It’s a bit of a Turtle-themed week with yet another set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles up for review. This time around we’re dipping into a bit of a stylized arena with Hybrid Metal Figurations’ tiny take on the titular Turtles.
Herocross has really upped their production levels lately because it seems like there’s a new announcement every month of some new license or figure. The Hybrid Metal stuff runs in two different aesthetics: large-headed, super-deformed type of figures like their DC and Star Wars stuff, and other, more normally proportioned figures like some of their Disney figures. I have been trying to keep myself to getting the classic Disney figures, but I couldn’t pass on the Turtles.
They announced a pair of Turtle sets in rapid succession. There is a normal-scaled group (that I haven’t purchased yet) and this set of mini-figures. At $200 versus around $75, I thought it was a good test group to see if I wanted to splurge on the larger set.
Haha … yeah. Like I don’t know myself.
These mini-Turtles stand at an adorable 3 ½ inches tall and feature 11 points of articulation a piece. Their main body is metal, and their limbs and head are made of plastic, thus the “Hybrid Metal” part. What this does is give them a center of balance that allows them to keep an odd pose indefinitely if you find the sweet spot.
Other than the monograms on their belts, the Turtles share a single mold right down to their gritted-teeth expressions. While the heads are slightly oversized for their bodies up against normal portrayals, it’s not as disproportional as it could be based on the peculiar uniqueness of their body types. As it is, it lends them slightly more of a cartoony aesthetic, but that works in tandem with their overall cartoonier appearance. They don’t have pupils, though, so it’s not a straight translation from the cartoon.
Their articulation is simple, and it is possible you will notice the loss of ankle joints and some type of arm swivel, but overall they can get into some good turtley poses.
Their articulation breakdown:
- Ball-jointed head
- Ball-jointed shoulders
- Single-jointed elbows
- Ball-jointed wrists (you will get a bit of wiggle, but it really only works like a swivel)
- Ball-hointed hips
- Single-jointed knees.
You get a pretty decent range of motion out of everything but the shoulders, which don’t go out as far as would be nice. Also, every wrist was stuck right out of the box and had to be wiggled free. There was some paint stickage, but it freed up and they all work fine now.
Each Turtle grips their weapon nice and tight. Their individual weapons are their only accessories, and they are very well done. Mikey gets real chains on his nunchuks, and there’s a nice metallic feel to Raph’s sais and Leo’s swords. None of the Turtles have any place to store their weapons on their belts, so they’ll have to hold them pretty much all the time.
These are small, cute and feature slightly limited (yet very workable) articulation, so naturally they won’t be for everybody. The larger Hybrid Metal Turtles look like they have more articulation and accessories, so if you’re in the market for a set of very unique-looking Turtles, they may be closer to what you’re looking for. For what they are, though, these are extremely well done and make great, poseable showpieces to stick somewhere. As a test-run to see if I wanted to drop the cash on the larger set, they succeeded in making me want those even more, but that doesn’t mean I still don’t dig these a lot.
You can purchase the set of four at Big bad Toy Store