Mondo Gecko

Lizard on a skateboard, what will he shred? Mondo Gecko has left the music biz to join the Turtles in their pursuit to do good! That bio saying Mondo has "left the music biz" to join the Turtles would like me saying I "left the toy industry" to do something other than write reviews. Like, Mondo, brah, I appreciate your passion, but your "band" was you and three friends playing junk metal in a hammajang secret lair in the sewers because you didn't have anywhere else to practice. Yes, you were a musician; no, you weren't in the business. A Times Square Elmo has more claim to being a Broadway actor than you, Mondo Gecko, have to being in the music biz. NECA already made one Mondo Gecko toy, but that was from the cartoon. And while, yes, the Archie Comics were at least initially based on the cartoon as well, they soon split off, and the show had an unfortunate tendency to make every character the Turtles met a villain, no matter what their alignment was in the toyline. So cartoon Mondo Gecko and comicbook Mondo Gecko are two very different characters. Mondo's outfit here looks nearly identical to the original toy's: a torn yellow shirt with a skull logo on the front, purple shorts and elbow pads, mis-matched kneepads, and black and red sneakers. Since these are the clothes he was wearing before he mutated, they're very ripped-up: the lower edge of his shirt, obviously, but also the sleeves (the old toy had them, this one doesn't) and the bottoms of his shorts. But come on, guys, why not the hole where his tail erupted? Tomasz Rozejowski has given him a scaly texture on his exposed skin, and instead of wearing his hair in a ponytail, it hangs loosely below his sideways baseball cap. We don't get an alternate head like the Super7 Ultimate had, but this one, with its wide grin and half-closed eyes, definitely looks like he's utterly baked. And I don't mean from basking on a warm rock, as the lizards do. The yellow chosen for his shirt could really be more vibrant; this shade of rather flat and muted, and doesn't seem good enough for the figure. The skull in his logo just has two black sockets, despite the fact the comic depicted it, like the vintage figure, with an eyeball in the lefthand side. There's no color variety in his scales, no random blue to break up the greem, but they did do thin black outlines in some spots to accentuate the texture and keep the toy from looking dull. There are particularly a lot of these on his snout, which may be a suggesting of lingering zits on his teenage face? If so, nicely done! His left kneepad is a white skull, while the right is a circular orange pad with a white spike poking out the front of it - that's more detailed paint than any previous version has had! He also doesn't get a skate tied to his tail, because that wasn't a feature the comics used. Articulation's good. Mondo has a barbell head, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljoint chest, swivel/hinge tail (it's upside down in the tray for space-saving reasons, you'll need to turn it over when you open him), balljoint hips, swivel thighs, double-hinge knees, and swivel/​hinge ankles. The long hair does impede the neck a bit, but not enough to really worry about.. The figure includes seven hands, four right and three left: the right hands, wearing a black glove, include a relaxed hand, heavy metal devil horns, and two for holding accessories; the lefts, in their red glove, include relaxed, holding, and a shaka. They swap in and out of the forearms easily. Like the original Mondo Gecko, this one comes with a skateboard. Unlike the original Mondo Gecko, this one doesn't have a big motor on it. It's purple, with red wheels, and a logo on the bottom of a black manta ray silhouette with a white skull in the center. That may seem like an odd choice, but it is exactly what was seen in the comic (though the board was pinker than this), and remember that series co-writer Stephen Murphy was a fan of mantas. Mondo also comes with a microphone, a drink cup with a straw sticking out the top, and a teal guitar. Finally, the set also includes his pet gecko, Bongo, the last creature he touched before getting mutagen spilled all over him and thus the template for his new form. With the release of this figure, we're one step closer to completing the Mighty Mutanimals team. We still need a (non-wrestling) Leatherhead, and an actual Archie Wingnut & Screwloose, and we'll have the whole group. The main group, at least. There were a few other hangers-on, too, but while Ninjara may be likely to get a toy, Merdude probably isn't. At least not soon. Comicbook Mondo is better than the cartoon version, and I prefer this style to the Super7 version, so this is a real win. -- 09/19/24

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