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TRU Wave 11


Lurch77

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Hey, I just report the news, I don't make it up myself.

I do like the idea, since it create fodder for future stories, but obviously YMMV

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Not related to this wave specifically, but I just had another winning experience at Toys R Us. Apparently they're moving the Toys R Us across town, actually much closer to where I live (about 5 minutes away instead of 20), and because of that, everything in the store is discounted 10%-30%. Action figures are generally 10% off, and that applies to Minimates. So, I was picking a few up, checked out, and paid. Then, before I knew what was going on, the woman at the check out gets a black marker and starts putting lines through the UPCs of everything I bought. I said, "Whoa whoa! What are you doing?" And she replied that all sales are final, yadda yadda. I told her that I understood that, but these are collectibles and I'm not keen on having my collectibles' boxes marked up with a black marker. She said there was nothing she could do, that that was store policy, and I couldn't return them at that point even though they were marked up b/c "all sales are final." I told her that I thought it was bunk that that would be the case, given that when I paid, I had no idea she was gonna mark on the box after I bought them. Anyway, I had to call the manager over to get her to take a couple of packs off my order (duplicates I was getting for myself to have boxed versions).

I understand they are a "toy" store for toys meant to be opened and played with, but the geeks who buy stuff there often do so to keep them in the boxes, and the management who came up with this UPC markup idea must have known that. Since the stuff is discounted anyway, the only reason I can think of anyone returning things is to get more money if they paid full price for them before the sale, but how many people would A ) think of that and B ) bother with doing it?

Anyway, just another wonderful story from this Toys R Us.

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This is actually a common practice, there may not be a lot of people that would make the purchase then try to return it for full price but it happens and when it does it takes away from the bottom line of the company. One of the major factors for prices being as high as they are is theft. Typically, for every item that is sold, it can take between 3 and 10 like item sales to break even for the single items theft. And then you factor in the fact that our country is financially in the pooper and more people are willing to do dishonest things to get by.

But yes as a MIB collector it can be annoying, since you got no warning.

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Yeah, I've seen a marked rise in broken into packages and figure swapped out returns over the last few years. Sad.

They still should have warned you, Sam.

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(Also as a by the way, when Weapon X was revived in recent years as a mutant weapons program, it actually was the letter X that time, not the number as Weapon Plus had moved on.)

This has been amended several times, hasn't it? It was the greek alphabet at one stage i think. Wasn't Guardian at one stage a Weapon (insert greek letter here)? Weapon Alpha maybe?

@K80 - Damn. that's a bit rough! Australia stores generally hold a 'No Receipt = No Return' policy. If you can't provide proof that you bought at that store (or at least the same chain of stores) then you can't return it. This not only stops people return stuff to Kmart that was bought at Target, it also stops people from buying things on sale and returning them for a profit.

I guess this is the sort of tactic stores have to come up with when they operate in a country founded by criminals :P

Edited by Nessex
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LOL. Yeah, the thing about Toys R Us, though, in my experience, is that they are one of the few places I shop that actually won't give you store credit or anything without a receipt. So I couldn't get more back for these figures even if I wanted to. And the receipt has printed "all sales are final" at the top, so I think folks would have a tough time returning those to other TRUs even for the discounted amount they sold for. But anyways. . .it is what it is, like you guys are saying, I just feel they should have told me up front. Most of the time I wouldn't care since I mostly buy to open, but this was one case where I didn't.

Edited by karamazov80
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Maybe they were trying to make sure you couldn't return them to another TRU on an older receipt? Based on what I've read elsewhere, there's a lot of people that would try that. Of course that makes more sense for items that are also sold at Target and Wal-mart.

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Tru(e) story time. I know of someone that figured out ten years ago how easy it was to buy a figure at one store on clearance and return it to another store that still had it at full price to get credit. Then you'd take that credit and buy clearance or sale stuff at that store and take it to another store. Like when Unicron was on sale for $10 at Target they bought one, went across the street and returned it to TRU for like $50 in credit since it was regular price there. Between multiple stores in multiple locations they were able to do that for over a year before some stores started getting suspicious (like TRU teling them they couldn't accept any more returns without a receipt because they'd returned almost $500 worth of stuff in just a few months). After awhile, most companies, like TRU, began adopting stricter return policies so they stopped, but that got a few thousand dollars worth of toys for a fraction of the price. I remember one time they bought over $300 worth of stuff after buying $6 worth of clearance toys and kept buying and returning stuff for credit. I'm sure that they weren't the only person to do that kind of stuff and that's probably part of why things are stricter now.

So, now I've given you someone else to hate other that TRU.

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(Also as a by the way, when Weapon X was revived in recent years as a mutant weapons program, it actually was the letter X that time, not the number as Weapon Plus had moved on.)

This has been amended several times, hasn't it? It was the greek alphabet at one stage i think. Wasn't Guardian at one stage a Weapon (insert greek letter here)? Weapon Alpha maybe?

Yeah, this has been amended several times. So best I can tell the Weapon Plus program was an American lead project with aid from our WW II allies, which evolved into NATO, etc. etc. The allied nations shared data on each Weapon Numeral, and in turn most had their own side projects going that were outgrowths of Weapon Plus research. Aside from the even more secret stuff the Americans were doing, the British, West Germans, and Canadians had their own things going as well.

Canada had Department H, where James Hudson was involved in recruiting superhumans to government service and had the original code name weapon Alpha. But they also had Department K, who were much more on the shady side of things, taking combinations of Weapon Plus and Department H's work to create or enhance covert superhuman operatives. Kane, Slayback, and Deadpool are some of their more successful experiments, and worked as field agents for them at one time or another.

Actually what I was refering to was the relatively recent Weapon X program that had it's own series back around 2004/05. That one had a letter X, and was not a Weapon Plus project.

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Heck, I didn't even get into the various Soviet projects, since they were privy to the original Weapon I data (Weapon I being Captain America/Project Rebirth), or the Red Chinese super soldier programs.

Basically, if you're a writer and need to give a character an origin, and saying "it's a mutant" feels too lazy for you, there's a secret government agency somewhere in the world that fits whatever kind of character you need created, from animal mutate to psionic cyborgs to Iron Man knock offs. Someone's makin' them somewhere.

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I actually dig the Weapon Plus program after they changed the origin to "created to stop the mutant threat". So originally Cap was going to be used to take out un-american mutants...pssh commie bastards!

Thaaaaat's not quite right either. Johnny Sublime didn't take over the project until Weapon XII and that's when the focus shifted to anti-mutant weapons.

So double checking a few sources, I found out we were both right, Nessex. The Am-Can corporate project that Hudson first developed his power suit for was in fact connected to the Weapon IX project. What Weapon IX's final result actually proved to be has not been reveled.

And FYI Weapon XII was the nano-Sentinel powered Huntsman, Weapon XIII is Fantomex, Weapon XIV are the Stepford Cukoos (nanite enhanced clones of Emma Frost, the first five were a test run with 995 more waiting to be activated, a giant hive mind designed to enslave the Phoenix Force. Don't worry, it all backfired, leaving us with 3 again.), Weapon XV was a Sentinel-Human hybrid called Ultimaton (who looked like a cross between a Dreadnought and an OMAC), and lastly Weapon XVI, the "God Virus", a nanite based virus that enslaves people by playing on their "faith centers" (basically if you believe in anything higher than yourself, even a little, this thing will twist that around and turn you into a zealous follower of it's commands).

And basically, Wolverine has had a hand in either personally killing all the known successive Weapon Plus projects, or turning them heroic. They reeeeeally regret selecting him over Victor.

See, ask a simple question, get more information than you ever wanted about Fantomex.

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From the Wave 41 Thread:

Anyway, almost tempted to buy the TRU repacks this evening, but passed for now... I'll wait to get the direct market versions with the new spiffy packaging.

Anyone else finding these in stores? I don't recall previous TRU and Specialty waves hitting at the same time. I could be wrong, but it seems there's normally a bit of a gap there.

And are the TRU and Specialty sets in different packaging?

Edited by Turtle
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No love locally. If they are hitting other areas, this might be a good Thursday/Friday to check... unfortunately my in-laws are coming in town... and to my house even... and my normally patient and gracious wife has informed me it's rude to duck out on company to go Toy hunting. Good thing I'm not stressing over this wave. Yep. Goooood thing. Hate to get in trouble over something I'm not stressing over, yes sir.

We all know how this is going to end already, don't we?

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From the Wave 41 Thread:

Anyway, almost tempted to buy the TRU repacks this evening, but passed for now... I'll wait to get the direct market versions with the new spiffy packaging.

Anyone else finding these in stores? I don't recall previous TRU and Specialty waves hitting at the same time. I could be wrong, but it seems there's normally a bit of a gap there.

And are the TRU and Specialty sets in different packaging?

TRU has the standard packaging. Chuck mentioned the specialty market has the new packaging. But TRU will get the new packaging starting the next wave.

I also believe that Chuck mentioned that TRU and specialty market always are planned to come out around the same time on his spreadsheet in his computer. But it doesn't always work out. Seems like it did this time, though.

And from the sister thread to this one (the Wave 41 thread):

Anyway, almost tempted to buy the TRU repacks this evening, but passed for now... I'll wait to get the direct market versions with the new spiffy packaging.

Did you a least get the two Exclusive packs?!?

The only one left was the Betsy/Nightcrawler pack. Along with the exclusives from the last 2 waves minus Holocaust. And I didn't open it yet nor am I in a rush to play with them. But I'm kicking myself for forgetting to confirm the SKU on the wave!

I haven't been hunting for the past 2 waves but it seems like the exclusives are still out there and aren't hard to find. Except for Holocaust, of course. And I don't think these exclusives will be hard to find after the initial rush. There is no general must have pack. Heck, the best time to hunt seems to be when the next wave starts popping up. That's when they seem to reliably restock... I already got the "yeah, we got a case in the back" and it was really the Holocaust wave.

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Got my set of the new TRU wave today. I haven't seen anyone post a unpacked pic of Betsy so here ya go.

SDC10792.jpg

Really DST?? You think this is good idea for a mass-market release? Or is this just DST thinking we can package anything with Nightcrawler and he'll sell the pack on his own?

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No accessories I take it? (which would be better I suppose than more psy-knives or katanna's)

But... it's just... well... what fwooshy said. I can't help thinking the slot would have been better served with another character. Amanda Sotfen, or Pixie, or FA Dazzler is they really want a female mutant in that slot. Or maybe Meggan in her gold costume. Or one of Kitty's other costumes.

SIGH

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This was a total "wheel of random" character selection.

I think DST were playing darts on the most random character of the year selection.

The only positive I can take out is that I've got some pink pants and feet to put on random mates. I don't remember any other figure that was pink.

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i'll actually be quite glad to have this character. I just kind of wish they'd made her properly & not as a total parts re-use.

Less top-bulky arms & a second hair piece that has her telepathic butterfly attached to the front would have totally won me over.

Still - i'd rather have her like this than not at all.

@ Mirymate: Yeah - another Excalibur character would have been great to see added. I'd personally liked to have seen a Kylun or Cerise.

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