This Week In Your Plastic Crack, Action Figures and Toy Collection 26 26

[F For Fake]

1 minute ago, fantastic_four said:

Anyone know why Hasbro doesn't consistently crank out the Marvel Legends figures?  Anything that isn't actively produced seems to end up going for multiples of the $20 release price even a year or two after release.  Earlier this year the Legends Wolverine was $50 until they released more.  Now my kid wants a Cyclops, and the Legends version pictured below is the absolute best I've seen.  Almost every Legends figure I've seen from the past few years is absolutely awesome and this one is no exception.  But you can't get it for less than $50 despite it just coming out two years ago at $20!  

They will sometimes do rereleases and reissues. For instance, the Deadpool and brown Wolvie figures from the first wave of the new X-Men Legends were rereleased, as was that entire wave, at least once. But eventually it sold out and they moved on to the next waves, and now they're expensive again. Cyclops is an interesting one. His secondary market price exploded a while back, but he is still showing up here and there. For instance, I grabbed one at Target out of the blue about a month ago. I'm assuming at this point they have a pretty good idea of how many units to produce in order to maximize their profits, and at a certain point it's no longer cost effective to return certain figures to production. Just spitballing, I don't really know.

The good news is that they often reuse and reissue figures, a lot of exclusives end up repainted in regular waves, etc so there's always a chance he could return!

[F For Fake]

Not sure if anyone in the thread other than myself and @Gatchaman are picking up the new Mego figures at Target, but they're running a pretty great Buy 2 get 1 free sale on the figures right now, and they've also been furiously restocking the figures on the Target.com site. The hot figures tend to come and go throughout the day, but it's worth checking. Not only did I score all of the newest wave that I was interested in (Wolfman (aka "Screaming Werewolf"), Romulan, Green shirt Kirk, Demon Gene, 14" blue Batman) but I also FINALLY, at long last managed to pick up a few Gorn and Frankensteins as well. If I could finally find a Spock, I'd have everyone I want!

Anyway, sale wraps up tomorrow, but his is a great deal. If you have a Target card you get another 5% and free shipping, brings the figures down to about $8 a pop.

[fantastic_four]

26 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

For instance, I grabbed one at Target out of the blue about a month ago.

They don't even list it on their web site as something they carry.  Wonder how often stock just shows up from nowhere like that.

I just bought the yellow Wolverine from Target just two months ago and I already don't see it for sale on their web site.    Usually they're pretty good about keeping their store inventory online up to date with what's in the stores, although I've seen the online inventory lag by up to a week.

Edited December 7, 2018 by fantastic_four

[F For Fake]

33 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

They don't even list it on their web site as something they carry.  Wonder how often stock just shows up from nowhere like that.

I just bought the yellow Wolverine from Target just two months ago and I already don't see it for sale on their web site.    Usually they're pretty good about keeping their store inventory online up to date with what's in the stores, although I've seen the online inventory lag by up to a week.

In my experience, Target's online inventory doesn't reflect what's in the stores at all. Their online inventory changes minute to minute, and I've seen it in action many times, but especially this week as I've been buying up the new Mego figures. Same with Marvel Legends. I search the site for Marvel Legends several times a day, and things pop in and out all day long. Also, it's not a reliable indicator of what is actually in the physical stores. You just have to get lucky on that front, I'm afraid. As for the X-Men legends, they had the most recent wave up a couple of times last month, but I haven't seen them for a few weeks now. I've still got them in my "save for later" section of my cart, but they've never come back into stock. And I never saw Psylocke on there at all. The last couple of weeks they've seemingly only been restocking the most recent Deadpool wave and the Civil War wave (with Antman and Wasp). 

[Shadow Images]

4 set completed 

[fantastic_four]

1 hour ago, F For Fake said:

In my experience, Target's online inventory doesn't reflect what's in the stores at all. Their online inventory changes minute to minute, and I've seen it in action many times, but especially this week as I've been buying up the new Mego figures. Same with Marvel Legends. I search the site for Marvel Legends several times a day, and things pop in and out all day long. Also, it's not a reliable indicator of what is actually in the physical stores. You just have to get lucky on that front, I'm afraid. As for the X-Men legends, they had the most recent wave up a couple of times last month, but I haven't seen them for a few weeks now. I've still got them in my "save for later" section of my cart, but they've never come back into stock. And I never saw Psylocke on there at all. The last couple of weeks they've seemingly only been restocking the most recent Deadpool wave and the Civil War wave (with Antman and Wasp). 

Yea, I just found out during lunch today you're right.  Their site is impressive when it's right because it tells you which aisle the item is on, but I went looking for two items the site claimed were there--a Paw Patrol toy and the Marvel Legends Daredevil--and neither were there.  But there were a dozen or more Marvel Legends figures that WERE there but not on their site.

[F For Fake]

1 hour ago, fantastic_four said:

Yea, I just found out during lunch today you're right.  Their site is impressive when it's right because it tells you which aisle the item is on, but I went looking for two items the site claimed were there--a Paw Patrol toy and the Marvel Legends Daredevil--and neither were there.  But there were a dozen or more Marvel Legends figures that WERE there but not on their site.

Yeah, learned the same lesson myself some time back, it stinks! So nowadays I just refresh the site throughout the day to see what might pop up, and visiting the actual stores is just a treasure hunt.

As for the Cyclops figure, he is pricey. Not sure if you're interested in the whole wave, but Big Bad Toy Store has the whole wave for $156. Not cheap, but considering the secondary market price on Cyclops, not too bad if you like the rest of the set.

https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/51623

Oh, and yeah, that entire wave of Legends that they show on the site, (Daredevil, Carnage, Black Cat, etc) has been sold out at Target for a couple of years, they just never took them off the website for some reason. Also they have some items like Baron Zemo that are actually being sold by a third party seller through their site. Really, the site is kind of a mess. But it's still worth looking, because you can occasionally grab some gems!

[F For Fake]

Also, if you have the SKU#, brickseek.com is a bit more reliable as an actual inventory indicator. Not PERFECT by any means, but better than the Target site itself.

https://brickseek.com/target-inventory-checker/

They have checkers for the other big brick and mortar stores on their as well. Happy hunting!

 

 

[fantastic_four]

20 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

Also, if you have the SKU#, brickseek.com is a bit more reliable as an actual inventory indicator. Not PERFECT by any means, but better than the Target site itself.

https://brickseek.com/target-inventory-checker/

They have checkers for the other big brick and mortar stores on their as well. Happy hunting!

Whoa, how do they know the inventory of the stores better than the stores themselves?!?!  

[F For Fake]

34 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

Whoa, how do they know the inventory of the stores better than the stores themselves?!?!  

I'm not a bright man, so I'm really not sure. I'm going to say "something something algorithm" and let someone smarter than me provide the info. 

And like I said, it's not perfect. For one, sometimes items are entered under individual DCPI #'s (I said "SKU" above, but really it's DCPI that it's tracking) but sometimes an entire wave of something will be entered under that number. For instance, back in the fall I was looking for a Frankenstein figure, but several figures had been entered under that number, so while a store may have shown they had 5 Frankensteins, they may, in fact, have had other figures in stock. 

So, yeah, it's not perfect, just another tool in the kit. Between that and the website checker, and random dumb luck, sometimes you can get what you want!

[SpeedforceKJ]

Haven’t bought myself anything in a long while then I stumbled onto this. I’ve wanted the flash’s from this line for such a long time.  Got this for $25.  He’s a little faded but that doesn’t bother me one bit. 

 

[Buzzetta]

On 12/7/2018 at 9:29 AM, fantastic_four said:

Anyone know why Hasbro doesn't consistently crank out the Marvel Legends figures?  Anything that isn't actively produced seems to end up going for multiples of the $20 release price even a year or two after release.  Earlier this year the Legends Wolverine was $50 until they released more.  Now my kid wants a Cyclops, and the Legends version pictured below is the absolute best I've seen.  Almost every Legends figure I've seen from the past few years is absolutely awesome and this one is no exception.  But you can't get it for less than $50 despite it just coming out two years ago at $20!  

I have a feeling that they are about to. 

They took notice of the second hand market on 6" Black Series figures and will be revisiting those figures with photo realistic faces.  Should be interesting to see what it does to the second hand market since I do not think that the knock off market can crank out paint apps like Hasbro is promising on these revisited figures. 

[Buzzetta]

And then the Lord said, "Let there be mail." And Andrew opened up the mail, and it was good. 

Won a lot of complete figures on a FB auction.  11 drivers and their weapons for around $6 a figure.  I now have a couple of duplicates but it was too good a bid not to take home.  I finally found my white Snow Job and I picked up three Valor v Venom figs just for fun. Complete vintage Joes at that price? Take it... Even Sea Slug and guys like Zanzibar have all their weapons including the vehicle spear. 

Thinking about going for a complete set of one of every Snake Eyes figure ever produced.  Thinking of it. 

More to come this week... 

Edited December 9, 2018 by Buzzetta

[fantastic_four]

I was unaware of the Golden Age of figures we're currently in until you guys introduced me to Hot Toys about a year ago.  My interest in premium figures has been simmering all that time, and it's about to boil over.  However, one question has me torn as to where to start--which company do you guys think make the absolute best figures?  The two companies I'm currently torn between are Hot Toys and Revoltech.  The figures available from Hot Toys are amazingly realistic, but their articulation seems to pale compared to that of Revoltech figures.  I'm currently leaning towards Revoltech but am still undecided.  

[fantastic_four]

One thing I'm absolutely decided upon--the best reviewer of modern figures is Shartimus Prime.  He's insanely entertaining, he's incredibly detailed on the pros and cons of figures, and he seems to review EVERY Marvel figure.  Love listening to his reviews.

 

[fantastic_four]

These Revoltech toys are amazing.  They seem easy and cheap to get on eBay imported from Japan, but it's still a shame they don't have a license from Marvel to sell in the US.

 

[Buzzetta]

58 minutes ago, fantastic_four said:

I was unaware of the Golden Age of figures we're currently in until you guys introduced me to Hot Toys about a year ago.  My interest in premium figures has been simmering all that time, and it's about to boil over.  However, one question has me torn as to where to start--which company do you guys think make the absolute best figures?  The two companies I'm currently torn between are Hot Toys and Revoltech.  The figures available from Hot Toys are amazingly realistic, but their articulation seems to pale compared to that of Revoltech figures.  I'm currently leaning towards Revoltech but am still undecided.  

I think it comes down to what you plan on doing with the figures... The articulation will always improve so you can say that the Revoltech figures of today will pale in comparison to the Revoltech figures that will be released three years from now.  Think along the lines of more seamless joints and things like that.

Revoltech offers smaller figures at a smaller scale (literally half) than a Hot Toys / Sideshow figure so display is not that much of an issue but keep in mind that you would need stands to display them with those dynamic poses that you see. 

On the other hand I like the Hot Toys and Sideshow detailing a lot better. I just don't have the space for something like those... However with those I believe less is more.  Those figures are so special that I would display maybe one or two otherwise they get lost among the clutter. When I have seen giant sideshow or hot toy figures displayed they are along a wall in glass cubes or cabinets or something like that.  To get an idea go to sideshow and look at one of their profiles on their customers who have larger collections... 

Personally I like the Sideshow / Hot Toy route but again that is based on what you plan on doing with them and how you would want to display them.  

My solution... buy them both. 

[fantastic_four]

5 minutes ago, Buzzetta said:

On the other hand I like the Hot Toys and Sideshow detailing a lot better. I just don't have the space for something like those... However with those I believe less is more.  Those figures are so special that I would display maybe one or two otherwise they get lost among the clutter. When I have seen giant sideshow or hot toy figures displayed they are along a wall in glass cubes or cabinets or something like that.  To get an idea go to sideshow and look at one of their profiles on their customers who have larger collections... 

Personally I like the Sideshow / Hot Toy route but again that is based on what you plan on doing with them and how you would want to display them.  

Mine will go into two large identical glass jeweler's cases that are about 6' 4" tall with lights built into the roof; one of them is shown in the picture below.  I've been using those for decades to display comics and statues, and I'm seriously considering liquidating my statues and filling them with figures.  Either Hot Toys or Revoltech will fit, but obviously I'd be able to fit more 6" figures in them.  Space isn't an issue, I'm just debating quality.

[F For Fake]

3 hours ago, fantastic_four said:

I was unaware of the Golden Age of figures we're currently in until you guys introduced me to Hot Toys about a year ago.  My interest in premium figures has been simmering all that time, and it's about to boil over.  However, one question has me torn as to where to start--which company do you guys think make the absolute best figures?  The two companies I'm currently torn between are Hot Toys and Revoltech.  The figures available from Hot Toys are amazingly realistic, but their articulation seems to pale compared to that of Revoltech figures.  I'm currently leaning towards Revoltech but am still undecided.  

I was an early adopter of Hot Toys, but have sold nearly all of the figures I've owned over the years. Once the secondary market prices start to pop, I end up finding an excuse to sell. I've only got a handful of them now, and they are gorgeous, but once again I have to balk at the rising prices. A standard figure with nearly zero accessories is what, $250 these days?  Just seems like insanity. Also, they seem to only be interested in cranking out figures from the Marvel movies, and while I enjoy the Marvel movies well enough, I'm generally not a enough of a fan of the costume designs that I'd want to own figures of them. I don't buy the Marvel Legends MCU figures for the same reason. It looks fine on screen, but in a toy, I'm just not interested. If HT got back to doing a wider variety of licenses, I'd be onboard.

As for Revoltech, I have been curious but I generally don't like the designs they base the figures on. For the price, I'll stick with my $20 Marvel Legends, which are increasingly looking like a great deal.

Edited December 11, 2018 by F For Fake

[fantastic_four]

1 hour ago, F For Fake said:

they seem to only be interested in cranking out figures from the Marvel movies, and while I enjoy the Marvel movies well enough, I'm generally not a enough of a fan of the costume designs that I'd want to own figures of them. I don't buy the Marvel Legends MCU figures for the same reason. It looks fine on screen, but in a toy, I'm just not interested. If HT got back to doing a wider variety of licenses, I'd be onboard.

As for Revoltech, I have been curious but I generally don't like the designs they base the figures on. For the price, I'll stick with my $20 Marvel Legends, which are increasingly looking like a great deal.

I feel the same way about Hot Toys; I wish they'd do more figures based upon comic models, not movie actors who play superheroes.  That's the reason I like Revoltech right now, their designs are all based upon comic book designs.

I feel the exact opposite way than you about the Revoltech designs; most of them are absolutely AWESOME design.  What do you not like about the Revoltech Batman, for example?  I ADORE these extreme designs, most of them remind me of Jim Lee-style art translated into a figure.

 

Edited December 11, 2018 by fantastic_four