculpt for the head looks terrific as he’s pretty angry looking and ready to throw down. The only blemish with the presentation I notice is with the boots and specifically the hinge there. He has a white stripe right down the center of the boot so NECA cast the hinge in white plastic. When the hinge is visible from the front, it’s a bit of an eyesore, but going with white is better than having a yellow gap. On the rear though you get a white block of color amongst all yellow because the stripe is only on the front. There’s not really much NECA could do about that without changing up how they articulate ankles. The April figure had a similar issue, but at least it’s a blemish largely confined to the rear of the figure and it makes sense to do it this way given that.
Man Ray comes with not just one little buddy…
Man Ray comes with a bunch of stuff in his rather large box and the first thing we tend to talk about are the hands. In the box you have fisted hands, wide gripping hands, a right trigger finger hand, a left relaxed hand, and a left splayed hand. The very wide gripping hands are so he can carry his harpoon gun in a more casual manner as seen on the cover of his debut appearance. The trigger finger hand is to hold said harpoon gun in a more conventional manner, though the trigger finger just barely can touch the actual trigger. The gun looks fine though as it’s brown and gray and features a lot of line work on it. Man Ray also has a second portrait which is this cocky, almost flirty, sort of grin. This is the type of fish Troy McClure would love to have an encounter with. Man Ray also comes with a little sea turtle who I guess is a stand-in for his summoning powers. He’s cute and really well painted, but is otherwise a slug figure. He also has a little buddy, Bubbla, who looks like a lobster or crayfish type of creature and was apparently based on the little buddy figure the toy came with, Fishsticks, though they look nothing alike. Bubbla looks a bit irritated, but he’s well painted and stands nicely on a shelf and is a fun inclusion.
…but two little buddies when you count this turtle here!
Where these NECA reviews have been going off the rails a bit lately is with articulation, and perhaps to no one’s surprise, Man Ray isn’t going to impress here. For one, we’re dealing with a character that has no neck and giant fins on his back. Despite the no neck, the head is on a double ball peg which is mostly good for rotation. He can tilt forward and back a bit, but really moving the head at all breaks up the sculpt and he looks pretty silly as a result. It can kind of shimmy side-to-side which works better than rotating it, but it is what it is. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinged joint that just pegs in. The arms will go as far as they can until they strike the fins and raising them out to the side won’t quite get to horizontal. There is a biceps swivel and below that a single-hinged elbow. There’s a generous cut-out in the forearm for the hinge so it will bend a tick past 90 degrees. The wrists rotate and hinge and all of the hinges are a horizontal hinge including the trigger hand. The hinges are also cut a bit off-center which I assume is intentional. They’re all also super tight and most won’t work for me. Swapping hands is at least easy, though swapping heads required heat.
“How dare you pollute my ocean, Shredder!”
In the torso, we get a diaphragm joint that feels like a double ball peg system. Man Ray doesn’t bend back very far, nor does he crunch forward much, but you do get a generous amount of tilt on the joint plus rotation. You probably want to be gentle though so as not to scuff the abdomen. There’s no waist joint and the hips are the standard ball joints. Man Ray can basically do splits as the diaper overlay is cut way back which I like a lot. The thigh will swivel a bit on the joint and below that we have double-jointed knees. They’re very tight and manipulating them past 90 degrees is a challenge because they strike the fins. Kicking backwards also doesn’t work very well for the same reason, but he can kick forward a decent amount though his legs want to go off towards the side when doing so. There is no boot cut and the ankles have the previously mentioned hinge joint and rocker, both function well. Lastly, we have the tail which is a ball-hinged joint that gets decent range. The tail itself also has a bendy wire running through it for a little extra something. Man Ray stands pretty well, but the tail can also add stability if you feel it’s warranted or if you have him in a more unnatural pose. There is a lot of weight to this figure, but it feels like it’s pretty well-distributed and the big feet and tight joints will help to keep him upright.
We’re slowly putting together the Mutanimals!
Man Ray is a pretty typical release for NECA and it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles offerings. The sculpt and paint are all terrific while the articulation is just so-so. Man Ray does have some hurdles to deal with unique to his design, so I can forgive NECA for that. I think he’s going to move well enough and it’s hard for me to quibble too much with the articulation setup given how nice the sculpt turned out. And when it comes to the look of this guy I’m pretty much in love. I love the colors, I love the expressiveness of the face sculpts, and the detail work is fantastic. The accessories are solid and I might just display him in a superhero pose without the gun because I don’t think he needs it. The only other thing left to discuss is the price tag which comes in at $40 making Man Ray not as cheap as Slash and some other recent releases, but less than Zog. I guess he’s a little more involved than some other figures, but it’s hard not to get the feeling that NECA started at $40 and then added on stuff to get to that price like the turtle and Bubbla. Slash was somewhat bare bones, but also using an older mold. Jagwar, another character we will be looking at in due time, is $35 with all new tooling, lots of accessories, and plenty of paint. Maybe NECA figures to reuse some parts from that one later on? I’m not sure and I don’t know the economics of the situation I just know what’s on my shelf and what it cost me. At $40, Man Ray isn’t the value some other figures are. I do think he looks great though so I’m not exactly saying he isn’t worth it, but I do wish he could have been cheaper. And for fans of the Mighty Mutanimals, I suspect he’ll be worth it to them too as NECA is building up that team and it certainly seems like a priority for the company so I suspect we’ll be talking about them for awhile to come.
Like TMNT comics or TV show action figures? We’ve got you covered:
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