I don’t know if you know this about me, but I really like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I also really like collecting toys of things I like. Oh man, if there was a way to collect toys ABOUT collecting toys, I’d just be stuck in this endless recursion loop!
Or I’d, like, buy a Pokémon trainer figure and take him out with me as I hunted down Pokémon toys. Gotta catch ’em all, right?
Hm, that’s actually not a bad idea for like a blog. Someone use that and let me know. I’ll put you on my links page.
AHEM
So after buying the four Turtles, where do you go from there?
Well if you’re me, you buy more figures in the line as you find them. And a couple of weekends ago (before I got the Glow-in-the-Dark figures actually, but I’m just getting to posting about them now), I managed to find two other TMNT ReAction figures.
First up, the Turtles’ sensei and father figure — And my mom’s favorite TMNT character — Master Splinter!
Splinter was originally the pet of Hamato Yoshi, and learned ninjitsu by mimicking Yoshi’s training from his cage. Upon his master’s death at the hands of The Shredder shortly after they had emigrated to America, Splinter rescued four baby turtles and after they were all exposed to glowing radiactive ooze, Splinner taught the mutated terrapins all he had learned from his master.
Unless you’re watching the 1987 cartoon series, in which case Splinter and Hamato Yoshi are the same person, and Shredder dumped the radioactive ooze on them in a failed attempt to kill his rival.
…Ninja Turtles is REALLY weird, you guys.
This figure is like a unique mix of the cartoon model and the original toy. I think we can all agree that his molded gi top is better than the cloth one of that first Playmates action figure though, which thousands of kids have lost, resulting in most Splinter toys being left at the bottom of toy boxes worldwide, completely naked.
Splinter’s got the standard 5 points of articulation for a ReAction figure — Swivel joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips. He came with the same bo staff packaged with Donatello, but cast in a darker brown plastic. I would’ve preferred the giant burnt Cheeto he used as a walking stick in the 1987 cartoon, but whatever. The important thing is that I was able to get Splinter.
Splinter’s tail just kind of comes out of the bottom of his gi slightly behind his left leg. It’s a pretty clever solution to the problem of how his tail should get handled. Not one I would’ve come up with, but I like it just the same.
Splinter sitting down to medidate or whatever while the Turtles are rowdy around him. Oh, but who’s that behind them?
THAT’S GOTTA BE KRANG!
Krang is the evil warlord of Dimension X, a brain that has been disembodied to serve as punishment for his numerous war crimes. He was created exclusively for the 1987 cartoon series, although he’s clearly based on the Utrom alien race from the original Mirage comics.
Super7 modeled this Krang toy after his 1989 toy, which came with a weird mechanical walker, although Krang is definitely better known for his android body that resembles professional wrestler King Kong Bundy in some cool 80s shades.
I guess the license Super7 has is to create toys based off the Playmates toy line (whereas NECA has the license to create toys based off the cartoon and video games?), and the Krang’s Android Body toy came way later in the run, so instead we got his chicken walker. For now, at least.
Krang DID occasionally employ a walker like the one the toy came in, so I guess it’s not all bad.
The ReAction Krang has some unique articulation; while Splinter had the standard 5 POA, in Krang’s case, the legs and arms of the walker both move, AND the little alien tentacles can swivel around. That gives him six points of articulation, which is more than the stanard ReAction figure. And I suppose you could even count his transparent canopy opening as a seventh! Neat! Sadly, the bodiless brain cannot be removed, so he’s stuck where he is.
That Android Body ReAction figure can’t get announced soon enough!
You know, I usually have some idea where these articles are going to end up when I start writing them, but not today. There were way more images than I had planned, and that King Kong Bundy reference just came out of nowhere.
Next time: Probably something other than TMNT toys I’ve recently acquired.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for tonight’s sci-fi chiller, thriller, killer movie; It’s a real classic! The Killer Brain from Dimension X!