[Jmacq1]

The reason "hard times" are a legit excuse is simple: People haven't been buying as much "traditional toys" outside of the holiday season these past two or three years.

What we're seeing now is the aftereffect of that: Retailers not giving a shit about their toy sections UNTIL the Holiday season. Even in "good years" January-March was usually a dead zone unless you happened to catch the tail end of "holiday releases" and find some new stuff. This year was a slight exception as we got the "Star Wars Episode I 3D" launch in January, but we all saw how badly that flopped.

Spring-Summer brings the flood of "movie toys" but as we see with Avengers: The movie toys have failed so badly the last few years that Avengers was underproduced and underordered, and now we're rapidly headed towards a shortage (particularly of the Hulk figure), because it looks like the movie's popularity has indeed given it traction with the kids. However, while Summer brings on the movie toys, with Hasbro in particular it tends to remain a "dead zone" for any ongoing lines that don't have movie tie ins (Marvel Universe, Star Wars: Clone Wars, etc...). Basically: Their production and shipping channels are focused on the movie toys at the expense of their other stuff.

And then of course, the fall comes and the stores start ramping up for the Holidays, bringing us 3-4 or even 5 waves of figures for "older" lines hitting in a 3 or 4 month span as the floodgates open and retailers aggressively order product again (Star Wars at Wal-Mart is notorious for this...I've seen 3 waves hit Wal-Mart in the same week, usually in an "aisle cube", and then sell out (of anything that isn't a repack/repaint) inside a day).

So basically, all that MU and Star Wars stuff you're not finding now? It'll all show up in the fall, but in the holiday feeding frenzy if you aren't quick or persistent you still won't find it.

Of course, Persistence is another problem. One "hunt" a week after work in the afternoons (or God forbid on the weekends) is not going to be very productive. Unfortunately for many of us that's the only time we really CAN hunt.