Mikey as Batman

When Diamond Comics Distributors revealed their SDCC exclusives (which are available to any booth with a Diamond account, so these are not necessarily DST products) no one could figure out what this figure was and who was making it - a modern toy mystery, what fun! Ultimately it was deducted, or revealed, that this guy hailed from DC Collectibles, which both makes a lot of sense and is quite a surprise! The days of Playmates' stranglehold on the TMNT license must truly be over - everyone's taking a crack at the brothers these days! At first it seemed like maybe this was just a one-off promo type release, but shortly before the Con, photos of a full line of two-packs were revealed which instantly moved this from my "might be fun" list to my "gotta get it" list! The figure comes in a fairly simple box, surprisingly with no window display to the figure. It does have an angled corner which does help give it more of a sense of being "designed" rather than "dumped." There's minimal photography and text on the package, but the back of it does show the full 10-figure line-up in a small photo. Inside the thin cardboard box is a plastic shell which houses the figure and his accessories in a nice display (which further makes it seem odd that the package doesn't have a window display on it). The sculpt of this guy is really nice! I haven't seen the direct-to-DVD movie it's based on, but the design definitely has an animated feel to it, accentuated by the heavy black lining/shading in the paint deco. I'm a sucker for "specific aesthetic" figures so the semi-angular nature of this design really grabs me. Likewise, it does a really good job of both being identifiably classic TMNT while also feeling fresh and new. I really like the proportions on Mikey here, they feel "teenage" and a nice balance of thin and muscular limbs with a nice thick shell torso. He has 15 points of articulation, with: balljointed ankles, wrists, hips and shoulders, double-hinge knees and hinged elbows. His head seems to be in a swivel joint, but I'm guessing that's it's a balljoint that's just restricted by the sculpt. All of the joints move really nicely; the ankles are particularly great, but the elbows only bend to 90°, unfortunately. Aside from the restricted elbows, my only real sculptural complaint might be Mikey's head. There is something weird about it, which is think just comes as a result of him wearing Batman's cowl. It's certainly a fun and unique look, and I'd wager pretty on model, but the ears on the cowl just seem a little under-scaled given Mikey's usually short stature (or maybe he's tall in this incarnation?). The ears, and whole cowl really, fit him like a tight sock rather than something with a bit more structure to it like how Batman's cowl is typically depicted. But all-in-all this is just a novel sight-gag, so I'm sure I'm just doing the classic "Rustin Overthink" on it. The paint is really nice and clean on the figure, and I really like the hues of green and browns used on his skin, shell and pads. Weirdly, though, and sadly, the two strands of his bandanna that are hanging out from under the cowl are a full yellow or gold, rather than Mikey's signature orange. Not sure if this is a mistake or accurate to the film... but like the horse said, "no sir, I don't like it." Like I mentioned earlier, the figure also has some super, super great black lining on the body giving a very great and artistic aesthetic! He looks very "drawn" and I love it! The figure comes with six accessories - two extra pairs of hands, a slice of pizza and a manhole cover. The manhole cover is a rusty brown on one side and painted like a pepperoni pizza on the other, it also has "NYC" engraved on it - which is kind of confusing but I guess this means Batman comes to the Turtles in the movie? The slice of pepperoni pizza is a nice little sculpt with good paint - it's always fun to get little food accessories like this but there nothing special or groundbreaking about it. The two extra pairs of hands are nice, though! This gives us a set of loose-grip hands, flat-palm and fingers-splayed hands, and thumbs up hands. These are nice sculpts that swap easily, stay on the wrist peg pretty securely, and add a surprisingly fun amount of variety to the posing options (especially given Mikey's goofy expression). Last, but not least, is the big cloth cape Mikey is wearing. It's pretty sizable, and is made from a fairly soft, nylon-y fabric. There are two sewn seams towards the sides which help the cape hang more naturally over the shoulders like a classic Batman look, and the bottom of the cape is scalloped like the Bat's iconic costume should be. It wouldn't surprise me if the cape is removable, but I'm too nervous about removing Mikey's head to test out that theory. All in all, this is a really fun release and possibly the most I've enjoyed a TMNT figure since NECA first started up with the license again; and the definitely most I've enjoyed a DCD product in at least as long! The restricted elbows are frustrating, but the sculpt and paint are really nice and the figure is pretty pose-able. Mikey wearing Batman's cape and cowl is a fun, silly one-off but also feels like a nice bridge for the franchises in the whole lineup these toys - which I am absolutely looking forward to collecting now! He's basically a perfect Con Exclusive - very fun but not essential to the collection. -- 08/28/19

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