Rustin's Spoils of the Week #233

What's this? What's this!? There's purchases everywhere! What's this? There's toys in my hands! Depressions and broke-ness have abounded of late but visiting a Target recently I found an impressive array of discounted figures so gave in to my sweet indulgences and actually got some new toys! What is this!? Spoils of the Week, hmm...

Hasbro -Star Wars The Vintage Collection - "The Book of Boba Fett" Tusken Warrior & Massiff
Not-Mandalorian-Season-2.5 was certainly... a show that certainly had a Boba Fett in it. Watch as he flashbacks, delight as he takes meetings! Regardless, I am a sucker for Tusken Raiders (and, who are we kidding, 3.75" Star Wars figures in general) so I was quite pleased to find expensive deluxe set marked down. The Tusken Warrior sports the mostly black look of Boba's Bubbe's which is captured nicely in a fair mix of plastic and cloth. The sculpt seems to be feminine, though not as specifically so as in AOTC. Paint and poseability are good, but as is often the case with TVC figures nowadays, stability is not. We also get a Massiff here. It's an all-new sculpt with balljoints at the four hips and neck, plus a hinged jaw. Honestly, it's not quite as good a sculpt or paint as the old one, but at least is somewhat poseable. For the $9 I paid this is an awesome release! For the original stickered price of $28, not at all!

Jada Toys - Nano Hollywood Rides: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Turtle Blimp, Party Van, Technodrome)
I'm a mad sucker for Micro Machines and have been enjoying these diecast riffs on the format from Jada. I finally found this set at Five Below for quite a reasonable (as you'd expect) $5. It's a fun set with a good selection of vehicles. The Van is surprisingly narrow, to the point of feeling off-model, which is a shame. The Blimp is pretty rad, though the undercarriage feels a bit more toy inspired than toon. The real highlight is the Technodrome, it seems to be the most accurate sculpt and is something we very rarely get toys of! Paint is mediocre on all three, with fair shares of bleed. The colors are fairly accurate to the cartoon but feel very minimal here, if not a bit bland. I totally get why Playmates added more to the vintage toys. It'd be cool if Jada could do a repaint set homaging those as well.

Mattel - Turtles of Grayskull: Mouse-Jaw
Just when I thought I was out of widening my TMNT and MOTU nets, this delirious nonsense rolls out! I mean, how could one not go for this mashup!? Well, quite easily given the wild prices on these actually. But finding this Moose-Jaws, I mean Mouse-Jaw on sale for $17 made me dive in. I really love this design! Of course, I am always a sucker for Trap-Jaw but giving him white tech and armor, especially with Mouser flourishes, just looks plain cool! I love the big ridged shoulder and mouser helmet/jaw here, plus... translucent fire effect! He also comes with a Mouser, whose legs pop off and plugs into his belt and whose torso plugs on to Trap-Jaw's arm. It's cool, but unwieldy as hell and makes absolutely no sense as to why it wasn't engineered to just have the head unplug and attach to the wrist. In an equal mix of neat and annoying they're doing a Metalhead/Roboto mashup as a build-a-fig across the deluxe figures, so we get its right arm and an alternate hand/stump with an accessory port. Both that and the arm can be swapped on to Trap-Jaw thanks to the modular nature of the Origins line (though the stump doesn't quite fit well).

McFarlane Toys - Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Sunken Citadel Pirate
Man, McFarlane really got Zuvio'ed on this guy, didn't they! Considering the $40 SRP, my guess was this was meant to be Martin Short's character but it was fully redesigned late in post and this design was bumped to a half second fly-by at the beginning of the sequence (I only noticed him because of the toy). Regardless, I'm a big sucker for Gillmen and this a rad one, so stumbling on this for $12 at Target... yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar. Or twelve. The sculpt and paint are really great here, properly fishy and wetsuit-y, and the glossy plastic passes for wetness! The articulation is plentiful, with 20 points by my count, but they can be awfully tight and tough to work with (looking at you, elbows). The head joint in particular is so tight it's barely a swivel. Balance is also a bit of a mixed bag, but one you find a sweet spot it's fairly stable. It's neat figure, to be sure, but... yeah, a very bizarre choice to make in context of the finished film.

McFarlane Toys - Spawn: Sam & Twitch
Spawn toys have a wildly dear spot in my heart, so I've been enjoying McFarlane finally revisiting it with new figures. This was a very exciting release, but I couldn't quit pull the trigger on its $40 yet, so $24 was a dream come true. This is our third set of Sam & Twitch figures and arguably the best by effectively blending the previous two. The sculpts have the sensibility of Ashley Woods' art from their solo comic but more traditionally toyetic poses, colors and poseability. Twitch turned out surprisingly good with loads of articulation, including double hinged elbows and knees! Sam is a more conservative on that front, with only single joints that have limited ranges. He's also a bit more stylized in design, though I do dig his long torso and short legs. Paint is relatively basic but good throughout (I do wish Sam's neck was darker like his chin though). Twitch gets two pistols and Sam, one Tommy gun. The hand-fits on all three are a bit tight but effective. While I appreciate them, I do miss the doughnut that came with the original set of figures for Sam - it's iconic and feels like it'd have been a good and fun inclusion here.

Playmates Toys -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem: Mondo Gecko
I thought I was done with collecting Mutant Mayhem, but I finally found the second series of mutants and though I couldn't afford to get them all I couldn't pass up Mondo Gecko since he was so enjoyable in the movie. Not entirely sure how I feel about the new design, but I love that it includes the tail-skate from the vintage figure. Like the whole line, it's a good sculpt and decent articulation, especially for a $12 figure these days. The paint is fine but super lacking in context of the art in the film, which is understandable given the price point but such a bummer. He come with a frisbee that has a handle (¿que?), a big skateboard with rolling wheels, and a backpack that pegs in to his back (the shoulder straps are part of the torso sculpt). The backpack and tail make him fairly back-heavy, especially when on the skateboard unfortunately. Still though, he's a fun and "necessary" addition to that collection, so I'm pleased to have him. Interestingly, the shirt/vest piece is a separate, soft PVC piece of the torso so one could easily cut it off for a naked Mondo. Now, if only I could find Scumbug.

Spin Master -Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Aquaman Sunken Citadel (Aquaman, Black Manta, Manta Man, Shark Guard)
Target knocked this exclusive set down to $21 so I finally bit. We get 4" figures of Aquaman, Black Manta, Manta Man, and Shark Guard with the latter two be exclusive to this 4-pack. The sculpts are pretty nice on all the figures, and paint is generally decent(though Aquaman feels too dull in tones to me). Each figure gets a unique accessory. The Shark is a rad design and emblematic of how toyetic the Aquaman movies have been. His hammerhead eyes and long tail give him a surprisingly big presence in-hand. Unlike the McFarlane Pirate above, I don't specially recall this design from the movie or if it's a battle builder. The Manta Henchman, though, it why I needed this set and I'm crushed I can't more reasonably armybuild this figure! Basically, they just straight-up took the awesome spacesuits from Planet of the Vampires and slapped a diving helmet on them... AND. I. AM. HERE. FOR. IT!!! Once in hand, I think the torso is a bit androgynous and the face a bit feminine, so I suspect this is meant to be the leader lady, but also allows them to easily face swap for a generic release (that will never happen). The helmet is super impressive, given the nature of toys in this style/price today, with this its translucent window and painted face behind it! Absolutely they could have gotten away with just a solid helmet and opaque window, but this approach really elevates the coolness of the figure! It looks like roughly the front third of the helmet is a separate piece glued onto the back of the helmet which has the face, and then the whole thing gets matching paint to look like a proper orb. Man, it's so rad looking! I love this design so much, it's really really really a shame McFarlane didn't do it!