[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MESH

I understand what you are saying, but look at high profile A list characters and still you will see a missing gap in terms of dual identities, current present examples:


1- DC Collectibles: The Batman animated series produced every characters from the animation but they didnt produce main A list characters like Alfred, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne.

2- Hot Toys: Batman Vs Superman - you would think the main lead characters like Bruce and Clark would be produced as an extra for the collectors - but they were totally ditched - some reason Marvel get a better scope, they got Bruce Banner, Tony, Steve, and who else... cant remember.

3- Habro Marvel legends: Im not sure of they produced any of the main A list characters in civilian form, they do have exchangable heads but I really dont count that as a dual identity in total.

I dont know whats the situation like in Japan in terms of figures, but I do remember having these figures as a kid, I cant really describe them , but they come in this middle size package with civilian character, usually with many pegs in his body, and large metal feet. What you do is you stick the armor parts on his body and an actual 6" helmet (with nice sculpt detail - im jezzing in my pants just thinking of it)

It is highly similar to Saint Saiya but with masked heroes instead, I have no clue what they are called.

1. They'll get to those eventually later. To keep a line strong, you kind of have to go for the direct costumed heroes and villains first. But I'd expect Alfred, Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, and Commissioner Gordon are on the list of will get made. Possibly a psychiatrist version of Harlene Quinzel too. Andrea Beaumont seems highly likely too. A lot of that line is trying to pay homage to the original toys as well as the original series. So give it time, it's still a young line really that needs room to make more later too.

2. Clark hasn't really been defined yet overall, at least not the glasses one yet. Again though, Hot Toys is a collector centered market and needs to test the waters first on DC movie licenses to see if it warrants production from strong sales. Marvel gets more leeway because the Marvel side already proved itself with strong sales in previous years with the early releases. Those are high-end collectables costly to produce and costly at market. They have to make sure they'll sell first. Give them time to get to those figures. Let them see what the market share is on the initial DC movie offerings first on whether they feel making them would warrant the costs.

3. Marvel doesn't have many heroes that would sell in plain clothes for legends. There's not really a strong market demand for Steve Rogers in civilian attire, or Thor for that matter. Logan, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark are about it really over there, besides Peter Parker and some side characters like Mary Jane, & J. Jonah Jameson. Legends is having trouble getting merchandise to move though occasionally, and they have a wide amount of heroes to cover as the global Marvel brand. So for now, extra heads is the best middle ground for that. Too many characters people want to see made first before they waste the tooling costs on pure civilian figures that may not really move merchandise nor have the demand behind them right now. Not while there are still other characters that do have larger demand and can move better volumes of merchandise.

Trans-Armor Kamen Rider. They lasted a few waves. Mostly because there were no full plain clothes versions. It was only the head. During Kamen Rider Kabuto, they did two figures per pack. One had no articulation and was solid black. This was because each rider in Kabuto had two forms. The "cast on" and "cast off" forms. The heads under the die-cast armor were also kind of tiny to be honest(I had the Gattack version for awhile before I re-sold it). They've since switched to a different kind of setup for Kamen Rider figures. But Japan also has different toy regulations/laws to deal with as opposed to the stateside companies. They only have to adhere to Japan's regs, whereas world market companies like Mattel and Hasbro have to adhere to regs in their strongest market areas to maintain unit movement on those retail shelves for how they make money. Japan's collector's market can also go to higher prices as opposed to stateside where things need to stay within certain price ranges for mass retail appeal. Different markets and focuses.

Something similar was tried stateside with Kamen Rider Dragon Knight. But that line flopped. They didn't use die-cast, but they did try to do civilian forms as well as armored forms. You had your basic kamen rider figure, then you had your deluxe gear/advent creature figure that included the civilian form. I have the Zolda ones. Use that head as an 11th doctor head for Doom 2099 to hold while sitting on his throne.