I think I’ve said this before, but my collecting isn’t about toy nostalgia, it’s about, first, getting the best figure I can afford of characters I love, and, as a distant second, Things That Are Just Cool.
Every single Super7 figure I have is a character nobody else makes, or was making at the time I was looking (in the form factor I wanted). For example, non-transforming cartoon-accurate Transformers. Those didn’t exist except for Super7. Classic Cobra Commander - a year away even on the retro card when I got the Super7 one. Bulk, Skull, Tyrannosaurus Megazord, Green Dragonzord. Really, only Godzilla Minus One was the only time I freely chose the Super7 version over other versions.
And they’re the only game in town for Thundercats.
I had four. I got Lion-O, and he was fine. There are a lot of lines where, if I can get Level 1 Articulation (single jointed elbows and knees that go to 90, everything else good), I’ll take the tradeoff for a pile of accessories. I got both Mumm-Ras, little and big. Mandora. I got Panthro. I didn’t really shell out much for these, because I got them on clearance, as gifts, or, usually, both. For the vast majority of these, I got the articulation or almost the articulation I consider to be the bare minimum. So I was spared the big articulation and engineering disappointments I’ve gotten with Transformers and Power Rangers.
So I figured I’d complete the base team and pick up the cheaper, minimal-accessory rereleases of Tygra and Cheetara. They couldn’t be worse than Lion-O, right? Well…
The thing about Super7 is they simply do not give a shit about engineering. Their sculpt is their sculpt, and if their sculpt makes the joints suck SO BE IT. That’s their choice, but it’s a choice that’s largely at odds with what I like. NECA does this some of the time (fuckin’ Ardeth Bey), Black Series will absolutely do it from time to time, but they try sometimes. NECA never tries. The joints exist but they just do whatever they’re gonna do.
So Cheetara and Tygra don’t get to 90 at the knees and elbows. Sigh. I thought the hips were especially bad until I freed them up a bit - they’re still not great, but none of the hips on any Super7 figure are worth a damn, so it’s not worse like I originally thought.
But, being cheaper versions, they also lack the one thing that makes Super7 figs tolerable - the plethora of very show-specific weird-ass accessories. Cheetara comes with her staff. Which is a stick. She also comes with the shrunken version of the staff, which is a tiny stick that is such a nothing I think it actually subtracts value by being in the package. There’s nowhere on the figure to hold it and it’s barely bigger than her hand so WHY.
Tygra’s weapon is better and also worse? It’s his grapply thing, so it’s a handle and a grappling hook connected by like nine inches of floppy string. But with a toy that’s really only designed to pose in a couple of neutral poses, having a weapon you can’t pose is a weird choice. Normally I prefer anything flexible to anything molded in a specific position, but here it’s somehow more annoying. I had to blue-tac it to the side of the photo box.
But I have the team. No, I’m not getting the kids or Snarf. Even if I liked them, not at Super7’s prices. I’ll drop a twenty on Orko, but they just put up preorders of Wilykit and Wilykat at seemingly their new price point of SIXTY FIVE GODDAMNED DOLLARS and again, I have to ask, who is the audience?
People who want specific characters nobody else is doing. People who can’t learn their lesson. People who keep carrying the scorpion across the river. The good news is, getting these means I’m free. I have every character I want from the licenses they hold, So we can part ways, if not friends, then as uneasy partners in capitalism.
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