Comments on: Best & Worst of 2008

By: Mike H.

Mike H. — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:17:53 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment on Indiana Jones. I was excited for this line and couldn’t wait! And then, the Raiders and Crystal Skull waves hit…and that was it.

Btw, I sent away my proof-of-purchase items back in November, and still have not received my Crystal Skull figure!!

The only place to find the Last Crusade figures was at KMart…for $9.89!! Yes, $9.89!! What made it even worse, was that I found the Grail Knight, and his elbow joints wouldn’t move. I forced the left one, and I snapped off his left arm from the elbow on down. I have NEVER seen a figure that did not have working elbow joints before this!

Of course, I wanted the Temple of Doom line, but it sounds like it’s been pulled into another dimension given that every single store has their Indy merchandise on clearance.

Pity we’ll never see Marcus Brody, Belloq in his white suit, Toht, the German Mechanic, Lao Che, the old man from the village, the Lava Pit playset w/victim (I made it up, but come on, it’s the next best thing to a carbon-freezing chamber, and Hasbro at least made that!!), Kazim, and even Walter Donovan. Hasbro couldn’t even give us an older Marion Ravenwood, Mac, or the new Dean of Marshall College.

In the words of Jay Sherman: ‘Yes, I’m bitter.’

By: Luckrunner

Luckrunner — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:47:57 +0000

Kind of take issue with She Hulk being worst figure of the year. I got the figure and it isn’t that bad. The Shanna figure ia awful if only for the Bendis story.linked to the packgaging. Having suffered through the last 2 years of his b.s. in Marvel, it gets wear on your soul. Hate Marvel with a vengeance more than ever!

If you ask me that vote should go to every Dark Knight Joker figure released last year and this year. You want to talk about overexposure! Every review site for deluxe 12″+ figues seems to have an ad for the Hot Toys Joker release and the idiotic Bat Pod. I can’t stand the Dark Knight overhyped marketing campaign. Its everywhere on the ‘Net and the fact that Wal-Mart/Target/TRU stock more of those than DC Classics in their aisles is also criminal in itself.

By: Neil

Neil — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:55:09 +0000

I got the figure stands from matty.com too and they are horrible. few of the men figures work with them (the feet are too big or small).

By: Spilldog

Spilldog — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 02:44:01 +0000

I kind of like DC Infinite Heroes, despite the lack of articulation and ridiculously oversized hands. I walked into Walmart today and nearly fainted when I saw a huge assortment of DC Infinite Heroes (1-packs and 3-packs). I grabbed up a Batman, which I’ve searched for high and low for weeks. They also had Black Lightning, Dr. Fate, Specter, Green Arrow 1-pack, and to my surprise, a Superman 1-pack! The 3-packs surprises were the Wondergirl/Bizarro/Supergirl pack and Weather Wizard/Jay Garrick Flash/Mirror Master pack! The big disappointment, however, was the silly excuse for a Joker DC Infinte Heroes figure… are they serious?? The body scuplt is fine, but the face is way too small for the body and the hair looks like some bizarre green mess with wacked-out devil horns! Why can’t anybody produce a decent-looking Joker figure?? The only decent Joker figure I’ve found recently was the JLU Joker, which is dead-on with the cartoon series.

By: spoopy

spoopy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:22:53 +0000

I dunno, You can never have enough Guy Gardner.

By: Miry Clay

Miry Clay — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 22:28:37 +0000

I think Dark Knight is a far worse line than DCI… I mean my boys have 0 interest in it even after seeing the movie. And they’re both big fans of strange variant Batmen. (They are lovin’ the B&B stuff we’ve found.)
DCI is really hated more for wasted potential than anything else. We were all hoping for something beyond a solid C on this. The gap between what we were hoping for and what we got was just too wide. Add to that the OUTRAGOUS pricing on the TRU packs, and it’s a receipe for passing. I would have like’d to support the line in the hopes that it would improve as promised, but in this economy I cant justifiy spening money on a hard to find, over-priced, C grade toy line.
Mattel does win for worse distribution. Hands down. There are waves of DCU and DCI I simply have never seen. JLU wave 2 singles have been spotty at best, and wave 2 6 packs a no show. (admittedly, only two of the six stores sold out of the wave 1 6 packs over Christmas, with another two absolutely clogged with them still.) I realize Mattel has been in a state of flux this year, moving to new factories, Feds looking over their shoulder, all over that whole lead paint thing, so I’m willing to cut them some slack… but only some. Great ideas, and fan friendly character selections won’t overcome sloppy executions and poor distributions.

By: Spilldog

Spilldog — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:30:48 +0000

If there was an award for worst distribution of 2008, surely it would go to Mattel. Mattel’s distribution of DCUC has been a joke! Wave 1 hit stores with a vengeance, to the extent that Penguin and Orion were just warming the pegs months after the line first came out. Distribution of Waves 2-4 was terrible and Walmart’s exclusive Wave 5 only came to a handful of Walmart stores because (as I was told) of some comupter inventory glitch at Walmart?? And now Mattel is re-releasing Waves 2 and 3 to Target stores with really shoddy (and I mean REALLY SHODDY) paintjobs! Whoever is in charge of marketing and distribution at Mattel should have been fired a long time ago! It’s as though Mattel doesn’t want to sell the line. We collectors want to buy them, if Mattel will just get them into the stores!

By: Spilldog

Spilldog — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:25:10 +0000

I agree with your Worst Figure Lines for the most part, but surely Marvel Legends deserved an “honorable” mention as one of the worst lines of 2008. When Hasbro took over this line from Toybiz, I predicted it would be the end of Marvel Legends, and I was right. Toybiz Marvel Legends was the heyday of this line… but Hasbro successfully killed it. Toybiz spoiled us with ML’s articulation; Hasbro’s articulation sucks. Toybiz gave us such a wide range of figures, it’s mind-blowing. Hasbro’s selection just gives us a re-hash of the same old figures we’ve seen over and over. I mean, come on… how many Wolverines (and variations of Wolverine) do we need? When Hasbro took over ML, I stopped collecting them. I only hope Hasbro’s Marvel Universe 3.75″ can redeem Hasbro for the joke it’s made out of Marvel Legends.

By: arsenio3

arsenio3 — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:04:40 +0000

Did DCUC win both best and worst toy line in 2008? Probably deserved both!

By: Casimir

Casimir — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:37:27 +0000

Well reasoned. Well written. Let’s hope the targeted parties learn something from this. (Though I agree with Julius. That Dark Knight packaging was phoned in.)