“We’re looking for a few good mutants!”
As we tip into the beginning of 2021, more TMNT reveals are likely just around the corner from NECA. We here at SpeekyGeeky enjoy a good mystery, and while we wait for these reveals, we thought it might be fun to envision which new figures we may see for the upcoming year.
Per usual we'll amuse ourselves and go with an assumption that this coming year will follow close to the same release pattern as 2020, and break our wish list down using this as our guiding template (as of this writing, NECA has officially announced for 2021 the Turtles in Disguise 4 pack in addition to the Punk Frogs, Ace Duck, and Chrome Dome). This will mean 4 Target 2-pack waves with 6 characters in each wave, 4 deluxe figures, 2 loot crate exclusives, a SDCC exclusive (typically 4 figures), the now teased 4 packs, and a smattering of smaller scale characters which equal 38 all together. We have already thrown down some of our hopes for the 2021 line in parts 1 and 2 of this article series, so make sure to check those out as well!
Full disclosure, we started writing this in November of 2020 so we have absolutely no idea how close we’ll get to what is actually revealed, but dagnabbit if it isn't still fun to get some guesses out there and see how close we come. We have every confidence you have some characters that top off your list as well, so feel free to join the discussion in the comments below.
4/24/21 UPDATE: Mutagen Man has now been confirmed to be releasing in a 2 pack with Ace Duck, and as of today, Antrax and Scumbug are now confirmed as well, having been offered as a pre-order on thenecastore.com
In this continuing multi-part series of articles, Mr. Geek-E reveals the Top 38 NECA Classic Cartoon Figures we hope to see in 2021, this weeks will focus on:
Our Hope For 2021 NECA TMNT Wave 3
DIRTBAG & GROUNDCHUCK
First appearing in the 5th Season's "Planet of the Turtleoids" the Mutant Mole Dirtbag and quasi-Terminator inspired Bull compatriot Groundchuck were instant fan favorites. This episode seemed to be created largely as a toy tie-in to give a little background on where these new addition mutants came from.
They had a little more sophistication than Bebop and Rocksteady, and if not for Bebop and Rocksteady bungling which animals were meant to get the Mutagen treatment, we may have seen two very different mutants in the form of Gorilla and Lion (a nod to eventually produced toys "Sergeant Banana's" and "King LionHeart" perhaps? Though, if that truly was the case, considering the costumes Shredder conveniently had at the ready and doled out from his toolbox, those mutants may have featured names closer to "Cy-Gor" and "Roary Quarry"). There is a big part of me that has always felt that "King Lionheart" was based loosely on Eastman and Laird's "TMNT and Other Strangeness" character "Luisa Dato", however.
Both Dirtbag and Groundchuck felt like a breath of fresh air for viewers who were tired of seeing what new plot Bebop and Rocksteady would manage to screw up and felt like henchmen who might actually be able to follow through. They helped to inject new personalities into Shredder's acolytes, that honestly didn't get near as much screen time as they probably should have.
On the toy front, it might be fun to have their costumes completely removable so we could also display them how they first appeared and this would also give us the opportunity to throw these same costumes onto concept image figures of a Gorilla and Lion if those are ever released.
LORD DREGG & MUNG
Lord Dregg, a cosmic overlord set on taking over and enslaving the Earth. While seasons 1-8 of the animated series were a bit more slapstick-y and lighthearted, after the success of the TMNT live-action movies (as well as Batman the animated series which was having a runaway success at the time, and Power Rangers which were in the midst of changing villains at the time), the cartoon began to get a little more gritty and the stakes a bit more real in their final 2 seasons.
While Shredder and Krang were almost always comically destined to fail, Lord Dregg, his lackey Mung, and his Technogang army posed legit and lasting consequences to the Turtles. Dregg was the first major Shredder replacement, and as the big bad, it pitted the Turtles against a host of villains that made them have to up their game in order feel like they could take him and his army of techno-baddies down.
There are a handful of iterations of Dregg that would be fun to see get the toy treatment, one, in particular, would be a simple additional head from when Dregg absorbs the mental strength of Krang (as well as the physical strength of the super mutated Turtles) to make him, at least for a time, the most powerful and intelligent being in the universe.
Mung is to Lord Dregg as Krang is to Shredder, in that to say they had a "friendship" would be a gross overstatement. They had shared goals of taking over the planet but drifted apart as Dregg became more focused on exterminating the Turtles. Their relationship was more of convenience until it wasn't and then, even though this was never confirmed as it happened off-screen, once Dregg got all he wanted from Mung, he used Mung's own inventions to essentially eat him alive...so, you know, a mildly different relationship than Shredder had with Krang. Mung was incredibly capable and tech-savvy, though when it came to fighting, the Turtles handed him his butt pretty regularly. What Mung lacked in hand-to-hand skills, he made up for in destructive weaponry and tenacity to enact his devious plans.
SMASH (CROOKED TURTLE GANG LEADER) & ZACK, THE FIFTH TURTLE
Bring on the humans! Or rather, bring on the humans dressed as Turtles. One of the characters that largely has been forgotten by history (but is still front and center in SpeekyGeeky's mind) is a young boy designed as an outlet toward allowing children watching at home to feel like they were safely transported into the action of the turtles' cartoon adventures (which, consequently, may also explain why he doesn't make an appearance after season 7).
I am of course talking about none other than Zach, the unofficial fifth turtle. Complete with his homemade mask and turtle costume, he skirted all child protective service standards and logic to stand shell to shell with our fearless foursome on numerous occasions. Ohhhh the 80’s, what a magical time to be a kid. I guess it helped that the bad guys weren't allowed to shoot bullets back then, eh?
Smash, the Cobra-Kai-Esque leader of the Crooked Turtle Gang would be a natural toy pairing with Zack to capture the stark juxtaposition between the two human characters that choose to dress as turtles. While Zack donned his makeshift costume to help stop crime, Smash did so, at the direction of Shredder, to commit it.
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