“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. Ok, the last episode took me waaaay tooo long to put together, and my hope was to get another episode out to folks before Toy Fair and New York Comic Con, because even as we're writing this, we've already started seeing a flurry of incredibly cool reveals in the lead-up and are certain it's just the tip of the plastic iceberg for all we'll see by the time that party wagon rolls around.
We are fairly certain, more of these reveals will be dropping even before THIS video premieres, but instead of rehashing ALL of those new reveals here, you'll definitely want to make sure to check out our good friend Dave Wonder's channel where SpeekyGeeky's Mr. Geek-E (HEY, that's ME!), Dave and Dan dig ALL the way into NECA's Fred Wolf/Archie/Mirage/Last Ronin/Universal Monsters, Super7's TMNT Ultimates, Playmates Mutant Mayhem, Loyal Subjects IDW, and much much more in our monthly episodes of "Turtle Talk."
Before we dive in, we thought it might be fun to try our hand at our best guesses for who and what we think might be revealed before the upcoming conventions (and heck, just to buy us a little more wiggle room, let's just say figures we think we'll see before the end of the year).
For our first guess, going off of the positive response we've been seeing on the diorama front, we have a feeling we could see a brand new, different environment diorama introduced. Could this be an avenue toward expanding classic and important areas of the technodrome on our shelf without taking up as much space as an ACTUAL technodrome playset would while also providing a unique and logical way to piecemeal together a fuller-sized technodrome that we wouldn't have to pay for it all at once? Sure! But with a smorgasbord of neat possibilities for locations still yet to have seen tackled within the Fred Wolf world, we wouldn't go so far as to place bets on that specific diorama Juuuust yet. That said, seeing as how the Turtles now have a lair, it seems only logical the villains would have a space of their own to hatch their next scheme toward trying to take over our shelf space.
We DO, however, think it's a fairly safe bet that we might be seeing at least one additional vehicle introduced before the year's end.
In our interview series with NECA (we'll plop the Link right here for convenience), TMNT Brand Manager Trevor Zammit mentioned possibly doing a news van for the movie line, which we see as a likely candidate because it could use shared parts from the previously offered Turtle van... but so far we don't have any sort of transport for the Archie line, and with all of those new characters that were just revealed at SDCC that NECA threw into the ahem... RING ...we wonder if there is anything being FLOATED toward THAT direction that we just can't seem to wrap our HEAD around? Something cute and CUDLY perhaps?
While we certainly hope to see our favorite oversized intergalactic bovine show up at some point in the line (and realistically as a convention-exclusive carrying case) we have a feeling we could see another small-scale vehicle from the Fred Wolf animated series done in that unique style as well, perhaps something like a knucklehead or a Technodrome Mark II (or perhaps something we've never actually seen in toy form yet, but SHOULD have, like the Technorover, Technodrome escape pod, Baxter Stockman's rat-catching machine, Turtle Seeking Cycle, or Transport Module) because A) the villains also need their own form of transport to get around and B) both of those are distinctively different looking enough from the original toyline where it would be getting something familiar yet wholly new.
But Geek-E, don't you have any guesses on specific ACTUAL figures you think might be coming soon? Why YES imaginary person we created to give us the opportunity to seamlessly segue into specifically that, we just MIGHT!
Keen observers will note that our track record with these guesses has been fairly spot on the past few years in a row, we did a handy Turtle rewind a few episodes back regarding our previous guesses, which we'll link right here for you. Not saying these new guesses are a sure bet by any means, they're just our best-educated guesses, but with that said, OUR best-educated guess tends to be fairly congruent with what ends up becoming a toy reality more often than not. So without further ado here are:
SPEEKYGEEKY's 2023 PREDICTIONS:
#1: Chronos--WAIT WAIT WAIT...THAT is who you start out the gate with? The dude who looks like a love child between The Riddler and Syndrome from the Incredibles? Well OK...That's a BOLD choice Geek-E, you do realize that is such a deep cut that most folks might not even remember who that is though, yeah? Sure, we realize we'll inevitably start trickling toward some red sky era characters soon, but why not start with a heavy hitter like Titanus or something?
OH? because we are digging into Titanus later THIS episode, THAT'S Why? FINE then, what makes this character so special? Well, Chronos (also known by his drastically less EPIC-sounding moniker, Winston Fripp) was just your average bank robber that got locked inside a bell tower by the Turtles and was driven mad by the striking of the clock, he later worked with Lord Dregg to help defeat the Turtles in a one-two punch diversion scenario. Chronos is one of those characters that didn't get a ton of air time, but the airtime he got was fairly memorable and demonstrated he was one heck of a threat to the Turtles.
But Why Chronos and not the other highly overlooked villain Lord Dregg? Well fine, go ahead and ruin my #2 guess why don't ya! As what should come as no spoiler for longtime viewers of the channel, we have an enormous soft spot for old Dregg-y. So much so that we dedicated a whole deep dive to him, which you can find riiiight here. We go into this character in much greater detail there, but the primary takeaway here is that Dregg, being both a major villain in the later seasons of the series, having multiple visual representations to choose from, and having a wide variety of wonderful villains to be paired with, is very much on our shortlist for who we would assume might be getting some toy love in the not too distant future.
#3 Mr. Ogg & Hokem Hare-- Yup our third guess is a bit of a cheat and we are guessing these two interdimensional rascals would be coming as a two-pack. Now, could they come with different characters? For sure they could! Are we certain these characters are coming at some point this year?
Just like how Ogg is able to transform one thing into another in the series, once we saw Donnie's Portable Transporter was coming to us complete with a card for Mister Ogg's home dimension, it became instantly clear that this device would positively transform our expectations toward obtaining these interdimensional characters in the near future. While we don't know for certain that this pack would include the promotional image we saw which was used in the initial teasing of the transporter (which of course could double to also be used with it), as a fun ahem "Easter Egg", it certainly would be a fun and welcome addition.
#4 Tempestra -- Yeah yeah, we know we brought her up as one of our options from last year as well, but this year, we are going to adjust our guess to saying she will be an oversized option. We totally get that Tempestra herself isn't as big as a character like Rex-1 or Chrome Dome, but there are a handful of things that could come WITH her that might boost the figure to that larger format (plus, we like to imagine the case for this one would be shaped like an old style video game cartridge, so just roll with us for a moment here). There are obvious reasons why Tempestra should be out to us in toy form by this point, as we called out in episode 7, she is the only remaining member of the Night of the Rogues, and she has had multiple appearances in the series.
But aside from the glaring precedent here, imagine if she came with not only a Turtle sized Arcade Game (with a swappable outer game aesthetic so collectors could choose to display it as it appeared in the show as "Tempestra's revenge" or turn it into something else entirely like a "Tournament fighters" or "TMNT Arcade game". With the new "what if" yellow trenchcoat Judith Hoag April O'Neil coming with a Pizzaface arcade console accessory, it also means the tooling is now already there for potential reuse toward this effect.
The console inclusion alone would be worth the oversized treatment, but within the series, Tempestra also was able to generate a wealth of digital lackeys who were themselves nods to different games at the time, one in particular even looked strikingly similar to another TMNT game world character we've never had in plastic, Fire Freak. Having Tempestra as an oversized could allow for some of those long-time essentials (if even in smaller scale) to be potentially included into the mix as well.
#5 Creepy Eddie-- We covered this awesome character back in episode 5 (linked again here for convenience). This is a character with an absolutely incredible aesthetic that has "make me a friggin toy" written all over him. He is the type of character that could have wonderfully fun pack-ins that tie into his dream world persona, and could easily be paired with any one of the unique Turtle variants we saw within that episode. Surfing Leo, Skiing Mikey, Roman Raph, this list of possibilities both goes on and on and excites us that we now have an additional excuse to get not just a Nightmare on Elm Street parody figure (so soon after getting a parody version of Robocop in Rex-1), but also different meaningful versions of the Turtles as well.
With those predictions out of the way, let's just leap right into our first option for Episode 9 of Which Fred Wolf TMNT Action Figures We'd Like To See...
#6 SHIBANO SAMA
How this character isn't more widely known within the mythos of TMNT is astounding to us. Shibano-Sama was the literal founder of the foot clan who made his debut appearance generations after what he had set into motion. In death, Shibano possessed mystical powers that Shredder, upon stealing his urn that just so happened to have been on display at the Asian-American Cultural Center, attempts to re-awaken in order to transform the ever-bumbling Bebop and Rocksteady into nearly invincible Ninja warriors, but in typical Shredder fashion, things don't go according to plan.
Long story short here for those who are brand new to the character... Unlike Shredder, Shibano was not inherently evil, nor did he intend for the foot clan to be dishonorable or forged for conquest. didn't possess an innate desire for evil and conquest. In fact, the only reason he entertains Shredder, is because Shredder lies and says he is the head of the foot clan. We're going to have to dovetail for a moment, because here is where it gets a little confusing. At first glance many folks might rightfully be saying at this moment "But wait, Shredder IS the head of the foot clan, how is that lying?"
The answer is "Well, that's KINDA/SORTA true in that Shredder makes this claim often enough that we the audience come to believe it (and it doesn't hurt that he has a clan of robots called the foot and even goes so far as to time travel to the past to try and MAKE this true by changing history), but within the Fred Wolf animated world, for legacy-sake, it's really not FACTUALLY true. Let's back up for a second and we'll explain.
In the incredibly fun origins-building episode "The Legend of Koji," Shredder goes back in time to ancient Japan and meets his ancestor Oroku Sancho. This episode is a bit similar to "Back to the Future II" in that Shredder is basically Biff attempting to manipulate the past to give him an outcome where he ends up on top, but again, say it with us this time, in typical Shredder fashion, things don't go according to plan.
Shredder ends up donning the clothes of and posing as his ancestor to try and locate the mystical artifacts that are said to be kept at the shrine of Shibano Sama, again, it definitely adds more lore but doesn't entirely tell us the background with how the two artifacts got there in the first place and this is a story we NEED to see told at some point because those objects in question were the Nomi Blade (which for all intents and purposes we'll just call the Sword of Greyskull here), and the Tsunami Box, (which sort of buried the lead similar to how Star Wars' original name was "Blue Harvest" because spoiler alert, the Tsunami part of the box, was code for that it contained a literal Dragon).
So Shredder goes in search of these artifacts, but another Samurai named Hamato Koji, who just so happens to be Splinter's ancestor is on a mission from his sensei to find these exact artifacts in order to start his own Ninja Clan. We don't want to ruin how this all plays, because it really is worth watching it in its entirety, but the takeaway here is that Splinter, NOT Shredder has the proper claim as leader of the foot clan (only having his birthright brought into question after Oroku Saki speared Yoshi's kimono to the wall as a master sensei entered giving the appearance that Yoshi was dishonoring the sensei when he didn't properly bow) ...so if you want to get technical, that might make the Turtles, whom Splinter is Master of, the legitimate, yet unofficial modern day foot clan...so y'know...just some anchovy and marshmallow pizza for thought.
What were we talking about again here? OH Right, in the episode where Shibano first appeared which was "Blast from the Past", Shredder is back at it and trying to fool the summoned spirit of Shibano-Sama that he is the rightful leader of the foot clan. At First, Shibano helps him and bestows Bebop and Rocksteady with some of that vague He-man power, but once Splinter illustrates to Shibano using the Kur-Li Maneuver (an ancient warrior move that no kidding is a shot-for-shot recreation of a classic "3 Stooges" slapstick play...the name "kur-Li being a reference to Curly of the 3 stooges), that Shibano comes to understand he's been deceived and turns on Shredder and his goons.
Fun MUTANT MAYHEM fact: This is ALSO the same art style the Turtles and Splinter trained on within the movie, likely as a callback to this very episode
Now, we have a TON of questions here, like "Why would an ancient artifact have that such easy access and little security around it", "When were magical invincible powers gifted to him to even bestow, was it a He-man's power sword situation but y'know...with the afterlife as a stand-in for the sword?" "Why we never see the Kur-Li Maneuver repeated within the series again," "Why Shibano isn't name-dropped more throughout the series that have come after this, which one might think would be the case for a noble warrior that was founder to a group that had a lasting presence hundreds of years later," and most importantly Why we don't have a figure of this character in ANY form yet?
If we were to finally get plastic representation for this figure, we could see Shibano coming with a swappable lower torso so that he could have regular legs or ethereal smoke coming out of his urn with a flight stand helping to keep the figure up. He could also have electric bolts that could emit from his fingertips and come with both the Tsunami Box, a shrine, and the Nomi Blade.
As a fun aside, Shibano DID end up appearing within the IDW's Ghostbusters/TMNT II series (written by none other than current Saturday Morning TMNT Adventures scribe, Erik Burnham, we probably don't need to tell anyone watching this series, but if you aren't reading that incredible series, you'll definately want to fix that immediately). In that series, while revisiting the Fred Wolf cartoon universe, Shibano makes a cameo nod, only to be mistaken for a malicious ghost and zapped by Winston.
#5 MEGAVOLT (ALEX WINTER--HUMAN & MUTANT)
LET'S GET DANGEROUS! Oh Whoops, wrong series Megavolt, though, as a fun aside to bring up at your next animation fan club Barbeque, the voice actor who voiced Megavolt in TMNT, Tony Jay, ALSO voiced a character in the series Darkwing Duck (which ALSO famously had a character named Megavolt, though on Darkwing, Tony voiced the character of Death...which y'know, isn't exactly Apples for Apples here, but we still thought it was kind of neat...plus now we got to talk about Darkwing Duck for a second, who just so happens to be another anthropomorphic crime fighter, so it's not completely off base for discussing with folks who might find that nugget of info as nifty as we do).
Anywhooo...It's not often we encountered a villain so powerful the Turtles easily had their shells handed to them, but Megavolt was that and then some. Coming out of the episode "State of Shock" this somewhat sympathetic baddie was equal parts X-Men's Wolverine and Electro from Spiderman...with a dash of Captain America thrown in for good measure.
Megavolt (AKA Alex Winters, not to be confused with Max Winters the immortal warrior from the 2007 TMNT movie) is a highly skilled ninja leader that split off from the super secret military organization Dark Water after being horribly disfigured. Believed to be dead, Megavolt leads a group of ninjas that look eerily like the ninjas from the episode "the sword of Yurikawa" and plots revenge on the organization that gave him his powers (which also mutilated him in the process).
Could this have been a bit of world-building lore having Megavolt's ninjas resemble characters of the past, or was it simply episodes flying out at a breakneck pace so animators simply reused a design to somewhat match Megavolt's whole aesthetic vibe? You PROBABLY know us well enough by now that we like to think it's the former.
Here is the thing with Megavolt, this is another one of those characters which, realistically, had they been given a continual platform, could potentially have been a major long-term baddie for the Turtles.
In addition to being incredibly strong, amazingly capable at matching the Turtles fighting skills, the ability to hulk out as a giant electrified insect (that happened to bear so much of a striking similarity to Space Ghost's Zorak that we're going to go out on a limb and say that character was without a doubt, likely the inspiration for his bug form appearance), the major thing that was downplayed with his character was that if he had enough energy output, he could basically go full on god mode villain, essentially being able to turn his energy into whatever physical entity he could imagine.
Remember Kirby's pencil in the Mirage comics that kinda/sorta birthed life into that iteration of April (yup, it was a doozy of an issue and absolutely worth a read if you haven't read it...it may also explain why her father was named Kirby in the 2012 series, but we digress)...anyway, his power somewhat resembled that nifty power, which, when fallen into the wrong hands, could have been absolutely devastating to the Turtles and their allies.
Circling back to the awesomeness that was Megavolt, we never fully saw the entire scope of his power set, and this certainly wasn't explored in the episode itself, but in theory, given enough energy, he could have created an entire foot clan to go against the Turtles all with but a mere thought, which... ACTUALLY, come to think of it, might BETTER explain why his current ninja army matched his outfit so seamlessly.
We could easily see Alex Winter being aesthetically interesting enough that he could potentially come as a two-pack with one of his "NOT sword of Yurikawa" ninjas or an army builder with a Dark Water Soldier with separate heads for each to have Winter displayed masked or disfigured and to display the Dark Water soldier either as a generic agent or the head of Dark Water Wesley Knight.
We also see Alex Winter coming with a barrage of energy burst weapons that resembled shurikins, and then a separate hulked-out insect form Megavolt coming as a separate oversized figure.
#4 DRAKUS (AKA BERSERKO)
For folks who like to give the Red Sky years a hard time, no one can deny those seasons, whether they liked it or not, started out with a literal bang! Specifically, (And, apologies in advance for the 30 year old spoiler alert here folks) the destruction of the channel 6 building! YUP, the SAME channel 6 building that had been a staple of the series for 8 years, and which signaled to longtime fans that everything they thought they could anticipate from the series that season just went right out the window. Did we spot a fairly massive easter egg that it took us over 30 years to catch watching this episode again all these years later? Oh you BETTER believe we did, but more on that shortly. At the heart of this shift toward darker territory was an alien named Drakus... We SAID, was an alien named... DRAKUS! NO? NOTHING? You've never heard that name before in your life? You think we're punking you right now you say?
Here, maybe if we try and frame it another way, see if this rings any bells... You know the Technodrome right? That big giant metal eyeball fortress that Shredder and Krang operate out of? Well what if we told you that Drakus was the one who helped Krang build that? How is it possible we've never heard of this dude up until this moment in time? Well that's an easy one, it's because the series never thought you needed to know Krang had other allies until JUST this moment, naturally. YEESH, stop asking so many questions and just enjoy Batman the Animated Ser--we mean the Red Sky seasons of Ninja Turtles, will ya?
And as this story now goes, Drakus was once Krang's former weapons engineer back on dimension x who helped him design the Technodrome. Krang, in true Krang fashion was so excited to have had the assistance, that he repaid him by immediately exiling him from Dimension X and blowing up his home planet, because, as Krang recalled, he "didn't want any of his relatives coming after him". Yeaaaah, we DID mention this season got SUPER dark just a moment ago right?
But to be fair, this Krang as a sociopath aspect is one of the elements that has always been most consistent within the series regardless of season, it's only with the Red Sky episodes do they really lean fully into that villainy and not supercoat it through a humorous back and forth with Shredder which typically would help diffuse his viciousness and end with some sort of hilarious failure (most likely involving something reminiscent of Biff getting his just desserts in Back to the Future...y'know, something messy and squishy), but here? NOPE, it's just ALL on display and we see more of an uneasy reality set in that is that no matter how much we like to think of Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady as his bumbling family, the second Krang ACTUALLY get's what he wants and they overstay their usefulness to him, they are just as disposable to him as the rest of us.
Seeing as we've now just crushed our own childhood ever so slightly, we figured now might be a good time to circle back to that easter egg we were noting a moment ago. Ok, so remember how we were talking about how in this same episode the channel 6 building meets it's demise? And yes, I promise, I'm NOT just bringing this up again to keep the sadness train going, I am getting to a point here and that point is that when Shredder puts a timetable on the Turtles to bring him Krang while holding the channel 6 building and all it's occupants for randsome, he gives them 30 minutes, the same amount of time the Turtles give the Pizza Dude in the TMNT live action movie where they don't pay him full price because he was late, here the situation is reversed and it is because the Turtles are slightly late and even though Shredder got what he wanted, he makes good on his rule and blows up the building.
Again, this isn't an EXACT homage to the movie, but it certainly feels inspired by that scene, just as this new tone to the series was inspired in part due to the tone of the live action movie and it's success. As an important aside because it is worth pointing out...if Splinter hadn't pulled the Channel 6 crew out of the building in advance of Shredder going full Demolitian Man on it, Shredder would have straight up just murdered a whole building of people without thinking twice about it...again, while the Red Sky years may not be the favorite in terms of tonal shift for many fans, you have to admit, those episodes went into some absolutely banana's territory, AAAAND we got characters like Berserko (AKA Drakus) out of those years, which, despite his only one episode, was certainly a memorable and intriguing character that absolutely felt like he was meant to return. He also had an overwhelming visual presence to him that just screamed Toy Shelf friendly (though, like ALL of the Red Sky characters, he sadly never was)
If those imagination magicians over at NECA ever decide to finally give Berserko the toy love he greatly deserves, we think it would be fun to have him with both a masked and an unmasked head, a wire posable cape to get the full captivating villainy presence in tow, some attachable wrist lasers, and one of his Cyberdrones as a fun army building opportunity.
Ok, one LAST thing with this character, something that always stuck with us with this episode aside from how horrors both Shredder and Krang proved they were capable of naturally, was how fun it was that with Berserko we started getting to see some additional cool species that migrated from within the Dimension X Universe.
It is 100% also worth noting that even though we're told that Krang destroyed his homeworld, Krakus looks an awful lot like he could the older brother or relative to the Balaraphon's who appeared in the episodes "Turtle Trek" and "Divide and Conquer".
Most folks might easily recall characters like the Rock Soldiers and Neutrino's, but might forget that Dimension X was actually teeming with intelligent and peaceful planets that Krang and his army of bubble walkers set out to reign dominion over. We often like to think of Krang as a humorous and incompetent character, but when confronted with the reality of the situation in dimension x where so many planets had been conquered by the Utroms, it highlights the fighting force the Turtles ACTUALLY posed to him, Considering how many times he was thwarted by their efforts.
#3 TITANUS
We hear the chatter, we're right there in the thick of the conversations with folks and it doesn't seem to matter where we are, occasionally someone will say something along the lines of "the 1987 line must be nearing it's end because they are running out of good characters left to do".
Now, we realize for some, it's been decades since they might have been able to sit back and watch this series (up until recently where the episodes are now available again through Paramount+ and their TMNT youtube channel), and for many, their familiarity with the wealth of characters was entirely linked to the corresponding toys that were on the shelf at the time that they were able to play with to reenact stories around when they played, but in reality, the absolutely incredible thing about a show like TMNT is that for every incredible character that WAS made into a toy that appeared on the show, there were a handful of additional absolutely rad characters that WEREN'T!
And we're not talking throwaway, silly design characters either, we're talking Toy-etic, incredibly fun aesthetic characters who would have fit in PERFECTLY with the rest of the figures we got from the original playmates line. We aren't arguing that a good wealth of the initially recognizable characters haven't been tackled, as those bodacious folks over at NECA have 100% been on fire with the options they have been offering to us fans, but nearing the end? Ha, as many longtime fans know well, we've barely even scratched the surface!
But Geek-e, surely you're not going anywhere with this soapbox rant about cool characters that never saw plastic and I can just be done watching now, right? OH, YOU'RE NOT? AND THIS WAS ACTUALLY LEADING UP TO MAKING A CASE FOR SOMETHING? Ok, well then I guess that makes more sense and I suppose I'll keep watching...but like, you're on thin ice, so this better be good.
Why thanks imaginary viewer who represents my own glaring insecurities, so glad you chimed in, and you definitely are a non-problematic stand-in for our therapist.
We were in fact leading up to non-other than one of those aforementioned cool (but often forgotten) characters TITANUS. How this character or the evil X-men-like group of mutants he led called HAVOC (which, sidenote, stood for "Highly Advanced Variety Of Creatures"...and yes, it's a forced acronym but it was the 90s so we just rolled with it) never got figures is absolutely astounding to us. Y'know what, we realize this slot is dedicated specifically to Titanus, but really, we're going to cheat here and change it mid-stream to really be for ALL of HAVOC.
We know we said we'd be quick, but let's walk this through for a moment, for folks who are still scratching their head at who the heck these characters even are, because if you are like the many that stopped staying up to date once the red sky years began, there is a very good chance you didn't even know these characters existed to begin with, and that goes to the much bigger point here and that's where SPEEKYGEEKY (hey, that's ME!) comes in to fill in the gaps...and yup, we apologize that sounded as dirty as it did and we immediately regret that phrasing.
The abridged low-down on HAVOC is that it was a group of badass-looking, superhero-attired mutants led by TITANUS who were basically posing as heroes while unbeknownst to them, helping their "plans for world domination" leader amass a mutant army to get more of a foothold on taking over the Earth. Now, to their benefit, it certainly seemed like a great deal of the members of HAVOC were duped into thinking they were ACTUAL superheroes and fighting for a good cause, but that said, their acronym WAS HAVOC and not saying that you can judge a book by its cover, but if their leader WAS a book, his title would have been called "come on, it was glaringly obvious I was EVIL".
Titanus looked like if Slimer and "My Pet Monster"'s Beaster got stuck in a transporter with the Michelin Man, so it doesn't take a Donatello-sized genius to deduce you might be playing for the wrong side. But funny we mentioned a Donatello-sized genius in this specific setting because guess what, Raph and DONATELLO actually briefly joined HAVOK until they realized that they were mutating people against their will...so y'know, even Donatello's Synapses don't always fire on full from time to time....OH, WHAT'S THAT? One of the members of HAVOK is actually CALLED SYNAPSE?? Oh come on, now you're just adding insult to injury here!
There were eight members of HAVOK plus TITANUS (and technically ten if you count the short membership of the two Turtles), ALL of which had neat powers AND a unique look that practically was screaming "I am being created to sell toys!" but despite that, were still never made as toys, which absolutely boggles the mind.
There was AMOK who was a mutant Goat that had serious Gargoyles vibes to him, and with super strength was somewhat like the Hulk of the team, OVERDRIVE who was a mutant Cheetah similar to the Avengers Quicksilver if Quicksilver had an awesome baby with the Mutanimal JAGWAR, DEMONICUS who was a mutant Ram with an outfit with squint or you'd miss it hints of the demonic infused within it, who acted as the resident magician similar to Scarlet Witch or Doctor Strange (and who we like to think would have been called "Livestalk Warlock" if he ever saw the classic toy treatment),
HIGHBEAM who was a mutant firefly, who, you guessed it, could shoot beams out of his eyes similar to another highly recognizable mutant out of the x-men's world,
MAGMA who is a Lava Mutant who can seemingly change his temperature to go from fully moving and malleable to flowing from his fingertips at whim...and so as not to be confused with the other Lava monster from the video games, THIS Lava mutant dons some galactus like headgear.
Angel....ahem, that is to say RAPTOR is a mutant Hawk or Eagal and probably the most loyal of the bunch to Titanus. A quick aside, the inclusion of characters like Raptor make us feel like perhaps HAVOC might have initially been presented as a more toy-friendly, mutant-conducive version of Mirage's Justice Force (who later showed up in the 2003 series in a few different iterations...the 2nd incarnation that just so happened to contain a character named RAPTARR, a character who originated in the mirage comics who ALSO was introduced in another episode of the 2003 series catching Michaelangelo from a fall off a building building going under the nickname...wait for the additional x-men reference here...GUARDIAN ANGEL. This character ALSO showed up yet again in Back to the sewers where he was rocking a look that might have harkened back to his potential 87 appearance (but then again, it could have also been a nod to DC's Hawkman, which he also could have very likely been inspired from.
Next up was the centipede mutant named SEIZURE who was a little bit like if Justice Force's Metalhead mashed up with the Masters of the universe Sqqqueeze where he could extend his arms out to ensnare and overpower his targets, specifically he was used quite a bit as the "go-to" centipede in rounding up and ensnaring humans to mutate. And then this brings us to the last member, coming back full circle to the beginning of our conversation on HAVOC, with SYNAPSE.
Unlike the rest of the HAVOC crew, we actually got to get a peek into a little bit more of Synapse's origin story. Prior to being mutated, Synapse was a convict who agreed to be mutated and was actually a recurring character from the very first episode of the red skies seasons. He became the primary villain of the Turtles in the episode HAVOC in the Streets where he used his ability to transport his body and interact with anything electric to cause some real...ahem..."MUTANT MAYHEM" against the Turtle bros. He was such an overpowered villain that the Turtles technically didn't defeat him, but rather just transported him off-world never to be seen again, assumedly floating forever in the infinite void of space, a fate worse than death...yeah, ha, those Red Sky years tended to get a bit dark.
OK, so how do we see these figures coming? Let's break it down!
TITANUS seems obvious for the Ultimate size treatment, this baddie is like "Into The Spiderverse"'s Kingpin Size on Steroids, he easily has an extra head on Mirage's Triceraton Zog, so it's very possible he would come as a stand-alone figure. But what would he come with if we had OUR druthers? A nice pairing might be the fish mutant character we saw him transform in the episode "Cry HAVOC" and perhaps a medical-like ray machine and gurney which he could strap him down onto to recreate the scene.
The remainder seem like logical 2 packs, either with each other, or, if NECA wanted to shake it up to ensure we also got the Red Sky versions of the Turtles, each HAVOC member could be paired with a different Turtle bro.
But Geek-E, you might ask, wouldn't this be the perfect opportunity to pair each of these with one of the 2nd mutation Turtles? While we personally think that would be rad as shell, we'd realistically be looking at Turtles the size of Colossus of the Swamp Napoleon paired with already fairly large figures, so a more plausible scenario when it comes to approaching those hulked-up Turtles might be as a four-pack similar to what we saw with the Lawson set or as one Ultimate figure with 4 swappable heads/forearms/kneepads so that we could choose which Turtle we want to further mutate or let's be honest here, army build them all.
Digging a little deeper into the other members of HAVOC and what they could look like in toy form, what's fun is that many of the characters lend well to parts reuse from other characters that have already been done in the Fred Wolf and Archie line...Overdrive for instance could share parts from Jagwar, Magma could share tooling with Traag, or Raptor with Ace Duck and Bug Man for instance.
Even though we won't see actual action features with the figures themselves, it might be fun to see accessories that come along with the characters that help to recreate their abilities, Overdrive with a plumb of smoke similar to the roadrunner for instance, Demonicus with a Dr Strange like magic enchantment circle, or Synapse with a translucent plastic and Glow in the Dark features seem like natural accompaniments similar to how Dirtbag came with his ability to pop out of the dirt accessory.
But whatever happened to HAVOC within the series Geek-E? Well, once TITANUS was taken down, the rest of the group scattered to the winds and were never heard from in the cartoon again. But WE like to think that had the series continued, we might have seen some of these characters come back in some redemption roles, potentially finding common ground and teaming with other mutants within the Fred Wolf Universe like Mondo Gecko, Venus, Carter, and a Punk Frog or two to form their own incarnation of the Mutanimals that would assist the Turtles from time to time within the series, and WHO KNOWS, might have even spun off into a series of their own.
#2 THE FLYING TURTLENECKER BROTHERS: HANS & FITZ
He's Hans, and He's Fitz, and they're here to pump...YOU up...about discovering more about one of the objectively most fun episodes of the Fred Wolf years. Before digging into the characters themselves, let's just unpack what the episode where they appeared, "Planet of the Turtles" itself was all about to set the scene.
BUUUUUT, before we can do that btw, and believe us when we say we hate to be the ones to note this because the Michael Bay movies are NOT what we typically point to as our favorites of the franchise, and in fact just saying this feels a bit wrong, but we'd be remiss if we didn't point out that when he tried to make the Turtles into aliens in the original Blue Door script, well that ACTUALLY had some precedent to it that is illustrated in this very episode. Now, that said, this is how you do alien Turtles the CORRECT way..you make them RASSLE!
Ok, so with that obligatory partial credit sidebar to the Michael Bay Turtle fan or fans in the house now out of the way, let's give a bit more background on what made this episode so freaking rad. Firstly, and this is one you PROBABLY already might have guessed, this is a wrestling heavy episode, and as long time fans know quite well, whenever you pair the Turtles with wrestling, magical things tend to happen and absurdly awesome characters tend to make themselves known.
Secondly, this is an episode that sees the Turtles visit a planet comprised entirely of anthropamorphic Turtles. We talked about this a bit all the way back in episode 5 when we were making our still very relevant case for yet another tubular Turtle that appeared in this episode, Professor Turtlestein, which we still 100% stand by and we'll plop the link for here so that you can see for yourself why he is so dang cool!
But here's the deal, there were so many incredible Turtles that came out of this episode that are worth discussing and having figures of, that if we really wanted to, we could geek out about with you about ALL day, but this episode is about two specific Turtles, the Flying Turtlenecker Brothers, Hans and Fitz, so that's who we'll be highlighting our Turtle planet nerd love to in this installation (spoiler alert though, we mayyy already have the art created for characters like Rupert and Wild Willy, so the chances of seeing their deep dive in the not too distant future as well here is fairly high).
The "in a Turtleshell" plot of this episode is this: Similar to Rick and Morty's interdimensional cable (though more all ages friendly) some bizarre atmospheric disturbances are allowing folks on Earth to view entertainment from other planet's...specifically a planet that features a wrestling show with Turtles who go toe to toe with each other. This show has two very clear reigning champions and those are the flying Turtlenecker brothers, Hans and Fitz. We see contenders one after the other go up against them and just as quickly be disposed of by these wrestling Turtle Behemouth's.
During one of the commercial breaks, Krang sees a commercial for a personal energy projector promoted on that planet and realizes it's exactly what he's been looking for to draw energy from the Earth to power the technodrome, but whoops, when he sends Shredder to go retrieve it, who followed him back through the portal to dimension x, but those pesky Turtlenecker bros, who Krang realizes are just the allies he needs to help him make Turtle Stew out of our regularly scheduled Turtle bros.
We know we won't do the epic fight that ensued between them justice, so if you haven't seen this episode yet, it's an incredibly fun one and we highly recommend you going to check that out.
How do we see these figures coming? Well firstly they would be HUGE, likely double the size of the other Turtles bros, so we'd be looking at oversized figures for certain, the question would be, would we see these two coming packed together, or as individual oversized with a little buddy wrestler that they wrestled in the show like Wild Willy or Rattin' Randy? Or heck, it might also be a fun excuse to sneak in some other smaller scale Turtles like Rupert or Dr. Turtlestein. Fun additional accessories might be typical wrestling weapons like a broken fold up chair or one of the posts used in the wrestling ring that could be used here as a makeshift weapon.
These are two characters that we would be shocked if we didn't see in plastic form in the not too distant future, especially now that NECA just revealed the fan-favorite Archie wrestling Turtles at SDCC, this indicates to us that we'll be treated to quite a few additional wrestling characters sooner than later for those Turtles to wrestle against and pose lovingly on our shelves and to that prospect we say "Let's Get Ready To Rumble!"
#1 GADGETMAN
Go Go Gadget...uhhh MAN!
Surely you all remember this character and we can just go on our merry way toward writing the next episode now, so we'll just mosey along and....OH, you DON'T remember the hilariously irreverent in-world superhero that was GADGET-MAN and you'd like us to continue? Well ok then, let's just jump right in.
Appearing in the episode "Superhero for a Day", Gadgetman is the answer to the question "What if Inspector Gadget, Underdog (don't believe us on this one? Note his catchphrase which is literally "There's no need to fear, gadgetman is here!"), Mr. Magoo, Batman, and the Old Man from the movie "Up" were all smooshed into one cantankerous body". As his name would suggest, Gadget-Man's gimmick was that he wore a Rescue Rangers-themed outfit...we joke, as quite obviously his whole deal was that he utilized nifty Gadget's to take down the bad guys of his day.
We say "HIS" day, because when we first see him in the episode he is no longer in his prime, but rather in the "get off my lawn" stage of his life, drunk uncle-ing anger toward the tv screen when he sees that the Turtles have saved the day yet again. Still yearning for his glory years of yesteryear when he was the city's pre-eminent superhero, he ponders to himself whether the city needs a superhero like him again, and just as quickly he determines that "WHY YES OF COURSE THEY DO!" as he slides out of his mustard and gravy stained shirt and re-outfits himself in his old classic costume that has now become a decidedly fashionable Belly shirt.
Never one to miss an opportunity toward villainy (and with clearly too much time on his android hands), Krang is watching the mid-afternoon news which we can only assume is airing in between his daily soap operas and sees Gadget-Man is thirsty AF to be relevant as a hero again. So he suggests to Shredder that he may want to approach him to take on some fake crimes (presented as "Photo opportunities" naturally) for Gadgetman to swoop in and save the day with...knowing fully well that what he is really doing is putting Gadgetman directly in the Turtles way, making a bad situation worse with Gadgetman's no longer effective attempts to help, and keeping the Turtles occupied with having to clean up after him while Shredder is able to then commit crimes all throughout the city while they are both distracted.
It was an incredibly fun episode, with wonderfully memorable scenes like the Turtles playing a game of "Go fish" with various Pizza slice toppings... but watching this again as adults, we found ourselves asking questions we never thought to ask as kids, like "Wait, there were more established heroes in this universe BEFORE the Turtles? Gadget Man seemed incredibly well known and beloved, not just by the older cast like Burne, but also Bebop and Rocksteady, and somehow even Michelangelo...so firstly, were there other heroes that existed just like him? Who were their villains? What made them stop with the world of Hero'ing? And Where did he go after the end of the episode where he agreed to essentially be the Turtles new Gadget maker only to never be seen or heard from again?
For that last question we like to think he could have linked up off camera with other characters we THOUGHT we were going to see again, only to have never been heard from again, like Mona Lisa or Dirk Savage and form some sort of vigilante hero group similar to Justice Force that showed up in Mirage and then again in 2003...especially because Gadgetman was giving us major Stainless Steel Steve vibes.
So how would we want to see this delightfully silly character in toy form? While we certainly wouldn't cry foul if he was packed in with his younger self Professor Perry style where it is two iterations of the same character but with different looks, we also think that this might be a fun opportunity to sneak in a variant of Bebop or Rocksteady here as those were the villains Shredder set up to get caught by Gadgetman in the episode.
While it would be easy enough to have versions of them in Ski masks holding up a bank, it might be more interesting to have an iteration where they are wearing a prison outfit (which we realize would be a "what if" outfit here) or sweatsuits which they donned in another episode. We would also hope to see Gadget man come with some of his gadget's that made their way into the episode like his Egg Beater Helicoptor and Pursuit Boots (which were basically just shoes with big springs on the bottom)
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 an absolutely beautiful thing to see, here now (in our video) are just a few of those wonderfully creative folks that you are definitely going to want to keep up with so make sure to follow them on THEIR socials as well.
Alright, Shellheads, that's it for this episode, but don't stray too far from the Turtle Lair, because episode 10 is right around the corner.
We have no doubt you have some characters that top your lists that you'd like to see as well, so make sure to have 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!
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