“We’re looking for a few good Classic AND never before made in the Fred Wolf Animation-style Mutants!”
Hi Everyone and welcome to SpeekyGeeky, as always I am Mr. Geek-E. Well, even though we just had an episode of "Which Figures Do We Want?" out to you a short while ago, with SDCC being just around the corner, and new reveals from NECA certain to be dropping between now and then (some recently being shown RIGHT HERE on our VERY OWN channel), we thought folks might appreciate having a handful of new character deep dives options to discover and chat about before the flurry of new items.
Our previous episode focused heavily on NECA's expanded TMNT world of potential toys, and we'll do a bit of that here too, but unlike last episode, we'll divvy it up into chapters keeping the Fred Wolf Animated series SPECIFIC options we are still hoping to see in toy form toward the first half, and then dive into expanded TMNT universe options like Archie, Video Game, Mirage, IDW, and other iterations in the second half.
So that way, if classic Fred Wolf is more your mutant speed, you'll conveniently be able to watch what you want, how you want. AND, if you haven't already, please make sure to throw some Turtle love toward those LIKE and SUB buttons, and pass along this video with others who will appreciate it like it's a piping hot Marshmellow and Pepperoni Pizza.
As we discussed the last episode in heavy detail, this year has been filled with all sorts of brand new reveals from NECA including Toy fair's introduction of the new Archie Line, a possible IDW line (with the showing of Last Ronin and a tease of Renet in IDW color-schemed outfit), more from Fred Wolf, more from Universal Monsters, and an expansion of the Mirage line. Plus immediately after those reveals, BAM, we got all those Target Haulathon reveal drops, we saw EVEN MORE brand-new reveals.
Like we said, as we covered most of these last episode, instead of recapping all of those epic reveals here, we'll just plop the link to that video...I don't know...let's say....HERE so we can move closer to diving right into more characters from the original classic series that we are hoping to get from NECA this year.
A quick note that we are starting this episode at the very end of May, so there is a very good possibility that we may see some new reveals from NECA between when this video comes out and the flood of new characters we are likely to see as SDCC rolls around. We thought this time around, in addition to our picks for who we'd like to see, we might also very quickly also discuss who we predict to see before the year's end, and there may even be an option or two that fit within both categories.
But before we plunge into our guesses for who is coming, let's put a pin in that conversation ever so slightly to touch on one very special reveal that was recently announced that we hadn't covered yet, in what we like to call "SpeekyGeeky's NERD OUT MOMENT!"
Ok, so with the fairly epic Toy Fair reveals a few months back we thought, we were preparing for a bit of a breather leading up to San Diego Comic-Con, but as it turns out, NECA doubled down and a full 2 months before we even have our comic con tickets, they revealed one of their con exclusives for the year in the form of the Pre-Mutation 4-Pack. This set included Pre-warthog Bebop, pre-Rhino Rocksteady, Pre-Rat Hamato Yoshi, and for the very first time in plastic... Pre-Fly Baxter!
All Figures fans have been asking for quite some time, and from what we could see in the early promotional pictures, it did NOT disappoint. That said, in full SpeekyGeeky fashion, considering that we enjoy our toy plates with an extra serving of everything, we do have to note we partially expected when we did see human Baxter Stockman that he might also be packed in with an additional Barney Stockman head, as it is a fairly similar looking character and one casual TMNT folks may not realize was the twin brother of Baxter and discount it as just being a fun extra orange-haired Baxter...but the sudden appearance and subsequent equally sudden disappearance of that character from the series left more questions than answers, and has left fans creating some of their own interesting character fiction in the years since the series ended.
The promotional pictures were also largely set in the atmosphere of the previously teased Sewer Lair, hinting that this may likely be officially revealed on or before Comic-Con as well. Though we only saw a snapshot of the exclusive box art, from the front it seems like it will have a Technodrome setting, we know from past box art like the disguise Turtles set where we saw a flurry of additional easter egg teases of quite a few characters that NECA eventually DID make figures of (like Muckman and Joe Eyeball, Zach the Fifth Turtle, Donatello the Dark Turtle, Pizza Mutants, and potentially even the same Human Baxter Stockman we are discussing right now), so we anticipate that this new box art will be no different.
Ut-Oh that TMNT 8-bit victory noise in the distance can only mean one thing... it's time for our SpeekyGeeky Shameless Self-Promotion Extravaganza!
We also got a handful of direct and exclusive teases from our very own interview with NECA's TMNT Brand Manager Trevor Zammit, some we showed in part one of that interview series, and some we can't discuss JUST yet, but if you haven't subbed to the channel, fair warning, we cover a TON of ground, and this series likely won't be one TMNT or NECA fans are going to want to miss, so again, if you needed another reason to sub to our delightfully dorky youtube, doing so should let you hit the reminder bell so you can catch the videos as they drop.
SpeekyGeeky's 2022 Predictions
At the risk of patting ourselves on the back so hard we stumble and fall into a vat of ooze, if you look back at our 2021 guesses from episodes 1-5 of our series, one need only take a gander at their toy shelf and compare our lists with who is currently in your collection to see how our track record stands up. We had such a fun time imagining who might make it into our collection in previous years that we thought we might try our hand at seeing how well we do this year as well, and very quickly explain what brought us to this conclusion. So, who do we think would make the cut to see by the end of the year?
Guess #1: Red Sky April--NECA has already intimated in past interviews that another April is likely coming, this would be an opportunity to provide collectors with not JUST a new head sculpt but an alternative body to display the character. Bonus Pizza points if the figure comes with an additional Fish April head and hands. By introducing THIS version of April it might also be a nice dipping of the plastic toe into expanding into additional Red Sky characters like Lord Dregg, Carter, or the 2nd Mutation Turtles.
Guess #2: Tempestra--We did a deep dive on her last year regarding our surprise we hadn't seen her in the line yet considering she is now the lone missing piece from finally completing our display of rogues from the memorable episode "Night of the rogues". That optimism remains strong if not even stronger this year. Ready to hit us like a giant gust of wind.
Guess #3: Rex-1-- (update here: We wrote this before we got the exclusive with NECA's Brand Manager Trevor Zammit where he actually revealed that this character IS INDEED COMING, so treat this one as a gimme and a little bit of a cheat, but again, we wrote this well in advance of knowing for certain). Ok, so why Rex-1? Firstly, NECA likes their robot's and Rex-1 is all that and a bag of Robocop. Yeah, there is no question this dude is coming, this one is absolutely just a matter of "When" rather than "If"...and if our guess holds up, we'd wager that "When" is sooner than later (insert correct "dingdingding" noise here). We'll dive into Rex-1's background and a bit of what makes him such an awesome character a little further into the episode.
Guess #4 Colossus of the Swamp Napoleon-- Seeing as how quickly we got the four frogs into plastic, it doesn't seem a far leap that NECA might have a soft spot for our favorite Hawaiian shirt-wearing punks. So what's better than having the four frogs? Throwing in a supersized hulked-out one that has never been seen in plastic before. How certain are we about this pick? We're willing to go for "Croak" (Oh Geeky, you just couldn't resist could you?)
Guess #5 Bugman-- This character has 5 major things going for it toward how we came to our decision.
1. It has a very innate toyetic look, throwing aside for a moment that this is an adult collector line, if you were a kid and saw this character on the shelf, how many among us wouldn't ask our parents to buy it for us?
2. It was one of the more interesting-looking characters from the animated series that is mind-boggling how it never got a playmates toy in the first place.
3. He was in multiple episodes, not that the number of times a character appears ultimately expedites a figures entry into the line, but it certainly helps.
4. He was teased already in the aforementioned Disguise Turtles Box Art and
5. To date, there are only a couple figures that haven't been made that were featured in that art. One of the other characters teased on the art? His arch Nemesis the Swatter...so we wouldn't be surprised if that is who he ends up being paired with as well.
Guess #6 Business Suit Casey Jones. (In best announcer voice) Casey steps up to the plate, raises his iconic stick and ...what's this? Coming out of left field, it's not the Casey folks were expecting but one that somehow still manages to bring a smile to their collective faces from the sheer absurdity that this was a REAL variant that REALLY exists... that's right, it's business suit Casey. All business from the neck down, and pure Casey all around.
Guess #7 Mona Lisa. We lay out our case for Mona in episode one of this very series (which we'll plop right here for you for convenience), but Mona seems a safe bet for getting the plastic treatment sooner than later. If we don't see here revealed by Comic-Con, we feel pretty confident we'll see this scaly fan-favorite revealed before the year is done.
Guess #8 Dirk Savage. We're shocked we haven't seen this one revealed by this point in all honesty. We laid out our deeper dive plea for why Dirk deserves the plastic treatment (the link for that can be found here if you wanted to check out what we had to say), but we've seen a handful of his weapons popping up so far with other characters like Mondo Gecko and the Frogs, at the very least that tells us that NECA has Dirk on the brain, so now it just remains to be seen WHEN we'll see him and whether we'll have the ability to swap him into something that resembles Monty Moose if we so choose. For more on that, make sure to check out our convo with Chris Fawcett here.
Guess #9 Lotus Blossom. Karai....or, we mean Lotus Blossom, is a character who had multiple appearances in the series, had a relationship with Leonardo, and is just too dang cool not to include. We made our case for Lotus here, but yeah, we think it's a safe bet we'll see this awesomely skilled sometimes ally sometimes foe to the Turtles in the NECA line before we know it.
If we were gambling Turtles, we'd bet the shell off our backs on the fact that you might have a list of characters that would top YOUR list for who you think we'll see by years end, and we'd love to hear YOUR guesses too, so make sure to sound off in the comments with your predictions.
With our guesses out of the way, let's just leap right into our first option for Episode 7 of Which Fred Wolf TMNT Action Figures We'd Like To See...
#6 REX-1
***So Yeah, One ENORMOUS disclaimer once again, this video and script was in production in advance of our jaw-dropping recent interview series with NECA's Trevor Zammit. We clearly had a hunch this figure would come sooner than later, but we had ZERO idea he would be revealed before comic-con and especially had no idea it would be US covering the reveal. So, with that out of the way, let's continue...
Ninja Turtles, ROLL OUT! Nope, though it would have been absolutely incredible to see, you aren't looking at the first team-up between the Turtle bros ad another hit 80s cartoon at the time, Transformers.
Though, in a fun aside, it wouldn't have been the first unofficial brand team-up if that were indeed the case. We're looking at YOU Real Ghostbusters with their oh-so thinly-veiled Mean Green Teen Machines or heck, even Muppet Babies got in on the Ninja Turtles action with their episode "Sing A Song of Superheroes" which sees Kermit, Animal, Fozzie, Rawlf, and Bean dressed as the Turtle bros.
And who could forget the classic Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 animated cartoon episode Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas where King Koopa transforms his four Koopalings into Ninja's that look eerily like the Turtles, even going so far as to give them the exact same weapons, borrowing from the same live-action movie catchphrase of "I love being a....ahem...Koopa...naturally", and names them the "Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas"...oh you DID forget, well that's ok, that's what Mr. Geek-e's here for.
What were we talking about again? OH, Transformers. Technically we never got a direct crossover in the original series, but here's a fun fact hot shot, one of the writers for Transformers ALSO wrote a few episodes of the 2003 TMNT series, including one called "Headlock Prime" (itself a nod to Optimus), but going further there is a character in the original Transformers cartoon from the episode "More Than Meets the Eye" named the Poughkeepsie Piledriver AND a wrestler named the Poughkeepsie Piledriver in the episode "Headlock Prime" as well...so not an exact crossover, but perhaps one might call it a "Crossover IN DISGUISE".
What does this have to do with Rex-1 you might ask? Well, it taps into that same spirit of the 80s series heavily borrowing from one another. In the case of Rex-1, it was one part Robocop and mixed with another part...well...more Robocop...yeah...basically he was the Ninja Turtles version of that character.
Pretty much right down to hitting all the plot points from that movie franchise, but as kids we had No idea we were watching a toned-down murder franchise, we were the same generation that had the Toxic Crusader series reformatted to be sold to us as a cartoon series, and which many of us, including yours truly, still have fond memories of despite being blissfully unaware of just how inappropriate the original content might have been for us. But then we grew up and were in for an interesting surprise when we watched the live-action.
Robo--I mean Rex-1 which stood for "Robot Enforcement Experiment"...ONE...him being the first model of the line, appeared in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Back from the Sewers Konami videogame as well as two episodes of the original series. The First being "New York's Shiniest" where he was being mass-produced to tap down the burdens of New York's Human police department until April accidentally got a hold of his remote control and prematurely booted him up.
Unknown to April, these robots were created to make an imprint of loyalty on the first person to operate his control...which, yes in current day might seem like an absurdly huge needlessly exploitable aspect to overlook, but in all fairness, this was the 80's and you weren't expected to ask too many questions when it came to cartoons, you just nodded along as you ate your Turtles brand cereal and character gummies and said "yup, THIS makes total sense."
Ok so here is where we come back full circle to that Transformers discussion from earlier because, turns out, after Rex-1 is damaged, Donatello replaces his magnetic programming with a VHS which gives him somewhat of a Bumblebee from transformers effect, monologuing lines from classic movies that correlated to what was transpiring on screen. So again, not an exact transformers crossover, but close enough to claim partial credit.
In what can only be described as quite possibly the perfect summation of the 80s in one glorious scene, we see Rex-1 destroy the rogue fleet of evil Shredder-influenced robots by playing a jazzercize workout video and they dance themselves to oblivion.
Rex-1's second appearance is in "Leonardo, the Renaissance Turtle" which somehow feels even more like Robocop than the first episode and sees Rex-1 re-activated to stop an evil new Robot named Lex. Lex is another fun Robo character we hope to see in this toy line down the road, that sure, was technically a bad guy, but only because his programming didn't allow for machine learning and had no discerning of the severity of punishment for crimes. Whether you were a mugger or a jaywalker, Lex had a bullet with your name on it. If we're thinking of Rex-1 as Robocop, a good way to think of Lex is ED-209.
We are firm believers that when the Turtles team up with other properties, viewing magic ensues. Whether it's overt crossovers like when TMNT leaped into the world of Batman and Batman Adventures, the numerous times the Turtles officially or unofficially crossed over with the Power Rangers, the quasi-time they did with Masters of The universe in the form of "Warriors of the forgotten Sewer", or more veiled crossovers like with Toxic Crusader in the form of Muck Man, Dirty Harry in the form of Dirk Savage, Daredevil in the form of...well... Ninja Turtles, so why should Robocop in the form of Rex-1 be any different?
#5 SHREDDER'S MOM
What do you mean you didn't know Shredder had a mom? Well he DID, her name is Miyoko, and she was AWESOME!
Not only was she feisty as heck, easily beating up an orderly who tried to keep her from leaving her retirement home, but as a kid, it was incredibly fun to see someone like the Shredder who is the constant thorn in the Turtles' side now as someone's child and observe a new layer to him we rarely were able to witness, that of an obedient son seeking his mother's approval.
Sure, we were used to seeing Krang berate Shredder on the regular, but there he would at least give some sass back when he thought Krang was out of earshot. With his mother, however, he was genuinely cow tailing and reluctantly letting her call the shots, we got to see that underneath his tough exterior, he still had respect for his mother (even if she didn't think he appreciated her and even if being around her made him question if his plans for world domination were good enough.
Outside of the fun new dynamic we were able to explore between Miyoko and her son, we also got to see just how incredibly capable she was at villainy, easily strategizing the Turtles into multiple traps, and nearly having success at giving her son what he has been seeking throughout the series which was the defeat of the Turtles, which she would have had, if not for the Turtles using her starvation for human interaction against her in the form of General Yogure, one of April's friends in the "Space Travel Business". Again, just one of those things you don't overthink as a kid and just thought his name was funny and sounded like Yogurt, HA...YOGURT...what were we talking about again? Oh Yeah, our next option...
#4 CAPTAIN DREDD
Ok, so let me wrap my brain around this to make sure I understand this correctly, in the very same episode that Groundchuck and Dirtbag make their series return appearance there is an extraterrestrial Cyborg Pirate that makes his first appearance and leads both those two mutants, an army of robotic gold turtles, AAAAND a fleet of additional strong alien villains called Brute Force...BOTH Groundchuck and Dirtbag get super fun toys made from Playmates right around the time of this episode, but the CYBORG PIRATE gets no toy love?
Just SAYING the two words "Cyborg" and "Pirate" out loud in the same sentence makes me want to follow it up with the word "Action Figure" because those words go together as a toy the same way "Anchovy" and "Peanut Butter" go together on Pizza...as every Turtles fan know....they just DO!
Ok so let's put aside for a moment our frustration that this character never saw toy form and just focus on who Dredd was. Appearing in one of our favorite episodes, Escape from the Planet of the Turtleoids, which sees the Turtles visiting Kerma's Turtle Planet of Shell-Ri-La, Dredd shows that he is a force to be reckoned with, directing wave after wave of different villains aimed at the Turtles, and able to stand his ground with them in a fight using his augmented cybernetics which, spoiler alert, means he can turn his hands into virtually anything, the first of which is a set of laser guns. He also had a fire sword, chest lasers, and retractable claw mandibles that came out of his back because, why the heck not, that's why, he's freaking Captain Dredd, of COURSE he's going to have claw mandibles! To put this into a larger perspective, if this were the Masters of the Universe world, Essentially this character was a bad guy version of Rio Blast.
Sadly, despite being an incredibly fun character that had a lot of promise as a potential recurring threat to the Turtles, Dredd only appeared in the one episode, and despite being a Cyborg AND a Pirate, a figure of Dredd never appeared, but we've waited over 30 years, which is an awfully long walk from the plank and onto our toy shelves, but avast, with NECA at the helm, there will hopefully be land ho soon me matey!
#3 THE GLOBFATHER
Ok, remember how we were saying earlier how the only thing better than Turtles in and of themselves are Turtles when they are mashed up with other nostalgic properties? Well...meet Globfather.
Technically he was a living Amoeba gangster from Dimension x that could turn others he covered with his body into amoebas like himself (which obviously is also cool in and of itself), but unofficially this was a blatant way to sneak elements of both the Godfather AAAAND the real ghostbusters into the series, going so far to make that clear where by the end of the episode he was vacuumed up in a similar way to any myriad of ghosts from that popular cartoon series...he might as well have been called Ecto-father. Globfather only had one appearance in the episode "Mobster from dimension x", but even still, 30-plus years later, we're still trying to clean his appearance out of the proverbial carpet as his presence and design made for quite a lasting impression.
Though the overarching story vehicle surrounding later season baddie Lord Dregg and capturing a Protein computer that spreads control via telephone lines was slightly humorous with the luxury of basic modern-day technology understanding hindsight, Globfather's role in the episode remains purely awesome. He was imposing, he could go toe to toe with the Turtles in a way that many of the other gangster villains in the series couldn't, and his appearance just screamed "Put me on your shelf next to Muckman Please!"
As one other neat easter egg for this episode, Globfather threatened to turn Raph into an Amoeba being like himself, which very likely could have been a sly nod to volume 4, issue 7 of Mirage comics where in an alternate reality Michaelangelo's counterpart is a superhero comprised of similar genetic makeup going by the hero name of Blobboid....or y'know...it could just have been a happy coincidence.
This character hit all the main beats for the makings of an awesome figure. He had a cool aesthetic, he had a fun slime-like gimmick, and he could look menacing standing near our heroes, plus, even though he technically was an alien and not a mutant, our kid self buying it on a toy shelf wouldn't have cared, he looked enough like an interesting mutant baddie where we would have swooped him up like alien amoeba hotcakes.
#2 TORA
Think back REALLLY hard on this character for a moment. Do you remember having him as an action figure? If so, apparently you aren't alone, but guess what...turns out, nope, he never had one. What's interesting about this character, other than the obvious that he's a boulder hurling, studded leather jacket-wearing polar bear mutant, is that plenty of folks are full-throatedly CONVINCED that this character did in fact have a vintage action figure, when in reality he most certainly did NOT.
Call it our TMNT version of the Mendela Effect, call it mistaken identity for Panda Khan, or transference from playing way more of the TMNT arcade game than was probably healthy for us, but this phenomenon of folks distinctly remembering playing with him as a toy when one never actually existed is fairly rampant and virtually inexplicable.
Though WHY he didn't have a toy is beyond us. He seemed to meet all the criteria for what WOULD have made it in as a playmates figure. He looked cool (yeah yeah, insert Polar bear joke here), he provided some ready-to-roll pack in accessories from when he appeared as a boss in the TMNT arcade game like a boulder to throw and a frosty the hit-man, and he was designed in a way that would transfer incredibly well from screen to toy, but sadly, like many of the video game appearance-only characters like The Clone Turtles, Fire Freak, Shogun, Aska, Sisyphus, or Mechaturtle, Tora NEVER saw plastic.
Technically Tora DID appear in animated form as well, just not in the cartoon proper. He made an often forgotten appearance in the NES TMNT 2 Arcade game commercial alongside another "never in plastic but sorely needed" character Shogun.
According to the video game, Tora is an alien bounty hunter from the ice planet traglodoon (which sounds very much inspired by Star Wars and Hoth perhaps), he is over 2000 years old, but looks remarkably young for his age, definitely 1000 years old at MOST. However, it should be noted that on the Japanese version of the game that origin for Tora vanishes and he is instead described not as an ALIEN, but simply as a "Polar Bear-Fighter" MUTANT. Which isn't to say he can't be both, however.
It is OUR candid belief that if NECA were ever to bring this long-sought-after character into the TMNT figure mix, the notion of whether he's referred to as an Alien or a Mutant likely wouldn't be something most fans would make hay over, so long as he's finally on our shelf looking like he's about to play a one-sided game of catch with the Turtles...and YES he WOULD need to come with both a fully covered with snow version of Frosty the Hit-man and a fully revealed skeleton version complete with heat-seeking guided carrot Missle nose.
#1 MOYCAT
Donatello? Check! Leonardo? Absolutely! Raphael? Cool...but Rude! Michaelangelo? Shell yeah! Moycat? Wait? What? If you grew up in the states, there is a fairly good chance this is a character you might not be as familiar with, which is an enormous shame, because Moycat. WAS. AWESOME! To answer some of your immediate questions, no, he was not a replacement Splinter, and yes, he is very much in Turtles Canon despite a fairly large demographic of Turtles fans being unaware of just how cool this character was.
First appearing in Division Comics "Las Tortugas Ninja", essentially Latin-America's version of the Archie TMNT Series, Moycat was a recurring staple of the comic, adding a personality and dynamic into the mix that has yet to be replicated in any iteration that has been produced in the United States. Early issues of the Las Tortugas Ninja series were actually quasi reprinted from those TMNT Adventures stories which then migrated into wholly original stories as the series continued over time.
Unlike the UK's Fleetway Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles which entirely re-printed those Archie stories and then eventually migrated to new stories as that series progressed, Las Tortugas Ninja went a different route and used those original stories as a template, but re-drew and re-wrote them to include aspects that reflected their own expansive Turtles world.
Some folks might say, "but wait, if they did their own thing with that series then technically can that still be considered canon?" And here is where that gets even more fun, because not only did some of these new stories connect to canon by using some of the same writers from the Archie series like Stephen Murphy (AKA Dean Clarrain), but the series was also given the blessing by both Eastman and Laird, with the series writer and sometimes illustrator Manuel Conde flying out to Mirage studios to coordinate with the US team. To reinforce this point, the series itself even featured Eastman on its covers from time to time noting him as "The Creator of Las Tortugas Ninja."
So despite a vast array of wholly new characters being added into the mix, and many of the issues being illustrated and written by the Mexico-based team, the series is still considered canon to TMNT lore, and with Moycat being a central character for many of this series issues, we thought a spotlight on this truly bodacious character was severely overdue.
Hailing from the alien planet Maygard, this anthropomorphic endangered Gray Ocelot rocked a trenchcoat and detective hat similar to Indiana Jones, had a flying sedan that could breach both space and time (similar to Cudley), and retained Ocelot speed and agility that proved to be a helpful set of skills when bounding into an array of battles with his four Turtle besties.
We want to reiterate that Moycat is very much NOT a Splinter stand-in. He is very much his own unique character, and is more an ally to the Turtles the way Casey Jones, Carter, or April was, than any sort of mentor role.
We also want to make verrry clear that Moycat is by no means the only absurdly cool character introduced in this series, as we mentioned a moment ago, "Las Tortugas Ninja" introduced a virtual fleet of wholly new and radically fun characters into the Turtles orbit, including Sharkius Brachii, a mutant shark who led a villainous whaling operation, La Cosquilla (translated to "The Tickle") who was similar a bit to Mr. Mxypxlyk or Mister Ogg, in that he was mischievous and omnipotent.
The Great Bonze who seemed to be an alien version of Tattoo perhaps.
Termidor who was an oversized mutant Lobster...and probably one of my favorites which combined a bit of what we saw in the TMNT anime series where the Turtles combined to create a giant mecha Turtle called Turtle Saint, but here the Turtles themselves combine to create one giant white bandana'ed Ninja Turtle in the form of El Gran Terripin.
Though the trades for this series are fairly difficult to obtain in the states, Las Tortugas Ninja writer and illustrator Manuel Conde has recently picked up where he left off on the series with brand new issues called Moycat and Macsian Chronicles. In SpeekyGeeky's recent deep dive interview with Conde (which can be found on SpeekyGeeky.com very shortly), he notes that Moycat is among his top picks that he would want to see in plastic form as well. In that same interview Conde let us know that many years ago Moycat WAS ACTUALLY being discussed as a figure with Playmates, but that figure sadly never came to be.
If NECA decides to expand into the world of Las Tortugas Ninja, with his direct connection to the Turtles and being an integral part of that series, Moycat seems a natural place to start. We see Moycat coming with a boleadoras (a three-pronged Argentinean fighting artifact), some cartoony punching clouds for all the fistfights he'll naturally be involved in, a removable hat and jacket, and a handheld portal machine.
To see more of the incredibly cool work Conde is doing with his upcoming comic series, make sure to follow his instgram at: @macsartifex
SPEEKYGEEKY'S TMNT POLLS
Since we're already talking about wholly new characters in plastic, we figured we would take a moment to ask you the viewer who YOU would like to see in one of our upcoming videos. We have been running polls on our youtube community page, as well as our SpeekyGeeky Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit pages as to which TMNT characters from various iterations we might want to see as Toys.
Here are some options from our latest polls, which you can weigh on here in the comments or head on over to any of our socials for the full list of option names to weigh in over there as well, and stay tuned because these winning options and more may very well appear in an upcoming TMNT deep dive or two.
There are also some incredibly talented TMNT customizers who are already creating some of those characters who appear on our polls, and it is a beautiful thing to see, here (in our video) are just a few of those absolutely creative folks that you are definitely going to want to keep up with so make sure to follow them on THEIR socials as well.
Also, if you happen to be at San Diego Comic-Con, SpeekyGeeky will be right there on the con floor doing some incredibly fun live interviews. If you happen to spot us make sure to give us a big "Keep It Geeky" welcome and who knows, we might have an exclusive swag item or two to share with you. At the very least, feel free to stop on by and say howdy and we'll grab a fun photo opportunity or two with a chance to be shown in one of our upcoming videos.
Alright, Shellheads, that's it for this episode, but don't stray too far from the Turtle Lair, because episode 8 is right around the corner.
We have no doubt you have some characters that top off your list as well, so make sure to make your hopes known and join the discussion in the comments below.
We realize you could have gone anywhere and you chose to nerd out with us... and we appreciate that, so…
As always, I am Mr. Geek-E and Until Next We NECA Turtle Speeky, Keep it Geeky Folks!