Super 7 TMNT ReAction Waves 1, 2 & 3, Mirage Set & 2019, 2020 and 2021 SDCC Exclusives Review

The last few years have been a bit of a golden era for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy collectors. For thirty years, you had basically one option for TMNT toys: Playmates Toys. We started to see some daylight coming through the cracks of the Playmates monopoly in the form of NECA's Mirage figure line and some of the other offerings that showed up during the 2012 show's run and again with Rise of the TMNT. But these lines often had to camoflage themselves to make it to mass retail or be relagated to specialty market stores such as comic shops. But now we have at least half a dozen companies producing TMNT figures in one form or another with some producing multiple lines. One such company is Super 7. They are best known right now for their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates line which gives collectors modern, collector grade versions of figures based on the original Playmates toy line. But they started with the license by adding it to their ReAction toy line. The premise of the ReAction toy line is to pay tribute to the 3 3/4" figure format that was extremely popular in the early 80's. I find the concept a bit ironic for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since their original toy line was one of early successful lines to break all of the traditions of that design. Essentially this feels like making Pong for the Playstation 5 to me. But after three years I have a couple of dozen figures piled up. And their latest SDCC exclusive gave me a storage case that needs to be filled. So it's time to check out Super 7's TMNT ReAction figures.

Packaging - Collector Case 1/10, Ooze Canister Set & Mirage Wave 5/10, Wave 1-3 & Pizza Box Set 6/10

The concept of the ReAction line is to translate the license to the style of so many 3 3/4" lines of the early eighties including Star Wars, Super Powers and more. The physical layout of the card with the blister off-center does this well. And the art work attempts to tie it to the original Ninja Turtle figures' packaging design. On the front the artwork of the character standing in a sewer environment is a decent blend of styles from Super Powers and the original TMNT line. But as someone who has no nostalgia for the Super Powers toys, the art strikes me as being okay, but nothing spectacular. And when you flip the card around to the back, it's obvious that they copied the design of the vintage TMNT toys, but put very little effort into it. The overall design is there, but there's little to no detail.

Things get a little worse with the Mirage Wave. The front mixes art styles with a very dark/heavily shaded color image of the Turtle on a black and white city-scape background. But the city-scape has a much more refined/detailed look to the art compared to the character artwork which doesn't work well to me overall. And on the back, with nothing to copy, they just filled the space with old comic art. The weirdest part to me is including a call to action to "Get all 4!!" when they were only sold in a 4 pack in the first place.

The San Diego Comic Con sets started out well. But they go downhill fast. The first one released was the Pizza Box set in 2019. This set was actually the first TMNT ReAction product released at all. So they put a lot of effort into the packaging. The outer box is an actual pizza box with a fairly realistic design. (I don't think most pizza shops would pay to print anything on the bottom of their boxes. But I'm not going to hold it against them for going the extra mile.) Inside, the figures are blister packed on cards shaped like slices of pizza. It's cute and creative. But it is also a pain in the rear to display if you are a MOC/MIB collector. And it doesn't really fit in with any of the other items in the line.

The SDCC offering from 2020 was the Glow in the Dark four pack in an Ooze container packaging. The issue with this one is that there are three levels of packaging, and none of them quite pull it all together. The entire set comes in a brown cardboard box which has a lot of interesting graphics on it. But they are all designed to feel like a really nice shipping box rather than something I would want to display. When you open this box, there is the metal Ooze canister tin. To me, this feels like the packaging that I would want to display. But it doesn't show off the figures at all. Then when you open the tin and pull out the actual figures, they are packaged on two narrow blister cards to allow them to fit in the canister. But these cards are very plain, other than the bubbling ooze background and a TMNT logo on the back, the cards are basically blank. Again, they put a decent amount of effort into the design, but none of it really works great for MIB display.

Finally we got the Collector Case as an exclusive this year. And this time there isn't any packaging. The collector case is just wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in a plain shipping box. Even the included exclusive figure is just packaged in a plastic bag and placed in the collector case. This may be a result of changes because of the pandemic. (Why design packaging if there isn't going to be a convention?) But that didn't stop them from producing the case and selling it anyways. So why not finish the packaging?

Sculpting - Donatello 4/10, Raph, Leo, Mike, Shredder & Baxter 5/10, Others 6/10

This line is all about taking characters and translating their designs to match early eighties Star Wars or Super Powers toys. That means very static, upright poses, simplified designs and more or less uniform heights for all of the figures. It's not a concept that I'm a great fan of. But I also have to admit that Super 7 has done a decent job of making it work for most of the figures. Sadly, where the design works the worst for me are on the regular Turtles. They're too tall. They're too thin,making it look like they are wearing a cheap turtle costume instead of a real shell. And Super 7 tried to get away with having just two body styles, either with crossing shoulder straps or without. So all of the Turtles are missing the unique belt features like their weapon holders. And it means Donatello has the same crossing shoulder straps as Leo where I always had Donatello with both straps over the same shoulder. So this really feels wierd. They do at least give each a unique head sculpt. Shredder is a decent figure. But the use of vinyl for the cape really annoys me. I understand it. It works with the 80's design aesthetic as that is how they made capes for figures at that time. I still don't like it. I would say Baxter is one of the best figures in the line. But the fact that he is the same height as everyone annoys me. And when I saw the amazing artwork on the card, the figure just kind of pales in comparison, especially the head sculpt. The disguised Turtles work much better than the regular versions. I think that is largely because the outfits hide the shells well. I wish that Splinter was shorter and Bebop and Rocksteady were taller, but in general the other characters translate well. I will point out that Krang turned out a bit wierd. He's a bit too tall again. And the way the legs are angled outward gives them a slightly organic look when they should look mechanical. But in the end, I guess the best thing I can say is that the figures from waves two and three turned out well enough that I do sort of look forward to future figures.

Paint - Mirage Turtles 3/10, Shredder, April, Krang & GITD Turtles 5/10, Sewer Samurai Leo, Space Cadet Raph, Sewer Surfer Mike & Busted Foot Soldier 8/10 Others 7/10

The paint work of the figures is generally well done, but not very elaborate. The only ones I'm disappointed with are the Mirage repaints as they just left off the initials on the belts and gave them all red masks. They really look nothing like the Mirage Comics artwork at all. The glow in the dark Turtles are another interesting choice. They painted the plastron green. It sounds weird, but actually works well with the white color of the GITD plastic for the skin. Krang seems way too pale. I keep thinking he is a wad of gum instead of plastic. Shredder and April both turned out okay, but a bit plain. Shredder needs a tan. And April could use some small details to break up all the yellow of her jumpsuit. On the plus side, Space Cadet Raph and the figures from wave three have more paint work on them and look pretty good. So I'm hoping that this will be a trend going forward.

Articulation - Baxter 6/10 Others 5/10

As I have written repeatedly already, the premise to the ReAction line is going back to a style of figures which had a standard five points of articulation. That means rotating joints at the neck, shoulders and hips. You're either going to be okay with that design aesthetic or not. It's worth noting that all the joints are properly tight without being too stiff. And it's worth noting that for Baxter Stockman they did add the additional joints for the second set of arms and the wings.

Accessories - S.C Raph, Baxter & Krang 0/10, others 6/10

The vintage TMNT line was known for having a ton of accessories with each figure. But the ReAction line attempts to imitate toy lines that typically only had one or two accessories with any figure. So the TMNT ReAction fiures walk the line between the two extremes by including a limited number of accessories based on those of the original toys. I was initially annoyed that the accessories for the regular versions of the Turtles had unpainted weapons until I reallized that they were specifically made to match the unpainted, brown plastic of the original figures' accessories. But where it is appropriate such as the Mirage style Turtles, they are painted. There are a trio of exceptions in the form of Space Cadet Raph, Baxter and Krang, all of whom are left empty handed. The first two San Diego Comic Con sets each come with all of the same accessories as the four individual turtles. (Thouh you could also call the tin ooze canister an additional accessory as well.) The collector case comes with the same three accessories as all of the Michelangelo figures, all painted gold.

Collector Case 3/10

The latest exclusive for 2021's convention season was a collector's case which also included a metallic repaint of the Michelangelo figure. The collector case seemed like a cool idea given I clearly have a fairly large number of these figures to store now. And it's appropriate for the concept of the line as well given how almost every toy line in the 80's had storage cases made for them, including the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line. This case is designed like an old school Hot Wheels case with a briefcase style design that has a snap closure. Inside there are two trays with spots for "up to" twelve figures in each. Unfortunately, for reasons I can't understand, they made two of the spaces in each tray shorter than average so they won't fit any of the figures. And none of the spots are large enough to fit big characters like Bebop or Rocksteady. That's really annoying and to me, completely unacceptable. Though, to be fair, most of the collector cases from the eighties also had poorly designed trays including the TMNT collector cases, so it could be claimed to be an intentional design choice. But the thing that really annoys me is that the collector case lacks any graphics other than the TMNT logo on the cover. So in the end, the collector case is largely a disappointment for me.

Value - Collector Case 3/10 others 4/10

The single carded figures sell for $18 to $20 each. The first two exclusive sets sold for a bit under $80, so roughly the same price per figure. The most recent convention exclusive was the collector case which also included a metallic repaint of Michelangelo and sold for $50. Accounting for the value of the figure, that means you are paying $30 for the collector case. Unfortunately with it's short comings, I can't justify that price. And the inclusion of a single Turtle figure just makes it feel like my collection is now missing three other metallic repaints of the other Turtles. As for the regular release figures, the value is really going to depend on how sold you are with the concept of ReAction figures. And I'm not really sold on the concept. They are well made and executed figures. But it's still hard to justify spending $20 per figure for toys that are specifically imitating figures that sold for much less.

2021 Stocking Stuffer Set

So I wrote up this entire review and before I could finish editting and adding in all of the photos, another TMNT ReAction set arrived on my door, the Target exclusive Christmas Stocking Four Pack. This set has all four Turtles, now with sculpted on santa hats and candy cane accessories, all of which comes packaged in a real Christmas stocking. I'm too lazy to rewrite the entire review for yet another set of Turtle variants when the most notable thing about the set is that the stocking is actually designed to fit a Turtle's two-toed foot. It's an odd novelty set though if you have a thing for Christmas themed figures.

Happy Hunting:

The ReAction line is suppose to be exclusive to specialty stores such as comic shops and online stores like Big Bad Toy Store or Entertainment Earth. But they have also been popping up at Target Stores over the last year as a part of the collector section, though with a very limited selection. And the Stocking set is actually a Target exclusive and is just showing up in stores and shipping from their website. But the line doesn't seem to have sold terribly well thus far. So almost all of the items released in the last three years are still readily available, often for slightly less than the original price.

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