You want to know what the worst thing is about doing this review? I haven’t actually seen Casey in the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon yet. I know! In fact, I haven’t seen a lot of the new cartoon at all. I had to kick off my satellite a while back due to family budget cuts. TV was the first thing to go. But when I ran across this figure I couldn’t pass it up. I mean, it’s Casey Jones! Not the one I hold near and dear, but the spirit is definitely there.
The packaging is the standard cardback with bubble used for all the figures in the line. I love the colors and layout, especially the big picture on the back with the bio. I loved it all the way into the trash. Packaging. Pfft.
What caught my eye while I was in the store was the stark black and white. I love black and white. I love Casey. But when I realized what I was looking at, I thought the paint on the face looked terrible, until I looked on the back and found out it is supposed to be that way. Google would later tell me that he paints his face this way in case he loses his mask, to shock and throw off opponents.
Another thing that drew me to adding him to my Nick Turtles collection, which only consists on the four main Turtles, was that he has more articulation than others I’ve found and inspected in store. Everything else seems to have just head, shoulders, and hips. I may be wrong about that as I haven’t researched it much, just what I’ve seen in glances and “Oooo, Metalhead. Wait, naw” moments.
And it’s true, he does have more articulation than the others. And it’s all pretty useful. At first, with Marvel Legends and other super-articulated lines being my bread and butter, I thought that while he had more, he didn’t have enough. But the more I fiddled, the more I found fun poses for him to nail. And that’s all with a seemingly unstable base. More on that later.
Would I like ankles? Well, yeah, but as I was posing I forgot that fact. The only point that really hits home for me is the lack of a ball neck. He only swivels side to side. I’m a huge fan of the personality a slight head tilt can bring to even a vanilla pose.
Articulation breakdown:
- Swivel neck
- Hinge/swivel shoulders, hips and knees
- Hinge elbows
- Swivel wrists
- Swivel waist
Casey comes with a hockey stick and a baseball bat. They are just white plastic, which seems to be par for the course with this line. If I remember correctly, it was this way even way back when I was a wee lad. Both weapons secure on his back. As far as holding them, the hockey stick works better with the left hand while the bat is pretty good, but not perfect, in the right hand. The hands are shaped fairly well for each accessory.
Sculpt is nice for a cartoon line. He has a keyring sculpted on his right hip, and as has been pointed out on the forums, his right knee/shin pad alludes to the classic Casey Jones mask. The left spiked shoulder pad doesn’t really hinder articulation as it’s on a peg with some swing on it and moves out of the way if the arm is positioned upwards.
Another thing that I thought would be a sticking point was the roller blades sculpted to the bottom of the feet.
At first I was unsure he would stand at all, but it really doesn’t affect him all that much. You can’t get crazy but I didn’t have much trouble posing him in any of the shots you see.
What little paint there is, it’s not bad. A little sloppy in places, and mine has a splotch on the left shin, but really, not bad at all. I guess the biggest thing is the (surprise!) eyes. There are black dots to represent the eyes, but they are too low. They are below the actual sculpt of the eye that is plainly visible, and they are basically just two black dots.
I’m always hesitant to include pictures of any custom work I do to a figure in a review, but it really took all of 5 minutes to make the eyes look like the back of the packaging. A little white, a couple of lines of black, dots of brown,black, and white, boom. Done. Now I really like him.
All in all, I really dig the figure. He’s a nice add to my small Nick TMNT shelf, and of course…he’s Casey Jones. And for $8.88 you can’t really go wrong.
As I was looking for places to buy him I ran across Amazon’s listing, which is a little higher at $11.99, but it had this picture attached to the listing…
Looks like I need to break out the paints again.
