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Wasss once a man
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Posts: 1,430
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Join Date: Nov 2006
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My main problem with 25th figures: the scale. Just when the new-sculpt figures were consistently coming out at a size that looked fine alongside ARAH, they scrap the line and relaunch it at a 4.1" (or whatever it is) standard.
My secondary problem, which stops me wanting to overcome the first one like I did with some of the giant new-sculpt guys: the mid-torso joint. Okay -- I get it, that real humans swivel in the torso rather than purely at the waist, but from an aesthetic point of view I think they're hideous. Everyone has man-boobs (the only exceptions I've seen being the women, Serpentor and Zartan -- apparently body armor saves them), seams/zippers/straps across the torsos are broken when this joint is turned, and most infuriatingly of all, none of them look like the 2 sections have been pushed together enough. They all have a figure-8 kind of thing going on, where both sections curve inwards where they meet, and anyone who does have a strap (Storm Shadow, for instance) continuing from one section to the next suffers from a lack of continuity -- there's a point on the lower section where the paint & sculpting ends leaving a bare area even when the figure's standing up straight. It looks like the ribcage part should be down more, overlapping the top of the abdomen section more completely, but every picture I've seen has this gap. The new Flash figure, previewed on yojoe.com, has the classic red body armor over his torso but there's a thin green band around his midsection!
I can't really blame Hasbro for not releasing 25th figures outside the US, as new-sculpt stuff had extremely limited releases and seemed to hang around & end up on clearance, so I realize it's a lack of market interest (although since they're treating 25th as basically a new line, maybe they could give it a try over here and call it Action Force again or something...) but the look of the figures puts me off even caring if potential customers or Hasbro develop any interest in having them on our shelves.
And all this is without even going into the reports I've read from long-standing Joe-fans AND people who were drawn to the 25th through nostalgic curiosity, describing the inability for the figures to sit, difficulty/impossibility getting some other joints to pose/move as desired, loose limbs straight out of the package, parts breaking with minimal effort, inability to hold accessories...
I wonder if the unavailability of the figures was planned by Hasbro, as I'm sure a certain level of people's excitement about the line, and their willingness to pay the prices they're charged, has come from their scarcity and the toy-hunt fever (that I'm all-too familiar with) which has built in people trying to track them down...? Like, if they were everywhere and there was no trouble finding every character, would fans be more discerning when looking at the quality of the figures, rather than buying one automatically because it was the only one they'd seen after a few weeks of searching...?
OK, I think I'm done. Nice thread -- it probably is good to have this place to vent, rather than having it spill out and stirring up negativity in threads where 25th lovers & haters might be trying to discuss the same topic...!
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