Mattel DC Figures

I'm at work, so perfect time to make a YouTube style tier list. Off the top of my head I put 36 figures in the A and B tiers. Five figures in C and two figures in D. I'm mostly happy with the figures I have.

My S tier- Nightwing, Boba (ESB), Gambit, Magneto

The D tier was Batman (001) and first release Anne Hathaway because there isn't a tier lower than D. I paid $19.60 on Amazon and that was too much. Two of three Mafex figures I've sold, the other being Battle Damaged T-800. That version of T-800 was a timing issue and sold it without opening.

I have no figures I'm interested in selling, not even the C Tier (Hush Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Phoenix, Psylocke, and Thor).

Edit: had to update my count, forgot Huntress, added to the B category.
Edit 2: Damn it I forgot about two Wonder Women and SS Harley.
 
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I have to admit, I was completely caught off guard by an almost overwhelming sense of nostalgia the other day. I went to an old style comic shop that I don’t visit very often anymore. No real reason, just a little bit out of the way for me. Old style in that it used to be an actual newsstand with the same proprietor since the 70’s. Literally. He now buys all sorts of toys and collectables.

Someone had obviously purged their DCUC collection and he had about 100 of them. Mint on card. It really was cool to see a lot of them in one place like that. Made me a little misty for a brief moment. It then dawned on me that I’d still like to see Todd make a bunch of them before he’s through.
 
joshsquash729 said:
Yeah, I'm very mixed on Mattel. Most of what I collect from them anymore is Hammond Collection, which certainly has its fair share of flaws, but does seem to mostly be good now that they've worked out the kinks. A lot of their other offerings, like the Pixar stuff I'll cherry-pick, feels lower quality. Looks nice, and to be fair, it's definitely aimed at kids, and thusly made to be tossed around and such, but still. Hammond Collection aside (and even that in some cases), most of what I've picked up from them in the last 5+ years has just felt a little cheap. Ironically, the thing that seems the best quality are the Monster High things I've picked up for my Mom- feels like love and care goes into a lot of that stuff.
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I mean Mattel’s Jurassic World stuff has looked rough from the beginning and I’ve always treated that brand as the canary in the coal mine ever since the announcement was made that Mattel reacquired the DC license. And this was also incidentally right around the time that Mattel had announced that they were doing a Buck T-Rex for their SDCC convention exclusive and that thing was covered in unnecessary paint slop? It looked even uglier than the Mattel Creations version from two years prior that never saw the light of day.


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Damien said:
But I mean, we both know the likelihood is that Alfred gets 42 POA super ultra deluxe release with ten extra hands and a tea set, and Aztek gets 8 POA and no paint.
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It isn't right and you'd all be justified in shouting me down for this .... but I'd be ok with this specific example. I like Alfred. A lot. And wanted a figure of him my entire youth. And used to pretend my Pocket Heroes Jor-El was Alfred because it's the only old man figure I owned. And have bought essentially every one of the surprisingly many Alfred figures they've produced in recent years, obviously overcompensating. And want every one of those excessive 42 articulation points on my favorite butler for the the only type of billionaire I'm into (the fictional kind).

Aztek is cool too.
 
I mean I think if Mattel is going to take any queues from both the Masterverse line and the first introductory waves that Todd produced, it’s going to start with the newer designs first and if those prove to be successful then they’ll start sprinkling in classic designs until Mattel has enough data to support what collectors are buying and what those trend lines are showing. That will take time though maybe the first 2-3 years worth of assortments are going to be predominantly new stuff from within the last 10 years of DC continuity and onward. So like Doomsday Clock, Dark Multiverse, Rebirth, Future State and the new current “DC Unified” era. Once that’s most of those areas have been covered we might see more golden age and silver age stuff, a smattering of post crisis era figures, maybe some more JLGL inspired figures. And then they’ll probably tackle current movies, cartoon shows and then once again, veer into the classic once they’ve run out of stuff to try.

Some of this might seem very familiar because it’s almost the exact same playbook for Marvel Legends, G.i. Joe Classified, the aforementioned Masterverse line…it’s been the case for most Mezco figures too. It’s a nice, safe predictable formula.


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After seeing what Mattel is offering with their own 200X line I can't think there will be much I want from their DC line. The figures really look bland. Skeletor is devoid of much detail, much of it because they refuse to even do a wash for his face sculpt. And Clawful looks like that frustrated Elmo meme. Like he's just annoyed he was even included in the line.

elmo-stare-elmo.gif


 
I imagine the Cartoon Collection is by design more monochromatic? I don't necessarily love the few Masterverse figures that I do have, but they look better than that.
 
altcunningham said:
Yeah, I'm very conscious of not wanting to yuck other people's yum, but my Mattel experience does not excite me unless they bring a Jada type overhaul to the game.
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I don’t pay much attention to their other IPs, but I feel like their WWE Elite and Ultimate figures should be so much better at this point than they are. They still look more like “toys” to me than “adult collectibles”. They just don’t seem to evolve.

I’d love to have a Tiffany Stratton figure, but they have yet to release one that I can bring myself to buy.
 
For me, I'm not particularly excited for the actual toys we'll get from the Mattel DC line itself, so much as I'm excited for the prospect of being free from the Todd era of DC toys and return to a familiar scale.

But even then, the bar is so incredibly low for DC toys in general that even Mattel's modern day corporate mediocrity is leagues above anything we've really had domestically. Out of all the DC figures I own, (maybe 10 DCUC, a handful of Mattel DC Multiverse, McF Ragman, DCSH Azrael) I can't say I really like any of them outside a "Well, I like having that character on the shelf, I guess."
 
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