[Boy Blunder]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexodusrex

And they come off as blaming the whole failure of the sub on us not paying up. But truth is, they doomed with with Batzarro. Effing Batzarro!? Seriously!? That Rubbed people the wrong way. And their picks in those first 3 were ridiculous. Ice sure, but the other 2 should not have been the selling point figures. They should have had more indemand loved characters than Superboy and Hookhand Aquaman. let me name them, with little tooling. Batwoman, Weather Wizard, Killer Frost, Soranik Natu, Donna Troy, Circe, Speedy, Jade, Commissioner Gordon. If you took 2 of those, and sandwiched Ice, they would have sold Tier 2. They were lousy salesmen. End of Subject.

First, wow. Are we seriously blaming the death of the line on Batzarro? Dude, he was a symptom of the illness, not the cause. I'm not going to claim that I know exactly what did kill the line, but I guarantee that one figure didn't.

As for their choices... to be honest, I gave zero craps about Ice, not even to complete the Fire & Ice set (especially since Fire's appeal was so limited for me that I sold her). Superboy and Hook-Hand Aquaman are what made me sign up for the 2014 service. I mean, it sucks that they were mining characters that had already had figures released previously (and in Arthur's case, multiple figures), but they were still pretty awesome front-runners.

I don't know what could have saved this line, in either retail or subscription. Retail distribution was spotty by the time I got into collecting them (got a good chunk of my collection from Ross, Marshall's, TJMaxx, and Big Lots), and they were really doing hit-or-miss with the 2013 sub figures (Good god I couldn't get rid of Ra's al Ghul fast enough, and I had been looking forward to him big-time). Big-box retailers do seem to be dropping collector-oriented lines in favor of smaller or wider-appeal figures, while even with a devoted fanbase, online-only is still a bit shaky for a variety of reasons (yes, even to a company like Mattel).

I don't really know where I'm going with this, so I guess I'll end it thusly: with Aquaman and Superboy, I'll be done buying DC stuff from Mattel, and fill the holes in my collection via the aftermarket when possible. My wife's Monster High habit already gives Mattel enough of our money anyway. :lol