Masters Of The Universe Origins

[jonaskane]

I think the Jitsu wave was just badly (very badly!) over ordered, for whatever reason. No matter what, there are only so many people out there who are going to pick up those four figures, so if you keep putting them on shelves, they're going to sit there. What *did* manage to make it past that particular clog and hit retail sold quickly.

It reminds me of a couple of waves of DCUC - some of those waves just wouldn't go away, but when new product did find space it was snapped up. Mattel in particular has always had a history of some waves being heavy and some being practically non-existent, at least around me.

[KnightDamien]

. I know any note on poorer performance is trashed as anecdotal,

For a reason. It's anecdotal. And asking for more anecdotal evidence to back up your opinions is just spinning your tires.

but does anyone actually have a consistently decent retail experience with either Origins or Masterverse?

I don't even have a decent retail experience with McFarlane DC or Marvel Legends. And I know plenty of people having the same problem both in the US and Canada. Almost everyone I personally know that collects Marvel Legends - even outside Canada, buy everything or almost everything online. Doesn't mean Marvel Legends is suddenly disappearing from retail.
In fact, I don't think I know a single person (personally) that buys toys regularly in a physical store anymore. It's just too sporadic no matter what you collect.

I never saw Masterverse Wave 2 at retail, but I've also never seen anything beyond wave 3 at brick and mortar.

I've seen tons of wave 2, and that's in a place with notably horrible distribution that hardly ever gets up-to-date product. Wave 1 arrived really late, comparatively, but there was a fair bit of it. And then lots of wave 2. Lots of wave 3. A decent bit of wave 4 (the Skeletor was really hard to find, though). I haven't seen wave 5 yet, but again - we tend to get things way later around here, so that's not surprising.

I'm surprised at how fast the Deluxe Beast-Man seems to be moving. For a while there was just TONS of him at every store. Now I still see him, but just a couple. He was on sale for a bit, though. Not sure if he still is.

Anecdotal. Not useful information beyond knowing what's available in that one person's area (according to that one person and what they have actually been able to see). For all I know every wave has come and gone and I've just missed it every time. That happened to me a few times with Origins and I only found out way later.

I think the Jitsu wave was just badly (very badly!) over ordered, for whatever reason.

Definitely. And I don't even think it's a big mystery. People forget how new both of these lines really are - especially given that they're basically 'pandemic' lines where distribution/shipping/stocking have all been SO !@#$ up for so long that actually figuring out what's going on and accurately predicting demand has been an abysmally stupid and difficult process.

So MOTUO did way better than Mattel expected, it seems, with early waves selling out too fast (from the consumer perspective). They may have, as MANY lines do, over-corrected and now they've produced a bit too much in addition to the retailers also ordering too much because of faster sell-through early on. So the market has to correct, things have to slow down, and retailers have to move through the over-ordered stock before they put more stuff on the shelf. It's not like MOTUO/Masterverse is the first time that happened.

Honestly, if I were as alarmist as some people, I'd be over in the Joe Classified section saying that line is cancelled because my local TRU has like a hundred Cobra Soldiers and if you can't sell the army builder, obviously the line is dead, right?

It reminds me of a couple of waves of DCUC - some of those waves just wouldn't go away, but when new product did find space it was snapped up. Mattel in particular has always had a history of some waves being heavy and some being practically non-existent, at least around me.

Mattel has always sucked at distribution - I think in large part because Mattel has always sucked at communicating with their retail partners, and have no problem screwing them over by sending way too much of one specific product instead of sending consecutive waves of product. My wife complained about them doing basically this same thing with Monster High, where Canadian Walmarts are still absolutely CHOKING on the first wave of product - and some people in the States have never seen those figures at all.

It'll balance itself out eventually. Or it won't. But only time will tell - not a bunch of individual collectors trying to create excel spreadsheets of what they see on the pegs day-to-day.

[Super Camel]

I think that Comic Version of Man E Faces is supposed to be like a Wal-Mart exclusive for either Wave 13 or 14. Wal-Mart will get the Man E Faces figure in their case assortment instead of another character. The same way Wal-Mart will get Duplico instead of Hypno when they put out Wave 12. (at least thats what has been rumored)

I remember Toy Habits reporting something about that. That Duplico and mini comic Man E Faces were like special 5th figures to their respective waves. Hopefully that all gets cleared up tomorrow.

[PG-Superfan]

They just crowd funded a whole damn Eternia playset. I don't see this line suddenly evaporating. Maybe I'm naive.

Digging the new reveals -- pardon the pun, but is there an "origin" for the version of Skeletor that comes with Screech?

I don't see the line itself disappearing entirely, but maybe disappearing from regular retail is a possibility. I know any note on poorer performance is trashed as anecdotal, but does anyone actually have a consistently decent retail experience with either Origins or Masterverse? Figures either never show up or the figures that do show up rot on constant minimum 30% off sales or fail to disappear on clearance. I never saw Masterverse Wave 2 at retail, but I've also never seen anything beyond wave 3 at brick and mortar. I have been lucky to find the deluxes for the most part, but they sold a couple and then they just continued to rot. The same applies generally to origins. Nothing past the Jitsu wave.

Masterverse, I've generally had a positive retail experience with.

I have seen everything from the regular assortments at retail except Catra, He-Ro, Sun Man, CGI He-Man, and CGI Skeletor.

I live near a bunch of Targets. They stock them. They sell through on regular figures (except Frosta).

I have seen everything from the Deluxe/Oversized releases except the 87 movie He-Man and Skeletor. These hit clearance hard. She-Ra sold the fastest. King Grayskull sold worst.

Now, with Origins, it's been a headache.

For any three given waves, typically what happens is that Walmart gets one, Target gets another, and one skips retail. You don't know which is which until it happens.

But Walmart got clogged up on wave 7 (Jitsu and Stratos sold worst). Target got clogged up on wave 9 (He-Man and Skeletor sold worst). Target got multiple restocks of Wave 2, which sold quickly.

I have yet to see 10, 11, or 12 anywhere.

I managed to get 10 and 11 online. I ordered 12 from Australia on eBay after missing out elsewhere online.

I am very anxious about getting Duplico at a reasonable price.

[jonaskane]

Preorders galore at BBTS. Gonna be expensive but glad that things seem to be smoothing out after the last few months of speculation.

[docsilence]

Preorders everywhere. Normally I do everything with this line through BBTS but dropping so many Origins and Masterverse at once I split up the order between BBTS and Amazon, but now I regret it - these lines are such that it's almost easier to just pay a couple bucks extra and be able to see all my preorders in one place. Plus some were sold out fast on Amazon so I ended up doing two orders through BBTS... Reckon I got about 75% of the new stuff through BBTS today. A little iffy on the Snake Men army builder but I'll probably regret it if I don't get it.

[Tenement Funster]

Why is Snake Face a deluxe? The extra head?

[WildBill]

Why is Snake Face a deluxe? The extra head?

Looks like the snakes folding out of his chest feature is still there so probably that. Weird they wouldn't showcase it in the promo pics though

[Ikariniku]

My Origins pre-orders (all EE):

Talon Fighter & Point Dread

Skeleton Warrior 2-pack

Skeletor & Screech

I may add to this, I may not. I don't have a ton of nostalgia or drive to get Snake Men figures, but there are a lot of very nice figures in this wave.

EDIT: I pre-ordered mini comic Man-E-Faces from Amazon.

[xTIMMYxCOREx]

Anyone found the Walmart link for Moss man yet?

Very surprised they are going all in on snake men. As a kid I lost interest by the time they were released. In 200X they seem to kill the line. They were by far my least favorite faction in MOTU. Are they that much in demand? Over more Horde characters and a Slime Pit?

[mattmurdog]

Anyone found the Walmart link for Moss man yet?

Very surprised they are going all in on snake men. As a kid I lost interest by the time they were released. In 200X they seem to kill the line. They were by far my least favorite faction in MOTU. Are they that much in demand? Over more Horde characters and a Slime Pit?

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Masters-of-t ... ngk96VMZRI

I believe that's the link.

I like the Snakemen quite a bit, but they always represented a change to the story and character design which I hate. I know they do it to sell toys and to freshen it up but I hate change to character designs that I like.

[PantherCult]

Anyone found the Walmart link for Moss man yet?

Very surprised they are going all in on snake men. As a kid I lost interest by the time they were released. In 200X they seem to kill the line. They were by far my least favorite faction in MOTU. Are they that much in demand? Over more Horde characters and a Slime Pit?

Well, I certainly can't speak for everyone but ... Snakes are cool and sinister and dangerous in a primeval way. The Horde villains skew more towards body horror (Modulok, Mantenna, Leech) which also works and is effective.

But snakes are real and come in a ton of sizes and colors that make endless repaints easy and still "valid". It's hard to make new Horde characters without a bunch of new tooling - so much more cost effective to build out new and different snakes.

So it's not as much that Snakemen are more in demand than Horde characters - it's that new Snake Men are much cheaper to crank out than new Horde characters - while still being acceptable to the customers. It works for me.

[El Honez]

Q1: What is the origin (print media?) of that seemingly lava-shaded Skeletor that comes with Screech?
Q2: Is there a cartoon or comic book origin for those Snake Men army builders? I like the look of the blue one.

Bonus Question: There has been a purple Cyclops featured on some of the card art, and in Wun-Dar's mini-comic. Does this guy have an origin in any vintage sources, and/or undeveloped prototypes or designs?

[Ikariniku]

Looks like Snake Mountain is going up for pre-order April 28th, so there's time to cool off that credit card until then. Per Preternia:

https://twitter.com/preterniadotcom/sta ... 36473?s=20

[MightyMegs]

Under Siege by Wes, on Flickr