Best/Worst of Playmates 2012
 

Now that the TMNT 2012 Playmates toy line has come to an end, I thought it would be fun to see everyone's best/worst list! It was such a diverse toyline quality-wise, with some truly incredible figures and some utterly horrendous ones.

For my list, I omitted anything that wasn't on the show (since it would automatically clog the "worst" list). I also separated the Turtles into a "best" and "worst" (I don't think any Turtles would make my "best" list, but they sure would have spammed my "worst" list).

With that in mind, here's my Best/Worst list:



BEST:
5. Metalhead - This figure was neck and neck with Usagi, but Metalhead just flawlessly captures one of my favorite 2012 updates to a classic character. It also had a fantastic balance between paint and colored plastic, making him a great looking action figure.

4. Rocksteady Mutations Mix & Match - Ok, this one is oddly specific, but hear me out! The Mix & Match Rocksteady is a great sculpt, but it also has a far more show-accurate scale to him, which is rare in this line. The ball-jointed legs and arms also give him far better posability than the basic figure.

3. Tiger Claw - The sculpt on the figure isn't quite show-accurate, but DAMN is it awesome looking! Good articulation and a pretty solid paint job, it really does a awesome job capturing one of 2012's best additions to the TMNT mythology.

2. Karai - This figure is perfect. Excellent sculpt, excellent paint job, and great articulation. It perfectly captures one of the show's best characters, and it's disappointing that Playmates had to be publicly shamed into making this figure.

1. Shredder (with Removable Helmet) - No other figure captures the character as well as this Shredder. It's on model, it's to scale, it's well articulated, and you can remove his helmet to see his scarred face. This would be one of my top TMNT figures of all time.

Honorable mentions:
Fugitoid, Usagi Yojimbo, Dimension X Casey

Best Turtles:
Super Shredder TMNTs - These figures look SO BADASS. The do a great job of capturing these in-show alternate costumes, they have an excellent paint job, and they show a lot of restraint with adding extra red/blue/orange/purple, allowing them to look like stealth ninjas. I love these costumes, and I love how these toys bring them to life!



WORST:
5. Mozar - Not a bad sculpt, but it's a really poor representation of a great character design. It fails to capture everything cool about Mozar, from his scale to his posture. What a disappointing figure.

4. Dogpound - A terrible toy for one of my least favorite 2012 designs. Poor Dogpound never had a chance.

3. 80's Rocksteady - This looks like a custom figure I would have made in 8th grade. The base figure is the basic Rocksteady, which already has articulation and scale issues, but they make everything worse with cheap looking add-ons and a uniformly sloppy paint job. I hate this figure.

2. Attila the Frog - What else is there to say? It looks like an $8.99 McDonald's toy.

1. Super Shredder - You have to work really hard to be a worse figure than Attila, but jeez, Super Shredder makes it look easy. The usual pitfall of this line is either scale or paint issues, but this is one of the most horrendous sculpts of any TMNT action figure. True, it's a challenging design to adapt to an action figure, but Super Shredder literally fails on every single level.

The sculpt is simplified in strange ways, giving him a heart that looks like a squashed fruit and a soft, squishy face. The neutral pose of the figure has no personality, but there's such poor articulation that it's impossible to put the figure in an interesting pose. In addition to that, the scale is terrible. The only "plus" to this figure is the admittedly high amount of paint, but even that is done so poorly that details like the heart look sloppy and ridiculous.

It really just fails on every single level. It looks like they gave this assignment to an intern who has no talent or future in the toy industry, then gave that intern 1/2 the time they needed. This is truly the worst possible interpretation of one of my favorite 2012 designs

Worst Turtles:
Vision Quest - These figures were heartbreaking. I love the Vision Quest designs in the show, but these figures just failed to capture what was great about them. Even though the base figures are the goofy looking Battle Shell Turtles, the sculpts actually look pretty great. However, unlike the Super Shredder TMNTs, Playmates went crazy with adding extra blue/red/orange/purple, ruining the subtlety of the designs.

And worse, these figures are the most egregious examples of Playmates slacking on the paint job. Usually it will be a strap or minute sculpted detail that's unpainted, but these figures look to be entirely unpainted outside of face details. These should have (and easily could have) been great figures, but instead just look terrible and offensively lazy.



I'd love to see how other people would rank their best/worst figures of the 2012 toyline!

-JJ

Dimension X April is another honorable mention while I don't care for Fugitoid. The Mirage Comic style turtles are horribly executed. Characters like Splinter and Fishface are well done. Leatherhead is waaay too small. Atilla is a joke like you said.

I didn't have the chance to mess with all the toys but this is what I got so far.

Best:

1) Mousers
2) Casey Jones
3) Monster Hunter Leonardo
4)The original 2012 turtles (all four were equally awesome)
5) All the monster turtles

Worst:

1) Krang (just useless and cant stant for anything)
2) Shredder (2nd one released with silly cape)
3) Napoleon Bonafrog (waste of plastic that doesn't stand or bend)
4) Mutagen man (just ugh)
5) 1st April (unbending limbs)

6) MUCKMAN because Playmates sucks for those release numbers

I think there has never been a figure as bad as their Atilla the Frog.
Saying it’s a McDonald’s toy is being unfair to McDonald’s!! Haha!! I just got their JL figures and they are pretty awesome.

Best figure(s) is more difficult.
Over the years I’ve had a number of favorites but I realized that there’s only one set that I gave in my cabinet in my office. So my favorite figures award goes to the recent monster set of Turtles. I can’t say I have a favorite amongst them as I like them all.

Yeah Attila is by far not only the worst figure of the line, but potentially any big action figure line. This is literally the first time I've felt the comparison to a Happy Meal toy was actually appropriate instead of hyperbole... or maybe not. I've got kid's meal toys that are actually better.

And they spelled his name wrong on the box!

My best criteria isn’t based on being posable or show accurate. It’s just how thrilled I was to add the fig to my collection and how personally cool I think it looks.

Top figures:
mondo gecko
napoleon bonafrog
super ninja turtles
raph in wingsuit
leo in stealth disguise
pirate mikey
stockman-fly
savage mikey
lethal robotic foot
newtralizer
lord dregg
all the surprise mini-figs
ninja superstars
80s
monsters

Top Vehicles:
pizza thrower
polaris slingshot

worse vehicles:
mutagen ooze drop copter

worse figures:
I don’t much like some of the figs that came with the vehicles such as hot rod mikey and cloud crusin’ leo.

I included some movie stuff.

The original turtle set they released was the best by far. They had the most articulation and I loved the designs. They re-released them later with the eyes painted in, but I still dig the first white eye set. Also dug the Super Shredder set (which also used the same figure base)

Among the others listed which I agree were all terrible, I was the most disappointed in Splinter. I really loved the 2012 Splinter and the figure was just atrocious. The sculpt or the paint scheme on the face was nothing like the cartoon... Am I alone on that? Also the first April looks like she has a chipmunk head.

Most the turtle figures had white eyes except for a few, also later on they corrected the turtles toes too.
I find it strange that the Super Shredder figure is quite small, it's smaller than the regular shredder figure.

Aside from the 2012 Raphael, I never bothered to collect any of the figures. I'm still looking for Usagi though. By the time I thought about going back and getting the rest of the Turtles, they were rereleased with really ugly repaints where the eyes were bigger and the color of the bandanas were off. Those are probably the worst ones that I have noticed.