1. Hasbro has been carbonizing every figure they can justify lately and we have now seen more Mando Credit Collection revealed. Target still has their exclusive carbonized figures still up for preorder which is odd since their exclusives usually sell out pretty fast and the same with the Mando Credit Collection. My question is do you think Hasbro can recognize that the drop in sales is the buyers being burnt out on repaints or that they will see it as a lack of interest in the brand or maybe a particular media like Mandalorian or Clone Wars? Thank you.
--mark

A few of the old Carbonized guys can be had somewhat cheaply - I'm surprised Darth Vader is still available for roughly suggested retail price, but most of these command a premium. I don't doubt some fans only want Carbonized figures as it's a small specialty sub-collection that's less of a hassle to complete. Target not being presold out in seconds is a good thing, and I wouldn't worry until you actually start finding these lasting in stores for more than a couple of days or weeks.

You see the tip of the ice berg - you don't know how these things are selling. Heck, neither do I - we don't know how many units are being made, or if Hasbro is letting Target increase their order so they can sell even more units. From where I sit, it seems absolutely everything is selling very well right now. I don't expect it to last forever, and it would not stun me to see a POTF2-style bubble bursting in a few years as people examine what they have (and what they pay to store it.) But that's not limited to Hasbro - there's a lot of compulsive toy buying happening lately.

Given Target's figures are currently "no release date" status when I check their pages, it's a pretty safe bet that they're opening or increasing the production runs. Amazon's new wave is set for May 2021 - that's eight months out, an obscenely long lead time which gives them more than a little wiggle room to increase production runs.

I assume this - and other questions like it - are not-too-subtle "I hate this, when will it stop?" requests. And the answer is they probably won't unless the licensor gets sick of it, or they stop selling. And while I can't elaborate, these things can always - always - turn out to be worse, uglier, more unpleasant releases than we got. I think what we got is pretty good, even if I don't want to own them all.

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2. What is the deal with the "Disney" droid factory line? (sounds like the set-up to a Seinfeld joke!) They are clearly based on Hasbro 2007 molds/designs. But Hasbro is generally left out of the equation here. Does Hasbro have anything to do with these? Or did Disney effectively purchase the molds and subcontract out to their in-house toy makers?
--yoyoma 87

When the line first started, I asked Hasbro and Hasbro told me "We have nothing to do with those." The first year's product very clearly was 2008 The Legacy Collection Droid parts (with some new domes), but Hasbro said they didn't develop it. Later years were retooled slightly from the original batches and do not seem to share Hasbro parts, but are very very close to the point where an untrained eye could see them as almost identical.

Hasbro wouldn't elaborate what was going on with them when I asked in 2012 and supposedly Disney directs the program now. If there's more information out there, I don't have it. I can only assume they eventually made their own molds after initially working with what seemed to clearly be the Hasbro tooling. For all I know Disney claimed dibs on it and took it over - nobody is being very up-front about it.

3. strong rumor that Hasbro will be releasing Droids 3po, r2, and Boba Fett. How close are we to Vlix???
--David

Unless someone other than exclusively me request it, I'm going to guess the answer will continue to be "not very." I'm glad we're at least getting what we're getting, and it encourages more people to watch the episodes and hopefully ask for Vlix and the Fromm Gang. (Sise ain't cheap either. I mean I got mine, but I'd like you to get yours too.)

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FIN

Be sure you send in your questions for next time. The mailbag is out of on-topic questions, so if you got some, send some in.

Well! It's been an interesting few weeks with Kenner Prototype Stormtrooper showing up out of the blue Sunday morning in stores, Visions a couple of weeks ago, that recent Droids drop, Boss at GameStop... I mean it's pretty much all repaints, but at least they're not boring ones. 2021 has been a diverse year with some curious new toys - the character-specific lightsaber (both figural ones and ones that invoke a costume) showing up in stores, Mission Fleet seems to be doing fine but so far I'm giving it a pass, and The Black Series with The Vintage Collection are keen to repaint, repaint, and repaint. And it's working. I've got a lot of angry emails from you lately claiming it's not working, but the weird fact is that you're wrong. It's working fine. Stuff sells out, some things need to be rerun, and a lot of stuff that you don't like flies off the shelves so fast even I can't get them.

And that's barely the start of it. There are a lot of items being delayed - even ones that even haven't been announced yet. Heck, there's some really exciting stuff that should be announced in the next couple of weeks I can't wait for you to see. Some of you are going to love it! Stay tuned for, well, you'll see.

But, as the press has been telling you, if you've got kids you should buy their presents early. Not everything will be in short supply, because it's hard to gauge demand on some things. Now would be a good time, though, to get stuff to hide in your closets until gift-giving time. Heck, some stores seem to be doing a lot of restocking this past week.

--Adam Pawlus

Got questions? Email me with Q&A in the subject line now! I'll answer your questions as soon as time (or facts) permit.

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