In the bygone Kenner days, they rarely reused a figure without changing the deco, unless it was a straight-up repackaging. Every item was different to some degree. That slowly changed over time, and now we see toy companies like Hasbro and Mattel including identical items in multiple SKUs. See any number of JLU 3-packs or Star Wars multipacks for examples.

As a completist of the lines I collect, it is very annoying when dealing with a reused sculpt to try and figure out if an item includes anything new. Mattel drives me crazy with the endlessly reused Big 5 in JLU. If I’m spending $10+ dollars on something, I want to get as much new stuff as possible, even if it is only a new deco.

Sigh.

Of course, when you’re making 15 million pieces a month you have some leverage over the factory. I do remember our LOTR set at BK having about 25 running color changes due to the extended number of parts that month, and the compressed timeline. But that was the only time I recall needing to modify once things were in production.

And yes, having someone on site is really imperative to getting the Chinese to toe the line on quality control.

The next question for me is has anyone looked at building a modern production facility in northern or central Mexico?

I’m not really addressing the JLU color issues, as that’s a part of WB Animations style guide problems, not a Mattel mistake. I’ll have a blog at some point about my own crazy run-in with WB on color. It is not easy getting them to know their own properties! But DCUC is a different story, clearly.

Also, that cover is of Brainiac’s first appearance, and his accepted “classic” outfit quickly did get refined to white boots, etc. They still need some deco on that belt, though: http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/action-comics/417-1.jpg

And again, I’m with you on the change to Supermans blue suit, that is a version they should do.
In fact I would suggest every future re-release of Batman and Superman should have the colours changed slightly in tone just to make them stand out from each other. Especially with Batman, as there are so many different blues and greys you could use.

Which they are correcting now…

As the Otter says, “head these things off up front…”

Spy