It’s probably going to be a light week for PGPoA, for various reasons. But I hate to leave you guys without something to think about, so here’s a question.

Mattel recently noted that the JLU Gotham Criminals set wasn’t selling to expectations on Mattycollector.com, so after the Legion of Super Heroes pack, the future of JLU Matty exclusives could be in doubt:

In other JLU news, we are going forward with the next MattyCollector.com 4 pack, Legion of Superheroes which will be on sale May 15th. However, it is no secret that the Gotham Criminals pack (still on sale now on MattyCollector.com!) has not sold to expectations.

As a JLU collector myself, nothing would be cooler than to keep JLU four packs going indefinately on my webstore. But unless sales pick up with this next pack, sadly that may not be the case. We can only produce figures for Matty.com if fans are buying them. Quite litterally this is your chance to vote with your purchase.

We will go forward with the LOSH pack, but anything past that is up in the air as to whether enough fan demand exisits to keep online packs going. So if you are a JLU fan or know someone who is, tell em to get over to MattyCollector.com and pick up a set today!

Some fans have interpreted this (albeit in rather hysterical fashion) as blackmail on the part of Mattel: buy the Gotham Criminals and LOSH sets or you’ll never see the Marvel Family or any other JLU exclusives.

I’m not sure what I think about this yet. On the one hand, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Mattel to say that if the product doesn’t sell, they can’t continue to produce more.

On the other hand, Mattel should be making sure their online exclusives are desirable. From what I understand, the Gotham Criminals pack wasn’t perfect because it had some significant and perhaps inappropriate re-uses from other figures (anyone who knows more about this, please feel free to clarify or correct me). And yet Giganta sold out, so clearly fans wanted her.

I worry about the next DCUC two-pack, Ultraman and Alex Luthor, for similar reasons–while the figures look good, they’re pretty damned obscure (frankly, I would have gone with the modern Ultraman look, since he recently had a big role in Final Crisis), and I think more than one DCUC collector will be able to pass on the set. Not me, of course, but definitely some.

So my question to you is: if Mattel can no longer afford to sell JLU on Mattycollector.com, is it more due to Mattel’s character choices and/or prices, or the waning popularity (or relative unpopularity) of JLU?