Playmates Vintage Reissues

Found the last one myself over the weekend!

I have a few vintages in my collection, but Donnie is one of the few I still have from my childhood, so was definitely looking forward to getting a "new" one, and comparing (especially since I only still have his pizza & mutagen canister).

Childhood on the left, 2023 on the right.

The other 3 are the 2023s as well. Based on how many of the mutagens I had in my accessory bin, I must've had the Turtles (the weapons here are super familiar) & April looks super familiar, as well (but apart from some of the vehicle "transformers," I definitely didn't have any other "mutatin' creatures").

Childhood in the front:

I really hope they do the others, as well as the vehicles.

I'm caught up on carded and found a second Pizza Shootin' Michelangelo to open (completing that trio!), and even found an extra Wingnut & Baxter to open, except noticed this:

Now, both Baxters had unpainted teeth, wrong painted chest showing through the torn shirt, and a solid color flyswatter (instead of the two separate colors of the original), but this ticked me off worse. Both are 2023. So why was the one I was going to open (returned it, screw that) missing half his paint apps (no tongue/gums, no straps, no fur showing through the torn costume)? It would've been a bummer but expected Playmates cheapout if they'd both been missing, but getting one that's basically perfect made getting the half-arsed one hurt more. (I kept the new Baxter, as the previous one I'd gotten had completely folded & frayed corners, and while I'm not super picky about card quality, it looked like it had been run over by a shopping cart, and was gonna open that one, but the paint on Wingnut just upset me so much, I returned my first purchase with the second's receipt.)

EDIT: Don't need the "[ img ]" tags? That'll take some getting used to.

Any Rat King sightings yet?

I haven't seen Rat King. Just Genghis and the storage Turtles hanging around everywhere.

I did pick up the movie star Turtles. This is my first experience handling this mold. I never had the originals. They're supposed to feel kinda rubbery, right? I don't understand why they have what look like barnacles painted all over them. It's such an awful way to convey texture or spots. There's just too much contrast between the paint color choices and the skin. Mikey is probably executed the best. And did they originally come with weapons that looked more like the ones they used in the movie? Because these are packed with the usual sprues the original original Turtles came with. Not particularly impressed, but these reissues have been mostly unimpressive.

I was in Target today and was surprised to come across a set of the movie star reissues. I've been hoping to run into them as I still have my set from when I was a kid, but I've long since lost Michelangelo's belt. I grabbed the reissue just so I could take that belt and give it to my old figure. I was surprised to find the new one has that rubber feel to it. It's not as pliable as the old figures, but I had heard the last reissues sold in the box set were standard plastic. The nunchuks in this set are terrible though, super thin string that already shows stress marks from the gentlest of bends. I also didn't realize until I opened the new one that it's the Michelangelo head on the vintage Leonardo's body. I hadn't paid attention in store, but I'm assuming they're all like that? Unless Playmates decided to mix-up the bodies for hell of it. Anyway, I don't know that these are worth 12 bucks or that it was rational of me to pay said 12 bucks just for the belt, but I'm happy. Now I kind of want to pick up the Raph because I'm short a set of sai for my original Raph and movie Raph.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F5cl5MiXEAAsBWv?format=jpg&name=small

I picked up the movie Turtles within the past three weeks at Walmart, where they’re under $10 like all their vintage reissues. I still don’t love all the painted spots on their skin, so I might try to remove them with acetone. Just not sure how the chemical will react with this plastic.

@misfit Yes they all have Leonardo bodies. I feel it's a stretch to call them reissues considering they don't have the bodies, colors, or accessories of the originals.

So I bought the Amazon “Adventures” sets based on the Archie comics. Mostly for the repaints of the vintage sculpts of Mondo and Ray Fillet, but also for the bonus Turtle repaints on the 2012 Nick line’s Mirage bodies. These bodies are a joke, with some of the most foolish articulation choices. I like the color schemes a lot, and they have nicely painted weapons. But I’m now reminded of the awful "stitched up” sculpts that are meant to evoke the crosshatched comic style, but wind up looking like they are Frankenstein monsters. These could be decent figures if they had better thought out articulation. As is, they are a waste.

Wish we'd get an April for this line (not that ugly effing mess in that weird boxset).

"Lost sticker files/lost molds" is just not an excuse when the originals exist in collectors' hands & 3D scanning is a thing.

Saw someone on facebook mentioned 2003 reissues happening, posted to an instagram story. Any truth to that? Figured there'd be more people talking about it if it were true. He coulda been mixing it up with super7 for all I know.

@haydencollects yeah, there's a picture floating around from a recent event with a couple carded 2003 turtles mixed among some of the current vintage reissues.  Apparently the packaging is a little different, too, but I couldn't' say as I missed all of the 2003 incarnation.  So it certainly points to it happening but it hasn't been officially confirmed as far as I know.

Just found the video on reddit. The first wave of turtles had the respective turtles head take up the the whole card, this one is the four turtle head card used for characters like splinter, shredder, etc. That's totally how they'd do reissues, just slap a new bio on the back of generic cards. I'm interested in the reissues, but the unique cards looked so cool.

I'm only interested in 2003 rereleases to open & fill out a better collection (I only got the 4 Turtles, Splinter, April, Casey, Leatherhead, Shredder, Mozar, a Triceraton, a Foot Soldier, a Foot Elite Guard, and a Foot Tech Ninja when they first came out...holy crap, TWENTY YEARS AGO!? - I have since only been able to grab a carded Hamato Yoshi off eBay, which I promptly opened), but it is a bummer for those who would've wanted to keep them sealed.

I didn't realize these were a thing but I found a retro carded April and Mondo Gecko today at Target. I knew about the awful Archie recolors, but these are the vintage colors (minus Mondo missing a lot of his blue).  Kinda shocked Playmates went to that much effort to repaint shit for simultaneous releases.