It feels like it’s been awhile since we had a proper Turtle Tuesday around here, but today that streak ends. It also feels like a long time since we had a new wave TMNT Ultimates! from Super7 to talk about – and that’s because it has! Not including the glow-in-the-dark variant of Leonardo I looked at over the summer, the last figure in this line reviewed by me was posted on November 22, 2022. Who knows when I actually wrote that one, I’m guessing I had the figure in early November. At any rate, it’s now November 2023 so it’s been nearly a year. I don’t know why that is, or why we’re talking about a figure from Wave 8 while Wave 7 is scheduled to release in May of 2024, but it is what it is.
Space Cadet Raphael is the third Super7 reproduction of the 1990 Turtles in Disguise wave by Playmates Toys following in the footsteps of Sewer Samurai Leonardo and Michelangelo the Sewer Surfer. Raph is stepping out of the sewers and into the vastness of space as he’s apparently decided to become an astronaut. I’m not sure what about Raphael’s personality made him the most likely to do so (seems more like a Donatello thing), but I guess that’s not important. For me, the vintage version of this figure (which I sadly no longer possess) was one of my favorites. I don’t really know why, I just kind of liked how it was all put together. And I liked it even more after the release of Space Usagi because it meant Raph had a buddy to take with him on his expeditions. Because of my fondness for that figure, I was really looking forward to this update from Super7. Tempering my enthusiasm though was the fact that Wave 5 in this line was a mess. Wave 6 was better, but the repeated delays didn’t exactly add to my confidence – quite the opposite actually, so how did this one turn out? In many ways, I would say as expected, but that’s not exactly a good thing. Read on for more!
Space Cadet Raphael stands at roughly 6″ in height. This puts him right in-line with the Wave 1 release of Raphael, which seems right, but then you factor in that this Raph is in a space suit and it makes less sense. Perhaps that’s a nitpick, but what’s not is that he has noticeably less mass than his naked counterpart. How does a bulky space suit make one smaller? It obviously doesn’t, but in the case of the figure I think it’s because most of what you see on the torso is an overlay. And underneath that overlay is just the basic “skeleton” of a Super7 figure, not a bulky turtle shell. Is it a big deal? I don’t know that it is. It’s likely something that will vary from person to person, but I personally liked how the previous Turtles in Disguise releases appeared slightly larger than the standard versions and I wish that were true of Raph.
The sculpt on this figure is probably the thing people are likely to be most pleased with. The head is in-line with the vintage version, stylistically. The paint around the edges could be better, but it’s probably good enough. The suit has a lot of sculpted detail on it and most of those details are painted. The body is cast in a shade of white that has a slight blue tone to it. There’s blue air-brushing over it which I think helps to minimize that plastic look present on Deep Space Homer. There are yellow zippers along the side that are painted as well as a blue harness. The tanks on his back are a nice metallic silver with black straps painted on as well. The elbow and knee pads are red plastic and don’t quite match the finish of the painted parts so they stick out in a bad way. There’s also a couple of pouches sculpted on that aren’t painted either and they detract from the look of the figure. Super7 did add a wrist communicator though that’s a metallic silver and it flips open. Inside is a decal of Fugitoid so that’s pretty neat. The front of the torso is not a big sticker, but some kind of print. The flatness of it makes it look a little cheap, but it would look worse if it was a sticker.
Super7 usually goes big on accessories, and with this figure they went further than some. Raph comes with 4 sets of hands: open, fists, gripping, and trigger finger hands. They peg in pretty easily and come out almost too easily, but we’ll speak more on that when we go over the articulation. He has his standard head and the plastic dome to go over it. It’s a nice, clear, plastic or acrylic, but the way it was molded left this big, ugly, “nipple” in the middle of the top that sucks. Maybe the factory they used didn’t know how to do such a piece and do it right, but I have a Mr. Freeze figure with basically the same feature and his dome features no such imperfection. There’s also an alternate head and it’s basically Raph with a full astronaut helmet. It turned out pretty well. While I am loathe to go against the vintage original, I will say the new look is tempting.
For weapons, Raph has the same ones the vintage came with and then some. He has his laser pistol which is done in a metallic plastic and it includes a hose in the same color. It’s very flexible as there’s no wire inside and kind of feels like an old payphone chord. It plugs onto the handle of the gun and then connects to a port on the torso of the figure on the right side. The port on mine was barely open out of the box to the point where I couldn’t even tell it was a hole until I stuck something else in there. I had to widen it with a screw to get the hose to fit, but now it’s fine. Raph also has his “space sword” which has a design that appears to be close to the vintage figure’s, but also has a new, translucent, red, handle. It’s pretty cool, though I never think of Raph as a sword guy. Apparently Super7 doesn’t either as they also gave him a pair of sai. They’re sort of like the lightsaber equivalent of a sai as the bladed portion is in the same red, translucent, plastic that the sword’s handle features. Super7 must love this stuff because they also gave Raph some goggles made of the same plastic, though it also has a silver mouthpiece. Lastly, there’s a slice of pizza in a silver, vacuum, sealed pouch that looks pretty neat. The little green alien that was part of the vintage figure’s sculpt is also present, but now he’s a little buddy figure. He has an articulated head, but otherwise is just a slug figure, but a neat idea nonetheless.
You won’t find me complaining about the accessories with Raph, but you will find me complaining about the articulation. Never the line’s strong suit, Raph is still disappointing even by those low standards. The head is on the usual double ball peg that’s really long. It works and works well as far as range of motion goes, but does leave a sizable gap where the neck meets that head. The shoulders are hinged ball pegs, but because Raph’s suit has these black cuffs at the shoulder, his arms only go out to the side about 45 degrees. They rotate fine, and the biceps swivel is acceptable as well, though a little tight. The elbows though are atrocious. I don’t think this figure even gets 45 degrees of bend there as the elbow pads are over the hinge. His elbows might be worse than Super7’s Optimus Prime – they’re that bad. It’s just a baffling design error. Why not just sculpt the elbow pad onto the figure? We know Super7 will never do a double joint for an elbow, even though they work best with characters like the turtles who have elbow pads, but doing it this way is unacceptable. It’s just dumb and it makes me question who approves this stuff over there. An action figure that can’t bend its elbows? It’s ludicrous. The wrists swivel and all of the hands have horizontal hinges, another mess-up that shouldn’t be as the trigger and gripping hands would be improved with vertical hinges. Super7 is usually good about that, but not here. The hands are also set too deep in the forearm so the hinge is almost useless. Try to bend the open hands into more of a cupping position (since you can’t get that our of the elbows) and they’ll just pop out. It almost feels like nothing is holding those hands in place and swapping weapons is a frustrating experience. Just take the hands out first and do it that way. Posing will also drive you crazy as if you go to bend the elbows or even rotate at the shoulder you’re liable to accidentally knock a hand out of place. This is not a well-thought out action figure.
In the torso is a waist twist, but because we’re dealing with a giant turtle here, it’s more like a pivot point. The legs connect via hinged ball pegs so Raph can just about do a full split as well as kick forward and back a decent amount. There’s rotation there as well so you get some thigh pivot, but it’s a bit tight. The knees, like the elbows, are single-hinged and feature kneepads to contend with. Raph can bend his knees better than he can his elbows, but still can’t do a full 90 degrees. The lower leg can also rotate on that joint. The feet have little range hinging forward and back. They basically behave like a ratcheted joint with only 3 positions. The ankle rocker works well though and is probably the most consistent joint from figure to figure in this line.
Like a lot of figures in this line, Space Cadet Raphael is a figure that looks reasonably good on a shelf, but isn’t that fun to handle. And it’s all a result of just bad design. It’s not cheap, it’s just incompetence. Why are things like the elbows getting worse as we go deeper into the line and not better? The original turtles can at least bend their elbows and the design is basically the same, but this one can’t. I also think the figure should be bulkier than it is since we are talking about a turtle in a spacesuit here. I didn’t mention it when going over the accessories, but a little more ingenuity with the sculpt to add some weapon storage also would have been appreciated. This figure comes with a lot, it’s the figure’s greatest strength, but he has no where to put any of it when he’s not holding onto it. A holster for the gun, some loops for the sai, anything would have been better than nothing. Again, this isn’t stuff that would have cost Super7 more money, it just requires more thought.
This figure is basically relying on nostalgia to sell you on it. And with me, it got me. I know preordering a Super7 figure is a risky proposition, but I did it anyway. I have more on preorder, but I’ve mostly stopped doing so until I can see the finished product. Had I known what I was getting going into with this one, would I have still bought it? Not at the MSRP of $55. This isn’t worth it. It’s not the trainwreck that Sewer Samurai Leonardo was and it looks better than April or Shredder, but it’s not exactly a strong addition to the line. I think on clearance this one has value, maybe at $35 or so, but it has too many problems to be a recommend at $55. I hope Super7 takes such criticism to heart as I certainly don’t want to dislike their products. I have liked many of them in the past and I will have some a review very soon at that. It’s just frustrating to see a company keep making stupid mistakes with a property that should be a homerun.
Want to see what I thought of the other Turtles in Disguise or maybe you’re curious about that Optimus Prime I mentioned:
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