Don't forget Kiddie City and Circus World. Am known on this list as the list maker?

Again that list you of yours from BBTS is miss leading. A lot of those toys were brands in the 80' as well plus 75% of that list are not sold in stores like Walmart or Target and just on the internet. My point was there are less brands now in stores unlike the 80's.

Ok, that's not what you said before but lets run with that. How do you know there were more brands in stores in the 1980's? It's not like the stores were any bigger in the 80's. Things seemed huge when you were a little kid back then, so it's understandable your feelings of nostalgia may have clouded your memory.

If you wanted a superhero figure in the 1980s there were basically two action figure choices, Super Powers and Secret Wars with maybe a few dozen figures in total. Today you have hundreds of figures with Marvel Legends, DCUC, Avengers, Dark Knight, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider Man, JLU, etc....the list goes on and on. Same with G.I. Joe and Star Wars or any other toy license. Hundreds of different varieties of figures available today vs. a lot fewer choices in the '80s. Hell, you can even buy reproductions of the '80s figures at retail and online in some cases.

Another great thing about today's toy market vs. the 1980's. The Internet. Now you don't have to worry about scouring the earth to find your favorite figure. Ebay fixed that.

It doesn't matter whether figures are available online or at the stores. It's a fact that, as a whole, there are way more licensed toys available and way more ways to buy them than in the 1980's. You can nitpick the BBTS list I posted as an example of the vastness of licensed properties available today, and you can ignore all the other supporting evidence I posted, but that doesn't make the sky purple.

So what happens if you give the internet to the 80's? Then how many toys could you track down?

Great idea! Here's the superhero action figure offerings for 1984. One page.

http://bigglee.blogspot.com/2009/10/198 ... stmas.html

Anyway as for JLU being a "Classic" line I think it will be considered that to older collectors but I don't really see to many kids from the turn of the century really getting into them 10 years from now.

Only time can tell guys! Time WILL tell....

It was an amusing read all throughout!

Exactly. The number of kids that bought JLU paled in comparison to the number of kids that bought MOTU, TMNT, GI Joe, Super Powers, etc.

And why is that?

The sheer number of options that kids have today. Action figure aisles have shrunken, packing more licensed product into a smaller space. Collecting is far more segmented today than it was back then.

And given the quality of the plastic used for JLU, they'll probably all be disintegrated in ten years time, anyway.

Please don't say that, I mean your probably right, but its gonna be a while before I can get them all out on display, so I'm hoping they last a bit longer than that lol.

I refer to it as a classic yes. But it's served it's purpose as far as a toy line goes. I will be happy the sooner I have firefly on my shelf.

For kids who grew up with it? Probably not. For Older Collectors and DC Comics fans in general? Most definitely.

A fan of a line calling it classic is not a fair representation of how the line is viewed imo. It's biased. For a line to be truly considered a classic I think you need to look at viewed from a non-fan perspective. I'm not a MOTU or Thundercat fan and didn't have the toys in the 80's but I would consider them classic lines for the impact they had on the toy industry. JLU besides being a massive line (and honestly that could be enough right there) didn't really do anything new. The designs had been done before in BTAS and STAS and well most of them are cartoon accurate from a cultural viewpoint it wasn't that big of a deal most likely.

I'm a big fan of the Visionaries toys in the 80's but I wouldn't consider them a classic line.

The Slinky is a classic.
Connect Four is a classic.
Monopoly is a classic.

Course those are specific toys and games that nearly everyone knows but you get the point.

Transformers is a classic.
Gi Joe is a classic.
Super Powers is a classic.
Power Rangers is a classic (as much as alot of people hate on it)

Who knows history could remember JLU along with those toys but I highly doubt it. I'd go as far as to bet the majority of the population let's just say in the US doesn't even know JLU exists.

JLU is like this big secret that is so awesome and most people probably have no idea about it.

I don't think I'm disagreeing with you. Ever hear the term "cult classic"? That's what JLU will be. Not a classic in the traditional sense but definitely a classic for SERIOUS action figure collectors.

There are all different qualifiers for the word classic and the word is broader than you say. I'm just saying which one will be used for JLU.

Edit: Put it another way: if Disney is allowed to say that The Black Cauldron is a "Masterpiece" on their DVD cases after fifteen years, I can call JLU a classic in that same amount of time.

I think we should open a barbershop with all the hair splitting going on here. I'll post the definition again.

clas·sic/ˈklasik/
Adjective:
Judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.
Noun:
A work of art of recognized and established value.

"Outstanding of its kind" -- I think when a group of people decide over time that an action figure line is worth spending years collecting, writing infinite message board posts about, even creating entire websites around custom figures based on a line, it might be a good bet that it will be a classic.

But hey, everyone can make up their own definition of classic. So I think the answer is like many have said, JLU will be classic to some and not to others. That's the way it is for any object of cultural significance.

I wasn't responding directly at you Fone but more to the fact that fans can sometimes love something so much that they can't imagine someone not knowing how amazing it is. There is no definitive description or rule that says, this line is classic and this line isn't.

Maybe you are correct though, maybe JLU will go along the lines of a Firefly that has a sort of cult following to it. That pretty much is true right now though.