Title of your sex tape.
Reading over the last several pages, it seems like everyone has an opinion or an idea. All equally valid. And the almost inescapable conclusion that I come to is that no matter what Mattel does, we (adult collectors) will remain unsatisfied for the most part.
Totally accurate.
Mattel in many ways would be better off to just write us off. Forget we exist. No upside to having us.
I know you're being facetious, but still - no, not at all. Because this implies that Mattel cares if we're all happy or complaining. I promise you that they do not. If the sales are there, that's all that matters. It is a fool's game to try to make any toyline that will make collectors happy. Just make toys people want to buy and tune out as much of the senseless complaining as you can.
Mattel's biggest problem is that they're TOO good at that and end up filtering out the valid complaints as well.
Although when talking about “adult collectors” some of us need to remember that an “adult collector” might not be in their 40s/50s with a huge amount of toy-baggage. An adult collector could be a person in their 20s who never had a chance to build a DC figure collection and is just starting.
This is definitely an issue we have to get past, where we think of new lines in terms of 'well, why would I, who has three full collections of the previous lines, want this?' When, in reality, it's not for you, and in fact you are not even representative of most collectors in your own age group.
It’s really not that hard. Of course you lean on your A-listers, and when it comes to building out teams, you pick an era and stick with it. Consistency is the key in my book. I think if collectors have a pretty good idea of what they can expect and when they can expect it, they will be surprisingly patent.
See, you say it's not that hard. But then you describe an approach I disagree with and, as a collector, would hate. As would any collector, I expect, that wants the teams and era you don't want and don't think is important enough to start with.
That line could have benefited from more A-list variants in a Marvel Legends kind of way; maybe it would have improved the line's longevity if its Cyclotrons were more Batmen instead.
Let's be clear; Scott killed DCUC with the rainbow Lanterns. That's just a factual statement. It was Scott's own self-indulgent narcissism that killed DCUC. So it's actually hard to criticize the line earlier on because clearly the formula was pretty good and people were fairly happy with it until it was self-sufficient enough that Mattel kind of let Scott have the reins a lot more, thinking the line was kind of too big to fail. And that is why Scott is still struggling to find any employement in the toy business.
But judging by Mattel's character selection for the new line, I think they're in a pretty good place about structuring these waves? Every choice seems sensible and Deathstroke hitting so early even in this format tells me that there's at least some focus on toyetic characters who aren't total household names, as popular as he is with comics nerds.
You're probably forgetting that one of the most popular kid-centric pieces of DC media is Teen Titans Go!, where Slade has made appearances. They can absolutely rely on the idea that kids/young adults know who Deathstroke is.
But also, yeah, that line-up still doesn't really tell us much about what to expect from the collector line(s). We'll just have to wait and see. Mattel managed a good balance for a few years with DCUC. I'm sure they can do it again. The problem is, as in all the conversation above, NO line can make all the collectors happy. Someone is going to be pissed. Someone is going to feel left out. Probably everyone will feel that way, really, to varying degrees. But Marvel Legends is HAMMERING product out and is probably the benchmark now for what corporations want to accomplish with a toyline -- and people bitch about Marvel Legends fucking constantly.
