Tag Archives: teenage mutant ninja turtles

November 1, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Scratch

By Joe

Nothing to see here, folks. Just a couple of fellas in striped pajamas minding their own business.

Ask a casual fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who Scratch is and it’s possible they’ll have no idea who you’re talking about. Ask a collector of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures who Scratch is and their eyes will shift to one of longing. Scratch the cat was a late entrant in the classic line of Playmates action figures. He was originally released in 1993 when the basic assortment of TMNT figures had shrunk to just 7. In their place were figures based on a new movie, the toon subline, cave turtles, mutating turtles, and a bunch of other gimmicks. Kids had basically grown bored with the franchise, so Playmates was throwing a bunch of different tricks at them to try to cling to a demographic that had been obsessed with their product for a few years at this point. And a few years for a children’s toyline can sometimes feel like an eternity.

So it was that Scratch, Halfcourt, Hot Spot, and the other figures from ’93 went somewhat ignored. They were also produced in fewer numbers compared with the basic assortment of the prior years, and the people who were buying them were kids which meant they’d get beat up, broken, donated, etc. As a result, they’re even harder to find today and if you have a mint, carded, Scratch or one of those other guys from ’93 then you have yourself a decent little payday in front of you, should you wish to sell. And for whatever reason, Scratch has become “the one” from that assortment and for collectors of the line he’s become a bit of a grail piece, despite the fact that there are other figures more rare in the line. Because of his infamy, it’s not surprising that Super7 would turn to the character that went unloved nearly 30 years ago, but so many are after today.

In 1993, I was barely clinging to my TMNT fandom. I saw the third film and liked it enough and would get it on VHS later that year. I had Cave Turtle Leonardo from the prior year and was very smitten with that year’s Turtle Trolls. It was also the year I bought my final TMNT figure until 2003, a Ninja-flipping Raphael. Otherwise, I was really into X-Men and the offerings from ToyBiz. Plus, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers debuted that summer and set the toy world on fire as well. And I can remember encountering that basic assortment like Hot Spot, Mona Lisa, and yes, Scratch, and my take then was “Wow, these look stupid.” And they kind of were. Mona Lisa is fine, but Hot Spot? He’s a mutant dalmatian that is a fire fighter – how creative? Scratch is a mutant cat burglar who….wait for it…is a cat! They’re two of the laziest designs put out by Playmates and are totally unremarkable as characters and as action figures. If that’s the case, why did I bother with this updated version of a character that I think is kind of lame? The answer is: I don’t know! When the solicitation went up, I didn’t give it much thought. I guess I liked the idea of a figure with a ball and chain and I was intrigued by the presence of a diaphragm joint and what looked like a fairly ambitious paint job, by Super7 standards. I don’t know if that should have been enough to get me to drop $55 on the figure, but it did so here we are.

It’s starting to feel like a rarity to get a non-turtle in this line that isn’t massive.

Scratch is one of those figures that can best be described as “what you see, is what you get.” He stands about 6.5″ in height and comes in a standard sized box. He’s sporting an old timey jailbird outfit, so white jumpsuit with black stripes. He’s got a cat burglar mask and a little hat too. Like many, many, figures from Playmates, he has one foot sporting a boot and one that’s bare. The booted foot is also shackled and a bluish-grayish ball is attached to the shackle via an actual chain. Around his neck is a piece of black thread with a small nail file attached for busting out of jail. His clothing is mostly in tatters as he’s either gotten into some scrums in prison or his escape act left him a bit worse for ware. It was a pretty bland design in 1993, and it’s really no better in 2022. I suppose the thinking here is that the large scale of this line can improve the sculpt and the added paint can elevate it. And I suppose it does. Kind of. His face is very expressive and every piece of exposed flesh is nicely textured to simulate fur. There’s no texture to the clothing, but there are numerous rips and the folds of which are sculpted on. I like that his prison uniform was apparently custom made because it continues onto his tail, though it’s pretty torn. The end of his tail is wrapped as well, like many a cartoon cat. The shackle on the left ankle is a bit odd though. It’s part of the sculpt, which was true of the original toy, but it feels like this is something Super7 could have improved upon by making it removable. The area between the curved bar of the lock and the actual lock itself is also filled in with plastic so it doesn’t look as good as it could. The actual ball portion can be removed since it’s just affixed via a small, weak, chain, so if you wish you can simply bend the last link and slide it off, though each time you do you likely risk the link just breaking all together.

Looks like they messed up Scratch’s missing tooth. That white indent is probably supposed to be painted black.

Excepting the shackle, I think the sculpt looks pretty good from a technical standpoint. Whether or not you like the character design is certainly subjective. The paint though is a bit of a mixed bag. The fur is the standout. Scratch is basically a light brown with a red-brown overcoat. The hands, the feet, the face – all look good. The teeth and the mask are especially clean, though the factory screwed up Scratch’s missing tooth by basically painting the gap as if a tooth were there which just looks strange. It also looks like they missed the black outline for his right fang as it’s present on the left side. The jail suit is a little less impressive. Scratch appears to be mostly cast in white plastic so the black lines and the exposed fur are all painted effects. This is a sound strategy, but may have been a little too much for Super7 to handle. There are numerous places where the paint doesn’t go far enough to the edge of the clothing and doesn’t look great. It’s especially noticeable on the wrappings on his tail. The rip around his right shoulder also looks weird because the arm is cast in white, but it looks like the rip should result in an exposed armpit, but doesn’t. There’s also a scuff on one of the black lines on my figure’s left leg. Interestingly enough, some of the spots that look hard to paint turned out very well. There’s a thin rip at the base of his rib cage on his left side that’s nice and clean and the little slashes on his left thigh all look great. “Mixed bag” is probably the best way to describe this one when you’re talking paint.

Scratch, being one of the more generic character designs in this line, should be one of the best articulated as a result. There’s no shell to work around, he’s not super chunky, or an alligator, he’s basically a humanoid character that just happens to be covered in fur and features a tail. Again, you would think that would bode well for Scratch, but eh, more mixed bag. It starts at the head where Scratch is surprisingly locked down. He basically can’t look up at all and only down a little because his head sits so low on the neck, which is unarticulated. He does get a little tilt to each side and can rotate, but the lack of up and down is disappointing. At the shoulder, he can just hit horizontal and rotates all the way, of course. There is no biceps swivel once again, and instead we get an elbow swivel that can at least go all the way around. The hinge there can’t hit a 90 degree bend which continues to be a disappointment. Yeah, there’s little different between 90 and almost 90, but the goal here is to be able to go past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge and Scratch does have a vertical hinge for his trigger hand, so that’s a plus. In the torso we have a new joint not featured on other figures in the line which is at the diaphragm. It feels like a ball joint, and it allows Scratch to rotate a little bit and he seems to have more range rotating to his right. He can’t really bend back far, but he does crunch forward a bit. You also get some nuance posing which I like. It’s not amazing, but being able to break-up the torso like this adds more than you think. At the waist we have a twist that is surprisingly tight. He can’t go all the way around, or at least he doesn’t want to and I’m not going to force it. The hips can go out to the side to almost a full split and he kicks forward well and there’s a bit of a thigh swivel. At the knee, we have the standard single hinge and swivel which rotates all the way around on the right leg, but does more of a pivot on the left. The right leg can hit a 90 degree bend, or close to one, while the left knee barely does anything because of it’s shape. It’s a poor design as there’s nothing unique about this guy preventing better range. The ankle hinges and can rock to the side, and just like the knee, the right foot is far more functional than the left though the ankle rocker is more like a swivel on the right foot than a true pivot. Lastly, the tail is on a ball peg and doesn’t do much of anything save for swivel around. Trying to pose it any other way is likely to just result in it popping off.

At least he has the right hinge for his trigger hand!

The articulation continues to be a weak spot for this line and Scratch is, in some ways, more disappointing than most. As I said before, there’s nothing about this character’s design that should make the articulation hard to implement, but it still comes up short. With the knees and elbows, they’re just not allowing for enough room to add in the necessary range. Don’t do double-hinges if you don’t like them, but single-hinged joints should work better than this. A double-ball peg approach to the waist would add a lot of nuance as well, and Super7 needs to allow for more clearance at the head. I should also add, the joints on the knees are painted so you’ll want to be careful there. The right calf is actually cast in clear plastic, so it’s not too unsightly if some of that paint rubs off of the hinge. The left calf is in white and part of the stripe by his knee is painted onto it. The knee barely moves as it is so most should be okay, but it’s something to be mindful of. As far as tolerance goes, Scratch is definitely more in-line with Slash than he is with the Wave 5 releases. Most of the figure moves fine, though that diaphragm joint is a bit loose. It will flop a bit if you shake the figure, but otherwise seems to hold its pose okay. The hips are fine and so are the wrist hinges and waist.

This is definitely intentional. Image on the left is from the excellent Rad Plastic.

So far I would categorize this review as merely okay, but Scratch has one last chance to impress and that’s with his accessories. Scratch is pretty well loaded with stuff and it starts with an assortment of hands. Scratch has a set of fists, gripping hands, style pose hands, and trigger finger hands. The gripping hands feature a different grip for each so one is tighter than other. His left trigger finger hand has a horizontal hinge, which is useless, but the right has a vertical hinge. I don’t know why they did it that way, but as long as we have one good trigger hand I’m content. Scratch also has an alternate portrait and this one features more of a closed mouth and side-eyed glance. I don’t normally like side-eye expressions, but something about this one works for me. It’s a little more toony in the eyes as there’s no exposed eyelid so I might settle on this one for my display. This expression also dates back to an uncovered clay sculpture for the original figure, which was done by Anaglyph, and was apparently considered for the final figure (image above is from the wonderful TMNT toy resource Rad Plastic). Getting the head and hands off is no problem, though seating the second head is a bit of a pain, but doable without heat.

I’ve seen Sylvester the cat have to settle for worse.

For those hands, Scratch has a few items he can wield. I already mentioned the small file dangling from a rope around his neck, but he also has a large one he can kind of hold in the tighter gripping hand. It’s cast in that same blue-gray as the smaller file and the steel ball and it looks fine. There’s a dead fish for Scratch to apparently snack on that’s also the same blue-gray color, which is weird, but has some yellow, painted-on, eyes. There’s a claw hammer for Scratch to smack stuff with and it’s fully painted and fits well on the other gripping hand. There’s a sack of money and it’s really well painted. It’s flat on the bottom so it’s designed to be placed on a surface and it’s sculpted to look like the gold coins inside are spilling out. You can put it in his hand if you want though, but it will look weird. My favorite accessory though is the cake gun. It’s a handgun with a slice of cake over it implying that Scratch snuck it into prison in an actual cake and pulled this sucker out. It’s goofy, but reflective of the vintage line. I’m left wishing Super7 gave us the rest of the cake. Lastly, Scratch comes with a buddy figure named Jailbird. Again, pretty weak design as he’s just a bird in a prison uniform, but who didn’t like getting a little buddy figure in the vintage line? Jailbird is well painted and in a casual pose where he looks like he’s flipping a coin. I think he’s supposed to be a hawk, though he’s purple. He doesn’t stand totally upright, which bugs me a little, and features zero articulation. At least he’s fully painted. There’s also a weapon sprue for Scratch and it’s cast in yellow like the vintage toy, though it appears to be a paler yellow. The ball and chain accessory makes up the outer part of the sprue, with the file, cake gun, fish, and hammer inside it. The shackle doesn’t open or anything so I don’t see how you could get it on the figure without removing a foot. It’s more for those who want Scratch to wield yellow weapons though, but still feels rather pointless. It’s no surprise then that these look like they’re going to be phased out in the next wave.

He’s going to need those tools if he wants to get that shackle off.

At the end of the day, Scratch was a fairly unremarkable figure in the vintage line, and he’s close to that in the Super7 line. He’s a little better than unremarkable and that’s mostly accomplished with the accessories. I love the cake gun and the money bag is one of the better painted items I’ve received from Super7. The hammer, file, and dead fish are done well, but aren’t particularly exciting. I do like the alternate head, and the ball and chain is basically an accessory too and one that’s pretty fun. The vintage figure did not have the actual ball and chain, but did have the shackle, so I guess it isn’t a terrible thing that the shackle isn’t removable. You can make this display like the vintage toy, though going the extra mile there would have been cool. The articulation is subpar though. He’s better than some of the other figures in the line in that regard, but those figures were poorly articulated so that makes Scratch just underwhelming by comparison. I think Super7 can do better and I’d like to see them try. The paint is at least more ambitious than some of the figures in the line, even if it isn’t exactly a homerun. He’ll look fine on a shelf, but closer scrutiny leaves something to be desired.

Your fondness for Scratch will likely come down to your subjective reaction to the character design, which I don’t hate, I just find boring. There’s enough here in the accessories and overall look to leave me content, but this figure will never enter my mind when I’m trying to pick my favorite from this line. That’s also true of the opposite though as he’s far from the worst and if anything collectors should feel okay about the quality of the product coming out of Wave 6 considering how shaky Wave 5 turned out. And even as I say all of this, I can’t deny that I had more fun than usual snapping pictures of this guy, utilizing my own cat’s carrier, and such. Scratch is a corny design that’s been elevated due to the scarcity of the original figure and for many longtime TMNT collectors this is as close as they’re going to get to that figure. If you have always desired Scratch the action figure, then this should “scratch” that itch. It’s unarguably a better, more enjoyable, figure than the vintage release and should look fine with the rest of your collection. On the other hand, if you see a figure of a literal cat burglar and it does nothing for you then you probably won’t miss this one. I give it a measured recommend for that reason.

1 Comment | tags: action figures, anaglyph, playmates, scratch, super7, super7 ultimates!, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in toys

October 25, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Leatherhead

By Joe

Time to meet the good old boy, or gator, or whatever.

When we last looked at a wave 5 release in Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates! it didn’t go that well. Sewer Samurai Leonardo wasn’t an abysmal failure, but it had some problems that really took some of the shine off of the release. It was the type of thing that really shouldn’t occur at this price point when it comes to action figures, so I approached my next Wave 5 release with some trepidation, but I’m happy to say that this one is a better, overall, experience. It’s not without it’s flaws, but they’re more acceptable than what we saw with Leonardo.

Leatherhead is another big boy, but not necessarily when it comes to height.

When Wave 5 went up for sale, I initially only pre-ordered Leonardo. Some time later I put in for Ray Fillet, but as time went on I fell out of love with that decision. The one I was on the fence about from day one though was Leatherhead. When it comes to this line, I’m finding the attraction for me is either a love of the original figure from Playmates, or I’m just blown away by the larger scale. With Leatherhead, I never had that old figure and it wasn’t some giant hole in my collection. I’m pretty sure I wanted it, as when I had a friend over that brought the figure with him I remember being happy he forgot it as he was getting ready to leave, only for his mom to remind him not to forget his toys. Damn! When the Super7 solicitation came out though it was clear Leatherhead was going to be the big boy of Wave 5, but I wanted to see the final product before putting in an order. When they started to trickle out, I decided to take the plunge, though I was a bit afraid I was going to get burned. It was a daily decision, do I keep my preorder or drop it? Then it came in stock and the decision was made, so lets check it out!

This box is stupid big. On the left is the slipcase and on the right is the actual box with a standard sized one in the middle.

Leatherhead comes in a massive version of Super7’s standard Ultimates! packaging. It has an extra 2″ of depth which really makes a difference. By height, it’s basically the same, but they must have found themselves in no man’s land when it came to the figure. I’m surprised they didn’t package him with a profile view instead, but the box is certainly an attention grabber as a result. The figure itself isn’t massive in the same way that Bebop or Muckman is. By height, he’s about 6.25″ to the top of his head and approaches 7″ when you factor in the hat. He doesn’t really stand fully upright, so his height is deceiving. Where the size comes in is from his depth. He’s a gator, so he has a massive snout plus a tail, though that comes disassembled form the figure in the box. In the same stance as I took the heigh measurement, his length is approximately 9.5″ which can actually be made longer if you crouch him down into a pose more resembling the vintage figure.

And this is why the box had to be made so deep. Granted, the tail isn’t on in the box.

Leatherhead is a uniquely sized beast for this line, but he’s still fundamentally a Super7 release. Most of the figure features sculpted plastic done in a base color that negates a need for paint. Or at least, that’s the thinking. The scaled texture of his green flesh looks nice and his belly is less scaled, though still green unlike a real alligator. There is a hint of a wash on his hands and maybe a touch on the neck, chest, and tail. What’s there is extremely subtle and I wish there was more of it since this guy came out of a swamp. He should be grimy and gross. His vest is sculpted in a marigold color and that has a wash applied to add some texture to it. Parts of the pants and boots are painted, but the right leg is a little off. He has a torn knee in his jeans on that side so they sculpted it in green and painted the blue onto it, but it doesn’t match the thigh. A wash to make those jeans look dirty might have helped to conceal that, but oh well. The painted parts of the boots also don’t match the colored portions, and it seems to stand out even more in pictures than it does in reality. On the face, his eyes are painted well and his blonde eyebrows look okay. The teeth are a bit of a mixed bag. They’re painted an off-white color and in some places that ended up covering the gums, namely right on the front of his muzzle, which sucks. The hat is rather well-painted as are the various bits and bobs on his belt. There’s a dagger sculpted onto the arm that is also well-painted, but I wish it had been made an accessory instead. Isn’t that part of the point of this line to make some of those sculpted bits more realistic and functional?

The paint on the gumline could certainly be better. And you can also see a faint scuff, or some kind of residue, on the upper jaw if you look closely.

The paint is acceptable. It’s not exactly praise worthy, but I can forgive some of the sloppiness. There is an odd scuff on the right side of my figure’s face. I can’t tell if it’s just some glue-like residue from the factory or actual damage. I’ll probably hit it with something later, but I don’t know if it shows in pictures. From a presentation perspective, how much you like this figure will largely depend on the overall look and that’s a good thing. It has some of the oddities of that vintage figure like the big, buck, teeth on the front of it. I know a lot of people find that part of the sculpt off-putting and it’s something that stands out more at this scale, but it was on the old figure. There’s no alternate portrait, unfortunately, so if you don’t like the look there’s nothing in the box that’s going to remedy that.

Articulation wise, the joints are better here than they were with Samurai Leo, though functionally there isn’t much for Leatherhead to do since his legs basically need to be in this pose in order to keep him standing.

Let’s just jump right to the articulation since that was a major problem with Leonardo. Leatherhead is definitely better, though not perfect. He is going to suffer because of his form factor. Some of that couldn’t be helped, some of it could have been, but Super7 declined to address it. His head is on a big ball-peg and he can rotate all around and has some room for nuance posing. He can also look up, but he can’t really look down. The jaw is articulated and as long as you don’t have his head all the way down it can open reasonably far. The shoulders are simple ball-hinges and he can raise his arms out to the side past horizontal, so that’s nice. There’s no biceps swivel as he has that at the elbow instead. It’s not ideal, but it works okay. The wrists rotate and hinge and all hinges are of the horizontal variety including his trigger finger hands, which is unfortunate. The waist is a bit of a trouble spot. It just swivels, but it’s very loose. Just flicking him will make him turn. The hips are okay though so he stands up fine. The range at the legs isn’t very good though, and the knee is even worse. They’re practically useless for the hinge, though the swivel is okay. The ankles have a hinge and a rocker and they’re fine. He can be positioned forward into his vintage pose which was low to the ground like a normal alligator. The balance is tough though as he wants to tip forward. I never planned to display him like this so I’m not bothered, but anyone who prefers the vintage look you have been warned. Lastly, the tail is on a big ball peg, but it doesn’t do much since that’s the only joint on it. And do yourself a favor and just heat that sucker up before trying to put it on.

He does have some weapon storage, though I can’t imagine posing him without the shotgun in-hand.

Leatherhead is a figure of limited pose ability, but that was expected just by looking at him. The hips being fine are what makes him for me. If those had been terribly loose then it would have ruined him. Instead, it’s just the waist, which since it just twists, isn’t a huge posing issue. It still sucks that it’s as loose as it is and it really shouldn’t be, but he’s not falling over so I’m not angry about it. The hinges for the hands are a bit loose too, but his accessories are staying put so I guess it’s not a big deal. Swapping his hands is also much easier than it was with Leo. The plastic used for Leo feels a lot more rubbery and the ridges they put on the pegs seem more pronounced. I still don’t know why they put those on them when the hands have been fine up until now, but it is what it is.

He somehow manages to look intimidating and like a doofus all at the same time.

When it comes to accessories, Leatherhead has a mix of old and new. For hands, he comes with gripping hands attached in the box and he also has a set of trigger hands and fists. As mentioned previously, the trigger hands have the wrong hinge. I’d even liked the standard gripping hands to have a vertical hinge as they would work better with his other accessories. His main one is a shotgun and it’s cast in orange plastic with some brown wood grain added and a silver barrel. The pump action on it works, but mine was kind of warped and hard to manipulate out of the box. I heated it up to straighten it out some to get it moving, but be careful as the silver portion of the gun is all paint and it can rub off. It kind of sucks that the weapon came with the pump in the wrong place so most will want to move it at least once. Maybe they should have just cast it in a gun-metal gray like Rocksteady’s machine gun? There’s also almost no indentation at all in at the end of the barrel, or black paint to create the illusion it’s an actual barrel, which looks weird.

The red accessories on his belt are all removable. They look fine, but would have looked better with some paint.

Leatherhead’s other vintage accessories include a giant claw trap. It has a metallic finish, almost bronze, and it too works in that it hinges. It’s pretty menacing looking too. He also has his belt fixtures from the old toy: a crayfish, turtle, and flock of feathers. Unfortunately, they’re unpainted and just case in red plastic. The crayfish looks fine, but the turtle and feathers look pretty stupid all in red. All three key into his belt and they all do so in a different manner so they can’t be put in the wrong place. They stay on okay, but in order for these to work well the factory had to cast the belt in some fairly rigid plastic which doesn’t work as well for the shotgun holster. It has to really be squeezed in there and I worry about paint rub, which is why I’ll probably just keep it in his hand anyway.

Maybe we have this guy figured all wrong and he’s just a fisherman that wants to be left alone?

New for this release is a fly-fishing rod. Like the gun, it was a little warped out of the box so I tried to straighten it as best I could. It’s painted rather well, but the wheel on it doesn’t spin or anything which would have been cool. I like it though and I think it adds to this hillbilly persona the character has. Lastly, he has a weapon sprue which features the shotgun, claw trap, and rod which is used as the frame of the sprue. Apparently it snaps together, but I don’t know if that painted one is supposed to come apart. If you like that look though, it’s here, only they did it in brown and not the red of the vintage toy so it feels kind of pointless, more so than usual.

“Hahahahaha – dumb turtle stepped in the trap!”

Leatherhead is an overall better release than Sewer Samurai Leonardo. He is more in-line with the level of quality and functionality of past releases in this line and the shortcomings are more acceptable as a result. He’s still not perfect, and I feel like the Wave 6 Slash is a higher quality figure so I’m eager to look at some more of that wave. At $55, it’s the type of release that warrants consideration, but isn’t a slam dunk either. It’s expensive for what it is, and I don’t know that it compares too favorably with other figures in that price range. As has been the case with this line, the main selling point is the sculpt and inherent nostalgia involved in remaking a classic figure from a memorable toyline. And for many, Leatherhead was a pretty important release for that vintage line so I suspect this is a figure a lot of folks have been looking forward to. I think if you know what you’re in for, this one can be a winner. As always, value is subjective and it’s hard to overlook how a lot of retailers have gone all-in on this line which has lead to discounts down the road. If you’re unsure about $55, maybe wait for a sale. As for me, I’m content and I think this figure is a fine addition to the collection. I don’t plan on getting the other Wave 5 releases, but I have a couple of Wave 6 figures left to talk about so stick around for that and plan for a few more Turtle Tuesdays in the near future.

I figured I’d give you all a comparison to another big, green, guy from the line.

1 Comment | tags: action figures, leatherhead, playmates, super7, super7 ultimates!, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in toys

October 18, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Sewer Samurai Leonardo

By Joe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1 Comment | tags: action figures, leonardo, leonardo the sewer samurai, playmates, sewer samurai leonardo, super7, super7 ultimates!, teenage mutant ninja turtles, TMNT | posted in toys

October 11, 2022

TMNT Loot Crate Series 2 Vol. 4 – Donnie Batman and the Bat Guy (Bats!)

By Joe

The Dark Turtle and Bat Boy have arrived! Is this the best Loot Crate yet?!

It’s been a little more than 3 months since our last dance with Loot Crate. If you’re new to the experience, it has been quite a drag. Crates that were supposed to ship a year ago are still outstanding, communication has been poor, rumors have painted a dire picture of the company’s finances, and the actual quality of the product has taken a hit as well. Since we last looked at one of these, someone decided they were so fed up with the experience that they doxed NECA director or product Randy Falk which he was understandably not happy about. That was a dick move on the part of whoever did that and anyone who actually took the time to call Randy on his cell phone or shared that info is a grade A asshole. That’s the type of entitlement that makes me embarrassed to be a part of this hobby.

Ugliness aside, Randy didn’t deserve that. Saying that doesn’t mean we’re letting Loot Crate off the hook though. They’ve been pretty terrible, but I don’t feel the need to get into that once again. If you want more of a rant, check out the last entry on the subject, for the rest of this one I’m just going to talk about the contents of the latest crate.

The TMNT pin-collecting community has just been dying to get their hands on this Triceraton pin!

And this latest crate is the fourth one which is themed around the 1987 cartoon series. What happened to crate #2? Nobody knows, but it was skipped in favor of crate #3 and now we’re onto #4. I guess they’ll come back to it, hopefully in another 3 months or less. The toon one, being the fourth one, comes with a bonus figure as well so we have a lot to talk about. When consumers had the option to subscribe to this service, they could either purchase individual crates or all 4. Those that bought all four were to receive a bonus figure, Scrag, one of the gang members from the original mini series who hung out and committed crimes with Bebop and Rocksteady. He had his own little arc in that mini series. Despite never being named, or having a line to speak, we saw him go from punker, to mutant bat, back to punker again. After that, he went away and was never heard from again.

We’ll do Scrag last, but for now lets get the other junk out of the way. The Loot Crate model is to take something people want, like a NECA figure, up-charge it and toss in some junk to make it seem like it’s worth the $50 price tag. Obviously, it’s not or else they wouldn’t do things this way, but it’s always going to be a case of “your mileage may vary.” The bonus figure is another added layer of grift since you may not care about one of the other crates, but if you care about Scrag, you have to buy them. NECA and Loot Crate will point to eBay sales as a way to suggest you’re not being taken advantage of, but again, if they actually had that much faith in the product they’d just put them up for sale and let you buy what you want.

I’m not sure I trust the health of my hands when handling hot items to Loot Crate.

The model for these crates has been to include a t-shirt, some pins, and a few extras. Maybe a keychain, a sticker sheet, whatever. The first wave of crates definitely had more, while this current wave has had severely less. And this crate has the distinction of being the first without a t-shirt. I thought these things were advertised to always have a shirt, you even select a size when subscribing, but I haven’t looked up the actual solicitation so maybe that wasn’t the case. It’s certainly an expectation that one will be included. Instead of a shirt though, we get an apron. It has a Ninja Pizza logo printed on it which is taken from the show, but is otherwise just an off-white apron. Do people still use aprons? It being October, I just re-watched Beetlejuice once again and thought how old-fashioned Geena Davis looked sporting an apron at the film’s start. I have aprons in my house as they tend to be something you acquire through things like a bridal shower, but I don’t think I’ve ever used one. And I don’t recall ever seeing my mom or dad wear one. Same for grandparents. And when I go to my local pizza shop, few of them wear one. And if they do, they don’t bother with the top. Maybe they were more popular when washing machines were less common? Now if I’m cooking I just change my clothes if they get dirty in the process. I guess I’m just saying a novelty apron is not something I’ll ever use or know what to do with. It’s not that I need more t-shirts either, my dresser is bursting with them, but I at least wear them.

The license plate is stupid, but at least it’s “fun” stupid.

What pairs well with an apron? How about some oven mitts! We get a pair of pizza monster oven mitts. They’re yellow and they have a face on them so they look like cheap puppets. They’re a bit thin and are only rated for temperatures up to 392 degrees Fahrenheit which seems pointless since most pizza is cooked at a temperature above that. There goes my master plan of preparing pizza in my Ninja Pizza apron and pizza monster oven mitts. We also have the customary pin, this time it’s the head of a Triceraton from the cartoon. Lastly, we get a novelty license plate. It’s yellow and green with the Statue of Liberty in the center like an actual New York plate and it reads “PRTY WGN.” Cute. I’ll probably display the license plate in some fashion, but the rest will probably live in a drawer somewhere.

Let’s get to the main event, or the first main event, which is Donatello as The Dark Turtle. Dark Turtle has been on my wish list for a couple of years now. He’s from the same episode of the show as the Triceratons (“Night of the Dark Turtle”) and I just think he looks neat. In the episode, Donatello gets electrocuted and basically becomes a parody of Michael Keaton’s Batman. I’ve always liked the look of the character because the costume is a great Batman knock-off and the character looks really interesting because the artists cheat with him. They basically give Donatello a superhero-type body and ignore the fact that he’s a turtle. He still has the rear shell hidden under his cape, but the torso where the plastron should be just looks like a muscular dude bod. It makes no sense, but it looks cool.

Wired capes rule. I see you down there, Rat Vernon…

NECA’s approach to the figure is basically the same as the artists who designed the character. They didn’t just take their existing turtle body and re-paint it, they actually did a new torso. If they reused it from another figure, I can’t easily tell, though most of the figures in the line also feature an overlay of some kind so maybe this body is underneath another piece of plastic somewhere on my shelf. Either way, it looks cool. He looks very close to the character in the show. He might be a little more squat and chunky, but essentially looks the part. His face is sporting a yelling expression, but it’s also the same engineering used in the Turtles in Disguise set so you can swap his mouth piece out in favor of another expression if you have that set. The costume is done in a gray with shading on the sides and rear and I love how the belt and chest insignia came out. Best of all, the cape is wired so this guy can really hit some dramatic poses. He looks great and whatever corners may have been cut for a Loot Crate release do not come through in the quality department.

What doesn’t rule are NECA flight stands.

The paint job on The Dark Turtle looks pretty nice. The main color is gray, and NECA shaded it slightly differently from other figures as they included it on the sides of the torso. I wish they continued it just a little further and under the pectorals, but what they have here adds some nice definition to the figure. On the arms and legs, it’s more of the same with light gray on the front and dark on the back. There’s plenty of line work throughout the figure and the trim of the gloves and boots features some purple, a nice touch since this is Donatello, after all. I love how the belt came out which features three holstered turtle bombs that are probably glued on. The cape is pinned into his chest via the insignia on the front and it too is likely glue down. The cowl on the head is cast in black and the eyes are painted. Lastly, we have the cape which is black on the outside and purple on the inside. It’s all quite neat and clean and the only blemish on mine is a little black mark on the stomach. If I can get a magic eraser in there I might be able to take it off. I think he turned out well though and NECA didn’t take any shortcuts with the costume in making it screen accurate which is nice to see.

Watch out! He has a turtle-shaped smoke bomb and he knows how to use it!

The cuts they did have to take will come through in the accessories. That’s been the case for all of the figures released this way and Dark Turtle is no different. He comes with gripping hands in the box, but also has a right pointing hand, and left open hand. Unlike the mouth, you can’t technically use hands from other sets with this figure because he wears black gloves. I think it’s a bummer they just didn’t give us a set of fists, a set of open hands, and maybe one pointing hand. Tossing in an already tooled accessory like a hand adds minimal cost, but obviously it wasn’t a cost NECA was willing to absorb. Dark Turtle does at least come with one accessory, his turtle smoke bomb. It’s a newly tooled accessory, so that’s cool, and it’s well-painted. It would have been nice to get another Turtle Hook accessory, but I wasn’t expecting one and I definitely wasn’t expecting a tooled version of Dark Turtle’s unique grappling hook.

“Hold it right there, Shredder! This ends now!” “Who is this psychopath?!”

He might have to live up here in my display because this just looks too cool.

Dark Turtle is mostly reuse from the other turtles, and as a result largely moves the same. The head is still on a double-ball and the base of the neck articulates as well. He can look up and down just fine with plenty of nuance posing available as well. The shoulders are just ball-hinged and he can raise his arms out to the side, rotate, and so forth until he hits the rear shell. The left shoulder hinge on mine is pretty stuck and I haven’t been able to get much movement out of it, which is a bummer. There’s a biceps swivel after that and the elbows are still single-hinged with rotation and they bend pretty close to 90 degrees. At the wrist we have swivels and horizontal hinges. The torso is the big change as we have this big diaphragm joint. It feels like a ball peg, but we get some twist and tilt plus a little crunch forward, but not a lot. There’s basically no rear movement because of the shell, but it’s cool to have something here for a change on a turtle. At the waist, there’s a twist, but you get less than you do with the standard turtles because he’s wearing a black “diaper” piece. The hips are ball and socket joints and he can nearly do a full split. He kicks forward just fine, though not back due to the shell. There is a thigh pivot and the knees are double-jointed and bend past 90. At the ankles, we have the hinge and rocker combination that works well. He’s pretty decent for this line, and technically a little better than most since he does have some posing in the chest, but it’s so limited that it’s hardly worth celebrating. I just wish mine didn’t have the frozen shoulder joint. I’ve tried hot water, but I don’t want to risk breaking it so I might just have to live with it as-is.

The many expressions of The Dark Turtle.

The last thing I want to talk about with Dark Turtle is the face-swapping. Just like the other turtles from the Turtles in Disguise set, Dark Turtle’s mouth can separate from the top of the head so you can mix and match expressions. The top piece even features a little tab on the rear to cover the cut-out for the bandana knots on the mouth pieces. He comes with a yelling expression, but he looks good with basically all of the other mouths. He’s always going to be frowning so any smile gives him a real sinister vibe. This figure is done in a matte style, so the glossy first-run set of the Turtles in Disguise do look a bit jarring on him. I have since picked up a matte version and I like the look of those much better. Also of note, the mouth on Dark Turtle is a newly tooled piece. The prior yell mouths NECA did were glued together from the top and the seam lines stood out. This one is glued together from the bottom and just looks much cleaner. I didn’t get the style guide four-pack so I don’t know if that change was done there, but it’s nice to see NECA continue to refine their product when the opportunity arises.

That’s a rather positive review of The Dark Turtle, but now lets turn out attention to Scrag. Scrag is an interesting character in that he just appears in the original mini series and then is never heard from again. For me, he was always the most recognizable of Bebop and Rocksteady’s original gang. We even see him before we meet the turtles! In the show, he’s never named and speaks no lines of dialogue. He just joins in on some vandalism and the whole threatening of April before getting experimented on by Shredder. For some reason, Shredder didn’t think much of the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang and only chose to keep those two. If they were the best that gang had to offer then the others must have been pretty terrible. Scrag is shown on a monitor when Shredder makes a comment to Krang about experimenting on the punks, and when that happens, we see he’s become a bat (some supplemental material even gave him the name Bat Boy). There’s a quick shot later of the punks locked up in a cell, but Scrag’s final appearance comes in the fifth episode (the final of the original mini series) where Shredder uses him to demonstrate a reverse mutation ray which restores his original, human, look. After that, who knows what became of old Scrag? Presumably Shredder didn’t waste more mutagen on him to re-mutate him so he was either disposed of or allowed to leave. Shredder and Krang weren’t really portrayed as killers, so my guess who be they opened a portal and just chucked him somewhere and had a good laugh about it later.

I wouldn’t say the gang’s all here, but it’s more of it than we’ve ever had.

For a figure of Scrag, NECA turned to their Vernon body. We’ve seen that one reused before for Ace Duck and here it’s going serve us well as Scrag. And that’s because it will allow Scrag to be displayed in human or mutated form, but first let’s talk about human Scrag. Scrag stands a bit over 6″ and sports a black trench coat, purple shirt, and blue jeans. The main part of the coat is an overlay, as is the shirt, while the sculpted parts are basically all from Vernon including the neck piece. He has different shoes, which are just all black, and features these silly looking Mickey Mouse styled gloves. The head is the most obvious new piece and he looks pretty damn good. Some have been disappointed that the head-sculpts for this figure appeared to change noticeably from the initial solicitation, but I think both were changed to better reflect the source material. I suppose if you prefer one over the other that’s subjective, but as far as accuracy goes, this head-sculpt looks great. He has his unique hairstyle with hot pink painted on top and black on the underside plus his recognizable shades which feature one, continuous, lens, surrounded by a yellow frame. The only room for criticism I find with this guy is that just by virtue of sharing a body with Vernon he’s not exactly an impressive, physical, specimen. Scrag probably would have benefitted from some more mass, but the coat helps and I’m not surprised they went in this direction.

The paint on Scrag is less ambitious than what we saw with Dark Turtle, but still looks solid. The coat is all one color, save for the little logo on the chest that looks like a Pokémon, which is black so NECA didn’t bother shading it. And since it covers the shirt, they didn’t shade that either. There is shading on the pants with blue on the front and a dark blue on the back, but that’s it. The head is painted very clean though and there’s still plenty of painted black linework to be found on this guy. The white gloves are painted, but also appear to be cast in white plastic and they look fine, but will also transfer some of that white paint to anything he holds which is a bummer. I normally talk about accessories separately, but for the bat head I will say the paint looks awesome on it. There’s some nice linework inside the ears and his nose and teeth are painted cleanly. The frames of his glasses have a little gray sneaking onto them so that could have been cleaner, but it is what it is. It’s a tough spot and if it came out perfect I would be praising it, but since it didn’t, I have to mention it even if it’s understandable for this type of figure.

A bat holding a bat; now I’ve seen everything.

The articulation on Scrag is basically the same as Vernon only now we have a big overcoat to contend with. Both heads on this guy are pretty tight on the neck, but the base of the neck is articulated so I don’t have much trouble getting him to look up and down or rotate. And at least with it being tight, the front of the throat stays in-line with the chin on the un-mutated head. The shoulders are ball-hinged and oddly they’re very “clicky,” almost like they’re ratcheted. Maybe that was to help keep them in place since people will be tugging on the forearms to swap out parts? I don’t know, but by being this way it means you lose some nuance as the arm moves from click-to-click. They raise out to the side just fine and the elbows are the goofy NECA double-elbows with two swivels and two hinges, but they look okay on jacketed figures. The forearm rotates where it meets the sleeve and at the wrist the hands rotate and hinge in and out. There’s a diaphragm joint in this guy, but the overlay makes it useless. The waist rotates on a ball so you do get some nuance posing there as well. The hips are ball and socket joints and, like Vernon, are looser than I would like. He seems to stand better than either Vernon I have, but any wide stance would probably start to slide on its own after awhile. There is a slight thigh twist and the knees are double-jointed. The feet peg into the legs so you do get rotation, but it was very tight on mine. I only know it’s there because my figure’s toes were not in-line with the knees so I had to rotate them into place which took some force. After that though they move quite freely so I must have just needed to break up some paint. The ankles also hinge and rock side-to-side.

This is basically the only thing mutated Scrag did in the show – get shot.

Scrag moves as expected. There’s some room for more dynamic shots, but mostly he’s just going to stand around and try to look intimidating on your shelf. To help him do so he comes with a pair of weapons. Up first is a mallet. To my surprise, it’s not a repeat of the mallet that came with Casey Jones. I don’t know if it will show up somewhere else, but it looks fine. The handle is just a light brown while the head is sculpted to resemble an actual mallet, as opposed to just a rectangular cube, and it’s fine. The hands will likely transfer paint onto it though if you’re not careful. The other weapon is a revolver. It’s surprisingly not the same as the one that came with Ace Duck and it’s painted gray with a dark gray handle and some black linework. To wield these he has a right trigger finger hand and a left gripping hand. The trigger finger is subtle enough that it can work as just a gripping hand with the mallet. Both are hard plastic though and to get the weapons into his hands as clean as possible you may want to heat them up first. Especially if you want the trigger finger in the proper spot on the revolver. I plan to heat that hand to get the revolver on then just leave it.

How it might have looked if Scrag had been accepted into the mutant gang.

Lastly, Scrag has his optional bat parts. I already mentioned that the head is well-sculpted and pretty well-painted, so I don’t have much to add there. The forearms have fur sculpted onto them so they’re not just gray and the cuffs of the gloves are sculpted on as well so they’re not just taken from Vernon. The hands are these somewhat relaxed gripping hands which is a bit of an odd choice. You can swap the hands between the two sets of forearms, which is why I would have preferred something more dramatic, I suppose, for the bat arms. Or maybe just fists? These wide hands can’t hold either weapon, but I suppose could hold some of the stuff Bebop and Rocksteady came with in the Premonition of a Premutation four-pack. I’d try a spray paint can, but I don’t want the white paint to transfer. As far as swapping the parts goes, only the right arm was easy on mine. Getting the left arm off was easy, but the bat arm didn’t want to go on (and taking off is no picnic either). I had to heat that up. The head also didn’t want to come off so I heated that as well. I probably could have forced the issue, but I was afraid of the head coming off of the neck joint which would have been a pain to correct for. The hot water worked fine though and ultimately I’m not sure how I want to display this guy. I think his human form will work a little better in my display since he can go with the pre-mutated Bebop and Rocksteady. I also think the human form looks just a little bit better as the bat head sits really low on the shoulders. It doesn’t look bad or anything, but another half-centimeter on the neck might have helped.

I like the look of Bat-Scrag, but I think this is how he’s going to live on my shelf for now.

As is the case with all of these Loot Crates, how much you like this one will largely depend on how you feel about the included action figures. And in this case, I think we may have received the best ones yet. Dark Turtle was a figure high on my wants list and I think he turned out awesome. Scrag is another figure I wanted because he’s never had a figure before and he has a memorable look and he turned out just fine. And the fact that both came with this crate makes it feel like a good value. Of course, that part is purely subjective. Each crate costs 50 bucks so if you want to you can rationalize it as paying 25 each for Scrag and Dark Turtle, which is below MSRP these days at retail. On the other hand, you had to buy the other 3 crates too to get Scrag so it’s more like the price for that figure is spread amongst the others. Again, it’s all in how you want to rationalize it for yourself. The other stuff included really adds little or no value for me. I said I’m likely to display the vanity plate, but had that been sold separately it’s not something I would have purchased. Ultimately, we got two new figures for the toon line and I’m pretty happy with them.

That leaves one crate outstanding. The supposed crate #2 features Armaggon and is video game themed. We know the figure has been done for months and I believe even Randy at NECA confirmed it’s on US soil as well so something else is holding it up. My hope is it gets shipped soon so we can put this Loot Crate nonsense behind us. It sounds like there’s very little enthusiasm on NECA’s part to continue with this release model, but nothing has been confirmed. NECA has even shown off prototypes for the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang so we know they’re on the way, we just don’t know how NECA plans to release them. The very fact that they’ve been shown is a good indicator that they won’t have anything to do with Loot Crate so that’s a plus. Hopefully they’re not part of this NFT garbage the company recently unveiled through Walmart as that is a non-starter for me thus far. Whenever that crate gets shipped though, rest assured I will be here to tell you all about it.

2 Comments | tags: action figures, dark turtle, donatello, loot crate, neca, scrag, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in Television, toys

October 4, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Slash

By Joe

The evil, pizza-hating, mutant turtle from Dimension X has arrived!

It’s been over 9 months since I last reviewed a figure from Super7’s line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. That figure was Muckman, and I actually waited on that one a little while because I ordered through Big Bad Toy Store and wanted my pile of loot to fill up a bit. Had I ordered directly from Super7 or had it shipped immediately from Big Bad, that month count might be 10! COVID has been crazy, obviously, and it’s caused a lot of delays. I think when I got that Wave 4 Muckman I was hopeful that Wave 5 would follow closer to the original plan of a 3-4 month lag in between. That obviously didn’t happen as we’re here in September ready to talk about the latest and greatest from Super7: Slash!

Slash is the first figure I’ve received from Wave 5 of TMNT…wait! This isn’t a wave 5 release! Slash is wave 6! Yup, I don’t know what’s going on, but somehow Big Bad Toy Store received Wave 6 before Wave 5. Super7 sent out review samples around a month ago for Wave 5 to the usual places, but as far as I know, still hasn’t shipped Wave 5 to any non-reviewers. They haven’t shown up at other retailers either, but here we are with a Wave 6 figure. And the interesting thing about Wave 5 for me is I ordered from both Super7 direct and Big Bad and still haven’t seen a whiff of either (I did get a “pre-order processing” soon for Leatherhead, so maybe the wait is almost over).

I no longer have my original Slash, but here he is with vintage Tokka who utilized the same mold as that old figure.

It doesn’t make much sense, but I suppose it doesn’t matter so lets just talk about Slash. Slash is billed as the evil mutant from Dimension X and he’s one of the characters associated with TMNT that has had a lot of different looks. He originated in the pages of Archie’s TMNT books where he’s a good guy. He still looks rather menacing, but he’s not an enemy of the turtles and will end up a member of The Mighty Mutanimals. When he went to the cartoon, he was made to be Bebop’s pet who gets mutated just like the other turtles. He’s pretty dumb, and gets outfitted with some random tech around the Technodrome and doesn’t really resemble any other iteration of the character. In between both appearances we had the action figure from Playmates which decided he was some evil character. He partly resembled the character from Archie, though they darkened his skin and added some additional details to basically make him fit in with that toy line. He was pretty squat in appearance and came with an arsenal of wicked looking weapons. Since this is how most fans were introduced to the character, it’s often the first thing that comes to mind when someone brings up the topic of Slash. And it was the toy version of the character that was added to the Super Nintendo port of Turtles in Time.

Slash doesn’t have a ton of height, but he does have a lot of bulk.

Because the old toy of Slash is so beloved, this was a figure pretty high on my personal list of wants from Super7. I’m a little surprised we had to wait until Wave 6 considering how popular the figure is, but it’s not like the past waves were full of duds and unpopular releases. And it could be worse since Super7 have revealed 8 waves and still no Rat King! Slash comes in the standard Ultimates! window box with the purple slipcover over it, because he’s a bad guy. The figure is a very faithful recreation of the Playmates original and that’s evident in just looking at it through the packaging, but like the other releases in this line, this new approach should do wonders for the detailing.

A meeting of Slash. I actually forgot how much I liked that video game Slash until picking it up for this shot.

Out of the box, Slash stands just a little over 6″. This makes him not much taller than the hero turtles, but he’s far more bulkier. And like the old toy, his head sits low so he has this crouched appearance to his posture. Handling him though is a trip down memory lane. I didn’t retain my original Slash figure, unfortunately, but this one helps me to remember every nook and cranny on that guy. I really like that old figure, though I hated his belt which never wanted to stay on, and my collection of Super7 figures would not be complete without him. His face perfectly captures the maniacal grin of the old figure with one eye being larger than the other. The teeth are well-painted, though I’m torn on if I like how they just filled his mouth with plastic or if I would have preferred to see it sculpted out. At this scale, it just stands out in a way it doesn’t on a 4″ figure. The skin has a nice, weathered, texture to it that’s consistent throughout the sculpt and Super7 added a wash to the figure to really bring those details out. I love what they did with the belt, going with a black and pink combo (the original was all black and a pink version followed later), and it’s great to finally see him with painted blades on his hands. The only thing I’m not crazy about are the shoulder pauldrons. They’re fully sculpted, like the vintage toy, but also like the vintage toy they’re unpainted. I feel like a major selling point of this line is to get all of the detail of the original toys, but now painted to bring them out, so when something so visible is missed it really stands out.

The belt is cast in hot pink, but parts of it are painted black. He also has some weapon storage on this thing.

The big talking point with this line since the first wave was delivered has concerned the articulation. Specifically, joint tolerance. Lets just get right down to it since that’s what people are most curious about. Slash is pretty good. The hips don’t flop around on this guy like they have on other figures and they stay where they’re supposed to when he’s standing on a shelf. The torso joint also doesn’t wiggle around which I think is a source of the problem on some of the other figures, but hopefully this is a good sign for the rest of Wave 6 (the early returns on Wave 5 paint the opposite picture, unfortunately) as it would be nice to put that issue to bed. Considering their production runs must have essentially been back-to-back, I’m not super optimistic.

The shurikens that were sculpted into the belt on the old figure are now removable which is pretty neat.

The hips are fine, and the rest of the articulation is basically what one would expect of this line. Super7, probably more than most, prioritizes the aesthetic over basically anything else. Their founder, Brian Flynn, is even on camera saying he thinks most collectors just place their toys on the shelf in a fairly neutral pose so that gives you some idea of where their thinking comes from. For Slash, we have a figure understandably limited by the fact that he’s a giant turtle, but it’s also limited because not much effort was made to do anything different with it. The head is on a double-ball-peg that is useful mostly for nuance posing since his head essentially juts forward and to the sides. He can look up a bit, but has basically no range looking down. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he can just about raise his arms out to the side, but those pauldrons get in the way. The arms rotate forward just fine and there’s a biceps swivel past that. The shoulder pauldrons actually pin into the biceps which is smart because it allows you to manipulate them out of the way where the shoulder is concerned. The elbow is single-hinged with a swivel, but because of the elbow pad he can’t quite achieve a 90 degree bend. The wrists rotate and he has both vertical and horizontal gripping hands for his weapons, so that’s a big plus. There is a joint in the torso, but it’s functionally useless and there’s no waist swivel nor is his tail articulated. The legs can go out to the side better than 45 degrees and the thigh twist works fine. The knees are single-hinged with a swivel, and like the elbows, the kneepad prevents a true 90 degree bend. The ankles hinge and rock pretty well and he’s a fairly easy figure to stand as a result.

Donnie is finding out that Slash is a lot to handle.

Slash basically is a what you see is what you get kind of release as he looks to only facilitate simple posing, and that’s basically true. It would have been nice to get a better waist twist like the other turtles, but that’s probably the only thing I miss. I don’t think they could have sculpted the neck in a way that would have let him stand up totally straight and still preserve the look of the original figure. It would have been nice to see the shoulders given more range via a ball-peg or butterfly joint, because he has room for one, but I’m not surprised that Super7 didn’t try this. And I would have liked to have seen the tail get some articulation because it’s current placement is a bit…phallic. At least the belt obscures it a bit.

He still has this wild looking nunchaku.

One thing we can count on when it comes to Super7 Ultimates! is that there will be no shortage of accessories and Slash is true of that. Slash actually has more stuff than the vintage figure and he even has some sculpted pieces from before turned into accessories this time. First of all, we get some extra parts. Slash comes with vertical gripping hands in the box, but if you want horizontal hinges he has those in the box too. He also has a set of fists and a set of style pose hands in the same style as the turtles. They can be used to hold larger objects or to just embellish a pose. All of the hands are sculpted and painted well and the blades are consistent from hand-to-hand which is nice. Slash also has a secondary head, and also like the turtles, it feels like a slightly more realistic interpretation of the character, but in a comic book sense. The expression is also very similar to a lot of the comic art as he has exposed teeth on each side of his mouth. It’s well-painted and looks really nice and, once again, I don’t know which head I like best. The default head is more of a maniacal expression, while this one with the more grimace expression and narrow eye has a whole different vibe. This one makes him look dangerous and sinister and it’s really cool. All of the hands and the two heads are also easy to swap.

Slash also comes loaded with weapons to slice, chop, and bludgeon the turtles. The old toy featured ninja stars molded onto Slash’s belt and now those have been turned into weapons that peg onto the belt. There are two curved stars and one that’s more traditional. They don’t feel secure when pegging them on, but they also haven’t fallen off my figure so I guess the effect works fine. It’s the type of thing I like to see with these new figures so I like the approach. Slash also has two hand grenades and they have this metallic finish to them that looks really cool. The style pose hands can hold them all right and you can hook them onto the belt if you so desire.

The other weapons should seem more familiar as most of them are from the vintage release. Slash, being the anti-ninja turtle, basically came with a twisted version of the weapons featured by the heroic turtles. He has his spiked nunchaku with features studs on the handles and spiked chain. It’s done entirely in plastic as I’m guessing Super7 had no idea how to do it with real chain and preserve the look, but it is bendy, it just doesn’t hold a pose. Slash also has his trademarked crooked sai which can slide into the pink loop on his belt. There’s his giant, serrated, knife with a handguard and that too has a slot on the rear of his belt where it can be stored. He also has his club, which features black wrapping and a spiked ball at the top. I think I used to store this weapon on the rear of my old toy, but Super7 cast the black wrappings at the end in a hard plastic so there’s basically no way to get it into the belt without a lot of heat, and then getting it out would require the same. Lastly, we have a new weapon which is a crooked sword. I think the nunchaku, sai, and club are like the twisted versions of Mikey, Raph, and Donatello’s signature weapons while the giant knife is more its own thing. The crooked sword draws a more obvious parallel to Leonardo and it definitely looks like it belongs here. Lastly, we have the unpainted weapons sprue which is massive for Slash. I think these are on the way out, so enjoy them while you can. The club, knife, and nunchaku feature the hot pink color scheme with painted silver and black details while the sai and knife are black and silver. I feel like the hot pink might not be an exact match to the old toy, but it’s not something I care about personally, but it’s something I felt I should point out.

Super7’s take on Slash is mostly what one would expect. It takes that old Playmates figure and ups the scale while also taking advantage of modern sculpting and paint applications to really make this figure look as good as it can be. The engineering and paint applications help push this release to among the best in the line so far. There will always be room for criticism when it comes to Super7’s articulation choices, but aside from that, my only criticism is I wish the shoulder pauldrons were painted. They’re sculpted to look like wood planks held together by rope and just look like something that should have been painted, but wasn’t (to clarify, the renders featured unpainted shoulder pauldrons too so I’m not suggesting it’s an error). Aside from that, nearly every part of the figure has some kind of paint wash applied which really helps to reduce that “plastic” look some of the other figures in the line possess. He may not pose super well, but he at least has enough stuff to provide variety for your display. In short, this is one of the best releases by Super7 I own and if you’re collecting this line then you owe it to yourself to add Slash to the display.

5 Comments | tags: action figures, slash, super7, super7 ultimates!, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in toys

September 20, 2022

NECA TMNT x Universal Monsters Michelangelo as The Mummy

By Joe

As the toyline and cartoon series started to go long, Playmates Toys turned to other ideas to keep the good times rolling on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Long thought to just be some quick fad, the turtles outlived all expectations into the 90s spawning multiple films and video games and a cartoon series that would total nearly 200 episodes. Such longevity was basically unheard of for such a blatant kid’s property and I have to think some of it is due to the creativity of Playmates. There were lots of variants of the turtles starting with different costumes and the introduction of action features into the toyline. Playmates would double-down on wacky variants with some featuring action features, like the sports turtles, or different gimmicks all-together like the beach turtles that could spit water. Talking turtles, mutating turtles, boxing turtles – basically everything was on the table. And when that started to run dry, Playmates turned to another tool: the brand mash-up.

In 1993 Playmates introduced the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as Universal Monsters line. It featured Michelangelo as Frankenstein’s monster, Leonardo as The Wolfman, Donatello as Dracula, and Raphael as The Mummy. It was apparently successful enough that Playmates would come back with a second wave the following year. Playmates would also combine TMNT with Star Trek and make an effort to cross-brands with various properties at Lucasfilm including Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In later years, there were other mash-ups with the likes of Ghostbusters and WWE so there is apparently an appetite among TMNT fans to see their favorite heroes combined with various other brands. It’s become a recognizable aspect of the IP to the point that when NECA announced it had acquired the Universal Monsters license basically everyone and their mother started asking “So, are you going to do TMNT X Universal Monsters?”

NECA initially responded to such questions in a non-committal fashion, but it’s now clear that was always on their mind because it didn’t take long for NECA to unveil Raphael as Frankenstein’s Monster. Other reveals, and releases, have followed and NECA’s approach to the famous combination has become clear. It should be noted, that when both NECA and Super7 were awarded a license for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the two individuals most in-charge of the direction of the lines, NECA’s Randy Falk and Super7’s Brian Flynn, got together to get a sense of where each company was going with the line. When NECA said it wanted to do toys based on the cartoons and movies, Super7 was delighted because their aim was to basically re-create the vintage toyline. It could be that gentlemen’s agreement between the two that is the reason why we’re not seeing the same turtle and monster combinations in NECA’s line as Super7 also has a Universal Monsters license and might recreate those old toys. Or, it could simply be NECA’s desire to do their own thing that is driving the creative process with this line.

Mikey found someone to help him strengthen his impressions.

And that process is to take the designs and likenesses from the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film and combine those with the film depictions of the Universal Monsters. It’s a great idea on paper as it takes a realistic depiction of the turtles and combines them with a realistic depiction of the monsters. The past versions of these figures (and Playmates revisited it in the 2012 line) were all cartoon-based and the realistic visual fits NECA’s strong suit when it comes to their Ultimates line of figures. It also opens the door for a version of April to feature the likeness of actress Judith Hoag and if any other human characters are featured it’s assumed they too will feature an actor’s likeness. NECA also seems to have deliberately avoided the past turtle and monster pairings. For the first time Raph got to play Frankenstein, Leonardo is Ygor the Hunchback (a character previously unexplored by Playmates), Donatello will be the Invisible Man, and Michelangelo the Mummy. Splinter is also onboard to play Van Helsing, and April has the distinction of being the only repeat pairing as she is once again the Bride of Frankenstein. More figures are expected and it will be interesting to see if NECA doubles-down on the turtles and gives everyone a repeat release as a different monster. There are certainly plenty of unexplored monsters by NECA and plenty of opportunities for more figures.

Now I personally am not a big fan of the Universal Monsters. I never bought any of the Playmates figures, and I wasn’t sure with this new line. When NECA announced Raph, I did pre-order it immediately, but I would eventually cancel it. I didn’t have an obvious place for it in my collection and I was certainly helped by my favorite turtle, Leonardo, having an unappealing mash-up. I have seen all of the released figures so far in stores and I think they look fantastic for what they’re going for, it just wasn’t something I felt I needed. Until I came across Michelangelo.

There’s some nice sculpt work on the shell, though the turtle glyph on the right is unpainted and I have to assume it’s a factory error.

I already said I’m not much of a fan of Universal Monsters, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be The Wolfman. That was the only figure I was tempted by back in the 90s since it was my preferred monster with my favorite turtle, but ultimately I decided I could do without. I don’t know where I’d rank The Mummy amongst the other monsters, but definitely more towards the bottom than the top so it’s a bit of a surprise that this is the one figure that moved me to make a purchase. It’s also just a testament of how good it turned out. Taking the 90’s costume for Michelangelo and dirtying it up with a mummy aesthetic is surprisingly brilliant. This figure looks amazing.

For starters, the textures achieved by sculptor Tony Cipriano looks incredible. The many wraps that adorn Mikey look like they could be soft goods to the point that it’s almost jarring to actually handle the figure and feel that they’re made of plastic. The texture of the skin on Mikey’s head has this very dried out and weathered appearance. His lips are cracked, there’s creases in the forehead, and various warts mar the skin. The bandana has a dark wash over it making it appear dirty and old and he has one eye that’s closed, or possibly missing, and another looking off into nowhere. It’s important the face capture an unsettling expression since Michelangelo is typically the comic relief and least threatening of the four turtles. The shell of the figure has more of a wood look to it as it’s washed out. It’s also adorned with various carvings like a couple of turtles, a Foot logo, ninja stars, and what might be a reference to the ooze canister. What’s visible of the plastron on the front is very cracked and weathered, but it’s mostly covered in wraps. The belt has a nice leather look to it with a gold scarab on the buckle. It’s sculpted throughout with more glyphs and weathering and looks terrific. The elbow and knee pads from the film are present and look as good as ever. They look a little bigger and bulkier when compared with the movie releases, but it’s also possible these will be on the Secret of the Ooze figures to come.

Michelangelo looks amazing. I can’t get over how well this figure came out. If this were a 60 dollar boutique release I think I would still be satisfied, but it’s a $36 or $37 figure from Target which is mind blowing. There’s really nothing for me to complain about when it comes to the sculpt and overall look for this figure. What nitpicks I can come up with are basically paint-related. There’s a spot at the top of the wrap on the right thigh where the beige paint bled over to the skin. There’s a little of that down by the knee of the same leg as well. In the hands or around the heel there are small spots where the paint for the wraps was missed, but it’s all in areas that are only noticeable when you’re looking for such things. Since there is a wash on basically every spot of this figure there may be some figures where that’s missed or too heavy. There’s one glyph on the shell that’s missing the wash, but from what I have seen around the web, this is an error on all of the figures. The wraps inside the shell don’t feature a wash, but they’re areas that really aren’t visible unless you’re holding the figure in-hand and really inspecting it. The small paint imperfections seem acceptable to me at this price-point. The only cause for concern I see is that this is a complex figure and paint job so it might suffer from inconsistencies from figure to figure, but that’s not something I can predict with any degree of certainty and it’s personally not something I would be concerned with. Plus, that’s what window boxes are for!

“Whoa dude, I’m going to have to recommend you don’t smile.”

The Mummy is basically known for one pose: a shuffling walk with arms outstretched. Because of that, it would have been reasonable to assume NECA would not prioritize the articulation on this guy, and while NECA definitely does indeed prioritize aesthetic, this figure still moves pretty well. The head is on a double-ball and has good range in basically all directions. The bandana knot just pegs into the head so you can rotate it if need be to help the figure look up. The default head is a little loose fitting on mine, but holds a pose. The neck is independently articulated as well, but mostly just helps the figure look down. The shoulders are ball-hinged and can raise out to the side just fine. The shell is going to get in the way a bit with rotation, but that’s nothing unfamiliar for TMNT fans. There’s no biceps swivel, and instead the figure has NECA’s double-jointed elbows with the hinge and swivel above and below the elbow. Because of the elbow pad, he can just barely bend the arms 90 degrees, but the swivel works fine. The hands swivel and hinge horizontally. At the waist, there is a twist, but it barely does anything. The hips are ball and socket joints and come out to the side for splits, but kick out and to the side when coming forward because of the plastron. The knees are double-jointed, but because of the knee pad, can’t quite hit 90 degrees. There is a swivel above the knee and the thigh also swivels, but just barely. At the ankle we have a hinge and rocker which works fine. It’s basically the same articulation as the movie figures, only with the double elbows. It’s not the thing the figure does best, but if you want your mummy in more “ninja” poses it’s certainly feasible.

You may think a mummy doesn’t need much in the way of accessories, but NECA apparently feels differently. For starters, Mikey comes with three sets of hands: “mummy” pose hands, gripping hands, and fists. The default, mummy, hands are basically posed how one would associate the mummy when it’s walking and reaching out towards a victim. They’re kind of curled and misshapen and since the thumb is under the fingers they can be considered loose, gripping, hands if you wish. As for what he has to hold, we have a set of nunchaku. Only now, the handles are gold-painted ankhs with brown tape around the handles. They have real chains, and there’s a gap on each side of the shell between the belt and shell they can be forced into if you like weapon storage. Mikey also has two pre-posed wraps that can be clipped onto a leg or arm for a little added effect. There’s a giant cobra which has a bendy wire through it that Mikey can hold, or have draped over his shoulders, or just have hanging around nearby. It’s in a hissing pose like it’s ready to strike.

The cobra makes me think of the Playmates figures and their “buddy characters” that can with so many figures.

Lastly, we have the best accessory: Mikey’s decaying, alternate, head. An image of a decaying Leonardo mask from the third TMNT movie has been floating around online for years, if not a decade. I believe it originated from an auction and it’s pretty damn hideous. Other images of decaying turtle costumes have followed, but that one is the most memorable and widely seen. Mikey’s alternate head is a clear homage to that one as the lips have been rotted away revealing two rows of big, flat, teeth. The flesh around the eyes has also receded leaving the face wide-eyed and a bit crazy looking. There are also chunks missing from other parts of the head and the bandana tails are a bit more wild looking. I don’t know if you’re supposed to be able to swap the knot between the heads, but as far as I can tell, they just peg into the head so it’s theoretically possible. The alternate head fits a little more snug than the default one and swapping them is pretty painless. It’s really hard to settle on one, though I feel like this alternate head captures a little bit of that Mikey humor inherent in the character and it might be the look I go with.

This figure actually presents a lot of display options. Classic Mummy pose? A Mikey nunchaku pose? Something with the snake? Default head or crazy, rotting, head? I’m planning on making Mikey a Halloween decoration that may live in his box (which I didn’t even talk about, but it’s beautiful) 10 months out of the year so it will be impossible to get all of these display options into one season. Maybe I’ll just need to find a place for him a little out of the way for the rest of the year. If you can’t tell, I love this figure and I absolutely recommend it. I don’t think it’s convinced me to buy the rest of the line, but if they hit clearance maybe I’ll reconsider. I think this guy displays just fine on his own, and if anything I’m more likely to invest in the accessory set for The Mummy than more TMNT x Universal Monsters figures.

Now the only thing left is to figure how to pose this guy on the shelf.

This figure was part of the Fall Geek Out event at Target. It was online as well, but I’m guessing that by the time this post goes live it will no longer be available there. This is the one and only Mummy Mike I saw in-store so it doesn’t look like he’s being shipped in the same vast quantities as the Leonardo figure from this line, but I could be wrong. If you missed the Target release, don’t fret. This figure is available to preorder in many of the usual places online and should be showing up in those same places eventually. Hopefully in time for Halloween.

Leave a comment | tags: action figures, michelangelo, neca, teenage mutant ninja turtles, the mummy, universal monsters | posted in Film, toys

September 13, 2022

NECA Cartoon TMNT Zach the Fifth Turtle and Smash

By Joe

It happens often with children’s programming where someone, somewhere, gets the idea that the show needs an audience surrogate. That is often true of a show where the main cast is older than the target demographic, which was the case with the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As the name implies, all of the characters are at least teens or older where as the show’s audience was probably something like ages 4-10. I don’t know if that’s why we got a character like Zach, but it seems like a pretty safe hypothesis. What kid watching didn’t want to battle the forces of evil alongside their heroes? What would that look like if a random kid from the audience dressed up like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle with stuff they found around the house and ran off to fight crime? Zach is the answer to that question and he’s profoundly lame.

Yes, even when I was a kid, I did not have any affection for Zach, the so-called fifth turtle. He showed up for the first time in the season 3 episode “The Fifth Turtle” and I thought it was preposterous. Sort of how I had a negative opinion of the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang, I felt like I was watching a very serious confrontation when I tuned into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles every afternoon. If it weren’t for the turtles and the events I was seeing on television, Shredder and Krang would be ruling the world! I’m supposed to accept some dumb kid with a hockey stick could render aid to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I don’t think so.

Unlike my feelings for the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang, my feelings for Zach haven’t exactly softened over the years. He’s a dumb part of a mostly dumb cartoon that I liked as a kid. He was a character I had no intention of ever purchasing, but lo and behold here we are. NECA bundled him with Smash, the leader of the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang, a figure I felt the opposite about. And my collection of toon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures is pretty damn complete so I’m not going to pass on a new character. I’m just going to have to find things about Zach to like.

I can’t imagine this sight frightens Shredder all that much.

In truth, the general aesthetic for Zach is not unpleasant. He really does look like a cosplay any kid could come up with. He’s got the bandana, and since he’s not a green-skinned turtle he could go with the color green for his mask, though he’s got a red sweatband over it. To simulate a shell he’s got a green trashcan lid which is about as good as a kid can do there and it’s attached via a belt and also goes over his backpack, which is just plain useful to have. Oddly, he went with a turtleneck for his shirt. Well, the choice of a turtleneck makes perfect sense, it’s that he went with yellow instead of green. Maybe to simulate the plastron of turtles? Also, he’s from a season 3 episode and the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang was already a thing so a green shirt with something on the front would have probably looked too similar. After all, when I was a kid I had a DIY Halloween costume that was a green turtleneck with a plastron crafted out of brown paper bags, which is basically what the CNT Gang rolled with. For pants, Zach’s got olive drab cargo pants which is as good as anything, plus some fashionable red and white sneakers that are pretty similar to the ones Bebop wears. Maybe they shop at the same place?

For the figure, NECA basically nailed it once again. To the top of his head, Zach is about 4.75″ and to the top of his hair around 5.125″ which feels pretty good for the line. I actually wish Baxter Stockman had this kid’s legs. They did a good job of reproducing Zach’s “costume” and even preserved the ability for the figure to wear the backpack with the trashcan lid over it. It’s a little tricky getting it all on, but not too bad and the belt on the trashcan lid feels very sturdy. He’s got his big, goofy, flock of blond hair which survived the transition from 2D to 3D just fine. I like how there’s a sweatband texture to his sweatband and the shirt and pants feature the usual two-tone approach to the paint. In terms of criticisms, I really only have two. For one, his face looks a little too full to be Zach. It’s really distracting because he looks like a kid I used to know. It’s not terrible or anything, it could just be better. Also, the paint on his bandana could be cleaner, though my other main criticism resides with the sneakers. The bottom of the shoe is cast in white, but painted red, so when that paint inevitably flakes off of the hinge it leaves behind white plastic. I hate when NECA does that and it’s something they’ve been better at avoiding of late, but apparently not here.

Nobody wanted to be Zach back in 1990, but we all wanted to be Kid Vid.

The aesthetic is good enough, and the articulation is pretty much as expected, though not without its flaws. Zach’s head sits on a little double ball peg and I’m happy to report the peg stays in place when popping off his head, unlike Usagi. He’s got good range there and there isn’t really anything to get in the way, which is nice. There’s no joint at the base of the neck. At the shoulders, we have hinged ball joints and he can raise his arms out just past horizontal, so that’s good. At the elbows, we have the controversial NECA double elbows with a hinged ball joint above and below the elbow. NECA likes these on sleeved arms and they’re okay. The range allows the character to bend past 90 degrees, but it looks awkward. I still prefer this to the single hinge and swivel though. No biceps swivel and the wrists rotate and feature a horizontal hinge. Again, vertical hinges would be better on the gripping hands, but that hasn’t been a priority for NECA. At the waist is a ball-joint that largely lets the figure swivel with little else. The hips are ball and socket joints and Zach can almost do splits, which is enough. He cannot kick back, and kicking forward causes the leg to want to go out to the side because the “diaper” piece gets in the way. There’s a slight thigh twist there and at the knees we have standard double-hinged joints. On my figure they are super gummy to the point where the joiner piece wants to flex as opposed to the hinges actually working. Definitely be very careful as you don’t want to shear that piece. No boot swivel, but the ankles hinge and have an ankle rocker, just be careful if you like that red paint on the hinge.

Considering how cool a flip phone could make you in 2000, this thing must have done wonders for his popularity in 1990.

The articulation is largely acceptable and Zach can do what he needs to do. The only sore spot for me are those knees as they shouldn’t be that gummy. I wish they would use a firmer plastic for the joining piece because what’s there just feels too soft. The range though is pretty standard stuff for this line which is to say it’s adequate, but not impressive, and that’s okay. NECA clearly prioritizes the aesthetic when it comes to this line and I’m more than okay with that.

Zach is one of those figures that comes loaded with accessories. I’m surprised by the volume here especially because Zach appears to be mostly new tooling. He shares hands with the Neutrino men and some of the internals on the torso could be the same as well, but I think that’s it. The only place they saved some money is in some repeat accessories, but even they’re slightly different. Zach has his blue backpack which is a soft plastic that fits over his arms. It unfortunately does not open, but it has a tiny peg on the back of it that is removable and almost will surely be lost by many who own this figure. The peg is removable so that the trashcan lid can plug into it. The belt is glued to the lid and I found sliding it over his legs to be the easiest way to get it on. I don’t think it necessarily needs to plug into the backpack, but it does secure it a little better. I just wish that pack could open.

Zach also has his Turtlecom, one opened and one closed. It has a hole in the bottom of it and a purple, plastic, hose that plugs into it. The other end is intended to plug into the bottom of the backpack because it did that in the show for some reason. If you want that look for Zach on your shelf, definitely plug that sucker into the backpack before putting the trashcan lid on because it’s a pain otherwise. Zach also has a big, blue, diamond that I only vaguely remember from one of his episodes and a shard of a crystal, again, something I only vaguely recall. He also has his hockey stick, which is painted gray and actually is different from the one that came with Casey Jones. He also has an assortment of hands including gripping, fists, open, and an extra right gripping hand. The two right gripping hands appear to be exactly the same. Maybe the factory was supposed to duplicate one of the other Neutrino hands and messed up? Or NECA just tossed in an extra since they’re so small and could potentially be lost. Zach also has a second, mask-less, head and a pair of goggles that can be worn with it. The goggles make him look like Burger King’s Kid Vid, but he was the best member of the BK Kid’s Club so I get why Zach would want to look like him.

A look at the new Chrome Dome head compared with the old one. Note the different paint job on the eyes to indicate that the new one is powered down. The jumper cable doesn’t work very well, but you get the idea. Good look with that dumbbell joint, it sucks!

Perhaps the oddest accessory is Chrome Dome’s head. It looks just like the head that came with the figure only now there’s a hinged piece on the forehead that can be flipped up to expose some of Chrome Dome’s “guts.” The eyes are also painted differently to indicate that the unit isn’t turned on. There’s also what looks like a jumper cable as there are two, white, alligator clips on each end of a gray-black cord. Unfortunately, the clips do not function and are just frozen in place, but in the episode “Night of the Rogues” Zach was able to hook up to Chrome Dome to reprogram him. You’re basically intended to use the cable with the computer that came with Chrome Dome, though there’s no place to clip it to so you have to just finagle it somehow. The clip can kind of attach to the innards of Chrome Dome’s head, but it’s prone to popping off. The head can also be swapped with the original head if you have the figure. I actually had two Chrome Domes so this was ideal for me. Unfortunately, Chrome Dome’s head probably wasn’t designed to be removed with ease because getting it off sucks. It’s connected via a double-ball peg and I couldn’t get the head to come off with the peg staying in it. It took me awhile to get it out of the head utilizing a couple different sets of pliers and a lot of hot water. As a tip, the old head is hollow so when you get it nice and hot you can basically squeeze it which helped me get the ball-peg out. I was also lucky in that I didn’t necessarily care if I damaged the head since I have two. That crown piece is definitely fragile so be careful. It would have been nice if NECA just included a second dumbbell joint with this one since that would likely cost pennies and save some aggravation. And if you’re thinking of just replacing the old head, note that the hinged piece doesn’t quite sit flush on the head so it’s definitely not seamless, plus the hinge is visible. Neat idea, it’s the execution that could be better.

The leader of the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang has appeared!

That was way more words than I ever though I’d devote to a character like Zach, so lets now pivot to his box-mate: Smash. Smash is the leader of the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang and runs the Slash for Cash dojo. He’s depicted here in his CNTG attire which is the same as the goon, minus the paper bag hat. Smash instead feels secure just going with the red bandana and feels no need to cover his face. The body here is largely reused from Burne, which we most recently saw repurposed for human Rocksteady. The torso is definitely different though as Smash is noticeably taller than both. The upper arms are the same, but needed different forearms to account for the elbow pads and wrist straps. The thighs are probably the same as Burne’s, but the lower leg is different since Smash has pants that end above the ankles (he ready for a flood?!). He then has the same style shoes as the goon, but bigger. The head is obviously different and since he’s much bigger, and stockier, than the CNTG goon the overlay is different too so it’s actually surprising how much new tooling is here. I was expecting Smash to be much more in-line with the prior figures.

And it’s good that NECA did that. I felt they should have with Rocksteady because he is just so small. Smash looks much better as a result, though he still has one issue in common and that’s those elbows. The hinge is above the elbow, so it looks stupid and I don’t know why they did it that way since his elbow only bends 90 degrees anyway. Just put the elbow pad where it should be. Aside from that, the aesthetics are solid here. The proportions for this body are still a little odd. I think maybe the head could be smaller or the shoulders broader, but it’s good enough. The paint is nice and clean on my figure with the only area being a little iffy is the mask. Some of the linework could be better there, but it’s still what I would consider good enough as that’s a delicate area. I still really like how this goofy costume turned out and Smash looks great with the rest of the gang.

The articulation isn’t great, but Smash can balance on one foot.

As for articulation, we already know that isn’t the strong suit of this base figure. Smash does at least one thing better, but for the most part he’s as expected. His head is on a double-ball and works great, no complaints there. The shoulders are ball-hinged and they’re okay. He can’t quite do horizontal, which is a bummer, but rotation is fine and not hindered by the shirt. The aforementioned elbows are not great, they swivel and hinge to about 90 degrees, and I already said what I said about the aesthetic. The wrists rotate and hinge and, again, all of the hinges on the various hands are horizontal hinges which is a bummer. There’s a ball-joint at the waist for swivel and he gets a little tilt in all directions as well. The hips are ball and socket joints and Smash can nearly do a split, but kicking forward and back is not a strength and he only gets a little rotation at the thigh. The knees are double-jointed and can bend past 90 degrees. The feet have the usual hinge and rocker combo and the one thing this figure does better than Burne/Rocksteady is that his feet are big enough to allow for one-footed stances. There are no surprises here, good or bad, so Smash is as expected. He’s not one of the better articulated figures in the line, one could argue he should be better, but it’s not terrible. We pretty much know what we’re getting at this point.

Mostly, Smash is likely to just be posed in a battle ready stance.

For those who prefer their Smash unmasked.

Like his underlings, Smash comes with a variety of weapons at his disposal. For hands, he has fists, gripping, and chop hands. He also has four different melee weapons: a hand axe, a knife, a kama, and a crooked dagger that looks pretty wicked. He also has a grappling hook with a yellow rope attached to it which is pretty neat. There’s also a second head included that features a yelling expression and no mask. It’s nice to have, but I can’t see myself ever using it. Swapping heads is at least easy as the double-ball is buried in that neck and isn’t likely to come out.

He does have a grappling hook, in case he ever wants to be Batman.

The Zach and Smash two-pack ended up being a pretty solid release. It’s a no-brainer if you grabbed the previous set, and if you happen to like Zach well then you have to get him. And if you’re like me and have a dislike for Zach, you can still talk yourself into it given that it’s a pretty well done set. This set is currently hitting Target stores as part of the Fall Geek Out event and should be available online as well. If you’re like me, then you preordered this sucker directly from NECA so no hunting required. Because it was already offered on NECA’s website, it’s unlikely a restock will happen anytime soon so get it now if you want it. I doubt it will be a much in-demand set, but you never know. And for now, this actually closes out the NECA preorders slated to arrive in 2022 for me. It’s kind of a weird feeling to have the year be “over” already. Other figures and sets have been revealed that I assume are coming later this year, but for now, I’m all caught up and it feels odd.

At long last, the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang lives again!

Leave a comment | tags: action figures, crooked ninja turtle gang, neca, smash, teenage mutant ninja turtles, zach the fifth turtle | posted in Television, toys

September 6, 2022

NECA Cartoon TMNT Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang and Rock Soldier Two-Pack

By Joe

When NECA launched its line of action figures based on the 80s-90s cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I had no idea how deep I’d want it to go. I’m pretty sure I even made an offhand comment regarding the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang as a jumping off point, because who has been sitting here for the past 30+ years yearning for action figures based on those guys? Well, here we are. I long ago lost count of how many figures I have in this line and my list of wants is pretty damn small at this point so it’s time for me to tell you all about the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang. Oh, and we have some rock soldiers too.

The Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang debuted in the first episode of the second season, “Return of the Shredder.” In the episode, a gym leader named Smash is hired by Shredder and trained in the ways of the Foot and then sent out in the city to commit crimes. While doing so, Smash and his goons were to dress-up as the Ninja Turtles which meant green t-shirts and red elbow and knee pads. Smash wore a red bandana mask and positioned himself as the leader, while his various lackeys wore green paper bags over their heads. The imagery was ridiculous, but it worked, and the citizens of New York City actually confused this gang of ninja thieves with the Ninja Turtles. As a kid, it was not a favorite episode of mine. Season 2 was repeated a lot so I got to see it a lot and to me they just looked like lame villains. Of course, they were supposed to and the absurdity of the situation should have been read as comedy, but I was a kid and I took my turtles seriously. Now I look at these guys and they make me laugh. They’re ridiculous, so of course I want them on my shelf!

They’re proud representatives of the Slash For Cash dojo.

Last spring, NECA made the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang and the Rock Soldier two-pack available on their website for pre-order along with another two-pack (don’t worry, I’ll get to it). They have now started shipping out while also showing up at Target as part of that store’s Fall Geek Out event. Previously, all of the preorders NECA sold on their website were basically guaranteed to arrive in the hands of collectors well before showing up at Target. These ones technically hit Target first, but for most the difference is about a week. I literally found them last Friday, and my order arrived Saturday. That’s fine, but I know some were a little irritated that the orders they prepaid for weren’t given more priority and I’m not going to tell people how they should feel about that: you’re either bothered by it or not. We can talk more about that when the Secret of the Ooze turtles start shipping.

They’re ninjas. Not particularly good ninjas, but ninjas nonetheless.

This two-pack is the line’s third “army builder” set. Army builder sets feature figures that were just generic fodder for the turtles to beat on. Collectors can be happy to have just one figure to represent the design from the show, while others are able to buy multiple sets to create an army just like on television. As such, I ended up buying three of these so I could have a full Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang of four once paired with Smash. It’s definitely cool to be able to do so, but like the Deluxe Foot Soldier, it also means ending up with a ton of accessories. It makes me wish they did different SKUs where you could buy a set of just figures and hands because there are enough weapons in one two-pack to outfit the whole gang. I guess it’s better to have too much than too little, so I’m not complaining, but if I could shave off 5 bucks or something I’d have been interested.

Those bag heads are pretty damn amusing to me.

Since this write-up has been so Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang focused we might as well start there. The CNT goon, or just goon from here on out, stands at around 5.875″ and is a mix of old and new parts, but appears to largely be new. The head is obviously new as he has the sculpted paper bag with the bandana sculpted on as well. He has a classic TMNT gritted teeth look painted on and the green is done with a more saturated green on the front and a paler green on the back. I love how these two shades of green play off of each other and it makes me wish the turtles followed this scheme. The bag is his actual head so there’s no portrait underneath it or anything and I think that’s fine as the proportions look terrific. His shirt is an overlay and the plastron on the front and shell on the back is sculpted in and it looks so good. I love the depth it adds and this costume basically looks better than what was worn on the show. The shirt is in two pieces with the bottom being like a skirt piece. The belt is sculpted onto that and this guy has his own unique feet as he’s basically wearing turtle slippers. He probably shares parts with Vernon, such as the neck and whatever is under the shirt. The thighs could be the same too, but I’m not positive. Either way, it doesn’t matter as what’s present is appropriate and what’s new looks excellent. The paint on all three of my figures is also very well done with the only blemish being a paint chip on the rear of the right elbow pad of one of the figures.

It feels like the figures we’ve looked at of late haven’t had to do much as far as articulation goes. This guy is a ninja, be it a poorly trained one, but a ninja nonetheless so he needs to move. Thankfully, the articulation here is solid and for this line even good. The head is on a double-ball peg and the neck is on a ball peg as well so you get lots of range up there. He’s a little limited looking up and down, but that’s due to his head being a literal box shape. There’s a ton of nuance up there though and I think most will be pleased. The shoulders are ball-hinged and not restricted by the shirt as his arms can come up to a horizontal position and rotate around. The elbows are single-hinged with a swivel, but thankfully NECA sculpted and painted the point of the elbow above the joint, which was an issue with the SDCC four-pack reviewed recently. He can bend slightly past 90 and it’s acceptable. The hands swivel, and my one main complaint with the articulation is that all of the hands have a horizontal hinge when the gripping hands, at least, should feature a vertical one. That is an area NECA could stand to improve upon. At the waist there’s a ball joint that really just allows for rotation. The hips go out to the side quite far and there’s a thigh twist there as well. The knees are double-jointed and bend past 90 degrees. There’s a twist in the shin where the pants end and the feet have a hinge and ankle rocker. The rocker doesn’t work as well here as it does on some other figures due to the shape of the foot, but it provides for some nuance. Overall, probably adequate by the standards of modern action figures, but for this line it’s better than average.

All right, now we move onto accessories and this guy comes loaded. For starters, we have fist hands, gripping hands, chop hands, and splayed hands. There is a sword that appears to be a new sculpt which has a nice, wide, blade. There’s a spear weapon that looks like a longer version of those pokers some use to pick up trash. It’s just gray with a white tip, but it’s new so that’s cool. There’s one set of nunchaku and another flail type weapon that has a gray ball on one end. The handles of the nunchaku and flail are new pieces and not reused from Michelangelo, which is a surprise. There are also two shuriken weapons, one that is seven-pointed with a hole in the middle and another that has four points and has the silhouette of a fireball or something. As I said before, you basically get enough weapons in just one box for an entire display, but having multiples does allow you to display someone dual-wielding the swords or nunchaku. I’m quite happy with the selection here, I just wish there was a way to store weapons on the goons since there’s just so much.

We’re going to need some ground support, here.

Ok, time to talk about rocks. The rock soldiers were Krang’s army of bad guys from Dimension X. Mostly, we just saw General Traag from time-to-time, but there were a few episodes where Krang had a full-on army. Sometimes those armies just looked like Traag, but gray, and other times they were unique. They were more slender, possibly taller, and had an “X” on their chest. There was a red version and a gray one, and I honestly can’t remember if the turtles ever had to fight them or if they were just shown as some threat about to enter a portal that was ultimately closed. For me, they’re definitely not as memorable as the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang and I did not even recall the specifics of their design until re-watching the show as an adult. I remembered there being generic rock soldiers, but I couldn’t have drawn one from memory.

They come with more mutagen canisters because you can’t have enough of the stuff.

The rock soldier included in this set is the red/brown version. It stands at about 7″, maybe a tick over, and certainly looks the part. The sculpt and paint scheme is very similar to Traag with the dominant color being the pale red-brown that was used for shading with Traag. The figure doesn’t follow that bisected approach of most figures in the line instead relying on patches of different colors to simulate the cel-shading which honestly is the better approach. There’s a dark brown and a more red/brown in use with a lot of black linework to help really give this one some pop. Curiously, there are parts where the black linework just seems to stop, but it appears to be deliberate given that it’s present on all three figures I own. The “X” on the chest is raised and the whole body has a nice texture to it. The paint application being more complex than usual does mean there are more blemishes here and there, but nothing egregious. About the only thing I wish NECA did differently is put some shading on the head and helmet as there’s none. Even Traag and Granitor have some on their helmets. To my surprise, there’s almost no parts reuse from that set. Just the lower torso and maybe the elbows, otherwise this is an all new sculpt.

This pistol is one of the few things reused from the past rock dudes set. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work too well with this trigger hand.

Given that we have a big, chunky, guy here this is definitely a figure that doesn’t call for as much articulation as the goon, but what we have is again pretty solid. The head is on a double-ball peg with a ball-peg at the base of the neck. Since he’s basically a pinhead, he gets fantastic range. The shoulders are just ball-hinges and the boxy nature of them means he can’t raise his arms out to the side completely, but probably enough for most poses. The elbows are the weird NECA double-joints, so you get a swivel and a hinge above and below the elbow. Since it’s sculpted for the rock aesthetic, it looks just fine and provides for great range, he just lacks a true biceps swivel. The hands rotate and hinge horizontally. The diaphragm features a ball joint which mostly allows for rotation as there’s very little tilt in any direction. The waist does swivel and it was stuck on all three of my figures, but a firm twist is all it took to loosen it up. At the hips, we have the ball joints with a swivel point. The legs don’t go out to the side very far, but he can kick forward all the way and go back a touch. The knees are surprisingly single-jointed and can’t quite hit 90 while the ankles feature a hinge and rocker combo that gets the job done. There is a swivel point at the knee to make up for that, but it barely moves given the sculpt. To my surprise, one of my figures has a stuck, left, hip. I have never encountered a stuck joint there since NECA switched to the ball and socket hips, but that sucker does not want to move.

Excluding the hip issue with one figure, I would say the rock soldier articulates well enough. He can hold a rifle with two hands, assume walking poses, and there’s enough adjustment areas to create some variety. His proportions are also much nicer than Traag and Granitor who are a bit too short for my liking. I’m definitely glad they did not reuse those legs. There is one instance of a painted joint on this figure that doesn’t match the base color, but it’s on the rear of the knees so it’s not much of an eyesore. The paint will flake off there though, so be wary if that’s an issue for you.

I honestly can’t recall if the turtles ever had to actually fight the rock soldiers.

The rock soldier also has some accessories for us to talk about, but not as many as the goon. This guy has just four hands at his disposal: a set of fists, a trigger right hand, and a half open left hand. The partly open left hands is almost like a loose, two-finger, trigger pose and I think it’s primarily in this shape so that the figure can handle the included weather bomb accessory. That’s the accessory I wanted Traag to come with way back when and it’s from the show’s fourth episode. It’s just a little, black, ball with gray indentations on it. There’s a sculpted button and what would be the screen. I wish we had an effect to make it look like it was active, or that it could split in half, but oh well. It can be held in that left hand though and is fairly sturdy. For the right hand, we have a pistol that’s the exact same mold as what came with Traag and Granitor only now it’s painted gray and black. Unfortunately, the rock soldier does not have a holster for it and the trigger finger is extended too far to actually rest on the trigger. We also have two rifles. It’s painted gray with dark gray parts. The eyepiece on the scope is painted purple while the muzzle has some red in it. It’s fine and it fits snugly into the rock soldier’s trigger hand. I’m guessing we get two in case you want to give one to Traag or Granitor. Lastly, we have a blue mutagen canister. It’s the updated two-piece version and the contents are painted green. This one is only painted in one shade of blue with black linework and doesn’t feature the shading of past versions, but it’s cool to get a blue version of the two-piece one.

Traag seems happy to have an actual squadron at his command.

All in all, this isn’t a two-pack of characters people have been begging for nor is it the type that’s going to knock anyone’s socks off. It is, however, very good for what it is and it’s hard to imagine NECA doing a better job with either character. What complaints I have are pretty minor, and I’m quite impressed by the amount of new sculpting in place here and the amount of paint is typical NECA, which is to say it’s a lot and it’s impressive. This line continues to be a tremendous value and anyone looking to amass a small army of rock soldiers and get the gang together should be plenty satisfied with this one. The one stuck hip in my set is slightly concerning, but it is one of three figures and it’s not an issue I’ve seen with that style of joint so I feel pretty confident that I just got a bad one and it’s not giving me much pause for concern. I would say buy with confidence. This set is presently being shipped out to Target stores and should be on shelves now. As of this writing it’s also available online at Target’s website and retails for $55 making this one of the easiest sets to acquire yet.

1 Comment | tags: action figures, crooken ninja turtle gang, dimension x, fall geek out, neca, rock soldiers, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in Television, toys

August 30, 2022

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

By Joe

Straight from San Diego Comic Con 2022, it’s another NECA 4-pack of action figures from the classic cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It was a little over a month ago that San Diego Comic Con occurred, in person, for the first time since 2019. This was cause for a celebration, even if for those of us who take in the convention from the comfort of our homes saw little change. Even without the event taking place the past two years, it didn’t stop most companies from saving announcements for the summer time to get all of those who are into the sort of subject matter featured at the convention worked up into a frenzy. It also didn’t stop those same companies from making convention exclusives.

NECA has been in the business of making con exclusive sets for years now. And unlike some companies, they have always made sure to include those who couldn’t make it in on the fun. This would often mean selling the exclusives on their website during the convention, or shortly before, which was often quite successful, but also lead to sell-outs and some hurt feelings along the way. With the convention getting cancelled, the exclusives were shifted to retail, but this year marked the return of the NECA webstore sale. And going back several years now, one of the pillars of con season for NECA has been Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With the brand becoming the most popular thing NECA makes product for, the company has made sure to make a lot of stock available when it comes to these exclusives. And just like with 2021, NECA has turned to its toon subline of TMNT for another convention four-pack: Premonition of a Premutation.

It’s the figures you always wanted as a kid! Okay, well maybe not every body. Left to right: Baxter Stockman, Hamato Yoshi, Bebop, and Rocksteady.

As the name implies, this is a four-pack of popular characters from the show in their less celebrated pre-mutation forms. They are: Baxter Stockman, Hamato Yoshi, Bebop, and Rocksteady. Fans have been asking for these versions of the characters for years now and most knew it was only a matter of time given how popular the line is. Plus, the company already unveiled Scrag, one of the seldom seen gang members associated with Bebop and Rocksteady in the show’s earliest days, as a figure for Loot Crate that NECA swears will see the light of day some day. Obviously, even as a limited release item, NECA isn’t going to make Scrag and not the more popular punkers. Hamato Yoshi also felt like a given and we saw Baxter teased via the packaging on the Turtles in Disguise set last year. The only real surprise is that they were reserved for a convention exclusive four-pack, but given how easy it was to secure a set, this doesn’t seem like a bad thing. It only stinks for those who were only interested in one or two figures in the set and not all four since it wasn’t exactly cheap at $150 plus shipping. We also had to pay upfront and wait awhile if ordering online. I paid for this item on June 3rd and it was supposed to ship after the convention concluded on July 24th and I didn’t end up receiving it until August 24th. That was definitely a longer wait than usual for these convention exclusives, but it’s here now so let’s talk about it.

The set comes housed in the now standard NECA four-pack setup. It’s a long box with a front flap that’s secured by Velcro. All around the box is new artwork based on the cartoon featuring the characters and likely a few hints here and there about what could possibly be on the way. There are product shots on the rear, and the front flap lifts up to reveal the figures inside. They’re packaged all in a row with some of their accessories visible, and more behind them (basically just the optional hands). My box arrived in good shape and would have been suitable as a mint-in-box item, thought I did have one issue which we’ll get to momentarily.

He may have a net, but what he really needs is a fly swatter.

For me, and I think most collectors, the character I most wanted from this set has been Baxter Stockman so I’m going to start with him. Baxter made his debut in the show’s second episode as the inventor of the Mousers which would soon terrorize the turtles and especially their master, Splinter. It was fitting he debuted in the show’s second episode since he made his original debut in the second issue of the comic, though he looked much different. Baxter would become a lackey for Shredder, sort of a right-hand man, and he remained in that role into the show’s second season where he underwent his mutation into a fly at about the midpoint of that season. As a kid, I remember waiting for that to happen since I knew there was a mutant fly toy with the same name as the character I was seeing on television and I was pretty excited when that day finally arrived. NECA delivered the fly version of the character awhile ago now, which is kind of funny when one considers that the human version of Baxter appeared in the show more often than the fly one, but we all remember and love the old toy so it’s easily the dominant image when one conjures up the name Baxter Stockman. Baxter is also the only figure in this set to not get a figure in his human form back in the old Playmates days. The other 3 were all featured in the Mutations subline, so while not stand-alone figures, their human forms were at least represented in some fashion.

“Baxter! You’re of no use to me at this height!”

Let’s get it out of the way upfront: this figure is too short. A lot of this set contains reused parts from previously released figures to keep costs down. That’s fine when the reuse makes sense, but in the case of Baxter it really doesn’t. NECA reused most of the parts from the fly version, but when Baxter was mutated he also shrunk. In the show, he was shorter than Shredder, but about as tall as the turtles. Scale was not the show’s strong point, but it was fairly accurate in those first five episodes where Baxter debuted and I maintain that, whenever possible, that original mini series should be the go-to when it comes to character designs and scaling. Unfortunately, Baxter is about 4.25″ tall to the top of his head, a little taller when factoring in the hair, and when placed beside Shredder he looks ridiculous. He looks like some sort of goblin or something. He barely looks human because the scale is just so goofy and it really does drive me nuts. It’s probably not something that will bother everyone, but it does me. My figure also has another big problem: no glasses! They’re supposed to be attached to his head in the box and when I got my set I was surprised to see them missing, but figured they must have fallen off during transport and were in there somewhere. Nope, no glasses to be found. I emailed NECA right away and around 24 hours later received a response that said a replacement head will be shipped to me as soon as possible. We shall see, but I’ll certainly update this post should that happen.

I wish they had gone with the same grin he’s sporting on the box. This expression is just puzzling.

Aside from the height and glasses issues, the figure does do a decent job of recreating Baxter’s look. He has the same torso as the fly version which features the now black vest and yellow bowtie. The lab coat has been added and is fairly flexible and he has his sneakers instead of ugly, purple, feet. The head is okay, though a little oversized for the body in some respects. He has a somewhat neutral expression though his mouth is contorted in such a way that maybe he’s a little angry or in thought? He has his wild hair and it’s well-painted and fits the character. The face looks off-model from certain angles and might be due to how his nose angles up a bit. I think he looks better from the side than the front, but it’s not as-if he’s unrecognizable. It’s a decent depiction of the character, just not the homerun some of other figures in this line have been. Of course, mine has some ugly holes in the temples where his glasses should plug-in, but hopefully that’s only temporary.

As for his articulation, it’s about what one would expect. His head is surprisingly not impacted much by the hair. He basically can look in all directions and the only one that’s limited is looking up. The shoulders are standard ball-hinges and they raise out to the side almost horizontal and rotate. NECA used their controversial double-elbow with this guy which they do a lot for human characters in jackets or sleeves so you get rotation above and below the elbow and the bend goes past 90 degrees, it just looks weird because the piece in the middle is fairly long so rather than the elbow coming to a point when bent, it’s squared-off. The hands rotate and feature a horizontal hinge. The waist is connected via a ball-peg, but it basically only offers rotation as the torso is covered up by the plastic overlay for the shirt. The legs are ball-sockets and come out to about 45 degrees and he can kick forward enough and kick back just a little before the “diaper” piece gets in the way. The knees are double-jointed and work fine while the ankles feature the standard hinge and rocker combo. The cuffs of the pants get in the way a bit, but this isn’t a guy who will be doing much posing and what we have here is fine. The left foot on mine falls off frequently as I think they missed some glue at the factory, but that’s probably not a common occurrence.

Baxter has a tiny set of turtles that may be sparsely painted, but are still pretty cool nonetheless.

As for the paint, Baxter looks pretty good. The lab coat is a mix of white on the front and a light blue on the read and inside. There’s a lot of black linework and I really like how the front pockets turned out. The line work on his face is very clean, as is the black on the shoes. There’s a very light scuff on part of the jacket and some parts where the paint came out a touch thick, but that’s only noticeable upon really close inspection. Some of the joints will flake, but they all appear to be painted in the appropriate color so it’s just a mild annoyance. Overall, the paint application is easily the strong point of the figure and I have no complaints with it.

Our next figure is Hamato Yoshi, the man who would one day become Splinter the rat and mentor to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (he seriously calls them that in the first episode, it’s so silly). Unlike Baxter, Yoshi does not reuse any parts from his previously released mutated form. Even the kimono is new as NECA chose to sculpt it rather than utilize soft goods. He stands a tick under 5.5″ to the top of his hair and basically looks the part. NECA did a good job with the facial likeness as Yoshi had a fairly unique look to him in the show. He wears his kimono more like a shirt in his human form with it tucked into some striped pants and fixed in place with a black belt. Curiously, there’s no shading on the pants, but the black lines are painted very well. There’s still shading on the top, but that’s it aside from the shading in the hair (which looks really good). I’ll just say the paint is well done with him, rather than devote an entire paragraph to it, and he definitely looks more on-model than Baxter.

“Life as a rat isn’t so bad, you get used to eating out of the trash.”

As for articulation, we would like a ninja master such as Hamato Yoshi to move better than Baxter and he does in some respects, but not in others. His head is on a double-ball-peg and gets good range of motion. There’s no joint at the base of the neck so he doesn’t look down super far, but far enough. The shoulders are ball-hinged and he can raise his arms out to the side okay while the shoulders of the kimono piece need to be worked around when rotating. It’s at the elbow where NECA made an odd choice to go with a single hinge and swivel. The biceps piece is cut at an angle and it makes it look like his arms are slightly bent all of the time. The puffy nature of the sleeves must have convinced NECA to do it this way, but he can just barely hit 90 degrees at the hinge and the swivel only works a little bit as it throws off the sculpt in most, non-neutral, positions. The wrists rotate and feature horizontal hinges and he has the same limited ball-joint at the waist as Baxter. At the hips, he can almost do full splits. He can’t really kick back though and kicking forward only goes so far until the legs want to shoot out to the side. The knees are double-jointed and NECA continued the paint on the top piece so they don’t look bad when bent, not on the bottom. He can bend his knees past 90 though and it looks okay. Above the ankle is a swivel point and below that we get the usual hinge and rock combo which works fine. One thing I wish he could do better than he does is sit, but otherwise he moves around fine.

Bebop sure had style back before he got mutated.

Next up is the tallest figure in the box and it’s Bebop. Bebop is also the first black character in the line and might end up being the only one as I can’t recall many others from the old show. He too also doesn’t reuse anything from his mutated counterpart, but he does appear to share some parts with Vernon. He stands around 6.25″ to the top of his head, and nearly a full 7″ when you factor in the mohawk. He’s pretty lanky looking, which seems close enough to the source material. He has the big red jacket and purple mohawk and matching glasses and the paint is all really well done. There’s shading on the torso, but not on the pants as they’re all black. I think I like the facial likeness on this guy the best out of all of the figures in the set and he may be my favorite overall.

Bebop looks pretty good, but these elbows are weird.

The articulation with Bebop is a bit similar to Yoshi in that I’m not crazy about the elbows. The head and neck are articulation via ball pegs and they work very well. He can even look up quite far with that mohawk of his so long as you turn the head first to avoid his giant collar. The ball-hinges at the shoulders allow the arms to be raised out to the side, but again NECA went with a simple hinge and swivel for the elbows. Bebop’s arms basically can’t be positioned straight and will always have a slight bend to them. When bent, you basically get 90 degrees out of it, but it looks odd because the actual hinge is above the elbow, which is sculpted and painted. They don’t make visual sense when bent and I wish I could say it was less noticeable than it really is, but he basically always looks “off” to a certain degree unless his arms are left in a neutral position. He has the same waist joint as the others and the hips are fine as he has the most range of anyone kicking forward and back in this set. He can almost do splits too, not that he needs to. This is also as good a time as any to say the hips are all nice and snug in this set, which is a noted improvement over some past releases. The knees are double-jointed and they work fine while the ankles are hinged and rock. There’s no boot swivel so don’t try to crank on those parts.

Lastly, we have Rocksteady who features a lot of parts reuse, but not from the rhino version of the character. Like Bebop, Rocksteady gets his parts from a member of the Channel 6 News Crew, in his case it’s Burne. This means Rocksteady is pretty short coming in at 5.5″. He’s probably a bit undersized compared with his character model, but not as severely as Baxter. His proportions are also a little odd as Burne featured a pretty big melon so Rocksteady does as well. His head was not this massive compared with his body in the show, but he’s at least still clearly Rocksteady and wouldn’t be mistaken for someone else. And since he’s based on Burne, he has another oddity in that he has two belts. The overlay on his torso features a belt sculpted onto the bottom while the pants on Burne featured a sculpted belt on the hips piece. It’s only noticeable if you’re looking for it, but it is odd. The paint on him is pretty good though with the pants and vest both featuring the usual shading, though the sleeves of his t-shirt are not shaded. There are some scuff marks on the rear my figure concerning the pants, but the front looks fine. The linework is all done really well, but overall I think he might be the weakest of the set. The giant head just bothers me more than Baxter’s shortness (I’m disregarding the missing glasses since that’s likely a me issue) and he’s another one I’d consider acceptable, but definitely not a strength of the line.

“Hey! Don’t even think about touching my soup, Ugly!”

Burne is possibly the worst articulated figure in the line so unfortunately that’s going to extend to Rocksteady as well. The head is on a ball-peg and that’s fine as he’s not restricted by the sculpt at all and can look in all directions. The shoulders are ball-hinged and they can get out to the side, but his elbows are terrible. They’re always bent a little bit, and more-so than we saw with Bebop. There’s just one hinge and when bent fully gets to about 90 degrees, but since the neutral pose is already bent you’re only getting a range of motion here of about 45 degrees. He also has the same issue as Bebop where the elbows are painted and shaped to be below the hinge and it just looks really weird. The hands rotate and hinge horizontally and the waist joint is a ball-peg that just basically allows for a twist with very little forward and back or side-to-side. The legs do not kick out very far, but he can almost do a split. The knees are double-jointed, but very tight. I can get the top hinge to work okay, but the bottom is fairly stubborn. Ideally, if only one worked you’d prefer it be the bottom so the kneecap stays in place. He can bend past 90 degrees though. There’s no boot cut and the ankles do the same thing all of the others do. Overall, he might be the worst articulated, though Baxter does have the long coat to contend with, but the only part I’m really disappointed with are those elbows.

Rocksteady’s elbows might be worse than Bebop’s.

Okay, that was a lot of words on some figures so now lets spend some more on accessories! Each character comes with a set of fist hands in the package and some additional ones to swap to. Baxter has a set of gripping hands with the left hand being looser than the right. He also has a more open, but still clenching, left hand and a right pointing hand. Hamato Yoshi has a set of gripping hands, karate chop hands, and a loose gripping left hand. Bebop has a gripping right hand, an open, but clenchy right hand, and two left loose gripping hands. Those two look almost the same, but I think one is slightly more closed than the other. Functionally, they’re almost the same though and I don’t understand why he doesn’t have a tight, gripping, left hand to pair with the right one. Rocksteady has a set of gripping hands and a set of open hands. The open hands are the same ones that Burne came with and they’re oddly shaped like maybe to be used as typing hands with the computer he came with? They’re weird and probably useless with Rocksteady.

“Hey Bebop! Get a load of these pipsqueaks!” “Yeah, they sure are ugly! Not as pretty as we are.”

In addition to hands, we have a whole bunch of other stuff too. Baxter comes with another Mouser and its the same as the one from the set released earlier this year. He also has the jeweled tracking device for some special crystal from a Season Two episode and there’s another tracking device that almost looks like it has a turtle shell in the center. They’re both painted very well and give Baxter something to hold onto. He also comes with a net for catching tiny turtles which are also here and come housed in a jar. The turtles are removable, but they’re one piece sculpted together and the only paint is green and yellow. They still look pretty neat and it’s certainly a fun accessory. The sculpt on the tiny turtles is also pretty damn impressive, as far as I can tell. The net is fairly basic and the actual net portion is soft plastic. I’m surprised they didn’t go for the real thing, but maybe that would have cost too much. Baxter Stockman is definitely well-stocked, pun intended, though and about the only thing missing is the remote for the Mousers. I’m seriously shocked that hasn’t been included with something yet.

These baby turtles are pretty damn great.

Hamato Yoshi is comparably much lighter in the accessory department than Baxter, but he has a few things. For one, he has a bo staff to arm himself with. It has some sculpted lines to simulate wood grain, but is otherwise very basic and just painted brown. He also comes with a translucent fishbowl and four baby turtles. They’re pretty damn cute and painted rather well considering how small they are. The only thing that stinks about them is it’s really hard to get them to stand on all fours inside the bowl. I’d probably have to get tweezers to do it properly. It would have been nice to get just a blob of mutagen for them to stand on outside of the bowl, and maybe one to go on the back of a shell, but this is fine.

Sometimes you just need some good tunes when committing acts of vandalism.

Bebop and Rocksteady essentially have a bunch of stuff they can share. Rocksteady has his stick that sort of resembles a baseball bat, but not quite. It’s a light brown with some black linework and certainly looks the part. There’s also a baseball bat if you prefer the real thing and it’s a very light brown with white tape painted onto the handle, but surprisingly no wood grain. It’s also not the same bat included with Casey Jones as this one is slightly smaller, so that’s also a surprise. There’s also a gray crowbar and an actual chain since I think it was Bebop who did sport one in the show. They also come with two cans of spray paint and the sculpt on these is really fun. It would have been cool if they could have attached the nozzles via small ball-pegs similar to the controls in Krang’s body, but they look cool. One is painted blue with a green, wavy, line across the center while the other is purple with the same green line. Rocksteady really can’t hold them though, but Bebop’s slightly wider clenched hand holds them well. Lastly, we get a new boom box which is different from the one included with the Turtles in Disguise set. It has a fairly simple design, but it’s painted well enough. The accessories are often a strong point with these four-packs, and with this set, that’s pretty much the case. What’s missing amounts to nitpicks, and it’s great to be able to add yet another Mouser to the family.

These two feel right at home in a darkened alley.

Overall, this a solid release from NECA. Compared with last year’s convention exclusive, I might like this one just a little bit more because we’re getting four, distinct, characters where as last year’s included another Vernon and Cat April wasn’t particularly high on my wants list. Plus, I can only get so excited for the news crew, even if I did want all of those characters on my shelf. With these four, I did want to add them all. The one I was probably least interested in is Hamato Yoshi, but a TMNT collection should include him so it’s not like I’m disappointed. He also arguably turned out the best out of all of the figures in this set. It’s really between him and Bebop, who would be perfect if not for the elbows. Baxter and Rocksteady are the two most off-model, and my Baxter obviously has the missing glasses which is a real bummer. I’m not one to complain as everyone makes mistakes and all products have a fail rate, but it does irritate me that two out of the past five shipments I’ve received from NECA featured an obvious defect readily apparently to anyone who would have looked at it. A missing accessory stored under the tray would be one thing, but the glasses are supposed to be right on the figure’s face! Does anyone inspect the product before shipping it?

Criticisms aside, this Rocksteady is certainly an improvement over the old one. I don’t have Bebop from that line, but if memory serves they made him white and I’m fairly positive the new one is an improvement. Same for Yoshi.

Frustrations aside, if you wanted human versions of these characters in your collection then this set should scratch that itch. Yes, two out of the four figures could have been better from a likeness point-of-view, but they’re not hideous or anything. They just aren’t as good as some of the other releases we’ve seen of late. None are threatening April for worst in the line, but none are challenging the likes of Chrome Dome for the top spot either. They’re merely adequate, but they didn’t really need to do much more than that. If you missed out on the web sales or the convention itself then you may be out of luck when it comes to this set. The after-market will definitely have some and it might not be the type of set that’s super sought after. There is no retail release planned though, but convention exclusives from NECA’s past have shown up recently on costumes.com so maybe keep an eye out there. It’s entirely possible that NECA didn’t sell every set and the extra will show up there or maybe even at Target? In other words, it might pay off to be patient, but it could also mean missing out completely. If this is a set you think your collection will be incomplete without, then it might make more sense to act now rather than chance it. Hopefully, your Baxter will have glasses.

UPDATE: NECA did indeed come through for me, albeit, it took awhile and repeated emails, but I did finally receive a replacement Baxter head on May 20th. That’s about 9 months from when the set was shipped to me. I had “played it cool” and didn’t even follow-up with my initial request until October and, despite politely asking if there was an estimated timeframe for when the replacement might be sent out, I was basically scolded for not being patient. Lovely. I wouldn’t follow-up again until February and I didn’t receive a response. A similar follow-up in April yielded the same, but maybe that one put me back on their radar since it wasn’t that much longer until the replacement was sent out from NECA’s headquarters in New Jersey. I was irritated by the experience as NECA has continued to sell this four-pack at other conventions. They had sets on-hand they could have exchanged mine out with, but chose not to. I don’t think they’ve done another production run and my guess is someone was told to just pull a head out of an existing set or maybe they had already opened one to replace another part/figure for someone else. Either way, they did come through and to some that’s all that matters, but NECA could stand to do better. Hopefully, the other orders I have with them go much smoother.

NECA and TMNT are no strangers to Comic Con as you can see here:

NECA TMNT Cartoon Channel 6 Newsroom SDCC Exclusive Set

Remember San Diego Comic Con? You would be forgiven if you did not since, like last year’s edition, the event was a virtual one once again. Only unlike the 2020 version, this one came with the expectation it would be virtual. It also coincided with a global shipping crisis, so combine that with the expectation…

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Awhile back, I decided to rank the various incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from worst to best. Occupying that dubious last place spot were the Turtles featured in The Coming Out of Their Shells tour. That may sound like the title of a TMNT sex tape, but it was something else entirely. If…

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by Joe August 5, 2020August 4, 2020

NECA 1990 TMNT Movie SDCC Set

For the past several years, the folks over at NECA have been making San Diego Comic Con an annual event for fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I mean, it’s always an event, but it’s been especially fun for TMNT fans because NECA has been able to release limited action figure sets based on…

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by Joe August 15, 2018

3 Comments | tags: action figures, baxter stockman, bebop, convention exclusive, hamato yoshi, neca, rocksteady, san diego comic con, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in Television, toys

August 2, 2022

NECA Cartoon TMNT The Neutrinos

By Joe

Check it out, daddio! The totally frozen trio of Zak, Dask, and Kala have joined NECA’s line of action figures based on the cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! The Neutrinos come straight from Dimension X, having debuted during the original mini series of the show now referred to as season one, in the fourth episode overall: Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X. Even though they share a dimension with Krang, these kids abhor war and prioritize having fun above all else, which is the antithesis of what Krang and Shredder stand for – so they must be eliminated!

The Neutrinos are a wacky premise in a fairly wacky cartoon. Perhaps created to give the kids watching at home an audience surrogate, they would return a few times after their debut and often with some wild antics taking place. Even though they’re supposed to appeal to kids of the1980s, they talk like beatniks with goofy 50s slang – maybe they just assumed kids were watching a lot of the Fonz on Happy Days? Because of their rather extreme personalities, the Neutrinos are something you either love or hate. I lean more towards the “love” side as they don’t particularly bother me and I’m pretty sure I was excited to see them return when I was a kid. Plus it doesn’t hurt that “Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X” might be my favorite episode of the show. It’s the episode where Donnie invents the Turtle Van and we’re introduced to the rock soldiers Traag and Granitor. It’s also the episode most responsible for making Leonardo my favorite turtle who already had a head-start in that department by virtue of wearing my favorite color and my favorite weapon of the four.

The Neutrinos and their stuff. If you need a refresher on who’s who, left to right we have Zak, Kala, and Dask with the Grybyx and Baby Tribble in front.

Like Usagi, the Neutrinos were put up for preorder on NECA’s website back in March and both sets arrived at the same time, which is pretty cool and pretty fast in this day and age. They represent the first 3-pack (unless you count the Triceraton and Roadkill Rodney set as a 3-pack) in the line as they couldn’t be split up since they always appeared as a trio. Since they are a 3-pack they’re priced accordingly at $75, which I assume will be the MSRP on this set when it hits Target stores later this year. We’re essentially paying $25 for each one which is actually lower than the usual two-pack pricing. And if you think that’s because there’s a ton of parts reuse among the three well then you’d be wrong. To my surprise, these three are fairly unique so lets get to it.

“You dudes like pizza?!” “Yeah, but not that kind, daddio!”

First of all, the Neutrinos are comprised of Zak, Dask, and Kala. Zak has the blue outfit, Dask the yellow, and Kala is the lone female of the group. This is their first appearance in NECA’s line, but all three actually were featured in the vintage line from Playmates with Zak getting a release in the standard line followed by a repaint in the Toon subline where he was joined by Kala and Dask. I had all three as a kid, though I passed on the Zak repaint when he got re-released, and I remember them rather fondly. Too bad I don’t still have them for comparison’s sake, but I remember them being surprisingly accurate when compared with the show, especially Dask and Kala. I also liked how Playmates did Dask’s unusual hair with two shades of blue, light blue on the inside and dark blue on the outside.

At least the Neutrinos being on the small side works well with their primary antagonists, the rock soldiers Granitor and Traag.

These three are fairly show accurate. Zak is the tallest at about 5.5″ to the top of his hair while Dask is a little bit shorter at 5.25″, but he also doesn’t have a ton of hair sticking straight up preferring to have his going forward. To the top of their foreheads they’re basically the same height. Kala is the shortest, though to the tip of her hair she’s about 5.25″ as well. Some were a bit disappointed when these figures were shown off because their proportions appear to be more in-line with some of their later appearances in the show. All three have pretty large heads relative to their body and are a lot smaller than the turtles. It’s show accurate, but not to their debut episode where I personally think they looked their best (as the show basically looked its best during that initial 5 episode run). In that, their proportions were fairly normal for a human on the show and they basically stood eye-to-eye with the turtles. Of the three, I’d say Dask looks the most on-model when comparing him to that specific episode. Kala would be rather close if she had a longer neck (she basically looks neck-less from the front). Zak is a bit more “toonified” by virtue of his giant ears sticking way out. Their proportions here are probably more representative of their other appearances in the show, but I’m of the mind that NECA should rely on those first five episodes whenever possible so even if there are more episodes with them looking like this, the debut is still the best way to present them.

Even though it’s 3 against 1, I wouldn’t call this a fair fight.

All right, aside from my nitpicking of the proportions, the overall looks is pretty good. Paul Harding was the sculptor on this set and he captured all of the intricacies of each character’s outfit. Dask has the giant shoulder pads, Zak his massive popped collar, and Kala her skirt and rounded shoulder pads. The only places NECA could reuse parts are largely in joiner pieces like the lower torso, knees, and hips on Zak and Dask. Those two might share thighs as well as I can’t tell if the fins on Dask are glued on or part of the same mold. It must have drove NECA nuts that the characters of Zak and Dask are reveresed when it comes to the legs with Dask having the fins on his thighs and Zak on the calves. Both also feature different feet. All of the pieces are fairly hard-sculpted too with few, soft, rubbery, overlays. It’s basically just the “diaper” piece over the hips that’s soft.

My Zak had a paint flaw out of the box, but nothing a Magic Eraser couldn’t solve.

For the paint, we get the usual NECA toon shading with bright on the front and darker shades on the back. On Dask, there’s a paint chip right on his chest which is a bummer as well as some excess at the tip of his left ear. Some of the linework on his left sleeve is also inconsistent with the line being thinner in places. On Zak, we have a figure that’s pretty clean with the only issue I have being the white paint on his ankles showing as not quite opaque enough. Obviously, they were painted white over blue here and sometimes that happens. Zak also came out of the box with an ugly blob of black on his left wrist that sort of looked like a tattoo or something (I had to go to the source material to make sure it was a defect). It was very unsightly, but thankfully it came off with a magic eraser. With Kala, there’s a spot of dark green on her torso that’s a bummer because it’s in such a prominent place, but otherwise she’s mostly fine. NECA uses a ton of paint, so the small imperfections are going to happen. There’s at least no instances of wrong color hinges or anything like that so overall I’d consider the paint applications here to be acceptable. They’ll certainly pop on your shelf.

The tiny feet and big heads make these guys tricky to pose. They’re not going to be able to do too much on your shelf without some help.

Now if you’re looking at these outfits and thinking “That can’t be good for articulation,” well then you would be correct. All three figures feature the same points of articulation. They ball joints at the head, neck, abdomen, and hips which also swivel. The shoulders are ball-hinges, the elbows single-hinged with a swivel, the wrists swivel and hinge, the knees are double-jointed, and the ankles hinge and rock side-to-side. That’s pretty standard for the line with the only thing missing being a waist twist and double-joints at the elbows. What doesn’t work too well are the shoulders, especially on Zak because of his odd setup. He can’t really raise his arms out to the side unless you first rotate them 180 degrees. Once you do that you can raise them about 45 degrees and then rotate them back which allows the shoulder pads to slide under the softer plastic on his torso. I’d be cautious about doing so though as you’re rubbing painted white plastic on blue and that could go bad. Dask and Kala don’t have this problem, though Dask’s shoulder pads won’t allow his arms to stick straight up, but that’s not much of a loss. Dask is the most limited when it comes to kicking forward and back as his “diaper” is rather tight and constricting with Kala’s skirt being the least constricting and Zak sort of in the middle there. All three feature really tight, slightly gummy, knees and it’s probably due to all of the paint. Their limbs are very thin, especially at the forearm, so if your set feels stuck definitely air on the side of caution with them.

More often than not, this is the end result. Especially if you try to use those hoverboards.

The actual range of articulation is a bit mediocre by the standards of more, highly, articulated lines, but not a huge surprise for this particular line. What is less enjoyable is the looseness of some joints. These figures are all top heavy by virtue of their big heads and that torso joint. Zak’s torso is pretty floppy, while Dask is a touch loose and Kala is fine. All three also feature tiny feet and weak ankles which makes all three a chore to stand up. Zak seems to stand the best because he has the largest feet, but he’s still a pain to keep upright on a surface. Dask is by far the worst though because he has skinny feet and the ankles on mine are very weak. Kala’s are tighter, but her feet are the smallest of the three so she’s no better. NECA foresaw this issue and included a small, transparent, plastic, disc stand for each figure. The problem with that is it’s very light so there’s no weight holding them down and it does nothing to solve the issue of the weak ankles. About the only way they work is to position the figures with one foot forward to help better distribute the weight and leave the disc on the rear foot. This seems to work with Kala. Zak is almost better off without the disc as it makes his base uneven and it’s too small to put both feet on it. I can get Dask to stand if I pitch his head forward as if he’s looking at his toes, but that’s hardly a good look. In short, don’t position these three close to the edge of a shelf.

If you have the vintage Playmates versions of these characters then these boards should feel familiar.

Also included to perhaps help out with the standing issue and the lack of a hover car are three hoverboards. These were never in the show, but are a callback to the Playmates action figures. I assume Playmates included them since the Neutrinos are known for driving a hover car, but that would be big and expensive. Playmates actually did release a hover car, but as a vehicle for Shredder and his minions which was strange, but a fun toy nonetheless. NECA may one day do a car if there’s demand for it, but for now we have the boards. Each one is fully painted and unique to the rider and comes with a stand similar to the ones included with the Turtles in Time turtles. They’re cool and all, but have the same problems as the disc stands in that there isn’t enough weight to them to really help in getting these guys to stand. They look cool and all, but I have no confidence in the figures remaining on them when I walk away since they have yet to last 15 minutes on my shelf.

In addition to the hoverboards, we do have a handful of other accessories and two mini figures. Our first accessory is this little, chunky, gray, box that reminds me of portable televisions from the era. It’s a communicator that Donatello uses in the show to contact the Neutrinos all the way in Dimension X, if I’m not mistaken. There’s a handheld device that looks like Egon’s PK Meter from Ghostbusters that I think was called a spectral analyzer. There’s another handheld device that’s a tracking one used for another accessory in this set which I’ll get to it. There’s yet another one that looks like a mashup between a flashlight and a microphone and I have no idea what it does in the show. Lastly, there’s a ray gun or something that resembles a bullhorn. Sometimes NECA includes a list of the items in these sets, and sometimes they don’t, and this is one of the sets where they didn’t. We also get an assortment of hands. For the boys, there are two sets of gripping hands and fists, and one set of open hands and a loose open hand that almost looks like a devil horns gesture. Kala gets open hands, fists, a gripping right hand, and a right “Peace” sign hand. Kala’s hands are a little smaller than Zak and Dask’s, but she could use one of the boys’ hands if she wants and vice versa without it looking too ridiculous.

These two don’t do much, but they are pretty cute.

In addition to all of that are two mini figures. First up, is Princess Tribble from the episode “Four Turtles and a Baby.” For some reason, every show during this era needed to do an episode with a title that was a pun on Three Men and a Baby. The Neutrinos are not featured in that episode, but she is a Neutrino child so it makes sense to include her. She’s in a seated position and her head can rotate and her arms are on ball hinges. She’s also looking up given how her eyes are painted so she can resemble a baby with its arms up expressing a desire to be picked up by an adult. It’s cute. The other mini figure is the Grybyx, Kala’s pet which escapes from Dimension X and arrives on Earth in the episode “The Grybyx.” In that, he gets mutated as he’s basically the show’s version of a mogwai and becomes a rampaging beast, but here he’s in his much smaller and cuter form. He’s positioned in a crouch and his only articulation is a ball-jointed head, but he’s well painted and rather cute so it’s all good. The tracking device I mentioned earlier is from the same episode and was used to try and locate the Grybyx.

Mikey certainly looks happy to have his favorite gal join the party.

That’s all, and it’s a pretty solid collection of stuff. I don’t know what half of it is, but it’s not like the Neutrinos were associated with many accessories in the show aside from their kick ass rides. This set from NECA is yet another solid addition to the collection. My only gripes are that I wish these figures were based more on their appearance in the first season and that they weren’t such a pain to stand. It’s nice that NECA included the disc stands to try and help, but these three need something more substantial unfortunately. I have so far been able to get them to stand only for short durations, and that’s with and without the aid of the stand or hoverboard. I’d love to have Kala holding her pet, but that seems unlikely. In the meantime, I’ll keep them away from any edges and sort of on their own as I don’t need them taking anyone else out during one of their falls. If you want to add these guys to your display keep your eyes on Target as they should show up there eventually, possibly as part of a collector event scheduled for September. Yeah, I hate those things, but sometimes we have to deal with them. Also keep your eyes on costumes.com as NECA has been randomly dropping stuff on there lately including old exclusives and new ones like the Mousers. Hopefully everyone who wants this set can eventually get it.

Leave a comment | tags: action figures, grybyx, kala, neca, princess tribble, teenage mutant ninja turtles, zak | posted in Television, toys

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