HML Series 3

[DRS]

The more I read these posts, the angrier I get at Hasbro

[Dentarthurdent]

OCTOBER?!?!?

 

The original plan was for July! That's almost 8 months between waves. That's worse than between ML 6 and ML 7!!!

 

Way to go, HASBRO! Boy, I can really see why Marvel made the switch. I mean, if TOY-BIZ was still in control, we'd be expecting WAVE 18 any day now, and WAVES 19, 20, and 21 would be on full display at SDCC, along with loads of other goodies.

 

Distribution, my a**! Half the folks on this board can't find HML 2, and the variants are nowhere, unless you're in Thailand.

 

This has been a crap-year for collecting, and there's one reason why: HASBRO.

 

HASBRO: You suck.

 

Oh geez, the knee-jerk reactions to everything........its amazing your leg hasn't flown off.

 

Classifying my reaction as "knee-jerk" displays a complete lack of understanding of the situation since HASBRO took over.

 

It must be nice being blissfully unaware that many, many collectors on this very board have expressed serious disenchantment since HASBRO started working on LEGENDS.

 

I'm the first to admit that the negative reactions that were expressed prior to HML 1 were premature, and I even argued that HASBRO should be given the chance to prove their detractors wrong.

 

Well, they've had their chance. Two (2) waves into their acquisition of the license, and here's what we have:

 

1. Wave 1: A horrendous Emma Frost (worse than any female ever done by TOY-BIZ), and terrible detailing and paint apps. The Iron-Man was waaaay too small, with a severely undersized head. And the detailing and paint-apps were sorely lacking.

 

2. Wave 2: Detailing and paint apps still horrendous, as is the articulation. In addition, unwanted X-3 characters are forced into the wave, which would be accceptable if they were well done. They weren't.

 

3. Distribution: Supposedly HASBRO's strength. What a friggin' joke...I'm lucky, but many have not been as fortunate.

 

4. Variants...these aren't real variants...just repaints. Which would be OK, if anyone could actually find the damn things...but they're MIA...

 

5. Wave 3: Late. It was originally slotted for July. Now it's October. Do you think that's a good thing??

 

6. "Exclusives!" are repainted crap. The all-silver Wolverine has to be the stupidest idea I've seen in LEGENDS in a long time.

 

7. Movie Figs: In 5"-inch scale. Totally stupid. Total crap.

 

8. HULK Waves: Yeah, we're seeing some nice character concepts, but I'm turned-off by the cartoony sculpts.

 

HASBRO has dropped the ball, and dropped it severely. LEGENDS NEVER sat on the pegs like this when TOY-BIZ was designing the figs. Sure, a few dull characters would, but overall, you rarely found entire WAVES just sitting on the shelves like Stinky Pete begging to be bought.

 

And now we have the "non-event" at SDCC, where the most exciting news seems to be Stan Lee signing his LEGENDS figure (which is nothing more than Stan's head on a repainted Spidey fig...brilliant...)

 

Even if they unveil more at SDCC, they've still got a long way to go to rectifty the mess they've made in 2007.

 

Knee-jerk?? Sorry...you're dead wrong. It's a reasonable response from a loyal customer who's been screwed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tend to agree. Toy Biz may have had their faults, but they turned out some of the best figures that I have seen this side of Japan. Whether you're for or against articulation, you have to admit that Toy Biz managed to get as close as they could to a human range of articulation crammed into their chosen scale with precious little compromise given to the sculpting. (Granted they were always having problems with girl bodies, but they seemed to have just about nailed that problem with the first Jessica Alba/Sue Storm.) Each figure was like a piece of sculpture that you could reconfigure to suit your personal tastes. You could create Civil War on your shelves because the figures looked like they had fought their way right off of the comic book page and just kept going. With Hasbro, not so much. Instead of continuing the style Toy Biz had established for the line, Hasbro has removed all of those costly "useless extra joints and paint applications that nobody even noticed," and gave us shiny new packaging. I don't want to remember X-Men 3, yet if Hasbro keeps this up we'll have the whole cast... by 2010. The sculpting that has been presented in two (should be three) waves from Hasbro does not match up to what hooked so many of us on this line in the first place. These figures look, by comparison, like they fell out of one of those $2.99 DVD rip-off of a Disney cartoon, and flopped on the floor waiting to be beaten on by a 5 year old.

Yea, I had problems with Toy Biz and too much paint sealing a joint and breaking, but give me too much paint on too many joints any day over using the Marvel Legends name as a test subject for a six inch scale Star Wars line. Hasbro doesn't get it, because they have the license (they have damn near all of them!), they have the money, they have their focus groups, and they have a huge team of lawyers and customer service specialists too politely ignore our requests and send us those wonderfully patronizing form letters that state how much they appreciate our interest in their products and how they are always working to provide what their customers are looking for while still providing the best product they can. You know, "Thanks for telling us what you want, but we have a bunch of people who don't know the subject matter at all, and we're going to do what they say, so piss off."

 

Hasblo @grumpy@

[So No Tornato]

Tell ya what So No Tomato:

You lay out some facts............not opinions......not casual observations...........some actual regional or national sales numbers or hard data for all to see and compare, and I'll buy into what you are saying whole hog. Completely 100%.

 

Let me know when you have the data--I can wait.

 

If you need a direction to point yourself in, ask Jesse Falcon, or the Hasbro Q & A sessions.

I'm guessing right now the answers will surprise you.

 

 

I cannot be "wrong" ( nor can anyone else) unless you have those numbers to back up your claims, and until you present such numbers your claims are as suspect as any others.

So you might want to rein in calling other people "wrong"--because your POV is meaningless if you only see things one way.

 

Money where your mouth is.

 

Go ahead and wait...It's a meaningless challenge.

 

As anyone who's ever worked in corporate sales and marketing (as I have) will tell you, those figures are absolutely confidential. I could beg and plead with HASBRO and they'd release nothing. Regardless, even if they did, without the original sales forecasts (also ABSOLUTELY confidential), actual sales data is meaningless.

 

Let me simplify it for you. If you don't know how much you were supposed to sell, then you can't judge your success by how much you did sell. Does that make sense?

 

Regardless, as someone who has worked in Marketing and Sales (experience matters...see?), and as someone who is a frequent customer with knowledge of this particular market, my instincts (coupled with careful observation) tell me that HASBRO is not selling as much as TOY-BIZ did.

 

In addition, I bolster that opinion with a little Market Research. I'm a customer...and I talk with other customers...and no one is very thrilled with HASBRO's handling of LEGENDS.

 

Oh, BTW...the "HASBRO Q & A" sessions? You're joking right??? Again, here's another instance where actual corporate experience pays off. Q & A sessions are not designed to please the public...they're designed to give the appearance of pleasing the public. Most corporations will develop a list of likely questions before a conference, and come up with pre-packaged, canned responses. I read the Q & A...did you?? In fact, I created an entire thread dedicated to translating it...did you read it?? To anyone with a trained eye, it was full of the type of canned, pre-packaged answers I just described.

 

If you think that the overwhelming majority of us are pleased with HASBRO's handling of the license, I'd say you're not reading too carefully.

 

My money is where my mouth is, and from where I stand, I'm chewing on a big, fat, fistful of dollars.

 

Any more challenges?

[JohnnyRebel]

so no Tornato this thread was for people to list any information they know about HML 3 true release date. Not another "I rate Hasbro" rant from you. Everyone knows Toybiz made better figures. Everyone also knows that Hasbro has the license for 5 years, nothing can change that. Definitely not tirades. I wish the Biz was still making the figures as much as anyone but most of all I love Marvel Legends and will continue to buy them no matter who makes them. HML 3 will be available at retail in Oct, but I'm sure that as advertised you'll be able to buy them online in Sept. Nuff said.

[So No Tornato]

so no Tornato this thread was for people to list any information they know about HML 3 true release date. Not another "I rate Hasbro" rant from you. Everyone knows Toybiz made better figures. Everyone also knows that Hasbro has the license for 5 years, nothing can change that. Definitely not tirades. I wish the Biz was still making the figures as much as anyone but most of all I love Marvel Legends and will continue to buy them no matter who makes them. HML 3 will be available at retail in Oct, but I'm sure that as advertised you'll be able to buy them online in Sept. Nuff said.

 

Thanks for the...insights?

[DRS]

Everyone just needs to shut up and focus on getting me my gold yellowjacket!

[Nickoli]

So No Tornato, man, you need to relax. They're just toys. Life will go on.

 

But I do agree with many of the people here that Hasbro's distribution is light years ahead of the old Toy Biz system. See, Toy Biz didn't have any online distribution system of their own. You had to buy from a separate, third-party, retailer. And the product almost always sold out as soon as it was posted. Even at ToysRUs. And even with ToysRUs you could never be sure if you were gonna get what you ordered. Or, if you didn't shop with ToysRUs, you had to pay really over-inflated prices from anyone else you wanted to get the figures from.

 

But now, with Hasbro, they have a dedicated online presence. They have kept the product on hand, ready for shipment, for months. That's series one and two! I just looked, it's still there. And they even have the variant Quicksilver! And have had him up for sale for a long time now! (I don't think they view the variant Yellowjacket as a variant like collectors do. I think to them it's more of a running change) The prices are about the same as a major brick-and-mortar chain. You do have to pay for shipping. But for me, that more than offsets the gas I would have paid driving around for weeks fruitlessly looking for these toys. If people are having a hard time finding series two, it's only because they don't know where to look yet. For me, at least, the days of worrying about finding a complete series of Marvel Legends is officially over.

 

And as for Hasbro not having any Marvel Legends presence at SDCC? That's the definition of knee-jerk reaction. Do you KNOW all the product they're gonna show at the convention? No. You don't. No more so than I do, or most anyone else on these boards. Because it hasn't happened yet. So ranting and raving about how they've really screwed up by dropping the ball and not showing anything at SDCC is a purely emotional, fear-based reaction. My advice is that you pull it together for a few days and wait and see before posting vitriol.

[dayraven]

i've said it before and i'll say it again, i think assbro is deliberately making these mistakes w/ marvel legends to drive down the value for the brand. that way, when the contract expires, no one is going to want it and assbro can no-compete re-up their contract w/ marvel for a fraction of what they're paying now. it's a money saving venture for them, keep a very lucrative line tied up so no one else can get it, then every couple of years, experiement w/ a derivation of concept on core characters, like what they're doing w/ gi joe. half the joe lines were very successful, half of them sucked (gi joe extreme anyone?) but in a couple years, we'll see "marvel sigma six" or something like that and be all excited cuz it'll be the first time we've seen some of our favorite characters in a while since marvel legends tanked in '08. in 2012, i want someone to read this and then call me "nostrildumass."

 

and for those who think hasbro's distribution is better than toybiz's, my town of roughly 200,000 people, w/ a target, three k-marts, five wal-marts and a toysrus got 1 one, uno, un, ein, ichi, case of HML wave 2 (to date) cuz i searched and searched and talked to a stock manager in every establishment. we might be the exception to the rule, but it's a pretty heinous exception.

[tarot]

how does this always seem to happen? this forum was just a guy asking when the next wave of figures are out and it turn into a "Toybiz Vs Hasbro". AGIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh and to does people saying that hasbro is only using the product to sit on it and not have and competition, have you guy actualy ever heard of Mattel's DC figure or TB Legendary Super.......whatever it is?

Hasbro is a business and they know that those product will sell, just like Tb knew and Mattel knows. so hasbro will continue to bring out a lisence they paid millions for.

Lastly, Guy TB has moved away from marvel and they are not bitter. in fact they welcome the challenge of bring out there own non-marvel products. They will never, i repeat never, get the lisence back so in what many people on this furom say, GET FECKING OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!

[JohnnyRebel]

i've said it before and i'll say it again, i think assbro is deliberately making these mistakes w/ marvel legends to drive down the value for the brand. that way, when the contract expires, no one is going to want it and assbro can no-compete re-up their contract w/ marvel for a fraction of what they're paying now. it's a money saving venture for them, keep a very lucrative line tied up so no one else can get it, then every couple of years, experiement w/ a derivation of concept on core characters, like what they're doing w/ gi joe. half the joe lines were very successful, half of them sucked (gi joe extreme anyone?) but in a couple years, we'll see "marvel sigma six" or something like that and be all excited cuz it'll be the first time we've seen some of our favorite characters in a while since marvel legends tanked in '08. in 2012, i want someone to read this and then call me "nostrildumass."

 

and for those who think hasbro's distribution is better than toybiz's, my town of roughly 200,000 people, w/ a target, three k-marts, five wal-marts and a toysrus got 1 one, uno, un, ein, ichi, case of HML wave 2 (to date) cuz i searched and searched and talked to a stock manager in every establishment. we might be the exception to the rule, but it's a pretty heinous exception.

 

 

Nostradamus? I think you mean paranoid delusion?

[marvelfreak]

Hasbro.... Biting off more than you can chew.Star Wars,G.I.crap, and Transformers ,Movie figures. Lets face it Marvel legends are at the bottom of their list.They'll make just enough wave to keep people buying them.Let's face it they just don't give a dam about ML, or could it be their trying fix some of the problems everyone was complaning about with wave 1 & 2.Only time will tell.

[OB1Killa]

The more I read these posts, the angrier I get at Hasbro

@loll@ @hmmm@ @loll@

[stormfan]

Hasbro.... Biting off more than you can chew.Star Wars,G.I.crap, and Transformers ,Movie figures. Lets face it Marvel legends are at the bottom of their list.They'll make just enough wave to keep people buying them.Let's face it they just don't give a dam about ML, or could it be their trying fix some of the problems everyone was complaning about with wave 1 & 2.Only time will tell.

Marvel Legends are definitely not at the bottom of their list. They know how well they did for ToyBiz when they had the Marvel license. That was their #1 selling line above all movie figures and everything else. Aside from trying to cash in on the latest Marvel movies (which ToyBiz would've done as well), I would say Marvel Legends are definitely high on their list.

[shokker]

@Spidey@ man will i be happy when the comic con begins and see what hasbro has to offer. in my opinion hasbro took over toybiz and they took the unfinished products of toybiz. in there q&a they always seem to push away the year 2007 and fix on the years 2008 ad 2009. the hulk wave is amazing for my opinion. lets wait one or two more days and then we can complain as hard as we can on this forum lets be friends before we kill each other @rambo@ #tank# and dont forget its all @$@ @$@ @$@ buisnes @$@ @$@ @$@

[So No Tornato]

how does this always seem to happen? this forum was just a guy asking when the next wave of figures are out and it turn into a "Toybiz Vs Hasbro". AGIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh and to does people saying that hasbro is only using the product to sit on it and not have and competition, have you guy actualy ever heard of Mattel's DC figure or TB Legendary Super.......whatever it is?

Hasbro is a business and they know that those product will sell, just like Tb knew and Mattel knows. so hasbro will continue to bring out a lisence they paid millions for.

Lastly, Guy TB has moved away from marvel and they are not bitter. in fact they welcome the challenge of bring out there own non-marvel products. They will never, i repeat never, get the lisence back so in what many people on this furom say, GET FECKING OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!

 

If you don't like it, then don't read it, and don't respond. Otherwise, you can get fecking over it yourself.

[CLAM]

Marvel Legends are definitely not at the bottom of their list. They know how well they did for ToyBiz when they had the Marvel license. That was their #1 selling line above all movie figures and everything else. Aside from trying to cash in on the latest Marvel movies (which ToyBiz would've done as well), I would say Marvel Legends are definitely high on their list.

 

 

actually, I believe Spiderman outsold Marvel Legends.

[CapnJeffro]

I think a better way to put it is: why constantly beat this dead horse? We all fully grasp the fact that many of you despise Hasbro and what you see as the utter annihilation of a great toy line. That point has been made. And sure I'm probably merely setting myself up for another pot-shot or two. But in all seriousness. Everyone has issues with toy lines, but this is still a forum of friends, collectors, and net-family that like to get together and discuss a common bond and interest. Honestly, the 'fun' in this particular board on the TNI site seems to have been removed. Sure, a basic 'You don't like it? Don't read it!" post can be thrown out. But, in all sincerity, can we stop fueling the fire so much or at least leave the over whelming Hasbro animosity to the other threads devoted to just that?

 

In response to the actual topic if this line does drop by Sept or Oct that will still be roughlty 1 wave every 3 months - give or take. Thats about all I can personally handle. I missed out on much of Toybiz's last 'hoo-rah' year due to the sheer overwhelming number of waves, box sets, the new Face Offs that were spat at me. I have slowly collected most of them through TRU sales and such, but I don't mind waiting a bit to recharge the funds. Being an adult does mean more money to spend, but it also means more budgeting so I don't buy a new wave and forget to pay the power bill.

[dayraven]

i guess too that i'm missing the leap in logic that says any discussion on hasbro's turn at marvel legends OR toybiz's marvel legends means we're "hating." yes, i called them assbro, as what i think of their handling of the property is suspect, as my previous post pointed out, but i've seen a lot of other folks, on a lot of other threads, and folks get jumped on this topic a lot for really just saying things as innocuous as "toybiz had more consistant distribution." i don't see anything inflammatory about that, nor do i see that as "fantasizing about when marvel toys when get the ML licenses back" it is simply an observation. if i said "i like black" would you jump me verbally for hating on red? to answer this poor chap's question would be to repeat what has been answered like 8 times already, looks like october. may be earlier, could be later, but for now, looks like october. from discussing why the date got pushed back, conversation naturally flowed in the speculation that hasbro fears marvel toys' LCBH line, and didn't want to release against it...that could be wrong, that could be right, but i don't see it as inflammatory, i see it as good business sense. the LCBH line is direct competition for scale, subject matter, price range and peg space so hasbro would be smart to let the LCBH wave break before they come back. for the record, i do think hasbro is up to something, and for those of you assuming marvel legends is a hasbro priority, what would you base that on? look at the pegs or your local B&M toy stores, retailer outlets, advertising, co-branded promotional items, multimedia outlets etc...and let me know how often you see marvel LEGENDS, that specific trade name, not wolverine, not spider-man, not the hulk, MARVEL LEGENDS. when you've done that leg work, come back to me and make your case. i'll be happy to hear it.

 

and for the record, yes, i'm familiar w/ Marvel Toys' LCBH just as i'm familiar w/ Mattel's DCU (formally DCSH) line. what's your point? are you trying to suggest that those are the only two lines marvel legends competes w/? if so, you're knowledge of the toy industry is seriously lacking. from wrestling figures to TMNT, from gi joe to ben 10, an action figure is an action figure and the last two decades of toy making have proven that the action figure audience is not as large anymore. collectors and kid's alike are buying fewer action figures than were being bought (per capita) twenty years ago. each action figure product is vying w/ the others, not just for consumer dollar, but for peg space, advertising dollar and print space, production allotment, the works. and that's before they land at your local walmart or forbidden planet or whatever. what someone had suggested about hasbro bumping back HML 2 to avoid direct peg presence competition w/ LCBH isn't a bad call or hasbro hating, it's understanding the market and consumer buying trends. when "the mummy" opened against "the Phantom Menace," they didn't go in hoping to compete w/ tPM, they were hoping for overflow audience, which worked in film...it doesn't work in action figures. the smartest thing hasbro can do is let the public buy LCBH, let them try the toys out and then come back a month later, when LCBH sells out two of the three pegs it has allocated, then flood w/ more product and better distribution and try to put out a better product, solidifying consumer loyalty and proving they make the superior product for the dollar. i have strong doubts that that's what they'll do, but that's what they ought to do. if they can outsell LCBH by a fair margin, your walmarts and your toyrus-es will order more HML than LCBH next time they place a stocking order, cuz they want to move as much product as they can. that's how competition works. however, hasbro is notorious for a different market process entirely, and do you know why? when toybiz had marvel legends, it was their primary toy, the big one, the one made in the greatest quantity and possessing the largest distribution circle. w/ hasbro, they have what four (am i counting right here?) of the highest tier properties w/ both the collector and kids action figure market. if one isn't selling well, no matter the reason, they can pull the lowest seller, sit on it for a year or two and revamp the property then rerelease it to try again, cuz the whole time, the other three are guanranteed workhorses for market share of dollars spent. that rotation allows them a distance from an emotional connection to their purchasing community that can not be overstated or dismissed. mattel suffers from the same issue. so does jakks pacific, though unlike their big competitors, jakks is great about putting people at the top of a brand who are truly fans of their property and active parts of their property's collecting community and that means a lot. look at the diversity in jakk's ruthless aggression line and think about how many ML collectors (both hasbro and toybiz lovers alike) constantly gripe about the same five characters being present in every single wave.

[JohnnyRebel]

mattel suffers from the same issue. so does jakks pacific, though unlike their big competitors, jakks is great about putting people at the top of a brand who are truly fans of their property and active parts of their property's collecting community and that means a lot. look at the diversity in jakk's ruthless aggression line and think about how many ML collectors (both hasbro and toybiz lovers alike) constantly gripe about the same five characters being present in every single wave.

 

 

In case you haven't heard your favorite company jakks in most likely losing the WWE license to Hasbro very shortly.

[Hyperion]

Well for me personally, I would have to stand up and applaud Hasbro. I mean think about it before you attack me. They launched Hasbro ML1, then geared up for a HUGE toy boom across the US courtesy of the Spiderman 3 toys, sneak in Hasbro ML2 wave, then bounce right back up with AMAZING PRODUCTION for the Transformer movie toys, now throw in the NEW concept McQuarrie product Star Wars products for the anniversary celebration of Star Wars, and then find time to still get us Hasbro ML3 not much after the original due date. And now you adding the most successful wrestling line to date? I mean all the toy companies want Hasbro to due their distribution. I mean c'mon, really even you haters have to appreciate how spectatcular the Hasbro distribution machine REALLY is. Also a client of mine happens to be the head purchaser for Mattel Toys in San Bernadino and even he wishes Mattel was as good as Hasbro at execution of product placement. Lastly, just thought I would throw out that if you really, really think ML under Toybiz sold so well just go to your local KB Toys where ML 14 & ML 15 are cloggin their shelves and are on blow out for the past 4 months at buy 1 for $4.88 get a second figure for $2.44! Yea those last 2 lines of ML from Toybiz went over real well. Outstanding job HASBRO!

[biglebowski9999]

HASBRO has dropped the ball, and dropped it severely. LEGENDS NEVER sat on the pegs like this when TOY-BIZ was designing the figs. Sure, a few dull characters would, but overall, you rarely found entire WAVES just sitting on the shelves like Stinky Pete begging to be bought.

 

Oooooh, its because the product sucks, y'think?

 

Or maybe because the distribution system became better with Hasbro.

Toybiz was notorious for lousy and limited distribution. Large stores would get a couple of cases, smaller stores sometimes one....if that, right?

2006 had the last two waves with limited release--the orders were CUT to just US domestic orders.

Now there's a manufacturer in place with a system that works and lo and behold, there's an adundance of product available. More stores are getting more cases of the product.The Toy-biz stuff was selling before because there was so little of it to buy in the first place ( demand follows scarcity)........obviously that is going to skew your observations now that Hasbro has the means to actually put product everywhere.

The answer to your mystery is pretty clear: there's "less" people apparently buying ML toys because there never really were that many. We have a glut situation and the audience for all the product clearly doesn't exist in the numbers anticipated.

 

 

There were indeed entire ML waves sitting on the pegs in stores: ML10,11,12 were well reported as being quite common.

 

How's that for understanding the situation, eh?

 

 

Wow, another doozy going on in here, lol. My opinion is well-known by most around here, so I'll spare everyone the spiel. There were a few things that I read that I cannot let go, even though I should probably move on.

 

 

Arrow-

 

I understand your support for Hasbro and that's fine by me. That's not going to change anymore than my contempt for them will. But in your effort to defend them, it would be best not to sling out so much utter B.S. without telling the rest of us to put our waders on first.

 

You live in Canada...please don't speak on things you have no knowledge of (i.e. how much TB product was in U.S. stores during their reign). If that's all you had in YOUR stores, fine, but I can tell you for a fact that there are three TRUs in my city and when they got shipments in they were large. I found no less than 6-8 cases of the MODOK series at one TRU when it first hit, and two of those were variant cases. Everything since ML8 was very plentiful. Variants were not easy to get, but to me that was always the point. How many people were in here whining about how easy the Hulk & Bullseye variants were to find?? We can't have it both ways. At any rate, my point is that larger stores here got large shipments of MLs. Do you know how many pegs are dedicated to HML in these same stores now? Two. But I guess the employees at my TRUs are so on-the-ball that they immediately replenish those 2 pegs as they constantly sell out, because everytime I go in there the pegs are nice and full. And they're so good, they even put them in the same order on the pegs each time they crack out a new case. Amazing attention to detail, I must say.

 

The fact is, they are selling less and you know it. You don't need to throw out meaningless challenges that you know could never be met (showing you sales figures comparisons). I have seen HML2 in stores twice since they were released. And this isn't a case where I just always seem to "miss out." I'm saying almost every store in this city that carries MLs still has HML1 on the pegs and has never even ordered a case of series 2 and won't because they have too much of the series 1 junk left. Please explain to me how some of my stores had a dozen pegs for TB MLs and now only have 2 for HMLs and yet somehow you believe Hasbro is putting out MORE product than TB? If there is an abundance (which there isn't) , it is only because of poor sales...and the amount of shelf space they get is the best indicator of that.

 

Also, this is the first I have ever heard of the last 2 waves of TBML only being available in the US. There are plenty of non-U.S. members and I don't remember hearing anyone complain about that, and I imagine that might have if that was the case. So unless you can cough up so proof on that one, I'll chalk it up to more BS on your part.

[gruntcast]

October is fine with me. My wallet needs a break

 

 

Me too #US1#

[drzenith]

I agree to all of you.

 

But all I ask is that Hasbro release series 3 earlier, october is too late. Since 2007 would only see three waves that would definitely kill the industry. (Right, what industry everything is monopolized by Hasbro)

[So No Tornato]

Hasbro.... Biting off more than you can chew.Star Wars,G.I.crap, and Transformers ,Movie figures. Lets face it Marvel legends are at the bottom of their list.They'll make just enough wave to keep people buying them.Let's face it they just don't give a dam about ML, or could it be their trying fix some of the problems everyone was complaning about with wave 1 & 2.Only time will tell.

Marvel Legends are definitely not at the bottom of their list. They know how well they did for ToyBiz when they had the Marvel license. That was their #1 selling line above all movie figures and everything else. Aside from trying to cash in on the latest Marvel movies (which ToyBiz would've done as well), I would say Marvel Legends are definitely high on their list.

 

You're mixing apples and oranges.

 

If you do a side-by-side comparison of the licenses for STAR WARS, G.I. JOE, TRANSFORMERS, and MARVEL LEGENDS, it's a safe bet that LEGENDS is the least lucrative of the four described.

 

STAR WARS is obviously huge. HASBRO probably puts their top marketing execs on this account. Next comes TRANSFORMERS, a hot property that has high appeal to kids as new customers, and to older collectors as a nostalgic property (and one that's been selling since the 80's). GI JOE is close behind; JOE came out in the 60's, sold through the 70's, was revamped in the 80's, and is an iconic property.

 

Next comes MARVEL. Remember, despite our love for the characters, only a select few are iconic, and have wide appeal across market segments - Spidey, Hulk, Wolverine & X-Men. Most people have no idea who the rest of Marvel's characters are, including ones that we as fans think are huge - like Captain America, Thor, Ironman, etc.

 

So yes, the MARVEL license was HUGE for a smaller company like TOY-BIZ, but it's not as big for a BIG company like HASBRO. They're putting effort behind it (obviously), but having worked in a large marketing department, I can safely tell you that the bulk of the marketing and sales budeget supports the larger licenses - STAR WARS, TRANSFORMERS, and GI JOE.

 

Therefore, TOY-BIZ gave us more "love" than HASBRO, because we were more important to their bottom line.

[Stevy Maximus]

The fact is, they are selling less and you know it. You don't need to throw out meaningless challenges that you know could never be met (showing you sales figures comparisons). I have seen HML2 in stores twice since they were released. And this isn't a case where I just always seem to "miss out." I'm saying almost every store in this city that carries MLs still has HML1 on the pegs and has never even ordered a case of series 2 and won't because they have too much of the series 1 junk left. Please explain to me how some of my stores had a dozen pegs for TB MLs and now only have 2 for HMLs and yet somehow you believe Hasbro is putting out MORE product than TB? If there is an abundance (which there isn't) , it is only because of poor sales...and the amount of shelf space they get is the best indicator of that.

For some perspective, I worked (and still work) at Walmart starting last summer. Last Christmas, we got a single case of the Onslaught wave in, it sold out in less than a week. Then we'd get two-three cases of Series 10 or 12 ((with the odd 11 in there), and they would lag. Hell, we NEVER got ANY of the last two waves from Toy Biz! During the post Christmas clearance, outside of one or two figures (usually the Hulk, Wolverine, or Spider-Man related characters), I could have built 3 Sentinals, 2 Apocalypse, and two half Onslaughts with what we had left AFTER Christmas.

 

When we set out the Hasbro Legends, we sold FOUR CASES in less than two weeks. I don't stretch the truth here at all. However, after a few more restocks, outside of Iron Man and Hulk, the figures would sit. By March, we had a pegs worth each dedicated to Banshee, White Queen, Beast, and Hercules. To date, we've gotten TWO cases of HML wave 2, that's it. We still have wave 1 sitting on the pegs (the whole 3 we have set to the line)

 

In regards to why so few pegs dedicated to HML now? Simple:

Movie toys

EVERY Walmart has nearly an aisle dedicated to Spider-Man 3, and nearly as much for Transformers. Some are still supporting Ghost Rider, and some also carry Fantastic Four 2 toys.

Plus Superhero Showdown

Plus Star Wars

You may not have noticed, but GI Joe or DC Heroes aren't getting a great deal of peg space either. More over, with Toy Biz, it was feast or famine, the reason for more pegs earlier I feel was largely because when stores finally got product, they got a LOT of it, and once they sold out, they had to wait sometime before replenishment came.

 

I said as much last year: I firmly believe that the core reason behind Toy Biz's "high sales" before were attributed largely to the situation of a store getting just one or two cases, collectors and scalpers buying out, sometimes entire cases, and stores left with nothing. But unlike Hasbro, Toy Biz didn't have a means to replenish these stores in a timely manner, thus creating a false "scarcity".

Now, a LOT of those speculators and even some collectors aren't buying as much because the supply is readily available.