For the past few years, Transformers has the king of crossovers, creating new figures as they collaborate with Ghostbusters, Top Gun, Back to the Future, and most recently Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with the aptly named Party Wallop. In fact, I wrote a whole list of other crossovers I’d love to see Transformers do. While some of their crossover figures have been repaints of previous figures, mostly these are new designs or at least extensive remolds of other ones. TMNT isn’t a slouch with their own crossovers, having released figures with Stranger Things and Street Fighter, but those have just been two-packs with normal-looking TMNT figures. Things are different now with the Turtles spending some time on Eternia–each of the Masters of the Universe and Turtles characters gets brand new figures and designs.
I picked up the main bad guys of the line–Skeletor, Shredder, and Krang. The figures all share the tooling and excellent articulation with Mattel’s Origins line, fitting perfectly in with the other Masters of the Universe figures, and they honestly look fantastic on the Turtles figures as well. Each figure comes with original removable armor and weapons (except for Shredder’s crossbow, which is a little disappointing). While we’re on the subject, let’s start with the Turtles’ terror himself.
Originally, I wasn’t too keen on Shredder’s design. It has a lot of features from Shredder’s previous designs—the Foot Clan insignia and all the blades on his shoulders, forearms, wrists and shins. The helmet has a similar look as well, and all the armor has extra details, making it look a little more in line with Eternia’s fantasy setting. However, there was nothing really new featured here. It was just Shredder, but a little rougher. The axe he comes with was a nice touch, but I would have preferred he come with a sword instead of a generic crossbow. I also didn’t like how to put on the crossbow, which could bend the soft plastic of Shredder’s blades. The cape he wears is also a soft plastic, but compared to Skeletor’s, it’s certainly missing some character. He looks pretty good next to NECA’s Shredder but gives me a lot more vibes of the original toy and not the cartoon design.
Skeletor, on the other hand, excited me from the first time I saw it. Seeing the Master of Destruction with a samurai motif was pretty cool, and he came with some brand-new weapons I’d never seen before. Everything about him stood out as original for this line. Even his colors look new with so much neon green. I’m not a huge fan of the more muted blue-gray color of the figure, but I guess the usual bright blue might not have looked as good with the neon green armor accents. His cape and wrist guards can all come off, and I was surprised to see the chain between his skull-chuks wasn’t just one solid piece. Unfortunately, there’s so much flash on the chain, I was afraid I’d break all the links trying to separate them. Skeletor also comes with a canister of ooze, which is kinda cool, but it could have had better Eternian details or something. Of course, Skeletor shares the same tooling and articulation with his Origins brethren, but he sure looks a lot more menacing.
Krang is the largest figure from the set and that’s not just because of the extra cage in his waist. Krang’s design has the biggest change of the three from his original figure, sporting a dark green color scheme and an almost jail-like door for holding Krang inside. The waist compartment can be removed from the figure, and Krang himself can be removed from the compartment. Krang’s body is a lot smaller than other Krang figures I have, and doesn’t have a lot of detail, but he’s still soft plastic and easily fits inside with his tentacles sticking out. Krang comes with an axe and a flail that you can swap out with his hands. The chain here is so much better than on Skeletor’s weapon, but the axe looks pretty boring compared to Shredder’s. Standing next to NECA’s figure, he looks even more imposing.
Shredder and Skeletor both came with mini-comics that tell the story of how the two universes crossed over, but the comic that came with Shredder is missing all of its text bubbles. I’m not sure how that happened, but the story’s easy enough to follow along without it. Krang, unfortunately, only came with a character card. Also included in the figures, which I can’t say I’ve seen before, are instructions on how to swap out different body parts to create your own figures. I don’t remember that coming with my first Origins Skeletor, but it did come with my Cartoon Collection Skeletor.
The only downside I have for the figures, and I would say this about the Origins line as a whole, is the constant thumbs-up hands. I know it’s in line with the design from the very beginning, but another pair of hands would be really nice, especially with Krang’s giant mitts. But considering the low cost of the figures, I can’t complain too much. They still feature better articulation than higher-end figures and can stand on their own without worrying that they’ll fall over at a moment’s notice.
Overall, these characters are a great addition to my collection. I’d love to see more crossovers like these, where each of the characters gets tweaked to match the other aesthetic. I’m still waiting on my TigerSharks/Street Sharks crossover. Jawsome!
If you want more cartoon bad guys running around with each other, check out my books Old School Evil and Old School Evil: The Rejects on Amazon, or go to my site www.oldschoolevil.com.
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