Tag: Toys

That Dexter Action Figure at Toys R Us

This summer, there was a minor ruckus when someone complained about a Dexter action figure being sold at a Toys R Us. Toys R Us responded by pulling the toy from most of its stores. Bif Bang Pow had an interesting response to the claim that a serial killer action figure was inappropriate for the child-oriented Toys R Us shelves,

There are many examples of fictional characters that kill, and many of those characters are sold and specifically marketed towards children, unlike our Dexter products. For Example:

. . .

2. Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader is a mass murderer. He blew up an entire planet, exterminating billions of men, women and children in Star Wars: A New Hope. He also mass murdered Tusken Raiders in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and killed a young Jedi in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Star Wars toys are specifically marketed towards children.

I’d take that one step further — the thing that really freaks me out is when I see children playing with Noah’s Ark playsets which are not that uncommon. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, the Noah’s Ark story was popular with a bunch of warlike Bronze Age tribes and describes how an evil, vengeful god kills everyone on the Earth except for a small handful of chosen people. Kind of like Darth Vader, only with lots and lots of water rather than an artificial satellite.

And today, in this here United States, there are toy sets designed to encourage young children to re-enact this genocidal story. Someone ought to do something about that.

Universal Monsters Kubricks

One of the few things I collect beside superhero figures are Universal Monster stuff. These Universal Monster Kubricks look awesome. However, what I’d really like to see is a wave of figures from Freaks — I would totally buy the entire line just to sit around chanting “one of us” at them.

Samurai Wars / Star Wars Action Figures

George Lucas has long said that Akira Kurosawa “The Hidden Fortress” was one of his influences when filming Star Wars. Pseudonymous action figure customizer Sillof reimagines what Star Wars might have looked like if Kurosawa himself had directed the film, as in this amazing looking Daku Joute / Darth Vader figure. Hit the link to see similarly reimagined Han Solo, Princess Lea and other characters.

Frustrations Over Collecting Mattel’s DCUC Line

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.