Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Classic Cartoon (Neca) - Multi-Packs
Rated 4.85 stars by RMaster007
"Stomp toitles! Stomp toitles!" Looks like we've gotten the fourth Bebop and Rocksteady figures by NECA, technically. These aren't Bebop and Rocksteady, but rather their robotic counterparts, Mighty Bebop and Super Rocksteady, both of whom come from a season 3 episode where Shredder and Krang make mechanical clones of their dim-witted henchmen to carry out their latest evil task. These are dropping as part of Target's Haulathon event, but I'd get looking now, these are going faster than you think. The packaging follows the same cues as the rest of the line, but it's worth noting two things. One is that there are no plastic ties holding in the accessories, but there's still a couple to deal with on the figures themselves. The other thing is that they got the names wrong, calling them...[See More]

Fugitoid
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mirage Comics (Neca) - Basic Series
Rated 4.90 stars by RMaster007
Anyone who’s familiar with the NECA TMNT line should know that it didn’t start with the cartoon or movie adaptations, but of course, the original comics that started it all. The four turtles were released in their original Mirage designs back in 2008, and they’re considered some of the company’s best work. Nowadays, a whole set of them can cost you up to a thousand dollars, and some have settled on just getting bootlegs of them. NECA is well aware of how popular they were, and they already put out a Foot Clan four-pack and a LootCrate-exclusive Shredder years after those initial figures, but now they’re officially reviving the line. The first character here is Fugitoid, a character that was actually created before the Turtles. Fitting choice to kick it off, isn’t it? The original figures...[See More]

Frankenstein (Color)
Universal Monsters (Neca) - Ultimate Collection
Rated 5.00 stars by RMaster007
It’s alive! Alive! …if you want to call it alive, since this is an action figure, not a living being. A lot of people were excited about a year ago when NECA announced that they would be making Universal Monsters figures, with Frankenstein being the first one, mainly to coincide with the film’s 90th anniversary. He’s been out for a good long while now, with two different versions, one greyscale, and one in color. I saw that the color version was half off at Go! (which is good cause they like to charge $40 for NECA figures), so I grabbed him and managed to pick up the original movie at FYE. The perks of checking out malls outside of Maryland, I guess. The packaging for this specific release makes use of the original poster on the front, and there’s photos of the figure on all the other...[See More]

Mask of Phanteana
Resurrection of Monstress (Yellow Submarine) - Basic Series
Rated 4.00 stars by Karl T. Face
Phantom of The Paradise is a cult classic of the highest order. Fans may be surprised to know it's pretty big in Japan for whatever reason, and nowhere is that more evident than any given anime shop. This is actually the fifth character I'm aware of to be directly inspired by good old Winslow, and I haven't been looking very hard. Mr. Nirasawa, unsurprisingly, threw his hat in the ring with Phanteana here, a gender-swapped version with far less in the way of clothing, but considerably more flair. Posed in a pretty dramatic flourish, she can play the keyboard with one hand only, but still makes it look good. Every bit is well sculpted and painted, as usual. Accessories are the main draw yet again, this time comprising a keyboard, speaker, control panel (mixing board? I don't know this...[See More]

Horrid
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 11 - Dark Ages Spawn
Rated 4.50 stars by Karl T. Face
Ah, the Horrid. Every fantasy story needs a reptilian beastie of some sort, and this one is nicely understated for MacFarlane at the time. Don't get me wrong, the detailing is great. I love all the scaly textures, the overlapping plates, that wicked smile. What I mean is, there are no accoutrements. No GWAR-esque armor, no arrows sticking out of it, no accessories. Just a big ol' dragon, built like a wyvern with arms. I can't honestly say which color scheme looks better; the brown one just feels more "natural", but I do love the grey and red here. Got a nice feel to it, almost like a gargoyle. Paint is the usual kind, muddy in all the right places but still plenty tight around key areas like the face. And while I can come up with a few more joints that could've knocked this out of the...[See More]

Ogre
Spawn (McFarlane) - Series 11 - Dark Ages Spawn
Rated 3.50 stars by Karl T. Face
Well, I've once again dipped into the Mcwell of yesteryear. The figure itself is pretty nice by the standards of the time: well sculpted and competently painted. Articulation is okay, swivel/hinge shoulders and pegs at the wrists, hips, waist, and neck (sideways twist). Said neck is permanently turned slightly sideways, as is the rest of him. The platform fits on his back via two fat square pegs, and Phisto pegs onto it- with some difficulty, it must be said. You'll have to press from underneath. A length of twine runs between the bit in Ogre's mouth, long enough to wrap behind Phisto and help keep him on, which is genius. The armor doesn't impede the shoulders at all, but that doesn't help his accessories much. You see, while the prototype has a club and flail, the production model had...[See More]

Catwoman (Exclusive)
Batman (Mondo) - Animated Series
Rated 4.75 stars by RMaster007
If there's one thing I can say about sixth scale, it's that it's not for everyone. While there's plenty out there, the high prices of them are a big turn-off, and besides that, there aren't a lot of licenses that interest me. I'm not a Star Wars fan, and there isn't much Marvel-wise that interests me, but one company that does have me reeled in a bit is Mondo. Their TMNT Michelangelo was the first one I got, and now I have a second figure: Catwoman, sporting her Batman: the Animated Series design. While they have done Batman and Mr. Freeze beforehand, you're going to have to pay big bucks on the secondhand market for them, and I don't feel like doing that (yet). We got a big fifth-panel box for the figure, and the illustration on the front, depicting Catwoman holding a pearl necklace,...[See More]

Dirtbag and Groundchuck
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Classic Cartoon (Neca) - Multi-Packs
Rated 5.00 stars by RMaster007
The guys over at NECA must really like the “Planet of the Turtleoids” episode of the classic TMNT series, huh? I’m asking that cause this is the third instance of a character from that episode being made into a figure. First it was Kerma as a pack-in with Mondo, then Chrome Dome, and now Dirtbag and Groundchuck. These two were released alongside Wingnut and Screwloose back in November, but were much harder to find. It wasn’t until recently that I was finally able to find them in store. The packaging follows the same style of the other two-packs, but as I mentioned with W&S, the figure images on the sides and back are no longer cropped, and there’s more of an orange-yellow gradient here as well. It’s easy to open and get everything out, but keep in mind there’s a handful of plastic ties...[See More]

Mondo Gecko
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Super7) - Ultimates!
Rated 4.80 stars by RMaster007
Crazy how just like Muckman, we got two new Mondo Gecko figures in 2021. One by NECA, and one by Super7. Is the latter trying to compete with the former? I don’t think they are, but their takes were revealed months after NECA’s were, but I guess that’s just coincidence. The sculpt, done once again by Four Horsemen, is an updated version of the original Mondo by Playmates, but very little’s been changed about his design. The only real differences are the lack of the blue stripe running down the middle of his face and the redone skull and crossbones on his shirt. Everything else is still here; the bumpy skin, braces, wild tongue sticking out where a tooth used to be, all the same. Still, it looks just as nice, if not better, than the original. It’s worth noting that we got two head sculpts...[See More]

King of the Dead (Glow-in-the-Dark)
Lord of the Rings - Trilogy (Toy Biz) - Return of the King - Series 2
Rated 4.75 stars by Karl T. Face
Honestly? It's a shame we didn't get more of these. Toy Biz tried like hell to make at least one representative of every faction, and that obviously includes Spooks here, but a soldier would have been nice. I'll first say that he doesn't look like much in the package: the paint wash and airbrushing can't save him from looking quite corporeal. This is a trade-off; more on that later. Articulation is fairly standard for late-series LOTR, which is to say "excellent". The joints are plentiful and well hidden, with the exception of the double elbows: ugly but very functional. Any pose you could reasonably ask of a king's ghost is possible. Accessories are limited to the sword, cape and sash, though I hate to count the last two, since they're kind of integral to the look. Lastly, we come to the...[See More]