I recently found some
Mighty Mutanimals comics at the Flea Market and was impressed by the insanity of those early nineties Archie comics that took the TMNT and supporting characters and, well, pretty much went as looney as they could with the storylines presented therein. Seriously, that stuff is plain nuts!
The Mighty Mutanimals are a groups of, well, mutant animals that have all sorts of weird space adventures saving the world while flying around in a giant talking cow's head and stuff like that there. The team in the comics included two characters that never made it to toy form:
Jagwar, a Brazilian Jaguar-man, and
Dreadmon, a Jamaican wolf-man. The team also consists of the four individuals you see above, who did make it to toy form during the classic TMNT Playmates action figure run.
I've had most of these guys in my TMNT collection for some time now, but after reading their mad-cap adventures I wanted to get the whole gang together (or at least all the gang that made it to toy form!)
My team collection was missing
Ray Fillet (aka Man-Ray in the comics) for a long time, but a recently completed trade with Derek of
Goodwill Hunting for Geeks finally netted him for me (get it? Netted - Because he's a fish!?!? HAHAH!
Mondo Gecko is also a member of the Mighty Mutanimals. I had this guy with his skateboard a while ago, but I think I got rid of him. Thankfully I found him again and although he doesn't have the skateboard he was released with, I did have another TMNT skateboard just lying around for him to borrow.
Probably my favorite member of the Mighty Mutanimals is
Wingnut and his partner
Screwloose. Wingnut's wings and belt are removable, and often lost when you find him second-hand. His partner Screwloose is also an integral member of the Mutanimals and not just a throw-away accessory. So even though I see incomplete Wingnuts at the Flea Market from time to time, this was one I had to have complete. A few years ago I bought this guy MOC off eBay and tore him open immediately. He's such a cool Batman analogue. The comicbook version of Wingnut looks very different from this guy, and honestly I much prefer the toy version. I'm sure there were copyright concerns, or they just wanted to move this guy's characterization further away from the visual Batman joke he is in his toy form.
And last but not least there's...hey...where'd he go?
Oh, apparently Leatherhead was in need of some dusting.
Lastly but not leastly: Leatherhead! In the cartoon, Leatherhead was a villain. In the Archie comics, he began as a confused 'villain' manipulated by Shredder et al into battling the Turtles, but soon became a heroic force for good and joined with the Mighty Mutanimals. I have always loved this Cajun Gator-man; he's such a fun toy with his alligator like posture and chomping maw. I much prefer considering this guy a hero and not a villain. The Mighty Mutanimals are glad to have him in their ranks!
Well there you have it, my Mighty Mutanimal collection. If you want to read a bit more about the Mighty Mutanimals and how they nearly became a cartoon, check out
TMNT Entity's blog post, which includes proposed animation designs and some cool looking villains and vehicles that would no doubt have eventually become toys had the cartoon come into existence.