As one of the younger members of the forum (31), I grew up with the 2003 show and it is therefore the incarnation of TMNT I have the most nostalgia for. That said, I think it is an absolute mistake for Super7 to do 2003 Turtles.
My generation represents a smaller percentage of adult action figure collectors than the generation who grew up with the 87 show and the Playmates toyline, anf those of us who do collect action figures are a lot less likely to buy Super7. The kids who grew up watching TMNT 2003 are also the kids who grew up watching DBZ and other anime. As such we're generally more into lines like SH Figuarts and figma, and those lines reflect what we expect out of action figures, especially in the price range Super7 charges. Even if Super7 had flawless QC, we're generally a lot less likely to get on board with Brian Flynn's design philosophy towards action figures.
Therefore, by doing alternating waves of 2003 and vintage, Brian is going to be making the existing customer base for TMNT Ultimates wait longer for new figures in order to court an audience who might not show up. I don't think this is gonna work out well for them.
Speaking more personally, I would have much rather have seen NECA do 2003 Turtles than Super7. Having owned TMNT figures from both companies, the recent Mirage set is far more reflective of what I want out of 2003 Turtles than the Ultimates
@madcap1970 that's a good point. I do think by alternating waves, Super7 is basically testing the waters with 2k3. They don't know if collectors will show up or not, but they won't have a ton invested if the first two waves are duds and they can do something else. I see this more as Super7 feeling the squeeze from Viacom. NECA has already carved out a big portion of TMNT for itself and if Super7 is getting shut-out on the vintage inspired stuff then they need to find another avenue. TMNT is probably their best performing line so I get them being reluctant to just call it a day. Going after 2k3 gives them a lane to occupy that no one else is and they'll find out, good or bad, if it was worth it or not. I personally think there's enough interest in the 2k3 iteration of the franchise to sustain a modest line. I grew up on the 87 turtles and when 2k3 arrived that was basically my first blast of toy nostalgia and I bought the main cast and knew plenty of others who did the same. I won't be all-in on a 2k3 line, but I don't like any of the Shredders Super7 has done so maybe I'll grab the 2k3 one. I'm skeptical it will have the longevity to go 10 waves deep and I do think there's a good chance Super7 mucks it up, but I'm interested in seeing what they put out there. Too bad we likely won't see any images until next year.
I know 2003 has a lot of vocal fans...but are they really interested in $55-$60 figures? And we're still at a point where all the kinks haven't been worked out...plus the line is incomplete, and if it's just going to mix all together into a mess of "Here's 2003 figure, here's something we made up, here's something that's not quite Playmates" then...just ugh. This is sounding SUPER frustrating to me.
And just to sound extra negative, I thought their Ninja April was pretty bad looking. It was boring and really had no appeal to me other than the namesake of the character. I don't know what to think of their in house creations outside of that not-what-anyone-wanted Rat King.
Here's the thing about doing the 2003 Turtles; It's a great way to expand what you can offer once you have endeared yourself to the customers. Which Super7 has not. As it is, basically no one that collects this line is convinced that S7 will ever get around to even doing all the major vintage toy characters. AND with the possible issues with Playmates, there's even more questions about what S7 is actually going to make.
So all this news is doing is assuring fans that this line probably will not last long enough to give them all the stuff they came here for in the first place. Even outside of TMNT specifically, most people seem to agree that S7 has taken on way too many licenses and it has tanked both their quality control and their release schedule. So what does Brian think the reaction is going to be to 'oh AND we're adding a whole different part of TMNT into our TMNT line.' C'mon.
But really, I think what this comes down to is the Turtles and Shredder sell the best, and S7 wants a reason to do more of them in a line that's probably struggling to sell tertiary characters at a high price point and quality only Super7 can deliver (two years later). If anything, and I've never been a doomsayer on ANY toyline, I'd say this is a death knell moment.
2003 Turtles are great. I actually would really like good 2003 Turtles figures. But if Super7 thinks I'm going to be fooled into starting another collection they won't finish, of overpriced figures with shitty quality control and bad engineering/design... they're out of their minds. I can't imagine I'm alone here.
I want 2003 Turtles, I grew up watching that show, but not from Super7. I'd want much prefer if NECA gave them to us so they'd be in a similar scale to the '87 and Mirage Turtles we've already got from them, rather than the noticeably bigger Super7 scale. NECA 2k3 turtles would probably be much more articulated too. Cheaper as well.
I like Shredder's design in that show juuuuust enough that I might at least pick him up, but even still I'm not sure on that.
On the one hand - I love 2003 so this is awesome!
On the other - this kinda feels like a jump the shark type moment for the line and as close to confirmation as we'll get that someone (likely Playmates) has effectively killed their ability to redo the vintage figures.
I would have loved figures of new 2003 characters like Hun and Ch'rell in vintage style to mix in with the existing line (like we just saw with Karai) but not sure I can get on board with effectively starting a new collection given rising prices, unresolved QC issues, and increasing delays.
Will the 2003 waves bring in enough new fans to make up for the vintage fans who skip them? Guess we'll find out. Most likely they will for the initial few waves of core characters, but after that I'm doubtful (and 2003 is my favorite TMNT show).
As for the presumed decline of vintage sales. First, the line was Super 7's best selling so even with some expected decline I'm not sure I'm convinced it was in the danger zone (especially when it should have been included in any forecast that sales would decline after the core characters were released).
Outside of the expected decline after the core characters, I'm sorry but Super 7 haven't helped themselves. They had wave 5 hit with the worst QC so far and at the same time had a run of pre-orders for waves that went too heavy on the variants and strange choices. Wave 6 was great but didn't erase the memories of wave 5's issues and when wave 7 is a year late people don't have confidence.
And now they they want to take a line with all these delays and say we're halving the number of waves per year. Not to catch up and get back on schedule but to introduce a sub line. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Like I said, I love 2003 but 2 waves a year means it will take a long time to get a collection going, even if you do look passed the QC issues and delays. And the comments made in the interview leave me feeling we won't get a "complete" vintage line thanks to the new restrictions they seem to be under and the now halved release schedule. Now, I don't need every figure, but I do want characters like Tragg, Tokka, Razhar, Chrome Dome, Groundchuck, Dirtbag, Fugitoid, the rest of the frogs and the Neutrinos. And this leaves me feeling that is now unlikely. So why should I start a 2003 sub line where the same will most likely happen again?
Other than the Triceraton, I'm not worried about anything more from Super7, especially since I've traded off a lot of their figures already.
Super7 updated their status page. They also changed it to be ordered by delivery instead of license. Currently:
Glow Slash - October
Wave 8 - November
Party Wagon - December
Wave 9 - February
Wave 7 - April
Wave 10 - June
At least Punker Don will be joined by Rocker Leo sort of quickly. Robotic Rocksteady, on the other hand, will be waiting awhile for his buddy. I hope the delays on that wave don’t impact the quality like we saw with wave 5.
https://super7.com/pages/pre-order-status-page
I just looked up my Party Wagon order and I placed it on 12/22/21, and I believe the original delivery date was April '22? Talk about a lead time.
Were they really that optimistic about the Party Wagon initially? Because that's almost laughable. I feel like the shortest delivery window has been around 9 months, pre-COVID, but that was for figures and not something more complex like a vehicle.
It was initially a very short lead time, but I believe I also ordered quite a while after the PO opened up.
Should 2003 waves happen, I'll pick up the Turtles, Casey, and April. That's pretty much the set of Dooney Mirage Turtles + Casey that I've always wanted. Hopefully the articulation isn't garbage.
Watched the first Super7 video series that Veebs is doing. I’m very happy Brian Flynn is doing these. Transparency is nice.
The more I hear Brian Flynn talk, the more I question how he comes to the conclusions he does. He’s made numerous questionable decisions over recent years. And now the 2003 one is mind boggling.
He’s backlogged 4 waves of turtles outstanding. That have questionable characters. The QC has been rough and instead of taking responsibility, he either ignores it or blames the factories. As though he’s not ultimately responsible for what the factories put out.
Instead of finishing out the vintage line while he could, he made weird characters. Now Playmates allegedly out the stop to vintage, he tried making weird changes like that anime Rat King.
Now he’s going to continue the vintage line but only do one wave per year instead of two, to split his bandwidth with 2003. And of the one vintage wave, he’s only going to include a single vintage character we want in each of those waves. So one vintage character per year going forward which may or may not be as ridiculous as anime Rat King.
And he claims he doesn’t know how the market will react?
He did say something very sane and logical if I heard him correctly. That wave 1 of 2003 will include all 4 turtles. Because anything other than that, would be guaranteed failure of this new line. If he doesn’t do all e turtles in wave 1, the line will fail 100%. If he does do all 4 turtles, then I predict only a 95% chance of the 2003 line failing.
Since Veebs has Brian on there weekly for a while, to resume after Toy Fair, I’d love if he’d be willing to ask questions from the forum. It doesn’t seem like anyone who interviews him asks him any real questions. Like about QC issues. Or around figure choices and designs.
Is this the 2003 line that is being referred to:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Animated (Playmates) Action Figure Checklist (figurerealm.com)
?
@sepster yes, presumably it's figures based on the 2003 animated series by 4Kids titled simply Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The only toyline prior to this for that series was Playmates, which approached it in a similar manner to the vintage line by kind of doing their own thing that was clearly inspired by the show. Well, the turtles were fairly unique to the toyline, but the secondary characters were mostly show accurate for the format. Super7, due to the issues they've run into with Playmates and their existing line, will presumably strive for animation accurate depictions of the characters when it's unveiled next year.
Latest Post: Daredevil Top 10 - Just For Fun! Our newest member: Moviarthe Recent Posts Unread Posts
