This year has been far worse for this ratio, in my opinion. I had told myself that I was going to limit myself to 1 re-do / upgrade for every 2 brand new characters that I bought, but I haven't been able to make myself stick to it. 

Just look at the Gamerverse MvC stuff for instance. The only new character was Gargantos/Shuma. 

It feels like Hasbro is doubling and tripling down on the most well known characters more than ever and more rarely than ever mixing in something new. 

I quickly came up with 13 truly new characters for this year (some not out yet): Husk, Marrow, Deathbird, Feral, Starfox, Fabian Cortez, ROM, Shalla Bal Silver Surfer (MCU), Gargantos, Francine Frye Electro, Champion, Joaquin Torres Falcon (MCU) and Spider-Boy.

That's about 1/4th of what we got as recently as 2023. I think this is the worst year for new never before made characters that I can remember in quite some time. I hope that changes with this month's announcements. 

Well you didn't count  Rachel Summers Phoenix and I feel like that's kind of weird.  I mean.. I guess technically one of the previous releases in the Marvel Girl outfit was supposed to be Rachel, but - no it wasn't.    Also super weird that you counted Starox as new but not the Champion of the Universe that comes with him.  He's very definitely not had a Legends figure before.

Also, if the next BAF wave is what it's rumored to be then we can add to the totally new category:

Phantom Rider

Warbow

Ai-aipaec

Executioner

And that's not counting Werewolf by Night which will likely be a big upgrade over the one Toy Biz gave us NINETEEN years ago.    Seriously, that monster multipack came out in 2006.   Spider-Man Classics Man Wolf was also released in 2006.   So those feel new, even if the sort of technically aren't.

But as someone who would always prefer a new character to a redo of a previously done character,  I do get your broader point.

Not all re-dos / updates are created equal. That's for sure, but I definitely still collect mostly for new characters at this point after being in on the line since the beginning. I get mad at myself most of the time that I allow myself to buy updates. 

Champion is definitely on my list above. The 2-pack with him and Starfox will almost certainly be my favorite purchase of the year. 

Yeah, I don't count Rachel. I've had green/yellow mini-skirt Rachel in my display forever. Now are these figures really comparable at this point? Of course they're not.

I'm looking forward to this BAF wave that is supposed to be announced tomorrow for sure. Ai Apaec, Phantom Rider and Warbow are all very welcome. We're likely right on the border of whether they actually end up in hand before the year, but I think it's likely that they will. I can't count Executioner either because we technically got a MCU Karl Urban figure of him. Again, comparable? No, of course not -- but we've still gotten representation of the character. While the WBN and Man-Wolf figures are welcome updates I don't count them as new characters either.

Basically if I have some official representation of the character in the line at this scale from either Hasbro/ToyBiz already on my shelf then they don't count as new for me. No matter how long it's been. Am I still going to buy these new versions? Of course I am! And I will absolutely feel a lot better about buying those updates than I will the newest slight tweak on Spidey, Wolverine, Cap and Iron Man that make them only marginally better than what came before.  

Sadly it won't happen,  but I would definitely take redo's of Sleepwalker (bigger more accurate buck)and Darkhawk (original colors/design with removable wings!) I bought two of the original just to cut the wings off, but he needs an update anyway! We also need 90s Nomad lol!