DC Universe Classics Archives - Page 23 of 118

Toy Guru Takes to the Airwaves for Last Chance Mattycollector Subscribers

It was the Invasion of the Pod People this week as Mattel was making its final push for Club Eternia, Club Infinite Earths, and Ecto-1 subscribers. Toy Guru may have officially been out of the office, but that didn’t stop him from participating in a handful of podcasts to get the message out – the decision for these subscriptions to move forward is in our hands now. I’ll encourage you to listen to as much of these as you can, especially if you are still on the fence, or even dead set against subscribing.

Having spoken with Toy Guru more than a few times over the years, I can say with confidence that he loves the brands he represents, and as a collector, he wants to put the best product out there. If part of the reason you are thinking about skipping the subs this year is because of him, I’ll suggest you separate the message from the messenger. He can come off as too sales-oriented – I think that’s because he is very well-prepared before he speaks publicly, making his spiel seem more like a sales pitch and therefore less off the cuff and genuine. Try to take that into account as you listen to these podcasts:

Action Figure Blues – covers the Mattycollector subs
He-Man.org’s Roast Gooble Dinner – Club Eternia
Action Figure Insider – Club Infinite Earths
Ghostbusters News – Ecto-1 and movie props

Masters of the Universe Classics Shokoti and Castaspella and DC Universe Classics Fire Headline the Mattycollector 8/15 Sale; Early Access on 8/14

Three ladies headline the August Mattycollector sale, and hallelujah – it’s not the Star Sisters. On the Masters front, it’s Castaspella from the regular Club Eternia sub, and Shokoti from the Club Filmation half-year sub. DC’s Fire serves as a poignant reminder that the Club Infinite Earths subscription is in dire straights. Her partner in ~~crime~~ heroics, Ice, is one of the figures that’s at risk if the subscription doesn’t hit minimums. Ghostbusters cosplayers, the Ecto Goggles go up for sale too.

For your convenience, here’s the link to the bundle page for the August Mattycollector sale, which opens at 9AM PST on Thursday.

Early Access opens tomorrow at 8AM PST. For Masters, it’s Rattlor and Man-E-Faces. For DC, it’s Uncle Sam and Platinum with Tin pack-in. But I’m wondering, why bother? If you have Early Access, you’re subbing, so you probably have those figures already. Until Early Access includes the sub figures going on sale the next day, it’ll be of limited value to me. But on the off chance you do need something, here’s the link to Early Access for August.

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Border Patrol: Marvel Legends Ms. Marvel Duo, DC Universe Classics Batman Year Zero, and Transformers Prime Megatron

Marvel Legends Ms. Marvel and Dark Avengers Ms. Marvel by Cal – I hope Hasbro gets around to both of these figures, as Carol Danvers and Karla Sofen as Ms. Marvel both are worthy of the new busty build – this begs the question, though: just how many Thunderbolts sets did Cal get? – ends Aug 14, 2013 19:00:26 PDT and Aug 14, 2013 19:15:06 PDT

In AFP’s Border Patrol, we scour active eBay auctions for customized action figures that you won’t want to let slip by!

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Watch Mattycollector’s Club Infinite Earths Doomsday Comparison Video

DC fans, rejoice – Toy Guru does care about you!

Mattycollector has published a Youtube video comparing the different versions of Doomsday. In it, he’s got the tier 1 and tier 2 Doomsdays, namely the “containment suit” Doomsday and the “unleashed” Doomsday. For comparison, he’s also got the Collect and Connect Kilowog, with whom the Doomsdays share “upper bicep” (does he mean shoulders or biceps?) and “upper leg parts.” I don’t mean to quibble, but even if parts don’t share tooling, I’d imagine that the Four Horsemen are just building up from the blank Kilowog base, versus starting from scratch. I guess it probably doesn’t matter either way.

Toy Guru also has the DC Super Heroes Doomsday and a normal (vs New 52) DC Universe Classics Superman – both of whom are absolutely dwarfed by the two hopefuls. And yes, you will also hear about how if we don’t hit the subscription targets, they may not be able to make either Doomsday.

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Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

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