The new Shredder TMNT 2012

In my review of the 2012 version of Ninja Turtles main enemy I gave him quite a bagging due to lack of articulation and loose holding of weapons….  I did manage to completely leave out his lack of Cape…

Luckily for my TMNT collection, I discovered a release of the SDCC 2013 special edition of Shredder hanging about on local stores.  This one I could not refuse to buy!  Why?  CHROME! 

Does the chrome and new sculpt make previous Shredder redundant?


Some ways yes, some ways no.

The box has some very nice artwork of his ever-so-recognisable helmet, some blurb about the limited edition-ness and a short character exposition piece.  Shredder is plastered on a bubble piece and the first thing you notice when looking at the figure is all that shine!  Then that head…. 

Lovely.  There are no ties or anything holding him down, so just pull that sucker out.

Oh, and slap his bits on.

You can see immediately that this guy has a few more paint apps on him.  That cape is just sensational as it manages to add so much to the figure!  What I found most interesting though with this guy, is that it’s a whole new sculpt.  They could have easily reused parts, the chest for example, but when you have a look side by side, you can see there is different armour patterns.  Even his hips (and butt) are new, as is the armour

The helmet comes off and he has a nicely scarred face underneath.  I really like it that they allow you to still see the eyes under the mask!

The cape comes off as well and with it off, comes a good time to compare him to Shredder 1.0

He comes with a sewer cover stand, much like the super articulated classic Turtles and it has his name on it.  With this you can make use of some of his articulation.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Shredder has knees now.  Something I thought was a massive oversight that the original suffered.  With that however I discovered that he still has the same amount of articulated joints. 

Why?

No Elbows anymore…

While this Shredder looks suitably more aggressive and actiony, and possessing some decent joints he’s still not a super duper awesome figure.  Definitely not yet on par with the Turtles.
He has:

• Neck, wrists and waist swivel.
• 360 Degree hinged jointed hips and shoulders.
• hinged knees.

At least he is more sturdy with a wider stance, allowing for better action poses.  Although the missing elbows restrict him somewhat and adding to the hindrance of cool arm positioning is a super weird sculpt of the shoulder.  The joint has been placed at a very curious angle meaning that the left arm is always about to stab, well, something…

his hands are able to hold some weapons, but with all those spikes, extra weapons aren’t necessary.  He can hold the helmet too.  All my whingeing about joints aside though, you can pose him a LOT better than Shredder number 1.

The shoulder pads also pivot out of the way as well, as they do on the first one. 

While this Shredder still isn’t on par with the articulation of the Ninja Turtles (will an enemy ever be I wonder?), he is still a big leap ahead of the first release Shredder.  The cape adds much more to him, the hands seem to hold stuff better, the knees are there and even though he lacks elbows which the first had, it’s not so much a a big deal as to kill the toy.  Plus his battle stance feet are more adaptable than First Shredder’s too.

I am glad they remade Shredder as the first one was a let down.  This one isn’t perfect by any means, but he is a lot better than most of the enemies in this line.  I really like the shiny Chrome and he looks pretty cool just hanging back looking nasty (Thankyou Mr. Cape).  This figure was released in the normal Ninja Turtles line as well, lacking chrome and some different colours, but it still looks fine.  I’d recommend that one if you are after a Shredder as this guy did cost a bit more than normal.  But not much more.