HasLab Marvel Legends Ghost Rider car

[Earth 2 Chris]

http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/new-hasbro-marvellegends-haslab-revealed-ghost-rider/

This is a wonder to behold for sure...but $350?

I don't want to turn this into "Hasbro should go out of business! The people on staff should be flogged!" like some YT channels tend to do. But do you think that action figure collecting has hit the wall with affordability? Are we going to see a collapse soon, when collectors say "Enough's enough" with these price hikes?

I know the price of everything has gone up, but, because of that, isn't it even harder to swallow the prices of mere playthings?

I look at something like McFarlane's Supermobile and I really start to appreciate the value. That's a wonderful toy design. Maybe it won't hold up to actual play, but it functions well, and displays great, for a 10th the price of this Ghost Rider car.

I guess we didn't know how good we had it when we could get 18" figures for around $100 or less and a decent vehicle for under $50. Super 7 is charging even more for the Thunder Tank and the Turtle Van, but they are larger than this.

Thoughts?

[powersthatbe]

One of the tier figures is rumored to be Mephisto.

[Earth 2 Chris]

^Yes, I should have mentioned the stretch goals include a regular, human Robbie Reyes, and Mephisto is rumored and you can tell it's him in one of the photos, in the foreground shadows. So that lessens the blow somewhat...if it reaches it's goals. But still, the initial sticker price seems overly steep to me, anyway.

[Werewolf]

I think it's really nice but it's more of a high-end display piece Hot Toys type of collectible than a toy. Not for me.

Same with the Haslab Classified HISS tank. It's awesome but not really a toy anymore.

Collectors are just as much to blame for these items as toy companies. Collectors are demanding paint and detail that just cannot be met with a retail toy. Prop like realism with all the bells and whistles comes with a price. Give me stripped down versions that are toys. I'd be happy with a cheap scaled up vintage HISS tank over the Haslab one.

[warlock664]

It’s not for me - I’m strictly Golden/Silver/Bronze Age with my collecting interests/characters - but I don’t think you can even begin to compare this to McFarlane’s Supermobile.
The amount of detail in this will be insane. It can be displayed as either a standard street car or the Hell-Charger, with interchangeable parts, extremely detailed cockpit, interchangeable tires, 20 LEDs, snap on lit flame effects, etc.
If it makes all the stretch goals, including the early bird bonus (civilian Robbie Reyes figure will only be produced if it’s funded by Saturday I believe, it isn’t a stretch goal), there will be 6 figures included with the car, as the ML team has confirmed all 4 stretch goals will be figures. So that means Ghost Rider, Robbie, and 4 other figures they said would never be offered at retail (due to their satanic theme, one assumes). That’s at least a $150 value, given current ML prices.
Mephisto is a given, but who knows, maybe a classic Daimon Hellstrom, Satana, Blackheart, etc would get figures.
As I say, I’m not interested in Robbie Reyes in either form or the car, but if they reveal Bronze Age Mephisto, Hellstrom and Satana as stretch goals, I’ll probably back the project and sell the car and the Reyes figures when I receive them.
I’m sure the McFarlane Supermobile is a great *toy*, but how many unique parts does it have? How much tooling was required to produce it? It’s like comparing a pedal car to a Mercedes. Not that you *were* really comparing the two, Chris, as they’re obviously aimed at 2 different collecting segments.

[powersthatbe]

I think it’s cool but I believe the downside to it is that it’s Robbie Reyes and not Johnny Blaze or even Danny Ketch who are more popular to die hard ghost rider fans, so I am not sure if it will meet its goal. Now maybe a detailed Ghost Rider with his Bike and a few tier figures for @ $100 to a $150 goal would have been more the way to go.

[Earth 2 Chris]

It’s not for me - I’m strictly Golden/Silver/Bronze Age with my collecting interests/characters - but I don’t think you can even begin to compare this to McFarlane’s Supermobile.

I get what you're saying, but comparing it is kind of my point (which I may have not presented well). This is Hasbro, one of the oldest toy companies, playing in the sandbox of collector-only companies like Hot Toys, as Werewolf pointed out. A few years back they may have offered such a toy as a TRU exclusive, minus a lot of the bells and whistles, and extra figures, but still based on the same car and character.

I guess I'm just asking more a philosophical question about where "adult toy collecting" is going.

[tmthor]

And with this release I am officially out of the marvel legends collection. Actually been out for a while but had this been a Classic Ghost Rider with Johnny Blaze well that would be different. I already heard if this does not fund by Friday (it has to fully fund by Friday for the Robbie Reyes figure) many have said they will cancel theirs as no way this will get all the unlocks at that point but even still the elimination of one figure make it no longer worth it for them.

[TRDouble]

I don't want to turn this into "Hasbro should go out of business! The people on staff should be flogged!" like some YT channels tend to do. But do you think that action figure collecting has hit the wall with affordability? Are we going to see a collapse soon, when collectors say "Enough's enough" with these price hikes?

I know the price of everything has gone up, but, because of that, isn't it even harder to swallow the prices of mere playthings?

I look at something like McFarlane's Supermobile and I really start to appreciate the value. That's a wonderful toy design. Maybe it won't hold up to actual play, but it functions well, and displays great, for a 10th the price of this Ghost Rider car.

I guess we didn't know how good we had it when we could get 18" figures for around $100 or less and a decent vehicle for under $50. Super 7 is charging even more for the Thunder Tank and the Turtle Van, but they are larger than this.

Thoughts?

Somewhat to your original point, when it comes to items like these Haslabs, I guess I see them a little differently, like an elite collectible, definitely more in the range of Hot Toys. I still cannot believe I splurged for a Haslab Sentinel that is still in the box. I am not sure the value of this particular Haslab matches up with other ones for the price and value, but when you are playing in the elite collectible sandbox, I don't know how much of a difference it makes.

But for the lower end stuff, yes, I am about at the "Enough's enough" point. To pick on Hasbro, 6" Starting Lineup for $49.99, Marvel Legends from $24.99 and trending upwards close to $30 for a regular sized figure... it reminds me of comic book collecting back whenever DC dropped the new 52. I had been buying comics for a few years at that point -- key word is buying, not reading -- and got a full year or so of comics on credit after New 52 dropped, thanks to trading my G.I. Joe: RAH collection to my shop owner who was a huge collector, but had no money to buy them outright. When my credit started to come to an end, I realized that I wasn't reading the comics; I was just buying them out of habit, even as the quality went down (IMO) and the prices went up. So I stopped buying them. That's how I felt with Minimates before I dropped them and I feel like that now with Marvel Legends, with the majority just stored in boxes "for later".

I have a few ML pre-orders I will keep, but I canceled my Amazon Spider-Man multi-pack. And it's not just Hasbro. I will keep an eye on other items cost that I buy, mostly cherry picking stuff from Funko and McFarlane (whose DC stuff is starting to pull me in), and of course Mego.

And I am not mad. It is what it is. In some cases, it's a good wakeup call that I am probably spending wastefully (Marvel Legends); in other cases, like a HasLab or Hot Toys item, it is just be a reminder that I can't have everything. But those NECA 18" 1966 Batman and Robin, and Reeves Superman sure look like bargains now!

[powersthatbe]

Damien Hellstrom has just been added as a tier

[monitor_ep]

Midnight Sons wave

Hell Charger 1.jpg

Hell Charger Ghost Rider.jpg

Hell Charger Goblin Queen.jpg

Hell Charger Mephisto.jpg

Hell Charger Hellstrom.jpg

Really wanted to get behind this but I hate how they do this. Plus that's a whole lot of money for a car when McFarlane and Barbie release cars for under $50..

[MegoSteve]

I guess it's still possible to meet the goal, but we're a little over two days out and they're barely halfway. Don't think this is going to get made. $350 is probably too steep for that, even in an age where an action figure costs $25. I feel like I'm "old man yelling at cloud" every time I walk down the toy aisle and look at prices these days.

I don't really have a strong opinion about the toy itself. I'm not a Marvel Legends collector nor am I a huge Ghost Rider fan so it's not really all that interesting to me. Just a shame that they put all the design effort into it and all that work goes for naught. Their other notable failure (the Rancor monster) makes you wonder if Hasbro will keep doing these or if they might take a break. Or maybe just be more careful and/or poll fans about what they want.

[LonnieFisher]

This isn't going to meet it's goal by a long shot. It only has a little over half of the backers it needs with less than twelve hours left to go.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Or maybe just be more careful and/or poll fans about what they want.

That is an excellent idea, and it's amazing that Hasbro hasn't actually done this. Poll fans online, put a QR code on the package to vote in polls, etc. I don't think this version of Ghost Rider is popular enough for the price point. Galactus and Sentinels are iconic parts of Marvel lore. This version of GR isn't.

[MegoSteve]

Motorcycle version would be much cooler, but even that wouldn't be $350 cool.