G.I. Joe Classified Series (1:12)

[nacho]

I always envied the "outdoor" setups the kids in the commercials had, but in general, I did not like taking my toys outside. The dirt was bad enough, but I knew that every single trip I'd end up coming back with less accessories than I went out with... There would be no way to play Joes in the grass without losing guns, backpacks, helmets, etc. And once it fell off, there was only a 10% chance you'd find it IF you knew exactly where it fell off. I wasn't taking that chance.

I did take my WHALE in the swimming pool once, but my dad was very serious about the liner... and after seeing that beast in the water, he declared anything that might have a sharp edge or cause any kind of puncture was strictly forbidden in the pool. Thus no more sea battles on the open water. Plus, as a result, many of my '84 figures developed rusty screws. Stupid pool. My subsequent naval battles took place on a large scrap of blue carpet I commandeered from our finished basement, and that was a good enough differentiator from the sandy brown carpet in my room or the jungle setting of the houseplants I could never remember to water.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Lol, you aren't wrong. If you can believe it, I lost a Skystriker tail fin for what seemed like a year. I have no idea how I didn't find it, but I absolutely couldn't, despite lots of searching. And then one day it popped up right there where I liked to play. It was mildly yellowed near its base, but not so much that I didn't keep using it. You can bet I super glued those suckers on after that. I'm sure I lost weapons too, but nothing that I remember. Not like the original SE I lost or had stolen at the playground. That scarred me...

I never had anything so perfectly suited as the commercials, but I had a couple good outdoor spots, when the gnats weren't driving me insane. And, as far as I remember, none of my Joes or vehicles suffered too much after outdoor play.

Did you ever do any "tightening" of shoulders or knees or paint your Joes when they'd get worn out? I did a little of both. I never did any o-ring replacements though - never found a decent replacement. Poor Short Fuze never recovered from an ignorant kid twisting him until the inevitable snap, while staring slack jawed at some cartoon on TV. Idiot... (me)

I learned a hard lesson that day and swore to take better care of all my Joes after that, and did. I actually had pretty good luck with thumbs and crotches for the most part, once I knew what to be careful with, though super glue surgery was occasionally necessary.

 

[nacho]

Oh, I tightened my Joes quite a bit, and while I never thought to go to the plumbing section to look for o-rings, if one of my favs got loose, I'd swap the o-ring with a figure I liked less. And I'd occasionally mix and match parts to make "ultimate" versions of characters, but my OCD would force me to put them back to normal. I only had a couple with broken thumbs or crotches. I did try to repaint worn areas of brown or black. The silver paint markers couldn't fix metal-vac (learned that the hard way on OG Optimus Prime's legs). But for the most part, I took pretty good care of them, until...

And I'm embarrassed to admit this now (I've seriously repressed this memory) that when I lost interest in Joes, I was really getting into x-men comics. I stole parts from many Joes to frankenstein various members of the x-men. Firefly got painted as Spider-man. Mercer with his buzz cut became Colossus. My CG got painted (with shitty testor's enamel) yellow/blue and got '88 stormshadow's claw weapon to be my Wolverine, etc. I think baroness got a haircut and her glasses sanded off to make one of the females... I probably ruined a couple dozen Joes to make 8-10 members of the X-Men. Makes me ill to think about it, especially as bad as I know my "customs" were.

Most of my Joes survived the massacre, and the first thing I did as an adult collector was to replace the fallen... but it bugs me to this day that I ruined so many for some seriously awful franken-figures.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Yeah, my biggest regret was letting go of nearly the entire collection. And what I did keep mostly got destroyed after I moved out. My mom thought it was ok to let some brat kids that she babysat all but destroy the favorites that I had held onto. In fairness, they had no place to keep the full collection nor did I at the time, but I would have loved to just peruse it all years later and reminisce.

I did get to do a fair amount of that, reliving it with the 25th for sure, so in the end, I probably couldn't have changed much, except to hold out for a better sale price for the old collection. But I was at the age where I was "growing out of them" (like that ever really happened ) so yeah... I do wonder if anything I owned survived to make it into anyone's vintage collection today. That I would love!

 

[ThunderDan19]

I'm not proud of it, but, thanks to my FOMO and lack of other JocCS activity I suppose, I ended up grabbing the last RnR fig from Walmart last night for $14, just for that dumb ammo box mag. At least that will complete my "ultimate" RnR.

 

[Videoviper]

For what it’s worth I came across this & might re o ring a few of the childhood survivors.


I have mixed feelings about getting rid of the Star Wars figures.
1. I would have liked to sell them
2. The reality is I wouldn’t sell them & might be a vintage collector
3. Joe was saved from a lot of the SW mistakes. But slowly there always seemed to be a little less stuff in the basement until I officially moved out

 

[ThunderDan19]

So Amazon delivered Airborne today, on a Sunday no less. I’m excited to hopefully open him up tomorrow evening at the end of the day at work if all goes well.

 

[nacho]

Sweet! All indications are that it's a solid figure. I'll be curious to get your reaction! I've never had a sunday delivery before, not even during the holidays. But then again, everything goes to my business, which is closed on the weekend, so....

Amazon is supposed to deliver a host of Joes sporadically all week (I forget which on which days, it's a jumble). The only one of the "april" batch that is still scheduled for April is retro scarlett for some reason.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Can’t wait to see some in person pics of those retros!

 

[nacho]

No retros today, but I did get Airborne, Technoviper, QK, and Metal-Head. That's enough to give me something to do this evening!

I'm not sure why they made QK's sash go across his chest. I guess it's easier to make it stay put, but in zero media has it ever not just gone down one side. Even with my custom, I glued the ends to the bottom half of the torso and then just a little on the top of the collarbone. It can't fall off and it doesn't restrict waist or ab crunch joints in any way. If I can make it work, then hasbro is just being lazy. It doesn't look bad, it just looks slightly off to the ARAH eye.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Even though I had him as a kid, I never noticed that on the new one until you mentioned it. But then again I didn't really pay much attention knowing I wasn't going to be getting him anyway.

That makes me wonder if the folks signing off on the new designs were even around for the originals. Like you said, it's not that far off, but it feels like the decision makers may just be trying to copy what they see (notice) vs. having "institutional" knowledge of the product. Without oversight by someone who owned and loved the original, the end result can come off a bit like a knock off in a way.

There's no way they are savvy enough to purposely make it just that much different so they could come back with a more accurate retro version is there?

 

[nacho]

Looking at the upcoming technoviper w/ Heetseek missile launcher, noting that they changed the missiles from the OG SAM to something that looks far more like an anti-ship missile/torpedo. It would be nice if they stick to the original type when they do the obvious Joe recolor, hopefully with O13 Hawk. But it bugged me that I didn't know the name of that 'Nam era system.

I was today years old when I learned that the OG MMS was actually called a MIM-23 Hawk. I thought his codename was Hawk because it was a patriotic bird of prey and sounded cool for the field leader, not because that's what the missile system was called IRL. H.A.W.K. - Homing All the Way Killer. First used in '59, it was upgraded all the way through the 90's, until it was superseded by the Patriot Missile in the Army in '94, and was used all the way through 2002 by the Marines until they replaced them with the shoulder-launched Stinger.

Part of me wants the old school looks, where I can merely pretend that it's been upgraded to modern standards/electronics and is still cutting edge... and part of me thinks they should make something more modern looking (you're rubbing off on me!). However, that's not very likely since the replacements don't have the same form-factor, transport, or launch methods.

But since they've done the tooling for the towable launcher unit, it'll likely be the classic look. I can be ok with that. Worst case would be 100% recolor Joe torpedoes.

Even though I had him as a kid, I never noticed that on the new one until you mentioned it. But then again I didn't really pay much attention knowing I wasn't going to be getting him anyway.

That makes me wonder if the folks signing off on the new designs were even around for the originals. Like you said, it's not that far off, but it feels like the decision makers may just be trying to copy what they see (notice) vs. having "institutional" knowledge of the product. Without oversight by someone who owned and loved the original, the end result can come off a bit like a knock off in a way.

There's no way they are savvy enough to purposely make it just that much different so they could come back with a more accurate retro version is there?

I thought about the potential "retro" version correcting this, but mostly it seems like a lazy/cheap choice, assuming most of us wouldn't actually notice. But since I did the custom and had to think about the problem, the fact that hasbro just sidestepped it entirely feels like a copout.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Strangely, I knew about the Hawk missile system from way back, right around the time I got that as my first GI Joe "vehicle" or so. (You can image how happy I was to finally get the MOBAT the following Christmas to tow the poor thing around). I'm guessing I probably had seen a very familiar looking pic with a description in an encyclopedia or some such, since we didn't have google back then.

The real annoyance to me was when kids/catalogs mounted the missiles facing the wrong direction on the launcher. It was very recently that I discovered they had drawn it that way on back of the blueprints (at least sticker instructions on the bottom half).

I was today years old when I (re)discovered they called them "Patriot" missiles in the blueprints. Now I wonder if the Army was doing a tribute in naming theirs, kinda like NASA with Enterprise, or if that name was already in the works and perhaps picked up on by the Hasbro researchers back in the day for the MMS.

 

[nacho]

Strangely, I knew about the Hawk missile system from way back, right around the time I got that as my first GI Joe "vehicle" or so. (You can image how happy I was to finally get the MOBAT the following Christmas to tow the poor thing around). I'm guessing I probably had seen a very familiar looking pic with a description in an encyclopedia or some such, since we didn't have google back then.

The real annoyance to me was when kids/catalogs mounted the missiles facing the wrong direction on the launcher. It was very recently that I discovered they had drawn it that way on back of the blueprints (at least sticker instructions on the bottom half).

I was today years old when I (re)discovered they called them "Patriot" missiles in the blueprints. Now I wonder if the Army was doing a tribute in naming theirs, kinda like NASA with Enterprise, or if that name was already in the works and perhaps picked up on by the Hasbro researchers back in the day for the MMS.

You're right, never noticed that before, but they are backwards on the blueprints. That's definitely annoying!

 

[ThunderDan19]

You're right, never noticed that before, but they are backwards on the blueprints. That's definitely annoying!

Right? C'mon people! In fairness, minus some now glaring, but really kind of understandable errors like calling the Skystryker cannon a 50mm (for reference, the Warthog has a 30mm cannon), for the most part, their specs and blueprints were quite good and detailed for fictional equipment for kids. Besides, who knew anything about metric measurements back in the 80's anyway???

 

[nacho]

Oh, even if all the info was completely incorrect, the blueprints gave everything that aura of realism that I loved about Joe. Even now, I still use their blueprints to make sure my brick vehicles have the correct Joe-proportions. They're the starting point for every single one.

 

[ThunderDan19]

The blueprints are a testament to how absolutely "all in" the creators and designers of the ARAH line were. All the lore, the artwork and details and the macro to micro nods to real equipment - you don't see that from a toy line, not then and not since. That kind of "realism" completely won me over back then. Nothing approached it or even compared, at least that I knew about.

If anything, while bringing characters to life, the cartoon and even sometimes the comic took away from the work the designers did to make it as "realistic" as a fictional military toy line could be. The red and blue lasers were actually a disappointment to me. I would have much rather heard cannons and machine guns, even if they never hit the characters and just blasted the vehicles. I wanted as much realism as they were allowed to give us.

I have nothing but respect for those founding designers and artists, because they brought it, at least in the early years, rarely ever winging it or cutting corners on detailing. We were very fortunate to have guys like that helming the line. I feel like the current crew could take a lesson.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Also, Airborne is great! I swapped out the sub-gun for a rifle with launcher and he's a great addition to the collection. I never had him as a kid, but always wanted him, so he gets the nostalgia nod nonetheless as well as points for a little modernization (not that he needed much)!

 

[nacho]

Finally unboxed a few Joes! (I came down with what I think was food poisoning yesterday evening, so I slept 12 hrs)

-Metal-head... I find his myriad of rocket launchers to be weird and bizarre, especially since I have a hard time making the missiles fit without using the blast effects... so he basically has to be shooting his wad all the time. And he's got hoses that don't tab in well at all, like ridiculously badly. I expect my cat to be absconding with them any day now, as they'll probably fall off on their own and end up under the couch or fridge. Like Ripper, he came with a teardrop tattoo that I promptly removed... someone at hasbro is obsessed with them. Even though I plan to keep his visor hair on at all times, I didn't like knowing the teardrop was under there. I have no nostalgia for the character and only bought him to fill out Destro's ranks, but he's truly skippable. If you're a fan of the character, he's fairly well done, but he won't be seeing a lot of action in my dio pics. Hard meh.

-Technoviper - solid figure, all the expected accessories, everything has a home and fits well. His backpack is upside down from the ARAH version but matches the 25th figure. No biggie, but it makes his gun hose connect way up high for no apparent reason. He's a background trooper, so I don't have major thoughts, but somebody has to keep the tanks and all the tech that's not under the control of tele-vipers functional, so these guys fill the role. His joints are super tight, and if I was going to pose him much, heat would be required.

-Quick-Kick - another solid figure, all the expected accessories, and the fudgie bar is a nice nod to his early toon appearance. I expect that kind of thing more from Super7 than Hasbro. He comes with a second head, btu the expression is identical and only seems to have slightly different windblown hair. Kinda odd, but maybe I'll use it in an action shot of him getting his ass kicked by Storm Shadow. And of course, the sash thing we discussed above kinda bugs me, but I'll get over it. It's a nice figure, but I'm not sure it's really any better than my Shang-Chi-based custom.

-Airborne - definitely the best of today's batch. Looks great, joints are great, gear is perfect. I used a little sticky-tac to make his helmet sit where I wanted it, with the front brim down across the eyebrows. Left on its own, it would ride back exposing half of his forehead, and I wanted a little more "ready to go" vibe. If I had one gripe, it's that his backpack barely stays on and will definitely require some sticky-tac as well. Hasbro doesn't seem to change the length of the backpack peg, even when the figure has a bulky vest. Thus it doesn't peg in very far, and if you push it, the bottom sticks outward, ready to get hit and fall off.

I came home early today due to not feeling great, so I wasn't there when the mail arrived. But I expect to have gotten Big Boa and Recondo, so hopefully I can look at those tomorrow.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Hope you are feeling better soon! Thanks for the run down! I don’t think anything you reported surprised me. I did also find Airborne’s helmet slipping back a bit while trying to shoehorn him set up between all his comrades yesterday evening. I kinda wish there were more figs in the current wave that I liked/needed. Despite liking Airborne a lot, I’m already jonesing for my next fix, that being Doc and Torch.

 

[nacho]

Thanks! I'm not 100% today, but I'm back in the office. I feel like the worst is over.

I've got a stack of boxes to open, Joes and MLs that came in yesterday, so hopefully I'll have a report tonight.

 

[nacho]

Well, so much for Mercari being the go-to place for heads and accessories. They're changing their business model to push all the fees onto the buyers unless you keep a balance with them. Otherwise, you're getting charged an additional 3+% "processing fee".

I suppose if there's something I really want, I'll pay the piper, but in general, I'll avoid them out of spite.

 

[ThunderDan19]

I guess I'll keep my offers low when I do shop there, and combine multiple items into a single offer as much as possible (so pretty much like I do now ). I'm sure the sellers will still feel the effects of the fees either way. This might get more people listing though.

I have always had to factor in the fees for ebay any time I've listed there and it has always made my asking prices that much higher anyway. Just like anything, at the front door or the back, the money has to be paid for the service regardless.

 

[nacho]

Somebody said the fee was going to be as much as 10%, but that seems like it would turn too many people off. Yeah, it doesn't mean much on a $5 item, but it adds up quickly if you're buying a bundle of stuff.

You're right, fees will always be a thing, but how many sellers are going to lower their prices now that they aren't paying fees? Zero? I feel like every change to one of these platforms is designed to squeeze just a little more out of the consumer and it makes me not want to use them.

Maybe I'm just an old man yelling at clouds, but it's tiresome when I spend all day bending over backwards trying to treat my customers like I'd want to be treated, like valuable parts of my business, and the rest of the world just tries to see if they can get blood from a turnip.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Well, if it helps, I'm the old man who offers what I think something should be worth (usually as low as it will let me) based on my concept of what plastic toys should cost, still significantly influenced by Walmart's 25th prices back in '07.

Sometimes it works...

 

[nacho]

Well, if it helps, I'm the old man who offers what I think something should be worth (usually as low as it will let me) based on my concept of what plastic toys should cost, still significantly influenced by Walmart's 25th prices back in '07.

Sometimes it works...

My grandfather was like that. He used to be the procurement man in the family and was the king of getting the good deal. With the advent of the interwebs, he decided that I was the heir apparent with all my fancy googling skills... he knew I could find and obtain anything. So he would constantly tell me what he wanted, but he only wanted to pay 1986 prices for the stuff.

"Grandad, the cheapest I can find that RV part is $12/ea, and I'd have to buy a 1K quantity pallet. Individually, they're $35. I can't get you two-for-$3 just like that one deal you got when I was eleven."

I was such a disappointment

 

[Videoviper]

I took the time to upgrade a few 25th Joes.

Mostly touched up paint. Will post something when they are done.

I want to display them somewhere??? Just don’t know where yet.

 

[nacho]

There's got to be a handful of 25th joe threads buried around here somewhere!

 

[ThunderDan19]

Revive the zombie thread!!!

 

[ThunderDan19]

Super7 G.I. Joe ULTIMATES Wave 6 Cancelled

Super7 G.I. Joe ULTIMATES Wave 6 Cancelled

toynewsi.com

I can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve been seeing a lot of the better figures on sale already. I can’t imagine these ladies were high enough demand to warrant the full price. From the comments, it sounds like they need to reevaluate price vs. quality on these in general as it is, before releasing low demand repaints.

 

[nacho]

I think it's more of a case that they're soliciting mostly-disliked repaints of figures that are still readily available. Other than a painted LJ head, there is not one compelling reason to pre-order these repaints, that might show up this calendar year, as opposed to just ordering the popular decos that are still in stock everywhere. It would be different if the earlier versions were sold out and highly sought after. THEN a repaint might sell. But right now... who would order them? All three DiC fans?

 

[nacho]

The Ferret ATV is up (pulse excl), and the retro Eel, Snow Serpent, and Beach Head are also up (fan channel).

They put out a limited stock of VAMPs again, and like a bitch, I couldn't resist getting another. I want to customize a clutch without messing with my main one... and all my attempts to buy a loose Clutch, dudes wanted $70 plus for him. I'd rather spend a hundred and get the extra VAMP. And if I change my mind, the set is going for $150+ on the aftermarket. I'm weak ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(note: the extra stock of VAMPs sold out again in the Pulse member window before even being available to the general public, so no doubt, demand is there).

 

[ThunderDan19]

Yep, so far I am resisting the urge on retro Beachhead. I may pick one up if I ever see him discounted enough, mainly to finish out an ultimate version like I've done with other favorites. As much as I love the classic version, this one doesn't bring enough new to warrant another pre-order purchase at full price for me. If they had done better than shamelessly reuse that undersized subgun for the fifth or so time, it might have been enough to get me there, but alas... and liking the first JCS version as much as I do doesn't help either.

As cool as that Scout looks, I have no use for a Ferret and she wouldn't be very useful dismounted. I'm still holding out hope to find a reasonable priced Valkyrie of (almost) that same mold at some point, but they are apparently in very high demand. Seeing that armored vest the Scout has makes me wish they had done some kind of loadout kit like that for the Valkyries. They look pretty underprepared (armor-wise) for combat by today's standards. I think I'd have to get one of these to make a proper modern female Cobra Trooper: https://valaverse.com/cdn/shop/products/SPC-OPS-GEAR-2-scaled.jpg?v=1698432951.

The other two retros bring nothing new for me. They are great for the army builders and all those who couldn't get Eels on AMZ, but I still don't get why they didn't take the opportunity to give the SS the Cobra Officer/Sgt. Slaughter's AK this time - in gray. That would have been a whole lot closer to the original.

It's always exciting to see new stuff dropping for PO, but I like it better when it's new stuff I want (even more when it synchs up with having gift card credit at AMZ ).

 

[nacho]

I hear you. I only ordered one Eel, just for the retro packaging, none to open. Snow Serpents, I ordered three, one for the packaging and two to open for officers since their blue is brighter and more distinct. I'll then have two squads of three, plus my custom ice viper.

Beachhead, I ordered a MOC and an opener. I've heard several people, like you, say that the Cobra Island version is more than sufficient... but I couldn't feel more different. I don't like the skinny pants, no camo on the pants, the kneepads, the shinguards, the vest... My customized version took care of some of those issues, but a new version in the proper shade of green with all those problems fixed is way too hard to pass up. He's definitely the star of the retro wave IMO.

I bought the ferret for the ferret, and it just happens to come with a female driver. I have zero use for her. I know they made her grey probably as a synergy with the inevitable grey Stinger driver, but since someone cooler will be getting the ATV, she's kinda homeless and doesn't fit anywhere. Maybe I can find some fur accents or Hoth troop gear to put on her and make a female snow serpent. Who knows, but it would have suited me fine to just sell the thing for $30 driverless. I might have gotten more than one at that price.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Skinny pants? Not sure what that means. As far as I can tell they are pretty common and partially to mostly shared with at least a few others. I do miss the camo though for sure. If I do get the retro to meld with, it'll be hard not to replace the pants, if not the whole base figure. He and FF are both tough to combine into "ultimates" because both versions have different strengths, often on the same segments.

I'm torn on the pants though, because I'm a lot more enthusiastic on the knee pads/shin guards. Pretty much my whole front line has them. It gives them that much more "battle armor" to hit the enemy as shock troops. As a modernist/near futurist, I see modern kit as doing whatever possible to protect the soldiers vs. the limitations of the past, where soldiers got a steel pot and a prayer to wear into combat. My brain fights leaving them unprotected, even if it diverges somewhat from the original character outfits. The ones who are not armored up get pushed back in the lines.

We definitely approach JCS from opposite ends, but hey, that's the beauty of this line. They are at least trying to offer versions that appeal to both the originalist and the modernist. For that I have to give them a ton of credit. And I always underestimate just how many offerings they have put out and have to go here: G.I. Joe Classified Series action figures Visual Guide to remind myself just how much JCS has been made, with a lot more still on the way!

 

[nacho]

I said skinny pants... but what I meant was "not thicker"? It's hard to describe. The ARAH figure had noticeably thicker legs/pants than most figures, and the new retro figure looks to reflect that a bit... vs the CI figure that shares legs with several other characters. Maybe it's just the way the ARAH pants billow out at the boot tops or something, but they always looked like BH never skipped leg day. The CI figure just looked like every other dude.

I like to think of my un-armored joes as more agile and unencumbered by a bunch of heavy gear and accoutrements. Sure, if you compare them to real-world military, they look under-equipped, but who needs armor when Cobra troops aim worse than stormtroopers?

Besides, if you didn't want to be stuck in the 80s and wanted to take a step further towards the future, you could assume that joes wear cutting edge body armor underneath their street clothes, like kevlar UnderArmor or some such. If we're going to shoot lasers and have weather control devices, why not nanotech clothing like in superhero comics? Nobody complains that Batman doesn't wear a plate carrier.

I agree we come at this from different angles, and it is cool that Classified makes that pretty easy to accomodate. But in my head, suspension of disbelief has to kick in at some point for all of this to be fun and not an exercise in 1/12 scale supply chain management.

 

[ThunderDan19]

I do recall classic BH having his pants low draped over his boots, kinda like old school paratroopers wore extra roomy jump/field clothing to give better range of movement and less over tightness with all their gear strapped on. I looks like retro BH has a little more than the CI, but it’s nothing like the OG had.

Regarding armor kit and such: See, there are no hand held lasers in my Joeverese, except for Flash’s (near future) unit and later Sci Fi’s - just like the creators intended . High tech? Absolutely! But no John Wick super fabric suits, ROC super suits or nano for my Joes and Cobras either. Mine are strictly present to near future, with ballistic projectile weapons, so I actually really enjoy finding appropriate kit for my supply chain. Seeing a relatively plausible “ultimate“ modern version of my favorite characters is super satisfying for me.

 

[nacho]

I'm just about the characters in their classic looks, and they're devil-may-care heroes that don't have time for stupid body armor and shinguards like a girlieman soccer player

In more interesting news, had a doctors apt this morning, and I stopped in my handiest Ollies on the way back to the office... and I found the remnants of four cases of the CG-Dusty-Zarana wave. Holy crap, it wasn't just a myth! All the CGs were long gone, but I cleaned out the final four Dusty's and a single Zarana, all for $25 total. Dusty's head and neck alone are worth more than $5 to a customizer.

 

[ThunderDan19]

Nice! I'm glad you finally got a taste of that sweet Ollie's discount! I was surprised a couple weeks ago to still find some leftovers at an Ollie's in W'burg. They were all movie figs (and mostly the girls - ew ), but I thought they would have been finished off with the extra 15% off near and after the holidays. It just shows how unappealing those, and the movie that inspired them, were.

Speaking of unappealing, there were also still a $#!+ ton of Marvel figs there taking up shelf space and some of the lesser SW figs as well. I really don't get why they priced those at $10 and the (non-movie) Joes at $5. I think they would have had more luck swapping those prices, not that I'm complaining, but considering the volume of garbage they had to try to offload, they could have managed it better. I think some of those will still be around next Xmas.

It'll be interesting to see if we ever get anything like that huge toy buyout again. While the economy continues to suck rocks, I don't think H'bro has made the same massive overproduction error they made with the movie figs on any of the regular lines. They also shouldn't have the kind of delivery delays that they had with subsequent regular waves, barring another (real or manufactured) pandemic again. So I'd guess that if Ollie's ever does get JCS figures again, it'll be a much smaller volume. It'll probably be just a wave or two of regular figs - maybe remnants of the waves the followed those we've seen end up there, assuming there are still a few palettes marooned by peg warmers - left in WM and TG distribution centers around the country.

If I had to guess though, at this point, WM and TG will likely opt to just clearance them out themselves from here on out, since the volume of toy overstock is unlikely to be nearly what it was overall for them last year. That really was an unfortunate perfect storm of massive overproduction and purchase of unpopular toys (SE movie + Eternals) and then supply chain problems right after. Plus, clearancing them in house I'm sure still nets them a lot more than wholesale dumping of hundreds of tons of unwanted toy stock. So I doubt we'll get to enjoy those prices on JCS again, though smaller discounts are becoming a bit more common, at least on AMZ and WM's websites, so there's that.

 

[nacho]

They still had a full wall of Legends and SWB dregs, followed by Dungeons and Dragons and Starting Line figs, virtually unchanged from six months ago. I counted probably ten cases of Shang Chi Legends figures on the top shelf that hadn't even been opened yet. They'll be there five years from now. Not sure how they overproduced so badly on that one and Eternals.

The difference in the price is Disney. The Ollie's price isn't tied to the reality of getting rid of them, but rather Hasbro's cost, and they had to pay the Disney tax on Marvel and SW figures, thus they charge Ollie's more even at liquidation time. It tells you Joes MSRP could normally be $5 cheaper or include $5 more worth of accessories (and I'd argue they often do) than their licensed counterparts.

But Hasbro isn't about to sell their own figs for $20 and Disney figs for $25. Gotta set the market for all 6" lines at $25 and then try to make it not obvious that Joes are a better value. Starting Lineup figs were $8, so that tells me the NBA tax isn't as high as the Disney tax.