What truly makes me excited for ANY figure is when the company put every single contemporary action figure making tool to use to give us the absolute best thing that can be made today. It's rare but it happens on occasion. See Jada Street Fighter, see MOTU Chronicles. They MAY have done that with Laura Croft too....I haven't looked super closely at her, but if they did, great!
I think this is rarely, if ever done with Marvel Legends (and McFarlane DC is in the exact same boat). Even with their BEST offerings, there is some sort of omission, some tiny kernel that makes it not all the way there. You end up with something "good enough for now" but you are excited to see them fix that the next time around. Problem is when they do fix that the next time around, a completely different thing will be either omitted or left as sub-par. I am not anticipating the next Chun-Li figure, because I feel I have the best Chun-Li for the price point, nothing is lacking. I don't know if I can say that about a Spider-Man or Wolverine or Batman figure.
This is where ML is really multiple lines in a trenchcoat in my view.
Going forward I want and expect exactly what you're describing for any A-lister or other prominent character/look they've already done. I'm not interested in buying another "almost there" classic Cap, Jim Lee Cyclops, Venom, etc. I will *happily* pony up for a version of those characters/looks that meets the standard set by the Jadas of the world for modern action figures. That means dedicated sculping, proper modern articulation schemes, accessories, the lot. Gamerverse Wolverine, while too big, is one figure from the last year I haven't put down because he's got most of that, and he's just fun to mess with, and he's so good that I'm not fussed that he's like the 10th tiger stripe Wolverine I own.
I *also* want every obscure weirdo we can possibly get, and on those I'm more interested in character selection instead of every figure being a marvel of modern action figure engineering. I don't expect Hypno-Hustler or Feral to get the same amount of love as Iron Man or Thor. Of course, I don't want the bare minimum - and I don't think that's what we've been getting for the most part. Feral is probably the lowest effort new character they've done in recent memory, but most of the obscure newbie weirdos have been really well done, including dedicated sculpts and accessory counts.
But what would really help would be if ML just raised their own bar to what has become the action figure baseline. Proper torso, shoulder, and neck articulation just *needs* to become standard across the board. I don't care if a Vulcan buck gets reused for two dozen different z-listers, but if that body had more modern articulation it would really change what the baseline value of the line feels like. That, plus some standardization on accessories - it's crazy to me that they'll cheap out on (for example) an extra pair of hands for Scorpion, when including that alongside everything else in the package makes him feel that much closer to more premium (and WAY more expensive) lines. Really feels like they're saving pennies to lose pounds when they do these tiny cost-saving moves that impact the overall value perception in negative ways.
For the record, I don't think ML rarely gets it right - the last few years especially have seen plenty of great releases, including a long list of obscure characters I'm thrilled to get and have been made extremely well. I would just really love for them to move what feels like a very short distance to meet where the other, better companies are at, and have that much better figures to show for it.
