What ever happened to Iron Man?

[TRDouble]

I don't disagree that the market has changed, but i think it has more to do with cost. Plastic is expensive, why do you think Hasbro has started a line of Marvel figures even smaller that 3 3/4", to keep price down. I really don't think mom and pop see a value in one figure at 25.99 or more. I think the cost of clothed figures and their profit margin has a much to do with why we don't see them in mass market retailers as anything.

Agreed. Remember when you could walk into a Media Play in the 2000s and buy a 1/6 scale Sideshow Toys Universal Monster figure, a James Bond figure, etc for under $30? That's where I first saw the EMCE Toys Retro Star Trek figures too.

I think it's a combo of rising prices and the death of the non-TRU specialty retailer that killed the collectible figure at retail and in some cases, the collectible company (see: Palisades Toys).

Media Play was one of my favorite stores for collectibles, and then they closed. So I started to spend more time at Borders Books. Then they closed. Barnes & Noble has tried to fill the void a bit, but it's not the same.

[The Bat]

I suggest you seek out the First appearance Batman that came in a deluxe boxed set with a book and a few other assorted goodies, it's a figure any true Batman fan can appreciate and is truly a high point of the 9"scale lines:

Yeah, I owned that figure once...I sold it on eBay.

[DSTZach]

Seems like The Invisible Man, Werewolf of London and a Mole Person would have went over well. A Son Of Frankenstein variant of the monster would have been a neat way to rerelease him. A Rondo Hatton Creeper might have been a good one, too.

I don;t think we've ever had rights to WoL, and Creeper is pretty obscure. The others would have been neat. It would be nice to continue the line. Maybe Ask DST!

[DSTZach]

When I say failed.... I mean you don't still see 8" mego-ish figures in retail outlets do you? In the 70s the format was so strong you saw Planet of apes, the Waltons, Happy Days, etc. etc. etc. It was crazy. 12" Gi Joes were big back then, Barbie was huge. There was Big Jim and a world of Mego-ish knock offs. Of all of them, only Barbie still holds a place in general market stores and it's place is much smaller.
Hard plastic figures are there, but not Mego-like figures. They just don't sustain in the general market anymore. Companies have tried, the famous covers line did semi well... but I doubt they did well enough for Hasbro to want to revisit the style. Not only do you not see companies stumbling over each other to make similar figures like you had in the 70s, you see the major companies and retailers reluctant to give them a try.

Pretty sure NECA still has some of their retro at TRU, and obviously Hastings as well.

Hasbro did make their own FC, with that Signature series, but if they had wanted to do it again, we probably would not have been allowed to, no.

[wise guy]

The Universal monsters were one of the best remegos ever but Moleman, Invisible man, Mr Hyde and She wolf of London are sadly missed

[TRDouble]

Pretty sure NECA still has some of their retro at TRU, and obviously Hastings as well.

Hasbro did make their own FC, with that Signature series, but if they had wanted to do it again, we probably would not have been allowed to, no.

Hasbro's 9-inch figures were, IMO, the best attempt at this style without actually being repro-like. The DC 9" figures are still some of my favorite figures. It went awry a bit when Hasbro started using hard heads instead of the soft vinyl, but both DC and Marvel were top notch! I wish we got a DC 9" Flash and a female or two.

[thunderbolt]

I don;t think we've ever had rights to WoL, and Creeper is pretty obscure. The others would have been neat. It would be nice to continue the line. Maybe Ask DST!

Thought Werewolf of London was part of the UM lineup, its lumped in with the movies, along with House of Horrors starring Hatton.

[scott metzger]

When I say failed.... I mean you don't still see 8" mego-ish figures in retail outlets do you? In the 70s the format was so strong you saw Planet of apes, the Waltons, Happy Days, etc. etc. etc. It was crazy. 12" Gi Joes were big back then, Barbie was huge. There was Big Jim and a world of Mego-ish knock offs. Of all of them, only Barbie still holds a place in general market stores and it's place is much smaller.
Hard plastic figures are there, but not Mego-like figures. They just don't sustain in the general market anymore. Companies have tried, the famous covers line did semi well... but I doubt they did well enough for Hasbro to want to revisit the style. Not only do you not see companies stumbling over each other to make similar figures like you had in the 70s, you see the major companies and retailers reluctant to give them a try.

Why is that? The market has changed. Mego style figures like 60s style 12" GI Joe-ish figures are a nostalgic collector market. Thats not to say that the occassional kid might not get interested, but these are predominantly collector figures based on nostalgia.

When it comes to EMCE Universal Monsters... I am not saying they failed in the area of quality or coolness. They failed by no fault of their own to sustain in the general market because the market has changed. You could make the coolest Mego-like figures and get them in every toy store in america and I believe they would fail to sustain simply because todays kid is not interested in that type of figure like we were.

With the UM figures, I'm not sure if they ended due to lack of sales or because that part of the license ran out. I was surprised to see the 7" sculpted figures coming this year because I thought the whole UM license was done for Diamond.

And I think the lack of interest in the Mego type figure is as much a matter of production cost as preference. If you could put a Mego type figure out there for 10 bucks, I think you'd find a market of parents willing to shell out the money (recall, toy demand isn't just what kids want, but what parents will buy). Right now, the market is saturated with five points of articulation whose design is straight out of the 70's, and even those happy meal toys are approaching 10 bucks a pop. The 25-30 dollars for the FTC figures is pretty phenomenal in today's market, especially for the small production runs. And it's a bit harder today than it was 10 years ago to say that Mego-esque stuff wouldn't sell because the toy making standards today are so much better; look at the 12" Hasbro Titan series of blandly sculpted and barely painted Marvel figures with basically the same articulation as a 70's Star Wars figure (they don't even paint the backs of the figures!). Everything on the shelves is made to cut costs. Amidst that sort of bare bones driven market, I can see why something like the Mego stuff wouldn't get on shelves at retail. It's not so much the format is passe', it's that it's just too expensive for anything but the collector's market.

[DSTZach]

Sales certainly softened on the later, more obscure UM characters (Mutant, Phantom). I think we could maybe do more, but even less dynamic characters like the Invisible Man and Quasimodo are tough sells. Even in the 7-inch line, we've started to revisit the superstars, and I don't know that that's something we'd do in this case.

[DSTZach]

But I don't think the price is too high for collectors -- in most cases they're cheaper than 6" figures. But it is certainly not as popular a format with collectors as it used to be, now that 6" and 7" figures are the norm.

True, if the figures could be made for $10, maybe more parents would buy them for kids, but that's not really an option. Kids and parents will sometimes buy the more expensive action figures, but a more muscular and dynamically sculpted figure might have the edge with kids in that battle.