[hasbroherofan]

My two cents on the line are that I'm actually fine with the current output because I've always cherry picked the line. I don't buy everything or even every figure in a wave I'm otherwise interested in. If I really want the BAF but have no desire for certain figures, I try to track down the remaining pieces loose.

As for actual BAF waves being smaller, I don't have a particular horse in the race. We're already at a point now where every wave of 7 figures tends to have at least one that doesn't come with a piece, so I can see the appeal. Conversely though, if it's a wave from a film or something that has a lot of characters, I can see why that method would be appealing.

I don't think we're going to see a significant scale back of waves (or at least not to the extremes some have suggested here; one wave a quarter is simply not feasible). The issue is now we're getting like 2-3 Marvel movies a year plus multiple TV shows, and Hasbro isn't just gonna not cash in by not doing anything for those projects. So if they did seriously cut back on something it'd have to be comic figures, and I can't imagine that'd go over well with the collectors who only collect those corners of the Marvel Universe and aren't into MCU stuff.

I don't really got an answer about what the solution for all this is, other than that regardless of how many figures are released a year, it doesn't particularly matter to me since I'm not buying everything. It's why I've never quite understood some of the doom and gloom when people see Hasbro announce a figure they aren't personally interested in. If there's something that I have zero interest in but someone else might want? Cool. Win-win. Good for them and I get to save some cash.

Onto whether or not BAFs should continue, I don't know. Deluxe has definitely opened up a new venue for larger characters, but I have a sneaking suspicion some of the deeper cuts we've gotten as BAFs might not be chosen for a program like that. If you look at the list of characters we've gotten as deluxes, it's usually either big deal characters (Giant-Man, Archangel, the Kingpin, Black Widow, the Rhino, Venom/Toxin, Vulture, Strange, Apocalypse, ect.) or someone who has a movie or other big media tie-in. Ragnarok is one of the first real outliers, but it's also clearly a cashgrab attempt to get some reuse out of the otherwise unique 80th anniversary mold. I guess Ulik will be testing the waters a bit to see if lesser known characters are viable for standalone deluxe releases like that.

Something I would be open to is a release strategy akin to McFarlane's DC Multiverse. No, not 8 million Batman variants, but rotating between BAF waves and ones without BAF parts. I'd be totally cool if some waves came with BAF pieces while others came with more accessories instead.