Michelangelo as the Mummy

Why couldn't NECA make this the last figure in the line? That way we'd be able to open the review by declaring "that's a wrap!" Through ancient dust and pizza crust lurks... Michelangelo as The Mummy Unbelievable turtle terror awaits! Mikey comes to life! Is it dead or alive? The party dude is out of his tomb! Beware the curse of cowabunga! You've been warned! Those are some high-octane puns, right there! We don't know what process went into assigning a Monstersona to each of the Turtles (or is it a Turtlesona to each of the Monsters?), but at some point the potential for back-of-the-box wordplay had to be a consideration. There's no real element that says Michelangelo and the Mummy have to be connected - he and Raphael have switched since Playmates did a similar thing back in 1993 - so there must have been some process, we just have any insight as to what. Maybe it was drawing names out of a hat, no backsies. Maybe it was just what both Universal and Nickelodeon could agree to. Mummelangelo gets two heads, both fairly unique and both really nicely designed. The first has a single open eye, and the skin is showing deep wrinkles on the forehead, the cheeks, and especially around the mouth. The second has wide, bulging eyes and the lips bitten away to reveal giant teeth. It really makes him look more like a zombie than a mummy, but there's a reason behind that choice. This second head didn't make any sense when the figure was first revealed, but it suddenly clicked after we saw April: the Judith Hoag likeness on that figure was our first confirmation these crossovers were specifically based on the movie Turtles, so this head is meant to represent the way the old animatronic masks look after decaying in storage for years. What a reference! That's a terrific Easter egg, and whoever suggested it deserves some kind of bonus. Mikey is sculpted with plenty of bandages wrapped around his body, of course, but Tony Cipriano did more than just that: the body beneath is skinnier than Leonardo and Raphael's, because there's no such thing as a muscular mummy. Boris Karloff may have played both Imhotep and Frankenstein, but that doesn't mean the characters were meant to be physically identical, yeah? Like Christian Bale in The Machinist and Christian Bale in Batman Begins. So by being skinny instead of thick, this looks more like an actual Turtle mummy than like a Turtle merely dressed up as a mummy. Small changes can make big differences. The paint is dark and dusty, which makes sense. The prototype shot showed dirty apps on the fingers and toes, but those didn't make the final figure. The hieroglyphs on his belt are accentuated by a dark wash, and the scarab on his belt buckle is solid gold. There a more pictograms carved into his shell, and those all get painted for contrast as well - including four turtle shapes, done in red, blue, purple, and orange. Those last two are mostly hidden by his belt, but that's still a super cute inclusion. Other insets include a Foot logo, Shredder's symbol, a throwing star, a flower, and more. Articulation includes a balljointed head, balljointed neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, double-swivel/​hinge elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge upper knees, hinged lower knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. There's no waist of any sort, which is surprising: even Leonardo had a waist, and the entire back of his shell needed room to open and store things inside. So why can't Mikey even bend or twist at all? Because of his bandages? It's not a dealbreaker, but it is weird. The head joint is a little loose, allowing the head to bobble around a little, but it still holds its poses fine. The toy includes open hands, holding hands, and fists. There are a pair of loose bandages you can drape over the figure (different sculpts, meaning this TMNT Mummy is better than the real Mummy), and a bendy cobra. Sounds familiar! Michelangelo's nunchucks have been converted to joined ankhs, which is a clever enough way to "Egyptize" them, though maybe a crook and flail would have been nice inclusions, too? Michelangelo isn't the best blending of "TMNT" and "Universal Monsters" we've seen in this line, but the care that went into making the crossover work raises him higher than he would otherwise have been. -- 10/23/22

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