Sunday, April 11, 2010

Holy pig on steroids, It's a Super Mutation!

By the year 1994 The Ninja Turtles were still mutants, but they weren't teen anymore. The animated series that was the way most kids got to know this group started in 1987, Playmates toy line in 1988 and by 1994 the idea tank was running quite low.

Plus you had to sell the product to Japan.

And Japan loves transforming stuff into other stuff. We know that. Japan also likes to combine stuff with stuff to form bigger stuff. We also know that. But how do we get the Turtles to do that?

"We give them mechas", you may think.



Well, you thought wrong. The turtles are mutants so we Super mutate them. Did you remember Grant Morrison X-men's secondary mutations? Well, like that, but a lot more crazy.

If you didn't see it, check the insanity.

And of course, Playmates made toys out of this. I would never buy the Super Mutation turtles, they look like Hell and they even have noses. NOSES for crying out loud! WHY? Why would you put a nose on a mutant turtle? Really...

Proof:


Now, the other characters redesigns are not nearly as bad. Some are even quite good, and some simply badass, like Master Splinter:



The other day on a Park sale, I found a guy selling two of these in perfect condition. I have never seen the Super Mutation characters here before. So I couldn't help it and bought them.



Supermutant Bebop and Supermutant Rocksteady. Silly characters, cool designs and keep in mind that Bebop is one of my all time favorite characters from the original toy line. If you read this blog often you know how I go on and on about not getting variants and all that. But I just can't help it if the variants are cool and not just repaints. I'm still not sure if these will go with the rest of the TMNT display.



The redesign for Rockstaedy in great, he lacks some of the detailed work of the original release, but the sculptor did manage to give him a very imposing and threatening look. Considering the character was more or less a joke, that alone is a very impressive achievement. The paint is simple and the color scheme is taken directly from the original Rocksteady's camo pants, so that's a nice touch.

I clearly like original Bebop more than the redesign. He's nice and has a lot of wicked details and paint apps, something the Supermutant Rocksteday is missing, but he has one severe flaw. His nose ring is not painted. And that little almost obsessive compulsive thing to note, ruins the figure as a whole. Original Bebop had a lot unpainted details (like most of Playmates TMNT), but he can look proudly at you and say "I have a yellow nose ring, and you don't".


(Supermutant Bebop also has like the craziest Mohawk ever)

I'm glad I got these, they look cool and Playmates was doing great sculpts at the moment. But I don't think they'll replace the original ones in my display.

Until next time. NOSES. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? NOSES!

(I found the Mecha Turtle image on the web, I don't know who did it. Splinter and Supermutant Leo are from ninjaturtles.com)

1 comment:

chrismandesign said...

more TMNT... u can never imagine what kind of things "they" could do to catch ur attention... Playmates’ resin figures r definitely made to last & last & while they r not as detailed as other figures, they achieve that vintage look u can’t resist... it’s a good thing that u decided to give’em another chance in ur collection =D