MOTUC General News

[He-Mullet]

I've seen that too especially when trying to forcefully fit ego-stroking projects into the story to "tie it in"... (Some look like Jedi-Brony-Loudmouth Mercs others look like Terrorist Leaders in Medieval times.)
The Story (or the hodge-podge that the Bio Writing "team" calls a story) is now taking priority over the characters. Variants are not the place to tell a story... Well, "Character Upgrade" Variants (Battle Armor, Ice Armor, etc.) are not. "Story variants" (Snake Man-at-Arms, NA He-Man) now those can be used to tell some of the story.
I do feel like they're rushing... but we're supposed to get most of the story by Spikor/Frosta... Mid 2012... It would have been easier if they just posted a general timeline of key events on their site and mention the key players at each event and WE filled in the blanks with our canons... But I'm not Mattel.

[dayraven]

I've seen that too especially when trying to forcefully fit ego-stroking projects into the story to "tie it in"... (Some look like Jedi-Brony-Loudmouth Mercs others look like Terrorist Leaders in Medieval times.)
The Story (or the hodge-podge that the Bio Writing "team" calls a story) is now taking priority over the characters. Variants are not the place to tell a story... Well, "Character Upgrade" Variants (Battle Armor, Ice Armor, etc.) are not. "Story variants" (Snake Man-at-Arms, NA He-Man) now those can be used to tell some of the story.
I do feel like they're rushing... but we're supposed to get most of the story by Spikor/Frosta... Mid 2012... It would have been easier if they just posted a general timeline of key events on their site and mention the key players at each event and WE filled in the blanks with our canons... But I'm not Mattel.

or keep the bios bioliscious and save the narrative story arc for mini-comics or a web-comic that could have helped drive web traffic on non-sale days.

[PrfktTear]

I can agree with the point about the bios should be about the character, not as a means to tell the story (see: Dem0-Man bio.

I always took the whole outfit/armor change was to meet the needs for that specific task... i.e. if he had to fight snake dudes that day he'd get Snake Armor. If he had to head to head up to the cold mountains he'd get a nice furry cape, not nessarily based solely on WHO he was fighting but also the conditions, hence Jungle Armor, Street Luge Armor, etc.

I don't mind them referencing events i.e. Battlefield Eternia for specific change. Though they still haven't told us why Teela bleached her hair. Other than for the reason that they have more fun.

[He-Mullet]

Well, Some fans speculate that Teela associates blonde hair with Fabulous Secret Powers... Since she's now the Sorceress' Apprentice, she took a hair color that symbolizes the powerful destiny ahead of her... But Mattel would probably say something along the lines that she can dye her hair however she wants. I'm still confused about wearing a brass bra in the Polar Ice Caps... Does she hate her boobs that much?

[PrfktTear]

I haven't even opened my Battle Ground Teela yet. If and when I do she's going next to Conan Vikor.

[PrfktTear]

I was just reviewing and updating the spreadsheet I started long ago with all of the Masters Classics and I came to the realization at how very close we are to completing all of Skeletor's henchmen. With the announcement of Spikor, I am just a Two-Bad, Jitsu, and Ninjor away from being a very happy boy. For whatever reason in my head I'm not counting Blade or Saurod. Blast Attack would be awesome as well, though he is technically Horde though, isn't he?

We're also fairly close to completing the Heroic Warriors/Masters. We just need Mekaneck, Ram-Man, Clamp Champ, Extendar, and Rio Blast! I won't bother getting into the Horde or Snake Men, but of course I want Mantenna, Dragstor, Rattlor, Snake Face, Sssqueeze, and Tung Lashor.

Still I feel some sense of (for lack of a better term) accomplishment at having arrived this far in the line.

[He-Mullet]

We're 6 Evil Warriors short of completing Skeletor's evil warriors:
-Two-Bad
-Ninjor
-Jitsu
-Blade
-Saurod
-Twistoid

We're 6 Hordesmen short of a full roster:
-Mantenna
-Mosquitor
-Modulok
-Multibot
-Dragstor
-Trooper(s)

We're 5 Snakemen short of a full set:
-Rattlor
-Snakeface
-Squeeeze
-Tung-Lashor
-Blast Attack (He's a Snakeman in a mini-comic?)

We need the following 9 Heroic Warriors:
-Ram man
-Mekaneck
-Rio Blast
-Clamp Champ
-Extendar
-Gwildor
-Rotar
-Stonedar
-Rokkon
That's 26 Vintage figures Minus Meteorbs and Variants...

Now this is what the Entire Princess of Power Line is missing: 13 figures (no Variants or Beasts)
-Angella
-Castaspella
-Glimmer
-Kowl (that should have come with Bow)
-Loo-Kee
-Double Trouble
-Entrapta
-Mermista
-Flutterina
-Netossa
-Peekablue
-Sweet Bee
-Spinnerella

Now for New Adventures' 7 Galactic Protectors: (No Variants, or Sagitar who is a "Large Scale Beast")
-Artilla
-Hydron
-Kayo
-Nocturna
-Spinwit
-Tuskador
-Vizar

Now for the 7 Mutants Remaining:
-Butt-Head
-Flogg
-Hoove
-Karatti
-Quakke
-Lizorr
-Staghorn

So... 26 MOTU and 27 Combining PoP and NA... Methinks this line will end before PoP and NA get half their rosters due to Mattel's "Spreading out the big hitters"... No wonder they went after the Filmation Rights...

[doctorkent]

So... 26 MOTU and 27 Combining PoP and NA... Methinks this line will end before PoP and NA get half their rosters due to Mattel's "Spreading out the big hitters"...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
If the line dies, the fans have no one to blame but themselves.
I'll take Digital River and ToyGuru in 2012 ANY DAY over fighting Fat Bastards I,II and III for new Star Wars/Spawn/superhero figures circa 1998, and a corporate mentality that collectors are "a pimple on an elephant's ass". (Hasbro higher-up, see the book Toy Wars for it and much other interesting tales of days gone by)

Really, if the supposed "massive fanbase" of MOTU can't keep this line going until 2018, no company should ever attempt a collector line again.

John K.

[dayraven]

So... 26 MOTU and 27 Combining PoP and NA... Methinks this line will end before PoP and NA get half their rosters due to Mattel's "Spreading out the big hitters"...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
If the line dies, the fans have no one to blame but themselves.
I'll take Digital River and ToyGuru in 2012 ANY DAY over fighting Fat Bastards I,II and III for new Star Wars/Spawn/superhero figures circa 1998, and a corporate mentality that collectors are "a pimple on an elephant's ass". (Hasbro higher-up, see the book Toy Wars for it and much other interesting tales of days gone by)

Really, if the supposed "massive fanbase" of MOTU can't keep this line going until 2018, no company should ever attempt a collector line again.

John K.

that seems willfully naive doc. not every fan of the property has had their "wishlist" line produced in motuc. let's take an objective look here at where the industry is, at how the web has changed retail, and at the every mercurial world of economics... why does the "huge fanbase" of motu have to buy motuc?

[doctorkent]

So... 26 MOTU and 27 Combining PoP and NA... Methinks this line will end before PoP and NA get half their rosters due to Mattel's "Spreading out the big hitters"...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.
If the line dies, the fans have no one to blame but themselves.
I'll take Digital River and ToyGuru in 2012 ANY DAY over fighting Fat Bastards I,II and III for new Star Wars/Spawn/superhero figures circa 1998, and a corporate mentality that collectors are "a pimple on an elephant's ass". (Hasbro higher-up, see the book Toy Wars for it and much other interesting tales of days gone by)

Really, if the supposed "massive fanbase" of MOTU can't keep this line going until 2018, no company should ever attempt a collector line again.

John K.

that seems willfully naive doc. not every fan of the property has had their "wishlist" line produced in motuc. let's take an objective look here at where the industry is, at how the web has changed retail, and at the every mercurial world of economics... why does the "huge fanbase" of motu have to buy motuc?

Completely agreed that Classics isn't the ideal line for everyone - but it is the only choice we have if we WANT new MOTU. The fanbase doesn't HAVE to buy them, but if they want new MOTU, what is the other option?

First things first - my previous post is a reply to the "line will never make it!" thought that continuously pops up on .org and in comments like the one above. This is one of the first times where the fans actually have a say in the line continuing. If we want MOTUC to continue until 2020, all we need (based on the information we have at hand now) is for the current level of subscribers to continue to want 16 new figures and four "expensive" packs per year. We don't have to think about Walmart saying they don't want another assortment of Dark of the Moon and chopping four "anticipated" figures, meaning a scramble for Japanese stock of the same item long sold out; we can have as much MOTUC as we want. That level of collector interaction is unprecedented. In the last two decades of toy collecting, how many times did we have to let the Skeleton Warriors/Darkstalkers/unproduced items go by because "kids didn't want them"?

The current collector market is a strange thing - really much more segmented than about twenty years back.
We're living in a time when a section of the fanbase can sell out a $200 Christopher Reeve Superman from Hot Toys, while the other end of the fanbase thinks a $30 MOTUC figure is expensive. Online has really evened the playing field on toys. When I look at the days of 199X, I remember McFarlane figures that were so impossible to get in my neighborhood that not even the scalpers had them; seeing the Invisible Woman from Toy Biz in a store - two of them on pegs at the same time! - buying one, and never seeing one at retail again while my friends paid $50 to the scalpy store at the Jersey Shore for one. Things we thought were rare turned out to just be tough to get in our neighborhoods; the whole scale of "worth" shook out in different ways as we were exposed to eBay and online retailers blowing out stock for pennies.
Applying this specifically to MOTUC, we have seen that almost every character can be sold out in a three day time span (I know there were a couple, the most notable example being that Hurricane Hordak needed a reworking, lol). Is there a portion (or portions with specific wants) of the current subscriber base who wants all of NA/POP/200X/other to keep it going once we have Ram Man out of the way?

As part of this segmentation, we deal with the hyperbolic statements of people being cemented in forums everywhere with a casual ten-second thought process involved - my personal favorites being "I'd buy FIVE Gi Joe Tactical Battle Platforms if the re-released them!" as the justification for such an act; "Thundercats would TOTALLY RULE THE AISLES if they brought them back!"; "that figure is an abortion/holocaust/armageddon".
A forum like .org wants to have an argument with TG when he unwisely marginalizes what are probably his most...fervent fans by saying that there are only the infamous "200" active posters over there. They state that there is a massive collector group at .org that buys Classics which surely has to be a massive part of the overall MOTUC customer base, right? It's unknowable, because many people who lurk on their forums don't want to interact with the 200 guys who essentially run the forum by posting in every single thread.


Tying things together, I go back to the original post. You take a reasonable fan like He-Mullet and he thinks he won't get to complete his teams because the line is going to end before that? Why? If he and every other fan who wants those characters continue to subscribe (and the day of sale buyers do their part), there is no reason for the line to stop.
If we find out that the majority of characters beyond this year are all Hurricane Hordaks, so be it. But we'll decide that, not Toys R Us or Walmart. And MOTU will be finished for real this time for at least another five years, if not forever - unless the magical movie finally appears. I wouldn't hold my breath for it though.

John K.