Vintage TMNT Playmates Toys: General Traag and Baxter Stockman -Sick and Twisted Freaks

So I saved up several weeks of pocket money back  around 1989.

I ride my crappy push bike over thirty minutes across town to the store, get to the aisle, pick up either Mike or Raph with the intention to buy a Turtle.

Only to notice two really cool looking figures next to the Turtles.

General Traag and Baxter Stockman.

I had not yet seen these characters in the cartoon, but the toys captivated me.

I put down the turtle, examines these grotesques lunatics, bought Traag right then and there and went back three weeks later and bought fly Baxter.

General Traag was a WRONG toy… but oh so right, on so many levels, to my monster loving kid brain.

I picked it up in a store called DEKA back when I lived in New Zealand and I could not put it down. I was nine years old and in love with some wonderful monsters. Is it any surprise at age 12 I would watch Cliver Barker’s Hellraiser and fall in love with even more deliciously wonderful monsters known as Cenobites.

The mean face, that snarl, that grizzled expression that reminds me of grumpy Gandfathers and world weary Veterans. That old school take no shit tough world war two era looking tough guy, that pre-pretty boy millennial mobile phone dialing internet bullshit world that didn’t exist back then.

I intended to buy the Turtles, from the cartoon – like a good little mutant consumer. They were the hero’s or some shit.

But when I picked up General Traag, I literally could not stop looking at it and I could not put it down. If you’re a collector – you’ve been there, you’ve had that same experience.

Leaping from someone’s deliriously depraved and demented mind, and right into your hands. Toys of legend. Toys of disgusting ingenuity.

General Traag,  he’s a freakish hideous rock monster soldier dude. He looks a bit Ben Grimm, part Lee Marvin, but more Wild Bunch Ernest Borgnine with that stout frame than anything. Traag is kind of fat and stumpy, there’s weird bugs and shit crawling over him, some alive, some probably dead, or kept for later as snacks. He doesn’t look like the cartoon model and it’s a good thing – the cartoon model was very vanilla. The toy is all personality and detail.

Like the amazing Colossi in PlayStation2 game Shadow of the Colossus, he’s a living …THING, with other things living on him, part Geo-Dude part Super-Soldier-Rockman

His weapons look cool, my favourite being his combat knife. Place that knife in his hands and that grizzled look in his eyes tells you he can and will SKIN YOU ALIVE. I never got that impression from the cartoon version at all. He was just a generic guy. One look in the eyes of the toy however, and you know he’s been places and seen some shit you don’t even want to hear about let alone live through.

There are no shortages of Rock men in old Silver Age comics, and in the Wolf/Murakami TMNT cartoon, it was a shame that Playmates never made the generic Rock Soldier as a troop builder, leaving fans with only Traag to troop build with, who still works in that way, or as a solo character.

SSSHHHRREEDDDEERRRRRRRR!!!!!

Fly Baxter was so ugly, so weird looking. More gruesome and disgusting than the cartoon version, so deliciously specifically detailed with horrible horrible filthy details that belonged in a  horror movie and not in a toy based on a kids cartoon.

So I HAD to buy it.

Scientist Baxter didn’t (and still doesn’t) do much for me. While an unfortunate example of potential covert racism in the Fred Wolf era cartoon the thing is I like is the silly fly version of Baxster more than any other. He was memorably incompetent in the show, and a fun boss fight in the Konami TMNT arcade games.

Mutant Fly Baxter was awesome. Great toy, amazing sculpt. Even more hideous and disgusting than General Traag. He has buzzed around again as a reissue toy (with odd minor changes such as smaller wings) and a lovely version made it into the Super 7 Ultimatessssss line.

This is stuff for maniacs. Who approved this despicable toy?

I’ll get you Shreddeerrrrrssssszzzz!

IMAGE CREDITS

Baxter and Traag fan art Warner C

https://real-warner.deviantart.com/art/Super-Shredder-160025905

FANTABULOUS TOY HAUL 2023 PART#4

Another quick toy haul post, first up is Legacy Arcee and Studio Series 85 Arcee. Bought both on sale and can’t stand either of them. Fairly horrible cheap nasty toys that I will have to put for nothing on ebay as I was too lazy / time poor to take them back for a refund.

Next is Marvel Legends Falcon a very average over used buck, but it was half price and I finally at least have a comic book version of Falcon, and a Blu Ray of some Filmation Batman cartoons.

Pricey imports ahoy! With no leech available in Australia (like 99% of anything Masters) imported one at the usual high prices.

Masterverse Shadow Weaver and Leech are both very nice figures. The base stand so Shadow Weaver can float just off the ground is a nice touch, as are the elbow hooks in the cape so it can sit properly.

Four down, one to go in my BANDAI Sailor Moon Sailor Scouts PVC figs. Well, one more if you include Chibi Moon, I don’t really care about the other side characters so much who pop up now and then other than Chibi Moon. With Venus and Moon this “set” will be complete for me.

Grabbed a Brave and the Bold Omnibus on sale, some fun issues in here.

Pokemon Select background cave theme, and a Bluey set with Go-Kart, both quite lovely and glad to have them in the collection.

That’s it for this short post.

FANTABULOUS TOY HAUL 2023 PART#3

First up in this toy haul is a lovely small dino and a sale price CGI Skeletor figure.

A Studio Series Ironhide / movie version and my second one after the first one shipped was broken in package due to some manufacturing defect in the shoulder joint.

Lio Convoy who looks beautiful and a JADA diecast Jurassic Jeep.

Picked up this heavy metal doll stand that can hold even larger figures like Optimus Primal, Hulk or even bigger DIAMOND Select figs.

Don’t go and crumble it’s time for best of the Royal Rumble. 1988-2002. With vol#4 on the way.

Masterverse Skeletor and Origins Skeletor comparing with the little CGI fella.

Tokka and Rahzar by NECA from TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze. It was around 2-3 years ago these were released, only in America and NECA stopped selling their products in Australia. So there was way too much overstock, that people kept buying and putting on ebay for $300 and upward. Even after all this time they don’t sell at that ludicrous ebay price. Luckily some overstock had been selling out of China, on Ali Express. In the original packaging, at NORMAL retail.

I’m so gratefeul to finally have these figures, as of all possible Turtle movie figures, I have wanted representations of these two since I was a kid, more than anything else from those movies.

Couple of Zurg bots got on sale for half price. A nice size to converted into X-Men Sentinels if I can get an alternate head down the track. Just need to find someone who can 3-D print a right size head for them.

The JADA diecast small stack of vehicles is getting higher. They look so nice in the box I figure leave them in there for now.