My San Diego Comic Con 2016
exclusive items have begun turning up, I’m excited even if one of them is for a
line that’s already been cancelled. Today that’s not relevant though so I can
just be excited, in this case about Kidrobot’s exclusive for their 8-inch vinyl
range, which was a shared exclusive with Toys R Us; it’s only a fucking
Triceraton innit?
I mentioned more than once
in my Top 30 TMNT Stories post that I’m pretty sure the Triceratons are my
favourite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles villains, there’s a lot of reasons for
that including the fact that I just really like dinosaurs but the only one we
need to focus on now is how much kid me loved the Triceraton action figure from
Playmates. I adored this figure, a triceratops man dressed like something from
a Care Bears production of Mad Max who was also the same colour as processed
cheese, I respect that may not be selling him the best but his colours, his
outfit and his dinosaurness was the three things that endeared him to me and I
like being honest. I treated him like his own character rather than the random
army builder he was supposed to be (effectively I treated him the same as the
character who became Mohzar) and he was a major villain in my play, equal to
the Shredder and Krang, and this was before I read the Mirage comics. My
affection has never really abated and Playmates’ Triceraton remains amongst my
favourite action figures. This gushing has a point: Kidrobot’s exclusive is the
Playmates version of the Triceraton, metal bra and all!
So getting to the point:
the review itself – these 8-inch Vinyl figures are just blown-up versions of
Kidrobot’s blind box vinyls and work the exact same way, a common body with a
unique head sculpt and three points of articulation – swivels at the neck and
shoulders – the only real difference other than size is that the larger
figures’ arms don’t pop out so easy, they must have longer pegs or something. I
am all for this, it keeps a visual consistency but more so I just get this tiny
thrill out of seeing something exactly the same but in a different size, I have
had this weirdness for as long as I can remember (those vintage Thundercats
mini-figures are like E to me), I have no way of explaining why I’m so
fascinated by this but I’m sure it’s linked to why I like repaints so much. So
there’s not really much to review right? OR IS THERE? First up is headsculpt -
which is fantastic, though obviously stylized to keep with the look of the line
they’ve got all the beats down, the ridged beak and eyebrows, the segmented
head frill and the look of being completely pissed off about your very
presence, they’ve even put the little bandage on his left horn, significant
because it means Kidrobot can’t use this head sculpt for a generic Triceraton
later on (if they wanted to). They could have easily have left the bandage off
and saved some money in the future but instead they decided to throw it in and
I appreciate it, they put accuracy over money and it makes the figure feel that
much more to me. He comes with a gun but it’s reused from Rocksteady, a bit of
a let-down as the Triceraton had his own unique blaster in the toyline and the
Tirceratons have their own signature gun in other media, I’d much preferred to
have seen either Kidrobotosized but I’m guess it was a budgetary thing and they
win praise for making the gun blue-grey (the original figures’ weapons were
cast in blue plastic). As with all Kidrobot figures you can’t have him actually
point the thing though because his heads in the way, still at least his arm
doesn’t pop out when you try I guess (yes this is a stupid design element and
one they should bloody well have thought of, it’s just I’m mostly over caring
about it now).
We can also be anal and
compare him to the original figure, yeah let’s do that. His body is virtually
perfect, they’ve added some silver pouches to his belt but I prefer it, it
helps to make his trousers look more military issue and less like he stole them
off a builder from ‘Jersey on the way to fight the Turtles. They’ve painted him
a tail on the back too, this is where I wish Kidrobot had more than one body,
they could really do with one that they could attach unique tails too. Most
off-model are his gauntlets, not only are they no longer asymmetrical (about
84% of the vintage Playmates line was asymmetrical, the Mirage staff even make
a joke about in, I think, the Turtle Power documentary) but they’re just
completely a different design, they remind me of arm socks. I like arm socks,
but the amount I like arm socks is really directly proportional to how adorable
the girl wearing them is, as the Triceraton is not adorable, and not a girl for
that matter, I wish they’d kept the original badass gauntlet design, I wonder
why they didn’t? But honestly the change that’s taking me the longest to adjust
to? He has no pupils. Sure this makes him look way, way more threatening and it
works better with the art style Kidrobot uses (Rocksteady has pupils and it
looks a little dopey, especially on the small figure) but I still haven’t quite
got used to seeing this design without pupils. The only other discrepancy if
that the beige on his head frill should be grey according to my figure but I’m
looking on Google Images and seeing that the greyness fluctuates from
figure to figure, so I think I’ll let ‘em off.
 |
| "TRAITOR!"* |
* I couldn't find my Cave Turtles Leo for this photo so it's not quite as good as I imagined it.
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