Something I've wondered about for awhile, do you guys think a Joe style figure line (Modern or o-ring) based on civilians would work, sort of an 'Average Joe' line. When I was young I always hated that my Joes/superheroes never had any one to save. I collected the Lanard (Corps Cops, Fire Fighter, Construction, & Wow Power Girls) lines back in the day and I would love to see something like this now a days. If Hasbro did it they could throw us some bones like Hector Ramirez, Honda Lou, Candy, & young Billy and for Marvel they could give us Foggy Nelson, Jarvis, Phil Coulson, Peggy Carter, Gwen Stacey & any number of heroes in their civies.

_________________

Lol, I'm so desperate for hostages, I'm in the middle of converting some Schleich statues.

_________________

Always thought they should've expanded on the concept of the Steel Brigade. It's still viable option to work with: they could make a Joe based game ala Halo, WOW, or DC Universe where you play a Steel Brigade member in various scenarios and interact with both Joes and Cobras. Your uniform would be partially based on what branch of service and/or your civilian occupation. The various helmets would be obvious and the various uniforms we've seen would available also.

_________________

I'd really go for civies too.

Yeah, that's my thought here. Do it in a way that could be gender neutral, the play sets could be done along the lines of the basic sets of the playmobile sets. there could be sets that are gender specific to challenge some of the Disney Princess stuff, like maybe a pink Castle set (that could be molded in stone grey for the boys department), they could do sports sets, cars, etc.

_________________

There's a whole world of wonder to be found in that 'could', man.

_________________

It may not result in the kind of figures I'd prefer as an adult customizer, but I'm with Greyryder on how to keep the brand thriving - I've said this before, but they need to look no further than TMNT's current approach. The marketing is perfect. The toys are fun as hell, they keep adding fun new villains and variations, while still having a solid number of the core figures available at all times. The new characters hit the shelves almost exactly when they hit the airwaves, and they have a presence across multiple platforms of both toys and media.

The shameful part of Hasbro not doing this today is that it's a model they helped create with ARAH, but no longer follow. And TMNT shows that with simple modernization of the marketing approach, it still works really well.

_________________

Joe already does this with different iterations of Duke and Snake-Eyes.

_________________

point taken, but you know what I mean. TMNT has much more of an early 80s Joe style of store presence. I remember that after more than a year of playing with my first Steeler, I had him beat up pretty bad. Since he was my favorite figure, I begged my mom for another she agreed (not realizing she'd have to buy me another MOBAT to get one, lol). So we went to the department store, and the Joe aisle still had a steady supply of them (not peg-warming, mind you, but a steady supply) more than a year after the initial release.

It's more like that. If my son loses his Mikey figure, I can go to the store and get him that same figure, even though I can also buy 5 new villains from the current season of the show when I go to get it. There's a consistency and a reliability to the approach that Hasbro lacks.

And on the different iterations, I do see where, at some point, the Turtles will cross the line. There are already several different versions of each one. But it's not so obnoxious as to overwhelm the line. And, like I said, the original core figs get re-stocked at a solid pace.

Hasbro could have done the same with Marvel too, had they utilized any kind of cross-platform planning. Simply no excuse for having the same characters dominate multiple simultaneous lines. But that's another discussion for another day.

_________________

No, I agree. TMNT has been really impressing me with their store presence/marketing. You can get just about any character at any time (save April O Neil) and the pegs are always full. I've been tempted to get into the line, but I really don't need to.

_________________

Is April a sought after figure now? I see her regularly re-stocked locally all the time.

also, the price. $8.88 for these, and some of them are cool as hell.

My biggest mistake was when the Shellraiser first came out, knowing my son wanted it pretty bad, I missed it on the first "wave" of it hitting the store, and overpaid to get one on amazon. Didn't really appreciate how well stocked they would keep these things.

_________________

I rarely see April O Neil and there have been a number of times I've heard parents and kids talking about how difficult it is to find one.

_________________

It sounds to me like the Turtles line has realized that having completely different assortments in every wave is not a good idea.

I've thought that for some time... a lot of us probably have similar stories from back in the day. I know I wore out several of my early Joes, especially Grunt and Stalker, and even a year or two later my parents could take me back to the store and replace them. I wonder if this steady availability helped cement them into my imagination. I know years later when I wore out my second Stalker, I was heartbroken when I realized that he had been replaced on the shelves with Beach Head.

_________________

Joe fans apparently aren't the only ones who see the comparison, and the cause for concern re: Hasbro's approach:

http://www.yakfaceforums.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7257&p=136040#p136040

_________________

If I was a retail buyer, I would never order Hasbro's wave 1 assortments. They are always garbage. No matter what line.

_________________