“We’re looking for a few good Live Action mutants!”
So here's the deal, we know there hasn't been any Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation news or rumors, or even a whiff that NECA will be making figures of this series anytime soon, but if you really think about it, no one saw Coming Out Of Their Shells Tour figures from NECA coming either, and this would totally track with NECA's love for the live action properties, as well as their general "above and beyond" approach they bring to every franchise they tackle.
Again, we at SpeekyGeeky have no proof and have heard literally NOTHING to the effect that this is ACTUALLY happening, but because we are who we are, we decided to take it upon ourselves to imagine our top 6 figures we thought would be awesome to see made from that series. Our hope would be that it would aesthetically flow with the rest of the live action movie figures and could further bolster that line in a fun new unifying way.
For this list we'll skip the longer-winded explanations of why we chose these characters and just go with the idea that the choices here are all characters we just thought looked pretty darn awesome and would love to see on our shelves.
Even though the Five Turtles (yes five, Venus De Milo joined the four brothers in this series) Splinter, and Shredder are all very much on our want list, in order to to allow breathing room for less known characters, we won't officially count them in the top 6 other than to just show you them below.
Join us now, for SpeekyGeeky's "Top NECA Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation Figures That Need To Get Made":
6. DR. CORNELIUS QUEASE
Dr. Cornelius Quease the personality leaves much to be desired, he is rude, he is arrogent, and he is undeniably complicit to Dragon Lord's mechanations for evil buuuut Dr. Cornelius Quease the character is a super fun mad scientist and those seem to always pair well with the Turtles. We almost actually had Quease as a toy back when the series was first airing, but the toy was pulled due to...well, you don't have to be a Doctor to get this one right.
5. DRAGON LORD & WICK
Dragon Lord was irrefutably the Turtles Big Baddie within the New Mutation series, and Wick was his ever present toady. It seems fairly clear that Shogun Shoate was the likely inspiration for Dragon Lord, and the results are a fierce presence in a series that tended to downplay this villain's intensity and ruthlessness when placed alongside the ever wise-cracking Turtles. Honestly, and we apologize if this comparison becomes a now "can't un-see it" situation, but whenever Dragon Lord and Wick popped up together, we can't help but immediately think of Masters Of The Universe's Dragon Blaster Skeletor.
4. SILVER
Though his name might imply he is a mutant Silverback Gorilla perhaps, and he has on at least a few occasions refered to himself as a monkey in the show, Silver is in fact a Yeti and not a mutant at all.
Instead of hiding out in the Himalayan mountains as the mythology goes, Silver instead ventured out to make a go at the world of crime (as any young entrepreneurial Yeti does) and discovered he was quite good at it. Silver and his minions are often found in overly bright neon garb almost as if perpetually audtioning for a Dick Tracy movie.
3. SIMON BONESTEEL
Remember Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter from the 1987 TMNT Fred Wolf cartoon series? The Kraven the Hunter-esque character (if Kraven had been tossed into a gene-blender with essentially all the overt villains of any 80's movie). Simon Bonesteel is essentially live action Dirk. Though the character is uncomfortably (new word alert, new word alert) Anthropocentrist, he absolutely made for a good villain. We use the word "good" loosely here, really we mean in a Wile E. Coyote or Elmer Fudd kind of way. As viewers you don't want him to win, but you know his train wreck attempt will be entertaining when he has his butt handed to him by the Turtles.
2. VAM MI
Vam Mi is a straight up vampire with a couple of children vampire sidekicks (Bing and Chi Chu) who have full on adult voices which we assume is just so that parents who stumble into the fight scenes wouldn't be up in arms about the Turtles beating up ACTUAL children.
Full confession, we at Speeky Geeky in our youth have collectively watched A LOT of Power Rangers, and with Vam Mi in particular, the character easily felt like it could have flown right off that series and onto this one (and not just because she is a vampire). No complaints with Vam Mi as it fit the goofy and slapsticky tone of the this iteration of Turtles, but as a figure, we feel like she would fit right in alongside a fleet of custom un-dead foot soldiers.
1. THE GOOD DRAGON
Did someone say army builder? What is nice/weird about The Good Dragon is that he is largely indiscernible from his brethren in Dragon Lord's Rank army. On the one hand, it is charming that they weren't solely focused on the additional merchandising possibilities for a series that was likely green-lit for the massive merchandising that surrounded the Turtles franchise, and on the other hand it was a huge missed opportunity to create a character that actually felt like it stood out from the typical soldier, but this can easily be solved by throwing in an alternate Rank Lieutenant head, whose main and only distinguishing feature is a purple accented hood instead of black (boom...nailed it).
AS A REFERENCE, HERE ARE THE TURTLES, SPLINTER, AND SHREDDER
As always if you have your own favorites and want to add them to the choir of characters you might hope to get if NECA ever tackles this pocket of the TMNT universe, go ahead and weigh in and comment below.
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