What's up with the deprovements?
 

Hi, I am new here. I have been wanting to collect MU for a while now. I basically want to collect some characters from the various 90s Animated series, like the Fantastic Four, The Incredible, Iron Man, Spider-Man, X-Men, and some generic Avengers to make things a little more exciting.

I am guessing the standard MU articulation are as follows:

Ball jointed head
Arm swivels
Single jointed elbow
Wrist swivels
Upper Chest or Waist swivels
Tight swivels (optional...)
Double jointed knees
Ball jointed feets

I have been looking at the various figures from the MU line and something has been seriously bugging me.

For instance, 2010 SDCC Spider-Man 3 figure had the perfect articulation for an MU figure, but I don't see them using that reusing that body at all (They probably can't due to sculpted web design...). The Scarlet Spider body was the cloest to that (It had the tight swivels many MU figures don't), and they even did a Spider-Man using that body in the Captain Britain 2 pack, but then they used a less unarticulated version of the body for future Spider-Man releases (I am talking about the giftset, the one in the giftset is the exact same Spidey from the 2 pack without the tight swivels?! And also, the current waves.)?

I am guessing it isn't only Spider-Man that has this "problem". I mean repainting an older figure and putting it out on sale without any modification is okay. But some of the newer "mix and match" figures they could have given them the newer articulation like say the recent "Jean Grey-Black Widow", they have X-23's legs... so why not?

I don't know if it's just me but it just bugs me...

where on the same boat there buddy, welcome to the ark by the way. As a completist it doesn't really matter that much to me because I end up buyn them either way. but it would better if every figure had it's own unique mold.

I don't think "deprovement" is a word....

<-- "that guy"

In my opinion they should make a few different standard body type like what many Japanese action figure toy lines does.

They can have a standard muscular male body, a standard female body, then a standard Spider-Man body(skinnier with web shooting hand position), and a standard Wolverine body(shorter and crunching position). They know they are going to make Spidey and Wolvy a billion times so I guess it is okay for them to have specific bodies. The rest of figures could just work with adding on their accessories and a new head. Of course, Iron Man and characters like Ultron need their own mold.

They seem to be already doing all that but instead of focusing on a few basic bodies with excellent articulation they seem to be jumping around several bodies and making new ones occasionally(isn't that more costly?), and even going back to reusing old bodies when there is a better one. Sigh.

What you're seeing is the eventual addition of the extra articulation in some figures, while other figures continue using the old molds to save costs. It's not removing joints, they've been adding them. Just not as fast as we'd like.

Go on Marvelous News and look at the individual figures in the database in order, and you'll see as the bucks were improved on.

MU has been evolving in some areas, and devolving in others. DD 1st release vs DD comic pk version, case in point. Major upgrade. But distribution sucks. Go figure. That said, there are always QC issues when it comes to this line, but in the end, they're all that is out there. Look at those poor DC fellas. Now that's sad.

lol dc

I still think as soon as MU is officially on the way out, DC will come out with a slightly awesome 4 inch line.

They did it against Marvel Legends, too.

a flash that cant bend at the knee.. i guess he power walks his way everywhere. and of course i have no clue how batman throws the batarangs if he can only circle 360 and cant point his arm outward.. lol

What Flash are you talking about?

Thinking logically, it has to have to do with the existing molds.

They must have to reuse some older crappier ones to get their milage out of them. You can't invest in a mold set to be used for a standard amount of and throw it out later because you improve on it. You must have to use the old ones until they can't be so you can move on to the new ones. If you used up the new ones too fast, you might not have anything left to go to but the ancient ones, which might be worse than slowly upgrading.

It has to be something like that because it makes no sense any other way.

I think the reason that all the new figures that use Black Spider-Man body but don't have the new thigh-swivels is that either the new mold w/cuts is not at every factory or that they are able to produce a faster run of products if they us both the old and new thigh molds at the same time.

Unique molds that's what I wanted from the beginning more so when i seen sdcc ww2 ult. Cap and modern thor

its those upper leg joints on the Maria Hill body, I hate them with a passion but the rest of the sculpt is great