NECA Toys is a company that is known for making high quality figures for the specialty collectibles market. They strive to bring collectors all of their specific fan-favorite versions of all of their favorite characters from all of their favorite movies, which is no easy feat! This year at New York Toy Fair, NECA looks to have gone above and beyond any expectations that collectors may have had by bringing us a plethora of new products and product lines, the likes of which many could have never seen coming!
Due to the broad spectrum of products that NECA produces, we’re going to separate these out into a few different categories as we go through all of their awesome new reveals from the show!
1:4th Scale Figures
For their quarter-scale line of figures, NECA has pulled out all of the stops this year! We are getting a full line of classic movie styled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, plus heroes from both the movie and comic book sides of the Marvel Universe, Batman Returns, and even A Nightmare on Elm Street! Characters we can look forward to joining the NECA 1:4th scale line include Iron Man (from ‘Iron Man 3’) Captain America (‘Civil War’), Doctor Strange (MCU), Freddy Kruger (‘A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’), Catwoman (‘Batman Returns’), The Penguin (‘Batman Returns’), Daredevil (Marvel Comics), and of course the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990 ‘TMNT’ film versions).
Sci-Fi
On the sci-fi side of things, NECA has blown us all away with a few new reveals from their long running ALIENS and Predator lines, and added an entirely new line of 7″ figure 2-packs that features characters from the DC Universe versus characters from the ALIEN and Predator franchises! These new figure 2-packs are mostly based on some mid-90s comic book crossovers, but are an awesome new way to bring DC Universe figures into the fold at NECA! The first set will include Batman vs. Joker Alien, with sets including Superman vs. Alien and Armored Batman vs. Predator coming a little further down the pipe line with one set releasing each quarter. These figures are all new tooling aside from a few small re-used parts here and there, so they’re a really exciting new line for fans of ALIEN, Predator, and The DC Universe!
From their individual Predator and ALIENS series, we still have plenty to look forward to! For Predator we have the Predator 30th Anniversary line (which we talked about already here), as well as Predator Series 17 (with a quick teaser of the ‘Broken Tusk’ figure that will be in Series 18), and the new ‘Ultimate’ Jungle Hunter Predator! From ALIENS we have Series 11 coming, plus our first look at the new ‘Defiance’ ALIEN from the Dark Horse Comics ‘ALIENS: Defiance’ comic book series who will be in Series 12! NECA has also announced figures for this year’s ‘ALIEN: Covenant’ movie, although there were no photos allowed of these due to an embargo on the new creature designs. Figures confirmed for this line include a Xenomorph and the ‘New Creature’ that has not be revealed yet.
Besides these iconic franchises, NECA also has new products coming from their ‘Terminator’ and ‘Godzilla’ lines! Terminator still has some new Cinemachines vehicles coming based on some classic ‘Hunter Killer’ designs! Meanwhile, fans of ‘Godzilla’ can look forward to the new ‘Shin Godzilla’ 7″ figure from the King Of Monsters most recent appearance, as well as ‘Atomic Breath’ Godzilla (which is based on his appearance from 2001).
Horror & Monsters
NECA has long been a favorite for horror fans, and with good reason! THey’ve always got something cool in store for horror fanatics, and this year they did not disappoint! They have new products from ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’, ‘Evil Dead’, ‘Gremlins’, ‘Preacher’, and ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’!
From ‘A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors’, we’ve got a life sized Freddy Kruger Marionette prop! This was made using the mold from the original prop seen in the movie, and may very well be one of the creepiest props that they have produced yet!
‘Gremlins’ fans can rejoice as NECA has ‘Ultimate Gizmo’ and the new Mohawk Gremlin (based on his ‘Gremlins 2’ appearance) coming down the pipeline soon! This new ‘Ultimate’ Gizmo incorporates all the best aspects of previously released Gizmo figure, and Mohawk Gremlin has never been released before in his proper color scheme (originally released only as 8-Bit colors).
NECA is giving us a few new one-off horror releases, rather than full lines. We’re getting a new ‘Friday The 13th Part IV’ Ultimate Jason Voorhees figure, plus new retro-clothed figures of Chucky from ‘Childs Play’ and Leatherface from ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre II’! They also still have some figures coming our way based on AMC’s ‘Preacher’ series.
Last but far from least in their horror lines, NECA has a special new ‘Evil Dead 2’ 30th Anniversary figure pack that comes with a new version of ‘Ultimate Ash’, plus our first ever Deadite Ed figure! There are a ton of great accessories for this set including an opening Necronomicon, the Bone Dagger, alternative heads, and even a wall mountable laughing possessed deer head! If you’re a fan of the more recent ‘Evil Dead’ materials, we’re also getting a ‘Slashy’ puppet replica from ‘Ash vs. The Evil Dead’ season 2!
Gaming
While they look like they’ve dialed back a bit on their gaming products, NECA still had at elast a few surprises in store for long time fans of their products! NECA has announced that they have officially un-cancelled their ‘Team Fortress 2’ line and are going to produce the last three figures in the line so that fans can finally complete the set of characters! We’re also getting a few new figure from the ‘Heroes Of The Storm’ line of Blizzard based gaming figures.
Everything Else
As always, there are a few odds and ends of neat stuff that doesn’t really fall under some of the other product banners. This years non-topical figures include some upcoming holiday releases and new products based on the ‘Rocky’ franchise!
This past holiday season, NECA released a few new retro-cloth styled figures based on some of your favorite holiday classic films like ‘Home Alone’ and ‘National Lampoons Christmas Vacation’! This year they’re looking to continue the trend with figures from ‘A Christmas Story’ as well as a new Chainsaw Clarke Griswold from ‘Christmas Vacation’ to pair with last years standard version!
Finally, we’ve got a few new updated ‘Rocky’ Ulimate figures with Apollo Creed joining the line in the next few weeks. Probably the most interesting (and obscure) release is the pair of new ‘Rocky’ maquettes that are based on a series of Brisk Iced Tea commercials from the early 2000’s. We aren’t entirely sure who these are being released for, as it’s an incredibly obscure niche market type of item, but it’s a pretty cool pop culture throwback that we can definitely get behind!
No matter who you are, it looks like there is a little bit of something for everyone in this years offerings from NECA! Be sure to stay tuned to Toy News Tuesday for all of the latest NECA updates!
Jordan is a Toy Columnist & Staff Writer here at ScienceFiction! Journalist, Musician, Toy Collector, and Overall Awesome Guy! For more on Jordan’s thoughts, toys, and wacky adventures, be sure to follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
