September 16, 2025

JoyToy TMNT Dirtbag

By Joe
Time to do some spelunking!

Today for Turtle Tuesday we continue our look at Wave 6 (I think?) of JoyToy’s 1:18 scale Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures with a character who should be familiar to long-time fans of the franchise: Dirtbag. Dirtbag first showed up as part of the Playmates toyline in 1991 before making the leap to cartoon and video games like many before him. The mutant mole was billed as an adversary of Splinter on the cardback, but as far as I know that character trait never manifested outside of that blurb. He would instead be featured in the Planet of the Turtleloids story arc as yet another minion of the Shredder, albeit a reluctant one. He was paired up with Groundchuck, the mutant bull who also had an action figure released around the same time, and the two have felt interconnected ever since despite being largely confined to that ’87 edition of the franchise.

I don’t have the vintage figure for a comparison, but I do have the NECA one!

Even though his appearances have been kept to a relative minimum, Dirtbag is still pretty well remembered because probably millions of kids were exposed to him at the height of Turtle-mania. The fact that he’s being featured in JoyToy’s line comes as no surprise and his status as a miner means there’s a lot of accessories one can pull from such a background. JoyToy loves nothing more than cramming their packages full of bits and bobs to make their characters feel complete and Dirtbag really ups the ante here in unexpected ways.

Standing at pretty much exactly 5″, Dirtbag has got some size to him.

Dirtbag’s appearance is kept pretty faithful to his original design. He’s a gray-ish colored mole with a stocky build. To achieve the color, JoyToy molded the figure in white plastic and applied some gray dry-brushing over his exposed fur. The fur is a great deal more defined than it was on the old toy or in the cartoon and the dry-brush approach does give him a more grimy appearance befitting a miner. His outfit is more or less the same with a green shirt and dark, gray, shorts to go along with a fetching red hard hat. He keeps the asymmetrical feet which Playmates loved to utilize as one is bare and the one is booted, but his toes are poking through given his pretty sharp looking claws. He has picked up some chromed-out kneepads and spiked shoulder pauldrons and he still retains his useful backpack and elegant, red, ascot. I like that JoyToy retained his beady, little, yellow, eyes and the way his ears poke out from under his helmet is, dare I say, adorable. There’s a grittiness to the character design brought on by the paint and numerous spiked surfaces, but he is almost cute in appearance so you would be forgiven if you assumed he were an ally as opposed to an enemy of the turtles.

He is the king of removable stuff.

As is the case with many JoyToy products, a lot of the embellishments on the figure are removable. The pauldrons, backpack, ascot, belt, and knife holster could all be removed if you so desired. The figure comes apart relatively easily at the waist (some would argue too easily, which we’ll get to) making removal of the belt a synch. The other parts take a bit more effort if you want to go that route, but since the limbs attach via either a ball socket or a peg it probably isn’t as hard as you might think. The backpack is, sadly, not functional, but it does have two straps on the bottom that can hold some of his items in place. He also has a tail which needs to be inserted out of the box, but it goes onto the ball peg with minimal effort. The figure looks quite nice with clean paint applications. If there’s one thing about the aesthetics some might not enjoy it’s the very mechanical appearance of the knees, but only when viewed from the back. The actual joint is basically silver and dark gray, a pretty unnatural color combination for the back of one’s knees even if that one is a mutated mole.

So many choices…

Dirtbag’s accessories start before you take a single item out of the box. The backpack is already in place and on it is a red monkey wrench in a slot on the side. It can come out and become a weapon with ease, or remain on the pack. On his left thigh is a knife sheath with a white-handled knife inside. There’s a nice, metallic, finish to the blade and the white handle almost gives off the impression of bone which is pretty cool. On his belt is some dynamite, but these sticks are non-removable. To make up for that, Dirtbag does come with a bundle of dynamite as well.

Rail guns and dynamite – what more could you want?

For hands, Dirtbag has sets of gripping, relaxed, wide gripping, and trigger finger hands. The wide gripping hands work well with the bundle of dynamite while the trigger finger hands are intended for his rail gun. This thing has some nice detail and paint work and my only critique is I wish it had an optional hose to run to his backpack so we could assume an air compressor was in there. Technically speaking, I don’t think this weapon could actually fire as presented. If that bothers you then you can just hand Dirtbag some of the melee weapons which could also double as just tools if you don’t think he’s such a bad guy. There’s an axe, pick axe, and a shovel and all of them have a nice, distressed, look to the sculpt like they’ve been used over and over. The axe looks especially nice as it has some big gouges in the metal portion and tape wrapped around the handle.

“Hey dude, we don’t really have to fight, do we?”
“Far out!”

By far the craziest accessory though is Dirtbag’s wheel barrow. I don’t recall any past versions of the mole featuring one, but this gave me a chuckle. As far as toy, 1:18 scale wheel barrows go this thing looks pretty great. It has two handles and a nice, deep, “barrow” with a working wheel. It’s such a large and specific accessory to include with a figure that I am left to conclude that the designers over at JoyToy are a bunch of maniacs. It’s great though and it’s another way to store all of Dirtbag’s stuff. In addition to the tools, Dirtbag also comes with another piece of the white base and a disc stand featuring the City Sewer design. I’m a little surprised he didn’t come with a Foot logo stand, but it’s also not something he needs.

Dirtbag being easy to separate at the waist means he can use this digging effect part from the NECA release if you so choose.

Dirtbag, being a chunky and cumbersome design, likely won’t wow anyone with his articulation. For a JoyToy release, he’s pretty much par for the course. We have a double-ball at the head, hinged jaw, ball-hinged shoulders, single hinged elbows, double ball wrists, diaphragm ball joint, waist ball joint, ball-socket hips, thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, hinge and rocker ankles. The tail is also on a double-ball peg and has a bendy wire in it as well, though the bend is fairly limited. Range at his joints is acceptable. The single-hinged elbows also swivel so that is essentially your bicep swivel. The diaphragm joint is pretty nice when it comes to tilt and swivel, but it and the waist offer little in the way of crunch. He’ll also pop apart at the waist easily like Bebop and Rocksteady when kicking the legs out to the side. There just isn’t much room in the crotch area and what happens is the thighs literally force the abdomen off of the ball joint there. It’s not a hard piece to put back together or anything, but it can get annoying. I wish they would lengthen the peg that the ball is molded onto so that it would prevent that from happening as easily in the future. The knees are also gappy, which is a trend with JoyToy and their double-knees. The gap is usually at the very bottom of the joint and there aren’t many poses where this will be visible, but it’s still avoidable with a little more thoughtful engineering.

I don’t think he looks like such a bad guy.

Those critiques are fairly minor as this miner is going to pose probably as well as most would ask of him. He can handle all of his weapons just fine and also the wheel barrow. Dirtbag was the figure in this bundle of three that makes up Wave 6 I was least excited for, but now that he’s in-hand I’ve really come to appreciate him. He has so much stuff, but it all feels useful and purposeful. Well, maybe not the wheel barrow, but it’s so damn wild that they gave him one that I can’t help but love it. Will I actually display it is the real question as that’s quite a bit of shelf real estate, but I think I’m going to have to bring it into the display from time-to-time. In an age where we as tool collectors often obsess over things like mold reuse, it’s awesome seeing a company say “screw that,” and deliver some very specific parts. Dirtbag is a pretty cool release. If you have fond memories of the old toy or the character from the show or video games then you’ll probably enjoy what JoyToy has done with him. He along with his buddy Groundchuck have almost muscled their way into essential territory for me when it comes to TMNT collections to the point where I’m surprised they really haven’t shown up more often. And speaking of, you can probably guess who will be featured here next week so be sure to come back if you want to hear about the cybernetic bull with lethal accuracy!

The JoyToy TMNT collection continues to grow:

JoyToy TMNT Krang

The surprise line of the past year has unleashed perhaps its very best with Krang. Krang dates back to the 1987 cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because that show became such a household name, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of just how insane a character design Krang is. Krang was created by David…

by Joe

JoyToy TMNT Slash and Tokka

I have a couple of turtles to look at for #TurtleTuesday and these guys come courtesy of JoyToy. Slash and Tokka don’t usually associate with each other, but JoyToy doesn’t think that should be the case and I tend to agree.

by Joe

JoyToy TMNT Rahzar

JoyToy is back with their latest wave of 1/18 scale action figures based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and with a character I think we all assumed was on the way. You don’t do a figure of Tokka, the mutated snapping turtle, and not also do a figure of his best buddy, Rahzar. The two…

by Joe

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September 12, 2025

Dragon Ball Daima S.H.Figuarts Vegeta

By Joe
Not so mini Vegeta.

Dragon Ball Daima has come and gone, but we’re still getting action figures based on the limited series. When it comes to the Bandai/Tamashii Nations action figure line, that’s usually par for the course. It’s not like the classic movie tie-in toy line where product shows up in stores weeks before the movie hits theaters. That’s probably for the best as that’s how you end up with massive spoilers like the infamous Phantasm action figure released ahead of the Batman movie Mask of the Phantasm. For the Premium Bandai figure line, the spoilery figures were at least held off until the episode premiered (the Japanese dub, anyway) while a fairly generic figure of someone like Vegeta went up for preorder last year. And likely owing to the ever changing tariff situation in the U.S., it’s actually taken a little longer than initially expected for the figures to arrive in the U.S.

If you like your Vegeta short then this may be the figure for you.

Vegeta – Daima is just that, Vegeta from Dragon Ball Daima. He is still Vegeta, still in his blue and white Saiyan armor, only now he’s styled to reflect the artwork from the show. Dragon Ball Daima has its own distinct look. It’s not far removed from what we have seen out of Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super, but it might be just enough to give some collectors pause if they’re not interested in Daima figures specifically. Bandai has yet to give us a base Vegeta from the Cell Saga or from Dragon Ball Super so this Vegeta might catch the attention of some. It’s also an entirely new sculpt with some new approaches to engineering and it comes at the more budget friendly price of $35. That alone might get enough collectors to take the figure for a spin.

Narrow face, fewer lines, softened features, and a paler complexion kind of sums it up for the Daima style.

Vegeta from Daima is essentially a stream-lined take on the character. Compared to the 2.0 Vegeta sculpt we’ve been receiving variations on for the past 6-7 years it’s more slender and the proportions are overall just a little smaller this time around. Compare one body part on the new figure to one on the old and they’re almost all a little smaller save for maybe the feet. This Vegeta has got some big feet and ears. The face is a little softer compared to the more recent Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, but perhaps more defined than the original Super Saiyan Vegeta on the 2.0 body. He’s also a touch shorter at approximately 4.875″ to the top of his widow’s peek compared with 5″ on the Super Saiyan Blue version, which as the most recent edition on that body is the one I’ve decided to compare directly to.

The new engineering lets him kick quite high. You can even push it higher than this.

The engineering is almost all together different with this Vegeta. Like we’ve seen with other more recent figures in the line, Bandai is experimenting with soft, plastic, overlays instead of just sculpting everything in hard plastic. The upper part of the armor is made of the more rubbery material, though it doesn’t really impact anything as it’s glued down to a plastic chest. Doing it this way basically just allows Bandai to skip out on painting the blue portion of the chest. The crotch piece is also rubbery which should allow for better posing. This does mean there is less paint overall with this figure as it’s limited to the yellow parts of the armor and boots as well as the face and neck. The paint on the neck isn’t perfect, nor is it on the boots, but it’s not so bad that I’d consider either sloppy. The overall look of the figure is solid and there are no mismatched colors at least. Some may not like how the crotch looks with the new articulation, but I can’t honestly say it’s worse than before. The one eyesore is at least reserved for the rear of the figure where Vegeta has been gifted a long, flat, ass. Watching the show, it’s fairly accurate. Old Vegeta has never been blessed with buns, but the figure draws attention to it with a sculpted butt crack where as the show usually omits that detail. The figure probably should have just done the same.

These two are always up for some sparring.

The accessory load-out for this Vegeta is pretty damn good for a $35 action figure. We get a pretty typical spread of hand options including sets of fists, open, clenching, flat palm (i.e. Big Bang Attack), and his two-finger martial arts posed hands. He also has a crossed-arms piece, as many Vegeta figures have featured, which connects at the bicep. It doesn’t separate in the middle like some of the new versions of this piece, but it has some flex and isn’t as annoying to apply as past versions. For expressions, Vegeta has stoic, smirk, yelling, and an angry expression with his eyes looking down and to his right. There’s also a second hair piece. The first is a neutral pose and the second one has some bend to it like it’s being blown by the wind. The faces this time around also do not have any bangs attached to them, they just plug into the hair, and they all look pretty good. The only thing this figure is missing is a stand and an effect part. Bandai usually doesn’t provide either of those even in its more expensive offerings so it’s not a surprise, but Storm and Jada are out here making everyone look bad these days.

Vegeta is having a long ass day.
There’s more range this time around, but it gets gappy.

Whenever we do get a new sculpt from Bandai articulation is the prime driver of curiosity. With Vegeta, Bandai did a lot of what we’re used to while also doing some different things as well. The head is a double ball and the neck is on a ball as well so that all works as expected. He still doesn’t look up well, and for that you’ll need to engage the diaphragm joint. In there, he has some sort of ball hinge setup, but not like the old hinge that allowed the chest to literally rise. This one lets Vegeta bend back a solid amount, but it exposes a pretty large gap in the chest. Going forward is almost nil. There’s another ball joint set into a hinged joint at the waist and it does provide for solid range going forward and back, but like the diaphragm it leads to significant gaps when bent all the way. Rotation and tilt at both is good, but it’s a shame they didn’t extend some of these pieces to fill those gaps.

He’s got the expressions you would expect.

The shoulders are your typical ball-hinge set into a ball peg inside the chest. This allows the shoulder to move up and down and out for a butterfly joint. The butterfly isn’t significant, but it’s enough for Vegeta’s signature maneuvers. The rest of the arm is standard stuff: bicep swivel, double-jointed elbow, ball hinge wrists. The hips are likely standard ball sockets and can go out to the sides for full splits, something past Vegeta figures could not do. He does have those weird fillers Bandai inserts onto the inside of the thigh and I don’t get why they do that. It looks weird. Going forward and back is not a problem either as Vegeta can do those splits as well and even kick past 90 degrees. The crotch flexes plenty and gets out of the way. There are thigh swivels and they look fine, double-jointed knees, and hinged ankles. The ankles do rock side-to-side and there are toe hinges which aren’t great, but you can ignore them if you don’t like them.

“Step aside, worm, I’ll take it from here.”

The articulation is good and bad. That torso falls into the bad and it’s a shame Bandai didn’t do something better with it. On the other hand, comparing this Vegeta to the prior ones I would say the range in the shoulders is better, the hips are way better, and the ankles are superior as well. The head and neck area is basically the same as well as the elbows and knees. I’ll even give the waist to the new figure even if it gets gappy.

Classic Vegeta.

Removing aesthetics from the argument, I would say this Vegeta is an upgrade over the prior one, it just could have been even more of one with a little more tinkering. And if you want to get into aesthetics, I’d say that’s entirely subjective and based on what you think of the Daima art style. I personally like it. I don’t prefer this look to Z or Super Vegeta, but it’s fine. I no longer feel like I need a base Vegeta on the 2.0 body, this will fill that hole well enough. In fact, I would prefer to never buy another Vegeta on that old body. It’s a figure that looks nice, but the articulation shortcomings in the hips and ankles are something I don’t need. And I’ve bought that figure enough already. I suspect we’ll see more from Vegeta and Daima and I’m curious what Bandai will do for the body. I don’t think it would make sense to reuse this body on a powered-up Vegeta, we’ll have to wait and see. I’m also a little surprised we haven’t seen another adult Vegeta solicited yet, but maybe they want to deliver on some of the Premium Bandai offerings first. At $35, this is a good figure and I think most SHF collectors will be happy. It’s really fun to just mess around with and pose and I hope we continue to see more improvements with future figures in the line. I’m left feeling excited for that upcoming Cell Saga Goku due later this year which can’t get here soon enough!

If you like Vegeta and Dragon Ball Daima then we have plenty more for you here:

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Daima Goku (Mini)

When Akira Toriyama sadly passed away in 2024 it shocked the world of manga and anime. While his passing was sudden to those confined to the fandom, he at least had one more adventure to deliver in the world of Dragon Ball that would be unveiled later in the year: Dragon Ball Daima. I’ll talk…

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by Joe

S.H.Figuarts Dragon Ball Z Vegeta – Older Style Battle Clothes

Vegeta is a character who has had a few looks throughout his time in Dragon Ball Z. Almost all of those looks are some variation on his Saiyan armor from his debut with minor tweaks and modifications. Since Vegeta has become one of the most popular characters from the long-running manga/anime, most of those looks…

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by Joe

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September 9, 2025

JoyToy TMNT Rahzar

By Joe
Rahzar is back and this time he’s packing heat!

JoyToy is back with their latest wave of 1/18 scale action figures based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and with a character I think we all assumed was on the way. You don’t do a figure of Tokka, the mutated snapping turtle, and not also do a figure of his best buddy, Rahzar. The two debuted in the franchise’s second film, The Secret of the Ooze, and made the jump to the cartoon series later on. Because a lot of kids saw that movie and had the old Playmates toys the duo have had pretty strong staying power even if the kids of 1991 were disappointed to not see the familiar Bebop and Rocksteady in the film. JoyToy’s take on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has largely been a mix of the cartoon and vintage toy line with a sprinkling of 2003 and even 2012. With Tokka, we got what was actually more of a unique take on the character as he had a pirate theme going on. It left me curious what JoyToy would do when it got to Rahzar, but now we have our answer.

He’s not the biggest boy, but he is a pretty big boy.

JoyToy’s Rahzar is actually quite similar to his appearance in the film. He’s a big ugly wolf decked out in refuse salvaged at a scrap yard. A lot of what’s featured on his person is pretty much a 1:1 match with that film with only minimal differences. One such difference is the grill that he wears on his chest has been given a skeletal appearance instead of gold chrome. The forearm and thigh armor has a silver color palette to it as well. And that’s kind of it. The coloring of Rahzar is a very pale brown for his flesh with a darker brown for his patches of fur. There’s a redness to it, almost like rust, which plays off of the junkyard aesthetic pretty well. I think I would have preferred a little more fur to his look, but the costume in the movie wasn’t completely covered in fur either.

I purposefully waited for Rahzar to be in hand before doing comparisons to past Tokka and Rahzar offerings.

The main difference between this version of Rahzar and the movie is the portrait. There’s a touch more cartoon to the character here as he looks like a conventional toon wolf. It’s the only bit of the cartoon version of the character that I see in this sculpt. The film version is quite unique with a wide snout and lots of teeth poking out. He still has visible teeth, but it’s a much cleaner presentation. The one thing about the face I’m not sold on are his eyes. They’re white with slits for the pupils that start off really thick and thin out as they go down. The angle is a little weird as they don’t follow the curve of the eye. He reminds me of the Disney take on the Big Bad Wolf. It’s a minor critique as overall I do like the look of Rahzar. The paint is clean and the sculpt has a lot of detail. He also has some size at a tick over 5″ making him a little bigger than Bebop and Rocksteady, but obviously not as big as Krang (and probably the Triceratons, who I didn’t get).

As so often is the case, JoyToy packed a ton into this box.

Rahzar comes with a plethora of accessories, most of which aren’t really based on anything from his past appearances. For hands, he has a set of open hands, gripping hands, as well as a right trigger hand and a left fist. I wish we got a set of fist and trigger hands, but it is what it is. Calling back to his appearance in the film, Rahzar comes with a beat-up truck door that he can wield as a shield. It has an old fashioned look to it with a lever door handle and a dented, rusty, paint job. It’s not a very realistic paint job, but it’s probably good enough. The reverse side is surprisingly fully sculpted with a strap to slide over his forearm and a handle he can grab onto. It’s probably easier to pop the hand off first to get it in place. I like that he can duck behind it, but also look through the window, which works well in conjunction with his included firearms.

“Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?”

Rahzar isn’t really thought of as a gun-wielding character, but JoyToy apparently doesn’t care. Rahzar comes with a pump-action, police style, shotgun. The pump doesn’t actually function, but he can hold the weapon one-handed or two-handed without issue. It looks pretty nice and has some decent paint. My only critique here is that it doesn’t have enough of an opening at the end of the barrel to accept an effect part, not that he comes with any. If the shotgun seems too small in his hands, Rahzar also has a bazooka. He can hold it with ease over his shoulder or he can carry it by the handle if he wishes. There’s a sight on it that can line-up with his line of sight pretty well too. And it comes with a missile to plug into the front of it. And that missile is…Rahzar’s head with his tongue hanging out? It’s pretty weird, definitely very cartoony. I’m not sure if Wile E. Coyote would even go for something like this. If you think it’s too goofy you obviously don’t have to use it, but it’s certainly a memorable item.

This missile is ludicrous.

Rahzar also has some handheld items to turn to if guns aren’t your thing. Similar to Slash and Tokka, he has some bladed weapons he can grip. They have a curved blade on one side and more of a spearhead on the front. On the other side is a small tooth-like point. He also has a massive, spiked, staff that reminds me of the big, padded, weapons you would see during an episode of American Gladiators. It’s got some nice silver paint and it can snap into the back hook on Rahzar’s harness. Lastly, we have two items that are more of a callback to his animated appearance. There’s a big old hunk of bone in meat with a massive bite removed as well as a kebob. The kebob is on a giant skewer and the food can actually be removed if you want. There’s also a pretty massive, chocolate-frosted, pre-fight donut. I guess this one would be called a Texas donut. If you prefer your Rahzar to be more of a food monster than a violent enemy, you have your options. There’s also a chunk of the white stone base included and a circular disc stand with the city sewer pattern printed on.

They go well together.
Food monster.
The ancient traditions must be respected.

Rahzar is about as well articulated as most of the figures we’ve seen in the line up to now. And like most, he’s also rather bulky because of all of the optional pieces tacked onto him in the form of thigh guards, shoulder pads, and his loincloth. The head is a double ball peg with a hinged jaw. It looks down, but not really up. From there we have hinged-ball shoulders, bicep swivels, double elbows, double ball wrists, ball jointed diaphragm, ball waist, steel double ball hips (like Krang), thigh swivels, double-jointed knees, ball-jointed ankles. He gets plus range at the knees, elbows, and hips with those steel joints doing a really nice job. The thigh swivel is built into the hip joint so it’s not a cut meaning it won’t have the same range, but it looks nicer. The torso is really limited though owing to the grill on the front. The left shoulder on mine also has this annoying tendency to pop out of the socket, while the right seems fine. The shoulder pauldrons are attached via a loop that goes over the shoulder peg so it’s not particularly restricting. The way the upper body is sculpted is what forces the arm to an angle and I think that’s what makes the arm want to pop out on me. It goes back in without any fuss.

“Mama!”

Rahzar will have enough articulation for most. I wish his head had a little more range and that JoyToy did something to make the diaphragm work better. Putting the grill on a swivel or hinge might have accomplished that. He certainly looks cool though and he can wield his various weapons and accessories convincingly. Rahzar will fit in with Tokka and maybe they’ll even invite Slash to join him since those two have been hanging out together while I waited for Rahzar’s arrival. I don’t think Rahzar is my favorite design in the line so far, but he does handle nicely and feels good. I wish all of the figures could have this hip setup, but I’m guessing it’s a lot more expensive than an all plastic approach. It has one seemingly major advantage though which will be discussed in the reviews to come as Rahzar is the only figure in this wave with the steel hips. If you’re in on this line, get Rahzar. You won’t be disappointed.

The JoyToy line is really filling out:

JoyToy TMNT Slash and Tokka

I have a couple of turtles to look at for #TurtleTuesday and these guys come courtesy of JoyToy. Slash and Tokka don’t usually associate with each other, but JoyToy doesn’t think that should be the case and I tend to agree.

Keep reading
by Joe

JoyToy TMNT Krang

The surprise line of the past year has unleashed perhaps its very best with Krang. Krang dates back to the 1987 cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because that show became such a household name, it’s sometimes easy to lose sight of just how insane a character design Krang is. Krang was created by David…

Keep reading
by Joe

JoyToy TMNT Rocksteady and Beebop

No, that is not a typo you see in the title of this entry. This is a review of the JoyToy versions of classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles henchmen Beebop and Rocksteady. I don’t know why it says Beebop on the box, but this is a Chinese company and English is probably not the primary…

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by Joe

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September 4, 2025

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Waves 3, a bit of 4, and most of 5

By Joe
The Springfield on your shelf has made some additions these past few weeks.

One thing I wasn’t expecting for 2025 was that the hardest line to collect would be The Simpsons by Jakks Pacific. It’s a mass retail release so, if anything, I thought it would be pretty easy. My assumption has been proven wrong and I think it’s because this is a line that is trying to serve too many audiences. It’s Jakks and they specialize in lower cost toys sold at Walmart and Target for brands like Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. With The Simpsons, Jakks has basically taken that same approach with a property that probably doesn’t have much appeal to kids. It’s adults that are likely buying these and it’s adult collectors who want every character. Jakks keeps sending plenty of Homers and Barts to the stores while collectors struggle to find the Lennys and Carls. Jakks also doesn’t prioritize selling these things to more collector friendly outlets making it quite difficult to just preorder what you want.

Despite that frustration, I will say the line is pretty solid for what it is: a low cost, articulated, line of characters as seen on The Simpsons. It’s a better take on the old Playmates Toys World of Springfield line, though it has so far lacked the dioramas of that line which seemed to be reserved for the 2.5″ scale line. I’m definitely only interested in the 5″ scale line with only few exceptions and I’m mostly happy with it. I do wish they were more selective with their expressions on the figures, but that seems to be something that’s getting better which we’re going to talk about today.

It was a little while ago that I found Wave 3 in my travels. I wanted to do a combined Wave 3 and Wave 4 post, but I’ve been unable to get all of the figures from Wave 4 that I’m out looking for. Since then, I’ve received Wave 5 so we’re just going to skip over the missing figures which for me are Carl Carlson and Bumblebee Man. The fourth figure in the line is blue shirt Bart which I don’t need. I also didn’t want hockey Bart from Wave 5, but he does look fine if you’re into that variant. Let’s blast through these though as there isn’t a ton to talk about for each.

Marge and her big baby have arrived to complete the family.

The headliner for Wave 3 was Marge Simpson. We got Homer, Bart, and Lisa in the first two waves leaving her as the family member most needed. She is easily the tallest figure so far standing at 5.75″ to the top of her hair. She also might be the most on-model of the family as she has a slight smile which works well as a default portrait and her hair bends ever so slightly back. Everything is where it should be with her red pearl necklace, green dress, and a butt that won’t quit. The only thing I don’t care for about the presentation is the very visible seem line in her hair about 2/3rds of the way up. Apparently, they couldn’t cast it as one piece? It’s a bit odd. She also can’t articulate for crap because the dress kills basically everything from the waist down. You’ll only be posing her arms.

The scale will never stop bothering me with this line.

And if you’re saying to yourself, “Hey! What about Maggie?” – don’t worry, for she is Marge’s lone accessory. Yeah, it kind of stinks that Marge doesn’t come with something fun like a potato or toxic drinking water, but it’s definitely great that we got Maggie. She’s in her blue onesie with her trusty pacifier in place. Jakks gave her articulation at the head, shoulders, and waist which is basically a ball joint that lets her rotate and pivot. The only issue with Maggie is the same as the rest of the kids: she’s way out of scale with the adults. Her head is the same size as Marge’s and she looks ridiculous in Marge’s arms, if you can get her to stand while holding Maggie. Since she basically is an accessory she doesn’t actually come with any. It might have been a better release model if Jakks gave Marge some accessories and sold Maggie with the Simpson pets as a three pack, but hey, at least we have the whole family.

He can’t properly grip the bat or scratch himself in sensitive areas, but I’m such a mark for the episode that I have to like this Homer.

The Homer variant of Wave 3 is Home Run Homer from the iconic episode “Homer at the Bat.” That’s the one where Homer joins the Nuclear Power softball league with his trusty Wonder Bat. Homer is basically the same head as the first wave Homer with a body clad in his softball uniform. The body is mostly new since the uniform requires red piping which Jakks did with plastic instead of paint. I think the only paint might be his name on the chest, the white belt loops, black belt buckle, and gray spikes on the bottoms of his cleats. For accessories, Homer has a removable hat and good old Wonder Bat. He looks really nice, though the hat is quite large on his head making me question the decision to make it removable and not just part of the sculpt. The real downer though is Homer’s inability to hold his bat with two hands. Solicitation images implied this was possible, but they lied. He also lacks a vertical hinge for his wrists so he can’t call his shot. I would have preferred better articulation and a new expression as well. Still, as a representative from one of my personal favorite episodes, I can’t not like this one.

The mug is nice and round so Lenny doesn’t have to worry about it injuring his eye. The bag on the other hand…

Another member of that famous softball team, Lenny Leonard, also finds himself in Wave 3. Unlike Homer though, this is standard Lenny as one would find him at work at Springfield’s Nuclear Power Plant. Jakks did a good job with getting the color of Lenny’s olive shirt right and I like that he has half-closed eyes as his expression. Lenny is a bit trickier to render in three dimensions so he doesn’t look as on-model as Marge and Homer, but that’s mostly just from the front. If you view him as he would normally be presented in the show from the side or at a three quarters angle he looks solid. His hair is also just a little off as Jakks took an almost semi-realistic view to the shape. In that, it reminds me of their Sonic figures and how his hair (quils) is tough to translate into 3D. For accessories, Lenny has a mug of coffee and a bag lunch. Perfectly suitable for him, and at least he doesn’t have to worry about getting any pudding in his eye.

His mom says he’s cool while his music teacher insists that no one likes him. Who are you going to believe?

The last figure of Wave 3 is the little wiener nobody likes: Milhouse. I kid, of course, as I do like this figure which comes with perhaps the most ambitious accessory in the line yet: a bicycle. It would have been a lot cheaper to just give him an issue of Biclops, though it also would have been funnier to actually give him Lisa’s bike. Milhouse looks great though, but suffers from the child scaling like Bart and Lisa. His articulation is essentially the same as Bart and he can sit on the bike fairly convincingly. The bike has a stand, though it can still be tricky to get Milhouse properly balanced on it. The one difference with Bart that’s a bit odd is Jakks sculpted his knee articulation into his shorts rather than have it begin just past them. I suppose his shorts are traditionally longer than Bart’s, but it does look a bit weird. It’s also extra noticeable since he needs to bend his knees to ride his bike. That aside, he does look good and I think he turned out better than Bart and Lisa.

Carl’s absence feels especially painful now. And that’s the Super7 Faming Moe, if you’re curious.

As I mentioned before, Wave 4 is the one I’m struggling with and the only figure I’ve managed to land is Barney Gumble. If that’s the only I can find at least it might be the best. Barney rivals Marge for title of most on-model which is impressive considering he has a design that should also be hard to translate. He scales well with Homer, Moe, and Lenny and has that perfect dead-ass drunk expression. If I have one critique, it’s that his shirt is too orange when it should be closer to a salmon. He actually articulates pretty damn well and comes with two accessories: a lunchbox and a big hoagie. Yeah, they don’t really make much sense for Barney, but Jakks wasn’t going to pack alcohol related accessories in with him. I’m struggling to think of anything from the show that would work. I guess they could have given him a soda can, but that would be equally lame. Maybe that plant he never watered? A cup of quarters? No, that might be too close to a gambling reference. Maybe this should just have been the first alternate portrait in the line of Barney mid belch?

“The problem with kids these days…”

Wave 5 is where we’re getting some more side characters, though I would say it’s headlined by the inclusion of Abe “Grandpa” Simpson. This is where Jakks seems to be taking the portrait criticism to heart as Abe appears to be clearly modeled after the “Old man yells at cloud,” meme. I just find it ironic that they took this approach with a character who would have looked good with a dead-eyed stare. Still, I do like it though Abe’s head looks a little fat to me. The forehead area doesn’t have as dramatic a slope to it so he’s a bit off-model. It’s almost like a more Saturday morning approach to the character. The sculpt of his shirt looks nice though and his bolo tie is painted. His glasses are also clear plastic unlike Milhouse who has his eyes painted onto the lenses. The eyeglasses are too thick, a frequent issue for toy manufacturers, as well. His lone accessory is a cane and that suits him. If I am allowed to be pedantic, and Simpsons fans are known for such, Jakks did screw up by making his left hand the fisted hand and the right the gripping hand if they wanted to properly match the Old man yells at cloud image. I’ll let it slide though.

I don’t really care for any of Mrs. K’s accessories so I think I’ll just give her Lenny’s coffee.

Bart’s teach, Mrs. Krabappel, finds herself among the characters of Wave 5. Like Lenny, she’s a bit off-model as she has a head that’s tough to render in three dimensions. Her eyes are off and it throws off the look of her as they’re too narrow and elongated. A half-lidded approach might have served her well and some bag lines under the eyes. She’s a little too happy and glowing for the downtrodden teacher. She also suffers from the same issue as Marge where her plastic skirt hinders any articulation she may have at the waist and below. Her accessories are a ruler and an eraser, which I guess is fine. I honestly would have been okay with a repeat of Lenny’s coffee mug or her picture of Woodrow. There’s no paint on either accessory so they don’t look great and you can barely tell the ruler is sculpted. She can hold them though so I guess that works.

Out of the box, he could hold his breath spray, but I left him holding his glass of OJ for too long and now he can’t.

The last figure we’re going to take a look at is everyone’s favorite aquatic lifeform enthusiast, Troy McClure. You may remember him from such toy lines as The World of Springfield and Super7 ReAction! He’s depicted in his traditional look of pink sweater, red tie, and white pants. He has a nice, toothy, grin and I like that Jakks did include some bags under the eyes for old Troy, though some crow’s feet would have helped too. The head is maybe a tad undersized as it looks a bit off-model to me. I’m also surprised they went with an open mouth instead of just his smile, but I don’t mind as it makes him look like he’s in mid sentence. They also didn’t give him a microphone which surprised me and instead he has his breath spray from the episode “A Fish Called Selma.” I had to look at the package to figure out what it was as it looks more like a bottle with a screw top. His other accessory is pretty great though: The Juice Loosener. As seen in the episode “Marge in Chains,” the Juice Loosener is a juicer with horrible efficiency as illustrated by the included glass with an orange, circular, sticker on the bottom to show how much juice one can expect to get from an entire bag of oranges. It’s pretty great, and since Troy has a thumb’s up gesture for his left hand, he can hold the glass in his right (FYI: not an easy fit) and enthusiastically gesture with his left!

Sure would be nice to have a bully to chase these two. Or a principal.

That’s going to do it for this look at some Jakks Pacific Simpsons figures. I would say, in short, Marge, Barney, Milhouse, and Home Run Homer turned out pretty great by the standards of the line. The rest are pretty good, including Maggie, though suffer from being a bit off-model. I find Mrs. Krabappel to be the least interesting of them because it doesn’t capture the right spirit of the character for me. She’s sarcastic while this figure makes her look more like the ideal teacher eager to spread some knowledge. It’s hard to argue though that this isn’t a solid selection of characters. I assume we’ll be seeing the likes of Skinner, Ralph, and maybe even Super Intendent Chalmers pretty soon. Jasper would pair well with Abe, and we still don’t have a 5″ scale Flanders or Sideshow Bob. If the next wave has been announced I missed it, but I’ll also remain on the hunt for Bumblebee Man and especially Carl. My Lenny needs his Carl as do the other denizens of Moe’s Tavern.

We’ve got more Simpsons goodness from Jakks and others:

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons Homer and Bart

I think it was early this year that we found out Super7’s line of ReAction and Ultimates! action figures based on The Simpsons was ending after just a couple of years. That meant Super7 was done after four waves of Ultimates! and four waves of ReAction figures. We had seen figures for a possible fifth…

by Joe

Jakks Pacific The Simpsons – The Rest of Wave 1 and Wave 2

Back in October, we took a look at the very first wave of action figures from Jakks Pacific based on The Simpsons. At the time, I only had two figures from that inaugural wave: Homer and Bart. It was a series of great interest to myself and other Simpsons fans since it’s existence basically meant…

by Joe

Lego 10352 – The Simpsons – Krusty Burger

It has been just over 10 years since I last posted about a Lego set featuring The Simpsons. That last set, the Kwik-E-Mart, came out in 2015 and was preceded by the home of the Simpson family the year prior. Those sets along with two waves of mini figures seemed to sell pretty well, but…

by Joe

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September 2, 2025

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Triceraton

By Joe
Dinosaurs from space – what’s not to like?

My summer of discounts continues today with yet another Super7 Ultimates! release. Back when wave 7 of Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was unveiled I quickly locked in a preorder for three figures: Punker Don, Robotic Bebop, and Triceraton. By the time the line released way, way, late, I only ended up with two of those three figures. That’s because as product was coming out and impressions and images were being shared online, there was one figure in that set I wasn’t willing to drop $55 on: Triceraton. Triceraton was one of my favorites in the vintage Playmates line. I got him along with Slash and for me the two were a pair of intergalactic do-badders. The figure was on my short list of wants from Super7 so I didn’t cancel that preorder hastily, but I did. Now that I’ve been able to get the figure for considerably less, the hope here is that I’ll be way more happy now than I would have been had I spent $55 on it.

For a big boy, he sure comes with a lot of stuff.

Super7 used to have a pretty good thing going. It got to take action figures that were 30 years old, upscale them, cut in some more articulation, and call it a day. It was a simple business model that seemed to please TMNT collectors. Who it didn’t please was Playmates. And as much as it annoys me that Super7 has seemingly been forced to cancel its vintage-inspired line of TMNT figures, I also get it. Triceraton is a perfect example of the basic approach the company was taking in that this is barely any different from the figure released back in the day. He’s just bigger. There’s a bit more paint, there’s some more joints, and the accessories are all painted now. There are some new accessories as well, but this thing is not much of a departure from the Playmates original. Considering how much I like that old figure, I’m happy with the approach here. Some figures I’ve wanted Super7 to make more alterations to, but this isn’t one of them.

I like how this guy scales.
With some NECA dinos.

Triceraton comes in the old style of Ultimates! box complete with a purple, personalized, slip-cover. The figure is a beast at just about 8″ to the top of whatever that ridge is on the back of the head of a triceratops. He’s not just tall, but chunky, and there’s some weight to this boy. Shockingly, he might be the third biggest figure in the wave he was a part of thanks to Robotic Bebop and the massive Guerilla Gorilla. Like I said, the design does not stray from what Playmates did before. The skin is orange, there’s still the blue around the eyes, the right horn is wrapped in green, and he’s got that weird, blue, abdomen. The base color for most of the figure is orange, but Super7 elected to apply a wash to the skin which really adds some depth. It’s fully textured too and the finish is really strong. The armor on the torso is a lustrous silver and they nailed the shade of blue Playmates used for its own figure. The belt is now fully painted with brown and silver and the rats dangling from the belt are also fully painted. The silver and purple on the forearms is painted cleanly as is the fingerless glove on the right hand. The only painted part that looks off is the exposed flesh on the legs which is orange painted over green and it’s pretty obvious. That’s kind of it though as this is a strong looking action figure and it’s easily the figure’s best selling point.

Snack time!

The figure also comes pretty loaded with accessories. We don’t get a second head, but we get three sets of hands: gripping, fists, and a clenching/style posed hand. He also has updated versions of his old guns. There’s the one that looks like a machine gun and one that looks like some laser or something. They’re both done on silver plastic, but hit with a spray of light, metallic, blue paint that looks really cool. That’s the old stuff, for new stuff we get a pair of canister grenades. They’re the same style that’s molded on the belt of the current and vintage version so it’s cool to get some as actual accessories. They’re also painted silver and they fit well in the clenching hands. We also get two wrist accessories. The first one appears to fit on the right forearm and has a communicator or something on it. It flips open and it’s all silver. It would have been neat if the screen was painted a different color, but it’s cool, though a little tough to get the clasps in place. For the left forearm, there’s a strap-on energy sword. It’s basically all silver with the blade done in translucent green. It’s very fitting for the line and looks pretty bad ass though it too is a bit of a pain to get strapped into place. Triceraton also has a respirator since Earth’s oxygen levels are poisonous to him. It’s done with a gummy plastic that’s very pliable. The mask and hose are transparent with the straps brown. It’s connected to a monitor that’s silver and clips onto his belt. It’s very easy to get onto the figure and I think it looks great, though like the wrist communicator, I wish the monitor had more detailed paint work. Lastly, there’s a third rat for him to snack on or you can just add it to Rat King, but he might not appreciate that it’s dead.

“What’s wrong? Can’t look up?”

The figure looks great and comes with a lot of stuff. The old accessories are here and the new ones are actually pretty awesome, so why didn’t I want to pay full price? It all comes down to articulation. And not just how much the figure moves, but what some of the articulation choices did to the look of the figure. This guy is has more points of articulation than the original, but functionally there isn’t much of an upgrade here. For joints, we get head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrist, waist, hips, knees, ankles, and tail. Of those, the ones that function only as a swivel joint include the head, waist, and tail. If the head is on a ball joint, it’s not getting any benefit from it. The elbows and knees swivel, but the hinge joint is useless in both places. For elbow, the range of motion is maybe 30 degrees. It’s almost nothing. The bicep swivel basically doesn’t work. The wrists rotate and hinge fine, but the hinge for the gripping hands is the wrong hinge. The hips and ankles are pretty much the only joints that work well.

That’s as far as it goes.
What is this shit?!

And there’s the knees. The hinge joint has decent range. It’s less than 90 degrees, but it’s what we’ve come to expect from this line. The aesthetics though are trash. This is a character with holes in his pants over his knees and Super7 did not consider that when cutting in the articulation. It can bend only a minimal amount before exposing the big, green, hinge right in the middle of that patch of orange “flesh.” It looks so hideous that I honestly can’t imagine ever posing this guy with his knees bent which sucks. Why they didn’t just confine the openings in the pants to be above the joint is beyond me. That would have been the simplest solution. Or they could have done an overlay for the pants. I get why they didn’t just use an orange hinge as then there would be an ugly orange block of plastic on the back of the knee and it too would look stupid. You could argue it would be better to have the eyesore on the back of the figure as opposed to the front, but Super7 seems to always prioritize a neutral pose and that’s their right. It’s just another example of Super7 encountering a problem during the engineering process of an action figure and having no answer. And rather than try to come up with one, they just say “screw it.”

At least these guys look pretty good together.

This figure is a glorified 5 POA figure. You will get rotation at the head, shoulders, wrists, and waist. The hips articulation is only so useful without knee articulation and that’s a shame. A ball-joint at the waist would have been nice and another joint in the diaphragm too. The design of the figure seems accommodating for such with the chest armor and the divided abdomen thanks to the blue coloring. Super7 opted not to cut it up though which would be defensible if we were getting better articulation out of the joints already present. The head being just a swivel is pretty terrible too. The NECA Triceraton is a very similar sculpt and that guy can look straight up. There’s really no excuse for what’s present.

I think they’re going to need some help taking this guy down.

And that’s why I refused to pay full price for Super7’s Triceraton. There’s a lot I like about this figure and a lot that just drives me crazy. It’s a very good microcosm of the Super7 experience: it’s big, it looks good, it moves like shit, and costs too damn much. For $55, I obviously can’t recommend it which is why I didn’t buy it. For $32, which is what I paid for it, I think it’s acceptable. I have a big, orange, dinosaur that’s going to look cool in my TMNT collection and it only cost 2 dollars more than those silly vintage style figures Super7 does. He’s not going to be fun to play with and pose, but at least he has enough stuff that he can have his look changed up to some degree (though I’m probably going to just keep everything on him). And for $32 I think that’s good enough, but only just barely. I got mine from Big Bad Toy Store where the figure is still priced at $32 so if you want him, go get him.

Check out some more Super7 discount all-stars:

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Wingnut & Screwloose

Late in 2023, Super7 started shipping the ninth wave of its line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! action figures. I bought none. It was a wave with no compelling characters for me as it contained Slam Dunkin’ Donatello, Scumbug, Wingnut & Screwloose, Zak the Neutrino, and a flocked Master Splinter variant. Scumbug had been…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Foot Soldier (Battle Damaged)

The last Super7 review I did was for the wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles based on the 2003 cartoon and I concluded it by speculating it would be awhile before I found a reason to review another figure from Super7. That turned out to be a lie. With it being revealed that Super7 has…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Mutagen Ooze Leonardo (now with the rest!)

If you’re into collecting action figures then you’re likely familiar with the concept of a variant. Tooling action figures, the process of cutting steel into molds in which plastic is inserted to create the figure, is the most expensive part of creating an action figure. That’s why it’s in the manufacturer’s best interest to get…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in toys

August 28, 2025

Storm Arena Street Fighter Alpha 3 Ken

By Joe
Who’s cooler than Ryu? Ken!

One of my most anticipated releases of 2025 came out of no where. I was a kid during the early 90s and into video games so I know a thing or two about Street Fighter. Street Fighter II was everywhere and is pretty much the reason why the one-on-one fighting game became a huge genre for arcades and home consoles. I actually never owned a copy of that game which kind of surprises me to this day, but it’s mostly because I always had access to it via cousins and friends. Plus, not long after the game took off the copycats started showing up and I found myself lured in by the violence on display in Mortal Kombat. That ended up being my fighting game franchise of choice until later in the decade when I found myself the unexpected owner of a Sony PlayStation. A lot of the franchises I had grown up with in gaming just weren’t available on Sony’s machine early on, but Street Fighter was. Street Fighter Alpha ended up being the third game I’d get for my PlayStation (after Doom and Twisted Metal) and thus it became my most played game in the franchise so these character designs stand out for me the most. Still, I didn’t think I’d be all that interested in an action figure line should one surface.

Ken comes with a solid spread of accessories for the price.

The past couple of years, Jada has been making waves with its figures based on Ultra Street Fighter II. I’ve basically admired them from afar, but otherwise haven’t been that tempted to dive-in because I just don’t need that kind of collection in my life. Then along came Storm Collectibles and its Storm Arena line. Storm was known to me for its many video game-based toy lines, but they were always in a weird scale and pretty damn expensive. Still, they looked so good that I’ve considered getting one just to basically try them out, but I’ve never pulled the trigger. The Arena line is a new one for them and it’s more of a true 1:12 scale line. Their own lines were always billed as 1:12, but they were way bigger. For the Arena line, Storm secured the Street Fighter license from Capcom and went with looks based on Street Fighter Alpha 3, which was pretty much the same as the first Alpha game. And the best part of all was the price of $26. I may not have benefitted directly in buying a Jada figure, but I have to believer their line and pricing are huge reasons why this line from Storm is being priced so low.

I suspect Marvel vs Capcom fans will have real interest in this line.

Ken is the first release in the line which works for me as I always preferred him to Ryu. At least stylistically, Ryu’s hyper Hadoken super move was definitely way easier to pull-off than Ken’s Shoryuken based super, but not without its uses. Packaging for the line is very similar to most import offerings like S.H.Figuarts and MAFEX as it’s a window box with some game art. There is a lot of plastic used to protect the figure inside so the window is obscured, but I’ll take it over a figure with smeared paint. Ken stands at about 6.125″ to the top of his head which is a pretty decent height for what is probably the most basic sized character in the line. I’m fairly certain this same body is used for Ryu and it might be in use for the upcoming Dan.

I’ve always gotten the impression that Ken is one cocky S.O.B.

Ken is very true to his appearance in the Alpha series. There is more an anime look to the design and he has his long hair which is tied off with a red ribbon. The gi is pretty much the same as his look in other games as it’s red with a black belt. It’s also sleeveless and he wears some yellow gloves. The basic design for these figures is colored plastic throughout, a soft, rubber, overlay for the torso, a soft rubber overlay for the upper part of the gi, and soft, rubbery, hands and hair. Paint is mostly reserved for the face and gloves, but there’s also some light shading all throughout the red. The gi is also textured and Storm did a nice job of matching the shades of red between the mixed media. The figure absorbs light well despite not having a real painted finish. It doesn’t have a plastic look and does have a more premium look than something like Marvel Legends despite basically being the same price.

If you’re of a Hadoken person you’ll need to get Ryu.

The price of admission may be relatively cheap, but that doesn’t mean Storm is skimping on accessories. Ken comes with two portraits – neutral and a smirk. The neutral expression has almost a hint of a smile and exudes cockiness, which feels appropriate for Ken. The smirk is a nice companion, though mine had a black dot on the chin. I normally leave my set as-is for my reviews, but I was so annoyed by it that I’ve already fixed it (a Magic Eraser sheet did the job). For hands, Ken has a set of fists, Hadoken posed, a right peace gesture, and a left “come here” gesture. There’s also an effect piece for his Shoryuken attack. It’s an acrylic piece that fits over his fist and has a nice yellow to orange to red gradient. If you want the Hadoken you have to get Ryu. I wouldn’t be surprised if alternate colorways crop up with different effect parts. There’s also an included stand, though it’s not a great one. It’s a disc with a post that plugs in and on that post is a sliding piece that’s ratcheted. The sliding piece can accept an acrylic clamp that’s similar to a doll stand. It works off of pressure as the further you slide it into the holster the tighter the clamp. There’s also a black, metal, version included though I’m not sure what advantage that offers over the plastic one. Mine also has a rubber piece over one side of the clamp, but not the other. I’ve hear some people didn’t get the black piece at all. The stand works, but it can be a challenge to balance. I’ve had Ken take a couple of tumbles because the weight wasn’t distributed properly. The base could stand to be heavier or bigger.

The stand can be a little tricky to balance, but it works.

Criticisms of the stand aside, it is still a stand that works and it’s included along with an alternate portrait, two extra sets of hands, and an effect part all for $26. Most Marvel Legends only come with an extra set of hands and maybe another head. This is a nice spread for the price and Storm is giving collectors pretty much all that they need for a Ken display. A Hadoken would have been nice, but that would also mean we would need another stand for that. They did opt to make the hair non-removable from the heads so if there’s one critique it could be that one of the heads could have had a different shape to the hair and if they were interchangeable it would add to the display options.

He’s going to hit all of those “Ken” poses.

The look and accessories are great, but the real selling point of a Storm figure for me is the articulation. Storm has a good reputation in this area and it’s what I was most excited to test out with this figure. The articulation points are even more than what one would expect of a super articulated line: double ball peg head, ball neck, hinged ball shoulders, butterfly, bicep swivel, double-elbows, ball-hinged wrists, diaphragm ball joint, waist ball, ab crunch, ball and socket drop-down hips, thigh swivel, double knees, ankle swivel, ankle hinge, ankle rocker, toe hinge. Range everywhere is pretty damn good. The head can’t look up as well as maybe some would want, but it’s because of the long hair. Storm took advantage of the character to design to get as much articulation into the figure as possible. The ab crunch is an example as it would be pretty ugly on a shirt-less figure, but with Ken it’s a non-issue. They actually were going to use it on the famously shirtless Sagat, but scrapped it because fans thought it was ugly. The gi is removable on Ken which will allow you to really push some of the joints to the extreme, but again, Storm took advantage of the design to make it work as best as it could with the gi on. Taking it off reveals an odd sculpt that tapers in dramatically at the waist to make sure the figure isn’t overly bulky with it on. You can do it, but it will look kind of stupid. I had a tough time with it so I didn’t end up taking any shirtless pics of Ken, but you can certainly find them in other reviews if you wish.

What are you doing? You’re both Capcom, you need to unite against the Marvel!

The articulation is as advertised. Ken can hit all of his signature poses without much of an issue. The classic Hadoken pose does require some fiddling, but it is doable. He can also kick super high and hit the splits. The drop-down hips are on a big hinge and there’s no looseness. I don’t know that it adds much, but it’s not as annoying as other drop-down hips nor does it feel fragile like some other figures in my collection. This guy feels very sturdy and the joints are all smooth. There’s no looseness anywhere and nothing was even remotely stuck on mine. The aesthetics of the joints are all plus with perhaps the only thing close to an eyesore being the feet. There’s a little gap between the ankle and feet which provides for excellent range on the hinge, but might be too much of a gap for some. I’m personally okay with it, but the cut-up look of the bare feet in general might turn some off.

This won’t be my last purchase in this line.

I find it hard to believe though that the feet would be a dealbreaker for anyone. I can’t think of anything with this figure that would be a deal breaker for an action figure collector. If you don’t care about Ken or Street Fighter Alpha then, yeah, you probably won’t feel compelled to buy this. Or maybe you will? I thought I didn’t care enough to take a look, but the allure of this one was too strong. This is a really well-constructed action figure at an incredible price. The price has ticked up since it was originally announced, but not substantially. I think Big Bad Toy Store has it for $28 now because of rising costs associated with tariffs and other such nonsense. Hopefully it doesn’t get worse and hopefully this isn’t some introductory price to lure us in. Sagat is more expensive, but he’s substantially larger and that’s the same sort of thing Jada does with its line too. This figure really is a contender for figure of the year. I don’t think Storm could have done much better, or any other company. I’m not all-in on this line, but I’m definitely getting Ryu and Sagat and I’ll keep my eyes on it. I’d love to see Akuma, Blanka, and some others and I’m sure they’ll be announced at some point. Dan is currently up for preorder and we’ve seen Charlie and Chun-Li as well. If Storm can deliver on this level of quality at this price with the rest I don’t see many other toy lines beating it.

This Ken figure may be from Street Fighter Alpha 3, but I think Marvel vs Capcom fans will be very interested as well:

Jada Toys Mega Man

We just had 11 consecutive weeks of action figure reviews on Super7’s line of figures based on The Simpsons. Things were getting pretty negative in that sphere as that line went out with a whimper. I don’t like reviewing bad figures and it’s mostly because everything I review here I buy for my own collection.…

by Joe

Marvel Legends Retro Iron Man and Plasma Canon

90’s nostalgia has taken me on a ride of late. I could blame X-Men ’97, but it could just be me getting older and having more fondness for the decades that have come and gone. It’s not a bad thing, but it can be bad for the wallet. Lately, I started looking at my somewhat…

by Joe

Arcade 1Up Marvel Super Heroes Counter-Cade

Arcade 1Up has been around for a few years now selling arcade cabinets at a reduced size and also a reduced price. The cabinets are significantly smaller than an actual arcade cabinet, but still plenty large enough to take up a lot of floor space in your home. And while they’re cheaper than the “real…

by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in toys, Video Games

August 26, 2025

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Elite Foot Assassin

By Joe
There’s a doings a-foot.

NECA has gradually built out the ranks for Shredder’s Foot Clan via its line of action figures based on the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as published by Mirage Studios. The clan got started way back in 2016 with a box set released in conjunction with New York Comic Con. That set featured Shredder, two Foot ninja, and a Foot Elite ninja. The sculpts were based on the original Eastman and Laird intended one-shot that became anything but. As the comic went on, the look of just about every character changed. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird grew as artists and refined some of the looks they had devised initially. Once TMNT became a marketing juggernaut, the pair stepped back allowed other artists such as Jim Lawson to work on the books which further moved the characters away from their initial looks. NECA has marked that with its re-release of the turtles which emulate the work of Lawson and now we’ve moved onto other characters like the Foot Elite Assassin.

He’s far more intimidating than the old Foot Elite.

I’m not sure if the Elite Assassin was ever intended to be different from the old Foot Elite. With Shredder dead, these guys basically assumed leadership of the Foot Clan and they were depicted as bigger and badder than what NECA gave us back in 2016. The design is more or less the same though as a regular Foot ninja with a faceguard like Shredder, a round hat resembling a conical sedge hat, and the remnants of a cape or cloak. Where this guy differs from the old look is in the proportions and overall size. He comes in at just about a full 7″ to the top of his head. His chest is much broader and there’s more meat front to back as well. His arms and legs are equally beefy, though not on the same level as the Foot Enforcer. He’s overall just way more imposing and shares none of his parts with the old figure.

He also has some size on the turtles.

The version of the figure I’m looking at today is the standard colors one. We already have seen two other colorways with the first one being an all red and black edition. I think that one is based on the IDW reissues, but there’s also a black and white one which was released around the same time as this standard one. The standard one follows the basic Foot coloring with a brownish-red tunic, gray pants, and brown wraps on the forearms and shins. There’s a big brown sash across the midsection and from the hat drapes a red hood of sorts that leaves the face visible. For the face, we have the faceguard which is done in silver and the flesh is painted all in shadow with two, beady, white eyes peering through. The hat can be removed and the red hood is attached to it. Doing so reveals a somewhat comically small head, but if the head was made any bigger it would probably look a little too big with the added hood. Plus, it’s not meant to be displayed without the hat since it leaves a big peg hole in the top of the head sort of like a Lego mini figure.

If you don’t like the cape it can easily be removed.

The paint is fairly simple, but clean, and has the usual NECA comic embellishments. There’s a lot of linework the emphasize the muscles and to outline all of the wraps. There it’s remarkably clean though if you get in close you’re likely to find some places where the linework doesn’t precisely match the carved-out groove. The faceguard is a nice, metallic, silver and the forearm armor contains a hit of light blue shading at the edges to create the illusion of a metallic surface. It’s a nice effect and so simple which makes it a shame that other companies don’t do the same with their figures often opting to just use bare, gray, plastic for metal parts. I do very much like the proportions on this guy so a tip of the hat to sculptor Gurjeet Singh. Nicole Falk is also credited, though I see her name most often credited with “fabrication” which makes me think she handled the cloak, which is also well-tailored and looks fabulous. Geoffrey Trapp and Mike Puzzo handled the paint for this guy.

Oops
Time’s up, turtles!

The Elite Assassin comes with a fair amount of weapons and other assorted parts to do some assassinating. The hands available include sets of fists, gripping, chop, and open/style-posed hands. He also has an alternate portrait with no faceguard. According to the box, the face is supposed to be a clean-shaven face and there’s some shading applied to the lips, but some wires were crossed at the factory and the lip shading turned into a mustache. I’ll never use it so I don’t care, but it is kind of funny. For weapons, we have a short sword, a handheld sickle, a longer sword with a ball and chain attached to the hilt, and everyone’s favorite weapon, a pair of gray sticks. These guys may have been drawn with such weapons in a comic somewhere, but I don’t think it’s something we really need. He also has a time bomb which I’m sure is from the comics and it’s well sculpted and painted. The bladed weapons are all silver with some blue applied and it looks nice, though different from how they do metal with the turtles. For some reason the Foot get silver and the turtles get white. Makes sense to me!

“I’m not exactly feeling intimidated here, dude.”

Articulation is where these NECA figures often come up short and the Elite Assassin is no different. He does some things well, and some things not so well. The head is the unusual setup of a ball peg because the head is so small. This is the type of joint a lot of import companies utilize for wrists, too bad NECA doesn’t do the same. As a joint for a head, it’s fine, but the hood is going to limit rotation quite a bit. Shoulders are conventional hinged ball joints and we have bicep swivels, double elbows, and swivel and hinge wrists. The bicep swivels on mine are tight and when they do move they feel like they’re binding more than rotating as the bicep wants to kick back to where it was. Definitely something to be careful with. The hands all have a horizontal hinge, including the gripping hands, which is unfortunate and honestly quite annoying at this point. I’m thinking of just boycotting NECA figures that don’t come with the proper wrist articulation at this point because they’re so, maddeningly, inconsistent with it.

He’s not a total stiff, but some waist articulation would have really helped out.

The only articulation in the torso is a ball-joint in the upper diaphragm. It kicks forward and back a suitable amount and will rotate some as well. It’s not going to provide a true ab crunch though, but it would have with a ball-jointed waist. Given the large sash around the waist I don’t know why NECA didn’t just do this. A ball joint there would give him some nice forward and back and provide for more natural rotation. Hips are the typical ball and socket with a thigh swivel built in. There’s double-jointed knees and ankle hinges and rockers that work fine. Missing is a boot swivel and forearm swivel, even though there are natural places for such to exist. It’s annoying with the forearms since the armor continues onto the back of the hands so rotating the hands breaks that up. Lastly, we have a nice wire going through the cape which does allow for some dynamic posing of that.

I guess if he doesn’t want to get up close, this ball and chain thing will have to do as a ranged attack.

This is a solid figure that’s so close to being a great figure. The missing waist articulation is more of an annoyance for me than the wrists and I don’t know why NECA didn’t put that in. If he had that he’d move pretty damn well. I think much of this figure is utilized for the new Shredder currently available in a two-pack. I don’t know if that one has waist articulation and I don’t plan on finding out until it’s available as a single-packed figure (or it hits deep discount). And for an assassin, I do think this guy should have some kind of a ranged weapon. The sword with the ball and chain is pretty cool, but doesn’t seem very practical for an assassin. He looks cool though and isn’t a total stiff so if this is something you’re interested in based on the look of it you’ll probably be content. I found this guy at Target where it only set me back $35. He’ll probably be available in various other places eventually if he’s not already, though probably at a small markup.

If you feel like your Foot Elite Assassin needs some companions then these might interest you:

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Karai as The Shredder

Where do you take your heroic comic book franchise when you kill your main villain in the first issue? Well, you first undo that rash decision by bringing him back! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird famously killed The Shredder in the first issue of their comic. They never intended to…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Foot Enforcer

When a regular Foot Ninja just won’t cut it, The Shredder has to turn to the Foot Enforcer. This brute of a specimen is bigger, stronger, and comes packed to the gills with an assortment of weapons designed to reduce the turtles into a pile of flesh and shell. And they’re needed, because how often…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

August 20, 2025

Mondo The Real Ghostbusters Peter Venkman and Samhain

By Joe
Does bustin’ still make me feel good 40 years later? Let’s find out!

I didn’t do a big 2024 wrap-up type of post like I sometimes do, but if I did I would have awarded toy producer Mondo with the biggest reveal of the year when they debuted their line of action figures based on The Real Ghostbusters. The Real Ghostbusters was one of many 80s properties to have its moment in the sun when it came to toys, but ever since the original Kenner line ended in 1991 little has been produced based on the property. Diamond Select gave it a shot, Mego did as well, and current license holder Hasbro has dabbled in re-releases of the old Kenner toyline. What has alluded collectors and fans of the old cartoon and toyline is a truly dedicated, collector-friendly, line of modern action figures that better match the style of the show. Not to be denied, action figure sculptor and designer Alex Brewer made his own digital mock-ups of what he thought a modern line would look like and shared his work on social media. The response was pretty big and it helped get his employer, Mondo, to kick the tires on bringing his vision to life.

Mondo likes to go all out on packaging.

I have a pretty good memory, but I can’t reliably recall my life before The Real Ghostbusters. It was my first love when it came to action figures. I liked Matchbox and Tonka products prior to, but no figure line captivated me like The Real Ghostbusters. I have no idea how I was introduced to the property or what my first toy was from the series. I can’t remember getting the iconic firehouse playset or the Ecto-1, my memory basically starts with them in my possession. I can remember getting excited for the Ecto-3 and the tie-in products with the release of Ghostbusters II. I had some roleplay items including the trap, and in general I just had an awesome time playing with my Ghostbusters toys and watching the cartoon every afternoon.

Mondo also threw-in some cardboard standees of popular ghosts from the Kenner line.

Then came the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. For a little while, the two co-existed, but eventually The Real Ghostbusters were phased out by the turtles, Bucky O’Hare, and eventually X-Men. Most of my toys would be sold in yard sales, though somehow my fright features Peter Venkman survived. I don’t think it was for any particular reason even though he was always my favorite, I think he just got misplaced. As an adult collector, I have wanted to reconnect with my former love, but no one was offering up the right product. Sure, I enjoy the theatrical version of these characters, but I don’t associate it with toys so I’ve never felt much of a compulsion to collect any of those outside of a pair of Venkmans. The Kenner reissues also don’t really do anything for me and I’m actually much happier with the Lego stuff I have, but The Real Ghostbusters? That’s the stuff I really want, so I was pretty damn excited when Mondo unveiled Peter and the best ghost from the show, Samhain. What I was not happy about was the price, and we’ll get to that, but as far as what Mondo was doing I was more than pleased and pretty damn excited to get my hands on them.

A gathering of Peters.
The 80s were awesome.

The first set has taken awhile to get here, but it’s finally here. Originally expected to arrive in May, the circus that is the current United States government messed things up with its tariff policy and the elimination of the de minimis shipping exemption. Mondo used to ship directly from the factory to your door, but the cost to do so increased overnight and made that impossible. They had to scuttle their whole operation and the result is a delay of about 3 months. The good news is we still received Pete and Samhain before the fall season hits as I suspect a lot of folks would like to have them on display for Halloween. The set was sold exclusively last fall on Mondo’s website as a two-pack while Peter was sold individually in all of the usual places. It came packaged in a huge box that recreates the front door of the firehouse and there’s artwork on the back which lists out all of the people responsible for the set’s creation. The front opens in the middle and is held fast by magnets revealing a window display behind it, though there’s so much tissue paper over the figures to protect them that it’s not very useful. My box also arrived pretty banged-up, but since it’s intended purpose is to protect the figures inside I can say it at least accomplished its goal.

It’s so beautiful.
Convenient trap storage on the side.

Mondo typically lives in the scale of 1:6, but this line is its first foray into 1:12. Peter stands at around 6.5″ tall so I’m not entirely sure if its true 1:12 scale or not. That would make Pete 6.5′ tall and while he might be, I can’t say I ever thought of him as especially tall. The only thing he has to scale with is Samhain, Slimer, and the other Ghostbusters so I can’t say I’m all that concerned by it. Out of the box, he’s sporting a bit of a smirk with a raised left eyebrow which captures Peter’s personality well. He’s in his classic brown jumpsuit with teal color, black boots, and gray belt. There are some sculpted accessories attached to his belt that jump right off the screen. I have no idea what this yellow hook is or this thing that looks like a tape measure is or does, but I recognize them from the show. The paint is super crisp and matte. This figure has all of the detail work one would expect from Mondo’s sixth scale figures, but at a smaller scale.

Neutrona wand holster on Pete’s right. The tab is very rigid and kind of scary, but it works.

What really stands out is Peter’s proton pack. Brewer and painter Mark Bristow must have studied countless frames of animation to make sure everything is just right. It has all of the little details one would expect and yet there’s a simplicity to it which reflects the animation. The paint is pristine with little or no slop anywhere on the pack itself and the wand. The neutrona wand is connected via a very pliable, plastic, hose that does not detach from either the wand or the pack so there’s nothing to fiddle with. It’s plenty long so it won’t get stressed by placing it in the figure’s hands or when it’s holstered. Equally detailed is the included trap accessory. It looks fantastic and has a bendy wire that connects to the plastic foot pedal. The trap can be hung from the side of the pack just like it was on the show and there’s another hook for the bendy wire to be wrapped around. I was mildly concerned with the durability of the wire, but it seems strong and I don’t see any cracking of the plastic around it. The pack itself is a fairly light, but hard, plastic including the holster for the wand. That part is a little scary as it takes some mild effort to click the handle of the wand into place. It’s the part to be most mindful of as it doesn’t feel like it would take much to snap it. The pack goes on over Peter’s head pretty easily and the belt tabs into the back of the pack. It’s not the easiest thing to snap into place, but it also doesn’t really need to be secured for it to stay in place either (because it’s reenforced with a magnet, which I didn’t realize until after this review went live) so don’t stress yourself out if it doesn’t seem like it’s pushed in all the way.

At least he can kind of hang onto Peter, if you want.

Peter’s other accessories include a set of black hands for the few times he wore gloves in the show. There are cuffs for the gloves that slide over his forearms to complete the look. He also has an alternate, angry, expression which is appropriate for when he’s busting ghosts or annoyed with Slimer. Speaking of, we get a Slimer! He looks to be 100% on-model to the point where the resemblance is borderline mystifying. This is one of the most fun characters I’ve ever had the privilege of just holding in my hand and looking at – he looks that good. He has his own translucent, green, stand and if I have one complaint it’s that he doesn’t have a taller stand. This one puts the top of his head at Peter’s mid-thigh level when it would be great to get him up to eye level. Slimer is minimally articulated with swivels at the shoulders. There’s also a simple disc stand for Peter, but he doesn’t seem to need it. It’s not decorative or anything so it’s likely to stay in the box. Mondo also tossed in some cardboard ghosts and standees which was an unadvertised bonus item. It’s kind of fun, but I don’t see myself ever punching them out of the cardboard.

Who doesn’t like a good blast effect?

Even though Slimer is more of the friendly ghost variety, Peter does need to but ghosts from time to time. To do so he has a blast effect for his proton pack. It’s a clear plastic with just a hint of blue in it. It’s subtle, some would probably argue too subtle, but it’s a reasonable facsimile of what we used to see in the show. It slides onto the wand’s tip and doesn’t disrupt the weight of the figure any. He also has an accessory for the trap. The inner yellow doors of the trap are separate piece – a brick of plastic than can slide out. You can replace it with a set of open doors with lightning streaking out and the ghost, Samhain, getting pulled in. It’s a really fun idea and is also included with the standard version of Peter so those who skipped the ghost still have something they can bust.

Samhain comes with three portraits and four hands.

And speaking of, we get Samhain! He’s much taller than Peter coming it at around 9″ tall. He’s a pretty simple design with a purplish robe and a jack-o-lantern head. Since he doesn’t have feet, he’s very easy to stand and is unlikely to ever tumble off your shelf. His default portait features narrow, black, eyes and a menacing grin. He also has two additional portraits both featuring his yellow eyes which I think we saw more of in his second appearance in the show. One alternate portrait features a toothy grin while the other an angry howl. He’s appropriately creepy, and like Slimer, really on-model. He also has an extra set of hands. His default ones are these curling, gesture, hands and he has an optional open right hand and a clawing left hand.

This trap effect is pretty awesome.

Where both figures are going to come up short is in the articulation department. Samhain is extremely limited as he just has head, diaphragm, shoulder, elbow, and wrist articulation. He’s basically all about presence, but at least what’s there works fine. Peter has a double ball joint at the head, hinged-ball shoulders, single elbows, ball-hinge wrists, waist cut, ball-socket hips, single knees, and ankles that hinge and rock. There’s an attempt at something of a butterfly joint at the shoulders, but it really doesn’t do anything. The elbows will bend 90 degrees, but the knees come up short. You do get a little rotation at both the knee and elbow, and the ankles and wrists work fine. The head really can’t look up or down and the tilt is pretty minimal. The hips are a bit tight and probably only go out to the side 45 degrees or so and do not kick forward and back effortlessly or with much range. He can get both hands onto his wand, and the hands are soft and pliable to minimize paint rub, but he can’t point it out straight from his body with two hands on it. Basically, when you want him to look like he’s shooting at a ghost, he needs to hold the wand across his belly or chest. It’s certainly not the most convincing thing and to really, properly, wield his proton pack he probably needs a more effective butterfly joint, but Mondo was clearly prioritizing the sculpt over articulation.

“Your time’s up, Samhain!”

Which brings us to the final negative we need to talk about: the price. This set retailed for $202 with free shipping in the US. If you want just Peter, the price is $101. Why so high? Well, some of that is due to Hasbro. They hold the master toy license for Ghostbusters which Mondo had to work around with the licensee, Sony. Unlike a Paramount and Playmates situation with TMNT, Hasbro is a toy giant and not likely to get pushed around. Mondo hasn’t gone into the specifics, but they did cite that as an issue and expressed that this isn’t the price they wanted. It is assumed that in order for them to be compliant with the license, any 1:12 scale Ghostbusters toy had to be more than $100 and probably had some restrictions on where it could be sold and that sucks for us collectors. On the other hand, Mondo may not have been able to dictate the price as freely as it wanted to, but the company could have made the set feel a bit more value-friendly. One extra portrait and one extra set of hands (which is basically duplicative since they’re more gripping hands) is pretty slight. Peter, at a minimum, should have another portrait that’s probably a scared one or a slimed one. Some expressive hands, maybe emulating their dance during the ending credits, would have also been welcomed. If he’s not holding something his hands look silly. They may not have wanted to give Slimer more articulation and break-up his sculpt, but he could have had another set of arms. And for Samhain, maybe an effect part of his own? Something like the aura effects Bandai does for its Dragon Ball figures would have looked cool.

With only one Ghostbuster, Slimer is going to have to pitch in.

What I’m basically getting to is that this set isn’t really worth the asking price. It wasn’t going to be and I knew that when I placed my order. It’s also why I’ve passed on the other ghosts and am just getting the remaining Ghostbusters to round out my collection. That doesn’t mean I’m unhappy to have this. One can dislike the price and feel like they’re being overcharged while still enjoying the finished product. I’ve certainly paid for plenty of meals, drinks, and entertainment and felt like I was getting a bad deal, but still enjoyed what I paid for. I mean, I have been to Disney World many times. These figures aren’t perfect, but they look great. I’ll likely never have need of another set of figures based on The Real Ghostbusters when all is said and done. And considering how long I’ve had to wait for them, I’m okay with paying a little extra. If you loved the show and the old toyline, chances are you’ll be okay with it too.

Yeah, bustin’ still makes me feel good.

Interested in more Ghostbusters posts? Check these out including a very festive version of gang:

Ghostbusters Plasma Series: Venkman

Bill Murray is the greatest actor of all time. If you want to disagree with me, that’s fine, just know that you’re wrong. Because of my love of toys and Mr. Murray, I’ve always wanted a Bill Murray action figure. It might sound like a weird want to most people, but to a toy enthusiast…

by Joe

Dec. 9 – The Real Ghostbusters – “Xmas Marks the Spot”

  The 1980s sometimes feel like they belonged to the Ghostbusters. That’s because, for me, the Ghostbusters were always around. The film came out when I was but a wee baby, but by the time I had a real interest in television The Real Ghostbusters (not to be confused with the Filmation series) was airing…

by Joe

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

For many years, one of the most talked about subjects in the world of movie sequels was the prospect of a Ghostbusters 3. The original film was released back in 1984 and a cultural phenomenon was born. It was a huge hit for both its comedic acting and for the (at the time) incredible special…

by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

August 14, 2025

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

By Joe
Another figure from last summer’s blockbuster. We like to stay current here.

It feels like a theme this summer for me is buying action figures I previously deemed unworthy of my money as they go on clearance. Sometimes that’s a dumb thing to do. If I didn’t want something six months ago why should I want it now just because it’s cheaper? In the case of today’s review, the answer is because I think it’s a good figure. The S.H.Figuarts Wolverine from the movie Deadpool & Wolverine is probably the best figure yet of the character from that film, with the caveat it’s the most expensive and technically isn’t from the film. Both of those aspects of the figure is why I cancelled my original preorder, but when I saw I could get the figure for 40% off I decided that was good enough to get this imperfect representation of Wolverine.

Probably the best figure from the movie so far, even if he never looked like this in the movie.

Let’s cut to the chase – this figure is not really from the movie. It depicts Wolverine in full costume which includes the mask and the sleeves. At no point in the movie did we see Wolverine look like this. By the time he put the mask on he had ditched the sleeves. Unfortunately, Bandai didn’t base their figure on this look nor did they include an unmasked head like the Marvel Legends release. There could be reasons for that which are perfectly valid. Bandai may have been going off of concept art released to them by Disney which is probably the most likely reason. They may have also not wanted to pay for the actor likeness to include a Hugh Jackman head which would make them cheap. It would have been nice if such could be included, or if there were bare arms also included (or just made the default look), but we can only judge the figure on what is present and what it’s trying to achieve. It just meant that it wasn’t worth $85 to me. As imperfect as the Legends release is, I was mostly sated in having it, but the lure of a better price has brought me here today.

And for those wondering, no, you can’t use the Legends unmasked head with this one.

Wolverine stands at approximately 6″ to the top of his head, or just a little taller. Hugh Jackman is 6′ 2″ so that little tick over the 6″ mark basically puts him at an accurate 1:12 scale, assuming the boots he wore in the film didn’t add an inch or two. He is shorter than the Legends version which I had at 6.5″, but that’s pretty consistent for Legends which tends to run a little bigger than true 1:12 scale. He seems a little shorter than the SHF Deadpool though that seems to mostly be in the head. That Deadpool has an oversized melon that becomes more apparent when placed with this figure (for the record, Jackman and Reynolds are both listed as being 6’2″). The costume is textured all over like the one from the film and it’s comprised mostly of colored plastic. The yellow is a pale yellow, especially compared with the more saturated Legends release that is more like honey colored. This shade looks more accurate to my eye. The blue and black is what’s painted, as well as the tiny silver buttons, and everything is pretty clean. The finish is nice and on the blue of the gloves, boots, and shoulder pads there’s a bit of a glossy finish which reflects the look of the film as well. The claws are a nice, metallic, silver and quite pointy. Be careful swapping hands as those claws are rigid and will hurt if you’re not careful.

Deadpool is actually a little taller this time.
It works.
They don’t like each other.

What stands out the most with this release vs the Legends ones are the proportions. The head size, shoulder width, and leg length all look pretty accurate to the film. The Legends one was pretty stumpy despite being a taller figure and it was my main peeve with that release. There’s a solid amount of mass as well in the torso, legs, and arms, though I would have liked the chest to be pumped out just a little more, but that’s more of a nitpick. The details of the costume are all captured well and I like how they did the folds of the neck portion. The Jackman likeness also looks fine to me. Granted, it’s just the area around his mouth, but the paint is clean where it could have easily gone off the rails with all of the facial hair. The fins on the head are also a rigid plastic which likely helped keep their shape in transit whereas the Legends one is a little warped.

He comes with three sets of non-clawed hands, but I bet most will never use them.

Wolverine is much lighter than his co-star when it comes to accessories, but he also doesn’t demand the sort of weaponry that Deadpool does. For portraits we get two: neutral and teeth gritting. I like the personality of the teeth gritting head more, but both are fine. For hands, we get fists, open, and relaxed hands. For clawed hands, there are fists and open and that ends the accessories. It’s light, but in terms of hands I’d say we’re set. Yes, we should have bare arms and an unmasked head and that’s a shortcoming of the figure. If they couldn’t give us an unmasked head they could have given us a yelling one. It was five dollars cheaper than Deadpool so at least that appears to be reflected in the price, but it’s still an $85 figure so if you wanted more from it then I think you’re entitled to such feelings.

If you find fists boring there’s these hands.

Since this is a SHF release it should also make this Wolverine the best articulated figure of this version of the character and for the most part it is. The head and neck work together allowing Wolverine to look up and down, but maybe not down as much as some would want. It has all of the rotation and nuance you would expect of a SHF setup. The butterfly at the shoulders doesn’t allow for much, but the figure can do the claws across the chest pose. The shoulder pads are pegged into the front of the shoulder and can be moved out of the way. The shoulder can raise a little past 90 degrees and it rotates fine. The double-jointed elbows and knees bend past 90, and the wrists, thigh swivels, and toe hinge do what they’re supposed to.

The articulation isn’t amazing, but is probably good enough for this version of Wolverine.

The torso is a little more mixed. There’s a ball joint in the center which allows for some forward and back. In conjunction with the ball-jointed waist, the figure can bend forward a decent amount, but it adds nothing going back. There’s no rotation in that upper torso joint, but there is tilt. The waist is where the rotation comes from and even more side-to-side tilt. The hips go out to the side almost to full splits, but kick forward a tick shy of 90 degrees and have no range going back. The ankles can go back a little ways, but have little to no forward movement. The ankle rocker works fine at least, but there’s no boot swivel or swivel at the glove. In terms of visuals, none of the joints are ugly. The thigh swivel is pretty apparent, but not to the degree it has been on some of Bandai’s Dragon Ball figures. The elbow joints stand out a little because they are a slightly brighter yellow and bending them all the way will produce small gaps. The same is true of the knees.

It’s not the Wolverine I want, but it is pretty fun to have.

This Wolverine from the film is basically what I expected of the figure. It’s articulated reasonably well and for the look it’s going for it pretty much nails it. It’s just not the look I wanted and wasn’t willing to buy for full price. And that was my mind set when I cancelled my original preorder: why buy something I really don’t want? I want a sleeveless Wolverine. If he was that way and still lacked the unmasked portrait I would have paid full price. Ideally, we’d get a figure that comes with both. In a way, I place almost no value on the sleeved look. I’d happily ditch those arms in favor of the bare arms look and that’s how I felt with the Legends figure as well. I just think the costume looks better that way. At a reduced price though, this is fine. It’s very functional and I’ve had him on my desk for about a month and I mess around with him when I have some downtime. He’ll look good with my Deadpool, and if Bandai comes back with the version I want I’ll have to consider that one was as well. Since they’ve apparently had trouble moving this one though I’m not holding my breath. If this is the look you want for Wolverine on your shelf, then you’ll probably be satisfied with this release provided you feel it’s worth it vs the cheaper Legends release. And since basically everyone seems to have this one on sale, you probably won’t have to pay full price for the pleasure of finding out for yourself.

Here are all of the other Deadpool & Wolverine reviews we’ve done up to now:

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

Despite the fact that I own dozens of them, I don’t really consider myself a fan of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends series of action figures. They largely are able to get a purchase out of me thanks to Hasbro’s exclusivity agreement with Marvel/Disney which basically makes them the only game in town. Despite that, I will…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

It might be hard for the young folk to believe, but once upon a time movies based on comic book characters were treated like box office poison. Unless you were Superman or Batman, you just didn’t belong in cinema. Even those characters weren’t bulletproof. Superman had a nice run, but fizzled out with the fourth…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

Despite the amount of reviews presents on this blog, I still do not consider myself a Marvel Legends collector. That’s because my interests are somewhat narrow when it comes to the Marvel brand. Over the years I’ve developed a fondness for Deadpool as depicted on film by Ryan Reynolds. I think the comic book character…

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by Joe

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August 12, 2025

NECA TMNT Toon SDCC 2025 Exclusive Bodacious Beach Bro Turtles

By Joe
For the second time, we’ve got a set of convention exclusive toon turtles with art by Ken Mitchroney!

2025 was almost an end of an era for me. After being a regular buyer of NECA’s convention exclusive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures since 2017, I found myself passing on such a set. If you’re new to the exclusive game, each year for San Diego Comic Con NECA makes an exclusive set of TMNT figures to sell at the convention, but also online before the event takes place. Usually the sale is spread over three days and sell-outs are guaranteed to happen, you just don’t know how fast. Some years it’s practically instantaneous, other years it may take a half hour to an hour, it depends on the set. This used to be the only way NECA was allowed to sell TMNT action figures, but ever since the license was freed up some by Paramount it’s been less essential for collectors to snag every last exclusive NECA comes up with.

That’s a lot of box.

This year’s exclusive came from the toon subline based on the old Fred Wolf cartoon. It depicted the four brothers in beach attire which was all taken from different episodes of the show and paired them up with surfboards and a giant wave accessory. The sculpts looked to be new and more in-line with what we’ve seen from the Archie subline, but aside from that detail there wasn’t much to get excited about. It’s a fine looking set, I just never had beach turtles on my wants list when it came to the property. Four packs start at $150 and I was curious if this one would go higher since it was an exclusive. It can only be bought by non-attendees on NECA’s store and they did away with their flat-rate shipping a year or two ago so the price was expected to be substantial when all things were considered. When the item went up for sale, I took a look and found it would cost about $190 for me and I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe I’m finally growing up, but I was able to walk away and break my streak of TMNT exclusives from NECA.

The main event with new sculpts by Tomasz Rozejowski.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. The set hung around for an hour, then another, and it became clear that this wasn’t the most sought after exclusive NECA ever came up with. This was day one of a three day sale, mind you, so it certainly looked like NECA was going to have more than enough product to meet demand this go-around. Perhaps that made the company nervous? How else can one explain NECA out of no where sending a coupon out that evening for forty bucks off the set? They’ve never done that before and called it a loyalty deal. Supposedly, if you had bought a lot of TMNT product from them you got the email with the coupon code. I have bought a ton of TMNT stuff from NECA over the years, but not everything, and I didn’t get it. It didn’t matter though since it was a simple coupon code that was quickly shared online. Everyone who had already ordered had the code automatically applied to their order and for me it brought my total down almost to MSRP at $154 after shipping and all fees (yes, there is a tariff fee). It was enough to get me to pull the trigger and the set eventually sold out that day. I don’t know how it did the following days or what NECA charged at their booth, but it ended up being slightly less than what I would have paid at a retail store for a NECA four-pack.

There’s quite a bit of stuff in the box.

The price may have been right, but it was still a set that I wasn’t exactly jazzed about getting and my hope was that once in-hand I’d sing a different tune. The box it comes in is pretty massive as it’s basically a four-pack that you would find at Target, but it also goes deeper because of the giant wave accessory. The wave is in its own box that has the same colorway as everything else NECA does for this line, but doesn’t feature any graphics. Coincidentally, it’s one of two NECA convention exclusives this year to feature a wave effect and NECA also revealed a beach Slash that should pair nicely with this set. The figures themselves are all new sculpts that resemble the pin-less, Archie sculpts. Per Trevor Zammit at NECA, these are pretty much the new default turtles going forward so if you didn’t want this set don’t fret, I would expect more evergreen turtles to follow at some point on these bodies. Each turtle is in beach clothing taken from the show, though not all the same episode. It’s also a mix of materials as Leo, Raph, and Donatello have plastic shirts and soft goods shorts while Mikey just has soft goods shorts. Donatello and Leonardo also have ridiculous top hats while Raph has a more conventional baseball style hat. Mikey is hat-less and can easily be converted to a base Michelangelo if you so desire while the other three can’t without considerable work.

A new take on an old design.

When I first took these boys out of the box I expected to find some mix of old and new. I took Michelangelo, being the most basic of the four, and compared him with the Stump Wrestling Raph since he’s practically a naked sculpt. To my surprise, these figures do not appear to share any parts. They may share some internals, basically what’s hidden by the shell and plastron, but that’s it. I figured the hands would be the same and the new ones even have that same, rounded, quality to them the Archie figures possess, but they’re all new as well. The Archie turtles appear to be just a touch bigger than these new toon bodies which in turn are bulkier than the old toon turtle body, but not really any taller. I’m not sure how I feel about this new look. There’s certainly a pleasing, toon, quality to these sculpts, but if anything I’ve felt the turtles were a little oversized for the line. They look too big mixed with the human characters, in particular. NECA basically fixed this with Shredder at least by giving us a new, bulkier, version of the villain. Do they intend to do more new sculpts of Casey, April, and others? Maybe. I guess these new ones help make Zach seem smaller.

With Archie Raph
The shell sits a tad lower now.
I guess this works?

The figures also feature a much darker green for the skin. It’s definitely a lot closer to the Pizza Club reissues we saw a year ago or the Punk Turtles from that four-pack, but perhaps darker than both. We did just establish these are new sculpts, but if you were still hoping to mix and match with the old figures that’s not going to work. The colors will be off, plus the old hands are too small and the heads are as well even though they feature the same expression swapping tech. It’s an odd choice as I think the color of the turtles has always been pretty screen accurate. I know there are episodes where they’re darker, that’s just what happens with multiple studios working a show that’s trying to pump out as many episodes as it can in a short amount of time, but this does feel less accurate. I’m left to assume there is more of a subjective element at play here and NECA feels that these just look better with this shade of green. I did see someone speculate that maybe they’re darker since they’re at the beach and I suppose that’s possible too. Whenever new base turtles arrive we’ll dive into this more then, but for now I’m a little conflicted on where NECA is going with the turtles.

This gap is something I’ve never noticed before.
It’s far more severe on the new figures.

We’ll continue with the body talk here and just jump to articulation. If you have those Stump turtles then you know what to expect as the setup is basically the same. There’s a ball joint at the head and neck, hinged-ball shoulders, waist twist, diaphragm, bicep swivel, double-jointed elbows, wrists, ball-socket hips with thigh twist, double-jointed knees, and ankles that hinge and pivot. Because they’re turtles, the diaphragm joint is pretty useless. They also have elbow pads and knee pads which hinder the range at the elbows and knees. They go past 90 in both spots, but not to the degree you may expect. The hinge on the gripping hands is a horizontal one and not the preferred vertical, weapon-wielding orientation. Since these guys don’t come with any weapons, it’s not that big of a deal at the moment, but I hope it’s not indicative of what’s to come. There’s also a noticeable gap between the top of the thigh and the sidewall, if you will, on the shell with Michelangelo. The same gap is present on the old toon bodies as well as the Archie ones, but not to this degree. I wonder if there’s going to be a filler piece here like the plastic “diaper” on the Mirage Jim Lawson turtles? NECA may have skipped it since Michelangelo’s shorts hide it, but if so that’s kind of a cheap tactic. It probably does give him better range at the hips where full splits and high kicks are possible so I guess that could be their excuse. I do think most would have preferred this to just be a standard Mikey with soft goods pants though.

The shirts look good, but I do wish they were removable. The same is true of the hats and glasses.

For Leo, Raph, and Don, we have a soft plastic overlay in place of the shell and plastron. The shoulder is also a different piece as it’s a sculpted sleeve. The arm plugs into that and you get your bicep swivel inside the sleeve so the articulation is essentially the same as it is with Michelangelo. The shirts are designed to seem big like they’re hiding a shell underneath. There’s even some of the plastron sculpted into the piece at the collar. Because it’s soft and there is no hard plastic underneath, these guys do move a little better at the waist as they can actually pivot some in addition to rotating. I still can’t get the diaphragm joint to do anything though even though I can see it at least. The hats are also pegged onto the head and appear to be further secured with glue as they don’t want to spin. They’re soft and it’s easy to peel them back some to see there’s a big peg sticking out of the top of the head so even if you could get them off it would look hideous. It sure would have been nice if NECA just made them separate. Leonardo also has sunglasses and they’re glued to his head like the ones with the Punk Turtles. While the plastic shirts help give a more toon appearance, I do find they clash a bit with the soft goods shorts. And I probably speak for most when I say I wish they went with soft goods all over so we could convert this whole group into a standard look, but then we wouldn’t buy the eventual four-pack release that’s sure to come, right?

I can’t tell if Raph is happy.

The paint across all four is mostly good. The cel-shading is gone as that appears to be a thing of the past now and instead they’re the same shade of green all over. The patterns on the shirts are handled very well and there’s some black linework painted onto the sculpts. Basically, NECA is taking the same approach now with this line as it does the Archie one when it comes to paint. These turtles do have massive pupils now and it’s a bit weird looking. Their eyes almost look dialated. Raph also seems kind of pissed, but maybe he didn’t pick the outfit? He also has some black linework on his hat that basically just goes from one “ear” (I realize they don’t have any, I just mean where an ear would be) over the top of the hat to the other. There’s a sculpted shape to the top of the hat though and I almost wonder if the line was supposed to follow that because it looks weird to see that left unpainted. I do have a couple of paint dots on the forearms of all but Leonardo. They’re very small and in the color of the turtle’s elbow pads. I’m not sure if it will come off, or if it would just be easier to go over it with a little dab of green paint.

The only picture I took of my original set: Mikey’s broken bicep.

Unfortunately, I do have a quality control issue right out of the box. Michelangelo’s left arm is barely hanging on at the bicep. The peg looks to have split as I can see right into it. It was obvious to my eye just looking at him. Had it not been I probably would have twisted the arm right off. In addition to that, Raph’s left shoulder won’t budge at the hinge and his arm has some wiggle at the bicep as well. It’s possible it just isn’t seated perfectly in the joint or it could also be defective, but just not to the extent of Michelangelo’s arm. Some hot water would likely free up that shoulder, but with Michelangelo basically broken I didn’t want to try without first reaching out to NECA. I emailed them after 5 PM on a Thursday and they got back to me before 9 AM the next day with a shipping label for me to return the entire package. Thankfully, I had only removed the turtles from the box so it was pretty easy to put everything back in its place and ship it out. NECA did say they would send me a replacement if one was available. Since it is a Comic Con exclusive, it’s possible they don’t have any to replace it with and if that’s the case they’ll refund me. It’s kind of annoying that they couldn’t commit as maybe I’d elect to keep it if I couldn’t get a replacement? At any rate, I’m writing this in between shipping the set back and receiving a new one from NECA so if it all went according to plan then you’ve seen a bunch of pictures and the review can continue on from here. And if not…

After just over a week after receiving the first set from NECA I had a new one. Michelangelo is now fine and the Raphael appears to be an improvement as well. The only new issue is my Raph has a little blemish on his nose. It’s not really visible because of the darkness of the skin, but can be felt. All in all though, a good customer service experience and no complaints from me. Now we can move onto the other stuff in the box.

Mikey drew the short straw and got the bad stand.

For hands, these turtles each have a set of gripping hands, fists, open, and thumbs up hands. We also get one extra set of open hands for good measure, I guess. Every hand as a horizontal hinge which is unfortunate for both the gripping and thumbs up gesture. Hopefully this doesn’t mean the eventual standard turtles aren’t missing the vertical gripping hand. Each turtle also comes with a surfboard. They’re not really color-coded to the turtles as we get a purple one with shell pattern, orange with a shell tamp, pink with red stripe, and a solid purple board with an attachable orange sail. These are all almost certainly taken from the cartoon, but it was still surprising to see we don’t have a simple blue, red, orange, purple pattern. The sail plugs into the purple board rather snugly. It won’t even rotate once inserted so maybe make sure it goes in the way you want it to because getting it out could be tricky. It’s hard plastic and probably would be easy to snap. The boards also need their fins attached to the underside and each comes with a clear, acrylic, stand like the old Turtles in Time figures NECA put out. Three of my stands work fine while the fourth is too loose. I’ll have to modify it so the boards can fit snug onto it. Right now, the board just tilts all the way back until the fin hits the surface it’s on.

That sure is a wave.

The big accessory, and what is probably the selling point, is the wave and fifth surfboard. The wave is done in translucent, blue, plastic, with white paint for the crest. There’s a black ball peg towards the front and that’s for the yellow board to plug into. The wave is about 8″ long and the board 11″ (the other boards are close to 9″) and once plugged in it will get your turtles about 4″ off of the surface it’s placed on. There’s some nice weight to the accessory and it does what it’s supposed to do. The board has no pegs on it for added stability, but does feature a rough surface which may help with grip. You can fit all four turtles onto it, though it gets pretty crowded. It completes the look and when all is said and done I’m guessing this thing is the only aspect of this set that will remain exclusive to it, but who knows? Maybe it will even show up in another line?

It is indeed possible to get all four brothers standing on this board.

The only other accessories in the box are three pizzas and two pizza boxes that just say “Pizza” on them. They are the hinged style, so I guess that’s good. Is that enough? Considering it’s a convention exclusive and the figures are all new (though destined to be reused many times over) sculpts I think it feels about right. The only real negative for me is that the figures can’t just be converted to regular turtles. Michelangelo might be, but the rest aren’t and none of the old expressions work here. Considering the change in skin-tone it’s not as big of a loss as it would have been, but it’s still annoying to go from a solid assortment of expressions to just what we have here. I’ll withhold final judgement on the sculpts as far as their appropriateness for the source and as replacements of the old ones. I have felt for awhile that the turtles have fallen behind some of the more on-model sculpts we’ve seen in the line over the past few years so I wanted new ones, I just don’t know how much of an improvement these are.

What day at the beach would be complete without pizza?

That’s a discussion for another day, as for this one, should you get it? Only if you love the concept. If you never wanted and still don’t want beach turtles after reading this then feel free to skip it. Yes, it’s a little exciting to get your hands on new turtle sculpts a bit early, but we’ll get the real thing eventually. If on the other hand you really like the look of this one then, sure, go for it. Assuming it’s not now overpriced. I have a feeling demand was soft and that NECA still has a bunch of these. Will they put them back up for sale? Probably, though with these things they usually first do it as booth exclusives at later shows. If they go up on a website it probably won’t be for a little while and without fanfare. Costumes.com was the website that would get that stuff in the past and it might in the future. Convention goers looking to flip this for a quick buck probably won’t find many takers so if you play the waiting game on eBay you may eventually find people looking to just offload this one at cost, especially if they were able to take advantage of the $40 off promotion. We also know these figures are going to get two-pack releases in a different colorway eventually so, as I said before, the only real exclusive here may just be the wave. As for me, I’ll probably make these guys a summer time decoration and that’s all. It will help make them kind of fun, but it’s not a set I’ll likely do much playing with. Hopefully, I can get them back into the box without too much fuss, though I also kind of want to get rid of it since it’s so damn big. Ultimately, it’s a good convention exclusive because it has a theme, it’s executed pretty well, and it’s not something everyone needs.

The Bodacious Beach Bros. are just the latest in a long line of NECA convention exclusives:

NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III SDCC Four-Pack

2023 marked the 30th anniversary of the much maligned third entrant in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film franchise and you just had to know that NECA Toys would mark the occasion. It was almost too obvious that I thought maybe the company would zig when everyone was expecting a zag, but they didn’t and…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

It was a little over a month ago that San Diego Comic Con occurred, in person, for the first time since 2019. This was cause for a celebration, even if for those of us who take in the convention from the comfort of our homes saw little change. Even without the event taking place the…

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by Joe

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