Toy Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles X G.I. Joe’ Raphael Has Some Quirks And Some Strengths

As Playmates wraps up their time with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license, they’re going for one last big swing. And what could be bigger than crossing over with one of the 1980s other biggest toy franchises: G.I. Joe.

Earlier this week, we took a look at Michaelangelo in this crossover series. We get a look at Raphael today.

Just as Mikey was merged with Shipwreck, Raph crosses over with another Joe. Roadblock is known as the Joes’ bruiser, just like Raphael. They’re also big softies at heart, though they don’t share many other similarities. Making Raph the Turtles’ chef, just like Roadblock, would be a fun touch for the character.

From a design standpoint, Raph is just like Mikey — it’s a good blend of the characters, but it’s missing a little something. It just needs a little touch of weird. In this case, maybe a menu sticking out of his back pocket, or a miniature frying pan molded onto his thigh would have really stepped it up a notch. Oh and his shoulders felt weirdly over-developed, but that might just be a trick of how I took the photos.

Meanwhile, Raphael has his brother beat for accessories. He gets a helmet (which doesn’t quite fit right, but eh), a Gatlin gun and a tripod for the gun. The gun, however, is not a traditional Gatlin gun — with the ammo belt feeding throwing stars — and the tripod is a trio of sai, with one of the three detaching to be used more traditionally. And the best part is that, thanks to a knob on the end of it, the gun feeds the belt through, allowing it to work in a decent facsimile of the real thing.

For posing, it’s good, not great. I think sizing up the figures slightly would have given Playmates room to do a little more with articulation. However, it’s definitely not bad, with Raph mostly posing in the way I wanted him to. I was even able to kick it up a notch with my flight stand.

These two definitely has me anticipating getting the other two brothers in hand, and wanting to hunt down the villains. It’s a release that easily could have been a gimmick, but absolutely turned into a toy line that’s more than the sum of its parts.