Allow me to frame a scenario for you: After months of waiting and a good chunk of change, that big box has arrived, and inside is your Hasbro Marvel Super-Ultra Class Mega Mega Deadpool. And he is pretty boss.
Inside his fancy box has plenty of extras. There’s some extra hands, some katana, couple pistols, a display stand… but there’s a minor twinge of disappointment. No scarred-up Wade head? Or a raised eyebrow masked one? No AK-74 Krink pistols?
As the price of your average figure hovers above $20, and your above-average above $50, each piece you pick up is becoming more and more of an investment. This inflation is due to lots of factors, some very controllable, and some not. But either way, toys is expensive! So, it’s getting tougher to justify those big buys, and it’s sometimes hard not to get a little buyer’s remorse after a few days or weeks, once the newness wears off.
That’s where the old stand-by of add-ons and accessories can be a big help. Nothing like a new head or a weapons pack to recharge your zeal for a particular figure.
As a concept, the accessory pack is about as old as the figures they accessorize, which is not surprising. The bigger scales have used them without fail for decades, since a uniform and a head-swap can turn any old base body into a new figure, be it a G.I. Joe, Mego, or Captain Action figure. Obviously, cloth goods have it a little easier than your average figure, since their very design allows changing looks to be part of the plan.
Of course, that didn’t stop smaller scales from doing it as well, with their packs including weapons and small vehicles. For the most part, though, smaller scale meant smaller price point, so buying another figure rather than just add-ons for an existing one made good sense, especially if you were a retailer. Why sell a $3 accessory when you can just sell more of a $5 figure?
And now? Well, I’m not sure if there is a cheap part of the hobby anymore. And that’s not necessarily all bad, because the quality of some of our current stuff is beyond the imagination of the $5 action figure era. The only real downside is that means the little bag of goodies continues to grow smaller and smaller with each release — the tree of ninja weapons with your turtles has become a couple twigs for swords. Batman went from more batarangs than he could possibly hold in DCSH to no batarangs and molded fists, at least on the Superman/Batman one.
The rise of the third party has helped fill this void, though, and no where is that more apparent than Transformers — There’s kits to fix or upgrade Hasbro and third party figures, gun kits, head kits, combiner kits — you name it. Masters of the Universe has made some serious inroads as well, with custom weapons kits as well as “character kits” to turn unwanted extras into proper players. Mattel themselves have even gotten in on the action with weapons packs and the like.
That’s not to say that the other big guys aren’t occasionally doing some good. Infinites Spidey, the venerable Mezco Bats, and the DCC Animated line have all sported some pretty swanky accessories with their figures. And Sideshow/ Hot Toys know how to hook it up. My only beef is that it seems like it’s very feast or famine, depending even on the individual release, not even the damn line is a consistent indicator. Spidey gets hooked-up like a boss, but Daredevil gets a pretty weak billy club, and 2099 gets… a… cape… thing. Granted, those guys don’t need much, but if we’re looking for extras, a Matt/Miguel head and some hand options would’ve been cool.
So, what say you, denizens of Fwoosh? Are you always wanting more crap to pile on with your figures, or is the stuff we get just ending up in a drawer anyway? For me, in all honesty, I think I’m actually both — my compulsion is to have lots and lots of stuff that I will occasionally change out, but mostly just store. But I like having the options. You?