In 2022, McFarlane Toys announced a new line called "Page Punchers," which featured a minimally articulated 3" DC figure and a reprint comicbook. It seemed kind of pointless, but eventually it expanded to include 7" figures as well, often ones that weren't available otherwise. And now they're started doing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, too. IDW version, of course, since this is still a comic-based toyline and NECA's already got Archie and Mirage.
The routine life of a street-level goon can get dull, so when opportunity presents itself these two won't let it pass them by,
but as they are about to learn the hard way, there's more to being a successful mutant menace than just strength. Don't miss this bone shattering issue that sets the stage for the final showdown in City Fall!
That sounds rather weird, doesn't it? That's because it's not the marketing copy for a toy (I mean, it is, McToys published it right there on their site and that's where we copied it from), it's the marketing copy for a comicbook. A specific issue of a comicbook: TMNT Villain Micro-Series #7: Bebop and Rocksteady. Yes, the title of the book is "TMNT Villain Micro Series" and the issue number - not title - is "7: Bebop and Rocksteady." It's weird that way. Anyway, the book featured the backstory of the beloved mutant pair, and so it's the one chosen for inclusion with this figure.
IDW Bebop is human-shaped, but not human-proportioned. That is, he's still a warthog man, he still has two arms and two legs and walks upright, but he carries a lot of height above the belt. His arms are longer than his legs, for Pete's sake! It helps sell the idea that this is a mutant,
not a guy in a costume. He's wearing his traditional outfit of a red vest and dark pants. He doesn't ear any shoes this time, allowing us to see that his feet look like flattened hooves - that is to say, vaguely human-shaped feet, but with four big black toenails growing from them. His body is sculpted with a nice texture of fur all over, Meanwhile, his clothes are textured like cloth, and his vest has all the appropriate snaps and zippers. No turtle shell shoulderpads, though he does joke about getting some in the included comic.
Bebop gets two heads, for variety. Surprisingly, he doesn't wear
the plain one in the package: you have to open it and swap heads if you want him to look "normal." In addition to his purple mohawk, he also has purple eyebrows and purple muttonchops. He wears yellow sunglasses with three horizontal bars on them instead of a single narrow slit, and his nosering is pentagonal rather than circular. The alternate head (aka, the one he starts with) has the mouth open slightly, and the glasses sitting askew on his face, revealing one of his eyes. Usually toymakers forget that a warthog's tusks are part of its upper jaw, not its lower, so in this case it's nice to see that Bebop's lower lip is gapped to fit around the teeth, but they're still attached to the top.
He's got brown pants instead of black, but they're still dark enough to not blend in with the rest of his body. His fur is lighter
on the chest than anywhere else, but there are shadows painted under all his muscles, to help with the definition. Similarly, the shadows on the back of the vest accent all the wrinkles. There are lots of small details, like the buckles on his wrist cuff, all the hardware on his vest, and even the golden skull necklace.
The TMNT Page Punchers are apparently in a 5" scale, and you can decide for yourself whether that's an example of "slicensing" (the practice of dividing any particular license into smaller and smaller specific categories so more companies can make money off it and
the rights holder can get more fees for it) or Todd McFarlane's perpetual refusal to ever make his toys work with other companies' (there's a reason we've only reviewed a dozen of his DC figures over the siz years he's been making them). Bebop is clearly very big in-universe, because the toy stands more than 6½" tall. Articulation is actually pretty decent, with balljointed ankles, hinged knees, balljoint hip, a swivel waist, balljoint torso, balljoint wrists, swivel/hinge elbows, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a balljointed neck. The elbows and knees are almost comically stiff, while the hands seem to be nearly falling out of the arms at every opportunity. Since the design doesn't physically have much of a distinct neck, shifting the head at all in any direction reveals a big flat spot on the top of the torso that's shaped specifically to accommodate it.
In addition to his normal hands
(one open, one fist), Bebop comes with a pair of hands wearing spiked knuckles, and a pair open to hold his accessories, a simple black machine gun, perfect for if 29-49 of his relatives show up, and the yellow chainsaw he calls "Roberta." The chainsaw is the only reason we know the elbows are more than just plain hinges: there's no way for him to get both hands on it without a swivel there, and boy oh boy did those joints let out a large CRACK sound when I finally got them turning!
When Hasbro did pack-in reprint IDW comics with their Transformers figure, those comics got special variant covers to set them
apart and make them special. Page Punchers does this too, technically, but not really. Like we said (or at least implied), Bebop comes with the Bebop and Rocksteady issue of TMNT Villain Micro-Series, but it's just the regular mass market Tyler Walpole cover with a different IDW logo and "Page Puncher Edition" in a text box up in the corner. Pretty lazy, all things considered. It's a good story, showing what Bebop and Rocksteady (or "Genealdo and Maxence," I suppose; their "gang names" are just ones they picked for themselves, and everybody they know finds the idea stupid) were like before they were mutated, and why they're so dedicated to the Foot Clan, but a minimal change to the cover is unimpressive.
In every prior incarnation, Bebop and Rocksteady have been total dopes, bumbling joke characters who couldn't do anything right. And the thing is, the IDW versions still are, they remain very dumb, but they also manage to be extremely intimidating, dangerous, and actually scary. When they appear, it's not "oh gee, here are these two clowns again," it's suddenly a dire situation. There's a reason the two of them alone can take on all four Turtles! Unfortunately, the Page Punchers Rocksteady isn't as cool as this Bebop (his colors are too dark and flat, meaning the toy doesn't look good), so I probably won't be completing the duo unless there's a repaint. Bebop himself is fine, for a McFarlane figure, but the 5" scale means he can't harass any of my other TMNT figures.
-- 05/28/26
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