Michelangelo

NECA made a figure of Raphael; the Last Ronin was not Raphael. NECA made a figure of Leonardo; the Last Ronin was not Leonardo. NECA made a figure of Donatello; the Last Ronin was not Donatello. Now NECA's made a figure of Michelangelo, so I guess the Last Ronin is... Jennika? Okay, no, we're just kidding, if you haven't deduced it by now, the grim and gritty Last Ronin is former weapons-grade doofus Mikey. He was with Leo and all their friends when the Footbots attacked the sewer lair, but got separated while trying to get April to safety and was thrown out of the building by the subsequent giant explosion. By the time he woke up and made his way back to the location, there was no evidence anyone else had survived, so with nothing else to do, he set out on his own. And that was always the plan, too. In the previous reviews we've talked, sporadically, about how the idea for this comic began in 1987, with Eastman and Laird wanting to do their own Dark Knight Returns, so the contrast between the fun-loving Mikey we knew and the dour version of him in the future was the whole point. The original pitch even said he was going to get sillier before the team fully broke up! Like his brothers, middle-of-the-future Michelangelo wears more clothes than ever before; in fact, for the first time I notice they're all wearing the same kind of tactical vest, just given different accents to personalize them. It's not like Raphael needed loops to hold nunchucks on his chest, after all. There are lots of small pouches all over this vest, and it's worn over a hooded sweatshirt. He has pants that disappear into the wrapping on his shins, and his kneepads are separate pieces that just float over the knee joint, rather than being sculpted on. We've said before that the smartest thing Playmates Toys ever did was assign individual colors, and it's awesome to see how that's carried forward for each of these Last Ronin flashback figures. Like, Michelangelo may wear the same vest as everyone else, but here it's tinted orange instead of being fully brown (which you already know means it's technically the same color, just lighter). The rest of his clothing is all tan or brown, and there are thin black lines used sparingly to create a "comic style" look. Like the other Turtles, Gurjeet Singh has sculpted two heads for this figure. They're both very similar - the standard one is frowning, the alternate has the mouth open slightly like he's grumbling - but they swap easily and both represent where he's at, mentally, at this point in the story. It's interesting that while the brothers can all have fancy new tactical armor to wear, they've let their masks get old and raggedy, like they're just ripped from a larger piece of cloth. After four Turtles in this line (not counting Ronin variants), we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the articulation: swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivels at the top and bottom of the thighs, balljointed hips, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head, plus a swivel that lets the ties on his mask move around. Even with the double knees, you'll have trouble getting the legs to bend past a 45° angle because of the combo of the shape of his pants and the style of his kneepads. He's also got the "hovering arms" everyone else suffers from. Michelangelo doesn't get much in the way of accessories: just his usual nunchucks and four pairs of hands: fists, open, gripping, and holding. The 'chucks have real metal chains, and can store in the loops on his chest very securely, but it still feels like he should have made more. I just don't know what that "more" would have been. Or could have been. The existence of this Michelangelo may be the reason Raphael was the only Turtle to get a "moment of death" variant - I mean, they could have done one for Mikey, but it wouldn't really work the same as the others, would it? Still, it's cool to be able to get a set of all four of them in their flashback outfits, even if they didn't technically all wear them at the same time. -- 02/20/25 What other accessories would you have given this toy? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.