Cobra Commander x Shredder

With Playmates losing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles license at the end of this year, they're currently scrambling to make as much money off it as they can before the end. And since they've fully exhausted the Turtles of Grayskull concept, it's time to swing their partnership spotlight from Mattel over to Hasbro. Absolute power! Total control of the world... its people, mutants, and resources - that's the objective of Cobra. This fanatical leader rules with an iron claw. He demands total loyalty and allegiance. His main battle plan - for world control, starting with New York City - relies on revolution and not-so-bright henchmen. He personally led uprisings in East Manhattan, Staten Island, and other burrows. [sic] Responsible for kidnapping Bebop, Rocksteady and zoo animals then forcing them to drink mutagen ooze! "Cobra Commander is hatred and evil personified. Corrupt to his core. His only love is Turtle soup!" Wow, they are going all in on this mash-up! That filecard - yes, an actual filecard on the back of the box, one you can clip out and save (imagine that, Hasbro! Amazing what you can achieve when you're not too cowardly to ignore the wishes of Chris Cocks!) - takes the vintage Cobra Commander bio and "Turtlizes" it, adding a little bit from the vintage Shredder as well. And the rest of the packaging is just as much of a blend of ideas, featuring full, painted art of the character (like GI Joe), a "broken brick wall" pattern (like TMNT) and putting the toy in front of a backdrop that's a multi-shaded explosion, but done in mutagen green instead of ordnance red. So incredibly fun! And this pairing truly is one of the most seamless pairings we've seen lately. Cobra Commander and Shredder mix together like they were made for it, with CC's silver faceplate matching Shredder's mask perfectly, and Shredder's usual helmet looking absolutely right in Cobra blue. If someone told you this was some kind of strange Cobra Commander variant from the tail end of the ARAH line, you could believe them. The character is wearing Cobra Commander's uniform, with the military jacket and the stirrup pants with the stripe down the outside of the leg. But the jacket is now sleeveless, because Shredder loves to show off his arms even when he shouldn't, and he's wearing his iconic bladed armor on his shoulders, forearms, hands, and shins. A short loincloth hangs from his belt, like Shredder would have, and although the cape is purely a Shredder thing, it honestly suits Cobra Commander quite well, so no one would fault you if you thought that was from the Joe side of the property. A small section of the forearm above the armor but below the elbow is done in the same blue as the cloth it's next to when the sculpt makes it clear it's supposed to be skintone, but would this really be a TMNT toy if paint weren't ignored somewhere? He has Shredder's logo on his belt and the Cobra symbol on his chest, but it's honestly a little surprising they didn't do anything clever to redesign that - you know, like put a Foot Clan logo in the center of it or something. If you were hoping to integrate this figure with your GI Joe collection - any GI Joe collection - we have bad news for you. Playmates has decided to keep the line at TMNT's usual 5" scale (which is why we're listing these on our Reviews page under T and not under G). That was fine with Turtles of Grayskull, because that was the general size of Masters of the Universe anyway, but GI Joe has never been this size. Do them at 4", and they'd fit in with the first 30+ years of the Real American Heroes; do them at 6", and they'd fit with Classified; but at 5" tall... well, I guess that's good news for the people who are really into the 90s' GI Joe Extreme? Of course, the articulation would still betray any potential crossover there - those old figures were basically pre-posed bricks! CCxS has swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, balljointed hips, swivel wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell head. You'd think he would have a waist behind that belt, but no. That's honestly a decent amount of movement for this scale of toy, and using PVC for his cape and loincloth mean they don't block the joints. Most of his weapons are Shredder's, but he does includes Cobra Commander's familiar chunky round pistol (here dubbed a "Retro-Mutagen Ray"). Other than that it's a katana, two shuriken, a "fist dagger," and a kyoketsu-shoge, the knife-thing with the extra, hooked blade coming off it near the base. The figure doesn't have any weapon storage, so he can only use whatever will fit into his two hands at one time. One benefit of the smaller size is a smaller pricetag - despite Playmates having to pay licensing fees to Hasbro, and thus that getting added onto the base price, these retail for only $15 (though it was funny watching the two online toy stores put theirs up for 20% right after Target's listings went up - gee, guys, I wonder why people still prefer to buy from actual retailers and not from you?). I was a lot more excisted about these before I knew how little they were, but the designs are done so well that I'm still kind of hooked. -- 07/31/26 Is there a better crossover figure than this? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.