I look forward to seeing how you configure it for display/pics!
I ended up POing just Airborne. I'll need to figure out his replacement rifle, but otherwise, he seems like a really solid fig. I've decided to wait out the others that I have mild interest in. Seeing lower prices on a lot of the figures out there now tells me that we are approaching market saturation. I should be able to bargain/part shop down the road for figs/accessories I plan to use just to create my "ultimate" versions anyway.
Speaking of ultimate, hard to believe, but EE now has Super 7 Duke, BAT, SE and CC (sold out) down to $11. Not sure if that says anything about that line, or if EE just got way too excited about them and ended up with a huge surplus.
It's crazy to think we've gotten some 120+ figs plus a few vehicles for Joe CS and another dozen 6" Retros. That's a significant percentage of all the figs we got back in the glory days (before things went meh). Especially getting the feeling that the market is saturating (and I suppose the talk of Cobra-La), has me wondering if we have reached peak popularity again and are actually about to start the inevitable downslope.
Maybe I'm just in a mood, but my enthusiasm is wavering a little. I have to ask, "Where do we go from here?" Is there enough good and practical IP left from the Joe line to support it going forward? Will JoeClass continue to get most of the attention, or will Retro start to take over? Or will Retro go the way of the 4" Retro line and the O-ring line if things start to waver with the JCS?
Is there really even (non-closeout) brick and mortar demand for 6" Joes, or do we all just look to internet retailers and aftermarket sellers for our stuff? I see a lot of low demand figs clogging pegs at WM - I should say at WMs that even carry them. Similarly at Target - just the PP/TF repaints clogging up pegs there. Meanwhile, I think things continue to move online, at least based on AMZ's numbers sold in the past month, at least for the major figs. And I don't see Pulse dropping prices much at all, so they must be selling, right? Thoughts?
I think the Ultimate stuff was just a situation where no one knew the demand, and I suspect the supplier gave them favorable deals to over-order on the first wave. If you're Super7, it's much better to have the first wave be ubiquitous and cheap, rather than scarce. People are much more likely to pick up figs from wave 2, 3, & 4 if they have figs from wave one, or if figs from W1 are still available if you're late to the party. If W1 with a bunch of heavy hitters is impossible to find, nobody is going to suddenly choose to get into the line later. But that's all a guess from the marketing side of my brain.
I think the 6" retro line is just an excuse to do ARAH repaints that will get people like me to double/triple dip, make use of existing molds with minimal new tooling (just heads or a small piece of gear).
As usual, B&M has the problem of not knowing what to order, when to order, or when their pegwarmers are causing them to miss major sales on subsequent waves. And it's exacerbated by the fact that B&M stores (now that TRU is tits up) really don't care. A sku is a sku is a sku. WM doesn't care that LJ and Shipwreck are clogging their pegs while 3-4 other waves pass them by. Multiple Targets near me have at least gotten the latest Buzzer, Ripper, Hawk, Helix, Shockwave wave. My WMs haven't had anything new in months. They're as useless as Ollie's.
It's odd... while I'm not crazy about Cobra La per se, I'm excited that the line is popular enough for Hasbro to be digging that deep. There are still so many figures left to do... half of the O13, Ace, Blowtorch, classic Ripcord, Footloose, Airtight, Sci-Fi, Wet-Suit, Mainframe, Dialtone, (Doc and Alpine announced, no?), Iceberg, Lifeline, Law & Order, Hit-n-Run, Blizzard, Muskrat.... and a zillion drivers of vehicles that will never get made at this scale... and that's just the Joes.
I'd take 1-2/ea of various specialty vipers as well, even though I'm pretty much done army-building my main cobra forces, IGs notwithstanding. I'd buy several COIL troops if they ever released those too. But my main point is that there is still meat left on the bone and I'm far from burnt out. Heck, my list above doesn't include several characters also from the JvC-VvV-DTC era. That stuff got me back into joe well before the 25th. There is so much more Hasbro can do with Classified... and if I know hasbro, they'll be updating, rereleasing, and improving characters we've already gotten as well. No dollar will be left unharvested.
I can't wait for more small vehicles... FANG, SKYHAWK, ASP, MMS, Devilfish, SHARC... and whatever the next haslab brings. And with Super7 bringing more Ultimates and 4" o-rings next year... let's just say it's a good thing most of my other collections have kinda wrapped up. I buy 2 DC figs a year, no more than a couple SW figs per year, and it's easier and easier to skip ML these days, as they aren't producing much for x-men fans. I haven't bought a hasbro TF in years and I'm down to just a few 3P Legends per year. Even Valaverse is just supplementary for Joe custom fodder. 90% of my toy money goes to the Joe franchise, so if they peak and slow down, I guess I'm going to be in full-custom mode.
), while keeping just enough of the mainline figs in the pipeline to keep the more traditional military Joe fans coming back too. Maybe Hasbro has made enough to budget the all things to all people, carpet bombing approach we seem to be getting now (adding in Retro too), but it scares me, like we are risking limited time and resources for lesser, or redundant, offerings.
) all with multiple thousands sold and a number of others at 1K+, the strategy of sprinkling from OG13, modernized and now renewed (good) Retro seems to be working.
And nothing irks me more than a detailed RC vehicle without a driver 
