comedian

What do you think is the cause, in your opinion, of this repeated letdown from DCD? For me, I believe that DCD has had a tough time defining what it wants to be. Is it mass market or collector driven. I think they started out collector driven, with the props and 6 inch figures they were doing. But a couple years into that things started to get weird. They got the license to do Batman/Superman family figures. Soon we were no longer seeing the variety we once were. Then they had other failures like Pocket Heroes. PVC lines. I'm not sure if they were trying to do too much or if they focused in the wrong areas, but I know for me several things came to a head: in the 6 inch line, Marvel Legends was proving that comic based characters sold at retail, and yet DCD was giving folks wave after wave of interpretations of Supes and Bats, and never completing teams or even styles. I have a great start to my JLA with Bruckner sculpted Batman, Flash, SA Green Lantern, SA Wonder Woman, GA Green Arrow, but then they stopped. As well, I was never a scale nut, I don't care if they were a little off, but the long Awaited Crisis and JLA figures like Adam Strange or others were out of scale with the other characters. The articulation was never consistent. I didn't care that they weren't as articulated as the ML line, but it was how they would do it, and the fact that for the first few years folks had to BEG DCD to do any articulation beyond 5 points. I just finally had enough. They were no longer producing characters of a quality level that I was interested in. When the Minimates were anounced though, I thought, OK. They can't screw this up cause the raticulation and scale is set. And the first few waves had a great character selection. I thought they might be getting something right and understanding what a group of collectors/fans wanted. I've since revised that opinion.

I think you're right. I think if DCD tries this rumored 4 inch line (against what we saw of the 3 inch line at Toyfare from Mattel) they're sunk. Looking at Mattels 6 inch line the other day at Target, they look *ALMOST* as good as the Bruckner sculpted DCD figures from the hayday when I did collect 6 inch DCD offerings, but at a fraction of the price. Were I to get back into 6 inch figures, considering the options, I'm with you. DCD would not get my money. But concerning Mates. I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for my assumptions to prove completely and totally off base, and retail/LCS folks to rise up like some sort of Nerd Army and clamor for, nay, demand more Minimates, box sets or two packs or whatever. Nothing would please me more than to be wrong here, about everything. But my gut, logic and past experience with DCD just screams at me otherwise.

This is goofy. They're selling, though not gangbusters, which means retailers ARE requesting these. Retailers are buying these. If they weren't, sales would show it, ala retailers wouldn't be requesting these. You can argue why they are not selling as good as other items, and in threads here and on the DC boards, people have come up with half a dozen suggestions that could potentially increase the profitability of the line (box sets included). If you have a money maker, and a fan base, but need to tweak it to make it a money winner, why do you "rest" it, rather than poor some project resources into making it better? I guess what I am am saying is that I believe Brewer here about as much as I believe politicians when they say they will cut my taxes, fund every program in the social system, increase military presence wherever, AND balance the budget. The key is enough retailers. It seems rather than look for a way to increase profitability on something already profitable, they (DCD) are passing the buck to the retailers (in order to make them the scape goats). Their version of enough can be shifted and they can claim that they, shucks, really wanted to continue the line. REALLY. But darn it, there just wasn't enough interest by retailers. Why not just come out and admit DCD has no interest in producing these, because they don't make them enough money, and they aren't interested in looking any further into it because they have some nifty artist inspired 6 inch line they would rather poor money and time into?

I've written a snail mail letter and will compose a email letter when I have a second. Hopefully, Georg Brewer will be convinced to give the line a second chance.

I'm not "meh" at all about this. I'm pissed. You can debate all you want about character selection, but the quality was top notch, The attention to detail wonderful, the accessories fantastic and unlike Marvel who say might skip a wave entirely, you knew when these were coming out and they almost always got moved up. I don't think even the casual fan would disagree on these. As for personal tastes, I think the selection of characters has been top notch. They found intelligent ways of getting the big three out there in different forms, unlike Chuck and his Spidey fetish, which was nice. They also had a nice selection of GA, MA and even some SA heroes. Each wave had a little something for just about anyone. They might not have been your favorite characters, but odds are your favorite was at least up for consideration because ANY character was. It reminded me of the start of the DCD figures, save for all the problems convincing Brewer that articulation mattered, even post launch of Marvel Legends. But therein lies the rub. After watching DCD for what, 10 years now, I'm convinced that while a nice person in interviews (and most likely in person) Georg Brewer and the other folks running DCD (or decision makers, or however you want to term it) have NO idea how to run a line. They destroyed what was a wonderful idea with the DCD figures by ignoring articulation and scale for years, to the point of ridiculousness (and I'm not a scale nut, but when my SA Firestorm TOWERS over my Batman and Superman, c'mon). Then they twisted it with this artist specific versions of the same 8 characters crap. Ugh. Anyway, I hold out no hope that no matter the response on line, in stores or anywhere else, they will change their mind. It makes me very bummed only because Pocket Heroes were an out and out failure from wave 1 and they tried desperately to breath life into that line for a couple years. Minimates are at least marginally successful, and by their own account, near as we know, profitable, and they abandon that line but quick. put a fork in 'er. It's done.

Well, this is crappy news. I'd have to hope that it has to do with some re-org in DC Direct or something, and not the Mates sales or anything else. Maybe DC Direct got over extended in terms of how many types of things they were offering? Perhaps this is an indication of a larger shake up, ala what is rumored to be going on with the Archives series or due to Mattel's "success"? Cause if not, if sales really did suck, then I suppose the line is DOA no matter what folks do.

Reading Mr. Cow's posts at RTM it seems he prolly doesn't know anything beyond what we do. If Retailer A was abandoning a line, would they bother showing the last couple waves? Wave 7 is out, so soliciting that one makes no sense, and why so off 8 if there is no life beyond it? Not that the above logic proves or disproves anything, but why not devote shelf space to other things?

I've never even heard of AZM or whatever site is reporting this...not that it means anything I suppose. I have a hard time thinking this is true. Scaled back? I can see that (Two waves a year let's say). Something is not right here, because ain't no one else reporting this, and Julius Marx on his site has said he will specifically ask DCD about Minimates. No posts or updates from him yet. If Iron Cow is saying hold the phone, that's another good sign. Toy News International also has no death of DC Minimates news in their TF 08 coverage. Basically we've got one site with an unconfirmed rumor, and no source (like Brewer) quoted. Things remain to be seen.

There isn't a heck of a lot new they are showing right now anyway. I'm hoping that as the show goes on, they bring out some new announcements. I can't remember if they do that traditionally. I'd have to put at least decent odds on it though just because they only thing I saw picture wise that I didn't know about were the 13 inch GL figures. I don't think the Mates line is over for DC Direct. They beat Pocket Heroes till it was a dead mule after all. Unless DC Direct is having problems/being re-organized or something, ala the Archives program. Ugh. *There will be a wave 9, there will be a wave 9, there will be a wave 9, there will be a wave 9*

Yay! ST movie version mates! Perfect. I cannot wait for the entire crew. Or for the Next Generation/DS9/Voyager crew. Or Borg. Or Cardassians. I guess I'm saying I love them all. Now, for wave 6. I would really like to see a Klingon warrior, Movie era, please.

This would be excellent news, if it were to happen, and allow me to completely and totally forget about the 3 3/4" line (which I have almost done anyway, save for a clone here or a droid there). Yeah. Just wow. I can't even come up with which character I want first.

I'm loving the IM movie mates. Hopefully they can come out around the actual movie's release, give or take a year. HA. I'm also liking the entire wave 23. It's not characters I generally am into (Nova), nut it's nice to see some diversity, and especially in some respects, the Marvel line following DC Directs lead and making some obscure characters.

Maybe being undead and all, it isn't really big muscles that Wovie has, but rather a really unpleasant, totally bloated tummy from all that decomposing flesh being held in by an adamantium frame? I'm just sayin....

I got these yesterday at lunch time from my LCS... and they were as good as I could have hoped. Thor is just excellent. I'm very pleased with how he turned out. Loki too. I wasn't nerarly as excited about Loki initially but after getting him in my hands, he may be my second most favorite Mate in the wave. The other 4 were great too. I especially appreciate the fact that they made a new head piece for the Scarlet Witch. It looks really nice. The paint apps are great, and all 6 figures in the wave are well finished and look awesome. I can't wait for Hawkeye and Vision now, so we're closer to completing the classic Avengers. Bring on a Giant Man, Black Panther, Wasp, Kang, etc, etc.

I agree with TM2 about Wolvie- not so much the inclusion of him in the set but rather that this is one of the worst Mates to date. The mask in particular looks terrible. I popped it on the other Wolvies and it just looks silly. The paint aps on mine are sloppy, in contrast to the very good aps on the good Col and Spidey. Overall, I wasn't really too interested in the set to begin with, but was pleasently surprised with Col and Spidey, fine with Hulk and Power Man, and really disapointed in Wolvie. I was just kind of "blah" about it in the end. Perhaps with the addition of the two packs coming I won't feel the same, as the ranks of the undead grow.

Picked up my ST wave 1 set today from the LCS. I agree with Mini-Myte whole heartedly- these are fantatstic and a must have for me now. The entire wave is spot on as far as likeness, and there are a whole bunch of little touches from the accessories to the facial expressions that make these so good. I'm quite happy I got my hands on a set. Now, if we could get some Next Gen and DS9 characters along with movie era TOS folks, we're all set. I also got my BG wave 2 in the mail from AFX earlier this week. These are nice, but for some reason I am less excited about them than I am about the ST mates. I think it's just personal preference since the BG mates are very similar and all look fantastic. Well, two more versions of mates to collect, it seems.

The Wrecking Crew would seriously kick butt. The Masters of Evil and Alpha Flight would be a close second for me. OK, OK, I'd buy ANY of these sets frankly.

I'd buy a Rocky 3 set. I'm not so keen on the 1 and 2 sets. I guess if I see them and have some extra cash... But a set for the third movie I would buy. I'm also in for an Ivan Drago minimate. Would that set include a "Battle Damaged Apollo Creed"?

I'm always happy to have me some Mates ahead of schedule. What's funny is thanks to you guys, I usually know more than the LCS I buy from on the status of the releases. For instance, I could walk in the day teh DC Mates are released and unless the owner is working, they won't have any idea if the mates are there. And this is after they have unpacked everything and started to fill hold slots. And they keep telling me the DC mates are selling really well, so they buy a bunch (because all the owner could talk about was how poorly the Marvel Mates sold in the last year or so, before the first DC wave). Nice people, but not always on top of things. What were we talking about again?

Time for the inevitable: GA Green Lantern/Solomon Grundy Martian Manhunter/Elongated Man Black Canary/Arsenal Solar Suit Supes/Doomsday

Seems like quite a few of us got Cyborg right.

Yes! Another great wave. I have to disagree with those who feel these are random pairings. I frankly don't care which GL's get paired together- you know we're going to get a Kyle figure even if it didn't come with Sinestro. I'd be willing to be that we have one by the end of 2008 even. The fact that GL fans will have a Salak and a Kilowog mate? That's too cool. Again, the variety here is excellent. There is a little something for everyone. I'm even somewhat excited about the Red Son 'mates. I completely understand some people's disapointment that they haven't gotten their one favorite yet, but the upside of the line is that we know virtually any character in the DCU is possible. I'd like the line to last a long time and provide a huge amount of folks from the DCU. The last few waves indicate this is happening. These look really nice for early prototypes. I can't wait to see more of the Question. I'm almost beginning to think that Watchmen 'mates are possible.

I was under the impression they didn't. The Targets in the north area of Denver all had to clearance almost the entire stock of the last wave that came out. The Mates that came through Target almost always ended up on clearance. I picked up a ton for my son that way, a heck of a lot cheaper than I would have through a comic store. I would have to assume the decesion boils down to one of two things: either DST wants too much for these waves (making the cost prohibitive for Target) or they don't sell, making them a loosing proposition overall for the company. To me the strategy of going through Target never made much sense- these were all characters that were available previously, and so most collectors had bought them all already. The re-release of the X-Men box set characters being the only real exception. Sure it may have brought in a few new people, either who have no comic store locally or who had never seen the little guys before, but overall I'm just not sure who they were marketing towards. Had they released some new characters, exclusives, variants this way (say black Sipdey just for arguments sake), I think they would have sold better. Of course, I'm not too hip on DST and their thinking in general, so I may be biased on this.

Yay! Comic oriented minimates! My only gripe is with Vision- why can't the light shaded costumer version be the one that doesn't show him phasing? That's the one I want, and I'd prefer a non phasing version. Very minor gripe frankly. Polaris and Havok look sweet.

How about a Classic X-Men box set, including Mimic and Changeling? You'd pretty much have the entire 60's X-Men "family" hero set then (the five X-Men, Mimic, Changeling, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, from the upcoming Avengers wave). Or members of the Wrecking Crew. I'd take any of them. Master of Kung Fu?