The Action Figure and Toy Collecting and Discussion Thread!

Sadly, Hasbro holds the license to two of my absolute favorite things: Star Wars and Marvel, so I'm forced to put up with their crap. The thing is, a poor a job as they do with their distribution, I really don't know who could do it better right now.

 

The sad part is that the companies that might theoretically be able to do a better job with distribution seem to make inferior toys and collectibles. So even in a best case scenario it'd be an enormous trade-off: get your new waves of figures and vehicles in stores on time and in decent quantities...but they'll look like shit.

Looks like we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that somebody at Hasbro will whip everyone into shape so the company will get its collective act together. I've been in the hobby so long now I'm used to just shrugging my shoulders and hoping for the best. Whaddya gonna do when you're just another Joe Consumer.

 

I like this thread a lot more when it's not "Hasbro sucks" and more "Look at my cool stuff." So, look at my cool stuff:

Green Lantern Corps:


Sinestro Corps:


Black Lanterns:


Misc. Lanterns:

 

Me too, man. But damn, does Hasbro make it hard not to complain!

Great pics. Here's another upcoming Vintage Collection figure from the same wave that'll have Grand Moff Tarkin. This is supposed to hit stores sometime in July if all the online reports are to be believed.

Here's Clone Pilot Odd Ball, a valiant Republic fighter pilot who bites it in the opening scenes of Episode III:



And here's one of several upcoming Battle Packs featuring all-new sculpts. No repacks or repainted filler with these...but the articulation is a throwback to the 1990s or even 1980s as all elbow, wrist, knee and ankle joints have been done away with in some of these. Great heads, though. These look more like the movie actors than some of the super-articulated premium figures. This might contain the best Ewan McGregor, Ray Park and Liam Neeson head sculpts ever done in 3-3/4" scale.

 

Sometimes it's not even their fault. Retail stores generally won't place an order until they've sold enough of what they've currently got, so some waves can be either under-ordered (or skipped altogether in the worst-case scenario). There's better luck at online stores, but then you run the risk of sell-outs or having to pay more at various sites (including Hasbro's own site).

 

The Obi-Wan headsculpt looks like the light-up saber one. Qui-Gon looks new though.

As an aside, they really need to update Qui-Gon's lightsaber.

 

Indeed. DC Direct has. The scales between DC Direct and DCUC are not exactly compatible, but some can fit in well. Their most recent Sinestro is actually exactly the same height as the DCUC one, so that works well. The only one I have that's really way too tall be believable is Soranik Natu, but that's likely to only Natu we're ever going to get so I work with what I have.

 

Agreed. Funny thing is, they have a removable blade Qui-Gon lightsaber from a 2002 Saga figure of the guy. But they used it just one time, that was almost exactly ten years ago and that's been it. The green blade even had flares at the bottom to indicate where the weapon was being activated. Instead, they just go back to the 1999 mold of the weapon and use it ad nauseam. All they'd have to do is remold the 2002 blade where it would no longer be removable from the hilt or even glue the blade into place.

 

Oh god! Horrible memories of those removable blades come flooding back. Terrible idea. They broke so easily, or fell out of the hilt and rolled away never to be seen again.

 

I've never understood why they haven't made a new Qui-Gon lightsaber in the past ten years. How difficult can it be to tool and sculpt something that small and uncomplicated? They've made brand new lightsabers for Jedi and Sith action figures that few people if anybody even know the names of. It's just odd. It's just a tiny, thin tube of green, translucent plastic with a painted hilt. We're not talking designing a brand new Death Star playset with electronic features here.


Wait. Don't get me started on a Death Star playset.

 

Yeah, I remember those lightsabers. They would fall apart if you so much as dared to look at them.

I might see if I can pick one up on the cheap for my Qui-Gon. Already changed his head.

 

I'm sure you can probably get that 2002 Qui-Gon with his different lightsaber for dirt cheap from a local toy shop, flea market or off of eBay. The figure itself wasn't terribly popular when he was brand new and quickly pegwarmed, so you can only imagine what ten years of aging has done to any appeal he had in the first place. A whole lot of figures from the ATTACK OF THE CLONES era don't get much love nowadays. There are only a very small handful that are sought after(Ephant Mon, McQuarrie Concept Stormtrooper, Lt. Dannl Faytonni and a few others) all these years later. 2002-2003 was a real up-and-down time for collecting with incessant stretches where no new figures would show up and the choices of figures you could find were often boring or dubious.

 

Most of the figures from that period either had lousy action features, or were statues. Most of them have had better versions made since, at least.

 

A quick click around and I've found one for a fiver.

 

The AOTC Jar Jar Binks from 2002 is probably one of the worst offenders from that period. He had three points of articulation if I recall correctly...five at the most, and that's if he even had elbow joints. He would be the last movie-style Jar Jar action figure until this year, and as big a stinker and pegwarmer as the 2002 figure turned out to be it's no wonder Hasbro was gun shy for ten whole years about making another Jar Jar from the live-action films. He was just a big statue or salt shaker that just sort of stood there...and he came with this bizarre WTF? Gungan staff or weapon or thingamajig that wasn't even in Episode II to begin with. Stores were full of those things for ages.

 

I think that was the period in which they were catering more towards collectors and were designing figures to be little more than figurines. They were great if you didn't take them out of the packaging or mess around with them too much if you did.

 

Ironically, tonight at midnight marks 10 years to the moment that the Episode II/Saga toy line made its public debut during "Midnight Madness 2002." Stores across America officially began selling the merchandise for the second prequel at 12 A.M. on April 23, 2002. I know...I showed up later that morning for my obligatory haul at several stores. I spent quite the pretty penny that day, let me tell you.

It's really fascinating to see how far the tooling and sculpting of figures has come since April of 2002. In some respects the new stuff(especially in the Vintage Collection) is light years ahead of the best that Hasbro had to offer a decade ago. Since then the company has broken the Super Articulation Barrier with figures featuring 13 or more points of articulation and breakthroughs such as ball-jointed heads, hips and wrists.

 

There were times when it felt like a case of double dipping. They would release an initial figure with limited articulation and then a bit later re-release the exact same figure with improved articulation. I never fell for that, but I do have quite a few early Clone Wars (animated) figures that were re-released later in a "revisioned" wave with better articulation.