Tag Archives: leonardo

August 1, 2023

Playmates Toys TMNT Mutant Mayhem Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael

By Joe
A new set of turtles are ready to rock the town without being seen.

With a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on the way this week that can only mean one thing: new action figures from Playmates Toys! With the license to produce toys based on TMNT becoming easier to obtain in recent years, Playmates has become a bit of a punching bag in the toy community. Some of that is justified, but some of it really isn’t as Playmates has primarily been a company making toys for kids to play with. Sure, they’ve made attempts at collector grade stuff over the years with varying levels of success, but the company’s bread and butter is making toys that kids can beat up and parents can acquire at an affordable price. There’s room in the world for such an approach, especially in light of the loosening licensing restrictions, and Playmates does it pretty well.

Because the company is focused on non-collector action figures, I’m usually able to ignore whatever Playmates is putting out. It’s stuff that’s just not for me. Even their vintage reissues aren’t really on my radar as I lived that already, but whenever a new version of the turtles shows up the temptation to add them to the ever growing collection is often there. I sometimes resist the pull as I did for the Bay turtles and the Rise ones, but when the toys come out and are pretty cheap it’s hard to ignore.

Playmates will apparently never get sick of the weapon sprue.

And that is the case with the new lineup of figures based on the upcoming Mutant Mayhem film. That movie features the four heroes with a newish look. They’re instantly recognizable as the four turtles, but they’ve been altered enough to have their own flavor. And overall I would say those designs are fine. Yeah, there are things I like and don’t like (which we’ll get into when we talk about the figures), but they’re not repulsive like some other versions of the turtles have been. They’re also not and likely never will be my favorite interpretation, but the 2012 turtles weren’t either and yet that show is one of the best TMNT things ever!

The sprues feature very similar accessories to what came with the 2012 turtles.

The inaugural wave of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the new film started showing up at retail a few weeks ago. Because of my insistence on only posting TMNT stuff on Tuesdays, this post is a little dated, but I’m guessing these figures will be shipping all summer long. The figures come on blister cards with artwork from the film on the front and even on the cross-sell on the back. You still get a little I.D. card for each character that can be snipped from the back and really not much has changed when it comes to the approach. The inaugural wave contains the four turtles, Splinter, and some baddies, but I only went with the turtles. Maybe I’ll come back for more after seeing the film in August, but probably not.

Weapon storage is mostly the same as always, but Raph lost his pizza holder.

The line is basically a 5″ scale toy line where the characters really don’t even scale with each other. This is in keeping with what Playmates typically does so if you’re after a line with a true scale, this isn’t it. There also looks to be a little more effort put into the actual turtles, maybe because Playmates views them as the figures that will make or break the line, and they’re at least not all the exact same height. The shortest is Mikey who stands at a tick over 4.25″, next is Leo and Donnie at 4.5″, and finally Raph at 4.75″ is the tallest of the four. The main driver of their look would appear to be the classic animated series. All of the turtles wear colored bandanas and various pads and wraps. The belts are black with an initial on the buckle and weapon storage as well. Leonardo is the only one that gets a shoulder strap and each turtle is colored with a different shade of green with Donatello being the palest and Mikey the darkest.

These guys are pretty little.

Where things are changed is really the general shape and accents. These turtles are fairly lean and not as chunky as many of their predecessors. In terms of shape, they feel most like the 2007 turtles from the film TMNT, but with each turtle having a different head shape. Michelangelo’s is the most extreme, as the film’s trailer points out it looks like a watermelon. There are other little differences as well. Leo has some sculpted ninja stars on his belt while Donnie is adorned in “techy” stuff. He has a fanny pack and cell phone slung around his waist plus some glasses and headphones he can either wear or just have dangle around his neck. Raph has the full skull cap which is reminiscent of his Rise persona and he even gets some 90s inspired pouches on his belt. Mikey’s design is the most straight-forward as his only real embellishment is a painted belt buckle. He should have braces, but Playmates opted not to attempt them for some reason.

They’re little, but not much different from past Playmates offerings. That 2007 TMNT line sure stands out though.

The sculpts overall are pretty solid. There doesn’t appear to be much of any reuse between the four as there are lots of subtle differences. Raph is the most chunky which appears to be accurate to the film. His chunk is mostly in the torso, but the arms and lower legs are a bit thicker too. Playmates opted to outline the eyes and mouths on each figure in black which really helps to make them pop. Aside from that, paint hits are kept to a minimum and are limited to the various pads and painted details of the belt. Would these look better with fully-painted bodies? Sure, but it’s not what they’re going for. I do wish the plastron on each turtle had some paint, especially Raph’s with its scarred portion, but the presentation is solid. They might be the best looking set of turtles Playmates has done since the originals.

Articulation-wise, these guys are very similar to what Playmates has been doing since the 2012 toy line. It’s basic, but certainly better than the vintage line or the comparably more expensive Super7 ReAction brand. The head is on a ball peg and each turtle can look up, rotate, and tilt there with basically no room to look down. The shoulders are ball-hinged and can raise out to the side past horizontal and rotate around at an angle due to the shell. The elbows are also hinged-pegs so they swivel a bit and bend about 90 degrees. The wrists just peg in and swivel. At the hips, more ball-hinges which I really don’t like for hip joints, but they work okay. They swivel and will kick out to whatever the direction the hinge is facing. They don’t go very far though as the peg is too far up into the shell so no splits and no 90 degree kicks. The knees are hinged-pegs like the elbows so they swivel and bend pretty close to 90 degrees. At the ankles, just swivels like the wrists. In short, it’s decent for the price range, but ball-socket hips would have been better and likely would have cost the same. Hinges at the wrists and rockers at the ankles would be pretty nice to have as well, but again, it’s a budget line. It does make me wonder if just a ball-socket ankle would work better though, but maybe they’d be prone to separating too easily for a line aimed at children.

Four baby turtles!

The accessories for these guys should feel pretty similar to longtime TMNT fans. Each figure comes with his signature weapons: sai for Raph, katana for Leo, nunchaku for Mikey, and a bo staff for Donnie. Only Donnie gets one weapon with the others being dual-wielders and I’m happy to say we get some paint on all except Donnie’s staff. It’s not amazing, but it’s better than the often monochrome approach and it’s basically just to differentiate the metal and wooden portions of the weapons. The belts all have weapon storage as well that’s easy to use with only Mikey’s being tricky. That’s primarily due to the pre-posed nature of his ‘chuks which seem to work best if you alternate the slots on his back. Of the four, I do like the nunchaku the least and it’s just because the shape is not ideal.

There may be little “wow” factor here, but you can’t beat the price.

In addition to those weapons, each figure also comes with a classic weapons rack. They’re in two different shades as Mikey and Donnie’s are the wood color while Raph and Leo’s the metallic color. Raph, Mikey, and Leo have broken canisters of ooze on theirs with Donnie coming with the intact canister. Each figure gets a different throwable weapon and pizza slice and then a unique set of weapons. Mikey has some microphone ‘chuks and Donnie his bladed staff and some other stuff that’s pretty familiar compared with the 2012 line. It’s probably fun for kids, but for me I’ll probably just leave the sprues intact. Collectors interested in painting these things will probably have more fun with them though. Lastly, each figure comes with a pre-mutated version of himself. It’s a little slug figure colored all in the shade of green used for the character. To my surprise, the little turtles are all unique sculpts. It’s a fun little throw-in.

These turtles are pretty fun to look at and handle. They won’t blow anyone away, but I can’t imagine anyone declaring them trash. And I haven’t even mentioned the best part: they’re only 10 bucks! Yes, that’s right, for less than the cost of one Super7 turtle you can get all four. That’s an incredible deal in today’s market and hopefully it leads to good things for Playmates and the TMNT franchise. I’d love it if either of my kids threw these guys on their Christmas lists, though it’s probably not happening in my house, but not for lack of trying. There are some shortcomings with the figures: the articulation is so-so, the opacity on the whites could be better, and Mikey’s weapons also aren’t optimal. If you want better paint, there are special editions of each figure that are painted-up to look more like the film, but they’ll cost you triple what these do. The issues are easy to overlook at this price though and these guys will look great with your other Playmates figures. Hopefully the movie is just as good!

Interested in what else Playmates has put out there for TMNT?

Playmates TMNT The Last Ronin PX Previews Exclusive (Chase)

A few years ago, Mattel launched a new subline of action figures based on their most famous IP: Masters of the Universe. The subline was titled Origins and it basically took the vintage toys of the 80s and updated them with more modern articulation while still preserving that vintage aesthetic. And ever since then, collectors…

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by Joe

TMNT Classic Collection

I’ve been out of the toy collecting game for several years now.  I used to enjoy it as a hobby and it was a nice way to link my childhood to my adult life as I pursued action figures of characters I loved as a kid.  It became a compulsion eventually.  I started off just…

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by Joe

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July 25, 2023

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

By Joe
Leo’s back, but in glow form.

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 as much use out of those tools as possible. Many action figure lines are dependent upon sales of variants, usually identical action figures with minor differences, to help keep the costs down as a whole. Sometimes these variants are used to poor results. Anyone who walked into a Kay Bee Toys in the 90s may remember the X-Men and Marvel Comics exclusive figures which were just bad repaints. There was a savage Wolverine that was just a repainted Sabretooth, for instance. Those are bad variants, but a good variant can be plenty fun and when it comes to Super7 you can basically bank on the company having an assortment of color-changing and glow-in-the-dark variants ready to go at any moment.

For you in-box collectors, the packaging is pretty cool. And with the window box, I suppose you could make the figure glow without taking it out.

That’s what the Mutagen Ooze series is from Super7. It’s the four turtle figures they’ve already done, but cast in glow-in-the-dark plastic. They aren’t the first, nor are they the last, of Super7’s glow variants for TMNT. The first wave included a glow-in-the-dark Baxter Stockman as a convention exclusive and they have also done Mutagen Man, the Foot Soldier, Muckman, and have Slash on the way. Super7 loves glow-in-the-dark figures, and it’s easy to see why. They have their own, unique, aesthetic with the translucent plastic and often a different finish from a traditionally painted figure. And then, of course, there’s the glow which has been delighting kids and adults for decades. It’s silly, stupid, fun.

How do you prefer your Leonardo?
We probably shouldn’t forget about the samurai option.

Unfortunately, that fun comes with the downside of added cost. It wasn’t always the case as the first few glow variants were the same price as the non-glow options, but with the Mutagen Ooze series there came a hike. Where the turtles cost $45 a piece in their first run, the glow versions were $65 and exclusive to Super7’s webstore which meant payment upfront and no free shipping. I took a look at that solicitation and liked what I saw, but there was no way I was going to pony up that kind of dough for a fun, but also silly, gimmick. I considered getting just one, my favorite turtle Leonardo, but after shipping that was going to total over 80 bucks for one figure! Sorry, Super7, it just wasn’t worth it. The reason offered up by Super7 co-founder Brian Flynn was that the cost for the glow additive for the plastic had gone way up and so they had to up the price significantly. I’m not going to call the man a liar, I do believe what he said is true, but it’s still hard for me to wrap my head around how a figure that’s already been tooled can warrant such a markup just for the cost of materials. And if this glow situation was only temporary, maybe just don’t do it? Wait it out. See if the price comes down. Maybe the factory will want the business later on and be willing to negotiate. I don’t know, but at the end of the day it’s not my problem. As a consumer, we see the product and the price and have to decide on the subjective worth of it all and, for me, it just wasn’t working.

I love the use of blue with this figure.

Obviously, something had to change or else this post wouldn’t even exist. And that something was a sale. Super7 ran a Father’s Day sale that, for some reason, included the Mutagen Ooze Leonardo. Maybe they wanted to feature a glow-in-the-dark figure from this line, but since they have yet to do Splinter, they figured Leonardo made the next most sense for such a sale? I don’t know, but I was happy to see him included and happy to see him discounted to a little over 50 bucks. Throw in shipping, and he was still under the $65 MSRP. Perhaps still more than I wanted to pay, but at least at this level I could talk myself into it. And I’m glad I did because this figure is wonderful! It’s a real shame the wave wasn’t more affordable as I wouldn’t mind adding the rest, but not at the current asking price.

“Uhh, Leonardo, are you feeling all right?”

If you have the original Wave 2 Leonardo then you essentially have this figure. The sculpt is exactly the same which is a Playmates inspired mold, but with a modern approach. The default portrait is an almost exact recreation of the vintage figure except for the angle of Leo’s eyes. Where he once had a look of concern on his face he now has something a bit more intimidating. The same hands and the same swords are present and all of the same engineering is still in place. I’ll link to the original review at the bottom of this, but I’ll add that this figure is better engineered. The joints aren’t as loose, but nothing is overly tight either. What little paint was needed is applied well, and anything your old Leo can do this one can as well. The only new issue this figure presented for me was that swapping the heads is way harder than it should be. I couldn’t get the secondary head onto my figure, and since I didn’t plan on displaying him that way anyway, I gave up. If you get this figure and want to make use of the alternate portrait then I suggest heating it up first.

And glow he does.

The obvious selling point here is the glow and the minor deco changes made to accommodate that. The entire figure is cast in a slightly translucent, green, plastic. Even without the “glow” in effect, the figure has an almost glow quality about it because the green is practically neon. Stick him under some lights and then move to a dark area and the glow works without issue. The plastron is painted yellow and it’s a bright yellow which accommodates the green well. The pads and belt are all in Leo’s signature blue and I love the choice to make the belt blue. It’s an homage, intentional or not, to the storage shell series from Playmates and I always liked that aspect of the line. The blue just looks so good and it’s probably my favorite aspect of the figure. The eyes and nails are painted yellow and I think it works since they play off of the plastron. The shell is still painted a fairly dark green, but the rim around it is painted in a lighter shade of green and I really like that contrast to the point where I wouldn’t mind seeing it in use on the standard figures. This is a really fun looking figure and if you like glow stuff then you’ll probably fall in love with it.

“Two heads! I got two heads here!”

The accessories are mostly rehash from the prior release, but with a couple of differences. Leo has the following sets of hands: gripping with vertical hinge, gripping with horizontal hinge, style posed open hands, and fists. There’s an open and closed communicator and the pizza slice also returns. He has his trusty katanas, and the handles are painted blue to match his belt which looks nice, though do be careful not to scratch the paint when inserting them into his hands. He also has the same alternate portrait which is a very similar expression to his default one, but done in a more realistic style. The new accessories are an unmutated turtle which is from the Splinter release and a leaking canister of ooze. All of the accessories are cast in the same glow-in-the-dark green plastic as the figure with little in the way of paint hits. You basically just have the eyes of the baby turtle, the caution stripes on the canister, and the screen and buttons of the open communicator for paint apps. All of the paint apps are done in yellow.

Aww, look at the cute, baby, irradiated turtle!

This is a short post because this figure is what it is: the same figure released before, only now it glows in the dark! For what it is, I love it. I also like the Super7 turtles in this line so it should go without saying that if you do not then you won’t like this release. It’s just a shame that the MSRP had to be so high since Super7 is essentially asking us to pay 20 bucks a figure to make it glow-in-the-dark. Is that gimmick worth 20 bucks to you? It sure isn’t for me, but with a discount it was for at least my favorite turtle. Even if I could get the other 3 for the approximately $52 a piece price this one cost, I’m not sure if I’d jump in. That’s still over $150 to complete the set. If I could get them for $45 each then, yeah, I’d probably do it, but I don’t know if we’ll see such a steep discount.

“Hi, Donnie? You there? It’s going to cost me 65 bucks to get you here?! Never mind.”

If you would like to add this Leonardo to your collection, or any of the other glow-in-the-dark turtles, then you can head on over to Super7’s website where they’re still available. Big Bad Toy Store also has them on-hand, but they’re asking for $70 a turtle and I cannot recommend them at this price. BBTS does offer $4 shipping so it’s possible, maybe even likely, that a set from them would cost less in the end than a set from Super7 direct, but both are bad deals. My advice is to wait it out because if this is something you absolutely had to have then you probably already bought them when they went up for sale last year.

Four, glowing, brothers together at last!

UPDATE – Due to a combination of store credits and clearance events, I was able to complete my set of Mutagen Ooze Turtles by adding Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. I considered doing a review for each, but since each figure is essentially the same (and is already just a variant of figures I already reviewed) I figured a simple update was warranted. In short, if you like one of these then you’ll like all four. They come with the same accessories and hands and the only thing separating the figures is the unique weapon, head sculpts, and colored belts and pads. Pretty standard stuff.

Let it glow!

Worth noting, all of my figures have tight heads and getting the secondary heads on will likely require heat. My Raphael has a stuck, left, knee joint as well which is interesting since my Wave 1 Raphael had the exact same issue. Michelangelo only comes with his plastic nunchaku, not the ones with real chain links, which I get, but is a bummer. Maybe they could have done a plastic chain in glow-in-the-dark plastic instead? The plastic ones are very rigid and don’t pose well. That’s really the only differences worth pointing out though. My only other gripe with these would be that Raph’s accents look more red-orange than red to me, but also see what they were going for with the shades used. At $75, these aren’t worth it, but absent the cost they do look pretty cool. If you can find some on-sale (I scored two of them at Macy’s, of all places) and you think they look cool then I say go for it. Big Bad Toy Store still has these and did not make them part of a huge clearance event in November 2023, but maybe that will happen eventually? Some other smaller shops (like ecollectibles) also were allowed to stock these and have them discounted so shop around, see what you can find, and grab ’em if you want ’em.

Looking for more Super7 TMNT reviews?

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Leonardo

If you ask me what my most cherished childhood toy was I won’t hesitate to answer Leonardo. My original Playmates Leonardo was a figure I adored and played with for years. I would get other Leonardo action figures, but they were always a temporary joy. When I sat down to act out and play with…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Samurai Leonardo

Well, after looking at the Wave 6 Slash a couple of weeks ago we can now finally turn our attention to a Wave 5 release from Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! series of figures: Sewer Samurai Leonardo. The thing with TMNT is, you have the four good guys, a few core allies,…

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by Joe

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Slash

It’s been over 9 months since I last reviewed a figure from Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. That figure was Muckman, and I actually waited on that one a little while because I ordered through Big Bad Toy Store and wanted my pile of loot to fill up a bit. Had…

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by Joe

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July 11, 2023

NECA Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4-Pack

By Joe
The turtles are back…in red!

When it comes to the popularity of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot of the credit goes to Playmates Toys. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird created the characters born out of a joke. Credit them for having the vision to think this joke had appeal beyond their small circle as they self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1984. It was basically perfect timing from there as the product quickly got the attention of Mark Freedman and his Surge Licensing brand which, much like Mirage Studios, existed largely in name only. He saw the property’s potential as a kid’s product and was able to get Eastman and Laird to grant him permission to shop the IP to toy companies. Aside from a prototype created for Mattel, no major producer bit, except for Playmates. Known more as a doll company, Playmates wanted to get into the action figure business and took a chance on the franchise. They co-developed a television mini series with Fred Wolf to help sell the toys, and the rest is history.

New artwork from TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman!
A nice window box to show you what’s inside.

Because of that early involvement and ridiculous level of success, Playmates has been intertwined with the TMNT franchise ever since. And for a long time, they were the only ones to make action figures based on the property. Then, in 2008, NECA Toys released it’s own version of the brothers. Marketed to collectors and sold outside the usual avenues occupied by Playmates, NECA sent to market a version of the turtles that had never really been done before in toy form. Based on their original appearance in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1, the turtles hit retail with hopes of more Mirage inspired characters to follow. Then, it stopped. Details are murky, but some have blamed Playmates for stepping in and essentially squashing the toy line by exercising its contractual rights as the master toy license holder. It also could have just been poor sales. NECA’s Randy Falk indicated years ago that the comic turtles weren’t big sellers. Anecdotal evidence suggests he may be correct as I personally can recall seeing both the standard issue and black and white variants hanging around comic shops for years and only finally vanishing after hitting clearance. It’s possible NECA was just a little too early and TMNT nostalgia just wasn’t ready to take off in 2008. Only a select few know for sure why the line was ultimately cancelled.

The biggest weakness of this set is the amount of stuff in the box.

Flash-forward 15 years later and NECA is back with a new iteration of the Mirage Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If fans weren’t ready for turtle nostalgia in 2008, they certainly are now. The property is now owned by Viacom who has wielded its mighty powers to loosen the toy license and we’re basically swimming in TMNT action figures from various companies. And since then, those 2008 figures have become far more sought after. Where once they could be had for clearance prices, they now command over 100 dollars a piece on the secondary market. This helped turn them into a magnet for bootleggers and some have even suggested that the physical molds were swiped from whatever factory NECA had been using. If NECA felt their dance with TMNT was over, it’s possible they let them go. Either way, because of a desire to do something different or because the figures have been bootlegged to hell and back, NECA decided to forego ever reissuing them. Instead, they opted to do new turtles based on later issues and for fans who have been dying to get ahold of some affordable Mirage turtles their wait is finally over.

If you’re wondering the answer is “No,” the arm, blaster, thing does not fit on the new turtles.
These old figures have some outdated engineering, but still look pretty damn cool.

The original 2008 figures have commonly been referred to as the Peter Laird turtles by fans. That’s likely due to Laird being the one who worked with NECA at the time when they were in development. They also seem to clearly be based on a singular image from the first issue which has been credited to Laird over the years. I have no idea how much of that is true as Eastman and Laird had a unique drawing style in which the two literally drew the same issue switching off in an unconventional manner as they passed papers back and forth. That’s why it’s just easier to consider them first appearance turtles. As the franchise took off, Eastman and Laird moved to the business side and away from doing the actual art which allowed for other artists to come into the fold. One such artist was Jim Lawson, who would go on to do pencils for a number of TMNT books. Initially, his take on the turtles was to emulate what Eastman and Laird had settled on when he stepped in while adding a little of his own influence. Eastman and Laird both loved Lawson’s work and have heaped praise upon it over the years. With their encouragement, he brought more of his own style into the books which can easily be seen during the City at War arc. His turtles were rather blocky, their heads almost resembling inverted mushrooms, and it’s that style that I think most comic book fans associate with the name Jim Lawson.

My attempt at recreating the TMNT #4 cover. Most know that as the cover to the first NES game.

For this release, NECA hired Paul Harding as the sculptor and directed him to design the turtles based on Lawson’s art, but not his later work as seen with City at War, but his earlier stuff when he first started on the book. Because of that, this set is being marketed as the Return to New York Turtles, though Harding clarified on Twitter that he didn’t expressly design them based on that story. It’s an appropriate shorthand though to place these figures into an era of the original comics. NECA’s approach to comic figures, unlike some companies, is to be very stylized and to try and emulate a certain artist’s approach rather than adapt a character from a generic model sheet or reference material. American comics have almost always allowed for an artist to imprint their own style onto established characters and such can be seen across basically all of the major comic books published by the likes of Marvel and DC. It’s both a cool approach for fans and a wise one for a toy producer since it opens up the possibility to re-release popular characters like the turtles over and over with slightly different looks.

I love how NECA handled the deco on Leo’s swords.

With all of that background out of the way, lets finally talk toys! This long-awaited NECA four-pack has recently started showing up at Target and was even sold online via Target’s website on June 25th. It seems like Target may have actually purchased stock from NECA for this release in contrast with the usual vendor-driven system they usually have in place for NECA. That’s likely due to this being timed with the drop of new toys by Playmates for the upcoming Mutant Mayhem film and because this release is the actual turtles, not some obscure side character that could possibly shelf-warm. This set will sell, even at the steep price of $150. The real question is – is this worth that steep price? If you’ve been waiting years to get a set of official Mirage turtles, that answer might be an easy “Yes” regardless of how this set turned out. If you are like me and have those 08 figures, or maybe even bootlegs you’re happy with, do you need to drop a bunch of money on yet another set of turtles? Read on.

Don’t mess with this pair.

The turtles come packaged in what is essentially NECA’s standard four-pack box. It’s an oversized version of the Ultimates, or Deluxe, releases with a front flap and window on the package. It’s adorned with new artwork by Kevin Eastman which looks great. This is the type of box that will display well for you in-box collectors. For the rest of you, you probably only care about the contents. Each turtle is on the same buck so you basically have four nearly identical figures inside. The main difference between each is the headsculpt which just features a different expression for each turtle. Since this is a Mirage set, they’re all in red bandanas with brown straps and pads giving them a very uniform look. There’s also a different deco applied to the plastron of each figure with Raph’s featuring the most “scuffs” than the other three. They’re done with black lines as opposed to being sculpted in.

The Mirage line has been rapidly expanding over the past year.

The turtles stand at approximately 5.875″ in height. They’re quite chunky in appearance and fully-painted in a fairly neutral shade of green with lots of black linework to emulate the comic art. The linework is present on the pads, bandana, and belt and really sells the look well. It’s all relatively clean and consistent across the board. The only area I see as being a bit uneven is the linework around the bandanas. On a shelf, it’s fine, but up close there are some parts where there’s a smidge of green in-between the black line and the start of the red mask. My Michelangelo also has what looks like a scuff behind his right eye so there’s a little green showing. My Leonardo also has a speck of brown on his right bicep, but in general, I don’t see much in the way of color transfer throughout the four figures.

The paint is acceptable as is the level of quality control present throughout my set. Harding did a really good job of honing in on a design style for the turtles and capturing that with his sculpt. The only thing I personally would have changed are the legs which look really chunky. I think they could have been shrunk as the calf muscles basically extend outside the profile of the thigh muscles. That’s more of a subjective critique though than an objective one as these look quite close to the source material from what I can tell.

Shredder is looking a bit dated by comparison.

I think these figures are pretty much a homerun from a presentation point-of-view and that’s definitely where NECA’s strong suit lies. Where it often does not is with articulation, and these guys aren’t necessarily bad, but they’re not likely to wow anyone. Since the figures are essentially the same, they articulate the same as well. The heads are on a double ball peg (and in case you ever mix-up the heads, they’re stamped with the character’s initial inside) and the range is solid looking up, down, and all around. The shoulders are hinged-ball pegs and they can’t quite raise out to the side all the way. They rotate fine until they hit the shell, and past that is a biceps swivel. This joint was the only joint I had any issues with as 7 out of the 9 biceps joints in my set were stuck. I used the hot water to cold water method to get all of them working. The peg for the joint is pretty snug so I also pulled out a little before twisting and it required a pretty forceful twist. The peg is rather thick, so it should be pretty durable, but if you leave the joint in a hot water bath for too long and then try to twist it you could shear it off, so be careful. Once I essentially broke the seal on the joint it was fine.

Despite that, he still looks pretty good opposite these figures.

With that out of the way, the elbows are the next spot and NECA opted for double-joints this time. This is a welcomed addition as the cartoon turtles feature hinged pegs for the elbows and I wasn’t sure what to expect with these. The addition is worthwhile too as they can bend past 90 degrees at the joint. The wrists swivel and feature horizontal hinges. There are no vertical hinged hands in this set at all. That’s disappointing as the toon turtles had vertical hinges for the hands. The Turtles in Disguise set I believe came with two sets of vertical gripping hands, and this continues to be a problem with NECA. Where they once did a decent job of including the proper hinge, they seem to have essentially abandoned it for TMNT. Gargoyles characters get it, so I don’t understand the oversight. This is a set where essentially one set of tools creates four figures and it’s also something they’re likely to reissue many times so the fact that they couldn’t find it in the budget is absurd to me. It’s my biggest pet peeve with NECA of late.

For those who would like a more direct comparison.

At least at the waist we get an improvement over the 2008 turtles. NECA included a waist twist which they set fairly high behind the plastron to conceal it. It’s not going to provide the same amount of range a waist twist would with a non-shelled character, but it works all right. NECA added a “diaper” over the hips as well, but it doesn’t seem to get in the way. It does have the tendency to shift a bit though and my Leonardo has more of the part visible on his right leg than his left by quite a bit. The legs can kick forward past 90 degrees before the leg wants to go off to the side while the shell keeps them from kicking back. They also can hit a split. After that it’s pretty typical as we get a pivot point for the thighs where the ball connects with double-jointed knees past that which bend just a touch beyond 90 degrees. The ankles have the hinge and rocker setup, though the chunky nature of the ankles does restrict some of the range, but there should be enough to keep your figures flat-footed in most stances. These guys also have tails and there is a swivel point there if you want it. The bandana tassel also pegs in, and while it doesn’t really spin freely, you can reposition it if you want by removing it and re-inserting it even if you can’t get it to swivel.

Nothing is stopping you from swapping heads, but the default is (Clockwise from top left): Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael.

The level of articulation is acceptable, aside from the lack of proper hinges for the gripping hands. Where this set surprises in the wrong way is with the accessories. If you have the Turtles in Disguise set or most of the other four-packs NECA has done over the past few years then you’re accustomed to getting a bunch of stuff in these boxes. With these turtles, despite the amount of tooling needed to produce these guys, we don’t really have much. Each turtle comes with a set of gripping hands out of the box, and then there is one set of fists, open hands, style pose hands, and gripping hands with more space between the fingers. Those hands are intended for use with Raphael when he grips his sai with the middle blade going through his fingers. Since it’s four sets the boys have to share, you can’t have all four turtles with their hands in a style pose or chop. There’s at least an entire set of four alternate bandana tassels that can be swapped in and out. The figures come with the bandana draped over their right shoulder and each one has a straight bandana piece to swap to.

There may not be a ton in the box, but at least they didn’t screw up the weapons.

Of course, the main accessories are the weapons. Each turtle has his signature weapons and they all appear to be new sculpts. For Leo and Raph, the metal portions of their weapons are painted the way I’ve wanted metal to be done for a long time now: white with light blue shading. It looks so good and is much better than the flat gray so many companies use. Even the very expensive Mondo sixth scale Wolverine has flat gray claws. I attribute it to the idea of metal being white as “wrong” since we know it isn’t white in real life, but that’s how it often looks in print or in animation. With Leo, the effect is perfect, though with Raph the blue shading is basically all over. I think if they did it exactly how they did Leo’s katana it would have turned out better, but it’s minor. Mikey’s nunchaku are done similar to the movie figures with brown, plastic, handles connected via black thread. Donnie’s bo is done in an orange-brown with a slightly lighter brown wrap, which is an interesting choice. Perhaps an off-white would have contrasted more, but basically every Donatello figure does that with his signature weapon so I don’t mind the difference. There’s also three gear-like throwing weapons included painted in the same light blue as Raph’s sai and the shading on Leo’s katana. Why three instead of four? It’s an odd choice, but one I can’t get too worked up over since I’m not going to use these anyway.

You get three of these buzz saw things, if that’s something that interests you.

Lastly, we get a couple of accessories that are specific to Raph from the comics. His bandaged right arm is included as a swappable piece, but since all four turtles are the same mold, it can actually work with any turtle. The right arm pops off easily (the left does not) to facilitate swapping. The bicep was stuck on this arm as well, but I was able to free it up. Also included is Raph’s hood which is done in a soft plastic. It slides over his head easily after you remove the bandana piece and it’s a cool look for him. There’s a texture to the hood that helps sell the illusion it’s made from a rough fabric and it has some black linework as well. It looks good enough that I think I’m going to use this for my display since it does break things up a bit.

Raph’s sneaking outfit is the most substantial accessory. Since all four turtles are essentially the same, they can all wear this thing and the right arm on all four pops off with ease.

That’s it though. Four extra sets of hands for four figures, an extra set of bandana pieces, three throwing weapons, and Raph’s hood and arm. The melee weapons are a given because every set of turtles needs to include those, but why so skimpy on the hands? How about an extra head for each turtle? Especially since they’d function as an extra head for any turtle given they all look the same. With so many shared parts and the high price tag of $150, it feels light. It’s like we’re paying an undisclosed “Turtle Tax” since this is a set NECA knows will be in high demand and can make a larger profit on. Maybe I’m completely wrong and the profit margin is unchanged from past four-packs. And maybe I’m just still salty about the lack of vertically hinged hands.

“All right, Round Head, let’s go bust some skulls!”

Basically, what I said several paragraphs ago is what applies most here: if you’ve been waiting years for a set of Mirage turtles then you’re going to get this set. And you’re probably going to be relatively happy with the outcome. The figures are fun to handle and pose and look great together. I think they pair well with most of the other Mirage releases, though placing them with Shredder does make me wish we had a beefier Shredder for them to fight. They’ll look great with Zog though or the Shredder clones or even just off on their own. In spite of the inflated price point, I do think they’re worth getting even for those who have the original Mirage turtles given the difference in style.

I figured I’d end on a pic of these two, for no particular reason…

If you’re on the hunt for these boys you can keep an eye on Target’s website. Set alerts for if they come back in stock as you never know. They also have shipped in waves to Target stores so keep checking there. If your store is like mine, they’re being stocked on an endcap in the toys section rather than in the usual NECA section. Since these are a Mirage release, it also stands to reason they’ll be sold in other places after this initial Target run is over. NECA hasn’t come out and said that, but it would be crazy for them not to make the actual turtles available to as many customers as possible.

Interested in more NECA Mirage Studios releases?

NECA Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

A dozen years ago, toy company NECA dipped its toe into the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time, and shockingly it failed to stick around. That’s incredible to hear for collectors currently chasing down Bebop and Rocksteady at Target, but it’s the truth. There are a lot of folks at NECA…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Triceraton Zog

Haulathon 2023 has brought some pretty big releases to NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. And I mean big in a literal sense. REX-1 was tall and hefty and the multi-armed clone of Shredder was no slouch either. Those two seem to pale in comparison to Zog, the Triceraton warrior from NECA’s…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Shredder Clones

NECA and Target’s Haulathon event which has seen a vast assortment of product dumped onto shelves recently was not content to limit the products to just the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Far from it, as an assortment of comic book based characters were also released and today we’re going to look at the first…

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by Joe

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January 10, 2023

NECA TMNT Quarter Scale Toon Leonardo

By Joe
Leo is here and bigger than ever!

We’re not yet far enough removed from the holidays that Christmas has left my brain. And if you were to ask me what my favorite Christmas present was as a kid I wouldn’t hesitate to say my Super Nintendo. I had a real “Ralphie moment” in that I found it last having failed to notice it off to the side propped between the dining room table and the wall. It was an awesome gift and a memorable way to get it. My second favorite though was my Giant-Sized Leonardo. I got that gift from an aunt who must have talked to my mom and found out who my favorite turtle was. My dad is one of nine kids so Christmas with his family was always done as a pseudo Secret Santa, only it wasn’t a secret. All of the cousins (or the parents) drew names so that not every family was buying a gift for every niece and nephew. I think it was supposed to be a ten dollar limit too, but this particular aunt always loves giving gifts and is known to blow past such suggestions. I didn’t even know the giant sized line existed when I unwrapped that gift so I was blown away. My favorite toy turned into this massive figure? It was incredible! The only negative was he only came with one sword when we all know that Leonardo wields two.

It was my affection for that old toy (which I sadly no longer possess) that convinced me to collect NECA’s quarter scale line of figures based on the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I’ve already looked at Raphael and Donatello so with Leonardo there won’t be a ton to discuss. As is the case in the show, the turtles are all identical save for their weapons and colors so the figures follow the same style. They’re all the same save for the belts and paint, including the headsculpts. NECA used this line to unveil their new approach to turtle heads that come in two parts: eyes and mouth. This allows for the collector to change the expressions to suit their mood. You can have all of the turtles basically look the same, or make sure they’re all doing something different. It’s an idea so good that it’s been brought to the 1:12 line since.

Maybe someday there will be a quarter scale Shredder so the two can be on equal footing.

Leonardo comes in the same “Giant Sized” box as the previous two figures and stands a shade under 15″. He weighs over 3 pounds so he’s a big, weighty, toy. The sculpt is the same as before save for the L medallion on the front of the belt and the holsters for Leo’s swords on the rear of the belt. Like the smaller figures, NECA uses it’s two-tone shading with dark colors on the rear and bright colors on the front when it comes to paint. Most of the figure is painted, which is good and bad. Good because it gives the figure a real depth of color, but bad because there are spots of paint transfer. The rear of the my figure’s thighs have some brown from the shell and there’s some blue above the kneepad of the right knee as well. It’s not terrible, but it can stand out on a figure of such size. The black linework is largely sharp and helps make the figure “pop” when looking at it. It’s an impressive piece, as were the past two, and there’s almost a sense of disbelief to have such a giant turtle in-hand.

I prefer my Leo to be happy.

Leonardo’s expressions are both familiar and different. NECA intentionally mixes up the included mouth shapes with each release. Raph has just two, while Donnie had three, and Leo reflects the Donatello release. His included mouths are a smile, open mouth smile, and a neutral expression. The one mouth he doesn’t have is the yelling mouth which was included with both Donatello and Raph. Donatello had both the smile and neutral mouth so Leo doesn’t come with anything new, but I’m glad he has three options instead of two. Swapping them can be trying. I had to heat up some of them to get the eyes to snap in place while others I didn’t have to. He comes with the standard eyes on the smiling mouth and the standard eyes seem to work better as a result. The angry eyes required more effort, but I didn’t have any problem getting them on and off the neck peg and none are too loose like they are with Raph so that’s a plus. In terms of hands, Leo was given gripping hands, open hands, and thumb’s up hands. He doesn’t get the finger-pointing hands, but more importantly, his gripping hands are the same as Raph and Don. In the 1:12 line, NECA actually created three different sets of gripping hands: standard with horizontal hinge, standard with vertical hinge, and a wider gripping hand so that Raph can be posed with the middle tyne of his sai in between his fingers. For the quarter scale line, NECA apparently chose to only adopt the wide gripping hand. I expected this figure to come with new gripping hands with a vertical hinge because the 1:12 version has them and the quarter scale movie Leonardo has them as well (the 7″ movie Leo unfortunately does not). It sucks because NECA is obviously aware of which hand works best for a sword wielder like Leonardo (I’d argue the vertical hinge is also appropriate for Raph and Mikey with only Donatello benefitting from a horizontal hinge), but it’s frustratingly inconsistent in its approach. The recent Hudson figure from the Gargoyles line has it, but a character like Usagi Yojimbo does not. Make it make sense! And for $125 for a figure requiring minimal new tooling, it feels like something that we should have got here.

This aspect of the figure could stand to work better.

As for accessories beyond the optional parts, we have the customary swords. They’re the same shape as the 1:12 version, just upscaled. They appear to be sculpted in white with painted handles. The one benefit of Leo having Raph’s more specialized gripping hands is that the handles of the swords fit easily into them. It’s also helped by the fact that the hands are fairly pliable. This means there’s less chance for paint rub on the hands, which is not something that can be said of the sheaths on the rear of the figure. The fit for the swords is a tight one, especially the sheath on the bottom. And you will get some paint rub onto the nice, white, blades so maybe don’t even bother. I got the top sword through with minimal rub while the bottom one lead to a lot. I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to get most of the brown off of the blade, but I don’t ever plan on sheathing these again. If it’s something you must do, then maybe heat the sheaths with a hair dryer first and see if that helps. Aside from the swords, Leo just has the same two slices of pizza which can key into the slices that came with the other figures. He also has a communicator which opens and closes just like Raph and Don and he has one paper good. It’s a newspaper or magazine titled Crimestoppers Weekly. It’s fine and obviously something that’s cheap to include.

The articulation for Leo is the exact same as the other two figures, so I don’t feel like I need to get into it. I just want to highlight that, unlike the 1:12 figures, these quarter scale figures have double-jointed elbows. The elbow pad pegs into the center part of the elbow and you actually get decent range there, a bit past 90 degrees. The joints are pretty tight overall though and I had issues with the biceps swivel and thigh twists. The biceps just required some additional effort as I just needed to make sure I got some leverage on the shoulder before twisting. The thigh swivel is much harder to get at since these figures have legs that pin into the crotch piece. That’s because they need to be ratcheted to support the figure’s weight, but it makes it quite difficult to get any leverage on that thigh twist. Both are stuck and attempting to twist them just stresses that peg in the hip and could easily lead to an unfortunate break. There’s some traces of lubrication at the joint, but it apparently wasn’t applied well enough. I had the same issue with Raph, bt Donatello had a lot of lubricating oil in there and I was able to twist his thighs without issue. I assumed it was all solved, but Leo is like Raph unfortunately. I haven’t been able to get them to move and I’m guessing I never will.

It’s nice to see them all together, but it also makes it plainly obvious who we’re missing.

Giant Sized Leonardo is a throwback sort of figure with modern engineering. If you have the other two, you basically know what to expect. Because of the lack of vertical hinges on his gripping hands, I might have to consider this figure the worst of the 3 given the issues with the thighs. It paints me to admit that since Leonardo is my favorite, so subjectively I like this figure more than the other two, but there are certainly some disappointments. If that is not an issue for you then you’ll probably be content. And if you have the other two then you basically already know if you want this or not. Had Leo been the first figure out in this line I might have been able to just go one and done with my favorite turtle in this scale, but since I started with Raph I pretty much have to have all four now. As for when that will happen, who knows? Michelangelo has yet to go up for solicitation, though a finished sample was present in a recent interview The Fwoosh conducted with NECA’s Trevor Zammit so I have to assume it’s either in production or in line to go into production. Which isn’t surprising since it’s the same figure as the other three. Leonardo started showing up last fall, the place I ordered it from seemed to get it in last, so maybe Mikey will show up on a similar timeline. I’m anxious to see how they do his nunchaku in this scale and to see if he comes with any extras. It will be nice to finally have all four together when that day comes.

Like your turtles big? Then check these out:

NECA Quarter Scale TMNT Toon Raph

My first NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles product was the original release of the Mirage Studios quartet released in 2008. Nearly a decade went by before I bought another TMNT product from NECA, and that item ended up being the quarter scale movie Donatello. It was love at first sight for me and Donnie, and…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Quarter Scale Toon Donatello

2022 has been a year of catch-up so far for me. A lot of stuff I preordered a year or more ago is finally coming due, and often without the actual preorder! The NECA quarter scale toon Donatello from the classic cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is yet another preorder that just didn’t get…

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by Joe

Neca 1/4 Scale TMNT Movie Leonardo

NECA is now 3/4 of the way through the release schedule of their TMNT 1990 movie line with the release of Leonardo – the REAL leader of the group. And like Donatello and Raphael before him, he’s a pretty impressive specimen. The original 1990 movie impossibly never had dedicated action figures. Playmates half-assed a line…

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by Joe

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

December 27, 2022

NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze 4-Pack and Accessory Set

By Joe
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II – Let’s Get Silly!

It’s that time of year when a lot of folks are reflecting on the past year and all of the things that happened. This usually coincides with list-making for favorites and worst of the year in basically every category you can dream of. And for action figure enthusiasts, there’s definitely a lot of list making. And here to blow it all up is NECA who managed to sneak this set out before the end of the year even though it wasn’t expected until Q1 2023. When the set went up for preorder in April, I think most hoped that by Christmas we’d have it hand. And when a few months ago two-packs of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from The Secret of the Ooze started showing up at Walmart that seemed to encourage fans to dream of an early arrival. It also predictably annoyed some since the stuff that was prepaid for in the spring was still outstanding while Walmart was getting basically the same thing, but that’s a whole other thing.

NECA has eased into the second film in the TMNT franchise. After first indicating it wasn’t that interested in any of the films beyond the first, we started to see the villains. Tokka and Rahzar, multiple versions of Super Shredder, and a standard Shredder all arrived before the actual turtles. Those first film turtles are some of my all-time favorite action figures. They began life as quarter scale figures and the very first one I got was Donatello. It was a Christmas gift in 2016 so it’s fitting that I’m still talking movie turtles now six Christmases removed. Despite my love for those figures, I wasn’t really feeling that excited about these ones. I ordered the set largely out of convenience. I had no desire to stalk Walmart in search for them and my Secret of the Ooze collection had grown large enough that it needed the turtles. I don’t even particularly like the movie, but I did as a kid, and I’m still at least fond of the costumes from it. I also expected these figures to be very similar to the previous ones so there wasn’t a lot to be excited about. Then I got them in hand and I felt rather stupid for ever overlooking a NECA TMNT release.

There she is, in all her glory!

This set is the NECA store exclusive VHS four-pack. Just like NECA did with the first film, this set of four turtles comes housed in a pretty substantial box which is designed to resemble the original VHS release of the film. Only the turtles on the box have been substituted for images of the actual figures. It’s pretty cool, though this set made it a lot harder on photographer Stephen Mazurek. The front cover looks fantastic, but the image on the rear is pretty goofy looking because these figures really aren’t articulated enough to replicate the poses from the back of the VHS box. As a result, Mikey and Donnie both look like they’re riding an invisible horse or something. The box is huge though as it’s nearly 17″ in height and 10″ across. The lettering on it is raised, like a VHS, and it will look nice next to the same box from the first movie set. And like that, it’s a slipcover and the inner box features a tray with the figures and accessories inside secured behind a plastic cover with more photography all over the place. Considering that nothing in the box is exclusive to this set, you’re basically paying a premium for the fancy box and at least it delivers. Well, there is one thing that’s exclusive and it’s a backdrop. It’s a thick cardboard and it’s of the club from the film’s climax, the exterior wall. Could we one day see the interior stage setup? Only time will tell.

These may be the only turtles I choose not to display with their weapons.

I’m as charmed as anyone by a fancy box, but what I really care about are the figures inside. The turtles are all on the same body, but it does differ from the body of the first film turtles. They each stand at around 6.25″ in height, and considering it’s a 7″ scale line, that seems pretty good. The only thing that stinks about that is all four turtles are the same height when at least Michelangelo should be shorter, but that was something we had to overlook with the other figures too. The stuff that’s reused are the arms and legs and maybe whatever is inside the shell. The plastron, shell, pads, belts, and heads are all new. Even though the thighs appear to be the same between releases, these figures do have updated hips with the ball and socket joint. Like the previous figures, the biceps are actually a little different as Leo and Mikey share the same parts while Donnie and Raph share some as well. The shells are all the same, though Raph’s has some distress marks carved into his and Leo’s appears to allow for the scabbards of his swords to key-in. Each turtle does differ in that the pattern of their freckles are applied different from brother to brother.

The new figures all seem to have shineir feet for some reason.

In terms of changes from the past figures to these ones, they’re mostly subtle, but apparent. Obviously, the heads are all different as the costumes were overhauled to allow for a wider range of expressions. Donnie’s changed the most, while there’s a hint of the first film Leo and Raph in their designs. Mikey was practically unchanged, but his head seems a little smaller and more round. All of the turtles wear their bandanas over both shoulders and that’s reflected here. There are no optional display parts there. The colors are also a bit softer, especially Leo and Raph, and it’s captured here. The skin tone also appears to have more yellow incorporated into the green so they have a slightly different appearance. For some reason, there’s a powdery, green, residue on them this time around which tends to rub onto the accessories when placed in the gripping hands and can even find its way onto one’s hands after extensive play. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s so far been easy to clean off of the accessories. The plastron of each turtle is shaded more heavily than it was in the first film and I like how it contrasts with the otherwise brighter look. Michelangelo also has satchels for his nunchaku this time around which is cool and a nice addition to both the real world costume and the figure. Perhaps due to the flaky nature of the topcoat, there are a few spots on the figures where the plastic is shiny. On Leo especially, his right foot appears a lot glossier than the left which is a bit odd. Maybe they missed that piece with a final paint app or something. The powdery green also shows up in some of the grooves, especially on the hands, which is a little off-putting but not something that can be seen from a shelf. I would classify such issues as relatively minor, for otherwise these look like they jumped out of the movie. It’s almost eerie at times to look at them because they seem so lifelike.

It’s turtle time.

Since the bodies in use are very similar to the past turtles, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn the articulation is more or less the same. All of the turtles feature a double-ball peg for the head. The lower peg is recessed quite a bit so the range isn’t optimal. The turtles can basically rotate fine, but looking down varies from turtle to turtle with Michelangelo performing the best. None of them can look up and the ball peg is pretty snug and tight. At the shoulders we have ball-hinges and they can raise their arms out to just about horizontal and rotate all around. There’s no biceps swivel, which is something I would have welcomed, but we do have the NECA double-elbows which feature two hinges and a swivel above and below the joint. The elbow pads are smaller this time around and peg into the elbow like the quarter scale figures. This results in better range than we saw on the first film release as the turtles can now bend their elbows past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and every hinge features a horizontal orientation, which is a bummer for Leonardo, especially. In the torso, there’s a ball joint or something, but it doesn’t do a whole lot. It basically just provides a tiny bit of rotation and tilt. The hips are the newer model hips and the turtles can just about do splits. They can’t quite kick forward all the way though as the thighs rub against the plastron. It’s also very creaky and unpleasant. There’s a bit of a thigh swivel at the ball-joint and the knees are double-jointed. They can just get past 90 degrees there while the ankles feature the usual hinge and rocker combo and works all right. They’ll move okay, but elaborate stuff is a bit out of the question. I do wish they had decided to sacrifice a tiny amount of the aesthetic to carve in a biceps swivel, but I understand why they didn’t. The lack of vertical hinges for the gripping hands is the one major oversight and NECA frustrates me in that area. They sometimes include such a hinge, and sometimes they don’t. Toon Leo and Raph, for example, have them and even the quarter scale movie Leonardo has them. The 7″ scale ones don’t though and that’s a real bummer.

Combat cole cuts!

This four-pack also comes packed with a fair assortment of accessories. Some are repeats, and some are new. For hands, all four turtles come with gripping hands. They then share the following sets: open, relaxed gripping, thumbs up, and pointing/sai grip. The gripping hands are really tight, but pliable. They’ll hold almost everything, but the green paint will transfer. There’s a full canister of ooze, which you probably have several of by now, and a second empty canister of ooze which is new. The fire extinguisher makes a return, but new this time is the foam bat from the opening of the film. It’s not actual foam though, but painted, hard, plastic. There’s also a new pizza box and it comes with a bunch of pizza “stubs” which is a nice addition. There’s also a full slice with a hole through the center so Raphael can catch his touchdown pass as he did in the film. There’s an extra left forearm and this is for Donnie as his default forearm features the wristwatch in the wrist strap as seen in one scene of the film. I have no idea how easy it is to swap forearms as I have no intention of removing the unique wristwatch arm. Mikey also comes with his “combat cole cuts,” two pairs of linked sausages which are in a nice, rubbery, plastic that almost makes them feel real. And lastly, each turtle has his standard weapons. For Leo, Raph, and Donnie, these are the same as the first film turtles with Donnie’s bo having a noticeably lighter paint app. For Mikey, his nunchaku have been updated so that instead of a pair of strings connecting the two he has something more like a bendy wire. It doesn’t seem to be strong enough for posing, but perhaps it will be more durable. They slot rather snugly into his new satchels too.

He’s real attached to that mop.
I could use a desk….
Aww, so cute!

That’s a fair amount of stuff. I think we could always use more hands, especially with vertical hinges, but I think they come with enough. Maybe another set of open hands should have been included so they could execute a proper Cowabunga pose, but at least we have the hands from the first set. If that’s not enough though then NECA has you covered as they also put up for sale an accessory set alongside this release. I passed on the same for the first film, but this time I decided to go all-in. And there’s a lot of stuff in here. It comes in a square box with an image of one of the film’s theatrical posters on the cover (the same image we saw on the Super Shredder release) with photography on the rear and spines. Inside the box is a big plastic tray with a cover over it and all of the accessories are visible. It’s not as flashy a package as the VHS box, but it’s durable and easy to reseal if you can’t find a home for all of this stuff.

Moving day!
This will be handy for storing some of the accessories.
“You think you could crunch any louder?!”
We just need an orange and a purple one.
You can hear this, right?

I guess we’ll just plow through it, but this thing has a lot of stuff pulled from the film. Up first, another ooze canister! This one though is basically the catalyst for the film as it’s the empty, broken, canister and it can separate just like the one in the film. It’s a nice little thing to have and kind of makes me wants another Splinter. To keep track of these things, there’s a computer and keyboard and, uh oh, one canister is still active! Also in here is Michelangelo’s chocolate bar so he can annoy Raph. And if he’s thirsty, there’s a red mug of what appears to be cola that features a straw and a blue mug without a straw. If salty is more your thing, there’s also a bowl of popcorn and two bags of potato chips (the bare essentials). When it’s time to clean up after another pizza party, there’s a pair of aprons: pink and purple. They’re soft goods and can tie onto any of the figures. There are also two cleaning brushes (wax on, wax off) and Donnie’s bo with a mop molded onto both ends – perfect for cleaning and romancing! These guys eat a lot of pizza, so there’s another box of pie! It’s the same box as the one featured in the four-pack, but this one has four, full, slices inside. They appear to be the same mold as the pizzas that came with the first film figures. When it’s time to move out of April’s apartment there’s a suitcase which can open and actually has a lot of room for stuff inside. Michelangelo’s hat is also included to protect him from the rain, and since you’ll be wanting to contact April once a new home is found there’s also a payphone. It has a slot on the back so that it can be hung on a nail or tack, if you wish. As for something cute, there’s a pre-mutated Rahzar which features articulation at the head. Less cute is the pre-mutated Tokka which has a hinged jaw. Rahzar looks fine, but Tokka is actually pretty impressive. There’s more paint on this little snapping turtle than is featured on most Hasbro figures. There’s also some included reading material, a little, paper, newspaper with “NINJA RAP IS BORN” as the cover story. They had to include that. And if reading’s not your thing, then you can also rock out with the included keytar. It easily slips over the head/shoulder of any turtle and is known to cause massive headaches in villains.

“…a little too Raph!”
“Touchdown! Yeah!”

That’s a lot of stuff, and I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I don’t think there’s any way to shake that feeling. Probably the main draw of this set is the five extra heads included for the figures. For Donatello, we get an open mouth expression which works for any of his talking poses. For Michelangelo, we get the opposite as his is more stoic compared with his default open mouth. Leonardo also gets a stoic face and it’s an expression I more associate with the character than his smiling portrait from the four-pack. Raphael’s is the least different as he has a half smile, I guess, by default and the new head is a full smile. He gets a third head though which features tape across the mouth so he can be “a little too Raph” should it please you. I wish they included a post to tie him to as well. Oddly, the Raph heads feature a darker shade of red on the bandana while the others are more uniform. I’m guessing this is an error, but it’s probably not something that will bother most. As for swapping the heads, it’s pretty painless. I was nervous about it at first, but I didn’t even need to heat them up or anything (same is true for the joints on the figures) and was able to just pop them off. Getting the secondary heads to really snap-in is tricky and may require heat. It does create a dilemma on what to display. I definitely prefer the alternate Leo head and I think I like the open mouth Donnie head more. Raph is the only one where I’m kind of lukewarm as far as preferring one over the other. Eventually, I probably will tie him up as it’s just too funny.

Never skip the pre-fight donut.
This will work.
Remember kids, the power of music was used to defeat Shredder.

These figures are pretty damn terrific. If you have any desire to add action figures of the turtles from Secret of the Ooze to your collection then you absolutely should track these down. The four pack is basically long gone, but two-packs should continue shipping all throughout 2023 to Walmart stores. Hopefully, NECA does a big restock at some point to help make it easier because they’re going to be in demand. The accessory set is unfortunately a NECA store exclusive and it too is long gone. They might reissue it at some point, but considering they’ve never done that for the first film accessory set it likely will be a long wait. If it’s something you have to have then you’re just going to have to bite the bullet and buy one on the secondary market. For 60 bucks, I think it’s worth it, but I don’t think I’d personally go much higher than that. The two-packs are a complete enough package that it’s hard to call the accessory set essential, but there is a lot of fun stuff in there. I particularly like the phone and the PC, though figuring out a way to display the PC is going to be tricky. I wish they had just included a little table for it and the office chair Donnie went surfing on. If the accessory set had included more hands, especially the coveted vertical hinged hands, it definitely would have been more of a slam dunk.

The collection basically doubled with this release (not pictured is the Shadow Master variant of Super Shredder nor the Euro variant, the latter of which I didn’t get).

This is another homerun from NECA and an A+ release. It’s also potentially the last release from the Secret of the Ooze for me. A figure of Keno with his moped is coming in 2023, but I’m on the fence there. Do I need a Keno? No, but the fact that he comes with his motorcycle is pretty cool. And if he’s sold on the NECA website that will go a long way. I’m definitely not going to run around Walmart looking for him. If this is the end though, then I’m pretty damn happy with the display I have and I think anyone else who invests in this line will be too.

More from The Secret of the Ooze…

NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Tokka and Rahzar

Merry Boxing Day every one! I hope you enjoyed the Christmas content this year, but it’s time to go back to our usual programming. Which in 2020 means toys. And I just could not wait any longer to talk about what was probably my most anticipated release of 2020: NECA’s Tokka and Rahzar based on…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Ultimate Shredder

For the first time in a long time we went a week without a blog entry here. That’s because I took a much needed vacation and didn’t schedule anything. I’ll probably be backing off a little bit as we dig deeper into 2022 since there’s a certain holiday I need to get crackin’ on if…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Super Shredder

“The last vial of ooze!” “He must have drank all of it!” “It’s a Super Shredder!!!” It’s a simple, obvious, and corny introduction for a character, but as a 7-year old it felt rather impactful. The introduction of Super Shredder in the waning moments of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze…

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by Joe

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

October 18, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Samurai Leonardo

By Joe
He’s traded in the shadows to learn the ways of the samurai.

Well, after looking at the Wave 6 Slash a couple of weeks ago we can now finally turn our attention to a Wave 5 release from Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! series of figures: Sewer Samurai Leonardo. The thing with TMNT is, you have the four good guys, a few core allies, and then a whole bunch of bad guys or one-off guests. In the show, there was a constant presence from Shredder and his associates, but also often a mutant of the week as Shredder would enlist someone’s aid or create a new monster to throw at the turtles. This worked well for toys as Playmates always had new designs to work with. And they didn’t usually wait on the show anyway as the toyline seemed to introduce new characters more often than not with the show to follow. The only issue there is die hard fans are buying them all, but there’s also a ton of casual fans or kids that just bounce from one thing to the other and they only tend to recognize the good guys. What’s a toy company to do in order to sell more turtles? The answer is variants.

It was a long wait, but he’s finally here!

Playmates kept the original four turtles in circulation for much of the toy line. They’re technically still releasing them to this day. To keep the line interesting though, the company would take those characters and do something different several times a year. This first took place with the Wacky Action series in 1989. Those were new sculpts with wind-up features which is a fairly typical variant for a toyline to introduce. After that, Playmates started doing more “weird” versions of the turtles to the point where it’s one of the often cited things about the line today as people remember seeing Leonardo as a life guard and Raphael as a magician which is pretty damn goofy when you think about it. The variants started off a little more straight-forward though with the 1990 Disguised series. That line consisted of Raph the Space Cadet, Mike the Sewer Surfer, Don the Undercover Turtle, and Leo the Sewer Samurai. Of the four, I’d say only Raph as an astronaut seems particularly odd. Mikey was using surfer lingo in the show and Donatello was just sporting the disguise look from the same show. Leonardo as a samurai also felt pretty normal as the turtles often do feel more like samurai than ninja, so why not depict the stoic leader as a ronin? And now that Super7 has released all four base turtles, they too are turning to the variants and up first is Sewer Samurai Leonardo.

This guy has swords to spare.

Leonardo comes in Super7’s typical Ultimates! packaging with a green slipcover on the front that features an original logo for the figure and the classic logo on the rear. The shade of green on the slipcover this time seems just a touch more saturated than the others I have, but otherwise everything is pretty familiar. Inside is the same sewer deco with the figure behind a window box. First of all, I should say I am a big fan of the Playmates original for this figure. Leonardo was my favorite as a kid, so naturally, this was my favorite figure from the Disguise series. I don’t believe there is a Leonardo variant in that line that I enjoyed more than this one. Tragically, I no longer have that figure and I contemplated buying one just to have on-hand for when this came out. I obviously didn’t or I wouldn’t bothered to have mentioned that, but I am predisposed to like this figure and I’m going to do my best to be objective here, because subjectively I am practically bursting with glee just looking at him in the box.

He lacks a toe hinge, but you can still point him up on his toes if you desire.

This design for Leo is indeed samurai inspired, but he’s pretty garish. I don’t know if any real world samurai ever had this kind of color combo, but that’s part of what makes this line fun. First of all, we have this gold, open-faced, helmet which is non-removable. The portrait of the vintage figure was basically Raphael from the first wave. Playmates basically switched up the expressions for this line for variety (Donatello had Leo’s old facial expression and Raph had Donatello’s while Mikey was all new), but Super7’s looks more like the Wave 2 Leo’s mouth, but with Raph’s eyes. It’s slightly different, which also makes it more it’s own thing. I’m not bothered by it, but some might be if they want this to look exactly like the vintage toy. The chest plastron is armored and painted gold. It’s not a very shiny, or metallic, gold. It’s definitely less lustrous than the original and less than Super7’s Metalhead, but I don’t dislike it. I like the finish, but I know many others don’t.

These boxy sandals also help him to balance on one foot, though you’ll have to fight with his torso to keep him this way.

Beneath that armor, this figure is sporting sculpted chainmail which is where things get kind of weird because it’s blue. It works for a ninja turtle, but for an actual samurai would come across as pretty baffling. I love this shade though as it’s basically the same as Leonardo’s bandana. The sculpt itself though is pretty soft and I wish there was more detail. There’s some blue piping on the gloves and feet too and I like how that plays off of the torso. The pants and sleeves are black which creates a nice contrast with the blue and gold. The hands are now just sculpted hands with black rope over them where as the old figure had a bug or something sculpted onto one. I’m fine with that omission. Where the presentation does take a bit of a hit for me is with the red shoulder pauldrons and thigh guards. They’re sculpted and look nice, but there’s zero paint on them. They just stand out as plain, lumps, of red plastic. And it’s a soft red that reminds me of lipstick. I basically had the same issue with Slash and I don’t know why Super7 seems to refuse to paint shoulder parts on their figures because it’s an area that stands out, so why not make it look good? There’s also minor paint slop here and there, like on the neck and the red straps could have been hit with another coat as the black plastic shows through a bit. It’s the type of stuff you notice when looking the figure over, but not something that shows on a shelf save for a black smudge on my figure’s left, gripping, hand. I’ll probably try to take that off with a magic eraser since the only painted part of the hands is the black rope as Super7 has seemingly stopped painting the finger and toenails.

I love this blue trim on the shell and the belt is soft and pliable so it’s easy to stash additional weapons in it.

The thing I really liked about this figure as a kid were the accessories and the options for weapon storage. The original figure had a belt loop on the rear that was really intended for his banner, but could also store his sword. He also had a loop on the side of his belt to store his katana like a traditional samurai would. And on top of that, he also had a scabbard he could put it in and sling over a shoulder. This figure does the same and you actually have three standard swords and one short sword. Now the odd thing is the swords here look more like a ninja-to, or ninjatō, which is basically what Leonardo often has. They were always listed as katanas, but in actuality he almost never wielded swords that looked like a true katana. The Wave 2 Leonardo from Super7 gave him actual katanas, but this one has swords that look better suited for that figure. It’s bizarre. Now, there’s three of them here so one could take two and give them to the old Leo and keep one for this Leo (and he only needs one), so that might be intentional on Super7’s part since they do hear the criticisms out there. As for what we do have here, the swords are painted well and have a green accent, likely an homage to the original figure coming with all green weapons and accessories (and yes, you do get a green, unpainted, sprue with all of the weapons on it). I think they work for this figure, but I’m not sure I like the green with the prior figure. They’re also soft and some arrived warped which I do not like, but I hope to straighten them with some heat.

He doesn’t grip the kunai very well, but they can slot between his fingers.

In addition to the swords, Leonardo comes with a trio of kunai that are nicely painted with a steel and green finish. There are two throwing stars which are a different design from the Wave 2 figure. He also has a set of “Samurai claws” which he can hold in his gripping hands or the more style posed hands and they basically turn him into Wolverine. They too have the green accents, but also a hit of blue and blend in quite nice. These were not featured on the vintage release. His banner returns and it looks like bamboo held together by wrappings. It can fit in a loop on the figure’s belt and be displayed as so. The banner itself is soft goods and looks okay. It’s not the highest quality print, but better than a sticker like the old figure. His shield returns which is now fully painted. It’s gold with green, red, and blue on the front and it’s the only place on this figure where I think this color combo doesn’t work. I think I would drop the red, and maybe the blue, if I could. There’s a slice of pizza in case Leo gets hungry which has a sardine, or anchovy, on it to distinguish it from other slices we’ve seen. The fish has this really nice metallic blue paint on it and I kind of want to see how that would look for a blade. He also has his scabbard which now features an actual, nylon, string instead of a soft plastic loop so it’s easy to slip on and off, but the plainness of the string doesn’t look great going across his chest. He also has a second head, and this one is a unique creation for the figure that features a mask on the front. It’s pretty cool looking, though swapping heads is harder than I would like. The default one comes off and on fine, but the masked head looks to have a smaller indentation for the ball peg so it’s really hard to snap into place. It does further the trend though of the original portraits included with these figures being really tempting. I think I’m going to stick with the vintage look, but I bet I switch it up from time to time.

He comes with a solid assortment of hands, but lacks the ones I really want. They’re also so hard to swap, due to the combination of the new ribs added to the pegs and the softness of the plastic, that I don’t plan to ever remove the gripping hands which is a shame.

Not mentioned in that list of things are the hands, because I wanted to talk about that separately. This figure comes with 4 sets of hands: open, gripping, style posed, and fists. Out of the box, he has open hands and they’re really hard to get off the figure. I’ve never had this issue with a Super7 figure before, but definitely be careful. A lot of folks resorted to heating the forearm, myself included, out of fear of breaking the peg or even the hinge. You may think that since it’s just a peg that if you don’t exert any bending pressure that you’ll be fine, but sometimes the hinge can break in the hand leaving the peg stuck inside the arm. The other thing that sucks about these hands though is that we have 4 sets, but we don’t get the set that is most appropriate and that would be gripping hands with vertical hinges. The prior Leonardo came with such hands, all of the turtles did, and so did Slash and probably some others. Vertical hinges work best for melee weapons, and even guns for that matter. The horizontal hinge is useless and I’m shocked that’s what we got. I just figured that was something Super7 was sensitive to and when I saw the solicitation image that featured just the one set of gripping hands I assumed we were just getting vertical hinges, or a set was left out mistakenly. I was wrong, obviously, and it’s a disappointment and I wish that’s where the disappointment ended. To rub salt in the wound, the fists have vertical hinges, which is pretty useless for a fist. I think this was an error at the factory and they messed up which hinge went with which set of hands, but it either wasn’t caught during the approval process or Super7 (or the factory) declined to correct the error for one reason or another (likely cost).

The heads are also tough to swap, but not as bad as the hands. This new portrait certainly gives the figure a whole different vibe.

This figure was manufactured out of a factory in Vietnam. That’s not a good or bad thing on its own, but I think it’s worth pointing out for what’s to follow. My Wave 6 Slash came out of a factory in China and I was very happy with the articulation. And as far as I know, every Super7 figure I own was made in China. Given the pandemic, it’s not at all surprising to see that Super7 enlisted the help of a Vietnamese factory. We’ve seen Bandai do it as well, and it makes further sense since Waves 5 and 6 essentially arrived at the same time indicating they were made at different factories. I don’t know if Super7 used this factory for anything else, but the end result for the articulation is not good.

“Back off bub, that’s gimmick infringement!”

In general, this guy moves the same as past characters, but I’ll run it down here. We have a head on a ball peg that can rotate, look down, up, and has some room for nuance posing. The shoulders are ball-hinged and can raise out to the side until the shoulder pads get in the way. For some reason, the right shoulder pad on mine likes to curl under the shell when moving it and some red has transferred to the blue trim of the shell, so be careful with that area. I wish they had done what they did with Slash and actually pinned the pauldron to the bicep and not the shoulder as that allows Slash to move the shoulder pad out of the way via the swivel point. In addition to the biceps swivel, there’s a single-hinge at the elbow and a swivel point that’s fairly useless. This turtle doesn’t have elbow pads so he should be able to bend his elbows better than the others, but he still can’t quite hit 90 degrees. The wrists rotate and I already mentioned the horizontal hinges. I wish he had a forearm swivel so we could re-position the forearm guards, but that didn’t happen. In the torso, there’s a diaphragm joint that’s not very functional given the turtle design, but you get a little range. The hips peg in and hinge and he can raise them out for near splits and swivel at the ball joint. The knees are single-hinged and can’t quite hit 90, they also pivot, but the range is pretty poor. The ankles are hinged and can go forward and back, plus rock side-to-side.

In the battle of samurai vs ninja, who will emerge victorious?!

All of that is largely as expected. Super7 is what it is at this point and expecting double-jointed elbows is basically a fool’s game at this point. The articulation is always going to feel somewhat like an afterthought. What’s not acceptable is the tolerance. I already mentioned how swapping the hands and heads are a pain, but the joint in the torso and at other spots are far too loose. They’re awful, and really, they’re unacceptably bad given that this is actually the first wave of TMNT Ultimates! at the higher MSRP of $55 a piece. This guy is as floppy as it gets in the torso and it’s a damn shame. This has been a problem going all the way back to wave 1 that appeared to be steadily getting better. Each turtle since then has been a little bit better than the previous one. None of the four were perfect, but definitely better. This is absolutely a step back and should not have made it out of the factory in this condition. These are premium, collector-grade, action figures. This can’t keep happening. And I personally hate that it happened to the figure I was looking forward to the most, not just this wave, but this entire line up to this point. It’s bad enough that I’m not actually angry, I’m just really downhearted and bummed out about it. I got this figure direct from Super7, which I can’t recommend going that route anymore because of the cost and the fact that other retailers seem to get this stuff in first, and I probably could attempt an exchange, but I have no reason to think the replacement would be any better. I checked out other reviews and impressions and this seems to be a widespread issue not just with Leo, but Wave 5 as a whole. His upper body just wants to flop around and within the hips are slip points so as you widen his stance he starts to slide at certain points. The wrist hinge on my left gripping hand is also really loose and can’t support the weight of the shield. It’s just such a bummer especially because that torso joint brings so little to the table. If they can’t get it right they should just scrap it all together.

We’ll end with a weapon swap shot. I’m honestly leaning towards keeping them like this. The only thing I don’t love is the green trim on the classic Leo, but the Wave 2 katana works really well with the Samurai Leo’s color scheme.

How does one review such an experience? I think the sculpt on this guy turned out great, I’m largely content with the paint excepting the shoulders, and he has plenty of accessories including stuff the old toy didn’t even come with. On the other hand, we have a design omission when it comes to the missing hands that should never have happened. I just personally don’t get how that could unless the factory screwed it up and Super7 didn’t want to spend the money to redo them. The bigger issue for most though will be the unstable joints. This guy is tough to pose as a result. Once he’s standing he seems okay, but he’s limited to narrow stances and wide open stances with little in-between because the hips can’t stay in place and the torso keeps tilting to one side or the other. The hands and head are problematic to swap so you end up with a figure that can look passable on the shelf, but isn’t fun to mess around with because of the frustrations. For some, that’s fine because they’ll set it and forget it. I like to repose and mess around with my figures from time-to-time so it really bums me out when I want very little to do with that part of a figure. As a result, I can’t recommend this one to everybody. If you’re in love with the old toy as much as I am, then maybe you can justify adding it to your collection. For that person, they probably feel like this is a necessity for their collection. For anybody else, I say don’t bother. At least wait until it hits clearance and can be had for less than $55 because right now I can’t honestly say it’s worth the price and that really bums me out.

All right, one more for the road.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in toys

March 8, 2022

Hasbro Power Rangers x TMNT Donatello and Leonardo

By Joe
Donatello and Leonardo are here to join the team.

It’s been a minute, but we’re back with another two-pack from Hasbro’s Power Rangers x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures. If you’re unfamiliar, this series is born from the Boom! comics crossover in which the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers meet the turtles and somehow their powers end up getting handed over to them. I haven’t read the story, so I don’t know why any of that took place, but it did lead to some cool character designs and that’s why we’re here.

The first set I received was the Raphael and Tommy Oliver two-pack which was my introduction to this morphed turtle character sculpt. Because of that, this set is pretty damn familiar because, like many TMNT toy lines, the sculpt for each turtle is essentially the same. The only differences separating the turtles in this line are the unique, unmasked, head sculpts and the belts and weapons. And the other major difference is just the color scheme. With this set, Leonardo is logically the blue ranger, but since there is no purple ranger, Donatello had to take the black. It might have been kind of fun if the black ranger simply became the purple ranger in the hands of Donatello, but this is fine and I don’t fault Boom! for sticking with the traditional colors for MMPR.

It’s morphin’ time…dudes!

If you read my review of Raph and Tommy, then you know that I generally like this ranger turtle sculpt. It’s chunky and embodies enough of what makes the turtles unique while also mixing it with the classic MMPR look. For turtle fans, the biggest change from what we’re accustomed to is in the scale and proportions. These guys are big when the turtles are traditionally on the shorter side. They make Tommy look like a chump as they’re about the same height (six inches), but far more muscular. April, who is in the other two-pack I haven’t reviewed, is a little shorter than the turtles this time. The other big change is in the proportions as it relates to the head. The turtles usually have pretty big domes relative to their body, but here they’re much smaller and closer to more human proportions. It’s not something that I really notice with the masked heads, but swap to the unmasked ones and the contrast becomes obvious. Hasbro has to go off of the art, but I do think they could have gone a little bigger. Aside from that, the sculpt is fine and captures the fun mash-up this crossover embodies.

Both turtles get alternate methods of utilizing their weapons. For Leo, that means his swords combine, but for Donnie he just has a separate, standard, power axe.

Leonardo and Donatello, as mentioned before, are the same as Raphael. The only difference is they feature the chest strap on their belt (just like the vintage toys) which contains the center diamond. On Raph, that diamond is glued into the chest, but on Leo and Don it just pegs in as part of the belt and can be pulled off. Leonardo’s belt crosses over his left shoulder while Donnie’s comes over his right. The insignia on the morpher is unique to each turtle: triceratops for Leo and mastodon for Don. The holster on the rear of the belt is also unique as it’s catered to the weapon of choice for each turtle. Donnie’s is interesting because we’re accustomed to companies making a tube on his back, but Hasbro chose to do the same, but with a slit through the side. Instead of jamming the staff portion of his weapon through one end and out the other, you can just push it in through the slit which is made of a soft plastic. It doesn’t look as neat, but it is easy and there would be less of a chance of paint rub with this design, though his weapon isn’t painted on the staff portion.

If you want, they can go mask-less, though I don’t know how many would want to do that.

The body of each turtle is essentially three colors: white, gold, and the primary color. Hasbro is able to engineer these guys in a way that allows them to use mostly colored, unpainted, plastic. The only paint appears to be the gold bands on the arms, the white on the forearms, and the diamonds on the gloves and boots. On Donatello, the white isn’t really opaque enough on the forearms so the black plastic shows through a bit. It contrasts with the white plastic hands which have a slight off-white hue. By contrast, the boots are quite clean, but that’s because Hasbro was able to do them in white plastic. Oddly, the knees and elbows are an ever so slightly different shade of black. Since they’re a joiner for the articulation it could be they’re a different type of plastic. It was more noticeable on Raph, but with Don it’s probably only apparent to me because I’m looking for it. On Leo, it’s slightly more uniform than Raph, with the exception of his left knee which looks darker than the rest. His forearms at least look a little better, but there’s more paint slop in general on him than Don as well as mold release imperfections on his limbs.

Weapon storage!

On the helmets, we have a little more going on. There we get some silver for the mouth guard and some of the features like the triceratops horns and mastodon tusks. Maybe it’s the shape of the turtle head, but Leo’s helmet comes across a little plain. He still has the black visor with red eyes inside as well as the yellow triceratops eyes on the side, but it feels like there could be a little more going on here. It could also be just the shiny, blue, plastic which gives off a cheap look. Donatello’s helmet is a bit better as the mastodon design has more linework. None of it is painted though so it’s not as striking as the black ranger figure from the Lightning Collection nor does it look like the art on the packaging. The silver paint on his mouth guard also isn’t as clean. Both come with an unmasked option which look okay. The design for these turtles is a bit more froggy than I personally like, and the heads look really small on the body. Leo gets a stoic expression while Don has a traditional turtle mouth and features goggles and a skull cap instead of the standard mask. I’ll probably never use these heads in my display, but I like that Hasbro gives collectors options.

There’s a very different approach to the shade of blue used when it comes to Leo vs Billy.

On the accessory front, we have weapons, effects, and hands. Like Raph, Leo and Don each come with a set of gripping hands, fists, and open hands. The gripping hands are the same from turtle to turtle so they have a vertical hinge and a wide gap between the fingers to accommodate Raph’s sai grip. That’s not really useful for the other turtles, and the grip isn’t perfect for Leo which is on the loose side. I love the vertical hinge, though I wish Hasbro had cut out a bit more room for it as there isn’t a ton of range there. For weapons, the blue ranger’s lance has been split into two, short, swords. They can connect like the lance to form basically a really dangerous looking weapon, but I suspect most will have Leo dual wield swords, per usual. Donatello gets two versions of the power axe. One is basically the standard axe, only the quality is less than what was released previously as it’s very soft and gummy and I had a hard time getting the “pump” action to work. Trying to move it just caused the entire barrel to bend, but some hot water freed it up, though it’s still not a smooth action. He also has a pole axe version which is what fits into his belt. It’s kind of neat, though the paint job on it isn’t terrific. The bulky turtle hands also don’t grip the standard axe very well in a firing pose. They also each get an effect part. Donatello has a green, flame, effect while Leonardo has a blue lightning effect that’s very similar to what the blue ranger came with. I don’t know if I’ll use either, but I’d rather have them than not. And there isn’t really anything missing, just shortcuts taken to keep costs down that harm the figures in a mild fashion. I’d rather have better gripping hands than what was packaged with Raph, but it’s more of a nitpick than a true criticism.

The power axe mold is unchanged from the black ranger release, just the paint and overall quality is different, which means the blast effect from the prior release works with this one as well.

The articulation for both turtles is the same as what we saw with Raph, which is mostly very good. The pin-less engineering on the double knees and elbows works very well as they look nice and the range is better than 90 degrees in both places. The range in the ankle pivots helps to make standing them fairly easy, though the shell does add weight to the rear of the figure making it a little tricky to do just a standard, vanilla, upright pose. They have articulation in the torso, but the shell limits it to basically just a waist twist. Hasbro did cut the bottom of the front of the shell in two to better facilitate this. The joints are all pretty tight, but not to the point where I needed to heat anything. The only joints that don’t really work are the butterfly joints in the shoulders. There’s just no clearance because of the shell on both sides, so I don’t know why it’s here. Even with that limitation, these are some of the most dynamic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever produced, probably surpassed only by the S.H.Figuarts versions. Obviously, the costume makes these almost a completely different animal in terms of aesthetics, but I can see why some people are interested in seeing what Hasbro would do with a proper line of TMNT figures.

For a ninja, balance is key.

Reviewing this set is pretty easy after having reviewed the Raph and Tommy set. If you liked what you saw there, then you’ll be pleased with what’s present here. Hasbro does skimp on the paint, but the sculpts are interesting and the figures are pretty well engineered. It all comes down to style: do you like this mashup of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? If so, then you’ll enjoy what Hasbro has put together. I think these make for a fun display whether you’re more of a MMPR fan or a TMNT one, and if you happen to like both, well then this was practically made for you. And I do like how Leo and Don turned out especially. The black and gold color scheme just works, while I’ve always been partial to Leonardo. I like the lance/katana cross more than Raph’s sai/power sword combo (it helps that Leo’s weapons are painted better) and I definitely like the versatility of both weapons here. Even though this two-pack is essentially the same figure times two, I think I like it a little more than the Raph and Tommy set. Sorry Tommy, you’re just not nearly as interesting as a turtle in a Power Rangers costume. Check back next week when we take a look at the final two-pack in this series: Michelangelo and April O’Neil.

Come back next week and I’ll tell you all about how the weapons combine!

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May 7, 2021

NECA TMNT Turtles in Disguise

By Joe
We got some new turtles on the block!

When NECA started on this journey into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon it first began with a video game. An adaptation of a video game, to be more precise. The 2016 San Diego Comic Con exclusive contained a four pack of the famous, green, pizza destroyers in a pixel deco. They were the first figures based on the turtles since the 2008 Mirage Studios figures which felt like the start of something special, then quickly came the end. Convention exclusives were the name of the game the following year when those same arcade inspired figures were re-painted in the colors from the now classic cartoon series and released as part of an 8 pack with Shredder, Krang, and some Foot Soldiers. By then, the craze had begun and collectors were paying crazy sums on the after market just to get these limited release figures. Relief finally came in 2019 when NECA was granted the license by Viacom to sell its TMNT products at retail. It’s an odd relationship, and the popularity has not really subsided one bit, but TMNT figures are definitely a lot easier to come by now than they were just a few years ago.

I was one of the lucky ones to get ahold of that 2017 convention exclusive set. I very much liked what I received, but there was no denying that the figures had begun life as something else. Now, it’s possible when NECA sculpted these turtles for release in that arcade pack they always intended on them being cartoon iterations as well, but for me, the sculpt definitely looked more game inspired than show inspired from the start. The colors and weapons and all of the extra stuff was there, but the head-sculpts just never screamed “80s cartoon” to me. Those figures have also aged and since NECA has made strides in the articulation department and as more new figures are added to the toon line the actual turtles start to look more and more average. I still like those initial figures, but I don’t get the same “ripped from the source material” impression from them as I do with Rat King, Splinter, or Casey.

The quarter-scale engineering is coming to the main line!

It was a little over a year ago now that NECA’s director and main public face, Randy Falk, made it know that the company was planning on re-releasing the green machine as a four-pack. It was being promoted as a way to get the turtles into the hands of those who were late to the party or just plain couldn’t find the four at retail. The original plan was to have the set out for Christmas, but the shipping industry being what it is, things changed. We did get a tease though when NECA sent out some retro inspired checklists for their TMNT product designed to resemble the Playmates card-backs of old. They were just digital files, but they contained images for the four new turtles and all were sporting soft goods trench coats and cartoon-inspired face sculpts. It wasn’t long before more images were unveiled and information was passed on to collectors that these turtles would indeed feature the new head-swapping tech being unveiled in the quarter scale line. There was also some new articulation and the set would feature a whole bunch of other stuff. When I initially thought it was just going to be a four-pack with some extra stuff, I wasn’t too interested, but once I saw those images I had to have it!

Regardless of your feelings on the Wave One release, you’re going to want these new turtles.

The Turtles in Disguise four pack finally hit Target stores in April. Retailing for $125, the set is expensive, but not so expensive that it causes any kind of sticker shock, apparently. Sets have been flying off the shelves as quickly as they show up and the auction sites are loaded with listings of people seeking as much as $300 for a set. The initial shipment appears to be just concluded and it was a modest one that appeared to contain just 2 to 3 units and didn’t hit every Target in the country. This has set off a bit of a frenzy, but NECA has assured collectors this is just wave one of three with the third wave expected to include more units than the first two combined. NECA knows people want this set, it is the actual turtles after all, and it appears to be doing everything it can to get as many to retail as possible (which probably had something to do with the delayed release, as well).

In my area, I had zero luck tracking down a set, but then a fellow collector came to my aid on Twitter. A special shout out is reserved for Robert (@drcipherpeaks) who sent this set across the country to me and wouldn’t even accept full payment for the very expensive shipping. A great guy and a true asset to the collector community whom I hope to be able to repay in kind some day. I probably could have held out and scored a set from a later shipment or even via a Target web drop or eventual NECA pre-order, but it’s always nice to have the hunt concluded as soon as possible, so many thanks again to Robert!

I love the artwork NECA commissions for these releases. Art by Dan Elson
Lets set these turtles free!

Like NECA’s deluxe releases in this line, the Turtles in Disguise four pack comes in a box adorned with some delightful f.h.e. inspired artwork. It’s a window box with a flap that conceals the figures inside who are presented in their disguises and with their accessories laid bare. There’s a street theme going on with the interior artwork and there are loads of Easter eggs to find which I won’t spoil. I will say that some of the characters hinted at in this artwork have already been revealed since this was released so it’s fair to assume any other character present in this artwork is sure to follow. It’s also quite big, measuring approximately 19″x 9 1/4″x 3″ so if you’re planning on shipping any of these to some buddies you may have some trouble tracking down an appropriate box. The turtles themselves sit in a tray alongside some of their accessories with a second tray underneath securing the rest of the accessories and many hands included with this set.

Yeah, April, no one will be able to tell they’re turtles if they just wear a hat.

Since it’s the Turtles in Disguise set, it’s probably not surprising to see that the turtles arrives already in their disguises. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael are all sporting blue pants and beige trench coats and happy expressions. Freeing them from their plastic prisons is actually quite painless as they’re each held in place by a single, plastic, strap that’s easily snipped away. Once out, they stand about 5 and a 1/2″ tall, just like their predecessors, and they should feel quite familiar to anyone who has those wave 1 turtles. The soft goods are done pretty well. The coat is tailored (by Nicole Falk), though not as extravagantly as the Raphael one from the movie line, and contains pockets and a belt to fasten around the waist if you prefer a closed look. Want them to go full flasher, simply pull the strip of fabric out of the buckle and let it all hang out. The collars are very stiff as the turtles usually wore them “popped” to better conceal their appearance in the show. You can push them down though if you prefer, and if you really want them to lay flat you could always get out an iron and go to town. The pants are far more simpler and include an elastic waistband to keep them up. They come with the pants tucked under the rear and front portion of the shell, though if you wanted to you could slide them over the front too. They’re very easy to work with.

Clothes are for suckers!

When you do take these figures out of the box for the first time you will probably want to remove the coats. Even if you intend to display these guys in disguise, removing the coat is still a good idea as you have no idea how the arms are positioned out of the box. Some of mine had the elbow turned all the way around so if I had tried to bend the arm with the coat on it wouldn’t have worked and could have possibly broke. Removing the coat is far trickier than getting the pants on and off. I recommend popping the hands off first to make it a little easier as the coat is tailored to be just big enough to get these on. The only drawback to this strategy is you may cause a wristband to pop off, which happened to my Donatello. They’re just glued on, so it’s not a difficult repair or I could just let whatever hand is in place hold it on. At any rate, I haven’t ripped a jacket yet and I’ve put these things on and taken them off a few times now. Just be patient and try not to force anything and you should be okay.

Take those pants off and celebrate!

Once the disguises have been removed you’re left with four glorious, naked, turtles! Seriously, the disguises draw attention to how naked the turtles are by default. These figures though are almost identical to the previously released figures, but with at least one obvious change. And that’s the head sculpt, which I’ll get into in more detail soon, but let’s just say these sculpts are far more toon accurate than what was released before. The other visual difference rests in the finish as these figures are noticeably glossier than the others. It’s a little bit disappointing because the rest of the line has a very matte look, but it’s not as bad in person as it looks in pictures. The chest and rear of the shell are still quite matte, it’s basically just the green skin that has a shine to it.

Good thing Mikey got a skateboard before his home boy Mondo arrives.

The visual distinctions are not the only differences though as these boys do sport some new articulation. Of the stuff that’s the same, we have a double ball, or barbell, joint at the head and base of the neck. It’s much smoother this time around and the figures have good rotation, tilt, and are capable of looking up and down. At the shoulders are ball-hinges and they were consistently the tightest joints on my set. There is a biceps swivel and another swivel at the elbow with a single hinge. The wrists are on pegs with hinges. All of the figures come with gripping hands by default with Leo and Raph having vertical hinges and Mikey and Donnie horizontal. Inside the shell, there’s a lot going on. There’s a ball joint in the abdomen that affords slight crunch and a little tilt. It also allows for a waist twist and you can turn their legs all the way around if you wish. This articulation is not new, but it’s far more loose than before causing some to think this is actually new articulation, but if you really want to, you can spin the legs on those old turtles too. What is new is below the waist we have the new style of legs. These are on ball pegs and they’re far more stable than before and allow for greater range. They can split, kick forward, and kick back. There is a thigh swivel, though it’s a bit limited. Below that we have double-jointed knees and new ankle articulation. The previous turtles just had ball pegs and weren’t the greatest. Now we have hinges and rocker articulation.

Do you like Choco Puffs (legally distinct from Coco Puffs) on your pizza?
Dinner’s over, time for a story?

These turtles are definitely better articulated than before. It’s a bit subtle, but it’s certainly noticed and appreciated by anyone who likes to open and pose their toys. These guys are all painted, including the joints, so you’ll likely have a breaking in period when first opening them. My set was mostly fine, but every turtle had tight shoulders and elbows. Mikey’s right elbow also has some orange paint slop on it that’s hidden when the arm is straight, but visible when bent. I might try to get that off with a Magic Eraser or just some careful scraping. The only turtle that needed some help was Raph. His right elbow and left shoulder were quite stuck. I submerged him in hot water for a bit and it only helped a little. I was actually able to get the right arm separated at the biceps peg and just let the elbow and forearm sit a little longer submerged in the hot water. At that point I was finally able to get it to move, and having it removed from the shoulder meant I didn’t have to worry about snapping the peg. The left shoulder was more stubborn, and perilous, as it’s hard to put pressure on the shoulder hinge without stressing the biceps, but I got it to go with only some minor terror. Aside from that, my set is pretty free of quality control issues. There’s a few paint imperfections here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary so I certainly feel fortunate in that regard. The only disappointment with the articulation is we’re still waiting for proper double-elbows. It can be done, NECA just apparently hasn’t found a way to do it that it likes.

I’ll let someone else make the head jokes.

All right, lets talk about those new heads! Each turtle has two different “skull tops:” angry eyes and wide open eyes. Each also features the last new piece of articulation at the knot in the bandanna. It’s a simple peg and hinge so you can reposition the “tails” as you wish. It’s a nice addition, and each skull piece has it unlike the quarter scale Raph who needs to swap the knot from each top, though the knot was molded in green and then painted to match each turtle. Like some of the ankle and wrist hinges we saw last year, the paint flakes off almost immediately leaving behind an eyesore. On a knot that’s always behind the figure’s head it’s at least not as big of an issue as an ankle or wrist hinge. The heads though separate below the mask and we have eight mouths which include two of each of the following shapes: neutral, smile, yell, open mouth smile. It’s a great load-out of expressions as they all work really well with each of the eyes. Take the smile and combine it with the wide open eyes and you get yourself a happy, gentle, turtle. Swap in the angry eyes and now you have a cocky smile like the turtles just pulled a fast one on Shredder. It’s a fantastic concept because it opens the door for NECA to do accessory packs down the road to give collectors either more of what’s already here or new mouths and eyes all together. Maybe they do a sewer lair set one day that includes bunk beds? They could offer closed eyes, snoring mouths, or even mask-less heads! A few people may be a little disappointed they can’t replicate the same expression across all four turtles at the same time, but I prefer what NECA did here as I want my guys to have some variety anyway. And these expressions are just so much more toon accurate than what we had before. Just take the open eyes and yell combo which results in a frightened turtle. How many act breaks did we see as kids where the turtles are making a face like that because some new danger was just introduced? When I look at that face I can hear that foreboding music that would always kick in at those moments. And unlike my quarter-scale Raph, I’ve had really no issues with the heads staying together so that’s also a huge plus.

Admittedly, they’re probably less upsetting for a normie without the masks.

And we don’t just have the eight turtle heads to talk about, we also have those creepy masks! Early in the show, April felt the disguise needed to be more convincing so she got the turtles these weird looking rubber masks. They look like a cross between Alfred Hitchcock and Rodney Dangerfield. NECA included four of them in this set and they function as separate heads since getting a mask over those turtle heads would have resulted in something horrible. There are two each of a surprised face and a smiling face. The included hats fit on them really well, even better than they do on the turtle heads, and they’re a smart inclusion. Should NECA ever visit the idea of an accessory pack for the toon line it wouldn’t surprise me to see a few more of these with different expressions. They look great, but I do wonder how many collectors out there will actually display their set this way, unless they buy multiples. Photographers or those who just like to change their display frequently will certainly enjoy them though.

“Hello, my name is…Hughe…Mann…”
If you prefer a more Playmates inspired disguise.

Beyond the disguises, NECA also included a ton of extra stuff. We have a total of eight extra sets of hands included in this thing. The turtles all come with gripping hands, and the extras include four sets of open palms, two sets of thumbs up hands, a set of gripping hands with a wider gap in the fingers for Raph, and a set of pointing fingers which also work well with Raph as a stylized sai grip. It’s a solid assortment, though I might have preferred to swap out two sets of the open hands for two more sets of vertical hinged gripping hands, but it’s a minor quibble. This set is also loaded with pizza as we have two full pies, one of which appears to be sardine and ice cream, and a slice that looks nice and gooey. There’s a skateboard with a nice turtle shell logo in the center, though it’s strangely missing any kind of peg to securely fasten a figure to. There’s a “The Hare and the Tortoise” book which is from the first season and it’s well painted. We also have a massive 80’s boom box which was also featured in the first season (when the turtles wear a more ridiculous disguise that will undoubtedly be immortalized in plastic by NECA eventually) that’s neatly painted. There’s a Weird Pizza hat for Mikey from his short-lived stint as a delivery driver and we’ve also got a Pigeon Pete. He’s just a little lump of plastic, like gerbil Mike and fly Shredder, but he looks cute and he’s a fun inclusion. Lastly, there’s also the weapons of the Ninja Turtles. They’re the same as the original release except that none of Mikey’s ‘chuks can separate from the chain as this set does not include the whirling effect piece. I was kind of hoping NECA would opt to include the sai that came with the Turtles in Time Raph, as I just think they look better, but it’s not a big deal. And if you’re wondering, Raph and Mikey still don’t have holsters for their weapons. You can kind of slip them under the arms, which works better for Raph than Mike, but it’s not show accurate. I wish NECA would just rip-off Bandai and include a swappable belt piece for Mikey so we could have holsters for his nunchuks when we want them.

Now he has the hat to go with the pizza!
It’s easy to forget that the turtles spend just as much time in the cartoon wearing expressions like these as they do looking fearsome.

There’s a lot in this oversized box and a lot of it is good. What’s most important though is we have some new turtles that really capture how they appeared in the vintage cartoon. There are so many different variations of those turtles between the actual show, licensing art, toys, comics, and other sources of artwork so everyone’s concept of that 80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle aesthetic can vary a bit. This figure line though is based on the show so I want them to look like they came right off of my TV. These new head-sculpts capture the look of the show from Season Two through the show’s main run up until the redesign in Season 7. My preferred look will always be that original opening title turtle with the beak line and saturated colors, but this is great as a general cartoon look. Those NECA originals were fine, but the head-sculpts came from an unknown source. Maybe it was simply a case of them being video game turtles first, maybe it was a bit of homage to the Playmates expressions, or maybe it was just the best attempt at the time. All I know is this is an improvement and if you collect this line then this set is a must have, regardless of whether or not you bought the originals or not.

I can’t overstate how happy I am with these new heads.

NECA’s Turtles in Disguise four-pack is currently exclusive to Target in the United States. I do not know if there are any international plans in the works. I have to assume this set of figures will be made available outside of the US eventually. It will either be this exact set, or maybe special two-packs or something. I think what is happening right now is that NECA knows this is a hot item and it’s prioritizing the retail release in the US because that’s where TMNT is most popular and demand is highest. The second wave of releases for this set should either be underway or soon to be so if you haven’t found one yet, keep checking. And should all three waves come and go, plus the online drop, and you find yourself still without a set of poorly disguised reptiles then worry not, as NECA indicated they will eventually do pre-orders so long as demand is there (and it will assuredly be). I get it though, if you don’t have one now and you’re after it then it can get disheartening, and even infuriating, to see others have better luck or see the many listings on auction sites. The only cure for scalpers is to not feed them so I encourage all collectors to avoid doing so, but at the end of the day, it’s your money and your decision. And if you need help, turn to social media. Find collector groups, hashtags, and trends and see if you can even find some local collectors. With a line this popular, a little help goes a long way. Good luck!

Cowabunga!

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

February 10, 2021

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Leonardo

By Joe
“Leonardo is the perfect turtle…” is the truest statement to ever appear on the back of a product box.

If you ask me what my most cherished childhood toy was I won’t hesitate to answer Leonardo. My original Playmates Leonardo was a figure I adored and played with for years. I would get other Leonardo action figures, but they were always a temporary joy. When I sat down to act out and play with my figures, it was the original Leo from 1988 that I reached for. And it’s one of the few figures from that line I can vividly remember getting since he (along with Donatello) was my first. I was so young that I was too short to even reach the pegs and my mom had to sift through the rows of figures for me to find that Leonardo.

When Super7 first debuted its Ultimates! line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I was noncommittal. It wasn’t until Leonardo and the rest of wave 2 was unveiled that I felt the pull. I could push aside the strings of nostalgia on that first wave, but it was Leo I could not resist. I then had to scramble to get Raph, and I was quick to pre-order the other turtles as they became available all eagerly awaiting the release of Leonardo.

Since Leo’s accessories are all the same as Raph’s, consider this your accessories pic.

Leo finally arrived in February after a lengthy wait. I pre-ordered him through bigbadtoystore.com which had pre-orders open for a long while beyond the usual Super7 window. It was certainly convenient, but it meant a long wait as, for whatever reason, BBTS seems to be the retailer who always receives Super7 releases last. While those who ordered direct from Super7 had their Leonardo in December, I was forced to wait nearly two months beyond that. BBTS did come through, and I was never in doubt about that part, and he’s largely as expected. Like all of the figures in Super7’s line of Ultimates!, he comes in a cardboard mailer with the product logo on it and the figure’s name. Open that and you get the actual box the figure comes in. It’s a three-dimensional, trapezoid, which probably has a proper name, but I was never into geometry. The green slipcase slides off and the figure is below in a nice window box. It’s the same packaging as the wave one figures and it’s great. One could argue lesser packaging would result in a cheaper price (the MSRP on Leo is $45), but at least it’s attractive and mint-in-box collectors are happy while openers have a reasonably easy to reseal packaging for moves and such.

It’s like seeing an old friend…who has had some cosmetic enhancements.
Are your swords hanging low? Well have we got a product for you!

Leonardo should be quite familiar to anyone who has Raphael. That’s because they’re the same figure. The only differences between the two are the head and belt. Even the little blemishes on the shell and creases of the skin are identical. Leonardo is designed to mimic the 1988 release so he’s an olive shade of green with a belt that features a crisscross design across the chest, white eyes, and a blue mask with blue pads. Super7 added a bit more embellishment to the buckle area of Leo’s belt seemingly swapping some of the gunmetal parts of Raph’s belt for a chrome color. I really liked the understated gun metal so this looks less neat to me and I even wonder if the extra chrome was a factory error that Super7 was forced to just roll with or if they just view it as a way to distinguish the turtles from each other. I guess we’ll see what the other figures feature down the road as the promotional shots of Leo, Mike, and Don feature a belt similar to Raph’s and not the final Leo belt. The shell is now a deep green color as opposed to the brown Raph had and the front of the shell is a deeper yellow, like a marigold, when compared with Raph. The headsculpt that Leo comes packaged with looks just like the Playmates Leo. He has that almost concerned look to him, but Super7 did adjust the angle of his eyes ever so slightly so it’s not as pronounced. I feel like I was always a little disappointed in Leo’s facial expression, and yet I find myself really loving this head for pure nostalgia reasons. There is a bit of shine on the head of my figure, under his right eye, that might not come across in the photos. I don’t know if they’re all like that, or if it’s just mine.

Imagine if he had swords like these in Turtles in Time.

Since Leo is the same figure as Raph, his articulation is the same. He’s got a ball-peg that his head sits on which allows for some up and down movement and side to side along with full rotation. I didn’t really touch upon it in my Raph review, but the only aesthetic with these figures I don’t care for is the gap between the head and neck as from some angles they look like amusement park actors in oversized costumes. From head-on, it looks fine though. The shoulders are standard ball-hinges with swivels at the biceps. The shoulders were really tight out of the box, but I didn’t need any heat to get them moving. Single-jointed elbows follow with wrist rotation and hinges, and he has hands with vertical hinges and horizontal, so that’s a major plus. There’s some rotation at the hips, which are still fairly loose, but not quite as bad as Raph’s, but the shell won’t allow for too much range of motion. The legs are on ball-pegs and can swivel and kick out forward and to the side just fine. The knees just peg into the lower leg with single-hinges and swivels below the kneepad while the feet feature a hinge and generous rocker. The ankle hinges were, by far, the tightest joints on my figure out of the box and I did run them under hot tap water to get them going. It’s a suitable level of articulation, though it doesn’t really rise above other brands and some would argue it doesn’t even meet them. The lack of double elbows and knees is unfortunate and I still don’t like how the knees are engineered. It feels like there’s a lot of stress on that peg holding them together every time I bend the knee. Since Leo and Raph are the same though, I suspect I’ll just have to accept what we have here is what we’ll get with Donatello and Michelangelo.

Even Leo is subjected to Zoom meetings these days.
I think he dropped it…

It’s great to receive updated articulation, but one of the major selling points of the Super7 Ultimates! brand is the wealth of accessories the figures come with. Leo has a plethora of hands at his disposal for holding his various weapons and accessories. He has vertically hinged gripping hands in the box, plus horizontal gripping hands and open style pose hands as well as a set of fists. They peg in and the peg is small and thin, but thus far I have not heard of any issues and haven’t experienced any myself. Leo also comes with the same slice of pizza as Raph and the same communicators: one open and one closed. The only difference there is the parts painted red on Raph’s are brown on Leo’s (why not blue?!). He also has the standard allotment of ninja weaponry including throwing stars, a small, triple, bladed knife, and that large, hooked, thing. It’s a lot of stuff, but plenty could argue a large chunk of the accessories are useless. Are you ever going to pose Leo with one of the other weapons or ninja stars? Not likely. And strangely, the paint app on the pizza slice is different from Raph’s. I don’t think it’s intentional, but it looks almost dirty.

Careful there, buddy.

Most importantly, Leo also has his trusty katana blades. This has been a minor point of contention in some of the collecting spheres I frequent as these swords are not accurate when compared with the vintage figure. There was some hope that Super7 would include two different sets of swords to appease collectors (as they did with Splinter’s robe including a plastic one and a cloth one), but apparently collectors didn’t make enough noise for that to happen. Leo’s old swords were basically fake katanas. They were referred to in all TMNT media as katanas, but looked nothing like an actual katana. Super7 decided to get authentic so Leo has two, long, curved, blades. It takes some getting used to, not so much because of the curved nature of the swords, but the length. Anyone fighting with two swords, especially two katana, looks ridiculous. Part of the nature of the brand though is to look ridiculous. These are giant, mutated, turtles after all. I do wish they were smaller though as it’s hard for me to suspend my sense of disbelief that this character could effectively wield these swords in this manner. I think I may opt for a one sword look for my more permanent display as a result. The actual swords though at least look great. The paint is nice and the handles are well done and they’re not warped and flimsy like Raphael’s sais. And they also fit in the holsters on the back of his shell fine, and despite their length, don’t look particularly silly.

The alternate head definitely has a different energy.
I wish his bandana tails had a bit more life to them. It’s very rare to have a turtles figure where the bandana knot and tails aren’t visible from the front.

Lastly, Leonardo comes with an alternate head. Like Raph’s, Leo’s alternate head is a brand new, stylized, headsculpt that’s an all new creation. It obeys the same rules of colored mask and blank eyes as the vintage toy, but has a more realistic expression and texture. There’s a warmth with the new one that creates the illusion of this character existing in the real world, as opposed to the cold, plastic, very toy nature of the original. The expression is similar, but clearly more angry, and I think I prefer it to the vintage look. It’s basically how I would envision a new Leonardo would look today if the line were just starting from scratch like the original Playmates line did once upon a time. And it’s a nice look, though I think Raph’s second head turned out a little better. It’s the straight bandana tails that change the head profile a bit for me and I would have preferred something more dramatic. Though if you like the vintage look, you have it with the default head and you even have a sprue of weapons and accessories in classic brown, though the swords are the updated, curved, ones. My affection for that old head would probably win out for my display if I didn’t like Raph’s alternate head so much. I want a uniform look and don’t want to mix vintage and alt heads, so for now, I’m going with this updated one.

If you prefer a more vintage look.

The Super7 Ultimates! Leonardo is basically the figure I thought it was going to be. And that’s good! As I expected to like this one. I do think there’s room for improvement, as there often is with anything, as the articulation is lacking, most of the accessories are useless, and the swords are too long. That sounds like a lot of negatives, but this is a $45 action figure so it should be held to a higher standard than a $20 one found at Target. Where it does succeed is just in the overall look and presentation of the figure. Even if a lot of the accessories are ho-hum, the extra head is great and the hands are what you want. He looks like Leonardo and really captures that Playmates look which was so obviously inspired by the art from the Mirage line of comics, but was also its own thing. He looks great with Raph and I have a feeling my display will only improve with the additions of Michelangelo (expected probably four months from now) and Donatello (hopefully before the end of the year). Leonardo is also yet another reminder of how awesome it is to be a TMNT collector right now. Turtle power, indeed!

You didn’t think I’d end this without a comparison shot, did you?
It’s a Leo convention! Left to right: S.H.Figuarts, NECA toon Leo, Super7, Playmates, Playmates ’03, which was really the first attempt at making over the classic ’88 figure and still kind of kicks ass today.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in toys

April 24, 2020

NECA Mirage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

By Joe

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These guys don’t need no stinkin’ “turtle power.”

A dozen years ago, toy company NECA dipped its toe into the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the first time, and shockingly it failed to stick around. That’s incredible to hear for collectors currently chasing down Bebop and Rocksteady at Target, but it’s the truth. There are a lot of folks at NECA who grew up with the TMNT and my guess is they wanted to do something with the brand right from the start, but always getting in the way was Playmates Toys. Playmates, as we’ve covered in various other places, held the master toy license for the brand and was reluctant to allow others into their space. NECA was able to by way of making adult collectibles based on the original Mirage Comics release, which was something Playmates had little interest in. NECA released its product in early 2008 to great reviews in the toy world, but apparently sales just weren’t there. It could be that the licensing cost just made it unworkable, or the license was only available for a short window that just couldn’t be properly taken advantage of. Whatever the reason, the line only included the four turtles plus April O’Neil as it was cancelled before it could get to Shredder, who was shown off at conventions and left to haunt the dreams of TMNT collectors every where.

Since 2008, these action figures have become highly sought after. Those who passed on them initially even had multiple chances to rectify that before NECA said “good bye” for good. The original release was each character in its own blister package with a bunch of accessories. Following that, there was a boxed set with all four turtles and a second single-figure release, this one coming in a tube style package (sewer pipe?) with just the figures and their weapons as the other extras were scrapped. Lastly, there was another four-pack release, this one a boxed set variant depicting the brothers in black and white.

Leo and Mikey.
Leo’s scabbards look so great with that line work.

I grew up on the cartoon, mostly, and it was my favorite show for many years. I also knew about the comic origins of the characters, but never really sought it out. I would see some images of the comic art, like the cover for the popular Nintendo game, and I’d think it looked awesome. I also saw some others though that I thought were terrible and ugly. The funny thing is, most of those images I didn’t like were just covers or one-off pieces of art and weren’t representative of what the characters actually looked like in print, but I wouldn’t realize that for many, many years. When I first saw these figures though I thought they looked incredible. I pre-ordered a full set and eagerly waited for their arrival. I may not have had much interaction with the comic, but I was at a point where things that reminded me of something I enjoyed as a kid, but were more adult, was really appealing. And hyper-violent, gritty, and grim TMNT certainly fit that bill.

Raph and Donnie

As you’re likely well aware, the four turtles consist of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael. The four brother are depicted here as they would have appeared on the cover of Mirage Comics, and they are based on the first appearance of the characters in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. They’re green-skinned with brownish wraps and pads and all four sport a red mask. Each turtle comes with the weapons you would expect:  twin katana for Leo, a bo staff for Donnie, two sai for Raph, and a pair of nunchaku for Mikey. For the first time I’m aware of, Mikey’s ‘chuks were also linked by actual chain. It was perhaps the one detail most influential in me picking up this line. I thought it was so cool that basically every friend I had who had a birthday party in 2008 and had even a passing interest in TMNT received one of these Michelangelo figures as a gift from me. The weapons are well-detailed, and I love the gold accents on Leo’s katana. Donatello’s bo is articulated at the tape and I think it can come apart like the one that comes with other versions of the figure, though mine doesn’t seem to want to do that and I’m not interested in forcing the issue.

I love the hilts on Leo’s swords.
For the first time, Mikey got real chains on his ‘chuks!

Since the turtles are all essentially the same, it should come as no surprise that each figure is essentially the same as well. That would be unfortunate if the sculpt was poor, but that’s not the case. These figures were sculpted by The Four Horsemen, whom action figure enthusiasts are more than familiar with in this day and age. Each turtle is articulated with a ball joint at the head, a hinge at the base of a very long neck (compared with the cartoon versions), ball-jointed shoulders and hips, bicep swivel, single-hinged elbow, wrist rotation and a hinge, thigh swivels, double-jointed knees, and an ankle hinge. At the time, this was probably the most articulation in any TMNT figure of one of the turtles, though over the years companies have found ways to sneak even more articulation into them, in particular with stuff under the shell. This level of articulation is fine though and I’ve never really desired more. NECA was smart to use a soft plastic for the chest which gives the legs greater range of motion than most would expect so you should be able to get some good posing going here.

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Each turtle comes with an alternate set of hands featuring their climbing spikes as seen in the first issue.

These figures move well, but also look pretty damn fantastic too. NECA used a nice, deep, green for the skin-tone with a darker green for the shell. There appears to be a wash over the figures as well so there’s a slight gradient to the skin tone with some brighter spots that works really well to make these guys come alive. Since the comics were in black and white, it makes these figures pop even more (unless you’re used to seeing the colorized versions of the comics that came later). There’s some nice, black, linework all over the figures and I especially love the little marks on the shell and chest. It really gives these figures a comic-book feel. The elbow pads and wrist straps are part of the sculpt, while the belt and kneepads are glued in place. The belt and the tassels on the masks are a soft plastic with a lot of give, though my Don’s belt was glued a bit askew. The green paint of the skin has a nice texture to it that is slightly rough and feels appropriate for the characters. The only difference separating each figure is the head sculpt, with each character sporting a different expression. Leonardo also has scabbards for his swords on his back while the other turtles do not have holsters of any kind for their weapons. Raph has unique hands which feature a wider gap between his fingers likely to support holding his sai with the center blade between them (I’ve never been comfortable doing this though as there’s little give in the sai and I fear breaking it). The oversized feet of these designs makes them quite easy to stand and I love the chunky legs they possess. And they have tails! If there’s room for criticism, it’s that NECA could have randomized some of the little details on the chests and shell for each turtle, but it’s not a big deal. There’s also some paint chipping on my figures, but I honestly can’t remember what was present out of the box and what may have been acquired through multiple moves since I bought these. As these were my favorite figures through those various moves, I took great care when storing and moving them though.

That’s as far as I’m willing to push it with Raph’s sai. I’d be afraid of the plastic warping if I left it like that for an extended period of time.
I kind of like this “chucking” pose for Donnie and his bo. His headsculpt also might be my favorite of the four, it just feels very “Donatello” even if I’m mostly projecting the cartoon persona onto this one.

In terms of short-comings, there are few. I mentioned the paint chips and there’s some slight slop in spots, but nothing noticeable when these guys are on a shelf. The black lines on the mask of my Mikey figure are a bit light and not as pronounced as I would like them to be. He also has a blob of paint on the center of his shell. His hips are a bit loose, but he still stands well enough. The left hand of my Leo is super loose and has always been that way. It’s at least strong enough to hold his weapon, but move it at all and it will pop out. The only criticism I could levy at the sculpt concerns the shell, which sits a bit higher on their shoulders than it did in the comic. I only really notice it because it’s hollow and it looks a bit weird up close as you can see inside of it to the peg holding it on. It’s also a place dust loves to collect. Raph’s special hands also are a nice thought, but as I mentioned a few paragraphs ago the sai do not fit cleanly in them and I worry about them snapping. The added drawback is his wider fingers mean holding the said traditionally ends up quite loose. They won’t fall out, but you’ll want to position them after you place him somewhere and may have to fiddle a bit with his grip. Donnie’s bo staff also sits rather loose in his hands. If you want to do a one-handed pose he either needs the base resting on a surface or he has to hold it near an end where it’s a bit thicker, though if you play around you can get it to balance right (as seen in some of my pics).

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How it all started…

Each single-packed figure came with extra accessories in addition to their weapons. All four turtles came with a second set of climbing hands from that first issue of the comic as well as a baby turtle. The hands come off and on easily, though in reality I can’t imagine anyone displaying these guys with those climbing hands. Each turtle also came with a base: two sidewalks and two streets between the four. These bases connect to form one mini diorama that was a really nice touch. The same line work that’s on the figures is in play here as well and it looks awesome. Raph also came with a lamp post for his base while Leo came with a fire hydrant. Donatello comes with a can of ooze or mutagen while Mikey comes with three mini buzz saws. Raph also came with three little blades and those, as well as the buzz saws, aren’t in any of my pictures because they’re floating around in some crates. These weapons do appear in TMNT #1, but they still feel like kind of pointless accessories, and like the climbing hands, aren’t something you’re like going to want to display your figures holding. It probably would have been more fun to have additional hands instead, but the standard gripping hands each turtle has is plenty good. These guys were tools of vengeance in the comic, they didn’t hang out in the sewer playing video games and scarfing pizza, so you’re going to display them with weapons in hand.

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Mikey just hanging out.

Twelve years later, these four figures are still among the best TMNT action figures ever produced. I love the look, and going for that Mirage likeness was a great choice because it’s something that hadn’t been done before and has seldom been done since. Playmates did follow with their own version, but they’re nothing special and intended for more of a mass market appeal. There isn’t really anything I’d change about these guys even today. Could they have more articulation? Sure, but it’s also not like they’re starving for it. Plus I’d hate to disrupt the sculpt. Could they have more accessories? I guess, but there really wasn’t much else to take from in that first issue. And even so, they did deep cuts as-is with the additional weapons and climbing claws. Maybe fists for actual punches would have been neat, or open hands and finger-pointing hands for the sake of variety. If NECA were to re-release these though I don’t think they would need to do anything additional with them. If anything, a full Mirage-inspired street diorama would be pretty awesome.

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My attempt at the group shot from page one of TMNT #1.

Unfortunately, a re-release is not in the cards at this time. When asked about the possibility, NECA has indicated that the Mirage stuff just doesn’t sell nearly as well as the cartoon and movie inspired toys, so while there is some demand, it’s apparently not enough to warrant looking at re-releasing them. It’s possible NECA is playing coy, but I’ll take them at their word for now. It seems TMNT is just plain hot at the moment, so I imagine there’s room for more Mirage product perhaps when NECA is done with the Turtles in Time figures. And thankfully, roughly 8 years after the release of these figures a Mirage Shredder was finally released as a New York Comic Con exclusive(the box for which is prominently displayed in my images) along with some Foot Soldiers. Perhaps I’ll take a look at that next. And if you’re hoping for more Mirage stuff, a Mirage variant of Shredder is coming via Loot Crate in a couple of months so maybe that’s a potential avenue for more from this line. Otherwise, if you want these figures you’ll have to turn to eBay and you’re not going to like the prices. Happy hunting!

 

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys