“We’re looking for a few good Archie Comics mutants!”
Howdy folks and welcome to SpeekyGeeky, as always, I am your host Mr.Geek-E!
Well, this part 2 took a tad bit longer than we anticipated. Eagle-eyed viewers might be quick to point out that our first episode came out ALLLL the way BEFORE this ACTUAL line had even been OFFICIALLY announced!
Yup, that's right, a very short while after our first episode, not ONLY was the line ANNOUNCED, but a good deal of our top contenders were immediately immortalized in plastic so fast it made our heads spin...and NOW, it looks like a few others (like Bellybomb and the Wrestling Turtles) that we covered in that first episode may ALSO be coming to us in the not too distant future as well, with even more being speculated to be revealed by (or right after) SDCC as well.
As we quickly discovered after our first episode, not ONLY did NECA deliver with flying colors by bringing us fan-favorite characters we never thought we'd see in plastic, but in true NECA fashion they went that extra mile, and brought back one of the Archie series stunning artist Ken Mitchroney to reprise his work, designing new original box art for these bodacious figures and adding beautiful layers to the overall meaningfulness of the line.
Reinforcing yet again why it is such an incredible thing to have a company that truly cares about the characters, the mythos, and the fandom firmly at the wheel, able to dish out the fantastic selection that fans have been clamoring about getting for decades, and it's a beautiful thing to see!
This last year alone we saw Man Ray, Bubbla the Glublub, Slash, Dreadmon, and Jagwar, with the reveals that a four-pack of the stump asteroid wrestling Turtles, Bellybomb, Krang, and Mondo Gecko are on their way later this year as well, as well as the Turtle April that was teased from last year's April April takeover (which, by the time this video comes out, fingers crossed, we MAY have a little MORE information on as well), a brand new hint from some Target promotional listings that we might be seeing a Stump Arena Wrestling Leatherhead and Archie version Rat King (named Ha'antaan in the Archie series), and to top it all off as if we weren't already getting all our Archie needs met with these lovely figures, it was just revealed that IDW will finally be putting out an Archie Omnibus collecting the series for fans who haven't been able to dig back into the Archie issues yet.
With SDCC coming right around the corner, we're quite certain we'll be treated to even more of the Archie line's incredible roster in the coming months as well.
For folks who are regular viewers of our channel, you may have picked up on the fact that we tend to do a lot of expository talking in our deep dives, which we're pretty upfront with, as it's a little bit of a spoiler right there in our channel name. But because we're making up for lost time and have so many rad characters we are hoping to jump into, we figured we'd just dig right into it.
We have a pretty extensive list of favorites that we have always hoped would someday see plastic in the Turtle ranks on our shelves and display cases. Soooo many that to do them justice, we'll be breaking them down through a handful of fun and dorky videos.
So join us now, for part 2 of SpeekyGeeky's "Top NECA TMNT Archie Comics Toys We'd Like to See":
6. CODENAME: CHAMELEON
Codename Codename Codename Codename Chameleon, we want him so, we want him sooooooo!
Call him a morph, call him a secret agent, call him toy-ready, call him wayyyy overdue to be in our ever-growing Archie collection.
This character, in addition to having a trenchcoat for days which would pair so incredibly perfectly with all of the undercover Turtles already in the Fred Wolf line, had an aesthetically overall cool look to him and happened to show up a handful of times within the Archie series with one of the coolest AND one of the most underutilized origin stories within that series.
Though many folks might be familiar with his iconic cover against the brick wall with Raphael as a nod to the Mirage "Me, Myself, and I" issue with Raph and Casey, quite a few more may not know too much about this rad character and we at SpeekyGeeky thought we'd help fix that, because, holy moly this is a character worth knowing about in a deep dive that will leave you both shaken...AND stirred.
"Well, what the heck does THAT mean Geek-E? That sounded a bit like something someone might say before a restraining order was put into place ya' creepy scamp you! So congrats are in order because you managed to pull off sounding both menacing and needlessly bizarre at the same time, I sure hope you plan to elaborate before we have to call the authorities..." is what we ASSUME many of sitting at home might be thinking to yourselves riiiiight about now.
And... well ok fair enough, but stay with us for a moment here, as this precise turn of phrase should make a bit more sense once we dive a little further into the origins of this character.
Ok, let's take this from the top. Agent Chameleon is a smooth-talking James Bond-esque double agent (with what we can only assume are Peter Lorre-inspired eyes) who first encounters the Turtles after he is accused of stealing classified top-secret weapons plans from the United Nations.
But the kicker here is that this agent isn't ACTUALLY a Chameleon, at least not YET, this living embodiment of irony at its finest is nicknamed Chameleon because of his ability to blend in with his surroundings, and thanks to an encounter with the Shredder gone wrong, finds himself mutating into a bonafide shape-shifting Chameleon. So for anyone keeping an unofficial score, that's one more we can now chalk up for mutagen acting as an unexpected workplace enhancement drug.
If you're anything like us, we're sure you have lots of questions right about now, like "Are we supposed to be rooting this guy on, we were just told he stole top secret weapons plans, is he supposed to be a SYMPATHETIC character?", Is it ever noted that his legitimate human name maybe sounds similar to chameleon perhaps... like how Agent 007 was James Bond, maybe something like Cam Million?... otherwise how can they justify how coincidental his codename was to what he mutated into?... that's like if we had a character who turned into a manta ray who's name was Jack Finney or some...OHHHHH, yeah, on second thought, that's actually... that was pretty on point for the Archie books".
So for anyone taking keeping score here, Codename Chameleon is another lizard mutant that really ONLY showed up within the Archie world (though TECHNICALLY, he ALSO appeared in the Random House book, but that was essentially just an adaptation of his appearance within the Archie comic, so we're still going to go ahead and count it as Archie only).
Yup, "Hey, Mr. Lizard" over here never appeared in the original cartoon or Mirage, THOUGH, in Mirage we did see other cool lizards like Shogun Chote and King Komodo and in Fred Wolf, we saw other rad reptiles in the form of Algernon, Mona Lisa, Ray, Grunt (if only momentarily), and of course Mondo (who also appears in Archie as well). BUT, none of THOSE lizards had the abilities we saw with Codename with his menagerie of ability to change shape, turn invisible, and move his eyes a full 360 degrees to assess threats from any direction and ensure no baddie will ever get the drop on him.
At least, if those WERE skills the others possessed, they decided not to share them with the class (aside from the more recent revelation that Mondo can camouflage himself within the IDW series), but c'mon, if you KNOW if you had powers like that, you'd want to show them off at least once or twice, right? So we're going to go off dead body film logic here, where we need to have seen those abilities or they don't exist.
With the reveal that we are now getting an absolutely gorgeous Mondo Gecko figure soon from the Archie line, it might be pretty swell to have some additional cold-blooded options from the comic to keep him company on our shelves.
How do we see this super cool cold-blooded master of disguise coming to us should NECA decide to give it some due love?
If it was a two-pack, it could go the Professor Perry route where he could be duped up with a translucent version of himself, perhaps sans clothes, or if a single pack it could go the Playmates invisible Man Mikey route with a second translucent head to recreate the same effect.
The eyes could get the live-action Tokka and Rahzar treatment allowing for the ability to pose them in all sorts of fun and silly ways, and for accessories, we could see him coming with secret agent gear like binoculars, a removable trenchcoat, a suitcase, and a dossier with weapons plans, as well as various things he transformed into within the comic (including a lizard mummy sarcophagus, extra hands where one becomes a dog, another becomes a battering rams ala Batman's Clayface, him transformed as a gargoyle, as a wood crate, a studio camera, and an extra hollowed out torso that could imprison other figures. Since we are already shooting for the moon here, perhaps we might also see swappable parts where he could transform back and forth into his human secret agent self as well.
5. MANMOTH
Is it any surprise from our love of all things Sesame Street that Mr. Snuffleupagus's unofficial long-lost cousin might make it into the mix?
Yeah yeah yeah, we COULD talk about how this kicks major prehistoric butt and just looks freaking awesome look to boot, which just by its lonesome would land this wooly bully onto the list of our favorite characters, but MANMOTH also happens to be part of the elusive repeating guest club, joining the Turtles antics on two different occasions throughout the Archie series.
Starting in his debut appearance in "Origin of Species" as an ACTUAL caveman who was fished out of the ocean preserved within a block of ice Captain America style. Shredder being Shredder, manages to get his villainous hands on him right out the gate and decides to do the first logical thing and try to actively learn from the millennia-old mysteries of humanity, taking blood samples and DNA and...nope, who are we kidding, he just funnels some mutagen into the poor ancient dude's stasis tube with the hopes of enlisting him into his ever-growing mutant army....for, I don't know...let's say...reasons?
Seeing as how the last thing the caveman came into contact with was a woolly mammoth (thanks to his fashionable ancient animal skin toga) the caveman proceeded to transform into an understandably angry and confused supersized prehistoric ahem MAN-MOTH. Ahhhh, ok NOW we see what they did there!
Basically, this character never really had a fighting chance to determine who he was. Almost immediately after he was given a new mutant life, Shredder deemed him a mistake and sent Bebop and Rocksteady out to clean up his mess.
His origin story is essentially the movie Encino Man where it's a caveman who is resurrected as a fish out of water in modern times and has to make sense of the new and weird world he has been thrust into...only here he never had a chance to make any lasting (in best Pauly Shore voice) BUUUUDIES before he left said water and instead was instantly hunted down...it was quite a sad story when we look at it from an adult lens...but what's past is ...ahem...ancient past. Ohhhh Geek-e, we're trying to set a tone here, but you just couldn't resist COULD you?
There is a bit of a redemptive arc in his second appearance "...And deliver us from evil" However, when we discover that (spoiler alert) Shredder's plan to destroy Manmoth had failed, the Turtles have more of an opportunity to befriend him, try to help him remember who he was, and team up with him in stopping a handful of villains (including an evil clone of Manmoth himself), before he ends up sadly being shipped off to a faraway tundra never to be heard from again in the series.
As a fun aside for eagle-eyed fans seeking Easter eggs, the issue "...And deliver us from Evil" in particular has quite a few fun ones that your childhood self might not have caught, including a cameo of the artist Ken Mitchroney's original series characters Space Ark within the comic and nods to both Superman and Batman as their alter ego's but working for possibly a Catwoman nod in resurrecting the unnamed clone of Manmoth...who we're going to now go ahead and unofficially name as Wool-Zarro or "The Pachy-Derminator".
As with most of these characters, we only got a snapshot of within this series, we are left with a wealth of additional questions we'll likely never have answered, like "Would he eventually have been incorporated into the Mutanimals in some capacity as their resident bruiser?" Whatever happened to the clone Mammoth after he was knocked out...because he now just exists within this Archie universe with literally zero resolution? And the most OBVIOUS question of them all is, "How is it possible that we have still never had this rad character as an oversized figure in some fashion after all these years?"
To be fair, there was an absolutely dazzling short-run custom release of Manmoth from Dafoot_toys, and NECA's Archie line is essentially just getting started for which characters they are starting to dive into, so this is probably just our overly impatient kid self talking here, but we will say that it remains fairly shocking that we never saw this character in the original Playmates line.
But What about Doctor El, Geek-E? YES, we DID indeed see an elephant mutant in the form of the "Didn't particularly age well" mutant Witch Doctor El, but despite pretending this was Archie's Manmoth in our epic Turtle battles in our youth, and despite having ACTUAL cavemen Turtles within that Playmates line where it would have made an abundant amount of sense to logically plop Manmoth in, the Doctor El figure always felt a bit off for the kind of adventures the Turtle bros would find themselves in within our imagination (though, as we say this out loud, we're reminded of Mary Bones, so maybe not ENTIRELY off base on the voodoo front), but also, and this is more of a pet peeve than anything else, but it has always bothered us that his SCALE didn't properly match (not just as a stand-in for Manmoth, but also y'know, just as an Elephant mutant in GENERAL.
As anyone who remembers this character or understands proportions could tell you, a mutant of an Elephant would need to stand a bit taller over the rest...even if it shrinks because of the human side, the median here isn't the same scale as his Mutant Turtle brethren...but we digress.
Ok, so how would we see this character coming to life if NECA finally carves this epic Mastodon that time (but certainly not fans) forgot, out from his iceberg slumber?
Naturally, this dude would be HUGE with a Masters of the Universe Grizzlor-like fur tunic and boots. We think it might be fun to see him come along with a couple of pieces of clear blue plastic shaped like a block of ice so we could recreate his emergence into the modern world, a cryo-tube with a non-articulated human version of himself to replicate the mutation process, some various expressions to represent the wide gamut of emotions he is going through including friendly, confused, and raging.
It would also certainly be neat to have one of his tusks removable which could be replaced with a broken shorter tusk so we could have the ability to pose him against his now-in-canon-named clone Wool-zarro...which YUP, we've decided that name is growing on us, so we're sticking with it).
Throwing on a bendable snout similar to Masters of the Universe's Snout Spout might a be mighty spiffy and welcome addition here, plus an oversized wrench like he carried in his first encounter with the Turtles. Throw in a buildable snowman for fun-sies (perhaps with a metal exoskeleton undercarriage if we wanted to sneak in a sly nod to the baddie Frosty The Hit-Man from the classic TMNT console Arcade game), and a big ol' wooden club, because, come on, it just seems odd to have a caveman character without being able to pose him with a club, and we're talking Turkey...or rather...Mammoth.
But now saying this all out loud, it makes us hope NECA also makes some "What If" Cavemen figures of the Turtles as well as a nod to the past Playmates wave, because dang those would look fun standing next to a giant-sized Manmoth.
This dude may be coming straight out of history, but with NECA behind the wheel we now have an opportunity to finally MAKE history getting him as a figure after all these years, and this prospect certainly makes us excited for our toy shelf future!
4. JESS HARLEY
(PRE-MUTATION LEATHERHEAD) & CLASSIC LEATHERHEAD
UT! As things tend to go from time to time, originally we had imagined this option as a two-pack with Jess Harley AND his wrestling Leatherhead counterpart (set with removable clothes from Harley that could then be added to his wrestling version to recreate classic Leatherhead from the wrestling version base), but as we noted earlier in the deep dive, since that wrestling version appears now to be coming to us in toy form, we'll just plop that equally important classic comic version (which hasn't TECHNICALLY been revealed as of this recording) into THIS option. And boom folks, that's called a midstream changeover...and nobody in the audience has any idea.
Could what we just noted have been an internal dialogue versus saying this all out loud as a stream of consciousness for all to hear?
Sure, it COULD have been, but this is the kind of full transparency extra layers we like to provide here on the SpeekyGeeky channel. We're not JUST a deep dive, giving you all the nostalgic factoids you could shake a handful of pizza points at, NOOPE, you also get a front-row seat to the inner workings of our neuro-spicy mind Sherlock-Holmes-ing in real-time to see how the gumbo that we call the "which figures do we want" series all comes together. So buckle up and keep your arms inside the vehicle folks, because this deep dive just went off the rails real quick, we GUAR-EN-TEE!
So, longtime fans of the Turtles franchise likely know at least a little bit about Leatherhead (or can at least recognize him on sight that he is from this world). Boiled down, he's the big ol' gator the Turtles are often seen scrapping with or making nicey nicey with or BOTH depending on the specific iteration (heck, sometimes he even has an utrom living in his belly depending on where our first encounter was with the character), but just WHO IS this Jess Harley fella', huh?
He kinda looks like a human version of Leatherhead but that can't be right because Leatherhead is usually an alligator who mutates into a version of the reptile we know and love, that's what his Playmates card back says, that's what happened in Mirage, that's what happened in the Fred Wolf series, and that is what we'd CONTINUE believing ...IF we had never read the Archie comic series.
Yup, if you so astutely guessed that Jess Harley is indeed none other than Leatherhead within this iteration (as well as the TMNT comic strip that ran around the same time) you'd be entirely accurate. So firstly, let's take a moment to give you a well-deserved high three you awesome guesser you, and secondly, let's talk about this for a moment and break down how this version of Leatherhead is drastically different than all the versions that came before it and continues to stand out from all versions that came after as well.
But, before we do THAT, let's get this pesky little tidbit out of the way from the get-go, which is, that technically, Leatherhead in the Archie comic isn't ACTUALLY a mutant. WAIT?... HOLD ON...WHAT?...HOW? I mean, he sure LOOKS like a MUTANT, what are you trying to pull here Geek-E?
In the very technical aesthetic sense, yes, sure, he's mutant enough to be called a mutant if Dirk Savage existed within this universe he would still be trying to hunt him down as well, but rather than being transformed by Ooze within the Archie world, THIS version of Leatherhead is created when an old woman named Mary Bones (whom the human Jess Harley was attempting to steal from, uses the item he was trying to nab called the turnstone to transmute him into the mutant alligator...and yes, for folks who have been reading up on their IDW TMNT and feel like the name TURNSTONE sounds familiar, it is indeed the same turnstone connected to the character Cherubae that makes an appearance there, and almost 40-year-old spoiler alert here, that Mary Bones character we just mentioned is, in fact, the alien Cherubae in her HUMAN disguise (DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNN!)
The general gist of the Turnstone is that it's an incredibly powerful artifact from the far reaches of space that allows its users the uncanny ability to transform others into anything they want. We make sure to note this tidbit because later on, Leatherhead goes on to be a staunch ally to the Turtles, even going on some one-on-one adventures with his good pal Donatello in the Archie equivalent of Marvel's savage land, and then even assisting them further as a full-fledged member of the Mutanimals... BUT at no point, even after seeing the changeover to full-on hero territory, did Cherubae think to herself, "Gee, I wonder if maybe I should ask this demonstrated hero if he prefers this form or if he has a form of his own choosing I could easily transmute him into with my handy change-o-matic orb." That's neither here nor there, it's just adult us thinking that was kind of a jerk move to not at least circle back in with him to be like "ok lesson learned about being a better you, but like...you cool with this?"
In fairness, within the issue "The Final Conflict" Cherubae DOES give Leatherhead a little Deus Ex Machina closure by implying that she had prophesized that he MUST be in his Aligator form to help turn the tide of the upcoming conflict with the Turnstone, that it was always his destiny... but even after this she doesn't offer to turn him back, and if she prophesized THAT, one might ascertain she would have divined that she knew of his upcoming demise while still in THIS form that she once again is choosing to just simply look the other way on...so if we were leatherhead hearing THIS explanation, we imagine a whole wealth of uniquely cajun expletives that might be running through our head to toss her way right about now.
It is also worth pointing out that Leatherhead himself wasn't buying Cherubae's all-too-convenient "it was always your destiny" explanation and outright calls that out to her face, but even THEN she never makes the offer to revert him back to his original form. Again, while Cherubae is positioned as a hero, she sure doesn't always THINK like a hero.
At this point, you may be thinking to yourself, hey Geek-e, this Cherubae character seems important to this series also, what's her whole deal? And to that, we'll just say, well hold your horses overly anxious imaginary viewer, we'll be getting to THAT CHARACTER a little more fully later in the deep dive.
Circling back to Leatherhead's Archie origins for a moment, we know we said he isn't TECHNICALLY a mutant in the traditional sense, BUUUUT because in this series we don't technically know where the mutagen Ooze originated from, who are WE to say that he is any less mutant than any other ooze derived character? It very well could just be a centralized harnessing of the substance within a more targeted and centralized orb form. Since the mechanics of the Turnstone are never fully cleared up, it's as good an explanation as any.
What do we see this proposed 2-pack coming with? Well, part of this depends on what might ALREADY be coming with Wrestling Leatherhead, which at the moment of our writing, is still very much a mystery.
But assuming THAT character comes with items associated with his wrestling arc, we like to think this version would come with a Turnstone, a posable bendy tail, and a couple of extra pop-out expressions for Leatherhead himself so he can toggle between his peaceful and unassuming mode to a grizzled "taking the fight to Maligna's horde of Malignoid's" mode with a full set of chompers on full display.
Though this WASN'T present in the Archie comic and was more specific to the comic strip arc, we'd also love to see some of the other alternate heads of forms Jess Harley transmuted into before Cherubae switched him back to his alligator form in the comic strip including a Turtle, a Vaughn Bode like bird creation, and a miniature Leatherhead the size of a rat.
3. NULL
Null was one of those quintessential 80s villains like Inspector Gadget's Dr. Claw or Die Hard's Hans Gruber where even before we even saw their face for the first time, which for Null happened to be in issue 15's "The Howling of a Distant Shadows", we implicitly understood this was one BAD DUDE! Even BEFORE we saw his overt devil horns as a visual giveaway.
Again, in the 80's the comic book powers-that-be seemed to be under the impression that unless us kids were hit over the head with a bag of hammers toward a character's villainy, we couldn't suss out which character to be cheering for and which to be rooting against, but even still, we gotta give props where props are due because dang those horns really complemented his whole overall aesthetic.
At this point, we're going to throw up a big ol' 35-year-old SPOILER ALERT because it's safe to say you can't really dig into this character without touching on some major events within the Turtles Archie universe.
Even though there were some notable other villains in the Archie iteration, and this character would go away and then reappear within the fuller scope of the full-run narrative, if we look at this series collectively, Null was essentially the Archie version's BIG BAD, and was responsible for not JUST the death of Man-Ray's little buddy, the beloved Bubbla the Glublub (courtesy of his proxy KID TERRA), the Earth being scouted for alien invasion (courtesy of Maligna's envoys, coordinating with Null through the aliens Scul and Bean) but also essentially the death of the entire team of the Mutanimals (courtesy there of his proxies The Gang of Four...and yes, you would probably be correct if you were to assume we'll be diving into ALL of these RAD characters just mentioned in an upcoming deep dive or ten).
WHOA WHOA WHOA, back up a second Geek-e, did you say NULL was the big bad here and NOT Krang or Shredder? That's a PRETTY bold statement, maybe even fighting words for some diehard Archie fans, but let's unpack this character's story and we'll be the judge, huh?
While it's true both Krang and Shredder DO play a sizeable role in this series as well, after the first arc (which was essentially a retelling of the first couple of episodes of the cartoon), we see the comic divert toward a VERY different direction than the Fred Wolf cartoon. This includes the introduction of wholly new allies AND villains that are never seen in the cartoon, but are pivotal to this expanded story, and which largely sees the Turtles taking their adventures outside their comfort zone of New York and into brave new locales around the world and the outer reaches of the galaxy.
The way they accomplished moving away from classic cartoon villains was to promptly imprison Shredder and give Bebop and Rocksteady their heart's desire to roam freely in the savanna (in issue 13, titled "The Final Conflict" for those keeping tally at home, it is also worth noting that Null was introduced into the series the VERY next issue) ...so it was a bit of the Rick & Morty approach to storytelling before it was fashionable, where it starts the story with the premise of "what if the Turtles got everything they wanted? Where would they go from there?" And despite initial skepticism to having the more identifiable villains sidelined...the answer was remarkably...that it seemed to work REALLY REALLY well.
One of these newly introduced characters was NULL; a brutish, cigar-chomping, cutthroat businessman who dabbled in the destruction of the environment and was seemingly a less than pressing threat to the Turtles, that we'd later come to realize that this dude was low-key WAY worse than we could have ever imagined.
If Rat King was behind the IDW's version of Armageddon Games, it looks like NULL would have been pulling the strings in this one. Don't believe us? Remember that environment-destroying scheme we noted just a moment ago? Well, it turns out this was all in service of a much larger plot to destroy the Earth and make it more inhabitable for an alien Armada led by another new baddie named Maligna as well as a group of demons called the four horsemen (that YUP, sure seemed very much to be the very same four horsemen tied to the biblical apocalypse...which makes even MORE sense when we realize that Null isn't just your average despotic businessman, but rather a horn housing, leathery winged demon).
And here's the kicker, even though he succeeded in murdering an entire team of the Turtles' closest allies, and we saw others he aligned himself like Maligna meet their ultimate fate BECAUSE the Archie series never got a proper closure, this dude was never TECHNICALLY defeated!
So to summarize, Shredder was imprisoned (though to be fair, later escapes for a bit), Maligna and her empire are destroyed, but Null, who seemingly orchestrated much of the death and chaos that permeated this whole series ends up walking away scott-free. Sooo, say it with us here, NULL is the TMNT Adventures BIG BAD...we mean, are we wrong?
We'd be remiss if we didn't point out one enormous glaring caveat here (and it's almost a decade-old spoiler but still, y'know, be warned), which is that even though technically Null never had a comeuppance within the Archie series, in a story that is technically not canon, but intended to bring closure from the original writers years after the series was abruptly cut short, Null DID eventually get his just desserts in the story TMNT Odyssey, where we saw him team up with Juliette Savanti (Romero Savanti's wife, you can hear our deep dive on Romero Savanti right here) to try and take over the multiverse, and was torn asunder by the ghosts of the Mutanimals.
This may be a good moment to note that even though Odyssey was a crowdsourced graphic novel that was created as a fan project after Viacom's TMNT acquisition and isn't officially considered canon, it is still an incredible read, involves original Turtles writers and artists like Jim Lawson, Dan Berger, Tokka Oroku, and gives a well thought out and loving closure to a lot of lingering plotlines that the Archie series was never given the ability to complete. It also, much like Turtles Forever, acts as a bridge between the various incarnations of Turtles, and has a wealth of moments that will have longtime fans of the geeking out in their seats over (the fate of Cudley and Cherubae as just one example), so if you haven't read this incredible love letter yet, it is worth attempting to scout a copy wherever you can.
We should add a disclaimer that even though Odyssey taps directly into Archie, this read is very much NOT an all-ages-friendly book, so a friendly heads up for any folks who were thinking of reading this as a bedtime story for your little ones.
But wait, if you thought that was where it ended with this character, his cache of tricks up his sleeve is about to get WAY more BOSS FIGHT level. Not only can he sprout wings seemingly out of nowhere, but he also can shapeshift (taking on the form of the Mutanimal Mondo Gecko at one point), use mind control (the use of which here DID not age well and further helped to solidify him as somehow even more of a villain, and we'll just leave it at that).
He has Earthbound and Extraterrestrial flight (and likely also the ability to breathe within the confines of space), The ability to create fire (both creating a wall of flame and shooting fire from his fingertips at different points), and to top it off, the dude seems to have super shredder level type Strength (at one point he effortlessly takes on both the Turtles AND the Mutanimals single-handedly). So for those in the back, we'll repeat, this here, this is your BIG BAD.
Ok with that long-winded point proven that literally nobody asked us to prove or was in any way fighting us on, now seemingly out of the way, let's dig into how we imagine this figure coming to us as a mighty devilish addition to our shelves.
In a perfect scenario, we would see Null having the ability to be displayed as either his businessman appearance or his full-on demon mode appearance. To achieve this we might again be looking at something akin to what we saw with Professor Perry, with both versions in an Ultimate sized 2-pack. One version in a business suit, one beefed out with Gargoyle-sized wings. Accessories might not be able to include his iconic stogey unless it was sold as an exclusive on the NECA store perhaps, but we could see this coming with his "N" emblemed swivel chair, a wall of fire, some fire bursts that could be attached to his fingertips, some alternate heads with various sized horns, and some small, unarticulated puppet sized versions of the four horsemen and perhaps a couple mini sized mutanimals as well.
2. CHERUBAE
Ok, let's be transparent here, it's incredibly difficult to bring THIS character up as an option without ALSO wrapping in her alternate disguise persona, that of the "Swamp Witch" MARY BONES. Mary, after all, is how we are first introduced to this character via her encounter with Jess Harley (the same thief-turned-hero we discussed earlier in the episode who stole her Turnstone and who she, in turn, transformed as punishment into the Turtle ally Leatherhead).
But wait Geek-E, there was a Cherubae that was introduced to us within the IDW series just recently in the Armaggeden Games as well, but we're pretty sure they never mentioned anything about her being a swamp witch. Well that is very astute of you imaginary observer that we conveniently just brought in to have an outlet to briefly discuss the similarities and differences between ARCHIE Cherubae and IDW's version, thank you, as always, for chiming in at just the right moment, we always appreciate it.
There are indeed many similarities between the classic Cherubae and her fairly recent current series counterpart. A couple of notable consistencies are her continued use of the powerful Turnstone, her entrance as manifesting an outlet to pull the Turtles into further extraterrestrial adventures, and her longtime friendship with the living dimensional taxi-cab with an overactive salivatory gland, the giant flying cow head Cudley the Cowlick. A good way to think about Cherubae is that she is to the Turtles space adventures as Renet is to their time-traveling shenanigans and April is to their present-day ones.
One notable DIFFERENCE between Archie and IDW's version is that some of the extended lore is adjusted within IDW to include more of a history between Null and Noi Tai Dar and that they seemed to scrap the aspect of Cherubae choosing to change her form to disguise herself considering that with Leatherhead having a very different origin in IDW she no longer has the inherent story need to take on that transformation, nor does she share that same connection to Mr.Utrom-Eater Magoo (AKA Leatherhead).
For all intents and purposes, just as Cherubae's Turnstone has great power that resided within IT, so too did Cherubae HERSELF, not just as a capable ally (and former Warlord) fighting side by side with the Turtles on many an occasion, but also as a useful conduit to bridge the Turtles various worlds of characters together throughout the series when needed.
Within the Archie series, it is through her introduction that sends the Turtles on their adventures through space, reuniting with Leatherhead at Stump arena and thrusting them on their journey to encounter the rest of that iteration's Mutanimals like Jagwar and Dreadmon (in their pursuit to rescue her after an attack from Krang out to steal the Turnstone for himself). Without Cherubae's involvement, Cudley would never have met the Turtles and the Mutanimals would never have formed (and conversely might never have died, but THAT is another story all altogether).
Despite being such an integral part of the story, her own origins within the Archie series are fairly sparse other than that she was similar to Krang in that she was a banished warlord (YUP, we have soooo many more questions about this character that we may never get closure on, one BIGGIE being that she was lumped into the same category as Krang... so does that mean there is a shadow group of watchers or interplanetary council that is protecting the galaxy at large from these threats to pass down those assessments and banishment? And THEN immediately following up THAT question with the obvious "What did she DO that was deemed awful enough for banishment along the lines of Krang's conquerer tendencies and will we ever get to learn THAT story?
So, again, the coveted Turnstone is touched on a bit within the Archie series during the "Final Conflict" arc, where we learn that this transformative device may be as old as the first humans on Earth, and when we couple this with it's mechanics from the Comic Strips, we can further infer that it isn't ACTUALLY magical in nature, but rather a highly advanced transmutation tool that Cherubae acquired through fate and which is synced up to its user thoughts and desires.
It's also strongly implied within the comic strips, that the device has a strong tie to the Utrom empire. Furthermore, it's eluded that the Turnstone might very well be directly connected in some way to the origins of Mutagen and thus also directly tied to the creation of the VERY Turtles themselves.
This shockingly is the closest explanation we could find around this era surrounding the functionality of this powerful device. While it's true the comic strips often went their own off-kilter and irreverent path and were incredibly fun in their own right, BECAUSE it shared artists and writers of both series like Dan Berger and Jim Lawson, we're inclined to believe that there was likely an intentional or unintentional overlap from time to time that might have shed a little light on the behind the scenes thinking that filled in the gaps further on overarching plot points.
Where Archie was more regimented toward twenty-two-page episodic tales illustrating a specific story and keeping it on pace with intentional story beats that moved the larger journey forward, the comic strip had the luxury of a more open-ended pacing that gave the audience room to sit longer with certain story elements, which allowed for a little more philosophical introspection of scenarios rife with snarky humor.
Does this line of thinking necessitate that this would have been the SAME trajectory of the Turnstone in the Archie series? For this, we may never know, but for now it's the closest answer we have, and it's quite a mind-blowingly substantial piece to a puzzle that for over 35 years has remained fairly shrouded in mystery, so we're going to go ahead and say that until we have a more definitive answer from the original creators that ooze comes from the simple act of Milking Turtles (which in and of itself poses a modern version of "which came first the Turtle milk or the egg?")... that this initial Turnstone building block is as good enough an answer as any.
Ok so what would we see coming with Cherubae should she descend from the cosmos onto our shelves for the very first time after ALL these years? While there is a BIG part of us that would love to see her come as a two-pack with her human disguise counterpart Mary Bones (we could see Cherubae being a fairly likely candidate for the toy treatment due to her central role in the action of the ongoing action, but this pairing may, in fact, be the ONLY way we'd be able to get a lesser recognizable Mary Bones figure), along with the Turnstone atop her staff that we see more predominantly in the comic strip version, a separate orb that reenacts the cover from "The Man Who Sold The World" with the Turtles, Splinter, April, and Dreadmon shown inside of it like a crystal ball. It might be fun to see her come with a few smaller-scale non-articulated Sons of Silence figures, a flight stand, and some glow effects or glow-in-the-dark features to capture utilizing the turnstone.
1. FUTURE DONNIE
For the sake of simplicity, let's just call this version "Donatello Duz...TIME Machines".
We are of the firm belief that the only way to make Donatello even COOLER than he comes naturally is to throw him into a duster trenchcoat and send him traveling back through time to save the future from the past. Oh, and having a retractable bow staff that also doubles as a blaster doesn't hurt toward adding exra levels to his overall coolness factor either.
Sure, we've seen Donatello come in a wealth of different looks throughout the life of the Turtles Franchise, including a shrunken-down version of himself that embodies a mech suit similar to Metalhead in Tales of TMNT, a full-on Cyborg in IDW's Urban Legends, a Pteranosaurus in the original Playmates toy line, and even a parody of Electro in the form of Mirage and 2003's Super Turtles, and though ALL are 100% all major top class variants of Donatello we need to see someday in toy form as well, as far as we're concerned, within the Archie series at least, this is the version of Donatello we'd be excited to see the MOST.
Well hold up, you might be saying...isn't this basically just Donatello but..y'know...older? SURE, if you want to be reductive as all SHELL then we guess that is technically accurate, but importantly you left out the words "AND WISER." Yup, if you thought Teenage Donnie was one smart Terrapin, wait until you get a load of the techno know-how on his later model. This version not only had a wealth of failures under his belt, but this dude has also seen some stuff, and the result has made him a more confident and tempered hero.
Digging into this character a little further, aside from his bodacious look, future Donatello plays a fairly major role within the Archie mythos. In the incredibly thrilling "Future War" arch which came out ALL the way back at the tail end of the Archie run and was recently FINALLY finished thanks in large part to TMNT super-fan and co-creator of TMNT Odyssey Arseniy Dubakov in collaboration with original TMNT Adventures writers like Chris Allan. In this final arc, we see just HOW entrenched future Donnie was to the trajectory of the Archie series, which, without going into too deep of spoiler territory here, largely centers around his actions being tied to both his own fate and the fate of his brothers.
How could we see Future Donnie coming to us in the ...ahem...future?
Because this character would be comprised of quite a bit of reuse from the classic Archie TMNT Donatello's buck, we could see this figure's cost savings migrate into some pretty rad potential accessories. For starters, of course, we'd want to see him come with his quintessential purple duster maskless head, an alternate battle-damaged head, but additionally it might be fun to see him packed in with a fully extended and fully retracted bow staff, with a blaster effect to place on the tip, and perhaps a smaller scale time-slip portal and a lesser articulated helper robot or two.
BONUS: CUDLEY THE COWLICK
Wait, BONUS??! But Geek-e, don't you usually do a firm six characters in these episodes? You're throwing off the whole rhythm to this series now. Well, firstly, thank you for noticing our format structure, we put a lot of thought into the way we pace these episodes and it truly means a lot that we've come to a point where there are legitimate expectations to be met with this series vs our traditional just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks mantra.
Secondly, TECHNICALLY we aren't breaking our rules here because even though this option is very much a character in his OWN right, he ALSO happens to fall into the category of a VEHICLE...though you may want to think twice about calling that to his...ahem..face. We'd say "don't have a cow" about this change-up, but we'd be entirely working against ourselves there, so instead we'll just say "Enjoy a ride that will leave you simply salivating."
Ok so what's this dude's deal Geek-E? Why is he so important to the series?
Put simply...he's the (ahem) vehicle for much of the Archie's plotlines to happen. Approaching this from a less reductive stance, within the Archie series, a great deal of the action centers around the Turtles' exploration of the world around them (both past and present) as WELL as interdimensional space travel, and more often than not, the preferred and ONLY mode of transportation (aside from the time-slip device we noted earlier with future Donnie) is a giant floating bovine head named Cudley (because as everyone knows, when you are four mutant Turtles trying to move stealthily between locales it's important to be as inconspicuous as possible, and nothing says "there's nothing to see here" than an enormous levitating cow head popping onto NORAD and moving in all sorts of erratic ways well beyond Earth's current transport capabilities...but luckily he doesn't leave a healthy dose of genetic material in his wake for any folks in the scientific community to gather and prove intelligent life exists beyond our planet because we're pretty sure that violates the prime directive on at least a few space-faring series, because that would be pretty b--...OH, he DOES? Like enough to fill a whole stump arena worth? Well...then in that case let's just remember that this is a comic that was predominantly meant to be read by a younger demographic, and we're already in the mode of accepting that four mutant Turtles are going on all sorts of wacky adventures undetected by the general populace, so let's maybe just not pick and choose where we draw that "um actually" line in the sand, yeah?
Also, as a fun and important aside, Cudley happens to make an appearance in almost every iteration of TMNT, so that's not NOTHING...AAAAND it is also worth mentioning that we ALMOST actually had a bonafide oversized Cudley action figure back in the Playmates days around the same time we started seeing those bigger-sized vehicle characters like Needlenose and Killer Bee, but this ally vehicle, along with a handful of other incredibly cool proposed mega-mutants sadly never came to be. BUUUUT if you are anything like us, knowing that information now only compounds that frustration that despite it being decades and a variety of additional appearances later we STILL don't have him in our geeky little hands.
As we noted, Cudley, despite being such an absurdly silly character also worked SO incredibly well within the franchise, and it turns out that he (or in the lone case of the comic strips...SHE) isn't just a pretty face, he's also incredibly central to a good deal of some of the Turtles most important stories within the world of Archie. The Turtles need to get to Stump Arena and become directly at the center of an interplanetary war? No worries, Cudley will get you there. The Turtles first encounter with Wingnut and Screwloose? Yup, Cudley was just the right place/right time giant McGuffin that allowed for that meeting as well.
TECHNICALLY, it's his actions that actually brought the Mutanimals together as a team, he even ahem, STEERed them initially in the right direction toward going after a common enemy versus pointlessly fighting amongst themselves, so in THIS way, Cudley might be considered an unofficial member of the team in the same respect that Nick Fury is an unofficial Avenger in the movie universe for orchestrating the creation of THAT team.
Even though Cudley's has appeared in Mirage, Archie, the comic strips, IDW comic, Turtles Forever, the 2012 series, the recent Shredder's Revenge video game, and a blink and you'll miss it nod in the Rise of TMNT series, his ACTUAL origin has never been addressed and we still have sooo many questions about this bodacious bovine!
Questions like: Are there more members of the Cudley family out there zipping around through time and space? How did it come to be that he'd find himself working for a couple of shady wrestling entrepreneurs like Stump and Sling in the first place? How did his relationship with Cherubae come to be, her being an exiled warlord and all? How does he...y'know...go to the bathroom? Does he even NEED to eat? And if he DOESN'T eat or drink, where does all that saliva COME from?
So, how do we see this Heroic Heffer making its way to us should NECA decide to thrust him through the pan-dimensional action figure nexus to spit cud sloppily all over our toy shelves?
Well, naturally this dude would be HUGE...big enough to hold not just the four turtles, but the entirety of the Mutanimals as well, so we're talking oversized Krang sized big potentially. In an ideal scenario, he would have all the fixings of a typical Archie NECA figure (minus some points of articulation due to the fact that he is missing quite a few appendages). We'd want to see him with adjustable eyebrows similar to the movie version of Tokka and Rahzar, as well as a fully unhinged jaw with both an elongated unfurled tongue or tongue that wrests nicely within his mouth for those moments he isn't gobbling up traveling passengers. A fun additional touch might be to have his tongue made of a rubbery substance with enlarged tastebuds so that it innately had that extra slobbery feel without having to apply a water substance into the mix.
If NECA wanted to go the extra intergalactic mile with this character (which, knowing NECA, they often do), we'd love for Cudley to double as a carrying case. Perhaps with a latch on the side we could flip open allowing him to swing apart like a Mighty Max playset, his interior looking like a dimension x, or Maligna's hive, or the Prison Planet of Morbus setting which might encourage folks to purchase multiple Cudley's, one to display as his floating head self and one to be used for a diorama backdrop.
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 Archie TMNT characters we might want to see as Toys.
Here are some options from our latest polls, which you can weigh on in the comments here 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...or ten.
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.
Finally, we wanted to give you a very brief tease of our brand new TMNT project we've got brewing on the channel that will be featuring some epic and familiar-sounding voice actors, incredible artistic talents, and perhaps an easter egg or two scattered into the mix for good measure. So, seen for the very first time, here is some fresh concept art for our upcoming TMNT X The TICK animation and webcomics series, art shown here from the astoundingly talented Cerbero Arte.
If you are digging the original art shown from Cerbero and (TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures Cover Artist) Mista Jonz style shown throughout the character options of this very episode, be sure to show their socials listed in the description some love and check out more of their upcoming art and projects on our Instagram channel as well.
WHERE ELSE CAN YOU FIND MR. GEEK-E IN THE COMING MONTHS?
Even though we are hard at work putting together a handful of geeky new deep dives and interviews together for you this very minute (never YOU mind how we know what time of day you are watching this buster, just trust us, if it's an hour of a day that ends in DAY, we're probably working hard on it), SpeekyGeeky's very own Mr. Geek-E (HEY, that's ME!) is still managing to make the rounds all over the YouTube's to spread his dorkiness far and wide (and yup, that sure DID sound way grosser than we intended didn't it?)
First up, over on our all-ages friendly sister channel GeekyJr, for those of you who appreciate the sound of a voice that can only be described as "if nails on a chalkboard" met Gollum from "Lord of the Rings", you're in luck because Mr. Geek-E tries his best all sorts of nostalgic classic stories with narration and voices for all your little geeklings and adults who are young at heart. We're talking characters from Sesame Street like Ernie, Bert, Grover, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Wonderpets, Daniel Tiger, Thomas the Train, Yo Gabba Gabba, Rubba Dubbers, and soooo much more.
You can also find SpeekyGeeky lending his voice to some upcoming Mirage TMNT comic read-alongs on TeddyGaming Review's bodacious channel here, as the voice of Professor Kaori on the fan-made audio adaptation of the hit fantasy series "The Fourth Wing" over on the astoundingly talented Maddie Moore's channel here, and finally, we'll be geeking out and dishing on all the current TMNT news on Turtle Talk as well as helping some rad figures from their plastic confinement on Grippin and Rippin over on Dave Wonder's channel here.
Alright, Shellheads, that's it for this episode, but don't stray too far from the Turtle Lair, because our SpeekyGeeky Archie TMNT deep dive episode 3 is right around the corner.
We have no doubt you have some characters that make the tippy top of your list as well that you are stoked about seeing, so be 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 Archie NECA Turtle Speeky, Keep it Geeky Folks!
#NECA #TMNT #Actionfigures #ArchieComics #TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesAdventures #SpeekyGeeky #Wishlist #Donatello #codenamechameleon #stumparena #Cudley #Malignoids #MightyMutanimals #ConservationCorps #Cherubae #CudlytheCowlick #MaryBones #BellyBomb #Leatherhead #Null #Manmoth #JessHarley #TMNTComicStrip #MondoGecko #Maligna #Comic #GoNinjaGoNinjaGo #TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles #Mutant #Art #Toys #Geekblog #mrgeek-e