The Footsoldier or ninja is the classic backbone of any evil leader army! The Empire had storm troopers, Bowser had koppa troopers, and The Shredder has the Foot Clan. By definition, a foot soldier is an infantryman who fights on foot, though in this case, the foot is also a symbol of the criminal organization that attempts to control NYC.
At first, the Foot clan is mostly human ninjas that do all the wet work, then later they are replaced with robot Foot ninjas that are basically Swiss army robot ninjas with a bazillion weapons. Either one is no real trouble for the turtles, but rule #1 of minion club is that the heroes have to have some weak enemies to beat up and show off their awesome moves!
The figure is one of the first releases and is of a pretty basic design. I have to say they are much improved compared to the 80s cartoon. The purple uniforms and oddly shaped heads didn't do it for me so much! The black costumes with red bandannas and eye mesh masks remind me a bit of the live action movies from the 90s. A nice feature on these guys is the crossed dual sheaths that hold both the shorter blade and longer ninja sword. They also come with two four-point shurikens and a comparable amount of posability as that of any of the villain character figures.
Sculpt&Paint: 3/5 Not a lot is missing here in terms of paint and sculpt, though there's not a lot of details or extras compared to their cartoon appearances.
Articulation: 2/5 (14 points): They have the typically wide range of motion hips and shoulder joints, a mid forearm-swivel as well as head,waist and wrists. If it counts, the detachable sheathes on the back can shift around.
Price/Availability: 3/5 Surprisingly, the original non-mecha type foot soldier from the show isn't as easy to find as the turtles and can be quite a bit more expensive, especially with shipping. As of this writing, the price is quite ridiculous on Amazon, there are none at BBTS, and some are available on eBay at upwards of 150% their MSRP.
Accessories: 2/5 The Footsoldier comes with his sheaths (separate mostly to conserve packing space), a sword and a shorter blade all in the same straight ninja-to style.
Fun Factor: 2/5 Honestly I don't do a lot with this figure other than battle scenes with the turtle. I can see a collector who had bought a bunch of Foot clan ninjas at the start who might make more interesting photo ops or stop motion pieces. In the typical style of the old toys, they sculpted one foot that is raised on its toe, which makes it a bit poorly balanced and can fall over occasionally.
Verdict: 12/25 Personally as an adult collector if I had known of some of the great channels out there that review toys (Toy Galaxy, Pixel Dan, Anthony's customs, Kenohwee Channel, Daredevil 19 etc), I would never have started the line. Minions are great for a toy battle scene, but only if you are collecting either a bunch of them, villains or something in between. Foot Soldier loses again!
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| Sheaths from the back |
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| Close up! The foot logo is a nice touch if slightly off center. |
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| The accessories |
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| Throw! |
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| Minion down! |
See, I was going to say he needs more purple :) but the bent toes are a weird homage to the original figures which are more terrifying now than they seemed when I was kid. I like how the ninja clan is called the Foot because Daredevil fought the Hand.
ReplyDeleteHaha. Yeah, apparently according to a wiki they were written that way intentionally after the Daredevil comics' The Hand group. Crazy!
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