Yes, the monthly Matty suckage saga continues...time to get over it

Seriously, it's just a joke at this point and the monthly experience with these guys is like that old Bill Murray movie "Groundhog Day" where the same events and conversations occur over and over again.

Yes, it's true. Mattycollector.com, Toyguru aka Scott Neitlich, Mattel, Digital River, they all really suck at managing collector brands, executing distribution at the mass market retail level and providing any resemblance of an online ecommerce experience. Blah, Blah. And this isn't just our view at this point. Hell, one of Mattel's lead action figure lines brand managers, Scott Neitlich frequently will post and confirm these facts himself on their own Twitter, Facebook, forums and online Q&A responses all the time.

"Hey toy fans - heads up that once again you will likely find item "X' sold out before the sale barely begins!"

"Hey toy fans - We know we have site issues that make your purchasing experience painful monthly. It's only been going on monthly for a year but were working on it! It's our highest priority!"

"Hey toy fans - we understand you can't find any of the new figures at retail and that we keep shipping old stock instead. Totally the retailer's fault even though it's been a problem for over a year now. But it's our highest priority to fix!"

So here is the real lesson learned for all collectors, including us Geeks. The issues with Mattel aren't going to end anytime soon so just refuse to put yourself through the process. Look we understand a collector of a favorite toy line needs to keep buying the next new exclusive figure or wave. Guilty as charged! But we have to be patient. Not for Mattel to get their act together...that ain't going to happen anytime soon.

Screw trying to buy the next Master of the Universe figure on Matty's site. If you need to head to ebay for the figure, check out recent sold prices for recent releases. They all come down close to what you could have paid at retail including shipping. Not only that, Scott has confirmed both in words and actions that just about every new exclusive figure will be re-released again in a few months. And if you don't think the whole MOTU line isn't heading to Toys-R-Us soon as an exclusive brand, you'd be kidding yourselves. And when that happens, Mattel will re-release all the previously sold out characters again. Check it out...we've already seen Skeletor repackaged 4 times in the past year. An initial release online, second release online, new TRU two-pack with Lex Luthor and an upcoming San Diego Comic-con two-pack exclusive. It won't be too long now before the scalpers realize this line isn't going to be worth time and investment.

Another example? How about Mattel re-releasing DC Universe wave 5 online in May? The hardest to find series in the line to date will no longer be hard to find. Not only that, but there may be less and less DCU exclusives to purchase online anyway as Scott has already confirmed the following DC products do not sell well on the Matty store: JLU, DCU two-packs, DCU full waves. That would leave them with trying to sell singles soon begining with Plastic Man in August.

So we get it now. Thanks Mattel, lesson learned on our end. Until you can figure it all out, we'll wait our purchases out and perhaps give our money to the secondary market instead of putting ourselves through the pain and frustration of trying to give it directly to you.

Matty does it again or Mattel fuck up of the day

Looks like Mattel and Matty are planning to re-release the hardest wave of the of the DC Universe toy line in May. DCU Wave 5, the infamous 2008 Wal-Mart exclusive build a figure set.

While plenty of the line's fans are going to be very happy about this development it sure is a kick in the balls to other dedicated collectors who have spend a lot of time and $$$ completing their own sets with this wave. On ebay a sealed set of five figures has fetched over $300 for some time now.

It's just further proof that Toyguru and his team at Mattel are just clueless when it comes to communication or how to deal with the line and it's fan base. Production would have to begin months back in 2009 for a planned May 2010 sale and shipping. Why not tell collectors months ago they had plans to do this instead of allowing many of them to waste hard earned money on the secondary market? Hell, why not even mention it back in San Diego last year? The answer, as always of course is that they are incompetent idiots. And they love to prove this fact week in and week out.

So yeah, it's great I can finally fill in that hole in my collection after all these years but I for one would be livid if I had dropped that kind of money on this wave only to discover Mattel found a new way to fuck me over (again) on this brand.

Watch ebay just fill up with desperate collectors trying to get at least some of their money back on this wave over the next several weeks as the news gets out.

BitterNews for Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

• After an unexciting Barb Wire reveal a few weeks back, Triad Toys has pics of their upcoming Ghost figure. The pic above does not do justice to the figure. Check out Triad’s page for more info.
• Tomorrow is tablet day. We suggest you check out the MacRumors website, which will provide consolidated coverage of the event as it takes place Wednesday, January 27th at 10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern.
• According to the NYTimes: “The tablet is expected to be a multimedia device that will let people watch movies and television shows, play games, surf the Internet and read electronic books and newspapers. Though companies like Toshiba Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. have introduced Windows-based tablet computers before and Amazon.com Inc. and others sell similarly-sized digital-book readers, people briefed by Apple say the company intends to carve out a new product category.”
• Apple are absolutely carving out their own distribution system, which will likely add books to the iTunes store, at a much higher return to publishers per sale than any other reader or system currently in place. Add this to the expected quality screen and the continuing Apple Mania, and if I was Kindle (or any other online delivery system), I’d be pooping my pants.
• Stop the planet - Keith Richards stopped drinking. If he quit, something must be drastically wrong (dead liver), but we at BG hope that isn’t the case.
• eBay is introducing a new selling tier structure that allows users to sign up for one year at $49.99 and have free access to their Seller's Assistant Pro (previously a $25 a month program) and lower insertion fees.
• Michael Monroe (ex-Hanoi Rocks) revealed the line-up for his new band, which includes former Hanoi Rocks bandmate Sami Yaffa (bass), as well as Ginger from The Wildhearts and from Danzig/Samhain, guitarist Todd Youth (fresh from a stint with Glen Campbell!). This band will play SXSW and they have already written a bunch of songs for a release this fall (meaning 2011 in rock n roll time).
• John Travolta is sending scientologists to Haiti. Jessica Simpson is sending shoes. Therefore Jessica Simpson= smarter than John Travolta.
• The IRON MAN 2 soundtrack is ALL AC/DC – not a cheap proposition, BTW. A video from the album debuted online today. It’s like Maximum Overdrive all over again, except the Green Goblin isn’t in it.
• Lego are going blind-box with a new line of minifigs sold in separate boxes. Price is expected to be in the $2-$4 range. So far, no licensed figs are shown.
• Lauren Hill (ex-Fugees) who has burned through millions of dollars and many years working on a follow-up to the Miseducation of Lauren Hill album of many years ago, sang in New Zealand this weekend. Sony execs still not expecting to see their return on investment any time soon.
• Mattycollector.com continues to be a clusterfuck. Today Digital River sent out notices to many customers, notifying them that their Club Eternia subscriptions had expired. These customers had so far only gotten the January figure in a 12 month subscription, so of course the internet broke. Matty issued this: “All customer service issues with order numbers have been gathered and are being reported to Digital River today. Facebook pages are proving to be too difficult to navigate b/c there are so many posts (pages are slowwwww to load and prone to crashing the farther back we go) so once the Fan Forums launch, we'll be gathering issues there. FOR NOW, PLEASE POST ISSUES TO THIS NOTE.”
• “Shortly thereafter they sent this: Regarding the emails you've been receiving advising that your subscriptions are cancelled, we just verified with Digital River that they are NOT CANCELLED.” Just another day at Mattel!
• The Who announced their Super Bowl set list. I’d think the NFL might be pissed about this – it’s sort of anti-climactic – like announcing the winner of the game.
• Mark Millar is doing another charity auction, this time to name the bad guy in his upcoming book, Nemesis.
• Apparently Elin is not going to Divorce Tiger. He must be one smooth-talking, check-writing motherfucker.
• DELUSION OF THE DAY: Here’s a quote from the guy who plays Ando on Heroes regarding their plummeting ratings: "I'm not worried about it all, because I think that it's very misperceived. We have a larger audience than ever, but they're completely scattered in so many different platforms. People are watching "Heroes" not only on television but mostly on the computer and on their iPods and phones. They're doing NetFlix, Amazon, Hulu, NBC, DVDs, you name it. It's amazing how fast technology has evolved even in the past four years. The way people are watching media has changed completely." Yes, Ando, there are more platforms than ever to not watch Heroes on.
• Actor Pernell Roberts died at age 81. He starred on 'Bonanza’ and 'Trapper John, M.D.'
• The ABBAWORLD theme park / Museum opened in London. Now you know where to take your mom.
• Reports are trickling in of DCUC Wave 12 showing up at Wal-mart. Strangely, the cases include Iron, Spectre, Eclipso, and Dr.Midnight, but not the figures that are already being sold through specialty retailers (Mary Marvel, etc). No word on a date for solid case sales through Matty.
• The Secret Wars series with Thor, Hawkeye, etc is being found regionally.
• And finally, the Fall/Winter Xeric Awards were announced. I’m sure I’ll never read any of them.

DC Universe Classics 11 & Flight Stand Review

While still in the process of writing 2000 other pieces, two DCU 11 sets arrived today and I wanted address this new wave quickly.

I’m not going to litter this piece with pictures – with a simple Google search you can find plenty of pictures better than anything I can be bothered to take. The one picture here is meant to illustrate the lameness of both the figure and “flight” stand.

After 10 previous waves and many box sets, lots of the same problems that have plagued this line since day one are still present:

1) the ball-jointed neck that doesn’t look up or down
2) the generic nature of the sculpts
3) the blocky ankles that make the flight poses look awkward because the lines of the body don’t look natural.
4) ill-advised love affair with Super Powers
5) Stupid T-crotch
6) Ugly & obvious thigh cut
7) It's called ENGINEERING

Hopefully the shifting of ToyGuru to the GL movie line will result in a fresh set of eyes that will save DCUC from extinction and rectify the stupid shit ToyGuru has failed to fix over the past few years. For example, this wave is not exactly packed with A-listers. Here’s what you get:

Katma Tui: Both of mine have paint issues as does John Stewart. Oddly, the issue is on pieces that are molded in solid green plastic but are both painted solid black – which is not only a waste of paint, but also an unneeded application. The female body sucks. The arms are too spindly. In this case the head is also huge, which adds to the disproportionate look of the figure overall. By the way, FIRST TIME IN SIX INCH!!!!!! "Oh mommy, can I get it? This character I've never heard of has finally been made as a six-inch figure!! The power of lazy meaningless marketing compels me!"

John Stewart: Yawn, although the accessories (detachable Lantern fist & gun) are nice, especially as there are hardly any accessories in this line (another issue that should be fixed). Same paint issues as Katma.

Steppenwolf: There are two versions, the comic version and the Super Powers version. Again, a D-lister. Execution is fine, but they will rot on shelves. No one under 40 knows either version. Even in the 80’s Kenner knew this character needed to be a mail-order figure. Twenty + years later, neither new version comes with a C&C piece – the lack of which would normally make him the least desirable figure in the Wave, but ToyGuru has dug deep and found a less appealing character. Who is less sellable than Stepenwolf? Welcome…..

Shark: Hello peg-warmer! This ugly execution of an interesting character design is completely ruined by the connection of the head to the neck. Also, kids don't buy characters in shiny pink jumpsuits. If you can’t execute properly, why bother with this D-lister? Please note there are running changes with this figure including a cute “Bubbly-Bubble” and a revision to the paint job that eliminates the pupils.

The Question: This is the fan poll winner (according to the sticker on the package – as if that will drive sales in any way). Thin arms and a rubber overcoat restricts movement to such a degree that much of the articulation is compromised. Hands are sculpted to hold guns that aren't included. yay.

Deadman: Horrible headsculpt and once again, the thin, spindly body looks wrong. Thin, yes. Monkey arms, no. I thought they were going for classic looks in this line.

Cyborg Superman: Fine, but again, articulation is unnecessarily compromised.

Kilowog: Here’s your C&C figure; nice except there’s an issue with either the T-crotch being too large or the range of motion in the hip joints are too limited, but regardless of the cause, the legs & crotch don’t fit together well. This means that even with the side swivel ankle joints, Kilowog’s legs can’t move close enough together to get his feet flat on the ground, making this top-heavy figure ready to fall over if a gnat farts in the next room.

OVERALL: As usual the C&C fig is pretty good, although this one has a huge flaw that is impossible to overlook. The case ships with more Flash, Batman and Superman reissues. So the new figures are two marginal Lanterns (& one from second-tier), a Superman variant, and the others are basically unknown or unexciting to anyone except hardcore DC fans. This line is being brand managed out of existence.

And while I’m shitting on Mattel, you’ll notice the pic of Deadman in the “flight” stand. These were sold on the Matty website, at the outrageous price of $12 for three (!). I was surprised to see these are made from the same crappy plastic as your mom’s old Tupperware (she brought me a slice of apple pie in it after I did her in your old bedroom). It’s translucent, not clear, so the illusion of flight it’s supposed to simulate is lost. Also, as you can see, the stand isn’t very high, so in the case of Deadman, you can’t even have him hovering in the air, because his TOES TOUCH THE GROUND. It looks like he’s practicing ballet. And come to think of it, that’s the face I’d make if I had to walk around on my toes. So in case you were wondering where I’m going with this, these stands are overpriced, badly-conceived pieces of shit that should be avoided at all costs.

Matt-tarded

Mattel and their collectors site, Mattycollector, continue to go from strength to strength in terms of pissing off their customers, and the most recent Matty offering (on December 15th) has taken the crown as the worst offender ever from the previous record-holder, August.

Please note that August was only 3 months ago, so expect more shenanigans in the near future – like on, say, December 23rd when their first fake Mego and the real site-crasher, DCU 11, goes on sale.

So what happened this time? Well, first the site went to shit within minutes of the noon EST launch time. Customers couldn’t check out, quantities greater than one weren’t being recognized, error messages were the norm and many encountered what has become affectionately known as RSOD or the “Red Screen Of Death.”

15 minutes into this clusterfuck the Matty Facebook page was updated with a message that stated they knew there was a problem and were working on it. Then, nothing.

Customers were forced to spend upwards of an hour trying to place orders that should take seconds to complete. Many had to order each item individually as a workaround to the uncooperative shopping cart, incurring extra shipping charges (and why does Matty charge tax to everyone, even when they do not operate in every State?).

By the time the problem was fixed (about two hours in) the message boards were on fire with horror stories and the re-release of Skeletor was sold out, which further aggravated already pissed-off customers who had wasted two hours trying to simply buy Mattel product.

The comments ranged from Mattel apologists on one side to enraged customers who vowed to quit the lines.

How did this happen? Good fucking question.

Mattel has been running this site for nearly a year, and it has been plagued with issues the entire time. In August, lots of orders were lost, cards were charged and customers were left frustrated trying to get a response, many of which remain unanswered.

Mattel’s e-commerce partner, Digital River, is a huge company whose slogan is “Nobody Offers More Ways To Build Your E-Commerce Business.” Apparently, Mattel chose the "shitty" option from the Digital River menu.

Certainly Digital River deserves plenty of blame, but Mattel is the real problem.

First of all, after nearly a year of class-a clusterfucks, why are they still using Digital River? Of course Mattel has a contract with DR, but this can easily be broken if the partner fails to deliver, unless they signed the worst contract ever, which, considering the way Mattel has operated over the last few years, may be the most likely answer.

Second, after nearly a year of class-a clusterfucks, why are they making their largest product offering ever without solving the problems first? We’re not even taking into account that Mattel was planning to offer DCU11 and the Green Arrow Mego on the same day - until they suddenly realized that either a) they would not have product in time (the official story) or b) that shipping is a profit center and that they could improve their margins with two offerings in one month, causing the same customers to place twice as many orders and pay twice the shipping (our guess).

Of course Matty knob-polishers like Julius Marx and his ilk (who would never criticize the company because their free product pipeline might get cut off) failed to address the issue at all in their toy news sections although their message boards were on fire with angry customers who rightly called it like they saw it.

Speculation ran rampant, mostly focused on cart issues. Did scalpers buy up all the Skeletors because the cart wasn’t functioning properly (not honoring the limit of 10 pcs per customer)? Did the cart artificially tabulate a higher number of sales, meaning that there really were fewer sold than the faulty cart indicated?

Instead of addressing the disaster, Matty & his human nerd puppet “ToyGuru” were busy “answering” fan questions on various collectors websites, an exercise that makes as much sense as eating twinkies while working out. And why not? After all collectors don’t want you to tell them if their money has been hijacked when they could be getting informative answers like these instead:

“Q4. Is there any chance we might see small villain groups for the DCUC line such as Royal Flush Gang, Brotherhood of Evil or Fearsome Five? Each of these have a build-a figure character potential (Ace, Mammoth, Monsieur Mallah & the Brain) that would be awesome to see 4horsemen style!

A4: Definitely a chance, but nothing we can confirm right now.

Q5. Whenever the Legion of Super-Heroes are released for the DCUC line can we expect to see them have a whole wave like wave 8 was for JSA or will they be peppered into other waves?

A5: We have some great plans for LOSH but it is too early for us to get into these specifics. “

While he was busy not answering questions (under the guise of answering questions), ToyGuru was ignoring the growing anger of his disenfranchised customer base.

Finally, the Facebook page was updated with a message stating that Mattel hadn’t gotten their full allotment of Skeletors from the factory and that the figure would be re-offered in the spring.

What???!!

Mattel has been crying foul on production issues for three years now. Initially this was justified as Chinese factories closed and product and parts vanished without notice. This cost Mattel a small fortune and sent the company scrambling for excuses as they pissed off vendors and fans by failing to address the issue in a timely manner.

But they have been re-using the excuse to cover up other failures and passing the cost of the loss onto their customer base by increasing the price of their products by 30%. Other companies suffered similar issues at the same time and were able to overcome them, why not Mattel?

It’s difficult to imagine that this Skeletor shortage was a surprise to Mattel unless they are even more incompetent than they have demonstrated themselves to be over the last few years. It’s hard to imagine with a bar set this high, but certainly not implausible.

So were they trying to meet a year end number to justify the ongoing Mattycollector site experiment? Are they, as has been whispered in El Segundo, looking for an excuse to throw ToyGuru out on his inexperienced ass?

It’s impossible to know, because, as usual, Mattel remains tight-lipped and unhelpful in addressing any of their ongoing issues that affect their dwindling customer base, but they plan more releases through this frustrating and ineffective system.

Clearly they are in over their heads on a number of levels, including manufacturing, distribution and line management. It’s too bad that this potential profit-center is being destroyed by poor execution.

PS: Look for our long-in-the-works upcoming series “Why Superhero Toys Suck Part One: Mattel” coming soon!

Mattel's DCU Failure at Mass Retail

Mattel's most recent round of product updates on their Mattycollector facebook site confirmed that for the first time ever, an entire upcoming wave of DC Universe action figures would be available for purchase via thier own online store.

On the surface this is fabulous news to long suffering hardcore collectors who are tired of the runaround and poor distribution of nearly every wave of this brand over the past year. As we've recounted here in this blog many times, Mattel's team handling this brand have done nothing but a piss-poor job getting this line to retailers and thereby into the hands of the collector.

But while this news of online sales may seem great on the surface, consider the larger picture and fate. Why would Target or Wal-Mart bother to invest in a line of toys when the main repeat customer in the toy aisles, the collector, can simply sit home and order them directly from the vendor? Outside of desperate retailers like Toys-R-Us, the other big boys don't have the time of day for that kind of a deal. As a toy buyer, how do you justify giving up the valuable space on the shelf or dealing with the constant headache of inventory controls when you now know a good percentage of your customer will buy directly form your vendor who is now a COMPETITOR for the same sales?

The answer is that they won't. Mattel has already caused the main retailers plenty of trouble this year with the brand. If Target hasn't already told Mattel it's done messing around with the DCU (which is our bet and why Mattel is announcing this online route now), then they absolutley will soon enough.

The DCU brand is not strong enough to support itself longterm with only online sales and reduced mainstream retail distribution. Proof? Show us any Mattycollector.com DC Universe exclusive that has yet to sell out in thier store.

Yes, the online route will be great in 2010 and will save the Bittergeeks just as much frustration as anyone out there trying to track these figures down. But we know better and can see the bigger picture and ramifications long term. The brand is severely damaged and now limping home to a likely demise.

And all because Toyguru and his team blew it.

Mattel's TOYGURU...marketing whiz

Really? First time?! Oh, hell FOR SURE Grandma will drop Batman in the aisle for this treasure!

Mattel's resident fuck-up, TOYGURU, the guy in charge of (destroying, we think) the popular DC Universe brand of action figure lines, must have thought long and hard about how to market the GUARDIAN figure in DC Classics wave 9.

Now in the pecking order of comic heroes, it's hard to imagine you can find a handful of hardcore comic nerds who even know who this character is much less give a shit if he was ever made into a plastic figure.

But Guardian was a smooth body figure that Toyguru found and ol' Toyguru loves to re-use smooth body figures so he won't have to spend any sculpting money on 'em. But apparently 'Guru, knowing a peg-warmer when he sees one, must have decided that this figure needed that certain pizzazz to move him off of the pegs in the toy aisles. And unlike the shit he over shipped to the poor retailers all year like Captain Cold and Gay Blue Aquaman, he determined that this potential loser would need the extra push. So even though the tag means nothing to the moms or kids or even the collectors (they need to buy him anyway) the sticker for the shout out was made!

"FIRST TIME IN 6 INCH!"

Oh! Well is there an 8" version? 3"? 12"? 5.5"? Um, no. But who cares. Wave 9 of the series isn't making it to retailers anyway.

Another example of 'Guru wasting time in the wrong places with this brand. How the idea for such a wasted sticker wasn't laughed out of El Segundo, we'll never know. How does Mattel find 'em?

DC Classics Wal-Mart Exclusive Box Set is out

At last! Mattel finally ships something of the DC Universe Classics line to retail. Wal-Mart stores are currently re-setting their toy aisles for fall and some new items are showing up. Today I came across the new Wal-Mart exclusive Gotham City 5 boxed set of DCU figures.

This set was first shown recently by Mattel during the San Diego Comic-con. At first glance I didn't think much of this offering because it appeared packed with so many re-decoed figures previously released. But up close the set proves to be a must have for collectors of the line.

The best and completely new figure in the set is '70s look Lex Luthor. Lex sporting his most familiar outfit best known as worn often in the old Super Friends animated series. The Superman sculpt in this set has been used several times by now but this is the first time we get a basic and classic Superman figure to display. The previous releases included the lame Super-Mullet hair style and a two-pack version were Supes' eyes were painted solid red to simulate the use of heat vision. It's amazing it took this long to finally get a basic Superman in this line.

The other figures in the set are re-tooled or decoed Bat-Universe characters. Like with Superman in this set, we finally also get a basic and modern Batman in the black and grey. The head and cape are new sculpts, different from the previous blue and grey incarnation of the character in the line. The mask's ears are taller and the cape forms around his neck instead of hooked onto his shoulders. Again, a most welcome and long overdue version. The Catwoman figure is simply a purple paint job over the previous release of the character in the older Mattel DC Super-Heroes line that pre-dates this current DC line. For me the look is out of place with his outfit but I know a lot of collectors have been begging for a Catwoman and had a hard time finding the previous version years ago so I understand Mattel's choice here.

The lamest figure in this set is Two-Face. This figure is a hack job. Mattel is using a Clark Kent body (again previously found in the DC Super-Heroes line) and sculpted a new head and left hand. The new head just sucks. Even to a blind person, the head is too small for the body and has limited pose range. It cannot pivot up or down. Besides the shitty head, the biggest miss on this character is absence of a coin in one of his hands. Seriously Mattel, if you are going to go through the trouble of sculpting up a new, scarred left hand, at least have it posed holding a coin, Two-Faces' signature accessory and trademark. How much could a detail like that have possibly impacted this set? A lazy oversight.

The set retails for just under $55. Not a terrible deal. Single figures average $12.00 at retail these days and Mattel confirms that price will likely be rising by end of the year. It's a set worth picking up for Luthor and better versions of Superman and Batman alone. You can place this Catwoman and Two-Face in the back of your DCU display on your shelves.

DEAR MATTEL

Where the FUCK are the new waves of the DC Universe Classics line?

There have not been new waves at mass retail consistantly since the early part of this year. How long do you think the bigger retailers will tolerate the restock of old inventory over new merchandise that will actually move off of the pegs?



The dork who heads up this line at Mattel and calls himself 'TOY GURU' out there on the collector websites that suck up to him, is fucking this up terribly. He loves to show off all the sculpts but can't ship to save his ass.

SDCC 2009 Screw ups - Runner Up, Mattel

By our reckoning, Mattel Comic-con exclusives were the second most in demand of the event behind DC Direct’s Green Lantern 5-figure set (which also suffered major foul ups).

To their credit, at least Mattel learned a valuable lesson from last year’s show and moved the sale of their exclusives out of their show booth and over to a separate sale booth. However, they greatly underestimated the crush of the crowds everyday that wanted to buy their merchandise. The booth and the aisles all around it were a zoo from the moment the door opened on preview night. From the start, every Mattel employee told everyone that was turned away daily the same lie…”not to worry, we have rationed out new inventory to arrive everyday of the show. So you’ll have plenty of opportunity to come back and try again.”

It was complete bullshit or they simply changed their minds on Friday and decided to sell through everything they had. By Thursday morning they had sold out of the He-Man artbook. By the end of Friday, they had completely sold out of several of the most in demand figure exclusives including Wonder Twins sets with Gleek, from the Masters of the Universe they had sold the ’09 He-Ro exclusive along with He-Man, Beast Man and Skeletor. Aside from their purchasing limit of two copies per customer of the He-Man book, they never limited the number of toy exclusives one could buy.

We know the Mattel staff couldn’t give a rip but how about some consideration for the poor bastards that could only purchase single day tickets to the con? If one could only attend the show on a Saturday or Sunday and Mattel kept telling people stock would be there but lied about it, that’s a screw job. We call the Mattel Toy Shop or Matty Shop or whatever the hell they call themselves, the second biggest f*ck ups of the 2009 Comic-con.

Hey Mattel, next year, shop limit should be 2 figures per person, per day. Weeds out the scalpers in line loading up. Second, figure out how to reprint the He-Man book. Comic Book companies do this all the time. Add new content, change the cover, add a figure as a bonus, whatever, but figure it out.

And by the way, as we write this post, we noticed MattyCollector.com still has not listed any of the Mattel SDCC exclusives (left over) on it's site as promised. In comparison, the Hasbro Toy Shop has had it's con exclusives up for sale since the Monday after the show ended.

When will Mattel wise up with the DCU?

Has there ever been such a great line of figures so horribly mis-handled by it's brand managers in the history of toys? The six inch DC Universe Classics line by Mattel is absolutely on par with the best of the old Marvel Legends figure line when Toy Biz was calling the shots for the brand. You want 'em, I want 'em, comic fans of all ages love 'em. So why do the powers that be at Mattel continue to screw this line up so badly?

Mattel can't continue to claim overseas production problems are to blame for poor instocks or bad assortment circulation. This line is at least two years old now, if you blame manufacturing at this point, it's total bullshit. Based on how we continue to move backwards with really odd random case assortments of older waves to date, and the god-awful choices within (Gay Blue Aquaman! Keep putting him out, collectors love him!), you have to wonder why the same people at Mattel get to handle this brand. It's like someone at the company is trying hard to tank this entire line.

Retailers only have so much patience...if a company can't maintain in-stocks, any large scale retailer will look at removing the sku from the shelves until the company can demonstrate they can produce a regular flow of product. Target does this all the time with problem items. Mattel can't maintain in-stocks with the new DCU waves so they are sending out older stock to keep their shelf space until the new figures are ready to ship in a more controlled fashion. But the catch-22 here is that most collectors don't want all these older figures they already chased down months ago. And if collectors don't want the current assortment, for god's sake Mattel, at least ship mainstream iconic heroes and villains so at least kids and parents want 'em. No Gay Aquaman, no Booster Gold, no Dr Impossible, just Supes, Bats, Flash, etc. How hard is that to figure out, really?

So, we are all watching current DCU inventory rot on the pegs. Sales will slow to a point where the retailer questions the viability of the line, or simply tires of Mattel's antics and just cuts the line out entirely and moves on. This summer is make or break for Mattel and DCU with all the big retailers...if the brand managers don't get their shit together fast, we can kiss this line good-bye in 2010.