Tag: DC Universe Classics

Mattel’s Facebook page includes an album featuring photos of all of the DC Universe Classics figures released so far.

Phillip Reed recently vented his frustrations at attempting to collect Mattel’s DC Universe Classics line of action figures,

I want to love the DC Universe Classics* series of toys, but too many times the frustration of finding a specific figure is just more than I’m willing to deal with so I basically just ignore the entire line. . . .And time and again Mattel shows a complete lack of concern for the fans — kinda like the Masters of the Universe Classics line — and way too much love for retailers like Wal-Mart.

I think I’ve got every figured from the DCUC line through about Wave 8 when I gave up on it. I’ll still occasionally  by figures I happen across, but trying to get a complete set of even a single wave is becoming ridiculously hard and expensive.

But as one of the commenters to Reed’s story notes, a big part of the problem is the sheer popularity of the DCUC line. Bottom line is that if the Toys-R-Us near me puts a new case of figures out overnight, by 5 p.m. the next day most of the figures in that case are bought and already listed on EBay.

My local comic book store always gets a small number of action figures that also show up in mass retail chains, and usually there’s a 40-50% markup at the comic store as compared to the mass retailers. On DCUC, however, I’ve seen figures marked up 200 to 300 percent immediately — that’s not the store being greedy, but rather a recognition that this is what the market price for this figures really is. If they put them at MSRP they’ll be gone in a day and up on EBay.

For the most part, if I really want a DCUC figure these days I’ll just preorder online. Otherwise, I just don’t worry about it anymore.