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Write a Review link for that item. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Classic Cartoon (Neca)In licenses with a ton of characters like TMNT, it's important to keep major characters on the shelves, such as the Turtles themselves. With this year's Haulathon, there's plenty of new versions of the brothers, including outfits both in-house and sourced from the cartoon, the latter being the long-awaited "punk" disguises. The Loyal Subjects did some punk Turtles already, but those suffered from weird design choices and mediocre head sculpts (which were the S.H. Figuarts Turtles heads but worse), so here's NECA with something better. Usually these four-packs have unique art, slipcovers and/or fifth-panel flaps, but not this set; it's just a standard window box with the same motif as the rest of the toon line. It does a good job showing everything off, though, and the new artwork done for this release is great. There's the usual complaint regarding NECA's obsession with plastic ties, however, and would it kill them to provide a unique bio on the back instead of the same generic text? The main thing to note here is that these aren't the punk disguises from Season One, but rather the ones from the Usagi Yojimbo episode. Each of the turtles has a unique outfit: Leonardo has a black leather jacket, Donatello has a halfway-zipped light brown jacket with a fur collar, Raphael has a darker brown jacket with studs around the shoulders, and Michelangelo has a gray jacket nearly zipped all the way open. The jackets look great, with all the proper details, and the paint is rather consistent, though the lighter gray areas could really use some cleaner work, especially Raphael's zipper. They also get hi-top sneakers, with colors corresponding to each turtle, and the paint on them is very clean. While some tooling from the base Turtles is here, Josh Sutton and Tomasz Rozejowski provided the new sculpting, and the carapaces (along with the plastrons in some spots) are molded as part of the jackets, resulting in some hollowness in the backs. Rather than their usual eye masks, the turtles wear sunglasses instead, color-coded to each one. The eyes are sculpted and even painted behind them, but the sunglasses aren't removable, though it's good they didn't cheap out on details. Most of them have big smiles, but Michelangelo has a huge grin, and it's a pretty funny look for him. If the sunglasses heads aren't to your liking, there's also a set of heads with punk rock hairdos, coming from "Shredder's New Sword." These have great sculpting overall, and I like the angrier expressions on all but Mikey, with visible teeth. These are two-piece heads, like the Turtles in Disguise set, but they don't really work with those, as the colors are different. The green skin here is a bolder, slightly darker color, as are the masks, and they'll clash with the previous sets of Turtles. The concurrently-released Pizza Club Turtles will work just fine with them, however. As usual, the Turtles stand 5 1/2" tall. The articulation is mostly the same as previous toon Turtles, save for the elbows. Rather than single swivel/hinge joints, these are double-hinged, mainly thanks to the different arm designs, with less prominent bicep muscles and no elbow pads getting in the way. Other than that, the rest is the same, with barbell head, neck, and waist, swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists (vertical for Leo and Raph, horizontal for Don and Mike), ankles, and mask knots on the alternate heads, swivel biceps and thighs, ball-jointed hips, and double-hinged knees. I had no issue swapping heads or hands, and most of the joints moved easily, aside from some tightness in the legs. One area where I was let down was accessories, as there's not as much as previous four-packs. Aside from the rocker hair heads, there's two bags of groceries, one with various food items, and another with assorted stuff. The grocery bags look great, and will go just as well with the Turtles in Disguise set. There's also a newly-sculpted stereo and skateboard, a whole pizza, a little toy robot, some sort of ray gun, and four extra sets of hands: flat palm, pointing, thumbs up, and sai gripping for Raphael, even though his sais aren't included. In fact, none of the Turtles' weapons are here. Even though the Pizza Club Turtles have them, the set here feels empty without them, and a few more extras would've been nice, as the set doesn't quite justify the $150 price like previous ones did. While the small selection of accessories is an issue, along with some paint slip-ups, this is a fun and unique set overall. I assume less dedicated fans will pass on it, but those who want more distinct versions of the brothers will love it. Hopefully we get more Turtle variants, because I would love a set of the Four Musketurtles. - 4/24/24   by RMaster007 |
| Soundwave (G1) |  | Submission Order |  | Slam Dunkin' Don |
| Evil REX-1 (Terminate the Turtles) | | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Classic Cartoon Series | | Samurai Adventure Michelangelo and Space Adventure Donatello |
| Soundwave (G1) | | Written by RMaster007 | | Slam Dunkin' Don |
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