Any other conjecture on who it might be then?

I wonder what the main reason is for the subs being down?

Is it Price?

People loosing interest in the line?

Or backlash to Mattel's blind "all or nothing" approach?

I think MANY people are second guessing themselves when it comes to committing to anything Mattel is offering in terms of subs and pre-orders. Little by little, Mattel and Toyguru are losing any credibility they may have had due to the constant follies on their part. The trust just isn't there.

Maybe they should take the approach of the Joe Fan club-- they announce and show all 12 figures-- and the bonus figure is the mystery exclusive-- (they of course have delays - like not actually releasing until 3 months after expected just like Mattel as well)

which of course is the exact opposite approach that Mattel takes.. keep the whole line in mystery-- when will the american toy companies learn-- we are not like the Japenese-- we hate blind boxed items-- and this is even worse than that- (as at least with most blind boxed items- you at least know all the ones that are available and you can decide whether you wish to risk your money on that chance to get the one you want...)

I think it a combo of:

A) The filmation characters not being as popular as they thought
B) MOTUC fatigue (sp?). The line's getting pretty deep into the characters now, with fewer and fewer characters with broad appeal
C) The economy still sucks and $60 a month (plus more on "big fig" months) for one toy line is too much to ask.

I consider myself a moderate MOTUC fan. Up until this year, I cherry picked. But I wanted to make sure I got Rammy and any Snake-men, so I got the sub. They have showed three Filmation figures thus far. I don't know who any of them are. The bat guy looks stupid. The ice guy is pretty generic for an almost $30 figure. The only one that interests me is the Blue Sorceress chick.

So 1 out of 3. Not exactly stellar results. Thus, I'm passing. I may try to get the blue chick on the secondary market.

I just can't get excited about characters I have no attachment to.

BTW I agree with Stew. I wish I could see all the figures (or at least mock ups of the remaining three) in order to make an educated decision. If all of the remaining characters are cool, I could justify a 4/6 split. But if even one of them sucks, half of the sub would be a waste of money for me.

Maybe Toy Guru's been watching too much Family Guy.

"A boat's a boat. But a mystery box could be anything... Even a Boat!!!"

But then there's the opposing side to that, that the mystery is what keeps people buying.

If you buy a sub, there's always a chance that the figure you've been pining for will be there later in the year

Like Peter said, a mystery box could be anything... even Two Bad!

Thing thing about the mystery mentality, is that hype needs to be rewarded by the very characters people are pining for. Mattel dropped the ball on that. Take POP for example, we may be approaching the end of the line, yet the POP/Great Rebellion big guns have yet to be released Glimmer, Angella, Mermista, Razz. But of course we have the Fighting Foe Men (who I don't really mind) and Vykron.
I wouldn't so much say anyone is losing interest, but people are growing impatient waiting for the figures they do want. 2012 and the 30th left a bad taste in a lot of mouths. They sold the 30th with the likes of Draego Man, and then they gave us Spector, Laser Lot, and Cy Chop. 3 of the lines most unpopular figures. Then 2012 in itself bombarded people with obscure, unknown, and D list characters. When you're spending 60+ dollars a month, you at least want relevancy. People will commit to a certain amount of unknown, if that unknown is being drawn from a specific pot. But MOTUC is too broad at this point, it lost its focus, and needs to reel it in an remember what people want to buy.
Are the figures still amazing? Yes. Are the characters they are choosing amazing? No.
If they want to sell the 2014 sub, they need to come out with the strongest they have left... Two Bad, Glimmer, Hydron, Extendar, Blade, Scorpia, Blade, Modulok, etc. People will commit, they just don't want to be stuck buying another Spector or Dekker.

Had they not included less popular characters during the run of the line, MOTUC would have only lasted 2-3 years. I'm glad they are spacing things out and I am getting additional characters I would otherwise not have gotten if all the A-list characters came out immediately. At the same time, Mattel is aware of the reduced demand so I expect 2014 to be the year when we get the remaining popular characters and should the line continue past that, it wouldn't be as robust as it once was.

I was in the closest comic shop this morning and saw two guys very nearly come to blows over which is the "greatest toyline of all time". MOTUC or the Speed Racer movie line of all things. That was one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Also a thought occurred to me. I wonder if CG is scaled down in the anticipation of a movie year release of the inevitable 4 inch line. It would be wonderfully scaled to them.

I was thinking the same thing about Castle Grayskull. One of the ulterior motives besides being a bunch of greedy bastages, is making it the right size for a retail release. Whether it's for a movie year, or if they just want to start fresh with a smaller sized line. They consciously made it roughly the size of the 200X version, one reason being so it fits in a decent sized box for a future retail release. I think they have a bunch of hidden agendas with this Castle Grayskull among other things. With such a costly undertaking, they are going to want to get their moneys worth after tooling it. Again, this is all speculation.

I could swear they posted a pic of it alongside the 200X castle, and it appeared to be much larger, but I could be remembering incorrectly.

I agree with having some of the lesser known characters included, but in 2012 they inundated us with them. The 30th sub didn't help. It turned off a lot of subscribers. There are a great deal of lesser known characters that fans would have received better than the obscure and total unknowns that were released.

Wasn't that why the 30th sub was a separate subscription? So if you didn't want these new characters you had no attachment to, you didn't have to get it and stick with the more mainline sub. I think what Mattel did wrong was making the quarterly bonus figures an automatic attachment to the main sub. The bonus figures were supposed to be just that -- bonus. Some people many not want a different version of He-Man or Evil Lyn. They should have allowed people to opt-in into getting the bonus figures with their subscriptions.

Some one on another forum measured his 200X castle and compared it to the new castles latest dimensions... it turns out that in some areas, I forgot which, the 200X castle is actually bigger. All the entrance ways and clearances are virtually similar to the 200X version.