The Rant About Action Figures.

Ok, guess I’ll start with something far into the section of ‘geek-dom.’ Now for a few that really know me, I’ve bought action figures since I was a little kid. For me, they only really started to get good around 2000-2001 when Toy-Biz started making the Spider-man movie and Marvel Legends toys. They had awesome articulation, and just looked cool. While they were awesome, it was another obscure Toy-Biz action figure that claimed the title of my all-time favorite, Goldberg. Yes, for a time I was into wrestling and WCW was quite entertaining. Goldberg was a random buy for me, and it has become the best figure in my bunch.

I guess I should explain just a little before continuing, I don’t buy action figures to collect them. As a child I bought them to open them up and play with them. Then, I bought them to open them, and let my younger brother play with them. Now, I buy them and open them because they look cool and help me with story ideas.

Anywho, Goldberg had the perfect amount of articulation, wasn’t too much but was enough to move him in real-looking poses. He was stiff enough to actually stay in poses when in use. All around the figure was awesome. Now, the problem with almost all of my other figures was two-fold: too much (or not enough) articulation, and being too loose. Most of my other figures, especially the Marvel Legends (both Toy-Biz and Hasbro versions) have way too much articulation. You’d think 36 points of articulation is a good thing, but not when those points cause problems for other joints, and are too loose to keep the figure from standing on its own.

I just find it strange, that seven or eight years after buying the figure, and after buying countless others, it is still the best of the bunch.

But there is promise with Mattel’s DC Superhero line! In fact, save for the cumbersome plastic capes, most of the figures I have bought have been quite amazing. Superman, despite his weird purple-ish coloring that they chose for the first wave, and Batman look and move great. I just wish Hasbro would have done the same with the Marvel line. Unfortunately, they have decided to make their figures 3.75” which don’t mesh well with their old 6” lines. Oh, and at 8-10 bucks a pop for those small figures they have insured that I’ll never buy one. Ever.

And now we get into the second part of my rant, the price. Yeah yeah, inflation, rise in costs of everything to make said figure means rise in price, la dee dah. What I am so confused about is why they decided to shrink their figures, and raise the costs exponentially. As a worker in the retail industry I know how much of a hike these figures have, and it is crazy. What’s worse is they actually sell! So what does that mean? 8$ 3.75” figures for all thanks to Hasbro! Makes me pine for the Toy-Biz days.

It is funny, back when I started buying action figures, the DC figures sucked something fierce, while the Marvel ones were awesome. Now, it’s the exact opposite, for some reason they both can’t be good at the same time. Oh well. More money to Mattel then and less to Hasbro.