Diamond Select Toys is Shutting Down

NORM said:
Damien, if you left off at Coipel Thor, you really missed out on the golden era of Marvel Select. They made excellent figures after that Thor, which I also held in pretty high regard at the time.
There were modern versions of Captain America and Hawkeye (I think their prefixes were "Avenging Cap" and "Avengning Hawkeye", Winter Soldier, Mighty Thor (not Jane Foster from the movie, but one inspired by the sleeveless look of the Coipel design), Beta Ray Bill, Drax, Gamora, Rocket, Groot, Thanos, "Immortal" Hulk (not based on the comic of the same name) and Red Hulk on that same mold, classic versions of Taskmaster, Vision, Silver Centurion, Titanium Man, Crimson Dynamo, Destroyer, Sandman, Colossus, Rogue, Psylocke, Iceman, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, and what I believe was the last MS figure I bought, classic Captain America that had extra parts for his Golden Age, Silver Age, and modern looks. These figures ranged from great to excellent. Full range of articulation for most, swappable parts, energy effects, etc. DST was firing on all cylinders with these figures, which makes it sting so much more because it looked like the best was yet to come with War Machine, Hobgoblin, Archangel, and Annihilus. That's not even mentioning MCU figures. In some cases, these are the best representation of the character to exist.
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I genuinely don't care about half or more of those characters, to be fair. That is why I prefixed with 'my scope of collecting.' And part of that was that I didn't really need a new scale of Marvel figures and was generally looking to add to my ML collection (but also genuinely just don't like the way DST designs action figures). That being said - I did forget about Silver Centurion IM - a figure I seriously considered getting because it seemed quite good.
Destroyer is a good example of my opinion that DST just makes stupid fucking decisions all the time. Destroyer with no fists. Fuck off with that. Why would I need a Destroyer with two gripping hands?

But you know what - I will lament the loss of Annihilus. That looked like it was going to be quite good.

Their entire LotR line, the thing I'd ostensibly be the most interested in from anything they were doing, however, was a constant source of disappointment to me. Every figure came so close and managed to miss the mark on even being good, let alone great.
 
Genuinely unexpected. I had heard it would operate as a separate entity, but obviously that didn't happen.

Fuck. Another one gone. I just found a bunch of cheap DST Ghostbusters and was thinking of picking them up. Guess I have to now.

Not sure if I'm going to keep my LOTR figures or not. This is a major bummer.
 
Damien said:
I genuinely don't care about half or more of those characters, to be fair. That is why I prefixed with 'my scope of collecting.' And part of that was that I didn't really need a new scale of Marvel figures and was generally looking to add to my ML collection (but also genuinely just don't like the way DST designs action figures). That being said - I did forget about Silver Centurion IM - a figure I seriously considered getting because it seemed quite good.
Destroyer is a good example of my opinion that DST just makes stupid fucking decisions all the time. Destroyer with no fists. Fuck off with that. Why would I need a Destroyer with two gripping hands?

But you know what - I will lament the loss of Annihilus. That looked like it was going to be quite good.

Their entire LotR line, the thing I'd ostensibly be the most interested in from anything they were doing, however, was a constant source of disappointment to me. Every figure came so close and managed to miss the mark on even being good, let alone great.
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Well, I don’t think they made mediocre figures. The good figures just weren’t ones you’d appreciate. Doesn’t mean good figures from DST don’t exist. I don’t know if they were a bad company. They weren’t as bad as Super7 is. But for a company to get to a point where they’re filing for bankruptcy, it couldn’t have been managed that well.
 
NORM said:
Well, I don’t think they made mediocre figures. The good figures just weren’t ones you’d appreciate.
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That's certainly possible. But I can only assess a company's output from my own perspective.
Although it's also fair to say that even looking over the figures you mentioned doesn't leave me all that impressed. I am capable, to some extent, of looking at figures I don't collect and saying 'that is really cool' or 'I don't care for that' - or whatever. Nothing DST was doing ever made me say 'maybe I should start collecting DST again.'

And, again, I did make purchases of some of the recent LotR figures and found them to actually kind of suck in almost every regard (weak ROM, inaccurate to the source, bad likenesses, poorly-handled accessories -- almost everything you can do wrong on an action figure, to a greater or lesser extent). So that's where a lot of my problem with the company is coming from.

Again, it's just going to be from my perspective and what interests me. Maybe if I'd ever gotten into collecting Minimates I'd have a totally different perspective here. And I did come close a few times.


Edit: And to be really clear, I really really don't want to just sit here shitting on DST. My feelings on them are well known and, at this point, not particularly relevant. My original comment about this was just to drive home that I don't have to think I'm personally losing something in this situation to feel remorse at people losing their jobs and to be sincere in the hope that they find their footing as quickly as possible.
 
Sad to hear it. Destroyer, Juggernaut, and Beta Ray Bill are three of my favorite figures and for that I am thankful to DST.
 
This is sad news indeed. I only ever really paid attention to their Marvel Select stuff, but man, so much of that, especially their more recent stuff, topped most everything Hasbro is doing at essentially the same price point. Their Thanos, the one that came with the Death figurine, is probably going to be my forever Thanos. Really too bad.
 
So DST was bought by NECA's parent company and then closed. That doesn't mean that they don't still own those assets, just that they jettisoned DST as a division of the company. I don't understand the details but doesn't that mean they bought their contracts, assets and liabilities? So did NECA just win the rights to make twelve 7" Marvel toys a year, Muppets, LOTR, etc?
 
I was wondering that myself. Neca doesn't need Diamond's toy division , just its rights. If that type of thing transfers over.
 
I mean if we are right they can expand Sesame Street to all the Muppets now. Why else do they purchase the company? They have to value some of their assets and think they can do better with them.
 
PanchaMaestro said:
So DST was bought by NECA's parent company and then closed. That doesn't mean that they don't still own those assets, just that they jettisoned DST as a division of the company. I don't understand the details but doesn't that mean they bought their contracts, assets and liabilities? So did NECA just win the rights to make twelve 7" Marvel toys a year, Muppets, LOTR, etc?
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Yeah, I don’t quite understand what’s the move here and value for NECA if they’re not getting the existing licenses to supplement their current ones. The distribution business seems like it was a failing one for Diamond specifically and a challenge for any company in general, so not sure why NECA would want that one.


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gpmartin414 said:
Yeah, I don’t quite understand what’s the move here and value for NECA if they’re not getting the existing licenses to supplement their current ones. The distribution business seems like it was a failing one for Diamond specifically and a challenge for any company in general, so not sure why NECA would want that one.


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I'm also struggling to see the value for Ad Populum of closing DST and not utilizing any of the licenses. I guess we'll learn more of their plans as time goes on. I've read that Ad Populum just wanted to close a NECA competitor and has no interest in the DST licenses or products. It seem like that would be giving up a lot of potential value, but I'm not business savvy. Maybe it makes business sense? I'd love for NECA to pick up some of the licenses.

Has anyone heard if Gentle Giant Studio was also closed? I think they did the bulk of the sculpts for DST, but also worked for other companies, like Hasbro Marvel Legends.
 
I talked with Industrial about GG, and his branch of GG was not affected, and is a separate venture from the GG that is affiliated with DST. I think it was just distribution of products DST provided. The creative end is the part of GG Adam works at/runs.
 
So, as I'm hearing it, originally with the sale to Alliance, it would have been the creative side that would have kept their jobs, and distribution that would have been let go.

There was, as explained to me, some shadiness taking place with DST filing Chapter 7 initially, then switching to 11 while the deal with Alliance was taking place? They got the offer from Ad Populum and liked it better, so switched chapters to make Alliance drop out? Maybe someone with a more legal mind can explain why that's bad or good or whatever. I am not familiar with bankruptcy law.

But anyway, once Ad Populum took over, it was the complete opposite. Creative out, distribution remains.
 
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