It took a lot longer than usual for the FedEx guy to hit my house, but he has finally arrived with Space Cadet Raph and Robot Rocksteady!
Space Cadet Raph is kind of Super7 in a nutshell. He looks pretty good and I like the deco. The updated weapons with translucent red plastic are neat and I like the flip-up communicator they added to his left arm. Some parts are unpainted and a bit "plasticky", like the feet, and unpainted details on the right thigh. Most of the suit has a blue wash though so it looks better than Deep Space Homer. The articulation though is dreadful. If you thought Super7's Optimus Prime had terrible range at the elbows, this one might have it beat. The elbow pads are right over the hinge and just don't let the elbow do much of anything. There are also no vertical hinges on the gripping or trigger hands and no weapon storage, which sucks because he has a lot of gear. And perhaps another blunder, the hose that connects to the gun has no where to plug into. Promotional shots show it going into the space suit, but if the port on his torso was supposed to accept it they screwed it up so it just goes no where, unless I'm missing something (EDIT: the port on the figure's right is a hole, it's just too small, I was able go widen it with a screw and now the hose plugs in). The torso is also an overlay and it's a bit weird that the front of the crotch piece doesn't connect to the rear. It's not much of an issue, just weird.
Robot Rocksteady, on the other hand, is probably as good as it gets with this line and company. Articulation is probably better than Raph, which says more about Raph than this figure, and nothing is loose. The deco is nice and he comes with a lot of stuff. I think it was a mistake to not have the arm canon be able to accept the blast effects that the shoulder canons have, but that's basically it for critiques. He's also big. Probably one of the best figures in the line, which is good since it's one of the most expensive so far too. EDIT: Actually, I have one critique and it's that the biceps swivels suck. It makes it hard for him to aim his forearm canon in a convincing fashion.
https://twitter.com/SamhainsGrimm/status/1716565193168212124
I still can't get over how frustratingly "thin" Raph looks in that spacesuit.
I appreciate the review! Thanks. Gonna wait for a sale on Raph just to get closer to completing that first round of disguised Turtles.
@normdapito They already did Undercover Raphael.
I think they are going for the main toy versions of playmates.
And all the comic repaints they can do.
I’m talking about Undercover Donatello. That’s who was actually part of the original wave, not Raph. I took the liberty of making my own with parts from both characters. So Space Raph would complete that set for me. At this point, I don’t think I’d waste my time waiting for an official Undercover Don.
Thanks for all the feedback, guys, I appreciate it. Sounds like I'm about right to stay out of this line... but then you all come in with those glorious pictures of Ghengis.
I think I'm ready to get hurt again.
What are the chances they get around to making Slap Shot Leo?
@detrimental-fig he should definitely be more chunky, this is a space suit after all. He has a slimmer profile than the standard Raph which makes no sense. It's like he had to lose some weight to become an astronaut or something. It's in contrast with Samurai Leo and Sewer Mikey who are thicker than the standard turtles, which makes sense since they're wearing clothes.
@saintmacgowan Slapshot Leo is not impossible. They started on the music turtles, but then pivoted to sports for Wave 9 with Slam-Dunkin' Don, but then went back to music with Wave 10's Classic Rock Leo. Predicting what Super7 will do when it comes to finishing sets is futile, but it seems reasonable to think they will, eventually finish off a set of sports and music turtles. For Leo, he had the american football figure and the hockey one so it's unclear which would get made. Probably depends on what there is more of in the Super7 office: hockey or football fans.
Thanks for all the feedback, guys, I appreciate it. Sounds like I'm about right to stay out of this line...
but then you all come in with those glorious pictures of Ghengis.
I think I'm ready to get hurt again.
What are the chances they get around to making Slap Shot Leo?
Why wouldn't they make Slap Shot Leo?
I can tell you I've got both Neca cartoon stuff and Super7 Ultimates...
For me S7 wins hands down as my favorite,
Neca is cartoon accurate and cute. No question there, they are the champs in that department.
Depends on what you want I guess.
If that Glow-In-The-Dark Slash didn't sell you, I don't know what will.
Why wouldn't they make Slap Shot Leo?
Because they don't want to? Because they don't think it would sell? Because there's two popular versions of 'sports Leo' and they only really have room in the line to make one and choose the other one? All kinds of reasons. Might as well ask 'why wouldn't they make the military Turtles?' They release what.. like 10 figures per year for this line, not including stupid color variants and GITD bullshit? So there's not exactly lots of room in the line to be indulgent with variants.
@misfit Thanks much for the breakdown. I appreciate your ability to take a more positive (or neutral?) approach than maybe I would, because Raph sounds like hot garbage. Interesting to note that way back when Raph was first shown off, I bitched about the obvious problem with the design basically lacking elbow joints (or functional ones, at least) and was shouted down that everything was 'preliminary' and OBVIOUSLY didn't represent the final product. When, you know.. it totally did.
Still very disappointing because I wanted to be wrong about Raph. Space Cadet Raph is, like for many of you, one of my all time favorite Turtles variants and one that got some of the most play in my house after Samurai Leo. So, despite myself and how I feel about Super7, I really wanted to want this figure. Bummer.
I'll give S7 one thing, though - Genghis, from what I've seen so far, looks REALLY good and I could see myself picking that one up just for the novelty of a truly well-made S7 Turtles figure. Especially with such a wild design and clearly in the middle of a cocaine-fueled nightmare when you look into his eyes. But I never liked the character or the vintage figure, so it's tough to pony up the $80 CAD for that one.
@theknightdamien GITD Turtles are some of my favorites.
I honestly don't know if we'll get them or not...or the military figures, I'm not interested in those anyway.
But if you look here, and go down the list, kind of looks to me like Super7 has been knocking them out.
https://www.actionfigure411.com/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/playmates-visual-guide.php
At ten figures a year, might take a few years maybe even five. That's the way she goes.
But it's way to early in the game to lose hope one of your favorites isn't going to get made.
Probably going to happen at some point...no way to know, but you can have faith, and send requests to the Super7 design team.
@rat_king Anything can be someone's favorite. Personally, I bought the GITD Mutagen Man rather than the regular version. BUT... are GITD repaints (particularly where it doesn't even make sense) blatantly uncreative, lazy, cynical ways to re-use tooling? Yes. Yes they are. And when you're talking about getting new characters and legitimate toy variants in the line, you can't count the MULTITUDE of GITD repaints when factoring in how many figures we get per year because those are never going to be new characters/costumes. So, for our purposes here, they might as well not exist.
And no.. Super7 has no been 'knocking them out' by any legitimate metric. Wave 1 released in 2020. As you said - in three years they've released technically fewer than 10 figures per year. Unless they plan to continue that strategy but make half of those figures Turtles variants - we're never gonna get them all. In fact, I think you're far too idealistic if you think this line isn't going to collapse under the weight of its failures and price hikes in less than five years.
No one is saying 'lose hope in getting what you want.' Unless what you want is a complete remake of the vintage toyline because you are 100% not going to get that. It's just a matter of stressing what the -reality- is. The reality is that there's a lot of vintage Turtle variants people want, as well as many unique characters, and a limited window for how long this line will exist, and how many figures will come out in that time. Super7 -is- going to prioritize. I have very little doubt that when it comes to doing more Sports Turtles, they're going to pick one Turtle per sport and call it done. Which means they're likely to make EITHER Football Leo OR Hockey Leo, and very likely never both.
You asked why they wouldn't make a hockey Leo. All I did was point out that there's many reasons why they might not do so. I'm not saying they won't. I'm saying there's two possible sports Leos to make and it's exceptionally unlikely they'll make both. Which it is. Sorry if that sucks for you.
Like was said above - I agree that it almost certainly comes down to which sport, or which version of Leo, Brian Flynn likes better. That one will get made. The other one probably never will.
And sending requests to the S7 design team is a fool's errand. If that worked we wouldn't be getting figures 3 years into the line that are still absolutely riddled with QC problems that would embarrass even a small start-up toy Kickstarter run by your grandparents' pet ferret.
@theknightdamien I guess the "neutral" approach on Raph is because, now 7 waves in?, he's pretty much as expected. If measured against other lines, especially other lines in this price range, it would be a disappointment, but for Super7 it's probably right smack in the middle. Not a good posing figure, but mostly looks the part on the shelf. The thing, now two days later, that's bothering me most about the figure now is the big "nipple" on the top of the plastic dome. It must be where the plastic gets poured into the mold, but it looks awful. I don't understand how in 2023 a plastic dome on a figure can look worse than the one on a figure from 1990. Such a thing isn't present on the Deep Space Homer figure, but that dome was also painted so maybe it's covered up. If they did it in two pieces and just glued them together it would have looked better. Or they could have just done it right. I have the DC Collectibles/McFarlane Mr. Freeze from Batman: The Animated Series who basically has the same design and his dome is completely seamless.
In terms of wish lists, you basically have to tack on a 2 year waiting time now. With Super7 switching to 2003 TMNT soon, that's going to further reduce the amount of figures in this particular line. Plus, even if the Playmates thing is lightening up as one poster suggested, they probably have the next few waves already planned under the idea that anything directly lifted from the vintage line wouldn't get approved. The sports turtles, in particular, are at least in a gray area as most of those designs showed up elsewhere (technically, they all had a hockey figure too by virtue of that table-top hockey game), but we already know the turtle in Wave 11 is something new, per Brian. They could scrap those Super7 originals if they wanted to, but Super7 usually hires outside people to do the digital sculpts so they're not going to just flush that money down the toilet unless another Rat King situation comes about. And even with that, I'm not expecting drastic changes. They'll probably just stick him with a vintage-inspired head and keep the rest the same.
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