[Lazer]

Had probably a truck load of TMNT figures growing up. I dabbled in He-Man and Thundercats and Transformers but didn't dedicate nearly as much time seeking out those as I did anything TMNT.

Dropped the hobby around the time the X-Men cartoon went off the air, I only collected the core characters from the series and with all my turtles it sat in a trunk until my first nephew was born. He inherited tons of 80's and 90's toys and played with them to death. Around the time super articulation showed up on toys I started seeking out some of the characters I was fond of.

Sure enough my nephew is almost out of high school and I am at least knee deep into 6" Black Series, various DC Universe Batman/Superman stuff, and I got pretty into the Neca 7" movie horror characters. (99.99% of all my McFarlane figures fell to pieces except for that ridiculously cheap af The Maxx figure) so I was glad Neca came to the rescue and fulfilled my dream of having super poseable Aliens and Predators.

Not gunna lie though, I did pick up the random figure over the years but I never collected entire lines of any brand or stock up on tons of any single character. Whatever caught my eye in the moment probably came home with me. And I am grateful that TMNT stayed up to date cos' my nieces are pretty heavy into getting those, along with turtle vehicles.

Figures were just a good source of happiness and I haven't hardened one bit, regardless of the scalper culture entailed in chase collecting, I'm a open and play with or display (I don't play with them anymore I like to pose them and leave them alone). So while my collection never really grows, I pass down stuff every now and then like Marvel Legends so that they don't go to waste if my nephews or someone really wants a figure on the shelf. A good reason to stay in the game and keep collecting.