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Top 10 action figures of 2019

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It’s that time of year again. We’ve just ushered in 2020, so let’s take a look at some of my favorite figures from the past year.

These are MY favorites. I’m not saying they are better than others, these are just the 10 I was the most excited to get in 2019, and the ones I continue to mess around with even now.

In no particular order, let’s get started.

Mezco One:12 standard Popeye
I grew up watching the old cartoons on reruns, and always wanted articulated figures of him when I started collecting. I never got any of the previous lines that were made, either because I never saw them, or didn’t know they existed. Even though this is a slightly more realistic take, it embodies everything I love about the character.

Hasbro ML Beast
I wasn’t a huge X-Men fan before the Jim Lee era, and I’m fine with that, but the launch of X-Men #1 got me into the universe pretty deep. I had the old Toy Biz figure, and considered it one of the figures that held up with Hasbro figures for a while, but this figure takes that idea and throws it out window. The extra hands are great. The only thing he’s missing is a neutral head and a pair of gripping feet.

1000 Toys Hellboy
I am far from the biggest Hellboy fan, but the Del Toro movies got me into the comics, and when this figure was first shown off, I knew I had to get it. The rubber torso covering does hinder the articulation a little bit (I would prefer a sculpted body with ab crunch or torso swivel), but overall the figure can hit most poses I need it to. The bigger issue is the LEGO looking fingers on his Right Hand of Doom. He’s never looked like that in the comics, and it throws the look of a bit. I would have preferred swappable hands like his left hand, over the articulated fingers that have been known to pop off according to other people. I am looking forward to seeing the completed Abe Sapien figure and what they plan to offer him for, cost wise, as that will determine how deep in I go with this line.

Mattel JP Amber collection Velociraptor
I have always loved dinosaurs, and the Jurrasic Park movies made me want articulated figures of those dinos even more. It took many years, but Mattel started giving us some of them with the first of the 3 new JP films. I love what they’ve done with the smaller articulated T-Rexes, and the larger colossal Rex was a much needed articulated figure for 6″ scale figures. The new Amber Collection Velociraptor is the figure I’ve been waiting for seemingly forever. It scale beautifully with 6″ figures, and has most of the articulation you could ever want for one of the most action oriented dinosaurs in the franchise. I would love for Mattel to give us an Amber Collection T-Rex with the same kind of articulation, but the size of the colossal Rex.

Hasbro MMPR Lord Zedd
I was already a teenager when the Mighty Morphing Power Rangers first debuted in the states, but I did occasionally watch the show after school during my senior year, and on Saturdays when it was on then. I was also a Godzilla fan, so the rubber suits of the monsters and the Zord battles were something I got a kick out of watching, for the cheese factor, if nothing else. That said, I tried to keep aware of what toys were out, and I noticed there were never great figures of the biggest baddie on the show, Lord Zedd. I should say, none that actually looked like how he did on the show. When Hasbro acquired the property, I was hopeful we’d finally get some amazing figures, and boy did they deliver. THEN they showed off Lord Zedd. This looks like the big baddie that was nothing but muscle with tubes sticking out of him.  They followed it up with the Game Stop release of Goldar, and the variant Putty with the variant Green Ranger. If they can continue to release great villain figures from the MMPR era, I will continue to be a fan.

Hasbro MMPR White Ranger
Everything I said about Zedd above, also applies to Tommy in his white suit here.  I was always more of a fan of Tommy in the show, and loved him as his versions of the Green Ranger, so when he got a new suit that was inspired by a tiger, I was stoked. This figure hits all the notes I would need for the character, and he comes with extra hands, an unmasked head and a power effect for his sword.

Mezco One:12 PX Sovereign Knight Batman
I have been a fan of the Mezco One:12 line since the start, and being a huge Batman fan, I have been eagerly watching as each new version of the Mezco “Batman trilogy” figures have been revealed. I chose the black and gray version of the first Batman, and I decided to go with the blue and gray PX exclusive version of the second figure in the trilogy, since I grew up with this color scheme in the late 80s/early 90s. I could do without the appliqué, but the other details on the rest of his outfit helps to make it actually work.

NECA 1990 TMNT SDCC Shredder
I established earlier that I was in my teens in the 1990s, so I was obviously a child of the 1980s. Having said that, I was a huge fan of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon growing up, and as I got older, I started to look into the comics that inspired the toon. When I first saw the commercials for the live action movie, I just about lost it. These were realistic looking versions of the characters I had grown to love, and the Jim Henson Creature Shop suits were amazing. In the film, Shredder embodied the evil that I remembered from some of the comics I’d read, and his entire look, even though it was different, was striking and looked dangerous if you were caught off guard. This figure gives me the same feelings. I love all the figures from this set (the Foot ninja and Splinter especially), but having the big baddie from the film is great. Even better is the fact that we didn’t have to wait over 10 years like we did for the Mirage Comics Shredder.

DCC Batman VS TMNT Shredder
As I mentioned above, I have been reading TMNT comics for years now. I’ve followed a few of the different iterations over the years, but one of my favorite versions has been the current IDW run. There were a series of Batman VS TMNT comic crossovers, and this past year, WB media put our an animated version adapting the first crossover. The entire line (SDCC Mikey in Batman mask), as well as the 2 packs with a Batman character paired with a TMNT character sold exclusively through Game Stop, have ALL been amazing. Dealing with their website was an issue unto itself, but getting figures that looked close to the IDW designs, even if with a slightly animated bent, has been great. Getting the Shredder though, in one of my favorite designs, we the icing on the cake for this wave. He comes with a nice fabric cape, 3 sets of hands and a sword to boot. I hope DCC will give us a second wave in 2020, possibly with some Bat villains from the Arkham sequence.

Mafex comic Spider-Man
Besides Batman, Spiderman has to be one of my absolute favorite comic book characters. As mentioned, I was a teen in the 90s, so the Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen and Mark Bagley runs on Spidey back then were some of my favorite runs of comics growing up. I haven’t been a big Mafex collector due to the properties they were covering for most of the last decade. I had some of the early Bale Batman figures, but QC on some of them made me sell them off, and I never saw the appeal of buying import figures of the MCU or Star Wars characters I could usually get from Hasbro. Once it was revealed they were doing comic book figures, and Spiderman and Deadpool were announced, I knew I had to get them. I don’t know the artist the Deadpool figure is based on, but this Spidey is clearly based on the Bagley Amazing Spiderman era, and hits all the notes I want in a figure from that time. Hasbro has plenty of amazing Spiderman figures, but they seem to lack a little something for me. The recent Venom is still on my radar as a potential companion to this figure, and I just got the comic Wolverine Mafex made, but that will likely be on the best of 2020 list.

Opinion

The Figure Swap Problem

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The Figure Swap Problem

Howdy readers! I’ve been neglectfully absent for a while, but I return today with a story that I’m seeing more and more of these days; swapped figures returned to stores.

As collectors and action figure fans, we become accustomed to figures being hard to find due to fellow collectors, wonky distribution, case pack outs, or eBay flippers. Another phenomenon I witnessed while I lived in upstate New York was the habit some people had of purchasing an item (box set items were what I noticed most), swapping out figures (sometimes not even from the same line) with the ones that came in the package. Since I’ve lived in Maryland, I have occasionally seen random swaps, or accessories removed entirely, generally with wrestling figures.

swaps1I mention all of this to get to the main point of this article, the largest apparent case of figure swapping and removal of accessories I have ever seen in one location. I had stopped into the Glen Burnie Toys R Us a couple weeks back, and noticed an apparently large restock of Mattel’s WWE Basic figures that had been bare at this store for quite some time. As I rifled through them I noted how odd it was that all the figures appeared to be Alberto Del Rio figures, but I chalked that up to his figures usually hanging around longer in this area than other figures. I had stopped in to the store again on Friday that week, and actually looked at the figures on the pegs, since they all seemed to be there. What I noticed shocked me. At that time, I counted 20 figures who were ALL Alberto Del Rio figures swapped into Sheamus and Rock packages from the Mattel TRU exclusive WWE “Build a Booker T figure” wave.

I got on an online forum to connect with some local friends to let them know of the situation, and mentioned that I planned to go back the following week determine exactly how many figures this included, and to bring it to the attention of the employees of the store. That following Monday I returned to the store, armed with a pen flashlight, so I could determine the extent of the apparent crime. I brought I cart into the wrestling figure isle, and began going through the pegs, pulling the figures down and placing them in the cart, counting them as I went. There were 49 figures from this particular wave. Four of them were untouched, with the correct figures, in the correct package, with the Booker T piece intact. Two of the Alberto figures had the BAF (Build a Figure) pieces removed, but were otherwise on the correct card. The other 43 figures were Alberto Del Rio figures swapped into the previously mentioned Sheamus and Rock packages, all with the BAF pieces removed. I took photographic evidence of the cart full of product and the now empty pegs it left. My next step was locating an employee.

I flagged someone in the isle down, and proceeded to explain my concerns with what I noticed, and explained that the store was effectively losing money because this many figures were not going to sell with the main selling point missing. He quickly tried to write it off as that was how they came from the factory. I disagreed, and went to find someone else. The next employee I found said the same thing, and even added that she removed them from the case just like that. I suggested if that was the case, then they had someone in their stock room or distribution center that was doing this swap before they made it to the shelves. I acknowledged that sometimes a factory will package a figure in the wrong package, but the likelihood of the BAF pieces also being missing, as well as showing up in a solid case of incorrect figures was farfetched. They stuck to their stance, so I left the cart filled with figures in the isle and walked out of the store.

I got on the forum to express my frustration to my friends, and let them know that I planned on bringing this to social media, whether it was actually going to do any good or not. I posted one of the pictures of the cart full of figures to Instagram with a description of what I saw. Then I took to Twitter and tagged Mattel, the WWE and Toys R Us about the situation. Lastly, I posted about the situation on the TRU Facebook page. I was happy to see a reply from Mattel about the situation on Twitter, and I got a reply from TRU on the Facebook post. I sent a private message to TRU per their request, and gave them a more detailed account of what happened, and was later emailed a response that the situation had been addressed, and if I had any further questions, to not hesitate to contact them again.instagram-swap-post

I avoided the store for a week, just because I wanted to give myself some time to see what the store would actually do. I went in again last week and saw a brand new restock of NEW figures (amazing how that happens when the garbage is removed) on the pegs. I was short on time, so I didn’t have time to dig around the store to see what happened with those other figures. It was a day or so later when one of those friends stopped into the same store, found the figures in one of the clearance bins, and posted the picture to my Facebook wall. The original price of the figures was $12.99, and they were marked down to $9.90 in the bin. That’s not a major markdown, but Toys R us has never been a quick liquidator.

tru-fb-postI may have gone well beyond what a normal customer would do, but I am a collector, and I am also someone who spent 13 years working retail, and have seen some gutsy returns that ended up being nothing but literal garbage. I am on the retailer’s side here as much as I am the customer’s in a situation like this. I know you can’t expect all employees that work returns in stores to know every line that they sell, but when a figure in the package clearly doesn’t match the character ON the package, something should sound an alarm. I also know that toys are generally low level on the loss prevention scale, compared to things like televisions and game systems, but on this kind of scale that adds up. Even if the figures weren’t returned all at once, which would have been really gutsy, the total loss still comes up to almost $585 in product/lost sales.

sawps3I would like thank Mattel and Toys R Us both for acknowledging the issue when it was brought to their attention and to TRU for taking action on the store level to remedy the issue. I have seen similar issues at local Targets and Walmarts, so all local collectors should be extra cautious when purchasing an item that has an extra piece that’s not easy to see with the naked eye. I know I’ve taken to bringing my pen flashlight with me so I can check the package for signs of tampering before I walk out of the store with something.

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Best of luck on your action figure hunts. I’ll see you in the isles.

Opinion

Fear of the Unknown

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Fear of the Unknown

Fear of the unknown provokes outlandish response. That’s what happened recently when a Florida mother saw Mezco’s “Breaking Bad” action figures at a Toys “R” Us store. She proceeded to get on change.org to start a petition (as apparently everyone does these days) to get them pulled from the store shelves. She was featured on television shows, and the media had a field day with it, blowing things out of proportion as they usually do. Sadly, Toys “R” Us caved, and pulled them from the shelves, as well as from their online store.

Breaking-Bad-Heisenberg-Figure-Mezco-03I have issues with this. The figure has been sold at TRU for over a year now, it’s not something that just popped up over the last week. The figure is clearly labeled for “ages 15 +” and was stocked in TRU’s adult collector isle of the store. It was not sold next to super hero and Mickey Mouse toys, as the mom would have you believe. Toys “R” Us has also been selling various Adult Collector lines for years now. They currently carry The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Predator, Aliens, and other product aimed at the older collectors, who TRU knows want these things, because most children these days are more focused on their electronic items. That’s the other problem; this mom has no problem with Grand Theft Auto 5 being sold right next to “family friendly” games like Skylanders, but somehow singles out this figure?

To play devil’s advocate for a moment, let’s assume this petition and reaction from TRU emboldens others to claim “offense” at something they don’t like, and had no intention of buying anyway. What if someone claimed that Monster High dolls offended them because it pushed an unfair and unhealthy image that all monsters needed to be like that to be popular? What if someone thought Pokemon figures would make their kids grab a ball and run out into the woods trying to “capture” an animal so it could fight for them? What about Nerf guns causing gun violence? Those thoughts are just as absurd as her thoughts expressed to a CNN affiliate: “Kids mimic their action figures, if you will,” she told the station. “Do you want your child in an orange jumpsuit?” If a parent buys this clearly adult themed figure for their child, I would be MORE worried for the child’s well being with the parent, than what a toy could possibly influence them doing.breaking-bad-heisenberg-figure-[2]-156-p.gif

I don’t know how exactly she came across the figure to begin with, whether the child was running wild through the store, as I have seen on many occasions, or if the figure was picked up by someone, carried through the store, and left on another shelf after they changed their mind about the purchase. Either scenario is entirely possible, but she could have, and should have, kept on her merry way if she didn’t want to explain to her child that it was for adults, and not for children.

Adults are a big draw for companies these days, as we have the disposable income that they are after, and are willing to spend more to get the things we want. Stores like Toys “R” Us have noticed that, as have Target, Walmart and even Walgreens, who have begun carrying lines from The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, among others. Are these people going to protest those stores as well? Not likely, because there is other product there that they want. Toys “R” Us hasn’t been strictly a ‘kids toy store’ in a long time, and if something on the shelf doesn’t interest you, just move along to something that does; don’t push to have it pulled, so those that DO want it, can’t get it in a local store.

In an effort to get TRU to change their mind, Daniel Pickett, and action figure collector and owner of AFI has started a counter petition in hopes of persuading TRU of keeping the Breaking Bad figures on the pegs in their stores. While BB star Bryan Cranston responded to the brouhaha over the figures on Twitter, costar Aaron Paul responded to the counter petition on Twitter, and also signed it himself.  Based on the terminology used in their statement about pulling the figures, I’m hopeful that TRU might be persuaded to out the figures back on the shelves at some point.

I fear the precedent this kind of action could snowball into with other easily offended in their own minds people who want to protect “the greater good” based on their beliefs. At the time of this writing, Pickett’s counter petition has over 53,000 signatures, almost 6 times the number of the original one that started this situation. If you are an adult collector, even if you aren’t a fan of Breaking Bad itself, please share the petition, or post on TRU’s Facebook page and let them know you support their right to offer adult collectibles in their stores. Remind them that #AdultsCollect as well.

Thanks for reading.