Mattel DC Figures

secondwhiteline said:
Yeah, that's the thing about having a central store collectors frequent. It's like a mini-version of making Walmart and Target happy.

Although I really wish Ringside would exploit that to float the idea of Ringside-exclusive case packouts for the Main Event waves so I could actually get the NXT women before they sell out. I'm sure they're not ordering too many cases of Main Event when most of the case is Codys and Romans that kids will buy but collectors won't.
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I'm betting Ringside could get that if they wanted to, so maybe the sales on their end don't support it being worthwhile?

Either way, I'll never stop being angry that they're doing a WM13 three-pack, but they're giving the ICONIC bloody head to a single-packed Stone Cold available only at Ringside. Fuck you, Mattel.
 
Yeah, probably not. Like, if they miss a few sales of Main Event women because they're so short-packed, well, they get to sell the First Time in the Line women for like $35-40 now. I'm sure it makes up for the overpacked Cenas and Jeys they unload for cheap during the sales.
 
secondwhiteline said:
Yeah, probably not. Like, if they miss a few sales of Main Event women because they're so short-packed, well, they get to sell the First Time in the Line women for like $35-40 now. I'm sure it makes up for the overpacked Cenas and Jeys they unload for cheap during the sales.
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Exactly. I mean, I genuinely just cannot stand Ringside. The people there seem like the worst kind of cunts in the collecting world, and they basically scalp the product by ratcheting up prices on the things people actually want most. I understand the 'it's to offset the stuff that doesn't sell well' argument but I literally do not care.
 
I think a lot of people are missing a fairly large distinction between the WWE and DC. While DC has a roster of thousands of costumed and super-powered characters, only around 30-40 of them could legitimately be used as wave anchors. Top tier characters. And they’re really isn’t much movement.

WWE has a far smaller roster even extended with WWE alumni and retirees. But it’s dynamic. Stone Cold Steve Austin retired 20+ years ago. Yet is still incredibly popular. Wrestlers are always coming and going. Getting injured, retiring, falling out with the company etc. They also rise and fall on the roster as they get over or build heat. John Cena is done. Roman Reigns is considering going part time. The Rock comes and goes. But someone will take the top spot from Cody eventually. No one is knocking off Batman.
 
secondwhiteline said:
Yeah, in this case something like Secret Wars or COIE might work because the variety of figures that could potentially fit under that banner is so massive. It's like WWE having a WrestleMania wave once a year - probably 85% of the wrestlers they've ever released has at least one WrestleMania appearance in their career, and that covers every major name in the line.

Like, I think you've also hit it there with a Retro Batman sub-line being manageable, although they'd probably determine that there's no need to make it retro when you can just make a Batman sub-line and have it appeal to that many more people.
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If WWE has a WrestleMania wave once a year, maybe instead of specific "themed" waves we could have a "DC Landmarks" wave once or twice a year. Mix of events, major character moments/changes, and first appearances. So a wave could be like... First appearance Batman, Superman (Return of), Parallax, Madame Xanadu, Superboy Prime, and Neron or something along those lines.

A retro sub-line doesn't have much relevancy until like year 5-onwards, but if Batman wave line-ups are similar to Hasbro Spidey waves I'll have zero complaints with the character selection, anyways.


Atomic Knight said:
GLC is an easy one. Also gives me a break as I don’t normally buy alien Lanterns.
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Most of the Corps would be incredibly bad as standard releases, anyways. How I'd handle the Corps is akin to how Black Series handled the cantina band. A gigashitter deluxe release, maybe a two pack of John and Katma Tui, include heads of whoever works, release it around the same time as both a budget and mainline Hal. Kilowog, Soranik Natu, Arisia, all the notable humans and the "basically humans", etc. can all get their own releases down the road. Any others that don't apply are pack-in fodder or just flat out unrealistic.
 
Atomic Knight said:
I think a lot of people are missing a fairly large distinction between the WWE and DC. While DC has a roster of thousands of costumed and super-powered characters, only around 30-40 of them could legitimately be used as wave anchors. Top tier characters. And they’re really isn’t much movement.

WWE has a far smaller roster even extended with WWE alumni and retirees. But it’s dynamic. Stone Cold Steve Austin retired 20+ years ago. Yet is still incredibly popular. Wrestlers are always coming and going. Getting injured, retiring, falling out with the company etc. They also rise and fall on the roster as they get over or build heat. John Cena is done. Roman Reigns is considering going part time. The Rock comes and goes. But someone will take the top spot from Cody eventually. No one is knocking off Batman.
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It doesn't feel to me like much of a distinction when there's a similar number of recurring wave anchors in the WWE line, and the number of wave anchors doesn't matter so much when most have dozens of looks available to be made. A greater proportion of WWE's past and present rosters could be wave anchors than DC's roster, but I'm not sure if that means anything regarding character selection? MOTU ultimately has one wave anchor. And most of WWE's roster will get figures, while most of DC's roster won't -- it feels like the size of the realistic DC roster here is comparable to Mattel's available WWE talent.

Niko (protozoalord) said:
If WWE has a WrestleMania wave once a year, maybe instead of specific "themed" waves we could have a "DC Landmarks" wave once or twice a year. Mix of events, major character moments/changes, and first appearances. So a wave could be like... First appearance Batman, Superman (Return of), Parallax, Madame Xanadu, Superboy Prime, and Neron or something along those lines.

A retro sub-line doesn't have much relevancy until like year 5-onwards, but if Batman wave line-ups are similar to Hasbro Spidey waves I'll have zero complaints with the character selection, anyways.
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Yeah, I think the value of something like a Batman sub-line would be just using the presence of many Batmen to get out the smaller characters, in the same way that Spider-Man Legends allows for Hypno-Hustler or Cardiac. Magpie or Wrath aren't super likely in a DC wave, but a Batman wave makes more room for much more obscure Gotham characters. That's hopefully not much different than what the core lin will be doing, but especially for villains you're way more likely to see another version of Joker or Harley than you are to see Ventriloquist. A more focused line can fill in a lot of gaps, it's just that there are so few specialized themes with broad enough appeal to interest retail buyers.

Most sub-lines are usually just an extra SKU to get more product out there and take up more pegs, anyway. And bonus if they're a store exclusive to make Target or Walmart happy, obviously. (WWE also does cheap build-a-figures in their event waves, which is nice.) So something like DC Landmarks, which reads to me as not all that distinct from the core line but with a bit more of an event focus, feels like it would work? If you were following the WWE WrestleMania scheme, it'd be like:
FA Batman
(Return of) Superman
Parallax
Madame Xanadu
BAF: Alfred
(Well, probably sub out Parallax and Xanadu for less tooling-intensive figures, this is still a sub-line.)
 
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This talk about a sub-line featuring Batman makes my eyeballs itch. The Batman sub-line sales increase while sales of the main line (where some variety exists, thus what I’m more interested in) declines. Removing Batman from the main roster will decrease the chances of success. I think even a retro Batman line would do that. Plus, define retro. Before 2011 (New 52)? Before 1985 (Crisis)?

Personally, I’d like to see a more modern look to this line. Current DCU even if possible. But I’m realistic. Use the entire roster of DC characters over the entire period of DC History. As wide and deep as we can go on character selection.
 
Considering that DCUC's themed waves, like Rainbow Lanterns or Superfriends, didn't sell very well, I'd say it's unlikely Mattel would go that route again. I could see them possibly doing a light theme to a wave, where you have characters that somewhat go together (like, perhaps, one that featured Batman, a Bat villain, and maybe some characters from Outsiders and the Bat Family) are a possibility. I just don't see them doing a story specific wave like Hush or Long Halloween.
 
Never mind all the done to death main gang, give me Wildstorm and Vertigo! I need Planetary, the Authority, and an Invisibles shelf, stat. And that freaky alien bird who gets Shade's coat and possesses a dead Earth girl.
 
Atomic Knight said:
Removing Batman from the main roster will decrease the chances of success.
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Heh. A Batman subline is essentially inevitable, but it wouldn’t remove Batman from the main roster. We’d be getting some Batman stuff in the “main” line and also a Batman-specific subline. Mattel actually already did this, more than once.
 
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