Super 7 TMNT figures

I don't think I buy from any company because I'm a fan of the company. If I buy something, it is because I want it, not to support a company of keep a line alive. The difference with Super 7 is that, if I'm buying their product, it is in spite of the company making it. I've always viewed them as ridiculously overpriced, so I know I'm going to pay a premium that in no way goes toward the quality of the product.

Unfortunately, I don't see anyone else doing something like Silverhawks or Thundercats, so despite my frustrations with their prices and some of their figures, I keep buying. Having characters I care about represented on my shelves makes it worth it to me. And not everything they make is bad, I quite like some of their animated Reaction figures (in spite of being overpriced), their essentially life-sized Pinky and the Brain turned out pretty cool, and Kang and Kodos from the Simpsons line are pretty impressive.

Regardless of my feelings on the company, I'm bummed about more people in the toy industry who have lost their jobs and hope they rebound soon. I was really surprised that Kyle Wlodyga was among the layoffs, the (apparently) lead guy on their biggest property, TMNT. He seemed like a good guy who had passion for what he was doing. I wonder if anyone left their has a passion for the products they are putting out, and I question how long Super 7 will exist in it's current form as an action figure producer.
 
but I think most hover around "adequate" IF you don't factor price into the equation.
But does anyone do that? I imagine you'd have to have a LOT of money and/or very few expenses in life for price not to be a factor when determining quality. That being said, bad quality is still bad quality and a 10 dollar toy can still suck. I think that's an issue with Super7 -- even if they were less expensive, the quality issues wouldn't be acceptable because a lot of the time they're not directly explainable by a higher or lower price - just stupidity and laziness.


I think that's mostly true today, but as recently as a couple of years ago, I think Super7 did have a pretty dedicated, loyal, fanbase that bought a lot of what they put out. Either because of their past relationship with Mattel, unique licenses, or maybe people just liked the marketing and Brian, there used to be a lot of defenders online even as criticisms started to rise. I remember when wave 1 of the turtles showed up on some guy's YouTube early and he complained about the quality and collectors rushed to defend Brian and Super7. Turns out, that guy's experience was basically the same that everyone would have. Years of that kind of quality, cancellations, and rising prices seem to have eroded that brand loyalty and now you can shout all kinds of negative stuff about Super7 on social media and no one shows up to defend them.
Bang on. I think, also, people just WANTED the Ultimates stuff to be good. They wanted it to be good so badly that they were willing to -pretend- it was good for a certain amount of time. I think if S7 had cleaned up their act and just made better toys, most people would retroactively defend early figures as being better than they actually are, because the line as a whole is good.

Once the people started to realize that defending Super7 and giving them time to adjust didn't actually matter and Super7 didn't care enough about its customers to make improvements, then people started to abandon defending them, if not abandon the product entirely.

As I've said many times - every single failure on Super7's part has been deeply earned. I don't think I've seen a toy company that cared so little. Even Bobby Fucking Vala cares more about what his customers say than Super7 does. And that, my friends, is truly BONKERS.
 
As someone who's favorite action figure line of all time remains MOTU Classics I will freely admit to being a fan and occasional defender of Super7 with regards to Ultimates. I, for example, was happy they mostly stayed with the articulation established in Classics and I still don't care that there have been innovations in articlation they don't use if the look and feel hews close to Classics. Additionally, I have talked with Brian at length multiple times at SDCC and other places and never got the shameless huckster vibe he gives off in those YouTube 'interviews'.

That being said Ive also freely acknowledged the many, many shortcomings throughout the Ultimates line.

Honestly, their output that strayed too far from the Classics template they started from - Disney, Simpsons, Transformers, 2001, TMNT - has been shockingly bad. Thankfully, thats not the stuff I buy, so it impacted me much less, but there is no excuse for premium figures to have as many flaws as so much of their output has.

Nevertheless I still enjoy their fantasy/sci-fi output, especially Thundercats and Silverhawks and the upcoming comic Conan and Kull, and would happily remain a customer for Tiger Sharks, or if they got the rights to properties like Blackstar, Thundarr, Herculoids, etc.

But this is the TMNT thread and their TMNT output has been wildly inconsistent and mostly disappointing... though I admit to enjoying my recent Rat King with the modern head.

So, I get why they get they hate that they do and it is deserved, but I remain 'in' if they release stuff from the properties I want in a style and size consistent with my Classics/Ultimates collection
 
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As someone who's favorite actio figure line of all time remains MOTU Classics I will freely admit to being a fan and occasional defender of Super7 with regards to Ultimates.
Not that you need defending, but in your defense; I think you're probably the most well-reasoned and reasonable members of the Super7 Defense Team I've really encountered. You defended Super7's output generally, but I don't think you ever told people they were wrong in their criticisms, and I never saw you defend bad output or make excuses for it. It's perfectly fair to look at a bad figure you don't own or care about and say 'oof, that sucks, anyway - I like my ThunderCats figures.'


happy they mostly stayed with the articulation established in Classics and I still don't care that there have been innovations in articlation they don't use if the look and feel hews close to Classics.
I think I'm one of the rarer critics of Super7 in that my criticism was never really that they didn't innovate or make 'modern' figures, but rather that they didn't do well what they were doing. The tired old argument of 'yes, you can have single-jointed elbows, but they can work better than this.' Or the argument that, despite there being LOTS of room to create the clearance, Turtles have worse ROM in the neck than many old MOTUC figures.
That's actually always been my biggest complaint about S7, even beyond the QC problems; that they just didn't care enough to engineer the figures well to make the best use of the style and articulation they were choosing.

That is to say - I actually agree completely that there is nothing wrong with them sticking to the MOTUC style and articulation, for the most part. I do think it was a weird decision to try to make giant 7" Simpsons figures, for example, but that's neither here nor there since those failed as miserably as predictably. But overall, making your ThunderCats figures fit stylistically with your MOTU figures is about as good a decision as you can make, I think.

Although it's probably also fair to say that cleaving to that for Turtles was probably more hindrance than benefit.


Nevertheless I still enjoy their fantasy/sci-fi output, especially Thundercats and Silverhawks and the upcoming comic Conan and Kull, and would happily remain a customer for Tiger Sharks, or if they got the rights to properties like Blackstar, Thundarr, Herculoids, etc.
I know an apparently large amount of people don't care, but I will NEVER forgive Super7 for making Conan's Atlantean sword fucking gigantic. If they had done that right, I actually would probably own the entire Conan line, despite my Super7 hatin'.


But this is the TMNT thread and their TMNT output has been wildly inconsistent and mostly disappointing... though I admit to enjoying my recent Rat King with the modern head.
Inconsistent is the best way to put it. You've got figures that articulate okay but QC is bad. You've got decent QC but terrible ROM. You've even got a couple of figures that, within the scope of what they're willing/trying to do, are actually pretty decent overall (Rocker Leo is so good). Maybe that's what brings out so much anger for me. They were always so close to putting out stuff that would have made them one of my favorite toy companies, and instead they just... didn't. Often, seemingly, for no good reason at all.
 
That review posted earlier had me really regretting my decision to order these Turtles but in hand I have to say they look and feel a lot better than his review made them look. Even he admitted his temporary lighting was terrible but it wasn't doing them any favors.

The way they pose and feel remind me of Super 7's Hachiman Thundercats figure who I think it probably the best figure Super 7 has done.

They aren't perfect, but Super 7 never is. They pose well and feel much sturdier than the earlier Playmates inspired Turtles. They are definitely the best Turtles Super 7 has done.

My only real complaint is that at some angles the green skin looks hazy. That's under my living room lights so I'm curious to see what they look like under my display lights. I think it may just be their matte paint which is almost like a satin type paint. I know they caught a lot of complaints from figures being too shiny in the past.

I'll take some pics soon. Currently doing prep for tomorrow's colonoscopy and if you've done that, well, you know how that goes.
 
A couple of quick shots.
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These look good and the best 2003 version available currently. I think I'll grab a set but wait until they drop in price like they tend to after a year or so.
 
Here is my set with the AoA Colosuss bandanna tails mod on the four turtles. I think this looks a lot more accurate to the animation now. The only downside is that the the tails had to be glued on because the knots were a little too large to fit inside the holes in the backs of their heads and I didn’t want to mod them because I was worried that might weaken the soft plastic of the tails. So it’s a permanent mod but one that I don’t mind making

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2003 TMNT by lionpride75, on Flickr

TMNT 2003 by lionpride75, on Flickr

Having messed around with them for a bit now, there's no big QC issues that I have noticed. Leo does like to fall over just because his ankles are a smidge too tight, but otherwise I'm happy to have the 4 brothers. Don't know if I need anyone else from the 2003 line though.
 
In photos, Mike's orange and Raph's red look too similar.
 
Granted, I'm not particularly attached to this version of TMNT. But I gotta be honest... they don't even look that good. They don't even look the original 45 dollars good, let alone 55. In a $20 sale bin, I'd probably still shovel past these to get to the Marvel Legends or SWB figures.
 
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