McFarlane DC Multiverse

Atomic Knight said:
Can’t find her or Extant on either the Wal Mart or GameStop sites.
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For Walmart, use Google instead of going to Walmart directly, you get better results:

Code: 
https://www.walmart.com/ip/DC-7in-with-Comic-Action-Figure-Extant-McFarlane-Toys/17620618691


Code: 
https://www.walmart.com/ip/DC-7in-with-Comic-Action-Figure-Cheetah-McFarlane-Toys/17599658389

 
That neckline is atrocious. Also, am I the only getting giraffe vibes off her?

Just found PP Killing Joke-r at Target. Paint work on his face is good, the coat is... a slightly folded swatch of fabric. Hmmmm. His tie is also not well-covered by the paint.
 
Just got a cancellation notice from Walmart on Emerald Twilight Green Lantern. 🤬 Walmart! I was able to reorder, so we’ll see if this one goes through.
 
Reno said:
I'm waiting to make any decisions about my DC collecting until after we see what Mattel's plans are. As it stands I have at least one version of every character every made each by any of DC Direct / DC Collectibles, Mattel and McFarlane. I'll almost at least certainly buy any new characters that Mattel makes but am going to wait before making any decisions about purging anything for now. I purged some DCD stuff when Mattel first announced DCUC and some of that I now wish that I'd held onto, so I don't want to make that mistake again.
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I don’t have the luxury of a fallback favorite character. I just don’t. Just buying Batman or Superman or Bugs Bunny will not be satisfactory to me. I have niches I follow. Not particular characters. I’ve not retained my previous collections. So my baseline is Todd. And I want as much of the comic based DCU as I can get. But I need it to be from a single source. I’m unable to mix these various lines together. Yes, I realize that that’s a me problem. I mean I can’t even mix movie and game figures in with comic figures. But what I’ve always wanted is DC Legends for lack of a better descriptor.

If Mattel had retained the license in 2020, I’d have been OK. If Todd had retained the license this year, that would’ve been ideal. Ultimately, my problem is the handoff after what seems like a relatively short period of time to a company that lost the license in the first place over what seems like apathy, neglect, and hubris. Now they fixed it somehow. How by the way?

I was hoping Todd would get a nice long run out of DC. 12-15 years would’ve been ideal. Mattel held the license for 17 years and only managed to put out around 500 comic figures. In 15 years Todd would’ve gotten to the Metal Men, the Doom Patrol, the Freedom Fighters, and maybe even the Challengers of the Unknown. Moreover, we’d have gotten all the crazy side characters too like Claw or Sideways or Loose Cannon.

I have a feeling that Mattel will be extremely risk averse in terms of character selection. Character selection is the number one factor in my purchasing decisions. Again, a me problem.
 
Yes, I agree about the license switching multiple times being the biggest issue. It's similar to to franchise stops and restarts of the DC movie universe. How many different actors will play Batman during our lifetimes? The comics aren't that different with whatever Crisis doing a reset, New 52, Rebirth, All-In, whatever.

However, Todd's choice to change the line to 7" is the most problematic and what made the Mattel and McFarlane lines the most incompatible. I'm betting that was a conscious choice to try to make people start over. It's something that I'm incapable of forgiving and why I've truly never "bought in" to McF despite owning hundreds of their figures. I've bought at least one version of every character that he's done, but the vast majority have never been opened - because part of me knew that I likely wouldn't be keeping them. The only ones that I've opened were from Collect-to-Build waves (which he mostly abandoned) or came in damaged packaging.

I'm not making any decisions on collecting DC post-Todd until I know what Mattel plans to do. They could do something wildly unexpected and go with a totally different scale like 3 3/4", 4.5", 5.5", whatever... I'd be completely out at that point. I highly doubt that they would actually do something like that, but we don't know yet. The idea of Todd switching to 7" back at the time seemed insane also.

The disparities in the lines done by DCD, Mattel and McFarlane are the single biggest reason why anything DC could never overtake Marvel Legends as my primary line. Hasbro/ToyBiz has given me a mostly compatible / consistent toy franchise for 25ish years. It certainly hasn't been perfect by any means, and I have my gripes about that line as well - but it has still been more consistent than it hasn't. (Although even they tried to change the scale to 3 3/4" at one point). Just like with their movies, DC can't stick to any type of long term plan with their collector action figure line either - and that's likely frustrating for everybody. Similar to @Atomic Knight, my collecting desire is for the deepest world building and character selection possible within my collection and stops/starts and inconsistency across the product make that harder than it should be.
 
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No new vendor is not gonna start over. Todd didn’t want to be the supplemental supplier. Starting over was/is the only real option. For anyone. That’s why I’m 99% sure another scale change is coming. My main problems are that I don’t want to start over again. That’s a given. But I also have a horrible feeling that Mattel is about to give us a master class in homogeneous. Generic. Vanilla. Dull. Boring. Cookie cutter. Soulless. And I don’t do that $#!+ anymore. Another me problem obviously.

What’s not a me problem is what Reno said above. Better than I could. Consistency and variety are all I ever really wanted or cared about. And without some sort of adult collector 7” carve out, I’m likely done. But I really don’t want to be.
 
Reno said:
Yes, I agree about the license switching multiple times being the biggest issue. It's similar to to franchise stops and restarts of the DC movie universe. How many different actors will play Batman during our lifetimes? The comics aren't that different with whatever Crisis doing a reset, New 52, Rebirth, All-In, whatever.

However, Todd's choice to change the line to 7" is the most problematic and what made the Mattel and McFarlane lines the most incompatible. I'm betting that was a conscious choice to try to make people start over. It's something that I'm incapable of forgiving and why I've truly never "bought in" to McF despite owning hundreds of their figures. I've bought at least one version of every character that he's done, but the vast majority have never been opened - because part of me knew that I likely wouldn't be keeping them. The only ones that I've opened were from Collect-to-Build waves (which he mostly abandoned) or came in damaged packaging.

I'm not making any decisions on collecting DC post-Todd until I know what Mattel plans to do. They could do something wildly unexpected and go with a totally different scale like 3 3/4", 4.5", 5.5", whatever... I'd be completely out at that point. I highly doubt that they would actually do something like that, but we don't know yet. The idea of Todd switching to 7" back at the time seemed insane also.

The disparities in the lines done by DCD, Mattel and McFarlane are the single biggest reason why anything DC could never overtake Marvel Legends as my primary line. Hasbro/ToyBiz has given me a mostly compatible / consistent toy franchise for 25ish years. It certainly hasn't been perfect by any means, and I have my gripes about that line as well - but it has still been more consistent than it hasn't. (Although even they tried to change the scale to 3 3/4" at one point). Just like with their movies, DC can't stick to any type of long term plan with their collector action figure line either - and that's likely frustrating for everybody. Similar to @Atomic Knight, my collecting desire is for the deepest world building and character selection possible within my collection and stops/starts and inconsistency across the product make that harder than it should be.
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I don't at all disagree, and I do have to wonder- if/when a company makes a big swing, like Todd switching to 7 inches from 6, why the company that gets the license after doesn't at least attempt to play ball? If the line crashed and burned, that would be one thing, but since there's obviously been success, and you're right- most folks won't just want to start over from scratch, it surprises me that there isn't more of a concerted effort most of the time to get something at least a little closer to the previous product, and maybe slowly change the scale over time, if at all.

Don't get me wrong, I know that 6 inch scale is generally considered to be the most "desirable", but in this day and age where we're used to all kinds of scales, even multiple scales in the same line, I think the need to stick to 6 inch is less and less. There's pros and cons to any of the scales, but switching up the scale after years and years of customers buying one thing is only gonna piss them off. Yeah, Todd did it too, obviously, but now that fans are used to 7 inch, switching back to 6 feels odd to me too. It's totally possible that Mattel can pack the same amount of articulation and detail into a 6 inch figure, but the question is are they going to? They're a bigger company with a bigger bottom line and more people to please, so they're looking to save wherever they can. In doing so, ignoring what came before just to give people what you think they want (or worse, just forcing them to accept something) never works well, whether in figures, movies, etc. Obviously with businesses like this, you kinda have to take the reins and make a decision, or else product would never come out, but I digress.

I know people are always going to buy figures, especially DC figures, regardless of scale. But I do think there's generally a breaking point for a lot of collectors, especially as more and more characters get done. At what point are they unlikely to support a new line at all if doing so means the product will stand out for all the wrong reasons? Like you said, with the movies, people became less interested in seeing the new DC stuff because they knew there was a reset coming, so what was the point getting invested? With scale switches, the only time it really works is if you're a character-specific cherry picker. Me, for instance, with my Scarecrow stuff, I'm cool to get him in any scale and style, but if I was looking to buy new stuff, say a McFarlane Batman Begins figure to put in my old Mattel Movie Masters line, that would be silly.

Anyway. I don't know where I'm going with this. I shouldn't be allowed to type on little sleep. Point is- scale switches are annoying and no one likes them, but I do think that a lot of the blame is on the company for not wanting to honor what came before and help fans integrate the new product a little more seamlessly.
 
Mattel can’t win. No matter what scale they choose, it’s going to cost them business. If was them, I would take the Spin Master side of the license and stick Todd with the adult collectors, and I chose the word “stick” very deliberately. IMHO, mass market adult collector lines from overpriced IPs in today’s economic environment are a liability, not an asset.
 
@josh I hear your desire for a graceful transition for customers - but if I'm Mattel and I get to do DC figures again, I'm going to do them the way I think they should be done - and that's 6".

The 7" is ugh. So I wouldn't do that. Also, given the world today, an extra inch adds how much to every budget item? It's an unnecessary risk and it costs more.

Also, Todd really cornered the market on vehicles. Switching to 6" gives Mattel the chance to sell to that same market again - now that they know that market is buying product.
 
Schizm said:
The 7" is ugh. So I wouldn't do that. Also, given the world today, an extra inch adds how much to every budget item? It's an unnecessary risk and it costs more.
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Does it? I remember a few years ago toy industry people were saying tooling was tooling and even 3 3/4 costs as much as a 6" figure to produce and paint.
 
Charging more by the inch? Last time I heard that was.....well.....nevermind. 🤪


But yeah, I don't know how true that is. They may tell us that, but I dunno. There is a price gap between Vintage Collection and Black Series, sure, but it's not that much, relatively. Granted, it's easy for me to say as someone on the outside, but still. You have 12 inch, non Hot Toys figures that are as cheap, if not cheaper, than some 6 inch figures. Sure, they often share a base body, but not always, and there's just as much part reuse in a lot of 6 inch lines. I think cost vs. scale has more to do with all the other factors- overhead, license fees, etc.
 
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