Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer has a great editorial over on his blog about accepting the little flaws in our action figures. His experience is very similar to my own–little paint imperfections and loose joints used to bug me a lot, but I’ve come to accept them as a part of being an action figure collector. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love them, but I accept them.
(Note: the above photo is actually a bad example, because I did decide to replace this Sinestro when the opportunity arose, but it was the best photo of a flaw I could find.)
Poe
It depends on how bad it is, but yeah, a certain amount of OCD behavior is often part of being a kid. I definitely had it, from when I was about ten to thirteen or fourteen. I'd do a lot of the tapping and going back to step on lines in parking lots and so forth. But I was able to stop doing it in my mid-teens.
Philip Reed
@Poe – "That’s the sort of OCD thinking I’ve grown out of as a collector, and I believe that’s what Jason is referring to in this editorial."
You can grow out of OCD? I didn't know that was possible.
Jim
@motorthing: I totally agree. I don't think i've been collecting as long as you are since you may be older. I've been collecting for nearly 20 years and I agree…NEVER has a company had this many QC issues, or issues in general as much as Mattel has had.
Also I agree with your comment on MOTUC. I was just saying….geeez the Heman is going for around 100 or over on ebay and Mattel produced all the hemans with incorrect shoulders. Horrible. We're paying $20 for crap? As much as I love MOTUC, it frustrates me when I get backward joints. The heman is the worst since EVERY heman has it.
As for the DCUC TRUS twopacks being the worst…you are so on target on that!
Motorthing
I've been collecting Action figures for, well…., more decades than it sounds sane to even admit but I have never had issues with a Toy Company in the way I have with MATTEL over the last couple of years. This is simply a fact. if there are those out there that don't appreciate this as a fact then too bad
I've had plenty of defective product supplied by a whole host of differnet companies over the years (those Lady Death Toys from Chaos Comics come to mind) but never has one Compnay done so much across a host of different Lines to irritate, frustrate and downright enrage.
JLU figures made of such crappy regrind plastic they cannot stand.
Expensive MOTUC figures sold from a disfunctional, pre-historic website that turn up with the wrong limbs and nothing you can do about it because the product was made in such small quantities that by the time my overseas parcel gets back to them the stock is all gone.
And DCUC. The best sculpted and most desirable DC figures ever (sorry DCD fans, they just are) and yet as poorly made and finished as any toy line IN HISTORY! setting aside laughable distribution and availability, once you have these things in your hands you have taken a gamble with your hard earned that they don't jam, break or just crumble right out of the pack. The TRU 2 packs must be the Worst made action figures ever. There are $1 bootlegs out there with a lower catastrophic failure rate than the Orion /Lightray Disgrace.
Hence the strength of feeling being expressed here. There is an awful lot of pent up rage about Mattel, and well meaning articles (that I fully accept are not actually telling us this state of affairs is OK, but that we should all take a deep breath and calm down about lifes little imperfections) don't do much more than touch off the powder-keg that is rightly Mattel-rage.
They freaking deserve it – make toys that don't do any of the above bad things and nobody will have to complain. It's that simple.
And while small flaws are all part of nature, we should never, ever accept the crap that Mattel have palmed off on DCUC Collectors, nor apologise for complaining about it.
Jim
Yup…wave 6 had problems but that's when they started getting a bit better.
wave 8 is doing pretty well so far. 🙂
NoisyDvL5
I've gotten lucky and haven't had any DCUC breaks. I really haven't had any stuck joints this year. My Wave 4 was pretty bad and Wave 5 basically frozen, but 6-7-8 have all been excellent.
Mark
People are supposed to take pride in their work.
Tom-Tom
We’re paying them money for something they produce. Why shouldn’t it be the best it can be?
Michael Lovrine
Man, I’ve never thought of it this way. Just buy whatever figure I can get. Availability is the key issue for me. Wish I had the luxury of finding 50-60 of the same figure to pick out the perfect one. That wuld be heaven.
PrfktTear
I think the whole point of the article was missed by a lot of people. I read Newton’s counter-blog, and those are extreme cases.
Obviously if you buy a figure that has two left legs or broken joints, those are problems, and should be fixed.