“We’re looking for a few good Archie Comics mutants!”
On December 31st, 2020 to ring in the new year, NECA's TMNT Brand Manager Trever Zammit sat down with the Fwoosh and discussed some new TMNT products coming down the road for 2021 an beyond. There were tons of great reveals and we'd highly suggest sitting down and giving it a listen, but one of the key topics that caught our attention over at SpeekyGeeky was that NECA will be diving into more comic figures. Trever later clarifies that he is talking specifically about Mirage here, but he does say that Archie Comics in particular are a license he is really hoping they'll be able to obtain and dive into (and once that ball started rolling, our conversation naturally expanded to a discussion about IDW characters as well) . This got us thinking about who our top figures we'd want to see if indeed NECA was able to acquire the Archie Turtles license and start rolling these out.
Once we got to talking, it quickly became fairly evident that we each had a pretty extensive list of favorites that we had always hoped would someday see plastic in the Turtle ranks on our shelves and display cases. So many in fact that in order to do them justice, we'll have to break them down throughout a handful of articles.
Join us now, for part 1 of SpeekyGeeky's "Top NECA TMNT Archie Comics Toys We'd Like to See" (and stay tuned for our IDW list which should be dropping in the next day or two):
10. CRYIN' HOUN' (AKA "HOUN' DOG)
Arguably one of the most unique looking characters from the Archie Comics Turtles run, Cryin' Houn's that four-armed wrestling dynamo that our favorite Ninja bros encounter while whisked (or rather swallowed) away to Sling and Stump's wrestling asteroid by a giant trans-dimensional cow head being named Cudly the Cowlick (more on him in a future part of this series). Cryin' Houn' "handedly" makes quick work of the Turtles in the ring, using his catchphrase that rivaled Groot "Mah name, mah name is Cryin'...Houn'". Aside from his fun wrestling costume, extra appendages, and clear challenge to the Turtles, he made multiple appearances in the series introducing himself in a new equally awesome costume and stage name "El Mysterio" (which we're hoping might merit a variant down the road), also, and most importantly, he just looked damn cool. It also appears that a possible toy of this character was being at least considered to coincide with the original line, as seen with these conceptual images (#1 & #2) posted years ago.
9. BELLYBOMB
On the toxic waste planet Morbus, there is an alien so heinous, so unintentionally phallic, so vicious, he makes Krang look like just some brain on a pedastool. As the story tells us, Bellybomb has been banished to Morbus for armed robbery, man-eating, brain poaching, soul thievery, and impersonating a deity named Bob. We are introduced to him as Krang and Slash have also found themselves temporarily stuck on the planet. bad for them it appears to be a prison planet and there are guards preventing their escape, good for them they are with Slash and he well, turns out he wasn't given that name for no reason.
Fun fact, by the end of Bellybomb's arc we are treated to a new iteration of Shredder as well, one where Bellybomb has successfully, albeit briefly grafted Krang's body in place of where Shredder's head used to be in one of the earliest known depictions of a Human Centipede (technically Human/Ultrom centipede), once again Turtles were well ahead of their time.
8. DREADMON
How long must we wait to complete our original roster of The Mighty Mutanimals??? This South African/Jamaican native red fox/tazmanian devil found his way to mutant-dom in a quite different manor than the Turtles, gaining his mutation from an ancient talisman that also imbued him with super speed. Dreadmon and the other original mutanimals (which also included Jagwar directly below) often teamed with the Turtles in the Archie series and in their own spin-off series to combat various social, economic, and ecology facing issues (which eventually led to another mutant facing group called the "Conservation Corps" but that is a conversation for a little down the road).
7. JAGWAR
Besides just being an all around kick-ass character that had a awesome look to boot, Jagwar falls into the category of yet another member of the original Mighty Mutanimals that never had a toy in his likeness. This is an absolute shame, one that should be hopefully rectified immediately if NECA does indeed expand toward the Archie characters route.
Jagwar is also another non-traditional anthro-morph from the Amazon Rain Forest who found his mutation in a very different way than the Turtles, in fact, he technically isn't a mutant so much as he is a half human/half Jaguar demigod (in the same sense that X-men's "Phoenix" while inhabiting Jean Grey is just considered a mutant).
Jagwar was actually set to be immortalized in plastic around 2008 (around the time of the CGI movie of all bizarre times to release it), which would have been an incredible and welcome addition, despite only marginally looking like his comic depiction, but for unknown reasons they were left on the cutting room floor, here is the prototype for reference below.
6. WINGNUT & SCREWLOOSE
To be abundantly clear, EVERY iteration of Wingnut and Screwloose be it Archie, IDW, Fred Wolf cartoon series, 2012, video game, needs to and absolutely should be made. Archie comics iteration just so happens to be one of our favorites in that it seems to best capture that weird mix of accidentally huffing too much guano paired with 1966 Batman-y goodness.
Yes, before folks point out that this list is fairly Mutanimals heavy, Wingnut and Screwloose being the 3rd (and technically 4th) on the list to fit that very specific group, WE KNOW, but when an opportunity to finally see a full Mutanimals roster on our shelf after all these years finally seems within reach, you better believe we're going to make a point of trying to make that a reality.
Though featured as villains in both the Fred Wolf cartoon series and in the TMNT Mini-comic, Wingnut & Screwloose in the Archie series are actually perpetual allies to the Turtles (though their relationship does get off to a rocky start with the flighty duo mistakenly attacking the Turtles blimp because they believe them to be working with Krang. Though it's fairly unlikely NECA would be able to get the go ahead to include the Ralston-Purina Mini-comic version additional wings and head for Wingnut, it certainly would be a welcome easter egg.
5. MONDO GECKO (HUMAN FORM)
Mondo is one of those characters that just oozes with the 80's metal scene, his transformed self stays incredibly true to the spirit of who Mondo was beforehand, and just like Bebop, Rocksteady, Baxter, and Hamato Yoshi, the fact that he was human before helps add layers to draw from toward the new avenues of playability. Who among us hasn't wanted to pretend that we had the power to mutate these characters in our epic toy wars? Surely I wasn't in the minority of folks who used to take human characters from other toy lines, and upon pouring slime on them pretend that they had now made the transformation to their respective mutant form, right? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
To be clear, all those other human form names I mentioned above (and more) also very much deserve to be on this list, but there was something about overtly death metal, long-haired Mondo and his pet lizard that just makes me giddy.
4. UMEKO (AKA "NINJARA")
Holy hell did Ninjara...I mean Umeko... kick major ass. She was disciplined, she could hold her own against any of the Turtles, she was a graceful and efficient warrior, and as a love interest (and eventual girlfriend) to Raphael, she helped accomplish something the other Turtles never could, the ability to bring out a side we rarely saw in him, revealing a softer side that was often masked behind a tough as nails veneer. Moreover, she brought out a side of Raph that showed he appreciated, valued, and sought out a strong female who was equally as skilled, intelligent, and capable as himself, which was an admirable and welcome new layer to his often largely testosterone-fueled depiction. To sum up, not only was she the best, she brought out the best in others she cared about.
Though unclear when or how Umeko received the nickname Ninjara, she is another mutant that gained her mutation without the influence of Mutagen and was in fact part of an ancient race of anthropomorphic foxes living on a hidden island off the coast of Japan.
3. MALIGNA
Maligna was quite possibly one of the most dangerous foes the Archie Turtles faced. Just like the Borg she was capable of creating and controlling an unending army of mutant children called Malignoids for the Turtles to face off against in order to carry out her plans of domination.
Maligna was eventually defeated when (caution 30-year-old spoiler: her hive ship was diverted into the sun, she was a constant thorn in both the sides of the Turtles and the Mighty Mutanimals.
Though it is still unclear how her two generals Scul and Bean appeared differently than her other offspring, they were impervious to most attacks and were able to speak telepathically with each other presenting themselves as worthy adversaries in a handful of situations to the Turtles as well.
2. MANX (AKA "VERMINATOR X")
Verminator X (or Manx to his pre-augmentation friends) is what you get if you cross a puma with the terminator...with just a splash of The Walking Dead. He comes from a future where he is the apprentice of Donatello, but after a series of self cybernetic augmentations, he goes just a tad off his rocker and begins making alliances with the likes of Shredder, Krang, and Craniac. Though the Turtles had action figures made of their appearance in the story arc, Verminator was sadly omitted for the likes of new cyber versions of Bebop and Shredder.
1. TOXZEEM
First introduced in Archie's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures as a threat to the Turtles, he was intended long term to be a major villain for the unfortunately never released Mutanimal animated series. Toxzeem was a horrifying villain that was part black widow and part human, though unlike the full on spider mutant Spider Bytez from the 2012 series, Toxzeem was not a mutant, but rather an alien from Dimension X. Toxzeem was unique in that his pronounced spider features seemed to be centralized above his shoulders, making for a very fun and bizarre juxtaposition with his human-Esque bottom have.
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