Hot Wheels and Barbie.

The lack of any proper Batgirl in 3.75 is baffling.

You know something else that's baffling? Mattel not using the same leathery-material for Batman 89's cape for Batman 66's cape. Seriously, it would work so well!

Btw, what's the name of that material? Maybe I can purchase some online after I get the figure and fix the issue myself.

That does make no sense. She's a highly sought after mainstay.

Harley Quinn, Catwoman, and Batgirl as a three pack would sell truckloads.

But this goes back to that age old "toy maker" ignorance of claims that boys don't buy girl figures. Which yes, they do. They sell. They always sell. They sell out even every time. So where this thought comes from in itself is baffling.

Whether it's wonder woman or Marvel. Figures of women have always been the rarest to come by even when not short packed in cases. You can see figres of Joker flooding pegs, and Black Mask or two face. But not once have I seen a Harley Quinn in the wild and it was still there the next day. Or Catwoman for that matter. Or really any Marvel heroine in the 4'' scale either.

General Zod can flood the peg and not move, but Batgirl would have sold. A case of her alone probably could have saved the line's sales. But heck, a case with her, Arkham Catwoman, and Harley probably would have been a best seller too.

I don't know if it's because of retailers not wanting it, or Mattel messing up, but the amount of profits missed out on because of that ignorance is baffling in itself.

I would've bought one on site. Not to mention a Poison Ivy. I would've loved to get a figure of her too.

And yeah I'd say all of that's true. I never saw either Catwoman in a store and only saw Harley once.

The marketing alone on it is a no brainer.

Gotham City Sirens: Arkham Games Edition.
Boxset with all 3, or even a 4 pack with Poison Ivy. It'd print money that's how fast it'd sell.

Especially if they fixed the issues with Harley Quinn's arm articulation.

I think the general aftermarket prices of good female figures speaks for itself. Not as well known characters tend to languish on Amazon and be really cheap...If they're male. The females are harder to come by if you want them to be properly articulated. Heck, I BARELY managed to get myself a Wasp at a decent price!

I still have yet to find a Red She-Hulk figure.
K-Marts locally have almost a peg full of ant-man from that infinite wave, but not a single red she-hulk.

I've seen Harley Quinn only once on shelves. Passed it up because of the arms, but changed my mind the next day and it was gone. Haven't seen one since.

Never even seen Catwoman on shelves at all besides the Batman Returns one, and even that disappeared within a week.

Barbie and He Man. They keep 100% profit from both, nothing else matters, which is why I wish they would just leave well enough alone.


CCC.

Yeah, need that and Shanna.


CCC.

for Shanna check out Gamestop

This. It's a great place for getting some Infinite stuff you don't need. I've seen a few Ares', Shanna's, Deathlock's, etc. I's also good for catching up on some 3.75" Black Series before they essentially killed it and made them Walmart exclusives. I was able to get Rex for around $5.

I have found figures at 1 GameStop in my area, none in this scale. I got several figures at Five Below including Ares, just no Shanna or Red She Hulk.


CCC.

Pretty sure I saw Shanna at a local GameStop did you want me to pick it up if they do?




I swear to Hasbro I'm gonna glue the hell out of Hyperion's cape the one in red is tracking driving me nuts constantly falling out.

He-man doesn't really sustain them all that much. It has no retail market support, only direct sales, and those are still low in comparison to retail chain sales. That's why they tried the DC vs Masters of the Universe sets, but they didn't really grab a strong foot hold with retailers.

So it's mostly Hot Wheels, Matchbox, and the toddler lines that do. And some of the IPs generated from that besides the licensed in ones too like Pixar's Cars series and Planes series.

And yup Barbie is their main bread and butter.

That's why they've been expanding lately and looking into other forays. The "boys" market isn't one they have a strong footing in outside of their Hot Wheels/Matchbox stuff. That's why they bought Megablok, which also let them gain a foothold in the building blocks toy lines too.

Even the "girls" market they're trying to expand in with DC Superhero girls because even with as iconic as Barbie is, it doesn't have quite the sales it used to.

Some of these acquisitions should lead to some interesting future forays though. Now with Mega Bloks in-house, they can do more with their self-owned IPs in those areas. Like Barbie, She-ra, and He-man lines there.

That's the one mistake Mattel made in comparison to Hasbro. Hasbro has diverse IPs all over the map of self-owned in-house properties. That's why they are switching to a character company. They have wide character rights in high end named properties for both merchandising and media consumption. Stuff like even Mr. Potatohead in potato chip commercials.

Mattel on the other hand, doesn't quite have that many and has mostly relied on Hot Wheels and Barbie as their leading IPs outside of licensed material from Disney and WB.

Which is why it makes even less sense they'd mishandle the DC rights they do have when certain ones paired up right among scales can sell truckloads. Like not having a 4'' Wonder Woman on shelves for that movie to intermingle in with the other military lines across the board is borderline idiotic.

Not doing the clear female figure mainstays from Batman's Arkham series is another one. How Catwoman and Harley Quinn weren't made in higher abundance, how Batgirl wasn't there. I can accept poison ivy getting a skip because ya know the whole girl in underwear thing might a be a hard sell to retailers, but the others with how their sales would more or less print money makes no sense.

The DC TV show rights are another if I were them that I'd beg WB/CW for. The kitschy stylized ones were cute at first while the shows were still getting their footings, but now that they are clear successes and mainstay ones at that, now might be the time to try and snag those rights back for 4''.

The lack of anything Justice League in the scale also makes no sense. You'd think they'd try to capitalize on that with the Multiverse design team too. Zod may not have sold well, but the Reeves Superman and Keaton Batman did. So the market is there. From the looks of things 6'' multiverse isn't really a strong market dominance either. It's staying afloat, but not really market strong either.

I don't look at Hotwheels because it isn't an action figure. He Man is an exclusive property that they don't have to pay any royalty on, unlike DC stuff. That is really the only reason they are still producing it at all.

CCC.

I found She-Hulk at an LCS for $8 but I didn't pull the trigger because I was participating in an auction for Darth Krayt and Darth Nihilus. I ended up winning both auctions, but I still end up kicking myself for not being able to pick up the Red She Hulk.

Yeah, but you also have to factor in how much they make on it from sales. They do direct no retailer middle man with He-Man, based on subs.

So comparing that to Hot Wheels which is all major retailers(plus all associated lines and merchandising and other media forays), Hot Wheels makes them more money than He-man.

Usually a good sign of which is making decent money is which one is licensed out to party goods too. Hasbro for example has everything from party hats, to cards, and more of Transformers. Same to Mattel with Hot Wheels.

He-man on the other hand, is only the subscription toy line. This is the same reason Cartoon Network leaned so heavily on Ben 10. They could merchandise it out better for higher returns without having to go through DC like they did for Justice League/Unlimited. Ben 10 at the height of its popularity was on everything from party goods to more. That's higher royalties and returns from licensed goods straight to them.

This is also why Mattel is trying to branch out. Revitalizing Max Steel and trying to get it to get a new foothold in the market. A new Max Steel movie coming next month, etc. The self-owned mainstream retailer market is a higher cash flow than subscription services. The problem is that the product lines aren't done well enough to make it generate high enough interest on those ends, which in turn means people forget about the property.

A decent one two punch is getting a decent product line out that generates buzz, which will keep the media in interest to see what's next, which in turn bolsters the product line's hype, and starts generating extra side merchandising like party goods.

For example, if Max Steel was closer to the 4'' Multiverse, it'd have stronger sales along with the natural gimmicks to the story conveyed line like Steel being able to clip into Max's chest and out or more. Overdoing the gimmicks though has made a clunky toy line that's mostly skipped over by all. Kids included. Failing toyline means the show won't last long even with decent ratings because it's not pushing merchandise. No show, means no extra merchandising on a media based property. It's an interconnected system for certain kinds of properties.

Hot Wheels on the other hand is a mainstay kind of line. Collector heavy and kid adored. Die-cast cars will never go out of style and is universal to all forms of fiction they can attach. So it can get merchandised out to party goods as well as sold to major retailer chains.

To each property, a different kind of approach is needed. But for toy companies, the main goal is major retailer sales and branching out from their for royalties, and if they can, ad revenue streams & home media sales too. Though really, more often that's to push product itself. Like for hasbro, that's why at some TRUs you'll see 4.99 MTMTE Tranformers DVDs right next to Generations figures on shelves. In a digital space, media doesn't have to be on TV anymore. Same as why Playmates is looking into doing the Netflix Voltron as a toyline(at least the Voltron lions).

Major retailers are the key thing here though. A subscription service can directly target a market, but it's still not the same numbers as say all the walmarts or targets and TRUs in the US ordering product by case loads for their shelves. Those are the numbers that really bring profits in. This is why many major toy companies are stuck behind the major retailer middle man syndrome. They want those numbers of sales, and have to match what the major retailers demand in some respect to maintain a decent partnership to get that material to shelves. If major retailers don't support it, it ends up as overstock, and companies take a hit on sales to unload excess via discount stores.

This is why major retailers are one of our biggest blockades as collectors. If a major retailer wants to phase a line out, or doesn't want to support it, it gets axed. That's what happened with the SHIELD tech Avengers Assemble line. Major retailers axed it before it reached wave 3, barely even wave 2. So the excess Hasbro had went to discount stores, and the line was officially cancelled. Because major retailers killed it, not because Hasbro didn't want to support it.

The same is what's happening to the 4'' multiverse line. Major retailers are phasing it out, which means the excess is going to discount stores, but thankfully Mattel was able to work out a mild deal with Walgreens too, but Walgreens alone isn't enough of a retailer to support a line itself. At least it was enough to get out the remaining wave that was produced though, but even Walgreens is clearancing those out at discounted rates.

And this is why lines we love end up dead in the water unless a company really fights for them to stay alive like Hasbro has been doing for the 4'' Marvel line with rebranding to keep it on shelves as much as possible so it can prove itself as a strong seller like it once was.

It's a very convoluted system, and there's more to it than that too. Lots of factors and market data to balance and deal with in association to what retailers want and what products they think moves.

I'm considering making modern Joe kitbashes of characters to fill in some gaps. I'm not gonna base them off any specific versions of characters but instead, make my own.

EDIT: Here's what I might use for Heatwave and Captain Cold. I might keep the head for theBull/Heatwave figure but the Destro head is obviously gonna go. This Dusty head is probably gonna be my Snart. Both guns that come with Destro might be their cold/heat guns. What do you guys think? I'm aware that Bull and Dusty figures are kind of rare/expensive.

https://i.imgur.com/fqa4aAf.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ozrW4R9.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CMKhe8f.jpg

Pm me your address I have an extra captain cold gun that came with the reaction series captain cold you can have.

Stand corrected on Max Steel. They've corrected a lot of the gimmick overabundance in the newest line of it. Though that fits with what I was saying. I stopped paying attention to the line because it was so gimmick heavy even though the toon wasn't bad. The newest "Team Turbo" ones seem to draw on a lot of aspects from Marvel Legends 6'' and DC Multiverse 6'' but for what they are, still too pricey and big for my tastes. Glad to see a self-owned Mattel property doing decently though and them still holding strong to it and expanding it. Would love to see them experiment with the line in detailed 4'' though. Could provide some great material for customs too.

Those are awesome ideas, and some great parts for customs of those characters!

My LCS has the DCIH Green Lantern/Black Canary/Green Arrow 3 pack for $14.99. It's out of the box but it's still in the shell. I'm not interested in the figures but if anyone wants to trade for it I can pick it up for you.

I think he was meant to be made or some other big figure because the cell needs a fourth piece to be finished. I kept expecting at least one more set to be revealed.

I thought the same thing.

Legendary Evil
http://i1087.photobucket.com/albums/...psumet2u2a.jpg