The New Marvel Legends thread

Discussion in 'The Toyark' started by DevilzFan, Feb 10, 2006.

  1. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    Agreed with all this. I'm also seeing that the BAF system and many online retailers selling only by the case compounding the problem.

    With the BAF system you lose flexibility over case pack outs. They need to have minimum six different characters. Easy repaints without accessories of d listers like blizzard are friendly to the budget when filling out the assortment.

    Online retail seems to be trending to selling by the case and or set with limited individual figures offered. Collectors buying the case have no need for brick and mortar except to cherry pick popular characters for doubles. Collectors who did not buy the case cherry pick for popular characters because they didn't want the d listers. Kids want the popular characters. This leaves warm pegs of d listers that rarely go on sale because of shared sku/dcpi (or whatever it is).

    Bottom line the wave system and BAF system hurts collectors and kids. Make the BAF a $30 premium figure and have flexibility on the cases. I know this won't happen though.
     
  2. Dr Kain

    Dr Kain Well-Known Member

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    Does Gamestop allow you to return defective figures? I really only need a Venom to do an exchange.
     
  3. smkspy

    smkspy Remember true fans

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    Also, the BAF tends to completely blow the budget on the rest of the wave. It's why we get so make simple repaints or repaints with new head sculpts.
     
  4. Roufuss

    Roufuss Shots

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    I see this mentioned occasionally, but Marvel Legends haven't been for kids in years now. They are sold in the toy aisle, yea, but the high price and unrecognizable characters have made this a collector line for years now. Parents sure aren't going to spend $20 - $25 on a toy these days.

    Stuff like Titan Heroes and Mashers are the kid products now, Marvel Legends is more towards people with disposable income. Kids would rather spend that $20 on app purchases or something else these days.

    If this line was trying to get kids, we'd be seeing a lot more kid friendly characters, not super obscure comic characters.
     
  5. Syn3sthesia

    Syn3sthesia Well-Known Member

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    I bought a second Venom to replace the one I had with a solid white patch on his spider logo (no spider legs). And what do you know, the fng wrist exploded as I attempted to move it. So mad right now.

    1st time this has happened. Not even with the delicate DCUC figs had I experienced this madness!
     
  6. xMostWanted559x

    xMostWanted559x Well-Known Member

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    Photo of wrist? How it explode?
     
  7. agp

    agp Well-Known Member

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    While I agree with you, we've had this debate in the thread before and not gotten anywhere. Ultimately we have no data on who buys what available to us. I wanted to make an inclusive argument against the BAF and wave systems without going down that rabbit hole.

    I think the kid demographics they are aiming for is 10-too old for toys, the comic readers, and the teenage collector. I didn't want to drive anyone away from my point who believes this demographic is driving the line.
     
  8. LigerPrime

    LigerPrime Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, I get what you mean but IMO if its the reverse (more Venoms and less Misty Knight), the same would still happen in my country! XD

    I've seen it before in the other toy lines like the Star Wars Black Series. For example, the Episode VII Storm Trooper was initially short-packed but when its numbers were increased in subsequent releases, it has become a peg warmer.

    Another case in point is the movie Captain America in the Thanos wave and the version in the Giant Man wave. In my country the later was short packed (1 per case) but the latter is now packed 2 per case and currently a peg warmer.

    Yup, there are some paint differences (Thanos wave Cap is in a lighter shade of blue and has the white stripe on the bicep region) but essentially they are the same figure.

    Yeah, that's a very good summation. IMO if the comic versions are obscure, priority should be given to the movie characters.

    Yeah, I have only seen Venom twice and Gwen only once in my part of the world. The tricky part of Venom is the paint job too. I wanted to pick up another Venom but there were scratches on the white spider symbol...sigh...

    Another good point. I wished there was a better way to release the BAF characters because it really affects the budget of the wave.

    That's what I'm worried about and the rate things are going, I doubt I will see ML at retail in my country. Heck, even the Star Wars 6 inch figures are peg warming in my country too. Doesn't bode well...I just hope its because the economy is slowing down and not because folks are losing interest in the line.

    Wowzers! That's a first! Really bad luck on your part! Can you 'glue' back the waist? Because if so, its still redeemable than the 'white blob' with no spider legs IMO.
     
  9. Shin Densetsu

    Shin Densetsu I WILL DESTROY YOU Content Contributor Veteran

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    I think you're absolutely right and I hate current casepacks. Unfortunately retailers order toys like they order anything else; if they're out of mushrooms they order more but if they're out of figures, they do the same but in cases filled with uneven character casepacks(like how we see with 2 of some character but 1 of everyone else in the wave). Nature of the beast I guess but highly outdated.

    Collectors lines at retail have casepacks going against them plus the whole limited market due to higher prices. I wish retailers could just order smaller cases of specific figures rather than big cases with uneven casepacks.
     
  10. Timothy.R

    Timothy.R Well-Known Member

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    it's a shame this industry can't afford to have vendors that pack out their sections every day, like bread vendors. that way, you have a person bringing in the stuff people want, and removing the "stale" product that hasn't sold. oh how awesome that would be lol.. i know it's super impractical, it's just a dream that i have.

    i feel like hasbro just doesn't know their fanbase. at this point with all of these movies, they should know the trends/things people want. and if they don't.. they really need to hire someone to figure it out.

    it's time for them to revamp their system, get to know their fans better, and start producing figures that'll actually sell rather than putting an emphasis on reusing parts and producing figures that don't sell.

    you know, it would be awesome if hasbro did what DCC is doing. make a line of well articulated quality $40 movie figures. if DCC can do something like that, i don't know why hasbro couldn't. just draw a clear line, these over here are for kids, these over there are for fans/collectors/parents who are willing to shell out for them.

    i'm just imagining a line with all 46 iron man armors done with the articulation DCC is using with their movie figures. and those armors re-use a ton of parts, so something like that wouldn't be impossibly expensive for them to create. anyways, they have plenty of characters to choose from that people will buy. plus, i think they might attract some of us who are going overseas to get movie figures.
     
  11. Roufuss

    Roufuss Shots

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    NECA does what you're describing, but I guess they work with a lot less stores (just TRU, I think).

    And Hasbro listens to their fanbase, they just unfortunately cater to the niche market of people who have been collecting this line for years who want the obscure people. Unfortunately, those people just buy cases online and no one else wants the figures. They need to just start offering the obscure characters directly to fans via HTS or something. They are doing it with Groove, do something similar here.

    Hasbro also doesn't need to innovate or outdo themselves because they have a stranglehold on Marvel product. DCC has to make all those moves because they have competition from Mattel for retail dollars. Bandai has to keep one-upping themselves because of Mafex, Figma, Sentinel and now Comicave all pumping out MCU figures.

    This is what happens when there is no competition, you get no real advancement and just Hasbro reusing everything. I hate the sort of licenses that Hasbro has, they get complacent and stop innovating. Look at Playmates, no competition there either and they just shit out whatever.

    Personally, even if Hasbro went all out on movie figures I'd still go with Bandai or other overseas companies. I just don't correlate the Hasbro name with quality anymore. The occasional figure like Black Panther or Spider-Gwen is awesome in terms of quality, but for me, they miss more than they hit. It's the only place I can get characters in modern comic looks so I stick with it, begrudgingly.

    ETA: I know folks are fawning over Black Panther in the latest wave, but Nuke is by far the standout in terms of pure sculpting. The cyborg head is one of the best pieces Hasbro has done from a technical standpoint, it looks amazing in-hand. The exposed robot face is actually sculpted under the human face. If they put this sort of effort into every C- and D-Lister, I'd buy them all.
     
  12. Crockett

    Crockett natural bodybuilder

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    No, they polluted the line with prequel and TFA stuff. When the line started there were questions about whether OT would even sell. At some point, they came to the moronic assumption that a new movie would be better sellers than OT figures. Might have been because wave 2 pegwarmed (especially Han).
     
  13. Slave IV

    Slave IV more wealth than you can imagine!

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    Great point about competition. I made a similar point recently in some thread about Hasbro letting other companies make Transformers. The competition we get with 3Ps is what's bringing better figures to the market so I'm always for more competition. Speaking of which, I never heard of or paid attention to this Comicave company you mentioned. Looks like it's more movie stuff I don't care about but I will keep an eye out for them. Their Silver Centurion does look tempting.

    As for the effort put into the Hasbro figures...I'm not sure what you mean...What else could they have done beyond what they do to improve a figure like Cottonmouth? He is what he is and has no need for an intricately sculpted head like Nuke. For me, it's all about what characters they make, which version, how good a job they did and the quality of the particular one that ends up in my hands (since they are all different:eek: ). For someone I don't care about like Cottonmouth, no amount of extra effort makes me care about the character any more.

    :confused:  Seems to me like TFA stuff is selling like hotcakes. Sure, there are always pegwarmer characters but for the most part the BS section is a wasteland and I'm lucky to ever see one available.
     
  14. Crockett

    Crockett natural bodybuilder

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    I don't know. We went from wondering if Greedo and Han would ever (finally) sell to wondering if Zuvio and Guavian Enforcer will ever finally sell. That doesn't seem like a good tradeoff. :lol 

    I know I've had little trouble "finding" TFA figures... although I don't want them. Still haven't seen Bounty Hunter Leia in any store. I do think TFA was produced in higher quantities than any of the non-TFA waves we've seen in the line. That just makes the pegwarmers that much more of a disaster.
     
  15. Timothy.R

    Timothy.R Well-Known Member

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    one of my walmarts completely got rid of their 6" star wars black series peg after a finn had been sitting on it for the longest time, now with the reset, the peg is no longer there.

    another one of my walmarts must have 10 or more cases of the zuvio/phasma wave.. there are 3 pegs full of that wave plus at least 7 stacks of those figures on the top shelf of the aisle..

    everywhere other walmart, target, and toys r us are packed with resistance troopers, tie pilots, fins, kylo rens, zuvios, enforcers, and flametroopers.. unless they miraculously start selling.. it doesn't look like i'll be seeing anything new for a while.
     
  16. rodimusconvoy

    rodimusconvoy Well-Known Member

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    This. This is what is holding me from getting into this line. Why do I have to buy that character I know nothing about just to have that leg to complete my Onslaught?

    I was analizing the situation per wave (those that I can still get at a reasonable price) and its better for me to buy them loose and go to ebay and pay for the complete BAF figure.
     
  17. Slave IV

    Slave IV more wealth than you can imagine!

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    Haha anyways, I wish I could just completely stop buying Hasbro products but unfortunately they have a strong hold on my two favorite franchises and are the only ones to make certain characters....Anytime I can get a character from SHF or some other better brand, I pretty much do.

    LOL! I have three figures from the Onslaught wave that I just put in a box and wish they would go away but I also can't just get rid of them knowing I paid for them and the packrat collector in me just feels I might someday have a use for them.:banghead: 
     
  18. squeezeplay

    squeezeplay Vegan Truth

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    Which 3 figures?

    Also, does anyone have one or more of the Ares wave Spider-Man web-shooters to trade? I need one or more (preferably 3) and can pull from quite a lot of items for them. Trade list in link in sig.
     
  19. Slave IV

    Slave IV more wealth than you can imagine!

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    Cottonmouth, Carter and Mockingbird
     
  20. squeezeplay

    squeezeplay Vegan Truth

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    If you want to trade any of those, lmk.