Krang's Robot Body

My toy collecting history is pretty much a straight line: He-Man to GI Joe to TMNT to X-Men and so on. The last year I bought any significant number of Turtles figures was 1991, but I came back three years later for one final figure that was too good to pass up. When the bodiless bad brain Krang needs to get up and crush a few Turtles, he slips inside his one-and-only android body. Equipped with a shell shearin' attachable cranium claw and a dude dissolvin' android laser blaster, Krang's android body is one mean Mutant munchin' machine. And that's just the way that Shredder and the Foot Clan like it, uh-huh. Krang may be all brains, but with this indestructible deluxe android body, he's got the brawn necessary to challenge the Turtles head on. Powered by a sewer cooled nuclear generator from Dimension X, Krang's android body can smash, bash and demolish its way through anything - or anyone, including the four Turtle dudes in attack formation! Krang has perfected the ideal bionic body to match his tall, towerin', pulverizin' personality - and he's not afraid to use it! So beware and stay alert - if you heart shell stompin' Foot steps and a hollow bellied bellow, run for cover, cuz no loyal Turtle is safe while this two legged, belly-brained, bionic bad boy is on the loose! And that's the way Krang likes it, uh-huh. The first Krang figure was released in 1989, but that one was just transported around in his little mobile walker. In 1992, Playmates released an 11" figure of Krang's android body, but that was too big for me to be interested in. However, in 1994, they released this "human-sized" robo-Krang in the normal line, and it turned out to be the final vintage TMNT figure I'd purchase. This 5" scale figure is not merely a down-sized version of the 11"er - it's an entirely new sculpt, from head to toe. Make that "from the pitchfork antenna on his head to the booties on his feet that probably don't have any toes." He's kind of a weird robot. He's kind of an unfinished robot, too: the design seems mostly intended to pass as human, but there are metal plates and random bits of wiring spotted around the surface, effectively ruining the illusion. Big sutures or staples hold the front and back half of the limbs together, he has knees that look like Revoltech joints (even though those wouldn't be invented for a decade), and appears to have silver metal suspenders that run right into his shoulder pads. He wears angular goggles that look like the ones the Mutants had in Dark Knight Returns, and his mouth is a strange, mechanical shape that's clearly not an organic orifice. The android body has seven swivel joints: neck, shoulders, wrists, and V-crotch. The hands on this toy are red, though the cartoon colored them the same "bare skin" as the rest of the 'bot. On this figure, that means a sickly peach-yellow color. His trunks and booties are red, while his belt and the area around his shoulders is yellow. All the mechanical details of the suit (which weren't included on the cartoon model, because they would have been way too hard to animate consistently) are painted silver. There's a single area of dark greenish-blue, right around the clear hatch on his belly. The hatch opens, and Krang comes out. This obviously isn't the same Krang that had been available since '89 - it's much smaller and completely unarticulated. Heck, it's basically an accessory itself (if he wasn't the one driving the suit - that would be like saying Batman is the accessory to a Batmobile). [Such a case could be made, if the Batman were small and had no joints. --ed.] He has yellow paint apps on his eyes and white on his teeth, and at only 1" wide by ¾" tall, is much closer in size to a real brain than the other Krang toys were. Krang's Android Body comes with four accesories, all cast from bright blue plastic and given no paint apps. We start with the Attachable Cranium Claw, a two-piece hinged bit that "snaps onto Krang's Android Body's right arm, then snaps onto Donatello's face!" Then there's the Dimensional Communicator, "a driect [sic] link to Dimension X - and beyond!" (Yes, there's really a typo on the packaging.) Then the Android Lazer Blaster, which proclaims "one blast and it's bye-bye Turtle boy!" fits over his left hand. So those accessories are all for the android body to use - the final one is for Krang himself. Called the Mutant Mobile Walker (quote: "Helps Krang stay on his feet!"), it's a scaled-down version of the legged seat the original Krang toy came with. It's unarticulated, but it's sized perfectly for him, so you can get both Krang's famous looks with this one toy. This wasn't the first time Playmates considered making a body for Krang, but none of the other attempts panned out. The 11" version may be more of an attention-grabber but this little guy, with his accessories and his reasonable scale, is a better choice. -- 10/19/13

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