Tag Archives: teenage mutant ninja turtles

June 27, 2023

NECA TMNT Toon Bugman and Electrozapper

By Joe
Come for the Bugman and Electrozapper review, stay for the frog butt photo bombs.

No, that is not a typo in the subject line as this latest two-pack from NECA Toys features the incomparable Bugman, defender of justice, and Electrozapper. Not versus, but an and. I don’t know why since a lot of these hero and villain two-packs from NECA have gone with a versus in the middle, but this time they chose not to. Whatever, it’s just a box. What’s inside the box is what matters most as we have two characters who many may not even remember from the old cartoon, but for me, I’ve been hoping for this set for a long time.

When I reflect back on the original cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I find I mostly remember the characters that also appeared in the toy line. A majority of the time I watched that show I think I just shut my brain off and stared at the TV like a zombie. When the show was over, I’d go play with my figures and if nothing I saw on TV made it into my roleplay then it faded away pretty quickly. Bugman, on the other hand, did not. He was not featured in the toyline at all which is a bit of a surprise because he has a very “toyetic” design. He’s basically the show’s version of Spider-Man, but with the body horror element of The Fly (he also transforms via anger, so toss in a dash of Hulk too). I think it’s that body horror part that made him memorable for me as the sounds his body made when his antennae popped out of his head and his mouth elongated into the pincers of an ant just stuck with me. They were kind of gross, a bit unsettling, but also cool?

This is looking like it’s going to be quite the set.

It certainly made an impression, and I made sure to go rewatch the episode “Michaelangelo meets Bugman” before doing this review to re-familiarize myself with the character and his foil, Electrozapper. It’s actually a pretty entertaining episode of the show. Bugman is clearly a parody of many superheroes. To drive that point home, the show even got Dan Gilvezan to voice the character. Gilvezan was best know to kids of the era as the voice of Spider-Man himself on Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. Meanwhile, Electrozapper is a fairly straight parody of Spider-Man’s villain Electro, but with some elements of The Shocker tossed-in too via the design of his gloves. He looks like a cheesy 60s comic book villain and was a suitable choice for the episode. In it, the two are characters in a comic book series Michelangelo enjoys, but the book was apparently based on real people or something (it’s not explained). It’s worth a look even if you, like me, mostly think of the old cartoon as pretty bad.

The hero you want, right?

This two-pack comes way of Target once again and is currently showing up in stores in fairly substantial quantities. Most stores seem to be getting anywhere between 4 and 6 units, and for two obscure characters, those numbers are probably pretty healthy. In other words, I don’t think this one will be too hard to come by once the initial mad rush to get anything new dies down. And unlike some of the other recent releases, the price tag isn’t too bad at $55, pretty much the new standard for two-packs. That’s cheaper than some of the other two-packs we’ve received over the past year and these figures feature a lot of new sculpting and plenty of accessories.

The tail looks fine, but I wish it had more function.

We’ll talk Bugman first. He’s in his heroic form which means he looks like a bug…man. Sculpted by Josh Sutton, Bugman stands at around 6.75″ to the top of his head and a full 7″ to the top of his hair (and even taller if you factor in the antennae). His face is appropriately hideous with the elongated mandibles and giant, red, eyes. His hair is blond and streaked with brown which is quite similar to how it was shaded in the cartoon. His wings are new and painted a very light brown. He has his large, extra, legs poking out of his shoulders and the big, red, scorpion tail protruding from his back. He has a green bodysuit with his bug logo painted onto the chest. The toon shading NECA often relies upon is in place with a darker green on the rear of the figure. That’s the only shading though which is a bit odd. The boots and flesh bits lack the same approach. This one relies on the linework to help give it that “pop” and the linework in place is pretty clean.

Time to fly.

Bugman looks the part, and he mostly looks pretty good. His bracers around his forearms feature spikes on them which may get warped in the package. The left arm on my figure is fine, but the right arm does have a bent, middle, spike. I’m guessing some hot water can cure that though. NECA also chose to paint them gray when they look pretty white to me in the show, but it’s a minor inaccuracy as far as I’m concerned. Visually, I only have one real issue with Bugman and it’s that bulbous tail coming off his back. It plays into the articulation, but I’ll just mention it now that I feel like it needs more range. It looks like it just pegs into the figure’s back so it really only swivels. I’m surprised it’s not a hinged peg to move it off of his back or even a ball peg would get a little more range. Instead, it’s kind of stuck against his back. You can move it off to the side, or have it dangle between his legs, and neither option is great.

“Oh, wow, thanks for the save, Bugman.” “Don’t mention, Ms. O’Neil. By the way, would you like to have dinner sometime.” “Umm…no.”

We might as well go into that articulation now. The tail just swivels all the way around. A bendy tail would have been neat, but it’s just solid plastic. His head is on a ball peg as is the base of the neck so he gets great range in basically all directions. This also allows him to look forward when in a flying pose, something a lot of figures struggle with. The shoulders are standard hinged ball-pegs, but the shoulder pads plus the leg things protruding from the shoulders limit what they can do. He can rotate his arm as long as it’s out to the side enough to clear the shoulder pad, but the antennae or whatever won’t let him raise his arms out to the side. Those leg-things can rotate, maybe a hinge would have helped, but would have hurt the aesthetics, I think. There is a biceps swivel and the double-jointed elbows will bend past 90 degrees.

“Oh no! These…chain…coated in…leestanite…my one weakness!”

In the torso, Bugman has a diaphragm joint that lets him rotate, tilt, and bend forward and back a bit. More forward than back, which is good. He also has a waist twist that works, but is a little unsightly once you rotate too far. The hips are the standard ball-socket hips and Bugman gets great range there. He can do full splits and kick forward past horizontal. He can’t really kick back because of the diaper piece, but I’ll take it. The thighs pivot a bit and the double-jointed knees go past 90 degrees without issue. The ankles are the typical hinge and rocker and they work fine. The wings are hinged ball-pegs so they rotate and move in and out. All of the joints are nice and tight, not stuck, but comfortably tight and secure. This torso, with the diaphragm joint added, has me dreaming of a Shredder 2.0 with the same.

“Muahahahaha! There’s more where that came from, Bugman!”

For accessories, it can sometimes be hard to figure out with two-packs, but Bugman appears to have two plus the usual assortment of hands. And for hands, he has fists which come on him in the box, trigger hands, and gripping hands. His hands all appear to be reuse from Dirk Savage which might be why he gets trigger finger hands despite not using a gun. There’s also a lump of blue plastic that may confound a few, it certainly confused me, but it’s meant to be a lump of “Leestanite” which is his Kryptonite, if you couldn’t figure that out on your own. It looks exactly like it did in the show, so it’s not exciting, but suitable. He also has the leestanite coated chains that Michelangelo finds him in during the episode. It’s a plastic chain cast in transparent, green, plastic. It’s fine, though the chain in the show was gray. Maybe some wires got crossed or NECA just thought this was cooler. If so, I can’t disagree. It’s not an exciting array of accessories, but there’s not much else he could have. I suppose I would have preferred some style posed hands instead of trigger ones that will never see use. A flight stand would be cool too, but I don’t really like NECA’s flight stands so I suppose I don’t need another one of those.

Here comes the zapper!

And now for the villain, Electrozapper! Sculpted by Tomasz Rozejowski, Electrozapper stands at about 6.25″ to the top of his head and is featured in his show-accurate battery suit. This thing is goofy as hell and I love it. He’s got the emblem of a battery on his chest and then what look like D batteries strapped to his belt and biceps. It’s something I thought was funny as a kid that I kind of forgot about until I held this figure in my hands. He has a rather unique physique in the show and this figure captures that. His shoulders are just massive relative to his body which has a figure 8 shape to the torso. The legs are long and skinny and he’s got some pretty beefy arms as well. The look and shape of his head is dead-on with that almost beak-like mouth. If anything, I would have liked a little more size to his head as it’s pretty big in the show, but that’s a minor quibble on my part. I love the silly lightning bolts on his head.

This guy is all about stuff.

Like Bugman, Electrozapper has a lot of new parts. I don’t see any obvious reuse with him except whatever is under the shirt. The shirt is a soft plastic overlay so there’s probably just a skeleton of sorts beneath it. It looks good, but will limit articulation. The paint is very clean on my figure and basically every inch of this guy is indeed painted. The linework is crisp and I’m very impressed with the yellow piping on the thigh high boots he’s rocking. Yellow can go bad when applied in such a fashion, but it’s done very well here. The toon shading is featured fairly prominently. The only surfaces not shaded is the flesh of his arms, the gray of his thighs, belt, and his gloves. They also didn’t bother to shade the yellow piping, which I think is fine. Really, the only thing I don’t care for is the cape. It’s a very plain, gray, cape. It at least features the ties in the front, but the texture and feel is cheap and not like most NECA capes. And after getting that really nice, wired, cape with Dark Turtle I was hoping that would be the standard for capes going forward, but this is probably the worst NECA cape I own.

The fist blast might be my favorite of the bunch.

Electrozapper isn’t as well-articulated as Bugman, but he’s pretty much par for the course with this line. The head is on a double-ball peg and he can look up, down, rotate, and gets some nice tilt. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he can raise his arms out to the side to a horizontal position and rotate. The biceps swivel and the double-jointed elbows can sneak past 90 degrees. The gloves do rotate and the wrists swivel and hinge. In the torso, I can’t seem to find anything in the diaphragm, though the overlay probably would render anything there moot anyway. The waist feels like a ball peg so he can rotate and tilt and bend forward and back a bit. The ball-socket hips can nearly achieve a full split, but kicking forward they tend to go off to the side. There’s some twist at the thigh, and the double-jointed knees are fine. The ankle hinge is really nice though as his foot can go all the way back and forward quite a bit with a solid ankle rocker.

It’s a pretty standard assortment of articulation on Electrozapper and I think it’s fine for the figure. The only omissions for me are the wired cape and no diaphragm joint. After seeing NECA more open to that approach with the likes of Dirk Savage and this guy’s box-mate, it’s a bit of a bummer to see a step back here. Especially because his shape lends itself well to such a joint and the only complication is the chest logo, but oh well. If someone were to make a custom, wired, cape for this guy I’d have to seriously consider it as he’d likely be a homerun with such a simple addition.

“Come on, Bugman, let’s teach this jerk a lesson!”

Articulation may be ho-hum, but Electrozapper absolutely brings it when it comes to the accessories. He has a secondary head with an angry, open-mouthed expression which I think is much more appropriate than the neutral one he comes equipped with. It’s so much more appropriate to me that I don’t know why they bothered with the neutral one. For hands, Elextrozapper has a set of fists, pointing hands, open hands, and gripping hands. Two of those hands have peg holes in the rings he wears on his fingers: the open left hand and the right fist. They can accept his effect parts which are really neat. They’re done in a semi-transparent pink, plastic. He has a small, blast, effect which I believe is to simulate his hand glowing. It’s for the open hand and slots onto it with ease. The long, lightning bolt effect clips into the fist and looks great. I absolutely love this type of effect. There’s a skinny lightning bolt which clips onto the pointing fingers and that looks great too. Lastly, he he has two orbs with crackling lightning on them that peg onto the index fingers as well. I suppose you could also slot them onto the fingers of the open hands if you wanted, or have him palm them. I kind of wish the hole for the finger was on the bottom though, or at least in both places. Instead it’s on the back so they look best when he’s pointing his finger forward as opposed to up.

“Thank you for your assist, Michelangelo.” “Like, are you looking for a sidekick?”

These effect parts really make the figure for me. It’s wonderful to get a figure like this where there’s almost too much to do. I like all of these, so which do I actually display?! It makes Electrozapper a very fun figure to just mess around with because you can keep changing things up. I almost wish we had more! I would have scrapped that neutral head to just double-up on the two lightning bolt effects. I may have even traded the gripping hands for the same because I’m always going to have him posed with the effects, what need of gripping hands do I have? As is, it’s still a great spread and much better than some recent releases from NECA so I’m pretty happy with what we have here.

It’s a gathering of bug people!

The Bugman and Electrozapper two-pack is low key one of the strongest two-packs in the line. It’s up there with the likes of Antrax and Scumbug and the Groundchuck and Dirtbag set. I really like how these guys turned out. Bugman is pretty much spot-on with the show and looks great. The only gripe I really had with him is the tail articulation. Electrozapper is right there with him and the only thing really bugging me about him is the cheap looking cape. It’s a shame that cape prevents this set from being an all-timer, but it’s still damn good and I think anyone who gets it will have a lot of fun with it. Perhaps best of all, the price feels right so while I haven’t been crazy about the price creep with other TMNT releases from NECA, at least we still have sets like this one that just leave us feeling pretty damn good about it when all is said and done.

If you like bugs and TMNT, there’s plenty more to see:

NECA TMNT Cartoon Antrax and Scumbug

I’ve been looking forward to this one for awhile. Antrax and Scumbug only appeared in the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once, but like last week’s figure review, they were present in the toy line long before their animated debut. And these later period episodes, such as “Night of the Rogues,” tended to just…

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by Joe

NECA Turtles in Time Baxter Stockman

When NECA finally received access to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license to release product at retail, the company decided to focus on three pillars: cartoon, movie, video game. The cartoon product, being the most sought after, was exclusively sold at Target stores in the United States. The movie line, probably nearly as desirable as…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Cartoon Splinter vs Baxter

I didn’t intend for so many TMNT reviews to hit one after the other, but Christmas pushed a bunch of stuff into the final week of December and then some surprise difficulties with another review has moved this one up. So be it. 2020 had a final surprise in store for collectors of Teenage Mutant…

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by Joe

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June 20, 2023

NECA TMNT Toon “Colossus of the Swamps!” Deluxe Napoleon Bonafrog

By Joe
Napoleon smash!

NECA’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures based on the animated series which debuted in 1987 has had some big figures. Most of these are what NECA terms “deluxe” releases and have included the likes of Krang in his android body, Chrome Dome, and the more recently released REX-1. The latest addition to this cast of characters is the one that caught me by surprise the most. Napoleon Bonafrog had the misfortune of getting mutated into a rampaging beast in a one-off episode of the show. A version of this character was unveiled last year at San Diego Comic Con. I saw the images, but for whatever reason I didn’t truly process his size. Then my lovely wife, who found this figure along with the other latest toon releases, handed me the box and I was aghast at how heavy it was and at just how much real estate the figure took up inside it.

That’s one big frog.

Napoleon is not the tallest figure in the line, but I think he’s the new heaviest. And prior to him, that honor probably went to REX-1 who was released earlier in the spring, but Napoleon is like a brick. This is a figure you can keep by your bedside and use to scare prowlers in the night who are foolish enough to invade your home. I don’t have a scale suitable for weighing this guy, but height-wise he stands at 8.25″. This makes him rather close in height to REX-1, but a lot shorter than Chrome Dome who gets to continue its reign as tallest in the line. That weight though is something, and the circumference of the shoulders is quite massive. Picking him up, he feels most similar to one of the quarter scale figures in the line as opposed to any of the standard or deluxe figures. It’s certainly an experience and adds an undeniable “fun” factor to the package.

“Looks like frog legs are on the menu tonight!”

And that package comes at a cost. Napoleon rang-up a shocking $55 at Target. I had not given it much thought prior to release, but with REX-1 being $50 I certainly wouldn’t have been surprised at that, but another 5 bucks? That was unexpected. And sure, 5 bucks isn’t exactly a lot in a vacuum, but it does suck to keep seeing the price go up with this line. And this one may not even be the worst offender, but we’ll get to that when we do. At any rate, is this guy really worth it? That’s a tall ask especially for a very obscure version of an already reasonably obscure character. If it weren’t for the fact that Napoleon did get a figure in the Playmates line (albeit, a totally different interpretation of the character) few would likely remember him by name.

“WHAT?! You’re just in time – looks like I’m makin’ my mama a new luggage set!”

We already covered the size, but the sculpt overall for this one is also pretty damn fun. Even though he’s a hell of a lot bigger than his previous figure, he actually has the same basic construction and outfit. The skin is a very dark green with some freckles done in black outlines in places. He still has the toon shading so his skin is lighter on the front, and darker on the back. The shirt is a soft plastic overlay that basically floats on him. If you were to pull out his arms from the socket, you could easily remove it as it’s not glued down anywhere. It’s yellow on the front, and an ever so more saturated yellow on the back that’s barely noticeable. The single orange strip runs around the shirt and it’s painted fairly well. Rather than make it a darker orange on the rear of the figure, NECA painted it red which looks a bit off. Dark orange and bright red aren’t exactly interchangeable. The necklace is glued in place and the shorts are painted a light purple on the front, dark on the rear. The edges are tattered and I wonder if Napoleon was chosen by the show for this mutation because he wore shorts that reminded the writers of the Hulk? Where the shorts separate at the fly is painted purple, which looks a bit odd. Even the smaller figure got that detail right as it’s painted green. There’s some sloppy paint on the left bracelet as well, and a smudge or scuff on the back of the shirt on my figure. Nothing that will show on a shelf, but worth mentioning.

“Rocksteady! Use that muta ray to make me a colossal frog!”

There’s not a whole lot of room with this guy for the paint to truly “wow” the holder, so it’s going to have to do that with the overall sculpt. And in that respect, it’s got a good argument as being a “wow” piece for the shelf. The default portrait is this angry, snarling, expression. The eyes are set a bit deep in his skull with black rings around them to give off an enraged vibe. He’s got this massive underbite with his teeth jutting out. They’re huge, chunky, blocky, cartoon teeth and they’re outlined in black and it all came out very clean. NECA sculpted and painted a pink tongue within the mouth and it’s a head with a lot of personality. The biceps on Napoleon are just plain massive and I love the exaggerated proportions of his upper body vs his abdomen. Sculptor Brodie Perkins did a tremendous job here. He’s going to command attention no matter where he’s placed in your collection and I think that’s what most want out of these deluxe releases.

“Put me down you idiot!”

Because the figure’s anatomy is essentially the same as his smaller counterpart, so is the articulation. There’s really only one difference between the two. The head is on a double-ball peg which lets the figure look up and rotate. Because it sits so deep in his shoulders, he can’t really look down and there’s little room for tilt. He also has a hinged jaw, but it’s range is very limited. It basically goes from closed to just open enough to see his tongue. The shoulders are standard hinged ball-pegs and the figure can raise its arms out just past horizontal. Rotation is fine and there’s a biceps swivel past that. The big change from the smaller frogs is the introduction of double-jointed elbows. Because his biceps are so massive, he can only bend there a little past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally.

“Gee Napoleon, what happened to you?!”

In the diaphragm we get a ball joint of some kind. It’s probably a double as he can lean back a solid amount, forward a little, and he gets good tilt to either side plus rotation. There is a standard waist twist below that and then the hips are connected via the ball and socket setup so many NECA figures utilize. There is a little bit of pivot action at the joint, but mostly it’s for kicking forward and back which he can do very well. The leg will go out to the front all the way and back pretty far. They also go out to the side almost to the point of full splits. Plus, they’re not loose which is definitely important for such a large figure. My regular Napoleon’s hips were so loose that he couldn’t even stand without sliding into a split. I had to apply super glue to the joints to finally fix that. The knees on this guy are double-jointed and will bend past 90 degrees. The ankles feature a hinge and rocker combo. The range forward and back on the hinge isn’t great, but it should be enough. The rocker works fine. And also, it’s very snug which is, again, super important for such a heavy figure.

He’s also capable of being a gentle soul.

So far so good, but where this figure does start to come up short rests with the accessories. There just isn’t much a colossal frog needs so there isn’t much he gets. For hands, he comes with a set of fists in the box plus a set of open hands and a set of gripping hands. He also has a second head which features a calm, almost befuddled, expression. It’s sort of cute, I suppose, but I’m guessing most will want their giant, hulking, frog to look a little more angry. The second head also drops the articulated jaw.

He has a gun, but it isn’t really for him, or anyone for that matter.

And that’s it! Well, that’s it for the main figure. NECA did throw a couple of other items into the box to try and sweeten the package. There’s the included muta-shooter which is the weapon that did this to Napoleon. It’s mostly gray with some linework and darker bits painted on, but the most striking aspect is the green “liquid” inside the barrel. It’s basically transparent plastic with a semi-transparent green insert. It looks fine, but only from certain angles because the green piece inside isn’t solid. From the top, the illusion of it being an actual liquid is ruined and it’s kind of crummy looking. I don’t know why they didn’t just make it a solid piece of green plastic, but oh well. It’s also not really conducive to being properly held. It’s a very weird shape and I couldn’t really get anyone with a trigger hand to properly hold it. I was able to basically balance it in Rocksteady’s hands to fake it for a pic, but it’s probably getting the bin treatment after this is done.

I do like these extra heads for Napoleon and Genghis. The Napoleon head has a shape more representative of how the frogs were actually drawn for the show while the Genghis head is just outrageous.

The last accessories are two new heads for the previously released Napoleon and Genghis figures. The new Napoleon head features a scared, or concerned, expression like he’s about to shit a brick. It’s very similar to the box art expression and I like it well enough. The Genghis head is a more exagerrated, screaming in terror expression that makes me think of the video game Battletoads. It’s pretty silly looking, but I confess that I do love it. Mostly, it’s nice to be able to break up the expressions of the Punk Frogs as they all had the same two expressions to choose from. Now they can all have a different expression, so I do like that.

“We just love our new, giant, brother!”

That’s all though. It definitely doesn’t feel as substantial as past deluxe releases. We just looked at April who came with a ton of stuff and REX-1 before this release also had quite a bit. One could argue that this figure didn’t need anymore than what it comes with, but for added cost it’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow. If he came with additional heads for the other two frogs that would have gone a long way to sweetening the package. I also wish he had another set of gripping hands, something wider, for grabbing other figures around the waist. His existing ones are too tight for that, and they’re way too big to handle really any of the weapons in the whole line. I’m surprised NECA didn’t toss-in the rhin-bug that was featured in the episode as a gag and also appears on the back of the box. Napoleon also shot his tongue out in the episode and that could have been a fun extra head or accessory. I definitely feel a bit short-changed as is which isn’t typical of NECA.

Is Napoleon “The Colossus of the Swamps” Bonafrog worth the pretty steep asking price of $55? It’s hard to say. It’s definitely a case where I look at the figure, then consider the price, and my immediate reaction is, “No.” On the other hand, now that I have him and that money is gone, I do like him. He’s a really cool figure and I like that his existence makes my Genghis and smaller Napoleon a little more interesting, but I do hate that I gave NECA $55 for it as I’m endorsing the price at that point. He’s an obscure character, and if you never cared about getting this version of Napoleon in figure from then maybe continue living your Napoleon-free life. On the other hand, I never really desired this character in figure from, but it does make me happy so it’s not the end of the world that I overpaid for it. I would suggest finding this one in store and seeing what your reaction to holding it in hand is. If it makes you giddy like a little kid and losing $55 won’t hurt you, then go for it. If it doesn’t stir anything within you and you’d only be buying it because it’s new, then don’t be afraid to put it back on the shelf. Chances are, if you reconsider you’ll see it again.

Want some more frog content or are you just into big action figures?

NECA TMNT Cartoon Napoleon and Attila

It took almost five months, but the Punk Frogs are now complete. NECA, recognizing that they were about to release the same sculpt four times, decided to space out the frog two-packs in its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of cartoon action figures. Genghis and Rasputin arrived back in May, while Napoleon and Attila started…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Cartoon Rasputin and Genghis

During Season Two of the classic cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the world was introduced to the Punk Frogs. Despite their name, there was nothing particularly punk about these mutated amphibians as they all dressed like they were going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. They make a few return appearances in the show, and given…

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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

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June 11, 2023

NECA TMNT Toon “Mutant Interest Story” – Deluxe April O’Neil

By Joe
The long-awaited April O’Neil update has finally arrived!

Whenever I approach my rankings for NECA’s now long-running action figure series based on the 1987 cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I don’t always just pick the objectively best or worst toy in the line to slot them into the rankings. It’s a combination of the figure’s quality and the character’s importance. A great figure of someone like Scrag can only go so far because how many people really care about Scrag? Similarly, if NECA were to whiff on an integral character, say April O’Neil, that’s going to get a lot more attention than a subpar Screwloose. And NECA did whiff on April and my disatisfaction with that figure has earned it the dubious honor of worst in the series. NECA must have seen my rankings (I kid) because they decided to take another stab at April and the long anticipated redo is now hitting Target stores across the US. Is it a real improvement and is it worth the wait?

New on the left, old on the right, you tell me which is better.

NECA’s been seemingly so disatisfied with their April figure that they’ve never even re-released it up until now. And it makes sense if you think the figure is bad. Unfortunately, that original one was released during the summer of 2020 during that time when TMNT figures were just so hard to come by. Many never found one and the aftermarket prices have been ridiculous for what is a pretty mediocre action figure. A lot of collectors have had a pretty big hole in their collection as a result, but it looks like this new April is hitting stores in pretty substantial quantities.

There’s a ton of interest in this figure so I’m going to throw a bunch of comparison shots at you. Here she is with Zach and Casey Jones.
With Usagi and Hamato Yoshi.
With Bebop and Smash and the Triceratons always watching. Always watching…

This time around, April is getting the deluxe, or ultimate, treatment. She is single-packed in a box featuring artwork by Dan Elson designed to mimic the f.h.e. VHS releases from the 80s and 90s. It looks great and the window flap provides for a look at the figure itself before making a purchasing decision. Now, the problems with the previous April were that her scaling was off leaving her way too short and just overall small compared with the turtles. And her headsculpt was just bad. It was oversized, too round, and just soft in appearance. The opinion of me was that the body looked fine, but needed to be scaled up, while the head was the right scale, but just not well-executed from a sculpting standpoint.

“Hah hah, I can’t believe they thought you were good enough to be me!”
Here’s the figure alongside some reference art from an early episode of the show. You can decide for yourself how it looks.

NECA’s new April stands at just a tick under 5.75″ while the former stood at…5.5″. Okay, so we didn’t get much height out of this new one and that’s because…it’s basically the same figure. NECA reused almost the entire figure from before replacing only the upper torso and the head. The good news is the head looks much better. This actually looks like April and has her features. It’s tough to translate female characters from cartoons like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because they usually have slim features with no markings on their face. It’s all about getting the shape of the eyes right and their size, really. This April looks fine and sculptor Tomasz Rozejowski did a good job. What some people seem to dislike about this new April is her neck. To say that April has a swan-like neck would be an understatement. And she often was drawn that way so it’s a feature that I think she should have. Did NECA go too far? I don’t think so. And the more I look at it and reference art from the ’87 mini series (which should be the template for every character that made an appearance in the first five episodes) I really see no issue with it. Maybe if her collarbone was a little higher it lessen the illusion? Mostly, it seems a lot of the promo shots didn’t have her head seated all the way (the collar of her jumpsuit should come up just past her hair) which made it look worse, but in hand, this looks good and I’m happy.

“This is April O’Neil – Happy Hour news!”
“Come on, Vernon! I know where we can find a great story!” “Ohh, April, do we have to go back into the sewers?!”

As for the rest, well, the sculpt is fine. It’s just very slight. She looks fine on her own, but put her next to a turtle and she starts to look like the cosplayer from the old MGM Studios parade because the turtles just look so big by comparison. Height-wise, she’s a touch taller than them, but needs a little more. It’s unfortunate and I have to assume it was done this way just to save money. They could have taken the digital files, just upped them 10 percent, and cut new molds based off of that, but that was obviously deemed too expensive. She’s retailing for $37 with mostly old stuff (which we’ll get to) so she definitely doesn’t feel like the best value in the bunch, but it’s April and people will buy her. Scale with this line definitely isn’t its strong suit anyway, so I think this will be a case of your mileage may vary. Some will see this April as totally fine, others will want more size. I would like to see her bigger overall, but admittedly it’s mostly a nitpick on my part.

“Come on, April, I need you dig up some dirt on those so-called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!” “Oh come on, chief, I keep telling you they’re the heroes!”
“April, maybe you should just do what the boss tells you.” “Never, Irma, out there are the real stories that I was born to tell!”

The paint is still mostly the toon shading with a golden yellow on the front and a more mustard on the back. In comparison with the original release and cat April, the yellow is darker as the old one looks practically neon by comparison. Interestingly, the boots are no longer shaded gray on the backside. And actually, they’re not painted well either. The plastic underneath must be yellow as there’s a lot of yellow coming through the boot. The hinges are at least the right color and the feet are fine, but the main part of the boot is not. There’s still an abundance of black linework on the figure and it’s mostly clean. It’s a little messy around the belt, but otherwise okay. The flesh part of her chest has no linework on it, which is in contrast to the first version which had some lines for her clavicle and neck. I don’t know why they opted not to do it this time as I think it would have looked fine. The other area that’s a little messy are the elbows. NECA paints the joints and the paint flakes off because it just doesn’t adhere to that type of plastic. The hinge is flesh colored on that portion of the elbow and yellow on the other, which is fine, but it looks almost gross when it has pieces just flaking off.

“Nice kitty…”
“Whoa! Not nice kitty!”

The articulation for April is also the same as the past one, but we do have one, not great, difference. And that’s the head. NECA is using a double ball peg, which it did with the previous April, but it sits pretty low in the neck. That means you don’t get much play. She gets very little tilt and very little up and down. Her head also fights the ball peg when trying to rotate it. I think that’s because it’s designed to seat pretty deep into her head. It wants to snap back to a neutral position so I think it’s just not sliding nicely on the peg. Aside from that annoyance, the rest is the same. Diaphragm joint in the torso works well for rotation and some forward and back. Arms hinge out to the side just fine and the unusual NECA double elbows are in place which go way past 90 degrees. They’re a little stiff to rotate though, and her arms are very thin so do be cautious. Hips can do splits, kick forward and back, and the double-jointed knees work great. The feet hinge forward and back with an ankle rocker. Her feet are pretty small though so she can be a little tough to stand. This April should be able to handle just about any pose the character needs with the only real bummer being the stubborn neck articulation.

April has a lot of stuff, most of which is rather familiar.
“Wow, you guys REALLY like this story!”

As for accessories, well, April is pretty loaded. Unfortunately, most of her accessories are just rehash from the first release with very little new. For hands, we get a set of gripping hands that come on her in the box as well as sets of open hands, pointing hands, “peace” hands, thumbs up hands, and wide open hands. All of her hands have a standard, horizontal, hinge which you might think is fine for April, but vertical hinged gripping hands would work better for a microphone and hand camera. And she does have a microphone and hand camera and they’re the same as before. As is the tape recorder with wired mic. She still comes with the hamster statue, a baby pizza monster, and her turtle communicator. She also has another copy of The Hare and the Tortoise. And there’s also the doku plant. It’s a little darker than the previous one, so I guess you could treat one as the gazai plant if you also have the Splinter and Baxter two-pack.

The new heads will fit the old body just fine.
“Whose sick idea was this?!” “Uhh, umm, certainly not Master Splinter’s!”

As for new stuff, well we get some extra heads. April has a fairly neutral head by default and also comes with a smiling portrait and a blindfolded head. The smiling head looks lovely while the blindfolded one pairs well with the same headsculpt we got for Vernon. Unfortunately, they all fight that head peg just the same so the articulation isn’t any better. And if you’re wondering, yes, the new heads do fit on the old figure and make that figure look noticeably better. April also comes with the capture clamp/body manacle (it’s listed as both on the box) which is a metal restraining device that can lock around her. This may have been on her when she was blindfolded? I don’t remember, but it’s relatively neat and well-painted. Getting it on her isn’t the easiest thing, but it can be done. April also has a potted venus fly trap, mutated of course, that looks cool. And lastly, she has a photo frame of dear Aunt Aggie. Aggie, like other characters who have appeared in photo frames, is done as a digital render of a would-be action figure. Will she actually get immortalized in plastic? That seems doubtful, but never say never with this line.

“So Donatello, do you think my dear Aunt Aggie deserves her own action figure?!” “Don’t take this the wrong way, April, but no.”
“Sorry Irma, I couldn’t find you a date for tonight, but I saw this adorable house plant that I thought you’d like!” “How pathetic do you think I am April?! …I’ll take the plant.”

Was April 2.0 worth the wait? I don’t know. I guess if you didn’t have an April at all, then yeah, absolutely. Even if you did, like me, this feels like getting the character for the first time in some ways. I kept my April inside the street scene diorama out of view because I just didn’t like it very much and space is a precious resource. While I do wish this figure corrected the issue of April’s size vs the rest of the line, I do think this is a much better interpretation of the character. And if you have the other figure, it’s especially great that this one has multiple headsculpts so that old one can be tossed into a bin and never spoken of again. Is this April perfect? No, but it comfortably fits into the line and is a worthy entrant. I like the updated colors and some of the new accessories are fun. Just be mindful of the boots. Hopefully mine are just off and most of the rest feature better paint there, but otherwise, yeah, go get her.

At long last, the real fifth turtle is here and she’s good!

NECA’s deluxe version of April is sold exclusively at Target. She just started showing up and in pretty substantial quantities so if you haven’t come across this figure yet, just keep looking. Target is also planning on doing online drops for the next several Fridays at 9 AM EST as part of their Summer Geek Con. As of this writing, there’s no confirmation of what will actually be part of that drop, but it definitely wouldn’t be a surprise to see this figure included. Good luck!

Interested in more April O’Neil figures? Here’s a few more you can check out:

NECA TMNT Cartoon April O’Neil and Bashed Foot

There’s a line from one of my favorite Christmas movies, Bad Santa, in which the main character, Willy, says to The Kid, “Well, they can’t all be winners,” when The Kid pulls a candy corn out of his advent calendar. Bad Santa isn’t a movie for everyone, but the sentiment expressed by Willy in that…

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NECA TMNT Movie Ultimate April O’Neil – Signature Edition

NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line has so been so successful that it’s allowed the company to branch out. It wasn’t that long ago that Playmates was the only game in town when it came to TMNT action figures and the company showed little to no interest in releasing anything other than the turtles themselves.…

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Hasbro MMPR x TMNT April O’Neil and Michelangelo

We have arrived at the last two-pack in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures from Hasbro and it’s that bodacious dude, Michelangelo, along with the ravishing reporter April O’Neil. There’s not going to be a whole lot to say about these figures at this point as, if…

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May 9, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Mighty Hog and Rhino-Man

By Joe
Look who came to save the day.

We did it! We finally made it to the end of the Haulathon releases from NECA Toys and we may have saved the best for last. Back in early 2020, I made a wish list for what I wanted from NECA and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It was only 10 deep, though there were some duos in there, and with this release we have finally completed my initial wish list. Rhino-Man and Mighty Hog are the super hero versions of Rocksteady and Bebop. Don’t confuse them with Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady, those are the robot versions, these are the cheesy heroes with their underwear over their pants and capes tied around their necks. I don’t know why I liked this design so much for the pair. I think as a kid, I just liked superhero versions of popular characters. When Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck did it I thought it was fantastic. And those Happy Meal toys with the Looney Tunes in superhero costumes are maybe the best Happy Meal toys of all time. I suppose my affection for such things just caused the episode where Bebop and Rocksteady try their hand at heroics to be retained in my brain. A great many episodes of that show went in and went out pretty effortlessly, but Rhino-Man and Mighty Hog have lived rent free in there for over 30 years.

I love that these guys have been scaled down a bit as one of the only complaints I had about the wave two figures was that they were a little too big.

Perhaps Bebop and Rocksteady aren’t really so bad which is why tI liked seeing them as superheroes, even if they weren’t doing it out of a sense of justice. They’re almost too stupid to be evil, and as comedic relief in the show I think I warmed to them. Both have a very classic superhero look: shirt, trunks, tights, boots, cape. Rocksteady also adds some gloves and goggles while Bebop swaps his glasses for a bandana-style mask. Rhino-Man stands at about 6″ and is dressed in bright colors. Yellow for the shirt, red for the boots and gloves, and a light blue for the tights. He has his own logo on his chest and the goggles (which are removable) and blue cape just complete the ensemble. Bebop’s go as Mighty Hog has a bit more of DIY vibe to it I guess because he was designated the sidekick. His red cape is tied in a knot around his neck and he doesn’t get his own logo opting for a big, orange, M on his purple shirt. His black pants appear to be his normal pants as do the sneakers. He at least has some orange trunks and retaining the turtle shell shoulder pads is a good look. He’s also bigger than Rhino-Man coming in it at 6.5″ to the top of his head.

Can’t forget the jetpacks!

Both of these figures are all new tooling when compared with their prior release. That is welcomed as those molds feature some outdated joints and it’s nice to finally have updated versions of Bebop and Rocksteady, even if they’re not in their classic duds. The new head on Bebop looks terrific. I didn’t think it was possible to improve upon the first, but I think I like this one just a little better. Rocksteady didn’t turn out quite so well. He’s a little stubby looking, which is interesting because his other figures feel like their heads are just a little too long. He’s still clearly Rocksteady, he just doesn’t look as good as Bebop. The goggles go on and off relatively easy and definitely help to complete the look. Like the first go at them, these two do share some parts. Most obviously are the hands, but also most of the arms, thighs, and probably the torso. It’s hard to tell since both figures sport an overlay. The differences really rest with the forearms, shins and feet to go with the head.

“Heh, snort, you guys look stupid.”

As per usual with this line, the paint job looks pretty nice. Most of the figures feature the toon shading the line is known for where NECA uses a darker color for the figure’s rear. Some parts are skipped, like the feet and Rhino-Man’s belt which is a little odd. Mighty Hog also doesn’t have any shading on his pants since they’re black. The linework is clean and all of the little details we would expect to see from the show have been translated into 3D plastic. One bummer is the capes are both just plain soft goods. After getting a wired cape with Dark Turtle I was hoping for the same here, but I guess we weren’t that lucky. Bebop also still has the actual chain bracelet on his left arm which I could honestly do without. The authenticity is nice, but it’s a little annoying especially when swapping hands. NECA omitted the little T-hook this time so you could just take it off if you wanted to and you won’t have a weird piece of metal sticking out of your figure, though it also means the bracelet can come off even without removing the figure’s hand. I’m surprised they haven’t switched to a plastic one, but it’s fine.

They don’t have a ton of stuff, but it’s fine.

The accessories for this set are actually a little on the light side. Both figures come with the same sets of hands: fists, gripping, a left-handed peace sign, and a right handed chop. What’s missing is trigger finger hands, and while they don’t come with any guns, they used their standard white, laser, pistols (which you probably have a handful of laying around if you’ve been collecting this line for awhile) in the episode so that’s a bit of a bummer. The gripping hands can be finagled though to work with those older accessories. They also have their jetpacks which key into the back of each figure and once secured you’re probably never going to remove them. They also come with the police scanner which looks suspiciously like an old, 80s, cell phone. Shredder uses it in the episode to send the heroes after bad guys as there’s a contest going on that Krang wants them to win, hence why they’re heroes (the episode is just called “Rhino-Man” if you’re curious). Lastly, we get an accessory from a different episode, the Anxietron Ray from “Bebop and Rocksteady Conquer the Universe.” It’s a very intricate sculpt, though the device isn’t the prettiest. It reminds me of the baby translator Herb Powell creates on The Simpsons. It’s a cumbersome weapon to wield like an actual gun, but it can also just be placed on a surface and look fine. And I suppose it’s only included because there was room in the budget for another accessory and NECA didn’t see fit to pull anything else from the episode, which I mostly agree with. Some more hands might have been cool, but this is fine.

“Umm, hey, Mr. Dark Turtle, sir, can we please team-up with you?!” “WHAT?!”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this!”

Bebop and Rocksteady have never articulated particularly well when designed by NECA (or really anyone, for that matter) and Rhino-Man and Mighty Hog are mostly the same. The head for both is on a ball peg, likely a double, and they rotate fine. Bebop has a little more up and down range by virtue of having more of a neck while Rocksteady is slightly limited for both. Each figure has a hinged jaw and it’s not the prettiest hinged jaw NECA has done. Rocksteady’s looks pretty bad when opened all the way and Bebop’s doesn’t look much better. The hinge is just set too far forward on the head when it needs to be recessed further back. It’s also done in pink and then painted and if you tilt the head up all the way you can see the pink hinge poking through on the underside. It’s something you’ll never see when they’re on a shelf, but it is odd. The shoulders are ball-hinged and they can just about hit horizontal with Rhino-Man while Mighty Hog’s range is hindered by the shoulder pads. It’s also hindered when rotating while Rhino-Man is fine. There’s a biceps swivel past that and double-jointed elbows to go with wrists that swivel and hinge horizontally, including the gripping hands. There might be a diaphragm joint in both, but it’s covered-up by the overlay. There’s a ball joint at the waist that allows for rotation and a little tilt, but very little forward and back. The hips are ball and socket joints which is the welcomed change over the original Bebop and Rocksteady figures and they kick forward almost to horizontal and kick back a bit. Both guys can pretty much hit a split and there’s a little thigh twist there as well. The knees are double-jointed and those bend past 90 degrees and at the ankles we get the hinge and rocker setup. Bebop’s shoes are much better this time around and less restricted. They still don’t get a lot of range out of the hinge, but the rocker works pretty well. Curiously, the right foot on my Mighty Hog has a curve to the sole and I’m wondering if that’s a defect or true for all. He stands okay despite it, but it is odd.

“Stop, hooligans, you’ve tagged your last wall!” “Wait, how is this even happening?!”

Many of the joints on this set were pretty tight or stuck out of the box. Out of all of the Haulathon releases, that issue was most prevalent with this set. I don’t think I had to heat any joints on the other figures. I did opt to heat some of the hands to make inserting weapons easier, but with this set I had to heat the elbows to get them working. Rhino-Man couldn’t do much below the waist so he got the full spa treatment, but once things were heated and the paint allowed to “crack” at the joints, things started moving pretty well. I still have a stuck hinge on one of Rhino-Man’s elbows, and the same hinge on Mighty Hog has some chipped paint which is an eyesore, albeit a minor one. Overall though, the range of movement is pretty basic with these two. Even though the elbows are double-jointed, it’s actually hard to get them past 90 degrees and place both figures in a heroic pose with their hands on their hips. They’re also heavy and cumbersome so getting them to appear as if they’re flying using one of NECA’s flight stands is also rather precarious. They at least look up well enough to pull it off, but I definitely didn’t feel comfortable leaving them on a shelf like that.

“Rhino-Man! Away!” “Blast! You morons, you’re hitting me with your exhaust!”

Rhino-Man and Mighty Hog are two figures I was really looking forward to and I’m mostly satisfied with the result. I do wish the head on Rocksteady was a little better and that they moved easier as well, but overall I’m happy with how they turned out. They look silly and that’s appropriate and I definitely like having them on my shelf. I’m also happy that wish list has been filled. Is this the best set from this massive Haulathon drop? I’m not sure. Subjectively, it’s probably my favorite, but objectively there was little to find wrong with the Dirk Savage and Mona Lisa set. Chakahachi and Lotus look pretty cool too even if some QC issues with Lotus dampened my enthusiasm there. Mostly, these sets have continued to basically excel without necessarily blowing me away. I don’t know if any of these figures would crack my top 10 were I to revisit it (and I probably will have to at some point since so much has been added), but none are likely to end up in the bottom 10 either.

“Bomb’s away!”

If you would like to add these phoney heroes to your collection then keep checking Target. The main Haulathon drop is over and done with now, but more product is likely to keep shipping. Given that we’re talking about Bebop and Rocksteady, it’s likely more of this set was produced than some of the others. NECA may also open up orders on their website for those who missed out so just try to stay in the loop and avoid feeding the scalpers.

Can’t get enough of Bebop and Rocksteady or TMNT characters moonlighting as superheroes? Check these out:

NECA TMNT Cartoon Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady

2021 introduced a lot of good things for collectors of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the classic cartoon. The toy maker still kept the line a Target exclusive when it came to brick and mortar, but it also started selling a lot of it online to coincide with each…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Bebop and Rocksteady Target Exclusive Series

I have been rather fortunate when it comes to toy collecting in recent years. When I was a kid, toy collecting meant going to Toys R Us or a similar store and seeing what was on the shelf. Catalogs, commercials, and card backs were my main source of information. I assume there were newsletters and…

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by Joe

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

May 2, 2023

NECA TMNT Adventures Dreadmon

By Joe
You guys like bananas?

We’re almost done with all of these NECA Haulathon drops from March and up today is the last of the single-packed figures, the Mighty Mutanimal Dreadmon! Technically, he’s the third figure in NECA’s line of figures from the pages of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures since he’s listed as number 3 on the box. However, Dreadmon was the most recent to actually hit stores as Man Ray and the actual number 4 figure Jagwar were released on the first weekend with Dreadmon following a week later. I don’t know why they shipped out of order, but it hardly matters in the end. Like Jagwar, this is Dreadmon’s first go at plastic. I could not confirm if he started off as action figure concept art like Jagwar did, but like Jagwar, Dreadmon has basically only existed in comic form. He started off with Archie in issue #15 in an adventure where the turtles and Jagwar encounter him and he’s also made the jump to IDW, albeit with a pretty substantial redesign. As another member of The Mighty Mutanimals, Dreadmon continues to put us on the path to one day assembling the full team which is something a lot of fans have been dreaming about for 30 years now.

Dreadmon comes in the same style box as Jagwar featuring new artwork from Ken Mitchroney, who was also the illustrator for Dreadmon’s debut issue. Out of the box, Dreadmon stands around 6″ to where his head most likely would end and 6.75″ to the highest point of his mane. I’m measuring him with his legs bent slightly as he’s intended to be posed, but you could possibly get him a little taller, or shorter, depending on how you position the legs as he’s one of those characters that really stands on his toes. As for what he is, he appears to be some sort of wolf man. The newer version of the character has clearly landed on jackal, but wolf seems fine for this version. Like Jagwar, he’s not a mutant and is actually a thief who was magically turned into this beast by a talisman. He’s of South African descent and his family escaped apartheid to Jamaica where a young version of Dreadmon became a street thief before eventually turning a corner after his encounter with the good guys. Even though the Archie books always had a reputation for being like kid version of the more serious Mirage comics, it’s pretty cool how a lot of the characters born within those books have a pretty mature backstory.

These two share quite a few parts. And a love of fruit.

Dreadmon is a character with a pretty neat design. He has a wild mane of hair on top of his black face that is supposed to be dreadlocked. There’s some evidence of that where the hair is twisted and slid through tiny skulls two of which hand over his shoulders with three more on the back of the head. There’s a lot of black linework in the hair to add some character while the sculpted texture looks more like thick fur to me. There’s even a curve to the back of the mane and from the side it looks a little spiky giving me images of Sonic the Hedgehog as I look at him. The ears and face are black with the nose and inner ear painted purple. It’s a fun look and the paint is really clean. The inner portion of his mouth is also painted and looks clean. For his attire, I’m not really sure what he’s wearing. He’s got this black tank top and a three-ringed necklace. Unlike a lot of figures from NECA, the torso clothing appears to be part of the sculpt instead of an overlay. He has a belt that looks like it’s wooden slates bound together by hemp rope and there’s a purple skirt sticking out below that. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be an actual skirt or was conceived as the end of a tunic, but it’s essentially a skirt and I think he pulls it off.

Obligatory scale shot – I’d say he looks fine.

A lot of the body outside of the torso on this guy is actually shared with Jagwar. The shoulders, biceps, hands, and thighs are the same which is fine. They don’t need to be different and this sort of reuse is what companies should be doing to keep costs down. And the parts are well-sculpted with a fur texture applied and they’re painted a matte brown. There’s also some black lines applied here and there and it’s a nice touch. The forearms are unique so that Dreadmon can have tufts of fur which are done in a redder brown to match his mane. He has some black spots there as well and there’s some on his thighs too. The lower legs had to be different to accommodate his canine feet so the calf is shorter because the foot is longer with a hinge in the center of it. He stands on his toes, though if you wanted to you could flatten the feet and stand him that way, but it looks pretty silly. He does have a tail which is a unique sculpt and it’s a bushy one the color of which matches the mane and there’s some linework applied as well. He looks nice as the paint is once again really clean and has the appropriate finish. The darker palette certainly adds some contrast to the display, but he still has that “pop” factor by nature of the design and those little hits of white and purple help. About the only thing, aesthetically speaking, that bothers me a little is that it’s hard to get him to look like he’s staring straight ahead. His head seems to always be tilted down and it’s hard to pose away and that’s basically due to the hair. We’ll get into that more with articulation, but that’s pretty much it. You do have to watch out for paint rub too as the white skulls that hang over his chest can leave behind streaks on the torso. I had some and I did lightly hit his torso with a dry Magic Eraser and it mostly came off, but I also don’t want to take off too much of the black either as everything is painted on this guy.

I did not have much luck with this particular accessory. The one on the left came with Jagwar and is missing the jaw while the one on the right came with Dreadmon and has a horribly misaligned eye.

A lot of Dreadmon’s accessories feel similar to Jagwar’s in both concept and because they are quite literally the same. That includes the hands as Dreadmon comes with the same, three, sets: fists, open, and gripping. NECA painted some black linework around the claws which does make them look a little better when compared with Jagwar’s which lacked that detail. Dreadmon also has the same Malignoid worm thing. The one I got with Jagwar was missing the lower jaw, while the one I received with Dreadmon has a terrible paint job. The black lines weren’t lined up properly so it looks stupid. I guess I can’t win when it comes to this thing. Dreadmon also has a fruit bowl, but it’s different from Jagwar’s as his bowl is a bit more distressed and also features some intestines under the fruit. He is a wolf or coyote or something and they do enjoy their entrails! It looks appropriately gross, though not exactly realistic, so it doesn’t throw off the vibe of the property. If it’s too nasty though you get a pair of bananas that he can hold. One is intact while the other has been partially peeled and is ready to eat. He has a blue can of something. There’s no indication of what’s inside it so someone more familiar with the property will have to clue me in, but it looks like a soup can. There’s also an unmarked grave. It just sits on a surface and looks foreboding though I have no idea what significance it holds since it’s unmarked. The Mutanimals did meet an unfortunate end in the books so it could just stand for that. Lastly, Dreadmon comes with a second set of eyes. His default ones are wide open and have a bit of a toon vibe to them while the alternate set is narrowed and more menacing. I like the look of both so I haven’t decided what I’ll ultimately settle on for the shelf, but it’s nice to have options. Swapping them is also pretty painless, provided you keep your thumbs clear of those pointy ears.

“Uhh, got anything without entrails?”

After being pleasently surprised with the articulation on Jagwar, I’m sorry to say that Dreadmon is a bit of a step back. Much of that is unavoidable based on his character design, but it is what it is. The head is probably on the standard double-ball setup we’ve been seeing with NECA figures of late, but the hair isn’t going to let you do much with it. You get some rotation and a little tilt, but virtually no ability for the figure to look up. There is a hinge at the base of the neck which will allow the figure to look down pretty far. The jaw is articulated and it’s fine as it looks good when open or closed. The shoulders are the standard ball-hinges we’re used and they rotate just fine and allow the character to raise its arms out to the side to a horizontal position. There’s a biceps swivel plus single-hinged elbows that have some room to swivel. He can hit a 90 degree bend, though I remain surprised that NECA opted not to use a double-jointed setup here. The wrists swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. In the torso, we get just a ball joint at the waist with no diaphragm cut. He can rotate freely on that peg and crunches forward a bit, but doesn’t go back at all which is a bit surprising. There’s some tilt as well, but it’s pretty limited. The legs are ball and socket joints and NECA put slits in the skirt to keep them pretty much unencumbered. Dreadmon can just about his a full split and he kicks forward to about horizontal and kicks back a bit too. There’s some twist on the ball joint so you have some play there followed by the usual double-jointed knees. After that comes the ankle hinge and rocker followed by the mid-foot hinge. That hinge is a little loose for my liking, but he’s standing okay so I guess it’s fine for now. There’s also a ball hinge for the tail that gives him some pretty good range there as well. Because he has a bushy tail, it’s not wired for added posing like Jagwar’s or Man Ray’s. It’s also too short to be relied upon as a third leg of sorts unless you put Dreadmon in some really low poses.

It’s just pragmatic to have a blank tombstone onhand. You never know when you’re going to need it…

Dreadmon’s unique leg situation and the more simplified approach to the torso means he’s not as poseable as Jagwar or even Man Ray. The unique nature of the legs can also make him a bit tricky to just get straight up and down. You have to make sure both hinges in the knees are bent at the same angle in each leg and then the same is true at the ankle and foot. Often times, I find myself placing Dreadmon on a surface and he’s taller on one side than the other so I have to mess around to try to get his shoulders more level, unless I’m going for a more angled look. And then there’s the previously mentioned annoyance of just trying to get him to appear to be looking forward. I wish the waist joint could bend back to help with that as the range going forward just works against what I’m trying to do. As far as tightness goes, everything felt pretty nice out of the box. The joints are all tight in a satisfying manner. The only ones that are a bit on the loose side are the waist and foot, but neither are failing to hold a pose. He is going to be a little harder to stand than the other figures in the line, but if you’re having problems he does have peg holes on his feet. I’ve done a couple of poses with him so far to just leave alone and he’s fallen over a couple of times. Other times he’s been fine, so there’s a nuance to it when it comes to finding a shelf-safe pose that will last longterm.

That’s hardly a bad looking group.

Dreadmon gets us one step closer to assembling the entire Mighty Mutanimals squad. Slash was associated with them, but most consider the core team to be Man Ray, Jagwar, Dreadmon, Wingnut, Screwloose, Leatherhead, and Mondo Gecko. NECA has yet to indicate what’s coming next, but it will be interesting to see if they continue with the Mutanimals or if they pivot to something else. They have stated that evergreen versions of the turtles aren’t really in play right now as they’re design is very similar to the cartoon, but it was suggested that some of their other looks from the comics might be in play (think wrestling attire). Could that be next? Maybe, though I wouldn’t be shocked if such a set started off as a convention exclusive or something. I hope they don’t dick around though and just continue with the Mutanimals as a lot of people have been waiting a long time. Mondo and Leatherhead from the toon line can kind of fake it as Archie versions, but Wingnut and Screwloose most certainly cannot so it’s for that reason that I’d like to see them be next in line. Hopefully we won’t have to wait long.

If you’re looking to add Dreadmon to your collection of NECA TMNT figures then you shouldn’t have too hard of a time. Haulathon has come and gone at Target, but Dreadmon is not exclusive to that event or store. He should start showing up at other brick and mortar locations and will also be solicited to specialty retail. At Target, this figure cost $35 so the specialty shops will likely tack on a few bucks, but if you missed the initial drop your patience should pay off eventually.

Want to know more about the other TMNT Adventures action figures from NECA?:

NECA TMNT Adventures Jagwar

The next figure in NECA’s line based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic series is a much anticipated one for fans of those books and its spin-off The Mighty Mutanimals. And that’s because this character is making his debut in plastic. Previously, we looked at Slash who has been pretty well-represented in some…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Adventures Man Ray

Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Adventures Series Slash

As NECA continues to find success with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines of action figures, the company has sought to branch out beyond the usual source material in an effort to give collectors more of what they want and also likely to just keep the hype train rolling. NECA started first with doing figures…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 25, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Dirk Savage and Mona Lisa

By Joe
These two are on an odd pair, but not a bad one.

Today’s look at yet another Haulathon release from NECA Toys features two one-off characters from the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Dirk Savage and Mona Lisa. For Savage, this is his action figure debut as he wasn’t featured in the vintage Playmates line. For Mona Lisa, she was only featured in one episode of the show, but did benefit from an action figure and that’s honestly how I remember her. I did see her episode as a kid, but the memories are rather fuzzy. She has also shown up on other iterations of TMNT and is often paired with Raph as a romantic interest because turtles and newts so often mate in the real world. For casual fans of the property, this is definitely a set that will lead to some head-scratching, but if you’re all-in on this line then you probably expected these two to show up eventually, though maybe not together since they weren’t featured in the same episode. And in keeping with this line, they’re pretty good so you might want to check them out even if you can’t remember them.

That is some chin.

We’ll start with Dirk first, the mutant hunter who looks a bit like a cross between Flash Gordon and Judge Dredd with a little Jay Leno in the face. He stands at around 6.75″ to the top of his head and touches 7″ if you factor in the hair. Dirk is a great example of how this line has a little pop to it. We get a real bright red for this shirt to pair with a deep purple for the pants. There’s browns and grays all over the place for the various straps and cuffs he’s sporting and there’s an abundance of little painted details all over the place. I love the toony quality his face possesses and the five o’clock shadow he has. The human characters have a tendency to feel drab in a line that stars a bunch of mutants, but Dirk is a fun design and a great piece for the shelf. The paint is very clean and I think everything here is unique to Dirk. If there’s reuse going on I can’t tell. He also brings back the shading which has been a bit hit and miss with this recent batch. Some figures have had it in abundance, and some have not. With Dirk, we get it on the shirt, pants, and boots, but NECA declined to include it on the belt, shoulder pads, or head. I’m not sure what the reasoning for this is, I think it would have looked nice on the hair and shoulder pads, but I’m guessing most won’t care.

For those who like weapon storage, this one’s for you.

For accessories, Dirk comes with a pretty substantial spread. We don’t get any additional portraits, but given how perfect his cocky expression is, I don’t think we need another. He comes with three sets of hands: fists, gripping, and trigger hands with all of the hands featuring the horizontal hinge instead of the vertical one. Dirk also has a pair of guns. One looks like a sci-fi version of a sawed-off shotgun and Dirk has a removable holster for the rear of the figure it can be slotted into. I had to look up promotional images of the figure to know how it’s supposed to go in as it’s a tight fit, but it can be done. The weapon itself looks fine, but the barrels end with a flat piece rather than look like a cylindrical barrel which is an odd look. I didn’t check to see if it was the same way in the show, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is as I can see some censors not liking that it looks like a shotgun and mandating some changes. He also has a much smaller sidearm that I think shot out a cable in the show. It looks nice, though the red tip makes it look like a laser pistol or something. I do wish we got an effect part for the cable to pair with it though. Dirk also has a baton weapon that resembles a cattle prod. He can hold it or it has a slot on the holster for it making it relatively easy for Dirk to carry all of his weapons. Well, except for the giant laser trap he comes in. We saw the net portion with Genghis Frog and it’s a repeat accessory here, only it also comes with its base which it just slots into. It’s a plastic box, but it’s well-painted and well-sculpted. Dirk also has his wire cuffs which should be able to fit around the wrists of most of the figures in this line. It’s joined by a soft plastic cable of sorts, though it doesn’t appear to have a bendy wire inside it. I wish he had a slot on his belt to store it, but it can be wrapped around the holster or an arm with relative ease if that’s your thing. All of the accessories look pretty great though and there’s plenty of paint to go around. The only downside is Dirk’s hands are all really stiff so getting him to hold his guns and baton is a challenge. You’re best off to just use some hot water to soften the hands first or else risk scraping the paint. Mondo Gecko also came with his control cuff so if you have that figure it’s like having yet another accessory for Dirk.

“Come quietly or be taken, mutant!” “No, my buddy! Release my buddy!”
Tokka and Rahzar can’t fit in the foot trap so Mona is going to have to help us out.

For articulation, Dirk is done surprisingly well. He has some issues with his design that are going to interfere, but overall I think he’s going to be thought of as one of the better figures in the line. His head is on a double ball peg with a ball joint at the base of the neck as well so he gets tons of range. He can look up, down, rotate, and can hit some nice nuance poses as well. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinges and he can lift his arms out to the side, but rotation is going to be hindered by the oversized shoulder pads. There’s a biceps swivel past that which works as expected and then the usual double-jointed elbows which will get past 90 degrees. My right, lower, hinge on the elbow is pretty stuck, but I also haven’t given it my all to get it loose and it’s the only stuck joint on my figure. The wrists swivel and have the less desirable horizontal hinge, as mentioned before. The diaphragm joint is likely a ball peg of some sort as Dirk can tilt back and forward a small amount as well as to the side and rotate. The waist twists and the ball-jointed hips will allow Dirk to hit some killer splits. He can rotate at the same joint and he kicks forward pretty far and kicks back a small amount. The knees are double-jointed and bend past 90 degrees and below that we get a boot cut which is hidden by the cuff of the boot. The ankles bend forward and back and also feature a rocker. About the only real limitation with this guys is that he doesn’t have a great ab crunch, but that’s typical of NECA, and then there’s the shoulder pads which get in the way. Even so, I think he has plenty of range for what he is and it’s a nice surprise.

Dirk is quietly one of the tallest figures in the line.
She’s something of a scientist.

Dirk’s box-mate is the lovely Mona Lisa, who was a chemistry student tragically mutated into a newt or something. She fights for the environment and it’s sort of interesting that she’s a bit of a brain, but she’s paired with Raph and not Donatello. Compared with Dirk, her design is far more simple. She’s essentially a nude, anthropomorphic, newt lady with a ton of brown hair on top of her head. The only clothing she wears is her pink scarf and a belt that seems to only exist to make her look less nude since it serves no function. She’s basically all green plastic, but in true NECA fashion, every inch of her is painted. She stands at a petite 5.25″ and the hair will take her close to 6″ if you want to go there. Her body features the toon shading, but her head and scarf do not. The only embellishment on her person is the stripe of light green on her torso and another stripe of dark green on her rear which runs down and over her tail. In the show, this light green on her torso was more yellow so it’s interesting that NECA went with green instead. The paint is pretty clean, especially the linework. The only blemish on my figure is a chip on the back of her ponytail, but otherwise she looks fine.

Mona’s accessories are a bit more academic than usual.

Mona Lisa, not being a ninja or a mutant hunter, comes with more benign accessories, but she still comes with a lot. We get four sets of hands with her: fists, open, gripping, and a set of open hands without webbing. I’m not sure why there’s a set of open hands without webbing, but maybe there’s one, off, scene in the episode where they forget to draw them in. She also has a set of books, a red one and a blue one, and one is labeled Chemistry and the other Physics because she’s something of a scientist. They don’t open or anything, but they look fine. She also has some chemistry accessories. There’s a trio of test tubes done with translucent plastic, but painted to make them resemble having a liquid inside. One is blue, one is green, and one is pink. They have a stand they slot into which actually works well. There’s also a flask and a stand for that. The flask is also done with translucent plastic and painted to make it look like it has a green liquid in it. Take note, Hasbro, this is how you properly do such an accessory as the ones that came with Beast look bad. This one also has a cork stopper on the top that’s actually removable – pretty neat! We also get yet another flask, this one with a pink liquid, and it has a straw or something coming out of it. Lastly, we get a second head and this one is angry. I will say, swapping heads is a little tough. It takes some good old-fashioned elbow grease to pull the default one off and the second one doesn’t want to go on easily. Some heat will help there. The hands are also surprisingly tough to swap as well. They’re on tiny pegs that are pretty long and barbed and I don’t think we needed the barb at the end. Her forearms are so thin that they probably would have stayed in fine without them. You may want to apply heat to the forearms as a result, but careful when doing so because if you heat the peg that could actually make things worse.

They look cute together.

Articulation for Mona is a bit in-line with what we expect out of this series from NECA. Her head is on a double-ball peg, but the lower ball is so far in her neck that she really can’t do much save for rotate and tilt forward a little. The shoulders are standard ball hinges that go all the way out to the side and rotate all around. Despite her slight frame, Mona Lisa gets a biceps swivel and double-jointed elbows and it all works just fine. There’s more of a delicate feel to them, but the elbows aren’t gummy which would have been a killer on this figure since the piece is so small. The hands swivel and hinge and the hinges are all horizontal. There is a waist twist behind the belt, so that belt at least does something here. It’s a ball joint so she can arch back a bit, but she doesn’t crunch forward really at all. There’s also not much tilt and the figure really fights the waist twist. It could just be that the belt is really tight or maybe it’s not spinning on the ball joint freely. The legs are of the ball and socket variety and she can kick forward all the way and kicks back a bit. She can do full splits and there’s some rotation at the thigh too. The knees are double-jointed and bend past 90 degrees while her ankles are hinged and bend forward and back plenty. I’m pretty sure she has ankle rockers as well, but mine are pretty stubborn and it feels like the peg is bending when I try to engage them. Her tail is also articulated and it’s on a ball-hinge joint. It rotates and has some in and out movement as well which makes it useful as a third leg if you feel it’s warranted. She articulates well enough, especially if the ankle rockers are unique to my figure and not a widespread thing. The only real limitation that shouldn’t exist is with the head, but maybe because her head is so heavy due to her hair that NECA prioritized stability over range of motion. The “diaper” piece at the hips is one of the least inhibitive I’ve seen in this line so she has great range of motion below the waist which is helpful when finding poses.

“Don’t worry, Raph, this will be good for you.”
“Mona! What did you do to me?!”

Dirk Savage and Mona Lisa may be an odd pair for a two-pack, but they’re two characters done pretty well. Mona Lisa is a more simple, and thus less flashy, design, but her engineering and accessories are pretty fun and for fans of the character I think they’ll be quite pleased. Dirk Savage does pack that extra “bang” by virtue of his design and accessories. He poses very well for this line and his accessories give him a lot of variety when hunting for that perfect, shelf, pose. Considering we already had one of his accessories via the frogs and Tokka and Rahzar were targets of his, adding him to the collection feels like it makes that small segment of the property complete.

Share a pizza with someone you love.

This two-pack is exclusive to Target stores and will set you back $60 like the other two-packs released during this Haulathon event. Given the accessory loadout and the fact that both figures feature all new tooling this one feels like it earns that price tag better than some of the others. The online drop for this set has come and gone, but more seem to be shipping out so keep an eye on your local stores if you’re in need. Last fall’s sets, which featured similarly obscure characters, are still being found in the wild so there’s reason for optimism if you missed the initial release that these will be easy to come by as well once the initial rush dies down. Like the other two-packs we’ve seen recently, this one might not be for the casuals, but if you like good toys or remember either character there’s probably enough here to entice you. And I think those who do take the plunge will come away feeling pretty good about their decision.

More from the world of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tokka and Rahzar

There is certainly a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles product flying around these days, but I would guess collectors and fans of the property are paying the most attention to two toy makers in particular: NECA and Super7. One search for “NECA” on this blog will reveal that the company has produced a ton…

by Joe

NECA TMNT Cartoon Rasputin and Genghis

During Season Two of the classic cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the world was introduced to the Punk Frogs. Despite their name, there was nothing particularly punk about these mutated amphibians as they all dressed like they were going to a Jimmy Buffett concert. They make a few return appearances in the show, and given…

by Joe

NECA TMNT “Shred, Mondo, Shred!” Deluxe Mondo Gecko

When we took a look at NECA’s Muckman from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon line of action figures, I mentioned how Muckman was supposed to be released in a two-pack with Mondo Gecko. That obviously didn’t happen and it’s because the figures just got too expensive for the two-pack format. Rather than release a…

by Joe

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

April 18, 2023

NECA TMNT Adventures Jagwar

By Joe
Let’s rock!

The next figure in NECA’s line based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic series is a much anticipated one for fans of those books and its spin-off The Mighty Mutanimals. And that’s because this character is making his debut in plastic. Previously, we looked at Slash who has been pretty well-represented in some form or another in most versions of the franchise. Last week was Man Ray’s turn, and while technically a new debut, he’s basically Ray Fillet from the old toy line so the anticipation level wasn’t quite the same. For Jagwar, we’re talking something completely new to the world of TMNT action figures. Like a lot of characters that make up the expanded universe of TMNT, Jagwar began life as an action figure concept for Playmates since Mirage Studios and its artists basically were churning those out in the 80s. He was rejected, for one reason or another, but he got a second chance at life with the comic series. In that, he was actually not a mutant jaguar, but the result of some lady getting it on with a Jaguar god. I guess that makes him a demigod or something? I don’t make the rules, so call him what you will. He’s a crusader for the Brazilian rainforest and his exploits have a real world connection in that they were influenced by activist Chico Mendes, who was unfortunately assassinated for his work in saving the rainforests of Brazil. He was even made an ally of Jagwar’s in the comics and he’s basically carrying on his legacy which is pretty cool.

Who doesn’t want to be friends with a jaguar demigod?

Jagwar would befriend the turtles and then go on to become a founding member of The Mighty Mutanimals, and it’s from those books that this action figure from NECA appears to take most of its inspiration. During Jagwar’s earlier depictions, he was drawn with solid spots on his body and I think he even had a skull pattern on his forehead, but later the the spots turned to ring shapes which this figure utilizes and the skull was dropped. Jagwar, like the other figures in this line, is also based on the art of Ken Mitchroney so he’s somewhat stylized to resemble how he would draw the character. He also did the box art and the shape of the box is more in-line with what we saw with Slash as Man Ray had to go with an oversized one to accommodate his added bulk. Jagwar was first released as part of the Haulathon event with Target which is over at this point, but he may still be getting shipped out to Target stores. He is expected to eventually show up elsewhere including other big box retailers as well as specialty retail so if you missed out on this guy just keep your eyes open at other venues as he’s not likely to be too hard to come by.

I like that both he and Man Ray come with “sexy” faces.

Out of the box, Jagwar stands approximately 6.25″. He’s a mostly naked jaguar guy who just wears a necklace of leaves to go along with the same at the wrists and waist. The necklace is a separate piece that pegs into the back and chest so it doesn’t move all over the place. I assume it’s reinforced with glue, but I could be wrong. It definitely doesn’t appear to want to come out. The leaves at the wrist are more of the floating variety and could be slid off if desired while the leaves at the waist are done in a similar fashion to the necklace so they’re pretty locked in. The body is done in orange and painted over as well, which NECA often does. The only other paint needed are for the spots and some black linework here and there. The spots are done in brown, which seems consistent with the books, and my only critique here is that the opacity seems to vary between the limbs and torso giving some rings a darker look than others. There’s also no paint on the hands aside from the orange which makes them look a bit plain. I would have at least liked some linework around the claws and I’m going to assume having the claws match his fur is consistent with the source material. The head, which features a comical expression, has some nice linework and the eyes are rather cleanly applied so that is all in order. I think the expression some may take issue with as it is a bit odd, but we do have another head to talk about when we get to accessories so I think it’s fine. It has that toon vibe I associate with the Archie series so I don’t mind it.

“Am I supposed to eat this?”

And for those accessories, we have some interesting stuff and some pretty typical items. For hands, Jagwar has a set of fists, gripping hands, and open, style posed, hands. The gripping hands have a standard horizontal hinge and feature a pretty wide grip and they’re not really suited for much of what he comes with. And as for things he can hold, we get a little Malignoid slug, baby, worm, thing. It’s painted in blue and has a rather wicked head on the end of it. Mine is defective in that it’s missing its lower jaw, though it’s not something I even knew about until I saw another one. It’s pretty fat though so it doesn’t fit into his gripping hands effortlessly and you’ll probably end up leaving some orange paint behind on it when pulling it out. His other item for gripping is a stick going through a purple fish. It looks fine, but it’s almost too thin for the gripping hands. At the fattest portion, the figure still can’t really get a good grip on it, but you can position it to stay in his hand. The paint is really nice on the fish though I’m a little surprised he doesn’t have “X” eyes. Jagwar also comes with a little campfire to cook his fish over. It looks fine and the fire itself is done entirely with paint as opposed to translucent plastic. There’s also a bowl of fruit for when he’s not in the mood for fish and it looks fine too, but in the end, is just a bowl of fruit. There’s also a baby Jagwar so he can hold a baby version of himself and create a wicked time paradox. Lastly, we have a second head and in keeping with Man Ray there’s a cockyness to this expression. His eyes are narrow and I can’t decide if he’s ready to throw down or looking to attract a mate. It’s fun though and I have a feeling a lot of people will use this head in place of the more cartoonish one.

“Now that’s more like it!”

The accessories for Jagwar aren’t terrible, but do feel a bit lackluster. He did sometimes use a blow gun so I’m surprised to see that omitted, but regardless, he can make up for that with the articulation. Jagwar is pretty much all new tooling, and if anything is repeated it’s not obvious to me. As such, it will be interesting to see how he moves. The head is on a double-ball peg and it has terrific range. He can rotate, tilt, look up, look down, the whole nine yards. There’s no joint at the base of the neck, but he doesn’t seem to need it. The jaw on both heads is articulated, but it doesn’t open as far as I’d like on either. It doesn’t get ugly though, so that’s a plus. The shoulders are the customary ball hinge joints and Jagwar can raise his arms out to the side to about horizontal and rotate freely. We have a biceps swivel and single-hinged elbows. I’m a little surprised at the lack of double elbows here, but he can at least achieve a 90 degree bend. There’s a slight swivel at the joint too, but it doesn’t have much range and I don’t think the goal was to get much there either. The wrists swivel and hinge and all of the hinges are horizontal. They were also the only joints I’d consider stuck, but I was able to get them moving without having to resort to heating them. In the torso, we get a diaphragm joint that mostly allows for rotation. You get a little bend back, no crunch forward, and some tilt. The waist also has a waist twist. At the hips, we get the ball and socket joints that allow for the figure to almost hit a full split, but the leaves at the waist prevent the legs from going out to the side as far as they could. There is a little thigh twist there and the legs kick forward to almost horizontal (again, the leaves get in the way) and kick back a little. The knees are double-jointed and work fine while the ankles have the customary hinge and rocker combination which also works fine. Lastly, we have a wired tail on a little ball hinge that rotates and can be positioned pretty well. The wire is also strong enough that you could use the tail to help stabilize the figure if you so wanted to.

“I am freaking out here!”
And this isn’t even the “camping” variant of Jagwar!

Jagwar moves pretty well for this line. I’m a little disappointed that NECA didn’t separate some of the leaves at the waist to provide some pathways for the legs as I’m sure they could bend further without the obstruction. We saw a similar situation with the Chakahachi figure from the toon line where the sculpt has room to be modified with the goal to achieve better range at the hips, but NECA opted not to do so. I’m guessing they were worried about the durability of the soft plastic if they had cut into it, but I think they could have found a way. The diaphragm joint also could be better as I’m surprised it gets virtually no range bending forward. This is a character who should have a lot of articulation so while I normally go soft on the criticisms when it comes to that area, I think this is one of the few characters that should have a bit more. Even with those shortcomings, he still poses pretty well which is a good thing because his accessories don’t offer a whole lot there. You can have him holding a bowl of fruit or roasting a fish over a fire, but that’s not likely to be how most assemble the Mutanimals on their shelf.

The Mutanimals are starting to come together…

Was the wait worth it? Considering fans of Jagwar have been waiting for over 30 years for this I would have to guess that the answer is “No,” because how could it have been worth it? So many versions of TMNT have come and gone since without a Jagwar and that’s pretty surprising. If we’re just going back to when NECA got the license then I think the answer is “Yes.” Jagwar looks pretty cool and he’ll look good with his buddies, the ones already out and the ones likely to come. There’s certainly some room for improvement, but at the more normal price of $35 I think I can safely recommend Jagwar to fans of the Archie universe of characters and to those collectors that just want to mix him into their toon display. Archie fans, at long last your wait is over.

NECA TMNT Adventures Series Slash

As NECA continues to find success with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines of action figures, the company has sought to branch out beyond the usual source material in an effort to give collectors more of what they want and also likely to just keep the hype train rolling. NECA started first with doing figures…

Keep reading
by Joe

TMNT Loot Crate Series 2 Vol. 2 – Pixelated Shark Boy

2022 is nearly in the books. As we countdown the final hours and minutes until 2023, it feels good to say that the new year will begin with no further Loot Crate obligations. That’s because after a delay of more than a year, the second crate in Loot Crate’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series of…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA TMNT Adventures Man Ray

Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

April 11, 2023

NECA TMNT Adventures Man Ray

By Joe
Sexy fish man is here to dispense some justice!

Back when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ruled the world, there was a lot of brand synergy between all of the various media being generated by this one mega popular piece of intellectual property. The comics came first followed by a toyline which necessitated the creation of an animated mini series to basically serve as a commercial. When the toys and cartoon took off, more episodes were ordered and certainly more toys were created, but the comics remained as they were. Which is to say they were pretty much intended for an entirely different audience. Enter Adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, whatever you want to call it. It was a comic that started off as an adaptation of the animated series, but pretty quickly became its own thing. Published by Archie Comics, it was the kiddie comic though it would actually get far more mature than the cartoon series ever did. Characters created for the toy line would show up in the cartoon and sometimes in the Archie books as well. When that happened there tended to be differences and we saw that with the first figure in this subline from NECA: Slash. Now we have another one in Man Ray, who non-readers likely know as Ray Fillet. The character is credited to Stephen Murphy and Ryan Brown, and it’s my understanding that the concept of Ray Fillet came first for the toyline, but was imported into the comic as Man Ray. The two look very similar, but there are some differences. As for the cartoon version, he was named Ray and really couldn’t be much more different. If we ever get a Ray toy we’ll get into that there, for now, let’s talk about Man Ray.

Do you prefer your Man Ray angry or sultry?

Man Ray debuted in issue number 5 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures and he had a fairly standard origin for this kind of property. Marine biologist Jack Finney touches a manta ray, comes in contact with the mutagen, and is turned into a mutant superhero. He looks like a humanoid manta ray and he can command sea creatures like a more famous hero from the pages of Detective Comics. He fights for all of the usual stuff, but also has an ecological bent which I can appreciate. Of course, we’ll ignore the fact that we’re talking about a mass-produced lump of plastic in the character’s image which is doing who knows how much harm to our present environment. Man Ray would also go on to join The Mighty Mutanimals, the offshoot series for TMNT, where he’d work alongside the likes of Slash, Leatherhead, and more. As the second release in the Adventures line, Man Ray is a logical choice. He seems to have a pretty strong following in the fanbase as a lot of people my age really liked that Ray Fillet figure, myself included. I also had his origin story, though I don’t think it was the comic, but rather an adaption as a children’s book that I have long since lost track of. And since he didn’t really appear in the cartoon series it also makes sense to get to him early as collectors will want the character as either the Archie Comics character or just as a stand-in for Ray Fillet in their toon display.

Man Ray comes in a slightly oversized box relative to Slash which once again features original artwork from artist Ken Mitchroney. I personally love Ken’s art and I think it has the right aesthetic to really separate it from both the work of Mirage Studios and the cartoon. The figure itself is also based on Ken’s style and this one is presently showing up as part of NECA and Target’s Haulathon. Unfortunately, by the time you read this the online drop will have past and possibly even restocks at the store as Man Ray was part of the initial wave of product. If he’s anything like Slash then he may hang around so it shouldn’t be too hard to get your mitts on this figure. And if you miss him entirely he should eventually show up at other retail outlets. He’s just debuting at Target, he’s not exclusive.

Flight stands are going to be tricky with this guy.

Once out of the packaging, Man Ray stands at approximately 6.5″ to the top of his head and closer to 7″ if you factor in the…horns? I don’t know much about manta ray anatomy. He’s clad in his green and yellow suit which I suppose is the character’s default look. He had several looks in the comics so bigger fans would have to tell me if this is the most appropriate. His skin is a very rich shade of blue and it’s what really stands out the most. I love it, but I also love the color blue, and all over his body are little areas of sculpted-in scales. The scales ate outlined in black, as are his muscles, and he has a very superhero look to him. The paint is super clean given the abundance of it and I’m really impressed with the piping on the costume and how well NECA handled the white stripes. He has those big fins on his back which are permanently affixed and there’s a tail that has to be inserted by the user. The tail and fins are done in a light shade of blue which contrasts nicely with the main body. The sculpt for the head looks terrific as he’s pretty angry looking and ready to throw down. The only blemish with the presentation I notice is with the boots and specifically the hinge there. He has a white stripe right down the center of the boot so NECA cast the hinge in white plastic. When the hinge is visible from the front, it’s a bit of an eyesore, but going with white is better than having a yellow gap. On the rear though you get a white block of color amongst all yellow because the stripe is only on the front. There’s not really much NECA could do about that without changing up how they articulate ankles. The April figure had a similar issue, but at least it’s a blemish largely confined to the rear of the figure and it makes sense to do it this way given that.

Man Ray comes with not just one little buddy…

Man Ray comes with a bunch of stuff in his rather large box and the first thing we tend to talk about are the hands. In the box you have fisted hands, wide gripping hands, a right trigger finger hand, a left relaxed hand, and a left splayed hand. The very wide gripping hands are so he can carry his harpoon gun in a more casual manner as seen on the cover of his debut appearance. The trigger finger hand is to hold said harpoon gun in a more conventional manner, though the trigger finger just barely can touch the actual trigger. The gun looks fine though as it’s brown and gray and features a lot of line work on it. Man Ray also has a second portrait which is this cocky, almost flirty, sort of grin. This is the type of fish Troy McClure would love to have an encounter with. Man Ray also comes with a little sea turtle who I guess is a stand-in for his summoning powers. He’s cute and really well painted, but is otherwise a slug figure. He also has a little buddy, Bubbla, who looks like a lobster or crayfish type of creature and was apparently based on the little buddy figure the toy came with, Fishsticks, though they look nothing alike. Bubbla looks a bit irritated, but he’s well painted and stands nicely on a shelf and is a fun inclusion.

…but two little buddies when you count this turtle here!

Where these NECA reviews have been going off the rails a bit lately is with articulation, and perhaps to no one’s surprise, Man Ray isn’t going to impress here. For one, we’re dealing with a character that has no neck and giant fins on his back. Despite the no neck, the head is on a double ball peg which is mostly good for rotation. He can tilt forward and back a bit, but really moving the head at all breaks up the sculpt and he looks pretty silly as a result. It can kind of shimmy side-to-side which works better than rotating it, but it is what it is. The shoulders are the usual ball-hinged joint that just pegs in. The arms will go as far as they can until they strike the fins and raising them out to the side won’t quite get to horizontal. There is a biceps swivel and below that a single-hinged elbow. There’s a generous cut-out in the forearm for the hinge so it will bend a tick past 90 degrees. The wrists rotate and hinge and all of the hinges are a horizontal hinge including the trigger hand. The hinges are also cut a bit off-center which I assume is intentional. They’re all also super tight and most won’t work for me. Swapping hands is at least easy, though swapping heads required heat.

“How dare you pollute my ocean, Shredder!”

In the torso, we get a diaphragm joint that feels like a double ball peg system. Man Ray doesn’t bend back very far, nor does he crunch forward much, but you do get a generous amount of tilt on the joint plus rotation. You probably want to be gentle though so as not to scuff the abdomen. There’s no waist joint and the hips are the standard ball joints. Man Ray can basically do splits as the diaper overlay is cut way back which I like a lot. The thigh will swivel a bit on the joint and below that we have double-jointed knees. They’re very tight and manipulating them past 90 degrees is a challenge because they strike the fins. Kicking backwards also doesn’t work very well for the same reason, but he can kick forward a decent amount though his legs want to go off towards the side when doing so. There is no boot cut and the ankles have the previously mentioned hinge joint and rocker, both function well. Lastly, we have the tail which is a ball-hinged joint that gets decent range. The tail itself also has a bendy wire running through it for a little extra something. Man Ray stands pretty well, but the tail can also add stability if you feel it’s warranted or if you have him in a more unnatural pose. There is a lot of weight to this figure, but it feels like it’s pretty well-distributed and the big feet and tight joints will help to keep him upright.

We’re slowly putting together the Mutanimals!

Man Ray is a pretty typical release for NECA and it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles offerings. The sculpt and paint are all terrific while the articulation is just so-so. Man Ray does have some hurdles to deal with unique to his design, so I can forgive NECA for that. I think he’s going to move well enough and it’s hard for me to quibble too much with the articulation setup given how nice the sculpt turned out. And when it comes to the look of this guy I’m pretty much in love. I love the colors, I love the expressiveness of the face sculpts, and the detail work is fantastic. The accessories are solid and I might just display him in a superhero pose without the gun because I don’t think he needs it. The only other thing left to discuss is the price tag which comes in at $40 making Man Ray not as cheap as Slash and some other recent releases, but less than Zog. I guess he’s a little more involved than some other figures, but it’s hard not to get the feeling that NECA started at $40 and then added on stuff to get to that price like the turtle and Bubbla. Slash was somewhat bare bones, but also using an older mold. Jagwar, another character we will be looking at in due time, is $35 with all new tooling, lots of accessories, and plenty of paint. Maybe NECA figures to reuse some parts from that one later on? I’m not sure and I don’t know the economics of the situation I just know what’s on my shelf and what it cost me. At $40, Man Ray isn’t the value some other figures are. I do think he looks great though so I’m not exactly saying he isn’t worth it, but I do wish he could have been cheaper. And for fans of the Mighty Mutanimals, I suspect he’ll be worth it to them too as NECA is building up that team and it certainly seems like a priority for the company so I suspect we’ll be talking about them for awhile to come.

Like TMNT comics or TV show action figures? We’ve got you covered:

NECA TMNT Adventures Series Slash

As NECA continues to find success with its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lines of action figures, the company has sought to branch out beyond the usual source material in an effort to give collectors more of what they want and also likely to just keep the hype train rolling. NECA started first with doing figures…

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by Joe

NECA TMNT Mirage Studios Shredder Clones

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

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by Joe

NECA TMNT “Shred, Mondo, Shred!” Deluxe Mondo Gecko

When we took a look at NECA’s Muckman from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon line of action figures, I mentioned how Muckman was supposed to be released in a two-pack with Mondo Gecko. That obviously didn’t happen and it’s because the figures just got too expensive for the two-pack format. Rather than release a…

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by Joe

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

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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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

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

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.

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