So I was very excited to find my Retaliation preview pack waiting for me when I got home tonight and busted it open immediately.

Roadblock and CC were the figures I was most interested in, so I opened the former and was frustrated to find that both of his arms were sticking (not bending at the elbow).

I followed my usual MO with for this type of problem (which I experienced commonly with Mattel and ToyBiz figures in the past): boiling some water and dipping the arms in for about 30 seconds. That loosened the right arm (with the fugly hand attachment) right up, but the left arm stayed stuck.

I redipped it in boiling water for even longer and noticed, as I was trying to gently bend it, that the joint did not look right. So I tried to pry (again, gently) the hard plastic elbow joint slightly away from the molded soft plastic forearm and get a better look at just how fused it was. That's when I saw the joint wasn't hard at all, but rubbery soft plastic like the arm.

Or at least that's how it looked at first. Turns out, after a little more exploration, that the hard joint was indeed hard but had been inserted sideways (or more likely, the arm had been molded around it at the wrong orientation). Even the soft plastic "pin" was facing the wrong direction.

Anybody else having issues or am I just lucky?

Major bummer, too, as I was all set to like that figure (and the CC) despite their limited lower leg articulation.

Anyone know if Hasbro has a customer service e-mail I can hit up for a replacement?

EDIT: added pics to show the effed up arm.

You can find Hasbro's phone # and even online assistance on their website, but be warned that they tend to replace items with those "of equal or lesser value". They'll probably ask for the full set back.

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Unfortunately, that's a pretty common problem, although yours is an extreme case. I got a Retaliation Beachhead in the mail the other day that had the same thing going on, but to a lesser extent. I've found it to be pretty common with the elbows and shoulder joints, and occasionally the feet will have it, too.

I got my Retaliation pack in the mail today, too, and my Roadblock had some issues as well. The elbows were crazy stiff (although mine eventually came loose and were molded properly), and his shoulder joints were really loose.

I had a marvel Universe bleeding edge Iron Man with a shoulder like that.

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I got a Thor Destroyer with a fused elbow joint, but I threw the receipt away & couldn't take it back, he's fodder know, sad to best this still happens, even with the supposed new QC for figures these days.

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The store won't take those back, but I have to think Hasbro would if you contacted them directly.

I put in my question/request and will let folks know how it goes.

Sorta, but like I said it's a "send it back to us and we'll see if we can't replace it, or send you something else entirely."

I once sent in a busted MU Spidey and they sent me back some shelfwarming piece of crap from Spider-Man 3.

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Hasbro responded today that, because the product is an Amazon exclusive, they cannot obtain a replacement figure to send me. Instead they offered to refund the full price of the package if I send the whole thing back to them, which I'm tempted to do.

Weird, though, that they wouldn't be able to just send me a single carded Roadblock (the same figure, if I'm not mistaken) in exchange for my broken one.

You should've told them that it WAS the regular carded Roadblock.

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Then he'd be sued by Hasbro for having product before the release date.

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I thought reports were already coming in of the Retaliation toys hitting the shelves.

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True but the street date isn't until the end of May.

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well, that's better than shelfcooling piece of crap, right?

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Got my set today, and no QC issues. Thankfully. Definitely some tweaks in order though. CC and Roadblock both need some work.