Here’s yet another, seasonally spooky installment of Figure Friday that is sure to chill your bones. This week we have a terrifying terrapin and something horrifying I found when I thought it was safe to venture outside of my home. Read on…if you dare!
Universal Monsters x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimate Raphael as Frankenstein’s Monster
While it’s not scheduled to ship until next January, this new TMNT figure from NECA looks to be the start of a great line of monstrous figures that will fit right in with your Halloween décor.
Here’s the blurb:
This spooky season, NECA is thrilled and chilled to announce a Turtle-tacular new crossover line of 7-inch scale action figures: Universal Monsters x Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
The line will pay tribute to the world’s most famous turtles and Universal’s icons of horror. Inspired by the silver-screen classic Frankenstein, celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2021, Raphael as Frankenstein’s Monster reimagines the temperamental Turtle as the misunderstood monster. Includes metal chain, interchangeable hands, and two lightning bolt sai.
Comes in collector-friendly window box packaging with opening flap featuring a custom illustration.
I don’t know what kind of dark magic is at work here or what kind of devil’s pact Eastman and Laird signed to make it so that the Turtles were infinitely marketable…but I’m here for it. The TMNT have been mashed-up and remixed with almost every other available property out there and, to me, it just works. Star Trek x TMNT? Sure! WWE x TMNT? Not a wrestling fan, but I’ll allow it.
NECA is continuing the long and proud tradition started off by Playmates toys of crossing the Turtles over, this time with the Universal Monsters and wow does it work! Of course, this isn’t their first dance with the Universal Monsters property, the original line had multiple Monsters which might give us a clue to what’s coming next. I feel I should point out that Mike was the Frankenstein’s Monster in the 1993 line so all bets are off when it comes to who is going to be what.
This is great looking figure with an excellent sculpt, there’s a lot of really great details that have been included on it. I will say that when I glanced at the initial listing I thought this was going to be Donatello as the Monster since the red of Raphael’s mask appears purple in the promo photos.
What If…? Marvel Legends Zombie Hunter Spidey
As a kid (hell even as teen or adult) one of the worst things your parents can say to you is, “I’m not mad…I’m just disappointed.”
That’s how I feel about this figure.
It’s safe to say that I had spent weeks hunting for this figure in stores after I preordered it online. For me and probably other collectors, preordering has become a necessary part of the game lately. If you’re even paying halfway attention you’ll know that global shipping is a complete disaster for essential items and when it comes to luxury items such as toys…good luck.
The pegs at most stores are completely bare or stocked with old merchandise right now. During a couple of outings I arrived to find the remnants of newer toy case assortments left over, but never what I was looking for. Some collectors (maybe even ones who write for this site) know the stocking schedules of the local Target stores and plan accordingly and to the victors go the spoils… I’m more of a “show up and see what happens” collector.
Last Friday I had the day off and it was a day that was not exactly going my way. On my way home from an errand I popped into a random Target and was please to find the whole What If…? wave of Marvel Legends. I was on the look out for the Spider-Man figure because it seemed to be a good, straightforward version of the character. The colors on the figure, to me, were reminiscent of my very first Spider-Man figure from the Secret Wars line back in the early 80’s so I had to snag one.
Unfortunately, my excitement was short-lived. I fully admit that the humour of me, a grown-ass man, complaining about toys on a blog is not lost on me… so buckle up. The knee joints on this figure are incredibly gummy, like he was left in a hot car in July. So much so I worry about moving the knees for fear of them popping out of joint. The paint on the legs is also chipped in several places with the red base plastic showing through. These, however, are minor quibbles. I’m upset I didn’t notice this one before purchasing since I’m the kind of obsessive that gets out a jewelers loupe to inspect for imperfections prior to purchasing. The paint on the face of the figure is off center. It’s kind of like Spidey sneezed when he was having his eyes drawn on and everything shifted slightly to the left.
If I were a more industrious collector I would dip the head in some paint thinner and repaint it myself. Chances are it would probably come out looking worse than before since I’m not handy with that sort of thing at all. Another observation is that it’s kind of weird they don’t color in the webs on Spider-Man’s costume anymore so the figure just looks half-finished. It’s been suggested that I reach out to Hasbro’s customer care division but I don’t really have it in me to start beef with them. I’ll most likely just take the “L” and chuck this figure in one of my bins and forget about it.
Here’s some interesting trivia to close out this column on: While this is supposed to be the Tom Holland-MCU Spider-Man, the character’s costume has several small alterations since Sony currently holds the rights to THAT version of the character. A few of the changes are different spider embalms on the front and back of the costume, external web shooter bracelets, a small web cartridge utility belt thing, and Peter Parker not looking quite like Tom Holland (who did not voice him in the show).
