“The last vial of ooze!”

“He must have drank all of it!”

“It’s a Super Shredder!!!”

It’s a simple, obvious, and corny introduction for a character, but as a 7-year old it felt rather impactful. The introduction of Super Shredder in the waning moments of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze answered a question I had always asked myself as a young TMNT fan: what would happen if Shredder exposed himself to mutagen?

Super Shredder appeared in the film for less than two minutes, but he left a big impression on me. Despite the fact that his appearance was anti-climactic, and the whole sequence is frustratingly bad. A large, imposing, Shredder confronts the turtles beneath a dock. Since this is the sequel film and the goal was to reduce the violence on screen, the turtles try to reason with their foe in an attempt to avoid direct conflict by literally pleading with him to “listen to reason.” Super Shredder is apparently a thoughtless baffoon though, and rather than have the turtles do battle with this ultimate version of their foe, they make some dumb jokes before Leonardo reminds them that they’re turtles and they retreat to the nearby water while Shredder continues mauling the supports of the dock they’re under until it collapses on him, killing him. Basically anyone in the turtles’ position could have felled Super Shredder as being turtles wasn’t a requisite for using water, it would have been for anyone who could swim.

Despite the incompetence of Super Shredder, I still found the character fascinating. That was in part due to me missing out on TMNT II. For whatever reason, likely just a lack of desire to see the film, my parents never took me to see the sequel in theaters like they had the original. It’s not that surprising as we probably attended one or two movies a year as a family and I doubt my parents were looking forward to seeing that one. We were more of a rental family. As a result, I had to hear about Super Shredder secondhand for nearly a year and wonder what he even looked like. When Playmates released an action figure of Super Shredder, I heard about it from my cousin, who claimed his friend had one. He also claimed his friend got it at Bradlees in Woburn, Massachusetts. Bradlees was a department store not exactly known for toys, but they carried some. My cousin and I begged our mothers to take us, but they had no interest in doing so. When I told my friends at school about the existence of a Super Shredder toy, they didn’t believe me! Then one day while recess is wrapping up, a kid walks by us and drops a Super Shredder action figure on the ground. I can remember just pointing and shouting “Super Shredder!” while my friends looked on with their mouths agape in shock and surprise. The kid was a little freaked out, he was a grade or two below us, scooped up his toy and ran off.

Eventually I would see The Secret of the Ooze and even get my own version of Super Shredder, both things happening Christmas of 1991. And while I found Super Shredder’s big reveal and quick death a bit disappointing, I never once thought the character didn’t look cool. He was impressive, and any article written about the character is required to include the trivia that it was professional wrestler Kevin Nash under the helmet. Nash was billed as being six feet and ten inches tall. I don’t know how accurate that is to reality considering wrestling is never shy about boosting such numbers, but he’s a pretty big guy. And the film makes him look as big as possible in how it films him with the camera often being at a low angle or behind him. He’s never really in a full frame, and the only time another character is in frame with him it’s Leonardo and they film his feet kicking furiously above Shredder’s shins as he’s held up. He’s then shot face-to-face with his head above Shredder’s, but most of their bodies are out of frame so we don’t know where his feet were in that shot. It could be just some clever editing and positioning to make the character appear even larger, or maybe he really was just that much bigger than Leonardo.

Either way, it’s one reason why the brand new NECA action figure of Super Shredder is so much larger than what has come before. He is essentially the first deluxe figure from one of the films joining Metalhead from the cartoon line. He stands at about 9″ tall with the middle point of his crested helmet touching the 9″ mark on my tape measure. This is a far cry from the only other Super Shredder action figure based on his appearance in TMNT II, the Playmates one, which stood at a mere 5″ at his tallest part, basically making him the same size as the movie turtles from Playmates. Scale was never the strong point of the vintage line, and despite the inaccuracies I truly loved that figure as he replaced my main Shredder for me when I played. Even after I broke his left hand off, I simply replaced it with a brass hook and never looked back.

Now, I’m on record as not being much of a fan of the second TMNT movie. It’s a corn-fest full of bad jokes, limited fight choreography, and a rather uninteresting plot. However, it does contain some pretty gnarly costume designs and Super Shredder certainly qualifies. For awhile, NECA resisted calls to even look at this film since most of the folks who work there seem to share a similar opinion to mine. The line is selling too well though and there are only so many figures one can mine from that first film. Super Shredder was inevitable, but I’m happy to say NECA nailed this one.

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For this release, Super Shredder comes in a package similar to NECA’s Ultimates line. The cover art is also a bit bold in that it doesn’t even feature the figure beneath. It’s the theatrical poster for the film which has the turtles looking down on a canister of ooze with the silhouettes of Tokka and Rahzar in the background. It does say “Super Shredder” at the bottom, but it is surprising to see. Though this is also in-line with most Ultimates from NECA from film as many are either a poster or VHS artwork. Plus, few people are impulse buying Super Shredder since they won’t hang out on Walmart shelves, where he’s presently exclusive to, long enough for that to happen. The sides and back do feature photography of the figure, and it’s the standard five-panel setup as the front panel is a flap and flipping it over reveals a nice, full body, shot of the figure on the left and the actual figure on the right.

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Super Shredder is a behemoth, but he comes packed with a lot of the articulation one would expect of a NECA release. He features ball-joints at the head, shoulders, abdomen, waist, and thighs. He has good side-to-side motion at the head with limited up and down, but there is a joint in the neck that provides for better up and down. This is an important detail since a figure this size is probably going to have to look down a lot. There is no classic bicep swivel on Shredder, but he does have an interesting double-ball setup for his elbows. It reminds me of the cartoon April as the top joint basically serves the same purpose as a bicep swivel with the second ball placed at the top of the forearm in front of the gauntlet. This gives him double-jointed elbow range and allows his bicep to be cut-free. The knees are similar in that you get double-jointed motion without the traditional double-jointed look. The top knee joint is peg-less and swivels, replacing a more traditional boot-cut. NECA likely didn’t want the shin guards to overlap any of the joints thus why the swivel is above the knee. His hands and feet are on ball joints and can rotate, move up and down, and the feet can rock side-to-side quite a bit. His armor does hinder his articulation, but not as much as you may have expected. The shoulder pads sit nice and high so he has good rotation at the shoulders and the abdominal joint allows for a range of upper body motion I wasn’t necessarily expecting. There’s no articulation really missing, though if I have one complaint about the figure it’s that the waist joint is pretty loose. It doesn’t interfere with posing, but he will flop around a bit in your hands and you’ll have to take care when posing that everything is lined up the way you want it in regards to his chest and abs.

The sculpt-work is the real star of the show with this guy. The shape of the head looks perfect and the fact that we now have a screen accurate Super Shredder in action figure form makes it a lot easier to really take in all of the details since his lone scene in the film was so dark. He has this crazed look in his eyes which makes it seem like the ooze not only gave him a surge in strength, but also a rush of adrenaline. There’s a vented portion on his mask that I never even noticed until now as I mostly watched that film on VHS, only recently viewing it in HD. The vents are just grooves in the mask with a paint wash so you can’t see his mouth behind the visor. There’s some silver-gray accents on the helmet which really bring out the details and definitely remind me of the old toy. On his torso, there’s a lot of linework to bring out the muscles which is also in-line with the film. It looks like the costume in the film had muscles air-brushed on which is honestly a little silly, but it also works since it just makes me think of comic book heroes and villains. The purple of the costume is just the right shade and NECA added some white here and there which, again, I think is present on the film costume. It’s hard to tell because that scene is just so dark. He comes with his cape as well, something the Playmates figure omitted back in the day, and it looks nice. It’s a standard cape, like the first film figure, so if you were hoping for a wired cape you might be disappointed. Super Shredder never got the chance to have a dramatic cape in the film, so I think what we have here is perfectly fine and I prefer soft goods for capes to plastic.

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Those spikes though, man are they intense! It’s Super Shredder’s defining feature and they look great. I always thought it was goofy how the ooze mutated his armor, but I never once argued with the results. The spikes on the shoulders resemble serrated knives and they’re pretty “pokey.” They do have plenty of give, but definitely don’t step on this guy with bare feet or you’ll be wishing you stepped on a Lego. The spikes on the forearms and calves also look great and are basically the same design, just a little shorter. The various blades are so fearsome that he really doesn’t need actual weapons, but NECA still saw fit to throw old Shell-head a bone.

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Super Shredder in the movie is only around long enough to punch stuff, but NECA’s version does come packaged with a spear. True to the character, it’s a more intense version of pre-mutated Shredder’s spear from the first film. One end is pointed while the other has what almost looks like an axe head. The blade coming out of the center is wavy, similar to the axe from the first film, and the design has a familiar look to it. I don’t know if that’s just a credit to NECA coming up with a weapon that fits in with the style of the films, or if this was something present in the background of a scene, perhaps. It’s his signature accessory though and if you want your Super Shredder armed it definitely works.

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Super Shredder comes packaged with fist hands, but he has five additional hands as well. Two are open palms while the other two are for gripping his spear. There’s also a looser gripping hand and that it’s intended to grip the canister of ooze. The canister isn’t just a re-release of what the turtles came with as this one is modeled after the TGRI canisters featured in TMNT II. It’s mostly steel and glass construction in the film so viewers could clearly see the green ooze inside of it. This all plastic one looks the same, though the top is non-removable this time around. It looks really nice though and it’s actually something I didn’t know I wanted until I had it. The hands themselves are interesting in that they have this really weathered look on account of a dark wash. They’re nice and pliable so there’s no difficulty in getting the spear or canister into his hands for posing. They’re tight enough too that he can hang onto everything just fine. The entire figure really moves well with no stuck joints or anything to speak of.

The Super Shredder action figure from NECA is an impressive piece of plastic and a great addition to the movie TMNT line. He’s an attention-grabber as part of any display and I’m happy these outlandish designs from the second TMNT film are receiving the action figure treatment. The sculpting, paint, and quality control are all pretty impeccable and I expect this to be on the short list for action figure of the year. And Super Shredder will only have to feel alone for a few months as NECA is set to release the Tokka and Rahzar two-pack this November for those who pre-ordered in August through the company’s online store. Tokka and Rahzar will be the first true made-to-order release for the company and if the promotional shots are any indication we’re in for something special. And if you prefer your Shredder un-super, a standard Secret of the Ooze iteration is confirmed for 2021, though the company has yet to unveil any promotional shots for him. I suspect he’ll be a re-paint of the existing movie Shredder with a new helmet. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s the only Secret of the Ooze release for 2021, the film’s 30th anniversary year, as you can probably bank on updated turtles and possibly Keno. Considering this year’s convention exclusive was a Coming Out of Their Shells themed release, would it shock anyone if next year’s was also musical? Point being, Super Shredder is another release in the movie line of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but he’s far from the last.

Super Shredder is currently being sold exclusively at Walmart stores. I got my figure from NECA directly as some were made available to order in early August. The company also recently closed a week-long window where fans could pre-order a Super Shredder to be produced and delivered at a later date. For international collectors, there are still a bunch of shops based in Canada and the UK accepting pre-orders, though NECA has recently clamped down on international retailers shipping TMNT product to US-based consumers. If you missed out on the pre-order window, your best bet now is to stalk your local Walmart in hopes he shows up. You can also keep an eye on NECA as I doubt very much that the factory order will be one-to-one for pre-orders. The company might sell some stock direct to consumers when they come in, or they’ll be sent out to Walmart and international retailers. Good luck!