[Jmacq1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shin Densetsu

I am disappointed that DCUC is pretty much going away at retail save for the DC Universe wave for later this year and some "collector orientated" stuff for next year at retail(whatever that is...I haven't heard much). In a way I am not surprised this is happening. I mean some of the characters in the line were only known to fans who are heavy into comics. Is that a good thing? Yeah, it is actually, however, I myself would have wanted more A-listers. No I'm not talking more Hal Jordans, goodness that guy was in the line just as much as Batman an Superman were in their OWN DCSH line prior to DCUC!

So what would you have done to save DCUC?

I'm not sure there was any way short of a drastic price drop to save DCUC.

When you look back on the history, DC Comics characters outside of Batman have always struggled a bit at retail, and simply don't seem to have quite the same marketability as Marvel's characters due to most peoples' most prominent memories of them springing from the uber-cheesy Super Friends cartoon show (don't mistake me, I loved it as a kid, but it's barely watchable as an adult). To many folks, DC's non-Bat heroes seem bland and (as I said above) cheesy compared to characters like the X-Men, Spider-Man, or even most of the Avengers.

Yes, the comics have spent years trying to present DC's characters as having more depth (with varying degrees of success), but it's too little, too late in most peoples' minds.

Are there things I would have done differently in DCUC? Yeah, probably so, but I don't know that they'd save the line. I would've made sure that every "Golden Ager" that came out also had a "modern" variant on-shelves alongside it (so you could build both a "Golden Age" and a "Modern Age" JSA at the same time). I might've throttled back a bit on the more obscure, non-team characters in favor of more villains and supporting characters. I would've been a little quicker about completing some "classic" team line-ups. I understand the need to spread things out, but spread them out too much and you end up in the situation Mattel faces now: Having to complete teams via subscription because the main retail line dried up before they could finish. Can't blame Mattel too much, though...that's a very difficult balance to strike.

Ultimately though, I can't complain much. We got the most successful DC action figure line in history (unless you count DC Direct as a single line), and it's not completely and totally dead yet.