Tag Archives: teenage mutant ninja turtles

March 28, 2023

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

By Joe
Original release date March 19, 1993

When I was a child, going to the movies was a pretty big deal. It didn’t happen often so when it did it felt like a special occasion. Most of the Disney films of the late 80s and 90s were seen by me at home. Batman, Ghostbusters, every Back to the Future movie- all films I saw on VHS instead of in a movie theater. Movie rentals were cheaper and more convenient so I totally see why a family of four would see few films in a theater, especially when one considers the varying tastes that exist between children and adults. One movie I most definitely did see in theaters was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990. That was an event for a child like me and my parents apparently recognized that fact and took my sister and I. They did not take us to the sequel and I had to hear about characters like Tokka, Rahzar, and Super Shredder from kids on the playground before finally seeing the film after Christmas 1992 when I received the VHS as a gift. 1992 was also the year my parents uprooted our family to move from New Hampshire to Virginia. It was a big move as we were leaving our friends and family and the only people we would know were the other families being uprooted for the same reason – work. My dad’s job relocated and that’s what you did. We gave it a shot, but by the late spring of 1993 we were already making our way back north because it just wasn’t working. Maybe because we had so little to do on weekends and because my parents constantly felt bad about moving us, we went to the movies the weekend of March 19th of 1993 and if you know your Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or just looked at the subject line for this post) then you know why we were at the movie theater that weekend.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is rather infamous for the franchise. It arrived when the initial wave of Turtle-Mania was really starting to subside. The first film was released in 1990, little more than 2 years after the cartoon debuted and roughly a year after the franchise really took off. The sequel was fast-tracked for a 1991 release, and while it was catered more towards a young audience, it failed to match the box office of the first one. It still made plenty of money though and everyone who had a stake in the franchise felt they could get at least another film out of it. Seemingly planning for a lower return, the budget was slashed and the film was allowed to be a soft reboot. There was no Shredder, no Foot Clan, and barely any New York! Would it work? Would kids continue to show up for their green-skinned heroes?

For me, personally, 1993 was the year I moved away from TMNT. Christmas of 1992 was the Christmas of Super Nintendo for me and I probably received more toys based on Batman Returns than TMNT. By the spring, I was fully onboard with X-Men and that was my preferred toyline with distractions also coming from the Batman: The Animated Series line and Transformers Generation 2. That summer, I would buy my last TMNT toys from Playmates until the 2003 line was launched. The honor fell to the Turtle Trolls which I just thought were neat for some reason. I also got the ninja-action Raphael who could perform a very poor backflip. I bought that figure because it had more of a Mirage style to the toy and I mistakenly thought the turtles were growing up with me, but that was not to be. As I sat in my chair at the theater in March of ’93, I can remember being excited. I had a big bag of popcorn on my lap, a giant soda in the cupholder beside me, and I was just waiting for the lights to go down and for the trailers to start. As I sat there, a boy came stumbling up the ramp towards my aisle seat with his hand over his mouth. Vomit soon starting squirting out from in between his fingers and the dam burst soon after. It fell to the floor maybe 10 feet away from me. The ushers and other staff of the theater did as good a job as they could cleaning that mess up, but there was no covering that vaguely sweet with a hint of tang odor which would permeate throughout the entire showing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.

One of my last TMNT purchases as a kid were these silly trolls.

Sitting through a vomit-scented theater to watch this film probably feels oddly appropriate to many. Truly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is not thought of well. It’s been so poorly received over time that it’s basically been retconned as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: Turtles in Time to seemingly capitalize on the affection people have for the completely unrelated video game. As a kid, I liked it enough and I would even spend some of my birthday money that summer on a VHS copy of the movie. And I do recall watching it quite a bit, but at some point my appetite for the movie did wane. Now, just a little over 30 years removed from the original release, I feel like it’s time to go back with fresh eyes and give the movie its due. And personally, it seems like the appropriate way to celebrate my 1,000th entry on this blog. Yes, this is post number 1,000 and we’re dedicating it to the cinematic masterpiece Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III was written and directed by Stuart Gillard who had previously directed Paradise (1982) and The Return of the Shaggy Dog. Returning for their third tour of the franchise as the voices of Michelangelo and Leonardo respectively were Robbie Rist and Brian Tochi. After skipping out on the sequel, Corey Feldman was back as Donatello while Raphael got his third voice in as many films from Tim Kelleher. Paige Turco was back to reprise her role as April O’Neil and also returning was Elias Koteas as Casey Jones, a character written out of the sequel because he was deemed too violent. James Murray took over as the voice of Splinter, and we’ll get to the why very soon, while we have a bunch of new villains and supporting cast brought onboard as well.

The costumes for the turtles were a clear downgrade from the first two films.

By far, the biggest change from the first two films to the third is the choice to go with All Effects Company for the costumes and puppetry over The Jim Henson Company. Likely due to the film’s lower budget, All Effects had the unenviable task of taking over for the company best known for creature effects and the change was obvious. The turtles now have a mostly uniform look with their own personal features basically cast aside. They’re still mostly the same shade of green, have the same colors applied to the bandanas and various pads, and still retain the freckles. They just look all together more fake. The masks especially look more like helmets with mouths on them. The nuance in the mouth movement seems to be reduced in favor of just flapping beaks and the costumes themselves look more like rubber suits than before. There’s no warmth to the look of the characters and they more resemble the live shows than the first two films. Not helping matters is we’ve largely abandoned the sewers for this film in favor of bright, outside, shots that do no favors for the costumes. Splinter is also a new puppet and he looks decidedly worse and it’s likely the switch in companies that accounts for Kevin Clash being out as the voice of the character.

The other major change for the third film is with the antagonist. Shredder was seemingly killed off at the end of The Secret of the Ooze, and rather than bring in a new leader for The Foot Clan, the film just chose to ignore them all together. Instead, we get a time travel story where April, after buying a weird scepter at a flea market, gets sucked into feudal Japan and replaced by a man from that era by the name of Kenshin (Henry Hayashi). Unfortunately for April, Kenshin is caught in the middle of warring factions lead by his dictator of a father Lord Norinaga (Sab Shimono) and a collection of rebels lead by a woman named Mitsu (Vivian Wu). Mitsu is also Kenshin’s lover so he has a vested interest in ending the conflict with as little bloodshed as possible, but his father is uncooperative and pretty angry to see his son replaced by a strange woman. He’s also being influenced by a tradesman by the name of Walker (Stuart Wilson) who is essentially profiting off of the war and has a vested interest in keeping it up. April, upon being thrust into the past, is mistaken for a witch and imprisoned. The turtles need to go back and save her as Donatello, through some sort of plot magic, is able to infer that they only have 60 hours to do so. And to make things simple, time will move in sync between the two periods as the four brothers are replaced by four honor guards when they travel back leaving Casey and Splinter to keep them (and Kenshin) occupied.

The movie might suck, but Paige Turco is not to blame.

Much of the film takes place in 1603 Japan. There, the turtles have to tangle with the bad guys, join up with the good guys, and figure out a way home. We get scenes of the locals mistaking them for kappa, turtle demons from Japanese folklore, and the turtles have to win them over by saving their lives – routine stuff. The people of the era do speak Japanese, but also English so the kids don’t have to read subtitles. Like the first sequel, the action is fairly light and mostly comedic in nature. The turtles rarely use their weapons and would rather attack with witty remarks than fists. And how witty those remarks play up will vary by age. As a kid, Donatello dropping a random Addams Family reference was funny, but as an adult it feels so forced. It’s just completely random, have a turtle reference something else that’s popular in the moment, and play it off for laughs. The only clever jokes involve the ones where characters from the past interact with technology from the future. April’s Walkman freaks out the first guards she runs into while the soldiers sent to the present are completely baffled by television and even take a liking to hockey because of its violence.

Stuart Wilson also does an admirable job of turning chicken shit into chicken salad as the villainous Walker.

The sets for the film are adequate. We get the lair for the turtles which strongly resembles that of the one from the previous film and even looks like it’s been more lived-in since we last saw it. The stuff in Japan is largely relegated to open, outdoors, areas with some interior shots here and there. There’s a fair amount of grime added to some sequences and it’s not a terrible film to look at, excepting the less than stellar turtle costumes. The actors outside of those costumes also really give it their all. Turco is allowed to exhibit far more range than she did in the prior film where she felt almost out of place, like a character that didn’t belong. Koteas is terrific in his dual role of Casey and Whit, a character in the past. I don’t know why they cast Koteas twice, but maybe he was going to cost so much as Casey and they wanted to get their money’s worth. The film doesn’t try to hide that Casey and Whit resemble each other, it just doesn’t bother to explain why. Stuart is actually pretty terrific as the villainous Walker to the point where I feel almost bad for him since it’s wasted on this film. And for what it’s worth, the voice actors for the turtles do a fine enough job. Feldman is a bit overexposed as Donatello as I guess the film decided he was the biggest star, though he does have a solid deadpan which helps a few jokes land better than most. Michelangelo gets to do more than just be a goof off as he questions why he’d want to leave a time period where people accept him to return to a sewer in the present. The neutering of Raph is continued as he isn’t really allowed to get mad anymore and Leonardo is far more jokey than we’re used to because I guess someone decided he was too boring. All of the turtles feel like they’ve been brought closer together as far as their personalities go to the point where they’re almost a hive mind at this point. Basically, the only thing separating the four now is that Donatello is still written to be the smart one while also still being a quip machine.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is not a good movie. This post is not in defense of it. I do have a perhaps “hot” take when it comes to this film though and it’s that I actually enjoy it more The Secret of the Ooze. That movie is just plain bad. The costumes are terrific, but pretty much everything else about it sucks. This movie, on the other hand, is a somewhat entertaining bad movie. The script is so terrible, mostly the stuff fed to the turtles, that it’s laughably bad. Donatello literally does the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” bit and we even get a Wayne’s World reaction to April’s bare leg out of the turtles. It’s stupid, lazy, and oh so dated so it has a certain charm for someone like me who lived through it. For today’s kid it won’t have the same appeal, but I bet they won’t like any of the TMNT movies much because they are just not movies written for today’s audience. We live in a world where there’s only one good, theatrically released, movie based on the franchise and it’s the original from 1990. None of the films that followed are really any good. The Secret of the Ooze is just a lazy sequel while the third film is the dying gasp of a fading franchise. The fourth film, which is technically a sequel to this, came out in 2007 and has no heart and looks cheap. It has one good scene and the rest is bad. The films that followed are just pure trash and now we pin our hopes on a team helmed by Seth Rogen to restore the turtles to their former glory. And I plan on seeing that film when it arrives later this year and I hope it joins the lonely ranks of “Good” TMNT movie. At the very lest, I hope it can usurp Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III for the title of second best because that is a distinction no franchise should be content with.

Check out some of these other posts on the TMNT film franchise:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Hollywood loves to go after us folks who are suckers for nostalgia.  We’re easy targets as it doesn’t take much to lure someone in with a touch of nostalgia.  Especially today.  We live in a world of 24 hour news networks and the internet puts information at our fingertips at all times.  The media’s tactics…

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by Joe

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

Cowabunga dudes, it’s the 30th anniversary of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie! On March 30, 1990, New Line Cinema together with Golden Harvest released a film to theaters that seemingly no one wanted to make. This isn’t that surprising considering when Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird first started soliciting offers for a toy-line…

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by Joe

Ranking the Many Versions of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

With Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles hitting the airwaves, it felt like a good time to sit down and take a look at the various incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As you are likely aware, the TMNT got started back in 1984 when writer/artists Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman created their…

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by Joe

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March 21, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Chakahachi and Lotus

By Joe
Remember them? No? You’re probably not alone.

When it comes to character selection in NECA’s line of action figures based on the 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles I think it’s safe to say we’re well into the weeds. This latest batch to arrive at Target as part of the company’s branded Haulathon have certainly illustrated that. Aside from heroic versions of Bebop and Rocksteady, I don’t think any of these characters would be considered household names. Even for people who consumed countless hours of the show as kids, many of these characters are probably hard for them to even recall. That is certainly true for today’s two-pack featuring Chakahachi and Lotus. For me, someone who has been immersed in TMNT since I was 4, I do recall the character of Lotus, or Lotus Blossom, but not because I can recall anything specific about her from the show. I’ve just come to think of her as a stand-in for the more popular Karai, a character who appeared in the comics and in most other versions of TMNT. As for Chakahachi? That’s a big “Nope” from me. I had to go digging to remember this guy and I honestly don’t know if I ever saw his episode. I probably did, as I’ve seen pretty much all of them save for every episode of the “Red Sky” era, but this ghost certainly didn’t leave an impression.

Who needs swords when you have cool ghost powers?

Who is Chakahachi? Well, he’s a ghost, which you may have surmised just by looking at him. He appeared in the episode “Farewell, Lotus Blossom” which was right in the heart of Season 4 airing in 1990 during peak Turtle-Mania. He should be memorable, but for whatever reason he is not. He was a leader of a clan baring his own name, but was sealed away in an urn with a magic pearl. When the urn was shattered in modern times, his ghost was set free to ravage the people of New York as he frantically searched for his beloved wife. He’s not really a villain, just a tragic ghost tale, and once his issue was resolved by the return of said pearl he went away never to be seen or heard from again. And it makes sense to pair him with Lotus since she was featured in that episode and somehow contained the spirit of the guy’s long dead wife. Like I said, I don’t remember the details. As for Lotus, she’s a ninja-for-hire who briefly usurps Shredder. She basically develops some feelings for Leonardo that could be classified as romantic, but it never goes anywhere. She did get to make more than one appearance in the show and in terms of the B-list characters she was somewhat high on the list of requests.

Okay, I guess the swords are still pretty cool regardless.

Let’s talk about the ninja ghost first. Chakahachi stands at approximately 6.75″ to the top of his hair, excluding the ponytail. He’s dressed as presented in the show wearing an old-fashioned ninja or samurai outfit that’s done in a range of blues. The armor is painted with more earthy colors and it pairs well with the pale blue of his flesh. I suppose it should be noted that in the show he was most often gargantuan in size, but I don’t think collectors were all that interested in paying $150 for a Chakahachi so this seems reasonable. He also was a normal size for parts of the episode so it’s not like this is inaccurate. Like most figures in this line, Chakahachi is painted from head to toe. It’s applied very well with virtually no blemishes on my figure. I’m especially impressed with how clean the line-work is around the yellow eyes which really help them pop. The cel-shading is fairly understated as the difference in the dark portion of the pants is barely perceptible when viewed from the side. It’s most noticeable on the more teal portions and the armor. The shoulder pauldron, I guess we’ll call it, is rather interesting as NECA put it on a hinged joint to help it get out of the way when moving the arm at the shoulder. It’s fine, but looks a little odd from certain angles. It also feels quite fragile so do be careful. Much of the torso features a soft plastic overlay and it looks quite good, but is going to present some problems when we get to the articulation in a moment.

He’s a far cry from how big he was in the show, but he has some decent size to him.

Chakahachi being a ninja ghost probably doesn’t seem like the type of character that demands much in the way of accessories, but NECA did a solid job of loading this guy up. He has three sets of hands to make use of: fists, gripping, and open. The gripping hands, sadly, feature the wrong hinge which matters here since he has a pair of swords. Or rather, a katana and a dagger. Both have a scabbard and each one slots into a pair of rings on his belt. The setup does feel a bit fragile and I would suggest you go ahead and heat those rings with some warm hotter just a bit before inserting the scabbards to play it safe. The two bladed weapons slide in and out of the scabbards just fine at least. The dagger has a pretty simple paint job, but the katana is quite nice. It features a wrapped handle which looks quite clean though the blade seems rather thin. The open hands that Chakahachi comes with are slightly clenched to make use of his ghostly powers. In a rarity for this line, we get three effect parts: a small flame, a ball of energy, and a fireball effect. All are cast in semi-translucent plastic that has a hint of pink to it which imparts an ethereal quality. The little flame and the ball of flame or energy can rest in the open palm while the fireball effect is a more pliable plastic that actually wraps around the figure’s forearm. It’s done really well and I love how he looks with these effects to the point where I can’t even see myself posing him with the swords. And since he has three effect parts, but only two hands, it frees one up for another figure which is something I can appreciate.

“Back off, ghost, I’m not your wife!”

Paint and accessories are the strengths of this figure, because articulation very much is not. Chakahachi possesses the standard range of joints, but he can’t make use of them all. The head is on a double ball peg which allows the head to do everything it needs to do. The shoulders are ball-hinged joints and they rotate just fine while raising out to the side to a horizontal position, being mindful that the left arm is a touch more limited due to that shoulder obstruction. The bicep swivels quite high on the joint, but it works just fine while the double-jointed elbows will bend past 90 degrees a healthy amount. The wrists swivel and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. That’s all the good stuff, the rest of the figure is not much to write home about. The torso is pretty much locked in place due to the overlay. You get nothing out of the diaphragm and the waist twist doesn’t work very well either. Whenever I try to rotate at the waist he wants to snap back in the opposite direction and I assume the overlay is to blame. The hips would be fine if not for the skirt. NECA declined to put slits in it anywhere which is a surprise because it’s segmented by design, but it’s all one piece. Because of that, he can’t do splits and can barely kick forward and back. You do get a little pivot at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed, but because the top hinge is buried in the cuffs of the pants it doesn’t really do much. I can force a 90 degree bend out of it, at least. There might be a boot swivel because my left leg doesn’t appear to be lined up properly, but I can’t get it to budge. I can get a little rotation though out of the top of the knee and the ankle. The ankle also has the customary hinge and rocker and both work fine. The rocker is pretty steep, but the range is good.

It’s a bit of a bummer that Chakahachi doesn’t articulate below the waist better than he does. I’m actually okay with the knees and ankles, it’s really the waist and hips. I suppose it wouldn’t be that hard to cut slits into the skirt for better range, but I’m not the type to customize my figures. They cost too much and I don’t trust myself. That would have solved a lot of the issues though. I’m not really sure why the waist won’t twist, but maybe it’s just that the tolerance is off on the ball joint there. The effect parts don’t require a ton of posing, at least. He can stand like a statue and look intimidating, but if you prefer the swords and for this guy to look more like an actual ninja you may be let down.

When your name is Lotus Blossom you pretty much have to live the gimmick.

That’s the rundown on Chakahachi, but how about his not-wife Lotus? She’s another ninja character and the second female figure from this recent batch of figures, which is pretty cool. The TMNT franchise is fairly light on women so it’s nice to see the few that are a part of it get figures. Lotus is far more slight than her box-mate coming in at approximately 5.75″ to the top of her hair. She’s not particularly short for this line, but she is more slender. At the same time, she has some really long legs which is somewhat atypical of the show’s look which tended to squish most of its characters. I don’t know if she had exceptionally long legs in the show, but it looks fine here. Her hair is done with a swoop in the front that partially covers her face and adds a dynamic element to her presentation. Her expression is quite stoic, befitting the character, and her all gray and black attire makes her the most “ninja” of them all as well. There’s no garrish colors on display with Lotus which feels almost out of place. Her paintjob is not particularly demanding, but she does feature the cel-shading with gray on the front and black on the back. The paint on her belt is fairly clean, though the right side isn’t painted so you see gray when looking at her from an angle. There’s also some black paint on the jaw of my figure which is unfortunate, but I was able to get most of it off with a magic eraser to the point where it may not even be noticeable in my pictures. The paint around her mouth and eyes is sharp though, but where it’s not is on her hands. She has little armored bits on the back of her hand which go over the hinge. NECA cast the hinge in flesh-tone and painted gray onto them. This will flake off almost immediately if you make use of that hinge. It’s also not cleanly applied on all of the hands. Overall, she looks okay, she’s just not as flashy as Chakahachi.

She’s deadly from up close and at a distance.

For accessories, Lotus comes with an assortment of hands: fists, gripping, and open. The fists actually have a small hole through them so they can handle her actual lotus blossom accessory. It’s a nicely painted flower and it slots into either hand just fine. The gripping hands are interesting because they’re at a slight angle. Rather than just give them the proper vertical hinge, the angled shape allows Lotus to point her sword towards an enemy. It’s different, and while I’d rather she just have the proper hinge for her gripping hands I will say it’s better than the more straight up and down hands we usually get with the wrong hinge. And she does have a sword to swing with those hands. It’s shaped like a katana, though with a very slender blade similar to Chakahachi’s. It too has a wrapped handle, but is done with more muted colors. There’s a scabbard for it that slides into a ring on the back of the figure and that was fairly painless to insert. If you would rather a ranged weapon, she also has a short bow with an accompanying arrow. It has a real string and the arrow has a little cut-out so you can “nock” it if you wish. The string is very taut, however, and there’s not much flex to the bow so I wouldn’t go nuts. Getting her to hold it in a convincing fashion is also another matter entirely. Lotus also comes with the scent analyzer, one of the silliest devices from the show. It looks like a handheld vacuum cleaner, but with a nose at the end of the hose. It’s goofy, but the type of thing I want to see in plastic form. Plus, it’s something she actually used. It doesn’t feature any articulation though which feels like a missed opportunity. It almost looks like the hose is connected via a ball joint, but it doesn’t want to do anything and I don’t want to break it.

This secondary head looks fine, but I can’t get the damn thing to work.

Lastly, Lotus comes with an alternate head featuring her hooded look. I’d tell you how nice it looks on her if I could get it on. When I tried to pop her head off, the double-ball peg in her head came out of the neck instead. Her head should come clean off, but I couldn’t get the damn thing out. To make it worse, I ended up popping the neck off from the double-ball peg it connects to thinking maybe the other head could go on that way, but it does not and getting the neck back onto her torso was a huge pain in the ass. I was heating it, applying lubrication, stretching out the hole, and I could not get it back on. I had to walk away and come back to it a few days later and I eventually got it back on, but there was no way I was going to try it again. The head looks fine, it’s well-painted and everything, but it’s not how I remember her. Plus, she has the remnants of the cowl sculpted onto her torso so it doesn’t make sense for her to have this head. We see stuff like this with superhero figures all of the time, and even NECA’s own Renet did this, where there’s a little removable loop for the cowl when a character isn’t wearing a hood or mask. I don’t know why NECA passed on that here, but it also creates the issue where her neck is flesh-colored when the cowl should cover it so with the ninja hood on she’ll look kind of silly. I’m sure that can be posed away to a degree, but it doesn’t feel like this alternate look was well thought out.

The scabbard and hair are going to obstruct some of the articulation at the head. You can remove the scabbard, but there’s not much you can do about the hair unless you want to remove her head.

In terms of articulation, Lotus is anther mixed bag. The head, as detailed above, is on a double ball peg and the neck is on another double ball peg. This gives her a ton of range at the head and neck, though her hair gets in the way and if the scabbard is on her back that can be problematic too. She can rotate and look down, but the hair prevents her from looking up and restricts the more nuanced posing we’re accustomed to. I assume the hooded head has zero restrictions and probably moves pretty well, though it looks like the ball joint is designed to sit rather deep in the head so maybe its not as free as I expect. Since I can’t get it on, I don’t care. The shoulders are ball-hinged and she can raise her arms out to the side just fine. Unfortunately, they’re pretty floppy which is an unusual problem for a NECA figure. They rotate around fine and she gets the NECA double-jointed elbows featuring a swivel and hinge above and below the elbow. This allows her to bend past 90 degrees just fine and the more baggy design of these limbs also suits this style of joint pretty well. The hands rotate and hinge and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. They’re also all stuck out of the box. Her hands are rather dainty, so be careful when trying to free them. There’s nothing in the diaphragm and her waist will only provide some twisting motion. Her hips are really tight, and similar to my Rex-1, they make an awful clicking noise when trying to kick forward. I can just about force them to horizontal, but the figure is fighting me all the way. Going out to the side isn’t an issue as she can handle splits and she does kick back a bit, but her diaper piece includes a fairly ample posterior that will get in the way. There’s a little swivel at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed. The bottom hinge is stuck on both legs, but she should be able to bend past 90 degrees though doing so really illustrates how most of the length in her legs is below the knee. There’s no boot swivel, which is a surprise as one could have been added rather easily, but the ankle hinge and rocker combo works well.

The scent analyzer accessory is certainly a thing.

Lotus is a bit of a frustration figure from a design perspective. Articulating her is not particularly fun as it feels like the figure is fighting me the whole way whether it’s the floppy shoulders that don’t want to stay in play, the hinges in the wrists that won’t move, or the hips which practically scream whenever they’re manipulated. Her gripping hands are also pretty firm so slotting the accessories into them is a pain. The sword works fine, but the bow and the scent analyzer are more of a challenge. She is one of those figures where you’re best off just using hot water on her hands before trying to get her to hold most of her stuff. And that second head is a bummer. While I was unlikely to display her with it, it would have been fun to snap some photos or maybe to change things up. Especially if it really freed up her head articulation like I imagine it would.

“Foolish reptile, I have been hired to kill you!” “But…but…I love you!”

This two-pack is one where the figures look pretty fine in poses that aren’t particularly ambitious. Chakahachi has the accessories and presence to pull it off, while the Lotus design is attractive on its own. I do feel like Lotus should pose better though and really she should be one of the most dynamic figures in the whole line. There’s not much to her that should prevent NECA from really going all out on the articulation, but they just didn’t do a great job there and I’m not sure what the reason for that is other than she’s just kind of a dud. As a result, I prefer Chakahachi, even though it was Lotus I was looking forward to more. The fact that both can still look cool on a shelf is why I feel like I can still recommend this set to the TMNT collector out there that wants to go deep. Obviously, these are characters that a more casual collector probably doesn’t need or even have interest in. The design and effect parts on Chakahachi make him rather appealing to me personally, but is that enough to get someone who has no idea who these characters are to drop 60 bucks on the set? That’s probably a tougher call.

Sorry, Leonardo. At least you have something to remember her by.

The Chakahachi and Lotus set is part of the TMNT toon line and is therefore exclusive to Target stores for the time being. Unfortunately, their online drop has come and gone and I don’t think it can be expected that they will return to the website. They were also part of the first week of the Haulathon event, but it looks like they’re being restocked in-store as I write this. As always, their distribution will vary by region in the US and your local stores may have already received a second batch or could still be waiting on it to arrive. It’s also possible that following the initial drop and online sale that any restock will hang out a bit longer this time around as people who want them get them. This is a set that really shouldn’t sell fast given the obscurity of the pair, but these Haulathon events are rather successful at generating buzz which helps to get product moving. It’s why we’re probably not done with this style of release, whether we like it or not.

Check out more reviews of NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures:

NECA TMNT Turtles in Disguise

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…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT From the Files of Pizza Squad (Deluxe Rex-1)

When you’re doing a syndicated cartoon expected to air basically every day, you need to pull story ideas from anywhere you can. I think that’s why parodies are so popular in the cartoons of the 80s to the point where it didn’t matter if the show was parodying something kids would actually know. Take REX-1,…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Renet

Welcome to the first Turtle Tuesday of 2023! 2022 is the year that NECA returned to the Mirage Studios subline of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures it started way back in 2008. When the line was announced to return, it was essentially taking the place of the Turtles in Time figures that had been…

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by Joe

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March 16, 2023

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Triceraton Zog

By Joe
Whether he’s friend or foe, it’s safe to say that you don’t want to piss off 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 Mirage Studios subline of TMNT figures. Similar to the clone Shredder, Zog isn’t so much tall as he is chunky. He’s not short though as he comes in at around 8″ in height, but he’s quite stocky and pretty damn heavy for an action figure made out of plastic. I said REX-1 was one of the heavier figures from NECA I’ve handled, but I think Zog edges him out. And everything about this guy is thick and imposing, right down to the box. It’s almost cartoonishly big and looks crazy on the shelf at Target, but he’s a big boy and he deserves a big box.

I couldn’t get over how big the box was for Zog.

So just who is Zog? Well, he’s an alien dinosaur from the comics who is kind of an ally to the turtles. Not so much willingly, for you see, Earth’s air isn’t conducive to the Triceratons and when they don’t get the right concentration of whatever the air is on their planet they basically start to go insane. I think his brain is literally decaying in the comics to the point where he mistakes Raphael for a commanding officer. It was the Utrom who brought him unwillingly to Earth and he was able to escape to the sewers where he resides for about a year before coming into contact with Raph. By then, his clothing is tattered and so is his mind. The Utrom, being a common foe for the turtles and Zog, is basically a unifier, but a run-in with the Shredder clones ends Zog’s miserable existence prematurely. That makes it rather appropriate that he gets released at the same time as the clones, but if you’re familiar with TMNT, then you know Zog was just the start of the turtles’ involvement with the Triceratons. The interactions that followed tended to be less pleasant.

He has a gun and a big ass knife, but he definitely doesn’t need them to look intimidating.

Zog is our fourth Triceraton from NECA following three in the toon line. The Triceratons are always depicted as bipedal dinosaur creatures resembling a triceratops. They usually have an orange complexion and tend to like being destructive. Zog, is essentially a big, orange, dinosaur in a purple jumpsuit. This is being a NECA comic release means he goes beyond that basic description as he is loaded up with detail. It all starts with the sculpt which is credited to Gurjeet Singh and Kushwara Studios on the box. There’s tons of texture to every inch of this guy. He’s scaly, lumpy, wrinkly to the point where there is hardly a smooth surface anywhere that’s larger than an M&M. And not one of those standard sized M&Ms, I’m talking those little mini ones that come in the tube. He’s sculpted in orange plastic, but there’s a wash basically everywhere to make him grimy and dirty and basically like someone who spent a year in a sewer. There’s some orange paint as a base coat as well because it flakes off of the hinged joints and does reveal a pale orange beneath. That’s basically the only eyesore to be found with this guy as he looks imposing. I love how the jumpsuit has just a hit of gloss in places to create the illusion of a shimmery spacesuit. His sleeves are completely ripped off leaving some cuffs behind around the wrists. NECA did the interior of the “material” black which creates this rich appearance. The other torn parts and the belt all feature cleanly applied paint. About the only thing one could reasonably nitpick is that the black wash is going to appear heavier in certain places and lighter in others. On my figure, the right side of the head seems noticeably darker than the left and there’s a very faint hit of gray near his top, left, horn that I assume was meant for the horn. It’s barely noticeable, but worth pointing out. Overall though, what a tremendously fun figure to just look at.

The detail on this guy is incredible, though I do wish they gave him a holster or sheath for the weapons.

A big, beefy, dino is not going to move like a ninja, but NECA has a few surprises in store with Zog. First off, the head is likely on a double ball and he can look way up which is cool if you want to try to pose him in a ramming position. He can’t really look down, but you get rotation and some room for tilt. The shoulders rotate all around and the hinge will allow the arms to raise up to about horizontal. We get a biceps swivel and single-jointed elbows which can’t quite hit 90 degrees nor can they really allow the arms to go out completely straight. He’s just too thick. The waist features a ball peg and you get a little motion front-to-back as well as side-to-side, but it’s mostly a rotation point. The ball-socketed hips will let Zog damn near hit a split and they pivot as well on the ball joint. What he can’t really do is kick as the leg will only go forward and back a little. Single-jointed knees can’t bend 90 degrees, but you do get another swivel point there. The hinges in the ankles are really tight and don’t seem to want to allow for much movement, but the ankle rocker works fine. On the rear of the figure is where the tail plugs in and it’s just a hinged ball-peg system like NECA’s Gargoyles line. The tail itself has a real, heavy-duty wire running through it so you can bend it, just be mindful that you’re not putting pressure on the plastic peg when you do. Lastly, we get an articulated jaw. In there is what I think is a first for this line in an articulated tongue. I think it’s basically just a little ball joint because it moves in all directions. It’s pretty damn amusing to play with. Did NECA need to make the tongue articulated? No, but I’m happy they did. Otherwise, he’s pretty basic, but it’s the size and overall presence that’s going to sell a pose with this figure more than range at an elbow or knee. I’ve had no trouble finding interesting poses with this guy and I’m guessing others will say the same.

Did someone say articulated tongue? Yeah, he has an articulated tongue.
Zog doesn’t just toss one grenade at his foes, he unleashes a whole handful.

The accessory load-out with Zog is fairly substantial. He gets an assortment of hands to pummel his victims and comes with a set of fists, open hands, gripping hands, another gripping left hand, and a right trigger finger hand. The gripping hands are interesting as no two hands appear to have the same grip. His left hand seems to be the loosest fit followed by the right hand. The third gripping hand, the other left one, is a really tight grip. The hands don’t have much flex either unless you apply heat. I’m guessing the variety in gripping hands is due to the other accessories. He has two spherical grenades and one that’s a canister. The loose gripping hand can handle the canister while the tighter ones can grip the other grenades by the handle, or whatever that part of the grenade is called. All three grenades are brown with these sculpted wraps on them which are outlined in black. They look fine, but almost comically small in Zog’s giant hands. Zog also has a big combat knife which fits rather well into the loosest gripping hand. It has a handguard on it which is spiked and it looks rather menacing. Lastly, we get a Triceraton blaster which is easily identified by it’s triangular shape. Fugitoid came with a smaller version though this one doesn’t look much bigger in these oversized hands. The gun is well painted and features a strap that’s sculpted in a pliable plastic. I suppose you can loop it over a shoulder if you prefer, but it does slot nicely into the trigger finger hand. The finger just barely gets behind the trigger guard and I’m curious why NECA didn’t just make the gun a little big bigger to not make it so tight, but it’s fine. That’s it for accessories though and I think it’s okay. The only thing I wish he had was some kind of weapon storage. He has these pouches on the rear of his chest strap and I wish they had just gave him a sheath for his knife instead. It probably isn’t how the character was drawn, but I’d be fine with them taking some liberties here. A way to holster the gun would have also been welcomed.

The fall of Zog.
“So, you wanna go first?!”
“Please, I’m not tasty!”

Zog is a massive figure and he comes at a massive price. Well, massive is too strong a word, but I couldn’t resist the wordplay. He retails for $50 like REX-1 which is quite a bit. Is he worth it? That’s going to vary from person to person as there are some collectors out there still angry that Marvel Legends hit $20 years ago (they must be really pissed now). For what you get, I’m finding it hard to be too upset about the price. This is a huge figure with a lot of plastic and a lot of paint. The accessory count won’t blow anyone away, but it’s not as if he’s short-changed either. I just think he looks damn cool and he’s one of those figures I’m having a hard time putting down. I just enjoy picking him up and feeling how hefty he is. The posing is limited, but at the same time it’s still fun. Especially if you have other figures to pose him with. I know some people are hoping for more Triceratons to army build, but I’m kind of hoping NECA stays away. Don’t make me have to decide if I want to army build $50 figures because I don’t know if I can resist. If they’re done as well as this guy then watch out wallet!

Interested in seeing more from NECA and Mirage Studios?

NECA Mirage Studios TMNT Casey Jones

Where there be turtles, there be Casey Jones – the bad ass vigilante of New York City! Casey was an early addition to the comics and he’s basically been included with every iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since. And in all of them he tends to wear a hockey mask and bludgeons bad guys…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Fugitoid

I’m having a hard time coming up with an action figure line that has had retail releases separated by more than a decade. I don’t mean long-running lines of figures like G.I. Joe or Marvel Legends which have been around for decades, I mean a line that was started, ended, then re-started like NECA’s line…

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by Joe

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

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March 14, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tall Thug and Short Gangster

By Joe
Pictured: Not Dopey and Not Dumbo.

It’s time to look at another NECA two-pack that’s been released during this year’s Haulathon event at Target. And for today, it’s the Tall Thug and Short Gangster two-pack, who are better known as Dopey and Dumbo. I say “better known” as that’s a relative term since these are some pretty deep pulls from the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which premiered with a five episode mini series in 1987. Like the previous two-pack of Grunt and Jersey Red, these guys hail from Bebop and Rocksteady’s seldom referenced street gang which was in the very first episode. I went into all of the details in that review, and if you want a refresh it’s linked at the bottom of this entry, but to make things short these guys appeared briefly, were mutated offscreen by Shredder, showed up in a couple of quick shots, and then were never heard from again. None of them had a speaking role or were even named in the show. We only know their names thanks to production art and only the most involved TMNT fans even know that much. And it probably goes without saying, but NECA couldn’t use their “real” names on the box for legal reasons since there’s a mouse out there that’s pretty protective of its copyrights.

I’m digging this meat hook accessory which is probably the type of weapon that was okay for the initial mini series, but deemed too violent for the seasons to follow.

The Tall Thug, who is Dopey, is perhaps the oddest of the bunch from a style standpoint. If there was a narc in the gang, I’m putting my money on this guy. He’s got a big, floppy, hat that covers most of his face and this jacket that makes him look like he just came from a Janet Jackson show during the Rhythm Nation tour. His boots almost look like platform shoes and this is just an all-together odd design for a purported gangster. Dumbo, the short guy, is dressed far more practically with a simple gray tank top with black vest combo to go with some blue pants and black boots. Aside from some wristbands, he’s got nothing going on as far as jewelry or even fancy weaponry. This is a thug who is clearly saving his earnings and must have a retirement goal in mind and I respect that. He’s also very short, like shortest in the line short. We might as well make it official and do a measurement which places him at approximately 4.75″ which is shorter than Baxter Stockman but pretty close to Splinter and Screwloose. He’s got bragging rights with Kala and Kerma and that’s about it. As for the so-called tall thug, he’s around 6″, maybe a tick over as it’s hard to tell where the head ends and the hat (which isn’t removable) begins with this guy, which really only makes him tall relative to Dumbo here. Compared with the rest of the gang, he’s fairly average.

This Looney Tunes type mallet is definitely more the show’s style.

Because these guys were little more than background characters, there’s not much to their designs. Dopey’s face is barely visible on the show due to the hat which sits low and his bulbous nose that dominates his face. NECA did give him eyes with pupils, so that’s good, and there’s probably elements to this guy that had to just be guessed by the designers. The jacket is a gray overlay with the cel-shading on the rear of the figure while the arms are separately molded. There’s some linework for pockets and such and he has two stripes near each shoulder, but there’s not much too it. He has the NECA double-elbows which is a swivel and hinge at the top of the joint and bottom which can look odd on some figures, but here it’s fine. He’s wearing blue pants which might be more like work pants as opposed to denim, but this was a low detail cartoon so it’s hard to know what the model was going for. There’s some sloppy paint on his belt, but otherwise the paint seems sharp. I like all of the detail on the face as this guy has a somewhat lumpy appearance and it adds character. The rest is done well enough, it’s just not a very exciting character design.

“Hey Leonardo, I think I’d feel kind of bad beating these two up.” “I know what you mean, Michelangelo.”

For articulation, Dopey should feel fairly familiar. He’s very much in-line with someone like Vernon and Grunt. The head is on a double ball and he can rotate, look down, and gets some fairly solid tilt and nuance posing. He can’t really look up due to both his hair and the collar on his coat, but he’s the “tall” thug so he shouldn’t look up to anyone! The shoulders peg in and hinge and they can rotate, but at a slight angle since his coat is designed to look like it has shoulder pads. They hinge out almost to horizontal. At the elbow, you get rotation at the top of the joint which is essentially your biceps swivel. The bend goes past 90 degrees, but it results in a squared-off “U” shape to the joint which does look odd, but it’s more than functional. You also get rotation past it for the forearm and the wrists swivel and hinge. In the diaphragm, there is a joint, but like Vernon and so many others in this line, it’s useless due to the overlay. There’s another joint at the waist that’s mostly for rotation. You do get a little tilt in all directions, but it’s minor. The legs are ball and socket joints and you can hit some pretty solid splits. He kicks forward to just about horizontal before the diaper piece gets in the way. There’s some rotation at the thigh and he can kick back a little bit and off to the side. The knees are standard double joints that bend past 90 and you get a boot cut below that. The ankle hinges are fairly useless due to the shape of the boot, but you get a decent ankle rocker. He’s going to be able to do enough and I’m happy to say nothing was overly tight or loose. The elbow swivels are a little stubborn, but it’s more due to the shape of the cut and they’re still usable and didn’t require any heat. The gripping hands have the wrong hinge, which is an issue on just about every figure from NECA these days save for REX-1.

Dumbo is definitely not described as a tall man.

With Dumbo, we have a very basic design. I already talked about it a little, but we have bare arms, a bald head, and clothing that just hits blue, black, and gray as far as the colors go. The pants feature the cel-shading, but the black vest does not and since the shirt is barely visible on the rear of the figure it would seem NECA declined to apply it there. The linework is done well on both the shirt and the flesh parts. There’s some on the pants but it’s fairly limited in application. He does appear to be all new tooling though. Dopey likely is as well, which is a surprise for such minor characters. They could have reused the Burns/Human Rocksteady mold again, but he was noticeably shorter than Rocksteady so NECA must have decided they needed to capture the same. I wish they had instead put more money into that human Rocksteady since I think his proportions are off, but oh well. I thought he might share arms with Jersey Red, but his are ever so slightly larger. He’s just very plain, but the paint on him is mostly fine. There’s a blemish on his left arm, but nothing too extreme.

That’s right, these two mutated! Into what I’m not quite sure.

A little chunk like Dumbo probably isn’t going to articulate very well, and that’s pretty much true here. The head is set very low on the body as he’s one of those no-neck characters. He gets enough movement side-to-side and can look up, but he can’t look down and there’s very little tilt available. The shoulders can rotate fine and they hinge out past horizontal, so that’s good. The elbows are just single-hinged and a little awkward looking as you can see the sculpt of the point of the elbow past the joint, but at least here they didn’t paint any lines onto the elbow like they did with human Rocksteady so it’s not as weird looking. He can bend to about 90 degrees there and it swivels in place of a biceps swivel and on a thick-armed guy like this I like the approach. With Grunt, who had defined biceps, I was critical of the choice to forego the biceps swivel. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally, per usual. At the waist, we get a swivel point that’s probably a ball-peg, but it doesn’t do a whole lot. The overlay for the shirt gets in the way so he can only rotate a few degrees to either side and gets virtually no tilt in any direction. The ball-socketed hips will allow the little guy to nearly hit a full split and you get a little swivel at the joint as well. He can’t really kick forward as his legs want to go off to the side, but if you accept that you can get them to go fairly far. He actually can do the same backwards just as well which is rare. The knees are just single joints and his default posing has them bent slightly. They can’t bend much farther than that either, but they do swivel. The feet can’t do much due to the cuffs of the pants. You basically just get a little tilt out of the ankle rocker and the hinge is fairly useless.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “A face only a mother could love.” I’m not sure even a mother could love this one.

Dumbo is a guy who isn’t going to move much. You’re going to set him on a shelf and pose his arms with some accessories. As for those accessories, we get a few. Dumbo and Dopey both come with fists in the box and have a set of gripping hands. Dopey has an additional left gripping hand with a gap between the middle and ring finger. That gap is for use with the meat hook accessory which fits in the hand with the metal portion slotting between the fingers. It has a wood handle and gray hook and looks fine. It’s nice to get a unique weapon as the rest are less interesting. Dumbo was seen wielding a chain in the episode so we get another one of those. It’s an actual chain and it’s different from the one that came in the Premonition of a Premutation set. It’s a bit longer and the links are more rounded. I like the length, but I prefer the shape of the links on the first one we got. There’s also a short baseball bat they must have swiped from a Little League field or something. It’s painted brown and has some linework to give it a wood appearance so that’s cool. Lastly, there’s a mallet, like a cartoon, Itchy & Scratchy, mallet. It’s amusing to me to think of street gangs running around with mallets, but it’s from the show. It’s a very pale brown, almost a yellow-brown, with some black detail on each end of the head to give it a wood appearance. It’s fine, though almost too silly to use even for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

You’re going to want to display this one from the front.

That’s not all as we also have to talk about the mutations. Just like with Grunt and Scrag before him, Dopey and Dumbo come with extra parts to mutate them. In the case of Dopey, he was mutated into a shrew or something. He basically ended up with an even bigger nose. He was always positioned to the rear of the brief shots we got so it was hard to make out much and I’m guessing NECA had to use a lot of artistic license in sculpting this. He gets the extra head though with the massive nose and he’s quite ugly. We never saw his hands, but NECA decided to give him an extra right hand that was mutated into this monstrous shape. It’s affixed to a new forearm so you separate it below the second hinge to peg it in. Both swaps are easy and they don’t really affect articulation in any way. I will say, there’s no linework on the middle finger of the monstrous hand and that does distract me a bit as it’s present on all of the other fingers, but otherwise it looks fine. It’s not the most interesting mutation, but NECA did it about as well as they could.

The mutant punks! Sadly, Shredder seems to have had them all put down.

For Dumbo, he got mutated into some sort of dog-sloth thing. He’s always been referred to as a dog mutation by the fanbase, but I’m getting a sloth vibe. Especially with the tiny hands that seem to feature long claws. Whatever he is, he had better exposure than Dopey in the show so this one was easier to do as far as the design goes, but in terms of engineering it’s more involved since Dumbo’s look is sleeveless. He gets a new head that’s wide enough that it hides the flesh around the collar of his shirt from head-on, but does lock the head down even more so than before to the point where he can’t really do much there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sit as low as I’d like though as from the side you can clearly see the flesh parts. It almost would be better if the double ball peg for the head stayed on the head when you pull it off (and it’s a little tough getting that off) so the mutated head could sit even lower. The arms are an easy swap and they look fine. They’re darker than the head, but that’s in keeping with the show. The biceps piece appears to be the same as the standard arms, but the forearms had to be resculpted to include fur. The hands are tiny and sharp and you do lose the hinge joint. They don’t really do much though. He can still hold his chain, but that’s probably it. Overall, it’s okay. His mutation is more interesting than Dopey’s, though I wish they did a better job hiding the neck. Just a floating piece to slot over that would have been nice.

This is what was taken from us.

This two-pack is another one where if you have the other gang members then you probably want this one, and if you don’t, then you probably won’t see much of a need for it. These are of two of the least interesting designs in the group. I kind of like Dopey just because he looks so stupid as a “gang” member given his attire while Dumbo is just a very bland design that wasn’t supposed to receive this much attention or scrutiny. With the mutated forms, it’s the opposite as I think Dumbo’s is a bit more interesting while Dopey looks, well, dopey. He’s definitely the one to position towards the back if you’re going with a mutated display. And that’s the dilemma present. I like Scrag and Grunt’s mutant looks while Dumbo’s isn’t great, but his un-mutated look is boring. However, they pair better with human Bebop and Rocksteady so that’s probably how I’ll display them. At least for now, maybe I’ll change it up at some point, but I’ve had Scrag in his human form since getting him as well so I don’t know when that change will happen. They’re able to better make use of their weapons in human form so there’s that too.

This set is exclusive to Target stores and retails for $60. It’s a lot, but it’s the going rate. Again, if you have the other characters then you might as well get this one. The designs may not be the most exciting, but they are executed well. If you don’t have those other sets or don’t feel like you need to add to the old gang, then I don’t think you’ll miss this one. The accessories are about as exciting as the characters themselves so there’s little incentive to buy them unless you just want to collect them all.

Need more obscure Turtle characters in your life? Look no further!

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

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

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by Joe

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

March 9, 2023

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Shredder Clones

By Joe
From the pages of Mirage Studios come the 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 of 5 such releases: the Mirage Studios Shredder clones. In the original comic series, Shredder was unceremoniously killed off in the very first issue. He was never supposed to be a reocurring villain and really no one likely expected to even do a second issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but the comic sold well so another had to follow. Co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had no trouble coming up with other adventures for the boys, but the popularity of the Shredder character meant that he had to come back in some way. And he would, eventually, but first we got the clones.

“You ready to mess shit up, little buddy?”

Issue #20 of the original run saw the debut of the clones when they showed up and killed off the Triceraton warrior Zog (more on him in the coming weeks), though their full debut came in the following issue when the turtles actually did battle with them. The clones were essentially an attempt by the Foot to bring back the Shredder, but something must have gone wrong. They needed a few tries, and it would seem this trio of clones represented those first few failed attempts. One such clone is known as the Claw Shredder. A figure of him was released as part of the latest round of Loot Crates and it was basically a slender Shredder with big claws for arms. The other two clones are the subject of today’s post as they’ve been released together: Multi-armed Shredder and Mini Shredder or Shrimp Shredder. I don’t know if they necessarily have official names as these clones have now appeared in multiple iterations of the franchise and even in toy form. I suppose their official name isn’t important and all you need to know is we get a big, beefy, version of Shredder with four arms and a small Shredder. These two have been released as a two-pack and come in an oversized version of NECA’s Mirage packaging featuring new artwork by Kevin Eastman.

He may be little, but don’t turn your back on him.

I suppose we can start with the Shrimp Shredder, my preferred name for him. He’s more like an accessory, but since the box does say “Shredder Clones” with a plural, we can treat him like a figure. And this will be quick because there isn’t much to him. He stands at roughly 2.75″ to the top of his helmet, but his true height would probably add another half inch to him. That’s because he’s in a permanent crouch since his legs are prepositioned and lack knee articulation. His color scheme is like that of the standard Mirage Shredder so he has a red outfit with brown wraps at the forearms, waist, and boots. He looks like a tiny Shredder with the only difference being his skin tone is an earthy brown and he has red, glowing, eyes from behind his mask. He has just a single blade on each hand as opposed to two and features no spikes at the shin. The figure has the cutomary black line work this line is known for and it’s all really clean. The helmet and other “metal” parts have a luster to them. They’re painted in silver with hits of light blue to create the illusion of metal and it looks really sharp. It’s really impressive how much detail is packed into such a small figure and the lack of paint slop is to be commended.

“Destroy them, my clone! Take no prisoners!”

Where the little guy does come up short is in the articulation department. He’s not a slug figure, but he also doesn’t do a whole lot and it’s very similar to the baby turtles we saw in the recently released accessory set. The head is on a ball peg, but it’s pretty large relative to the creature’s body so turning it will result in it coming into contact with the spiked shoulder pauldrons. He can look down, but he can’t look up, and there’s really little in the way of nuance posing. The shoulders rotate and hinge, but they can only go so far because the elbows are bent. Eventually, the spikes on the hands will hit something when rotating and the pauldrons obstruct the figures abilito raise its arms out to the side. The hips are ball-jointed and they’re mostly unrestricted. They do kick out to the side more than forward, but his bent knees mean he wasn’t going to do kicks anyway. They pivot and can go forward and back and are easily the most accessible of the joints. The ankles feature hinges and an ankle rocker. He’s not really going to do much. You get a few options in how the arms can be positions and the legs being bent means you can’t really take advantage of all of the articulation down there. He can basically crouch, sit, kneel, or be on one knee. He’s not too hard to stand, easier than the baby turtles, so mostly he’s fine. If they could have given us knee and elbow articulation that would have been nice, or maybe just swappable legs and arms? He gets the job done though and he’s not the main attraction.

“See, dude? I told you this would be way more fun than fighting.”
Is that you, Goro?

That’s because the big guy is. We’re talking about the multi-armed Shredder, or Shiva Shredder in some parts, and he’s definitely the more impressive of the pair. Standing at around 6.75″, he’s the tallest in the Mirage line so far, or would be if he wasn’t being released at the same time as Zog. More so than the height, he feels big because he’s very broad in the chest and he needs to be because he has four, beefy, arms that need to attach to that trunk. Everything about his design is broad as even his head is practically square-shaped compared with the more rounded features of Shredder. His chin is squared-off behind the metal plate and the color scheme for this guy is the same as Shrimpy. Also similar to the little guy is that he only has one blade on each hand, but since he has four hands he has the same number of blades as Shredder. The paint is all the same so same flesh color, same approach for the steel, and so on. And like the little guy, it’s all applied exceptionally well and is mostly free of defects. The actual spikes on hims are quite firm and pretty sharp too so keep this one away from your little ones. I kind of have a “thing” for designs with four arms so I am especially taken with how this guy turned out. He’s going to look awesome in your display whether you have a ton of releases or just a few.

This guy might require both swords to take down, Leo.

Now when it comes to the articulation there’s a lot to work with, but this clone still feels like most releases from NECA. The head is on a ball peg and there’s also a ball peg in the base of the neck. He gets good rotation there with plenty of room for nuance posing. He can look up only a little due to the shape of the helm, but he can look down rather well. There’s nothing in the torso and I’m guessing that’s because of the arms. Each one is articulated as expected. We get a shoulder hinge with rotation at the peg insert, there’s a biceps swivel, double-jointed elbow, and wrists that swivel and hinge. Rotating the arms is a bit cumbersome because they conflict with each other or the pauldrons, but it can be done to a certain degree. The elbows, even though they’re double-jointed, really only give 90 degrees of bend because the gauntlets on each arm ride up so far and the biceps on this guy are pretty massive. You can rotate at the gauntlet as well which I like because it allows you to keep the forearm blades in-line with the hands. There is a waist twist, but it’s just that and doesn’t feel like a ball-joint. The hips are the standard ball hips and this big boy can almost do full splits as a result. He doesn’t kick forward very far, and the legs tend to go out to the side more than forward. There is rotation at the thigh and the knees are double-jointed and can bend past 90. There is no boot cut, but the ankles hinge and have a rocker which works well enough. In terms of stuck joints, I had a little trouble with the left knee, but I was able to get it going without having to resort to hot water or a hair dryer. Some of the biceps and elbows were a bit stubborn, but again, nothing that required heat. His a big, brawler, type so I think the articulation here is good enough and he stands easily so that’s a plus.

“My arm! The filthy reptile slashed off my arm!”

When it comes to the accessories, this set is somewhat lacking. Unless you consider the little clone an accessory, then I guess it’s better. He has no accessories, but the big guy gets some extra hands. He has, in total, two fists, two clenching hands, two gripping hands, and two chop hands. I guess if you wanted four fists you’ll be disappointed, but I’m good with the variety. He also comes with some battle damage accessories. In the comic, these guys were made up of some weird worms. They’re like a hive mind and whatever they eat they can replicate, or something. It’s not important, but when they get damaged the purple worms become visible which is pretty gross. What you can do is pop off each forearm just behind the gauntlet, which is why you get a swivel point there. With that removed, you have a cap that can go over the stump which makes it look like a bunch of purple worms are visible. And for the discarded limb, there’s another purple cap that can attach to the that making it look like the worms are spreading out from it. It’s pretty cool and certainly helps for those into toy photography or want to stage a fight on their shelf. The pieces work fine and look fine as well, but that’s it for accessories. Is it pretty slim? Yeah, but I don’t know what else we could really ask for. I guess more battle damaged parts if that’s your thing, but I’m more or less content with this.

Including the original Shredder with them highlights the strides NECA has made in painting the metal bits.

The Shredder Clones two-pack is another very specific release and one that unfortunately is limited in value by the presence of a Loot Crate figure. If you have the Claw Shredder then you probably want these guys and if you don’t then you might not see the point. The good news is, the Claw Shredder really hasn’t been that sought after and aftermarket prices haven’t been terrible. They might go up now that these guys are out, but he’s certainly easier to get than Scrag. I have that figure so I wanted this pair and I’m happy to have them. I’m also happy to say that they came in at $40 which doesn’t seem terrible. With online retailers charging $38 for Casey Jones and the Utrom, $40 for this pair feels like a pretty damn good price. That’s the Target price though and when this gets sent to specialty retail he may very well cost more. We’ll have to wait and see. For now, this pair is only available at Target stores for the month of March and it remains to be seen if it will be refreshed or if it was a one and done affair. If you’re into the Mirage stuff and you come across this one then I definitely recommend it. You can never have too many four-armed figures and apparently you can never have too many Shredders.

Here’s some more TMNT goodness that might interest you:

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Utrom

We’ve become so accustomed to having the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in our lives that the name of the franchise has almost lost all meaning. Well, maybe not all, but I feel we mostly have lost sight of how ridiculous a concept this franchise is. And it extends to other characters in the franchise and…

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

We’re well into the cold of winter and spring feels like it’s just around the corner which means it must be time for another NECA Haulathon. Haulathon, if you don’t recall from last year, is basically a tandem promotion between NECA and Target which was just an excuse to get NECA some more visibility in…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

March 7, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

By Joe
We got ourselves a couple of bad apples, here.

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of New York. When they turn their attention towards a reporter by the name of April O’Neil, they run afoul of some local vigilantes who happen to be mutated ninjas. Shredder, identifying that his new foes are not human, decides to create some mutants of his own. We see the transformation of Bebop and Rocksteady to a mutant warthog and rhino respectively, while the rest of the gang gets mutated offscreen. We get one glimpse at them post mutation on a monitor in the Technodrome and then a very brief glimpse in the fifth and final episode of said mini series where they’re all in a cell. One lucky mutant, who we’ve come to know as Scrag, got to demonstrate Shredder’s reverse mutation ray which returned him to his human form and then he and the rest of the gang were never heard from again. Did Shredder, seeing how moronic Bebop and Rocksteady turned out, decide to just cut his losses and exterminate the rest? Maybe he returned them all to human form and set them free in New York? Or, perhaps wanting to have a little fun, did he and Krang tell them they were going home, but they actually dumped them in Dimension X where they almost certainly met their end?

There’s no canon explanation for what happened to the rest of the street punks. In reality, the mini series was commissioned by Playmates Toys to sell, well, toys. And it did its job so they were all set. Producer Fred Wolf saw more potential in the show and wanted to continue producing it and so they did leading to a second season and then several more. In going from the mini series to season two, it was likely decided that Shredder didn’t need a whole gang of mutants at his disposal. Bebop and Rocksteady would be enough as recurring characters and they could bring in other “villains of the day” to add variety. And since it was a kid’s show, there likely wasn’t any consideration given to telling the audience what happened with these other characters. Adults often underestimate kids and their capacity for knowledge and memory because I certainly wanted to know what happened with those other guys, but the show never brought them back. Now that I’m an adult and immersed in the collector community, I know my thoughts were not unique to me. Most kids wondered what happened to those punks, but aside from very brief appearances in supplemental media and ephemera, they’ve been forgotten. It’s only through those items that we even know them by name: Scrag, Grunt, Dopey, and Dumbo.

The gang’s all here.

When NECA and Loot Crate returned for another round of TMNT crates, the bonus figure for those who purchased all four crates ended up being the infamous Scrag. This basically signaled to the collector community that these long ignored characters were on NECA’s radar, and not being one to shy away from deep pulls, the prospect of completing Bebop and Rocksteady’s original gang suddenly seemed like a foregone conclusion. The only catch was that Scrag had a pretty significant barrier in front of him. If you only wanted that figure it was going to cost you $200 as you had to buy four $50 crates. NECA has insisted that any figure exclusive to Loot Crate would remain so which is why most of the first wave of crates were variants of popular characters. Wave 2 was more specialized and while a character like Danny Pennington from the first film, who was featured in the first crate of Wave 2, could get re-released at mass retail with a different look a character like Scrag only has one look. And his figure featured components to display him as a human or as his mutated bat form, so that possibility was out. Would NECA release the rest of the gang if there was no way for people who missed out on Scrag to get him? Well, we have our answer, and it’s “Yes!” For this round of Haulathon, NECA has unleashed the gang and for the first time ever we have them all in plastic form. And as a result, we essentially have all of the main characters from that inaugural mini series in plastic as well so that’s pretty cool. These guys have been more than 30 years in the making so now the question is, “Was it worth it?”

This guy has some interesting fashion sense. I feel like he tried out and was rejected be Demolition.

The other problem with NECA releasing Scrag solo is that it meant the four missing gang members were now reduced to three. NECA prefers to release these figures in packs of two so someone was going to have to be paired with a non-gang member. Or, there was the possibility of NECA doing another three-pack like it did with the Neutrinos, but it turns out that the company had a satisfactory replacement in mind: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the canonical replacement for Bebop, or Rocksteady, in the gang they once ran with. She debuts in the episode “The Gang’s All Here” when Shredder orders the pair to reconnect with their old gang. If you’re wondering how that squares with my prior paragraphs talking about how we never heard from them again, it still does as the gang is composed of all new characters. Red, as far as we were shown, never actually ran with the likes of Grunt, Scrag, etc and instead was more like a replacement for those guys. She is joined by Lugnut and High-Five in her episodes so maybe they’re on NECA’s radar. For now, she’s a suitable inclusion as far as theming goes even if she wasn’t a figure I ever actively wanted.

It’s like getting two figures in one!

Grunt and Jersey Red come in the standard window box we’re accustomed to at this point. Purchasing the pair will set you back $60 now, but $30 each for a pair of figures of new tooling is pretty much the going rate these days. We’ll talk about Grunt first. He stands at around 6.25″ to the top of his head and 6.75″ to the top of his mohawk. He is pretty absurd looking. Maybe to avoid doing anything that could be too realistic for a gang member, the design of Grunt looks more like a Judas Priest roadie or pro wrestler. He has a blond mohawk and sunglasses, but has declined to wear a shirt. Instead, he basically wears a harness that’s strapped to his chest with a big, gold, buckle in the center of his chest and back. He has an oversized gray belt with some pouches on it to pair with tight, black, pants and boots. I guess because he values some personal protection, he’s also got gray kneepads and a pair of bracelets to complete the look. He’s lean, but pretty muscular, and I don’t know if a guy looking like this approached me on the street if I’d laugh or be intimidated. It’s certainly a look though and NECA captured it well. Since he’s mostly black and fleshtone, there isn’t a ton of paint on this guy. Every spot of him is still painted, it’s just not a paint job that requires a ton of detail. The toon shading is only applied to the harness and the kneepads, but there’s still plenty of linework on the muscles and finer details. And what is there is very clean, there’s little or no blemishes on my figure and there’s no plastic look to the figure. The only thing I don’t like is that his eyes were left without pupils. They’re just white, but since they’re behind sunglasses I’m guessing NECA decided it didn’t need to paint them.

Well that doesn’t look right.

For accessories, Grunt has 3 sets of hands: fists, gripping, and a second set of gripping hands. That second set of gripping hands features claws on the fingers because they’re likely intended for his mutated form. Unfortunately, they’re cast and painted in his normal flesh tone so they’re useless. The hands are also on long, skinny, pegs and are quite challenging to remove. More so than they should be and the long peg just means more room for breaking so do exercise caution. As for what he has to wield with the gripping hands, he gets a sword. It’s a curved blade with a wrapped handle and I think this is a new sculpt. It looks fine and he was seen with a sword in the show. His main accessory though is his mutant form. Grunt was mutated into a green, lizard, creature, and since he declines to wear a shirt NECA needed to include more than just a head and some hands like it did with Scrag. The lizard form is an entirely new torso. The default torso separates at the waist and it’s pretty easy to do. The lizard part then just plugs in, and again, fairly painlessly. If you wanted to get a really good seal you may need to heat the lizard torso up, but it’s not necessary. He looks great and the paint and linework is all very clean. He has open, clawing, hands which thankfully look great since they’re the only hands he’s got. He’s got a long, flicking, tongue which is a nice touch and it’s going to be hard to settle on a display for this guy because this lizard creature looks so cool.

This will not end well for you, punk.

When it comes to articulation, Grunt is fairly basic for the line. The head is likely on a double ball peg so you get some up and down plus full rotation and some tilt for nuance posing. The shoulders are just pegged in on hinges so you get full rotation and they can come out to the side almost to a horizontal position. It might go further if you force it, but it’s probably not necessary. No biceps swivel on this guy which is a surprise. Instead, he gets a single hinged joint at the elbow that just pegs into the bicep so you get a swivel there. The elbow bends to about 90 so it’s functional, but a biceps swivel would look better, in my opinion. I’m guessing they didn’t want to break up the sculpt or were trying to save some money by tooling fewer parts. The wrists swivel and hinge and after being pleasantly surprised with the vertical-hinged REX-1 wrists, Grunt is back to just all horizontal hinges despite his lone weapon being a sword. In the torso, we have a ball-joint in the diaphragm. It will give the figure rotation with a decent amount of side-to-side tilt and very little forward and back. At the waist is a twist where the upper body pegs into the lower body so while it works it does tend to come apart slightly when twisting on it. The hips are the standard ball and socket joints and they go out to the side for full splits, kick forward all the way, and back slightly. There’s a thigh twist up there as well as double-jointed knees which go past 90 degrees. At the top of the boot we do get a swivel and at the ankle we get hinges and rockers. The hinges offer very little going forward and back, but the ankle rocker is pretty solid.

Told ya!

Grunt’s articulation is probably enough. I don’t like the elbows, but NECA doesn’t like doing double-joints on bare armed characters so I at least understand the thinking. I just wish he got to keep a biceps swivel. As for the lizard-man, the articulation is basically the same. His arms can’t quite get out to horizontal either and he lacks a biceps swivel. His diaphragm joint has less range and it’s partly because the straps on his chest sit lower and are on the part that wants to rotate. His head, which sits forward on his body, is also different. I think it’s still a double ball peg, but the orientation means that ball is pointing straight out so you get a head that can’t look up, can look down a touch, and doesn’t get a lot of side-to-side. You get plenty of tilt, but otherwise is limited and swapping to the mutant form is a downgrade in articulation.

The rough and tough female of the gang.

Now let’s talk about Grunt’s box-mate: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the rare female in this line, but I’m happy to say we actually have a couple more females to talk about from this wave of Haulathon releases. She was previously teased via a wanted poster included as a sticker in one of the Loot Crates and as a paper insert for the street diorama. She’s a heavy set woman in a halter top and jeans with a flock of red hair that reminds me of Guile from Street Fighter 2. She also has these red, cowboy, boots that will make her a challenge to stand in any pose that isn’t just straight up and down. The design is a bit understated compared with Grunt, but effective nonetheless. She’s not a character I ever needed in plastic, but what’s here looks good and true to the show. She does have the toon shading on her jeans and boots and the paint hits are all applied cleanly. As far as I can tell, nothing on this figure was reused from a previous one so she’s all new.

She’s got a gun and a bottle of…Maalox? She’s ready to party!

For accessories, Red has an assortment of hands: fists, clenching, a right trigger finger hand, and a left, wide, gripping hand. The wide gripping hand is included so she can hold one of her accessories. The first is a white bottle of some sort. In her debut episode, Shredder was trying to spread some new mutation serum so that might be what this bottle is for, but otherwise I don’t know. For the trigger hand, she has a gun. It’s a big, white, blaster of some kind that certainly looks like it came from the show. I don’t know if Jersey Red was ever seen wielding this gun, but it looks like something Shredder might have passed out to the gang when they brought them onboard in her debut episode. It’s not a lot of stuff, I’m guessing most of the accessory budget went to Grunt’s lizard half, but I don’t think she really needed anything else. She’s a brawler, but she’s got a gun too and if you want to outfit her with melee weapons you probably have a bunch laying around at this point. I know I do.

I believe the kids would refer to her now as “thick.”

As for articulation, Jersey Red is a bit limited. She has the standard setup at the head which allows her to look up, down, all around, and she has some tilt. The shoulders rotate all around and hinge out to the side to just about horizontal. She basically has the same arm setup as Grunt since her arms are bare so no biceps swivel and a single-jointed elbow. She basically hits 90 degrees at the elbow bend and the wrists swivel and hinge. All of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. In the torso, she has a diaphragm joint that lets her rotate just below her bust and that’s basically all it does. She has a waist twist below that which is just okay. Since it’s not a ball joint, twisting her too far breaks up the sculpt at the waist so it’s of limited use. At the hips, we have the standard setup, but she has a rather large “diaper” covering her crotch so she can’t do splits like Grunt can nor can she kick forward very far and she can’t kick back at all. She does have a thigh twist up there, but her knees are single-jointed. They swivel there as well, but the bend doesn’t quite hit 90 degrees. She does have a boot cut so those swivel and the hinge and rocker combo at the ankle work well enough, but because her boots are heeled it’s not nearly as useful. You’re not going to do a whole lot with her feet, but if you keep it simple, she actually stands pretty well. There are peg holes on her heels if you feel a simple stand is warranted, but she’s stable. I should add, nothing on either figure was too tight or too loose. I didn’t have to heat any of the joints and the only heat recommended is maybe for connecting Grunt’s mutant half to his lower body or getting his hands out, and if you’re real concerned about paint rub with the white blaster, heating the trigger hand first would help there though I had no issues without it.

“What the hell are you doing down there?”

Grunt and Jersey Red is not a two-pack that is going to set the world on fire, but it’s executed fairly well. The only real bummer is the gaffe with the mutant gripping hands for Grunt. Some companies would attempt to fix this by offering replacements somehow, but I don’t expect that to happen here. My guess is if they ever do a second production run it will be corrected there. NECA has done this in the past and indicated that customers could get on a list for replacement parts, but I’ve never seen anyone actually receive said replacement parts. The last time something like that happened was with the Rat King who had a faulty crotch piece that flaked paint. If that matters to you then you may want to sit this one out. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that this set ever gets another run. These are obscure characters and if you don’t have Scrag all ready then you probably won’t even bother. Unless you’re the rare Jersey Red fan. The rise in price also doesn’t help. If I were grading these separately, I’d say Grunt is fine and a pretty fun figure to mess around with. Jersey Red looks good, but isn’t particularly fun to handle as she’s too limited. If I could have passed on her I probably would have, but I’m also not looking to offload her or anything. If you want to complete the original gang then sure, go for it. If you don’t care or don’t have any of those previous releases (including human Bebop and Rocksteady) then you can probably pass on this one.

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

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

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by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

We’re well into the cold of winter and spring feels like it’s just around the corner which means it must be time for another NECA Haulathon. Haulathon, if you don’t recall from last year, is basically a tandem promotion between NECA and Target which was just an excuse to get NECA some more visibility in…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

March 2, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT From the Files of Pizza Squad (Deluxe Rex-1)

By Joe
REX-1 is here to serve and protect. Maybe.

When you’re doing a syndicated cartoon expected to air basically every day, you need to pull story ideas from anywhere you can. I think that’s why parodies are so popular in the cartoons of the 80s to the point where it didn’t matter if the show was parodying something kids would actually know. Take REX-1, who premiered in the episode of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series “New York’s Shiniest.” Rex is basically a RoboCop parody, and RoboCop was one of those bizarre R-rated films that was marketed to kids for some reason. He got a toyline and a cartoon series which dropped the violence of the film as well as the social commentary just to make a show about a good cop who happens to be a robot. Rex, being from a cartoon series designed to sell toys and make kids laugh, is more of a doofus, but also a product of his time. The episode leans into a crime-ridden New York City, which was very much the opinion of the city in the mainstream at the time, in need of a hero and it turns to a robot cop. It turns out bad in a way and I’m guessing it was more of a way to inject comedy, but seeing a cop with the power of REX-1 basically apply the law indiscriminately feels like the kind of thing that would happen in reality. The turtles basically have to do the programming themselves to make Rex a more appropriate arbiter of justice, and since it was the TMNT cartoon, they have to take down Shredder.

It’s possible this robot doesn’t take its job too seriously.

REX-1’s premiere episode came in season two, which may have been the most watched season of the show. It was when there weren’t a lot of episodes available, but in my market, that didn’t stop them from airing the program every week day. I saw this guy a whole bunch as a result so this almost one-off character (I know he came back for at least one other episode) ended up being rather memorable. Despite the exposure, REX-1 never received an action figure in the original Playmates line, but that toyline rarely went too hard on cartoon-only characters. They still tended to favor the comics or original creations because it was mostly Mirage Studios that came up with the toy designs. A character like REX-1 was probably created by the show, almost certainly, and it was probably easier for legal reasons to just stick with what they were doing on the toy front.

“Mmmm…sweet crude.”

Because REX-1 was so well known, it felt like a foregone conclusion that NECA would eventually get to him. Especially once they started doing the “deluxe” releases that come in a VHS-styled box and are intended for solo characters instead of a multi-pack. It may have taken a little longer than some expected, but expectations have now been met and REX-1 is available in plastic form courtesy of NECA and Target’s Haulathon promotion. He comes in the expected VHS box which is quite massive this time around. I no longer have my Chrome Dome box, but it sure seems like it’s around the same size as that, and probably heavier. The artwork, once again provided by Daniel Elson and Aaron Hazouri, is fantastic and looks just like how I remember the old VHS tapes, style-wise. The only downside here is REX-1 comes at a new pricepoint of $50. As far as I can recall, the previous high for a deluxe release in this line was the previously mentioned Chrome Dome who came in at $40. That figure was released over 2 years ago so an increase of some kind was likely expected, but I was surprised to see NECA blow by the $45 price and go right to $50. We’ll get more into the value component of the review when I summarize everything at the end, but it definitely stung a bit to ring this one up at the register.

Probably not a sight you would want to see on the streets of New York.

REX-1 is quite a beefy figure for the line. He stands at a shade over 8.75″ to the top of his hat which I’m just going to consider part of his head. This doesn’t make him the tallest figure in the line, but he just might be the heaviest. I was not prepared for how heavy the box would feel when I picked it up and most of that weight is concentrated in the figure itself. Rex’s upper body is very chunky, though rounded-off, and there’s a noticeable heft when lifting this guy up. If I had a postage scale I’d weigh him, but I don’t, so my un-scientific approach of just holding and comparing figures has lead me to be believe that REX-1 is the heaviest figure in the line. And the only one that strikes me as heavier from outside the toon line is the recently released Zog. Rex’s heft is largely contained to the torso as the legs are much slimmer. His design from a color and texture standpoint is very on-model with the show, but the proportions are a little off. The show wasn’t known for its consistency so if you do a search for the character you will find some images where the upper body is this shape. The head size seems to vary, though I favor the slimmer look he seems to have most often. This one is a little chunkier and seems to sit a little lower on the neck as well. The big difference though is the size of the feet. NECA gave this figure some pretty large boots and I think that’s just for stability. REX-1 had one of those toon designs where his upper body is massive, but his legs pretty thin. If you want your toy to have a similar build to the upper body, it’s going to need more at the base to keep him standing. And I’m happy to say he stands fine, so at least the design change works. As for the aesthetics, it’s going to vary from person-to-person. I think he looks pretty good and I like the sizing so I’m fine with the tweeks, others may think he looks too off and I wouldn’t say they’re wrong.

If your robot never worked it’s likely because it was missing this stuff.

As is typical of a NECA release, REX-1 comes loaded with paint and the quality of that application is going to vary, but hopefully not too much. I had my choice of two in store and I selected what I felt was the one with the best paint, but it has some issues. There’s a little blue on one of the gray stripes on his shoulder and there are other small scuffs here and there. The only one that bothers me is there’s a little blob of dark gray at the base of his jaw on the figure’s lower right side. This wasn’t visible in the box because his head was tilted down and I think this is rub-off from inside the neck area as there’s a splotch of the same color in there. I think the jaw is gray plastic so I’m tempted to try to remove it (I was wrong, it’s blue plastic painted gray), but it’s also a delicate piece so I’m torn. There’s also paint rub at the knees which was the result of the gray pieces over his shins just being stuck to the thigh. It’s not visible when his legs are straight up and down and the plastic is at least navy blue so I could probably get this to come off without much risk (the base plastic may be navy, but it’s still painted over). Another spot likely to suffer from paint rub are the gray stripes in the hips. There’s actually a fair amount of clearance between the crotch piece and the hips likely to combat this issue, but push it too far and it will definitely happen. These are the types of flaws expected of a mass-produced item with this much paint. You basically take the good with the bad, and the good is that there is a ton of paint! A lot of companies skimp on that aspect of their figures so I will always prefer this approach to one that favors bare plastic. I like the shade of blues in use here and how it contrasts with the gray and white portions. The finish is quite matte and the cel-shading is effective. A lot of the more complex apps are also done very well like the name tag, the lines on the hands, or the black in the eyeglasses.

There are now too many robots in this line to comfortably fit in one shot. Missing: Metalhead, Krang’s android body, Roadkill Rodney, various Foot soldiers.
“Are you also a…pleasure…model?!” “DOES NOT COMPUTE!”

As a big figure, articulation is a bit of a wild card when it comes to REX-1. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and once I felt how heavy he was I only knew that it needed to be tight. Loose joints will kill a figure like this and I’m happy to say it’s not much of a concern. The head is likely on a ball joint and the figure looks up a little, down quite a bit, and can rotate some as well. The shape of the head prevents him from being able to spin all the way around, though a more determined person could pull it off. He gets some nice tilt for nuance posing and the jaw moves up and down a bit exposing his mouth. At the shoulders, we get the standard hinged peg and Rex can raise his arms out to the side almost to horizontal and rotate around. Again, a more determined individual could possibly get more, but you do have those gray stripes on the shoulder so I wouldn’t advise it. There’s a biceps swivel past that and then a single hinge at the elbow. It’s ratcheted so there’s no looseness and it gets to about a 90 degree bend. At the wrist, we have the customary swivel and hinge setup and I’m happy to say that the trigger hands have the preferred vertical hinge setup. Also, every wrist hinge in my set was stuck out of the box so you may need to heat them up to get them going. In the torso, there’s a diaphragm joint that basically just provides a bit of nuance posing. I’m not sure what they were going for or if the joint is just the result of how the figure was assembled, but it’s basically squared off inside. You can rotate there, but the figure fights you. Since it’s internal, I guess it doesn’t matter if the plastic is getting torn up, but I personally wouldn’t go too far there. There’s also two hinged pieces on the chest that lift up to reveal some of REX-1’s internal components. The hinges are tight enough to stay open without issue and the stuff inside is well-painted. It’s a nice touch.

“Oh, hey Rex, can you rewind this for me?”

Below the diaphragm joint is a waist twist that’s just a waist twist. The hips connect via ball and socket joints and this robot can basically do full splits and twist at the thigh. Kicking forward is not very good though. I don’t know if the joint is just super tight or if it’s ratcheted, but he really doesn’t want to go forward. I was able to force it two “clicks” which wasn’t enough to get either leg to horizontal. They don’t want to go back, and more often than not, when I try to kick the leg forward it feels like the peg is just bending and I’m not interested in breaking my new $50 toy to push it. I found more success going out to the side and then forward, but again, the figure feels like it doesn’t really want to kick forward and I feel like I’m playing with fire. The knee is a single hinge and doesn’t quite get to 90 degrees. Below that is a hinge and rocker combo at the ankle. Because of the big, gray, piece that goes over the foot and up the shin, it’s hard to really get at that hinge. It doesn’t seem to want to go forward much even though I can’t see anything stopping it and really only goes back for me. I have not heated anything, but at least the feet are tight so he isn’t falling over. The rocker works okay and I’m finding myself just adjusting his posing by widening his stance more often than not and using the rocker. He’s not the type of character that needs to do much, but the lower half is a bit disappointing.

“Why does this always happen?!”

These deluxe releases from NECA tend to come with a lot and REX-1 mostly lives up to that. He doesn’t have as much stuff as some of the past releases, or unique stuff, but he probably has enough. For hands, we get a whole bunch: fists, trigger finger hands, chop hands, wide open, and a right hand holding a hex nut. I think he was inspecting some evidence left behind in the show, but I can’t remember. I’m sure it’s scene specific. REX-1 also comes with his tongue. I wasn’t sure what the thing was when I pulled it out of the box and I’m thankful it was listed on the box. You can pivot his jaw down to reveal his “mouth” which is just a slot for the tongue. It’s cute, and likely something fun for toy photographers. Rex also has a pair of his sidearms. They’re a flat gray with some black linework and the trigger hands fit into them okay. They will leave behind white paint though, if you warm the hands up first that might help, but it’s just something you have to deal with. The guns can also peg into the gray circles on his hips for a holstered look and that works just fine. For when refreshment is needed, REX-1 also has a trusty can of oil to suck on. He has to use the same trigger hands for it, but they work fine. Again, be wary of paint rub. His last unique item is his controller which can be held by another character. It’s well-painted and looks just as good as the many other trinkets found in abundance with this line. Lastly, REX-1 has a trio of black VHS tapes for his reprogramming. They’re the same tapes we’ve seen with other releases so there’s nothing special here, but it’s a fun accessory and I’m happy to have more to pile up around the television set from the recently released accessory bundle.

“Hey! Sometimes a guy gets lonely!”

REX-1 was a release I think a lot of folks had been looking forward to and for them I think they’ll be pleased. The looks is what matters most with this line and NECA did a solid job in that regard. I do think some of the accuracy was sacrificed to make a more stable figure and I’m content with the trade-off, but others may not be. The paint has its issues, but overall does give the figure a more premium look. He has enough stuff, and the only real disappointment for me is the articulation. It’s never the strong suit of NECA, but I don’t like how scared I am of breaking this figure when I move the legs so that’s a bummer. And then of course there’s the price of $50. Compared to past NECA deluxe releases, it’s disappointing to see a rise in price without a rise in quality or components. Understanding that this is all unique tooling, but it’s always preferable to feel like you’re getting something extra when something suddenly costs more. That was true of Chrome Dome who really came loaded with stuff and I didn’t even blink at his price, but with REX-1 it’s not apparent. Does the figure need more? No, not really, but this is a line that likes to toss-in unrelated accessories just to flesh out some packaging and we don’t get any of that.

I guess he’s a baby sitter now?

At the same time, compare this release to other similarly priced figures and it doesn’t look so bad. NECA has been able to resist the price hikes we’ve seen with other toy producers so in a way they’re a victim of their own creation. Compare this to most of the Super7 Ultimates that come in at $55-$65 these days and the value appears tremendous. Unique tooling, lots of stuff, an abundance of paint apps – yeah, it’s no contest. And then compare it to Hasbro which recently announced a Spider-Man figure that’s 100% reuse for $35 and won’t have as much stuff as this figure and likely little paint and NECA looks even better. While I wish this guy came in at $40 or $45, I can’t really call it an outlier in the pricing department. I guess it is what it is and you’re either happy with it or you’re not. I am curious if NECA will try to reuse these molds for an “evil” REX-1 that was basically the same character model, but with a black and red look. Normally I’d say it’s a no-brainer, but does NECA think it can sell us the same figure twice at this price? Probably, but that remains to be seen. I don’t know if I’ll bother with that one if the time comes, but then again, I feel like I’ve said that a lot and here I am with a REX-1, Jersey Red, Grunt, and so on. If your collection needs REX-1 then you’ll probably want to get this. If you’re lukewarm on the character, then I’d understand passing especially considering how much stuff just got released. And if you’re having trouble finding this figure in-stores, you can try Target’s website tomorrow (as of this posting) at 9 AM EST when this figure is expected to be sold there. The obscure nature of the character and the price tag should make it a fairly easy release to get ahold of once the initial rush has subsided. Good luck and definitely don’t pay a scalper for this one.

More from NECA’s deluxe assortment of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:

NECA TMNT “The Colossal Chrome Dome” – Deluxe Chrome Dome

Many television shows have what is sometimes referred to as “event” episodes. These are often episodes that complete long-running arcs, have an extended runtime, and might even be featured in a more prominent timeslot. It’s usually something for shows that take themselves rather seriously do. A show that featured very little of this sort of…

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NECA TMNT Cartoon Metalhead

It took longer than anticipated, but at long last I now have a complete Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Wave 3 from NECA as I have in my hands the Deluxe Metalhead! Metalhead was released back in July alongside the Casey Jones and Slashed Foot Soldier set at Target stores in the US. While distribution numbers…

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NECA TMNT Cartoon “Another One Bites the Crust” Pizza Monster

When NECA launched its line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures based on the classic cartoon series there was much rejoicing, followed by much consternation. The line was successful, some would say too successful. Product was hard to track down for collectors as only a handful of units were released to each store which…

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February 28, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

By Joe

We’re well into the cold of winter and spring feels like it’s just around the corner which means it must be time for another NECA Haulathon. Haulathon, if you don’t recall from last year, is basically a tandem promotion between NECA and Target which was just an excuse to get NECA some more visibility in store (and online) to sell a bunch of stuff to collectors. The tacky name certainly implies the two companies want a bit of a frenzy to be set-off that gets collectors storming into stores and ransacking the display leaving nothing but dust and empty shelves in their wake. Despite that feeling, it felt a bit more controlled in practice. Much of the stuff on sale had been made available via preorder months in advance so only a few items were actually brand new for TMNT collectors. That certainly helped, and when the promotion returned in the late summer it was done in pretty much the same fashion with only a handful of items being actually new to purchase.

That was the before times, this is now. NECA, for whatever reason, decided to do things differently for this latest Haulathon. Maybe there was pressure from Target to not offer pre-sales or maybe NECA just didn’t want to burden their own warehouse with individual orders? Or maybe there was such a backlog it made the logistics too cumbersome – I don’t know. What I do know is this latest incarnation of Haulathon cares not for your wallet. NECA has unleashed a vast assortment of product which is mostly concentrated to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license. If you’re an all-in collector, prepared to get hurt. In the toon line alone, we’re getting five two-packs, one deluxe release, and an accessory set, which is the subject of today’s inaugural Haulathon 2023 post. I’ll skip the math, but it also comes with the unfortunate rise in prices that I think many were bracing for, but few may have expected to hit this hard. It would seem the standard price for a two-pack is now $60, up from $52 when the line launched. The movie two-packs already hit that price point so it wasn’t unexpected, but still disappointing. The lone deluxe figure shot way up though to $50, beating out the previous high of $40 set by Chrome Dome. As for the accessory set, it doesn’t really have a precedent since this is the first of its kind for the line. The movie series has had a pair of sets and I think the first was $50 and the second $60. Some other licenses that NECA dabbles in have come in lower, but this one is on the high end at $60. Expected? I suppose, but it would have been nice if it could have hit that $50 sweet spot. We’ll talk more about that later though, for now, all that matters is what’s in the box and is it worth getting?

“Finally, I gets some head protection.”

The toon accessory set has been a long time coming for collectors of this line. There are so many one-off items and smaller characters that made sense for such a thing. Plus we’ve seen the line already cram tons of little doodads into various releases because there is just so much. Every collector of this line likely has a container, drawer, whatever full of stuff with no where to put it all. The accessory set is going to add to that, but it’s also going to deliver some items meant to pair with the someday sewer lair. NECA showed off said lair last year at conventions and it was expected a portion of it would go up for sale in the fall, but that has yet to happen which almost leaves a pit in my stomach since NECA could come looking for more money any day now. That’s a problem for future me, and if NECA reads these, I beg of you to at least hold off a month or so before putting something like that up on your website! Some of us don’t expect to get tax refunds in April.

The accessory set comes housed in an oversized box with some toon-inspired artwork on the front showcasing a bunch of the items contained therein. On the reverse, we get some product shots and a partial list of the contents contained in the box. Unfortunately, there’s no window display so you won’t be able to inspect the contents before buying. It seems most stores are getting between 1 and 3 sets in this first wave of shipments and it’s been the early favorite of many as it’s flying off the shelves faster than anything else included with Haulathon. The store I found my set in only had the one, if others were there before I happened upon it I couldn’t tell. It was a packed endcap and this set had to be sort of wedged in on-top of other items just to fit. It’s possible there was only one sent to this store, and also possible the overflow was kept in the back to be put out later in the week -who knows? If you’re having trouble finding a set though, it’s expected to be made available this Friday (if you’re reading this the week this entry is posted) on Target’s website.

Who wants more Mousers and baby pizza monsters?

First thing we’ll talk about is the stuff that’s familiar. There’s a Mouser included and it’s just like the other Mousers we’ve received. Mine is stuck at the base of the neck, but is otherwise fine. There’s another pizza box of the hinged variety with a full pizza inside that’s removable. The deco this time around is Pizza Groove and it’s yet another box to add to the stack. There are two pizza monsters included in the set only this time it’s a new sculpt. That’s definitely welcomed as we have had multiple opportunities to get the other, standing, little, monster and I definitely didn’t need more of those. These ones are crawling and they look fine and should add a little variety to your display. Also returning is a VHS tape, this one with some yellow on the front where a label would be. The back of the box says there are two tapes included, but my set only had the one which seems to be the norm.

I do like this new Baxter portrait, though I’m surprised that the backpack doesn’t open.

That’s the new-old stuff, the rest is all new. We get a portrait of a wedge of cheese which I think is from Rat King’s lair? It’s something to be added to a diorama, I suppose, and by itself doesn’t really add much. There’s an oversized gem, the Star of Hoboken, which would make a nice centerpiece on a coffee table. There’s a little blow torch for when Donatello needs to “do machines,” but no flame effect included which is a bit of a bummer. We get a turtle-themed backpack which can fit on any of the heroes if you would like, though it can’t open. There’s also a ray gun, which is how the box labels it. I’m sure it’s pulled from a specific episode and possibly has a specific purpose, but I don’t recall it. At least it’s something to broaden the weaponry of turtle foes (even though it’s Michelangelo who is pictured on the box holding it). Lastly, we have a few accessories that definitely feel specific to previously released figures. The first is Rocksteady’s helmet which he wore during the original mini series and maybe a few times after. He was predominantly without it, but since the original Playmates figure had one, many still associate the character with the helmet. It’s just an olive drab dome with goggles molded onto it and it looks fine. I feel like it could have used some more linework or something to make it pop more like a lot of the accessories in this line, but NECA opted to keep it simple. We also get the Turtle Tracker, which is a handheld device used by Baxter. It looks pretty cool and it’s a rather involved sculpt which perhaps is what made it difficult to incorporate into another release. And then lastly, we have a new head for Baxter. I’m happy to say this one has his glasses (my previous Baxter came missing them and NECA has yet to replace it) and he’s also wearing Shredder’s helmet. This is from a season two episode (“The Curse of the Evil Eye”) where he briefly usurps Shredder with some magical device. I think his face looks better than the standard one and I’m left wishing the helmet and hair on that release were removable, but oh well. The helmet had a gem on the front of it in the episode which is not present for some reason.

Because the collection just wouldn’t be complete without Big MACC.
This brings new meaning to the phrase “Big MACC Attack.”

That stuff is the window dressing for this set. The filler, if you will. I suppose some really wanted that Rocksteady helmet and I know of a few who weren’t happy with how the Baxter figure turned out so they may welcome the new head. The real selling points for this set are the next few items we’re going to talk about. Up first is Big MACC. He’s a robot from an early episode that’s basically a foe, but by the end of the episode has been converted to an ally. He’s got a bit of a Short Circuit vibe to his design, but he’s essentially a set of treads with a body on top. As a figure, it’s very light and feels quite delicate. The base is hollow while the torso is connected to the apparatus below it with a double ball peg so it can twist and pivot. The arms are connected via double ball pegs so they rotate and have some pivot to them as well. There’s a hinge for an elbow joint on each and the head is joined to the neck via a double ball peg. There’s nothing at the hands and the big gun which is affixed to a tail of sorts has no articulation aside from a swivel. I’m a little surprised it’s not on a bendy wire, but I guess it’s fine. MACC is made of a hard plastic though so everything feels especially delicate. There’s a second gun plugged into his head which can be removed and replaced with a filler piece which is a nice touch. The main body is all white with black linework and it’s applied very clean. If you wanted a Big MACC figure, you have it, and it’s fine. I wish the hands could rotate and I’m surprised the base can’t, but he’s just a set and forget it kind of figure.

This might seem kind of silly to outsiders, but this TV is awesome. And here’s the cheese picture, since I forgot to include it in the shot of “new” stuff.

Our next item is one that will serve a greater purpose when the lair is available and it’s the television. This all plastic TV is an entirely new mold from the TV we’ve seen NECA release via other sets in the past. It’s a wood panel TV with dials and it has the missing front leg which has been replaced with a stack of books. On top of the TV we get a VCR and some rabbit ears for optimal reception. What’s neat is the VCR can actually accept one of the VHS tapes NECA has released and included in this set. It doesn’t have a little flap or anything, but it’s still a fun touch. The sculpt and paint are a bit plain, but it does have the added effect of featuring a removable top and a slot for the screen. NECA included 9 pieces of glossy cardstock to serve as the screens. They all feature different images so your turtles can watch a variety of programs. One is also clearly an old video game and NECA included a game console as well! It kind of resembles a Super Nintendo, but with a sleeker design. The controllers are more 2600 though and they’re connected to the console via a soft wire each. There’s a peg hole on the back of it which I’m not sure what that’s intended for, but it’s a neat little inclusion even though it doesn’t connect to the TV in any way. I’m betting the one in the show didn’t either.

They’re so cute!

The TV would be the star of the set if not for the inclusion of the baby turtles, or turtle toddlers. There was an episode where the turtles were transformed into child versions of themselves and NECA has included those characters in this set. All four are essentially the same mold, but with a different head and belt buckle. They’re quite dainty standing at around 2.38″ each. Donatello has a nervous expression, Mikey a big smile, Leo a more subdued smile, and Raph looks pissed. Each also comes with tiny versions of their signature weapons and Mikey’s even feature actual chains. They can’t store their weapons, but they couldn’t in the episode either. The figures are all well painted, but NECA decided not to attempt its form of cel-shading with these guys (they also didn’t with Big MACC). There’s still plenty of linework and the paint is applied rather well. There’s also a little articulation built into them. We have a ball joint at the head, hinged shoulders that rotate, ball-socketed hips, and hinged ankles with a rocker. The ankles feel pretty delicate and it’s hard to tell if the ankle is rocking or just stressing the peg. Definitely be careful. There’s also a lot of weight on the back of these guys due to the shell which makes standing them a challenge. Stepping poses help, or just lurching them forward can help too. I actually could get one-footed stances as well which surprised me. There’s no peg holes in the feet so I may end up using some sticky tack in the end to keep these little guys secure and I do wish they came with little stands to help. They can sit, but not very well, but well enough to stabilize them by holding into something. Ultimately though, they’re super cute and that’s what they’re meant to be. Chances are, if you’re interested in this set it’s due to the inclusion of the baby turtles. Now we just need the geriatric turtles to complete the set!

Just passing the time.

Accessory sets are a bit of an odd thing to review, but there you go. It’s definitely the type of item that the completist collector will get the most out of. There’s some deep pull accessories and definitely a bunch of this stuff will work better with the lair. I’m definitely happy to have the TV and I think NECA would be foolish to not make sure that everyone who wants that item can get it because it will help sell that aforementioned lair. I’m actually surprised it’s not included with that. The baby turtles are pretty wonderful and I’m happy to have them. Big MACC is okay, I didn’t need it, but I don’t hate having it. That’s likely why the character is in here. And I will get some use out of that alternate Baxter head. The rest is just stuff that I have no attachment to. It’s filler, some of which will go into my display and some won’t. Is it worth 60 bucks? Ehh, that’s a tough call. We probably could have got the baby turtles in a set similar to the Mouser one which was 30 or 35 bucks. These little guys sold that way with maybe a few of these items tossed in would have sold me. The only thing I “needed” other than them was the TV, which I think could have come with the lair, but maybe it couldn’t? Hopefully it not being sold there means that item will be a little easier on the wallet? That’s probably a pipe dream. I don’t want to speculate on the cost of that, but the street scene was $150 I think so it’s not going to come cheap. Let’s just hope NECA gives us a little breather before that thing goes up for sale.

NECA TMNT Cartoon The Wrath of Krang!

We’re back for 2021, and right now it looks like a lot like 2020 as we have a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure to talk about – Android Krang! Hopefully, this doesn’t mean 2021 is a lot like 2020 going forward, but if it’s going to copy anything from 2020 then let it…

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NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

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

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NECA TMNT Turtles in Disguise

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…

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by Joe

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

January 31, 2023

NECA The Last Ronin (Armored)

By Joe
The last of the TMNT has arrived!

When it comes to multimedia based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we find ourselves in a rare dry spell when it comes to television and movies. The final episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles aired in 2020 with no new television series announced since. The show did receive a long-delayed finale in the form of a movie released on Netflix last year, but that hardly makes up for the otherwise lack of presence for TMNT on TV or on the big screen. The last transitions were much quicker when it came to the 2003 series to the 2012 series to Rise, but the dearth may soon be over as there is a new movie scheduled to arrive this summer. We’ll have to wait and see what that means for the franchise, but one aspect of TMNT has just continued plugging along and it’s the comics from IDW. There’s a main series that’s been running for years now, but much of the attention has been sucked up by the sidestory, The Last Ronin.

The Last Ronin is a flash-forward to a possible end for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when the lone surviving turtle has long graduated from the term “teenage.” I covered every issue here and found it to be mostly entertaining, but what I really loved about it were the character designs. Upon reading that very first issue one of my takeaways was “Man, it would be really cool to get an action figure of this guy.” NECA’s Randy Falk agreed when he basically gushed over the series so it was not a surprise at all when the company unveiled their own take on The Last Ronin.

This guy is certainly a different style of turtle from what we’re accustomed to seeing.

The titular turtle arrives in the standard NECA Ultimates box with a fifth panel and artwork on the front. The art comes straight from IDW’s Ben Bishop and Luis Antonio Delgado. It’s mixed with product shots on the rear and inside panel and it’s the type of packaging that will likely catch the eye of someone who hasn’t been paying attention to TMNT and stumbles across it in Target. And how could it not? This figure depicts The Last Ronin, who I will just call Ronin from here on out since I remain committed to not spoiling anything, as he appears in issue number one. He’s sporting the black bandana, heavy hooded jacket, full pants, shoes, and gloves. Basically, he looks the opposite of how most envision a ninja turtle as he is covered from head to toe. Well, he has sandals on so I guess not head to toe literally, but the point remains. The turtles usually run around all but naked, but this guy does not. He’s also a hell of a lot taller than your standard turtle coming in at about 6.5″ to the top of his head, a little taller with the hood. This is in stark contrast to the old Mirage turtles or the cartoon ones, though a bit closer to the movie figures. In fairness, the Ultimates line from NECA is usually treated as a 7″ scale line whereas the cartoon line is closer to a 1:12 line. It’s not a huge difference, but worth mentioning. Despite that though, this turtle is supposed to be bigger than the rest. I think the reason given is because he continued to mutate the older he got. In the books, I want to say he’s taller than April or at least as tall, which is in contrast to the turtles normally being shorter than her. He’s also bulkier, wider, and less lean. At the same time, the head is smaller than usual and the limbs longer. He’s an altogether different sort of turtle than we’re used to seeing.

This comparison needed to happen.

The sculpt for this one was handled by Paul Harding and he continues to impress whenever he’s handed something TMNT related by NECA. There’s a lot of detail on this guy that might not jump out right from the start, but a closer examination reveals a truly impressive figure. The face looks great. He’s got his teeth gritting, there’s wrinkles in the flesh, and the eyes are focused and angry. This is an older turtle and that point is driven home when you pop the hood off to reveal the ages spots on the top of the head. The hood just clips into the back of the head so it doesn’t pose a problem when posing and there’s an optional bandana “tail” if you prefer, though no down hood accessory like we saw with Renet. There’s great texturing on the jacket and shoulder pads with almost a mesh texture on the sleeves and undershirt. The pads and forearm gauntlets have some nice aging done to them to make it look like this is a turtle who has been in a few scraps. There’s detailing with black line work, as has been customary with all of the comic styled turtles from NECA, and a healthy dose of shading. Because this character is so muted in contrast with more colorful portrayals, the paint doesn’t scream out for attention like it did with the Utrom, but it’s still very clean and very well applied. Because he has a coat, this is the rare TMNT figure without an exposed shell, but you can get a sense that it’s there due to the subtle nature in which the creases are sculpted into the body. The rear also features the hoop and rope that is famously depicted on the cover of the first issue. NECA chose to do it with a combination of a sculpted ring and brown thread. It works into the body and I’m guessing it’s tied off somewhere inside of the figure, but it is a bit fragile looking so beware. And since that ring contains two hoops for weapon storage, you have to be very careful when inserting and removing weapons. Or at least, I’m making the assumption that you should be careful when doing so.

Which turtle is he? Does it matter when he’s got the equipment to be all of them?

This turtle has a bit of an awkward look to him compared with the usual turtle, but he still has all of the articulation we’ve come to expect. And actually, with no visible shell he’s basically freed up to have a bit more than usual. The head sits on a double ball peg, but it sits right on top of the figure with barely any neck. I guess it’s due to the clothing? The look is right, but the lack of a neck means he has minimal range. He can rotate, but up and down is barely there and there’s not much nuance posing to speak of. The shoulders are ball-hinged and they’re a little tight. He can’t quite get to a horizontal pose, but can rotate around with the shoulder pads only impacting that part a little. The elbows are the controversial NECA double elbows with a hinge and swivel at the top and bottom. With a sleeved figure, it works fine and it isn’t the eyesore it is on a figure with bare arms. Still, I don’t know that it was the right call as we’ve seen the traditional double elbow work fine with the movie figures and the larger scaled figures and here we basically just get to a 90 degree bend. The forearm gauntlets really get the in the way of the bottom hinge being able to do much of anything. The swivel at both points works fine. At the wrists, we have the usual swivel and hinge and, I know I must sound like a broken record at this point, but NECA went with the wrong hinge once again for the gripping hands. This guy has a ton of weapons so it really sucks that he has horizontal hinges instead of vertical ones. This is a figure that should have both, but he lacks the ones he really needs most and it’s a shame. At the waist, we get a twist which is unusual for a turtle, but with no visible shell it’s not an issue here. It feels like a ball-peg, but you basically get nothing other than rotation at the spot. At the hips, the usual ball and socket are present and they get to almost a full split. There’s a little thigh rotation and double-jointed knees that bend past 90. At the ankles, we get a swivel plus hinges and an ankle rocker and they work okay. The ankle doesn’t go as far back as I’d like due to the shape of the shoe, but it goes forward pretty far. Usually it’s the opposite.

He can balance on one foot, so he’s got that going for him.

The end result is you get a figure that poses just alright. There’s not a ton of dynamic range here, but he is a bulkier turtle than we’re used to so not a ton was expected. He has these nice, big, feet so he can do some one-foot poses if you wish. The hips allow for some wide stances so he can look fairly menacing if you need him to. With this design, I am left wishing that NECA experimented with a butterfly joint so we could have a figure that can reach across its body, but I’m not aware of any NECA figure having that style of joint so that’s not something I could have expected. There’s just some two-handed poses I wish he could do with his weapons that he just can’t. I also feel like the heads needs to be better. Sit the head a little higher and that probably solves the issue. He’s a turtle, after all, he can have a neck.

Weapon storage for days!

The articulation, shortcomings and all, is probably still as expected. Where this figure is going to shine is with the overall presentation and the extras, and this guy has a lot of extras. Let’s start with the extra parts, shall we? Ronin has one extra head featuring a screaming or yelling expression. It’s every bit as good as the default one and it’s hard to pick a favorite. Popping one off for the other is also easy so changing things up is actually encouraged. There are two bandana tails, one is a swoop and the other goes straight back. They just peg in so they can be rotated. He also has his goggles which are sculpted plastic with an elastic band. To get them on, you will want to take the hood or bandana off first, slip the goggles over that, and then replace either the hood or bandana. This keeps the elastic under whatever is pegged in which will help to keep the goggles on as this guy’s head is basically a sphere so that elastic just wants to slide off right away. It’s definitely tricky to do with the hood, but pretty easy without. You could also just stick the goggles under the head which is how he carries them in the comic. For hands, we have fists, gripping, and open. The right gripping hand appears to be slightly more relaxed than the left with more spacing between the fingers which makes it good for the included sai if you want to put the center blade in between the fingers, which is always a popular look for TMNT even if it’s not exactly practical in a fight.

Given all of the stuff he comes with, hard to imagine going with a bo pose on the shelf.
You prefer your turtle with shades?
The little gizmos are fine, but probably destined for a drawer somewhere.
I’m having a hard time settling on a preferred head with this guy.

That lone sai is one of many weapons Ronin comes with. The idea is that this guy is like four turtles in one so he has the weapons of all. That means in addition to the sai he has one set of nunchaku, a katana, and a bo staff. The sai is a great sculpt. It’s a bit wider than usual and quite rigid and pointy. The “metal” has a nice luster and finish to it and it might be my favorite sai that NECA has done. The nunchaku feature two plastic handles connected via a real chain. The handles have a sculpted grip to them that looks nice and is different from the usual taped look we get. The bo staff is a bo staff. It has some tape and it’s well-sculpted and it looks fine. The katana is quite lovely. It’s long like a katana should be with a curved blade. The handle is lovingly sculpted and the paintjob is pristine as it has the same finish as the sai. The blade has some nicks carved into it making it look like a well-worn sword, but also one that has been lovingly cared for. It comes with an included black sheath which slots into one of the loops on the ring on the figure’s rear. There’s another slot there for the bo as well. The sai and nunchaku each have their own place on his belt and there’s a third loop on said belt for his tonfa. The tonfa is one of Ronin’s seemingly preferred weapons and it has a square design and it certainly looks like something you wouldn’t want to get struck with. It’s a little tough getting it into the belt loop, but it can be done and he can store all of his weapons. He also has a grappling hook which is a plastic claw type of instrument with more brown thread affixed to it. It can be wrapped around a stored weapon or bundled up and crammed through an unoccupied belt loop if you want. It’s kind of tough to pose since the rope is a literal string, but it’s cool to have. Lastly, we have a handful of throwables. Ronin has four shurikens which are really pointy. They’re presented in a gunmetal color and he can hold them between a thumb and finger. The last item is a grenade. It’s a tiny spherical object that can basically just be placed in one of the open hands or a gripping hand, though it more rests within them as opposed to being gripped. He has no storage for the shurikens or grenade so try not to lose them.

This dude, simply put, is bad ass.

All of these elements add up to one impressive release from NECA. This figure of The Last Ronin is one of the best figures released in 2022. It perfectly captures the look of the character from the comic which is a comic that I think is going to be highly regarded years from now as one of the best TMNT stories ever told. This figure isn’t perfect, but it is very good and it’s just the start. NECA released alongside it an unarmored variant which they rather cleverly bundled with the missing tonfa (Ronin had two) and broken katana featured in the story which encourages collectors to get both even if they prefer one look to the other. I’m tempted by that other one, but haven’t taken the plunge just yet. More are coming as NECA has decided to make The Last Ronin a full-fledged subline for TMNT. Flashback versions of the turtles and Splinter are coming as are two versions of the Foot Patrolbot. I think I’m all-in so if you’re curious about any of those releases check back as they start to make their way to stores. It sounds like Leonardo is up next, but we’ll have to wait and see. This line has the potential to be the best TMNT subline NECA has going, and given the quality of the cartoon, Mirage, and movie lines that’s saying something.

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January 24, 2023

NECA Mirage Studios TMNT Casey Jones

By Joe

Casey has arrived to bust some skulls.

Where there be turtles, there be Casey Jones – the bad ass vigilante of New York City! Casey was an early addition to the comics and he’s basically been included with every iteration of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since. And in all of them he tends to wear a hockey mask and bludgeons bad guys with sports equipment. It’s a pretty simple design, but it has stood the test of time. When NECA Toys started dipping its toe into TMNT back in 2008 it was probably assumed that Casey was on the short list of figures the company was likely to put out. Unfortunately, the line only extended one figure past the turtles (April) and fans never got their favorite vigilante in plastic. Things have changed since then and Casey Jones is no stranger to NECA or plastic. He’s been released as part of the toon line and received three separate releases in the movie line. And now, at long last, he finds himself released as part of NECA’s line of action figures based on the artwork of Mirage Studios.

How many Caseys is too many? And I even skipped one of the movie releases.

Casey Jones comes in the now standard single pack release. It’s a trapezoidal window box emblazoned with original artwork by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman. There’s product shots on the rear and a little cross-sell on the bottom. I’ll say upfront that this release from NECA is slightly controversial among some of the more hardcore members of the TMNT collector community. Like Renet before him, Casey comes in his reinterpreted IDW colors. That means a gray shirt instead of a red one and brown shoes in place of his black ones. I don’t know why NECA is doing things this way, but it looks like a red variant is coming too. Will it be stuck behind that Auto T bullshit the Mirage-accurate blue Renet was? Probably, but that hasn’t been confirmed. One would think the standard colors would be the standard release with the modern variant the slightly more expensive specialty option, but then that would make too much sense, now wouldn’t it? For all I know, this is the preferred look of the character by someone like Kevin Eastman. Personally, I don’t care that much because I’m used to seeing these books in black and white. Mirage Casey Jones is black and white in my head even though he had a red shirt on the cover of the Raphael one-shot. And unlike Renet, where I most definitely preferred the blue outfit to the red one, with Casey I’m less definitive. Red, gray, – it’s just a shirt. He at least stands out on my shelf a bit more considering the Foot all wear red and there’s Renet as well, but I certainly wouldn’t complain if he had a red shirt either. I guess if it’s that important to you then wait and find out how the red version is getting released. Or paint the damn thing yourself.

Casey seems to share some parts with the Foot.
He’s not exactly equipped to handle the Utrom, but then again, neither are the turtles.

With that out of the way, lets look at the figure for what it is. Casey Jones stands approximately 6.5″ tall which feels right for the line. He’s comprised largely of parts reused from Shredder and the Foot as he has the same upper arms, thighs, and probably torso as those releases. What’s new is the shirt overlay for the torso, the hands, calves, shoes, forearms, and namely the head. His default portrait is masked and I like that the mask is a separate piece that’s glued down to the face. It gives it some nice depth, even though the eye slits are painted and we don’t need to see his eyes underneath it. It’s very similar to the cartoon figure’s mask, but it is different and looks just as cool as it always does. There’s paint basically everywhere on this guy with a lot of black linework throughout which really helps it to pop on a shelf. He’s depicted in sweat pants and they have some sculpted wrinkles in them and the lower leg is a bit baggy which looks nice. This is a very lean Casey, which does match-up with how he was drawn in the comics. He’s not as bulky as the toon version, but he’s menacing enough in appearance. Despite that, I do wish he had a little extra bulk in the midsection as there’s a lot of plastic for the hips, especially on the rear of the figure, which is a little unsightly. Overall, he looks good, it’s just a character design that’s not made to impress so he’s a bit less exciting than someone like Renet or the Utrom.

You gotta have the hockey stick!

In terms of accessories, NECA outfitted Casey with a decent allotment. He’s basically known for having a bunch of weapons at his disposal, so NECA gave him his customary hockey stick, a pair of baseball bats, and a golf club. The stick and bats all feature sculpted tape around portions of them and are well-painted. The two bats are identical, which is a bit of a bummer, but I get why NECA wouldn’t want to sculpt two different ones for this release. At the same time, we’ve seen bats in other lines so it feels like they could have pulled from there. The club is a white wood style club and it looks fine, though it’s comically small. I’m not a big golfer or anything, but I have played the game and own a set of a clubs so I know how big they’re supposed to be. This club barely comes up past Casey’s knee so he must have found a youth model or something. It’s also very thin so he doesn’t grip it that well with two of his gripping hands. All of the weapons can be stored in his equipment bag. It has a square design to it so I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to be. It doesn’t look like a normal sports equipment bag or a golf bag, but it works. It’s easy to get onto the figure and looks fine. It’s brown and features the same black line work as the figure so it has a nice appearance.

I’m sure it wouldn’t feel too nice to get smashed over the head with this driver, but it sure is comically small.

Casey also has a few extra parts he can make use of. For one, he has a set of fists and a set of gripping hands. He wears fingerless gloves and those details are painted on. The gloves begin just past the hinge so that doesn’t get in the way and I can’t tell just which part of the hand is painted. Is it the gray glove portion or the fingers? Either way, the colors look fine and I’m not seeing any paint rub on the weapons so that’s a good thing. I do wish he had a different set of hands than the fists though. His gripping hands basically look like fists when he’s not holding anything so they feel redundant. Maybe some open hands, a finger pointing hand, or just different degrees of gripping hands would have been a better use of the budget. And this figure does commit the sin of not having the proper hinge on the gripping hands. Casey should have a vertical hinge, but instead he gets the mostly useless horizontal design. He has one extra, right, gripping hand as well and I think it’s meant for the golf club as it’s the only hand that gets a decent hold on that item. He does get an extra head and this one is unmasked. He’s a pretty ugly dude though so you might prefer to leave the mask on. He looks as he should, so that’s not a criticism of the figure, just the reality of the character design. Lastly, just like the movie version, he comes with a mask that can either be held or hung from the handle of one of his weapons stored in his bag. It looks quite nice and it’s a different mold from the mask on the default head as the eye slits are open. The straps are a soft plastic and, if you really want to, it can fit over the unmasked head, but you’re far better off just displaying him with the masked head than going this route unless you really like the look of the eyes from behind the mask.

A face only a mother could love.
It fits!

That takes us to articulation and if you have Shredder or the Foot from this line then you know what you’re in for. The head is on a double-ball peg and he can look down okay and rotate, but looking up is blocked some by the hair. He can look up, it’s just only a little. He does have some nuance posing there, so overall I like it. The shoulders are your typical ball hinges. He has a hard time getting his arms up to a horizontal position, but the shirt is cut back enough that rotation isn’t a problem. I do wish NECA would improve these shoulders though as it’s a consistent issue. There’s a biceps swivel and double-jointed elbows that bend past 90 degrees with ease. He is fully painted so you may need to heat some of the joints, but for me, my figure was fine out of the box. We already mentioned the wrists and in the torso he has some kind of diaphragm joint that isn’t usable because of the shirt overlay. It feels like a ball joint and you get the tiniest amount of range there, so little that it’s not worth counting. The waist twist is fine, but not the prettiest due to how slender his abdomen is in relation to the pants. A ball joint probably would have looked nice and might have also functioned better. At the hips we have the standard ball and socket. Even with the “diaper” piece, Casey can damn near hit a full split so that’s good. They’re also not loose which is even better. There is a thigh twist there that works quite well and the knees are double-jointed and go past 90. There is a boot swivel at the top of the shoe and at the ankle we have a hinge and rocker. The range on the hinge is pretty poor as it only goes back a little and barely any forward. The ankle rocker also isn’t the best as it’s pretty steep and limited, plus it also feels a bit gummy so I’m worried that I’m stressing the peg more than spinning it on the joint.

“Enough standing around, let’s kick some ass!”

The articulation is rather basic. It’s par for the course for this mold and this line in general as NECA definitely does not prioritize making super-articulated figures. They want it to look like the comic first and foremost and then add a suitable amount of articulation where it makes the most sense. As a result, we have a figure that doesn’t really feature any eyesores brought on by the articulation, but it also isn’t very dynamic. The wrist hinges and the ankles are my biggest areas for critique, and to a lesser extent, the waist and shoulders. The limited ankle articulation makes him harder to stand than expected, and it’s not helped by the added weight on the figure’s back brought on by the bag. He’s not as tipsy as the movie Casey, but I do feel like NECA could have done better at the ankles. The wrists are what they are and it’s something NECA has lately been overlooking, unfortunately. I would like them to make it a point of emphasis going forward. I also do think they could have done the shirt overlay a little differently to give us some added range in the diaphragm. It shouldn’t be that hard to at least give us some twist there and I don’t think much sacrifice in the sculpt would have been needed, if any. I think it’s something just brought on by the desire to reuse parts for the torso from figures that had a full shirt and were never going to move there anyway so there was no reason to engineer it differently. Considering they’re planning on two releases, at least, for this figure, maybe a little extra tooling could have been done?

“When you’re the best of friends…”

At the end of the day, if you want a Casey Jones for your Mirage Studios TMNT display you’re going to get this figure. Or you’re going to get the red one. Or you’re going to get both! And I think, for the most part, those who do pick this figure up will be content with the end product. He looks pretty nice, there’s a decent amount of articulation, and he has the weapons most expected. I have some nitpicks with the figure and those nitpicks combined with the character having a less than impressive design result in me viewing this one as the weakest in the Mirage line, but that doesn’t him bad or anything. He’s pretty average for a NECA release, and at least for NECA, that’s still a good product. The paint is clean, I had no stuck joints, and perhaps most importantly, the price isn’t too bad. You should be able to find this figure at specialty shops and even Walmart where he’ll range from $35-$38 and that’s not bad in today’s climate. If the red version does end up being an Auto T release, expect to have to shell out $40 for that one. For some, the character has to have a red shirt and I get that, but for me, I’ll pocket the five bucks and go gray.

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