@therealsmallville I use cool words and am unapologetic over it. You might say insouciant.
And let me pull you back from the slippery slope: I'm not attempting to shut down conversation Mattel's faults or Todd's faults or anything else related to these lines. I'm saying that it is insulting and diminishing to compare someone's relationship with a toyline to an abusive relationship. This is a very specific complaint that frankly I never thought I'd have to make.
Interesting thread to follow, even if some of the back-and-forth is a little dicey (it's going to be a long year and a half...)
SDComics, I too remember fondly when you would do the SDCC photo galleries for AFI. I would always save your galleries for last, and 'savor the flavor' of that year's SDCC.
As for folks remembering that Mattel was getting 'better' towards the end, I mean I guess there were some improvements, but my lasting memory of their last wave (other than that weird Batman '89' 'homage'/Poison Ivy wave) was the horrific cape on the Dick Grayson Batman.
So better? Maybe. Actually good? Not so sure. That said, it's been 5 years, so again, I'm cautiously optimistic that their new offering will more closely resemble the best they offer in their WWE Elite & Masterverse lines.
That Batman was something else. The extremely floppy torso articulation was fun too, so that the figure couldn't even stand up straight. Absolutely the worst figure I've ever purchased (not counting silly dollar store stuff, of course).
Regarding the back and forth, obviously we all want whatever Mattel does to succeed. None of us want the pilot of the aircraft to not know what they're doing...unfortunately, many of us were enjoying the flight we were on and remember what the previous plane was like. So will this new line be better than McFarlane? Well, it's what we're getting, so obviously I hope it's a vast improvement. Otherwise, what would be the point in collecting it? So, let me be the first to say that while I vastly disagree with Panther and others here who are excited, I shall lay down my plastic accessory of battle and just wait and see what happens. There's literally no sense in arguing over it, we had McFarlane and they hated it, now we're going to have Mattel and maybe I'll hate it. But it is what it is, and this forum is small enough without all of us hating each other lol
Sorry for getting snippy guys. I'll be better.
@secondwhiteline I don't need sales numbers. It's very easy to tell what is and what is not easy to get. It is also easy to see what after market prices.
I did see today that Mattel seem to have eventually ditched the outdated and utterly stupid vertical ab crunch joint on their WWE Elite figures. It was oudated in the Toybiz years of ML, but Hasbro's ML is the only modern line still using that rubbish I can think of. If Mattel use it, I'm out. Not even joking. When I keep seeing people claiming that unproduced Vonner DC Batman Mattel sculpts looked good, I just see that joint and think it looks like a pile of stinking turd.
I may have a problem.
Interesting thread to follow, even if some of the back-and-forth is a little dicey (it's going to be a long year and a half...)
😆 😆 😆
I prefer the ab crunch. It makes the sculpt look more natural as compared to the upper torso roller ball thingy that some ML, GI Joe Classified, and Mcfarlane uses. Articulation is worthless if it makes the figure look weird which most of Mcfarlanes do.
Also I LOVE Vonner Batman. While I think Mattel did not use it, it looks very similar to the DC Essentials Knight Fall Batman and company.
@secondwhiteline I don't need sales numbers. It's very easy to tell what is and what is not easy to get. It is also easy to see what after market prices.
There are some clear signs that McFarlane sales declined at some point…namely that Walmart and Target stopped offering non-exclusives for preorder on their website, and the figures started selling out instantly when Knightfall Batman got released. Store-only figures sounds like incentive for big retailers who are on the fence to keep your line on the shelves.
McFarlane also started out fast though - it’s possible that even after a sales decline, they were outpacing Mattel’s 2018-2019 DC sales. As many have said, nobody really knows for sure how it all stacks up.
I still have all of the 2018-2019 Mattel figures on my shelf and they look pretty good standing there, but really are behind the times. Only Tim Drake Robin has double jointed elbows and knees, some of them are missing ankle rockers. They are improvements over DC classics in some ways but I think the thighs look worse in a neutral pose. Mattel’s biggest improvement towards the end of the line was character selection IMO, the engineering was eons behind Legends.
Here’s to hoping the improvements in the MOTU and WWE lines make their way to DC. I’m cautiously optimistic.
That ab crunch joint looks like rubbish the second it is used, and there's no need to restrict it to a vertical plain of movement. There's a reason its been abandoned by pretty much every company except the ones who churn out the same old rubbish and have no care for their products- it lacks functionality and breaks up the sculpt if its used. You're better off without any torso joint because it only looks decent in vanilla poses.
@mysticmanjrf I know that the WWE team is sort of their own universe within Mattel, but agreed, I sincerely hope some of that approach makes it to DC. Multiple pricing tiers; specialty lines in different styles; smart ways to enhance sell-through while keeping the most popular characters available; even chases that aren't impossible to find. Hoping that DC takes more from their Ultimate style articulation than anything else, though. Like dave-o mentions, the ab crunch has a lot of issues, it feels like old engineering, and I think the Ultimate torso articulation is leagues beyond it.
I keep hearing good things here about their current MOTU stuff. I really should take a look at it.
I don't know what McFarlane's sales have been like and I don't want to extrapolate from effectively no real data, but a thing that sticks out to me is them acknowledging that the Crisis on Infinite Earths wave got rejected by retail. And maybe the wave's selection was just too obscure or maybe retail was already drowning in product, I don't know. Maybe it seriously came down to "Where's Batman?" It might not actually represent anything about the line's broader sales. But it's wild to me that a line I see on shelves regularly has waves that got rejected.
And with the ab crunch goes the sculpt. I was looking at the package version the new Dr Fate figure. The ball joint ab crunch is sculpted in such a way that the upper 2 abs are on one piece and the rest are on another piece. It looks like the upper abs are just floating there. It just looks weird.
I mean... there's no reason to assume Mattel would be using an ab crunch on new DC figures. They weren't using it on the female figures at the end of their DC figure run and they don't use it currently on their masterverse figures... though it looks like they do still used some modified version of it on their elite wrestling figures, so I guess it's possible. I don't hate it as much as others do, but I wouldn't mind if it's replaced.
If Mattel DC does standard releases and "Ultimate" releases while priced similarly to the WWE line... We've all won. I doubt we'll get exactly that, but you never know.
FYI, Mattel didn't sculpt the last iteration of the DC Multiverse figures. They may have done a few on occasion. It was supposed to have been the Four Horseman but they subcontracted the sculpting duties to artists like McFarlane has done on one of more occasion. I called them out several times on social media back then. The females were crap for the most part even Wonder Woman. Barely any of them had any torso movement. Superman and his thin upper legs. Kyle Raynor using the same body. The Ray figure first time ever done looked pretty good but the sleeves looked like an amateur did them and yeah it was an amateur. I dropped the line after seeing big head Wally West, skinny legs John Stewart and that horrible Poison Ivy. Their BAFs were the best part of the line.
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