[kylactus]

My main focus is MU, so most of my observations are baised on what I see this line going through,internet ordering is probably the cause of poor distro, companies like Walmart and TRU figure "F" it we cant compete with direct market prices and selection through the internet so why bother carrying the figures at all while collectors are just going to nit pick the rare ones and leave the rest peg warming and taking up space. for us this creates the problem of buying sight unseen over the web.

as far as what we've been getting lately, I think back to the early 90's (before Toybiz) when there was no expectation of a toy of your favorite character, hell the last spider man figure was the 84 SW spidey, and before that was the Mego pocket heroes in 78. so really next time your pissed that they didn't make a better version of some obscure character that you like, remember it wasn't long ago you had to wait like a decade for a new spidey, and the scale and style was different every time.

When the collector bubble burst in the mid 90's there was, and still is people that dumped there hoards that they thought would covet there student loans (that's why there are very fey early Spawn figures on ebay for over 10$, which is below there retail price new. But I think the stores shifted there paradigm towards these big spending collectors(with even Walmart carrying super well sculpted and painted figures) now that the mid level collecting has basically died the stores are shifting back towards children and leaving us stuck in "collector clubs" to get collector figures, or at the direct website. I think the saddest part is the death of the "hunt" now it's just a matter of planning out your spending, and order a case every few months. I don't know if it's just me, but the hunt,and finding something no one else had were a big part of why I liked collecting, sure you always had ebay as a last resort for the compleationist, but now everyone just waits for the site to refresh for like a week, then a month later it's back up at discount.