Two waves, one franchise, and two very different clocks. Funko ships eight new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pops in December that barely have anything in common, except that each one looks back at a different point in the franchise's past: a movie blowing out thirty-five candles on one side, a five-year-old art style on the other. Between the two, the set leaves one blind spot in common, and not a subtle one.
Secret of the Ooze turns 35, and the mutagen comes back
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze hit theaters in 1991, and it's the movie that finally put a name on how the four brothers came to be: a canister of mutagen spilled into the New York sewers. Fathom Entertainment and Warner Bros. are bringing it back to theaters from March 13 through 19, 2026, for its 35th anniversary. Funko picked the same year to ship its own take on that canister, stripped down to the essentials: four Pops, each suspended inside its own tube, under a line simply called Ooze Canister. That same spill, in the movie, also turns two lab hyenas into Tokka and Rahzar and pushes the head of the Foot Clan into becoming Super Shredder. All three mutations come from the same accident, and none of them made it into this December lineup. Standing in its tube, each turtle reaches close to 14 centimeters, well above a standard Pop's usual size, a height that comes entirely from the container rather than the figure itself.
- Michelangelo – Pop #1971: the group's clown, the one the franchise owes its pizza one-liners to.
- Donatello – Pop #1972: the brains of the four, fittingly the first to work out what's actually inside the canister.
- Raphael – Pop #1973: the hothead of the bunch, visibly unthrilled about being reduced to a bottle.
- Leonardo – Pop #1974: the leader, standing tall in his canister the same way he stands in front of the others.
Black and white is no longer the rare pull
Back in November 2021, Funko had already dressed the four brothers, Shredder, and Casey Jones in that same red-and-grey look pulled from Eastman and Laird's black-and-white comic, but only as a 1-in-6 chase, hiding behind six standard-color Pops numbered 31 through 36. Five years later, that same look is the version actually being sold: no odds to beat, no color counterpart sitting next to it, and its own clean numbering, 65 through 68. The original comic's license counted sixteen figures before this release; it counts twenty now. Every listing also ties the line back to POP! Comics, a cross-franchise sub-label Funko reserves for properties born on paper. The catch: Shredder and Casey Jones, who got the same ink-and-red treatment in 2021, sit this one out. Only the four brothers come back, and once their bases are lined up side by side, they redraw a complete manhole cover.
- Donatello – Pop #65: his base carries the quarter of the manhole that only closes once all four are together.
- Raphael – Pop #66: the same red and grey as the 2021 chase, minus the odds you had to beat to pull it.
- Leonardo – Pop #67: standing on his slice of the same circle, brought back five years on.
- Michelangelo – Pop #68: closes out the set, and with it the full manhole design.
The real gap is the villain who caused it all
Between the two, the comic deco wave wins me over. The manhole-cover idea stands on its own, enough to justify the release even without the lost thrill of rarity. The ooze canister wave is more of a footnote: the same suspended pose four times over, with shell color as the only real variable. The format itself does genuinely change things once it's sitting on a shelf. What both waves share is the same blind spot. The one who actually spilled the canister, and who already wore that same black-and-white ink five years ago, doesn't show up in either December box. A mutagen story without Shredder is an origin missing its cause. All eight figures are currently up for pre-order, with release pegged for December 2026.
#funkopop #tmnt #teenagemutantninjaturtles #secretoftheooze #comicdeco
