Q: What’s Better Than Storing Your Action Figures in Big Plastic Tubs? v3

A: Actually having space to display them! 🙂

I waffled on whether to call this the third installment in a series of posts showing off the now not-so-new action figure display – because this is really not much of an update. In the first installment, I talked about setting up a new action figure display consisting of shelving cubes, after we put in new carpet. In the second, I talked about adding tap lights to that display.

For this mini-installment, I’m going to talk about running out of room, primarily in my Mattel cubes.

I took these hastily set up shots for the MattyCollector local collection contest tied to WonderCon. If you missed it, for each of the local, smaller shows that Mattel is attending, they’re also sponsoring two contests – one for the best local collection and one for figures pictured with local landmarks.

Realizing I had 20 minutes before the deadline, I snapped these shots of my Mattel cubes – this was an accidental design, but I was lucky that they lined up in a nice 3×4 pattern. The left side shows it with the room lights on, while the right shows it with just the tap lights on.

Here’s the line-up:

• Top row: Preternia / Etheria, He-Man and the good guys, Skeletor and the bad guys
• 2nd row: Legion of Doom, Cosmic Odyssey, Justice League of America
• 3rd row: Lanterns, New Gods, Justice Society of America
• Bottom row: Mostly Superman Rogues, Superman and Batman family, Batman Rogues

If you look back at the previous two posts, from 18 months ago and a year back, you’ll see that while I had already planned out what theme I’d have in each cube, I still had room to grow. But now, there’s pretty much no space left.

For Masters, I’m already out of space. The over-sized figures won’t fit in there at all, so they’re scattered in different places. My palace guards are in a row on top of the display, amongst the handful of 1/6 figures. I won’t have any space to add any of the figures coming in my Club Eternia for the remainder of the year.

DC isn’t in any better shape. But on the positive side, I’m very happy to have completed my displays for the Legion of Doom – the addition of custom Riddler, Toyman, and Sinestro enabled that. Same for Cosmic Odyssey – while Martian Manhunter was the last piece to come in, customs of John Stewart (who will be going back in place of the Mosaic John from the 5-pack), Adam Strange, and redecoed Forager filled missing gaps.

My JLA cube is too full. What I’d really like to do is separate out Booster and Beetle for their own Justice League International cube – but I don’t have any open cubes. Likewise, I’d really like to separate my JSA cube into classic and modern teams. And my Lanterns cube doesn’t even have any of the GL Classics that I’ve got – they really need another cube or two with all that’s coming.

I’ve been thinking about repurposing my New Gods cube (I know, heresy!) because you could say Cosmic Odyssey fills that need somewhat. Barda and Miracle would go with the JLI cube that I don’t have, and Darkseid and Kalibak would go in the Superman rogues cube that is already over capacity. I guess that wouldn’t work. But as it stands, the New Gods cube could really use my other Orion, but I don’t have another Lightray to go in there (as the one I’ve got is in the Cosmic cube).

The bottom row is all full, and already is missing some of the figures from recent waves that would fit in either the Superman or Batman families. The one thing to note is that we’re way overdue on Commissioner Gordon and Alfred in DC Universe Classics. Those are DC Direct placeholders in there, but honestly, if Mattel never gets to them, those figures will continue to work great.

In case you were wondering, I’m not really complaining about running out of room. Because what it really means is that Mattel is continuing to produce figures that I want to display. That’s what we would call a “high class problem” where I work. At one point my wife suggested another set of shelving cubes on the opposite wall that would be behind the door to the room when it’s open. I’m still resisting that, because it’ll be hidden by the door most of the time, and I have no idea where I’d actually keep the stuff I haven’t even gotten to open yet.

Like I said – high class problem. 🙂