1. I have a question that isn't about current events but a long, long time ago. I was in high school when Power of the Force 2 and Episode I figures hit the shelves and loved that era of collecting. In the years since I have heard and read online about the glut of the figures that did not sell. Did Hasbro just produce too many of those figures or were those figures not popular? I know older collectors bought them up quick but did children embrace these toy lines which I imagine would be a greater percentage of sales?
--mark

There were indeed kids buying action figures at the time - it was still the target market, if you can believe it. Around 1989 - I'd blame Batman, the Tim Burton movie - collectors and adults started to buy cool new toys for themselves a lot more. There was a collector market for old toys for years - sometimes big, sometimes small - but it really started to ramp up as adult fans became interested in new Toy Biz DC (and later Marvel) figures, Playmates Star Trek figures, Todd Toys, and other stuff that catered to an older market. At the time, Kenner seemed to be struggling to adapt to the collector paradigm - they knew kids really well, and generally sold stuff to cater to that market. The 1990s character selection in Star Wars tended to not go super obscure, and other than some oddball original vehicle designs it was recognizable stuff that kids and collectors really enjoyed. But there were things mostly for kids, and there were things mostly for adults.

During the 1990s there was a question over what "normal" was for the action figure market. Thanks to Playmates numbering figures, we know some popular characters exceeded 250,000 units produced - and thanks to some big mouths inside Kenner, we were told a few items for Star Wars were also produced in similar numbers. Or, at least we think we know - nobody revealed this in an official capacity.

Since 1995 people viewed availability as this very thin line between "rare" and "pegwarmer." The figure line debuted in August, and by October we'd see Han, R2-D2, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader sit on pegs. But, not always for very long. The market would usually catch up, but big numbers of figures were being snapped up and talking to fans at the time, many of them were bought in multiples (as in, a dozen or more) by people hoping to pay for little Timmy's college fund. But while many were snapped up by adults, kids would tend to buy those "pegwarmer" figures in droves given that was their first crack at these characters in an action figure form at a retail store.

By 1998, the glut started to really set in. Kenner canceled some products because there was just too much in the marketplace, but the audience was really a toy company's dream. They had a kid line, bought by multiple generations of fans old and new. They couldn't get enough of the stuff, but you may have seen even the good stuff started to sit. Ugnaughts, and 8D8 tended to lead the charge, but eventually you'd see piles of Ceremonial Lukes, Snowtroopers, Yak Face, Gamorrean Guards, EV-9D9, and countless others for $2.99. I knew one collector (hi Keith!) posted pictures of a collection of over 100 Nien Nunbs - stuff got so cheap, army building was increasingly affordable. It doesn't mean kids didn't like the stuff, but there was too much of it for the market. And, it's easy to forget, trying to convince kids that a 20-year-old sci-fi movie is "cool" can be difficult. Don't get me wrong, they're great movies, but attention spans are notoriously short.

Did Hasbro produce too much? Yes. That's sort of the problem we're having now, in 2020 we saw a collecting uptick and in 2021 we saw a continued surge of unprecedented interest in this stuff, which some people unwisely think will not only continue, but grow. We're probably a year or two away from another massive glut of toys getting dumped at comic shops as collectors lose interest (and space), while stuff shows up on deep discount at Ross or TJ Maxx or Ollie's in the coming year. But it'll sell if it's cheap enough - parents love cheap toys for kids.

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2. Do you think Galactic Heroes could make a comeback with Young Jedi Adventures? I recently found some second hand Galactic Heroes figures and ships and they are a blast- doing alot more for me than Mission Fleet, honestly. The line really seemed to exist up until 2018- any idea what happened to it? Thanks! :) 

--B127

No on new Galactic Heroes, would be my guess.

But and - this is key - I'm old. I'm not the target market. Hasbro could make a new figure line, LEGO could make a new construction set line, and maybe a cuter, friendlier take on the franchise will sell stuff in ways we haven't seen. (I don't think the current toy world has really done a good job going after kids in general, the lines aren't typically accessible with the most famous faces for newbies or something weird for the olds.) But we'll see how it shakes out - unlike Forces of Destiny which begat Marvel Rising, Young Jedi Adventures is following a big success on the Marvel front. Having said that, Hasbro abandoned its Marvel Super Hero Squad format, and subsequent squat figures with more articulation, for Spidey and His Amazing Friends. So I don't think it's going to come back this year, but always in motion is the product catalog. The Spidey template worked, and those figures tended to be a bit bigger.

Hasbro doesn't always talk about why a line like Galactic Heroes stops - in the toy business, they just tend to quietly go away. I assume it went away during the shift from Solo to The Rise of Skyalker, because in that window we also lost Big Figs from Jakks, the Hasbro "value vehicles," the entire 3 3/4-inch kid line, ForceLink, and so on. 2019 was also the end of the 12-inch "Titan Hero Series" figures, or at least, that's what the Marvel ones they still sell are called.

Since their big shift was "away from kids," Galactic Heroes probably got lost in the shuffle - while Young Jedi Adventures could bring it back, I assume that it won't. It's going to be fascinating to see how Hasbro does with that line, because the current Spidey and His Amazing Friends toys seem to be doing well... but if I remember being a kid at all, I think Star Wars-age is also a "we're not a baby" age. Galactic Heroes (in its many incarnations) still delivered on big-kid toy action with opening s-foils and little blasters and X-Wings by making toys from a big-kid/adult movie for the younger set. Young Jedi has a little blue teddy bear in it - it could do really well, or the Disney marketing department may have made a miscalculation. Historically nobody seems to bet against Disney, and companies do learn from their mistakes, usually.

I feel you, though. As a kid, ships, aliens, and robots were a lot of what drove me to keep asking for more of this stuff. Right now, Star Wars from Hasbro offers much less of that, and what we are getting tend to be reissues of things that generally can be had on the cheaper end of the secondary market. I assume they'll get lightsabers and ships and figures for Young Jedi Adventures product, but it will be interesting to see what kind of vehicles come out of a pre-Empire, pre-Rebellion galaxy and if kids will buy into an all-new Star Wars just for them. Aside from lightsabers and Yoda, it might be barely recognizable and no level of familiarty with the format of the product will make it work.  Or, it could be a massive hit, throw the collector stuff out of orbit, and completely change how the entire franchise goes going forward.  (But if the 1980s are to be believed, Ewoks did not exactly revitaliz

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FIN

That was the week that was!

It sounds like at least two Star Wars movies have been axed, which means only several more are in development.  It's assumed nothing will hit theaters until at least 2025 - by me, anyway, I assume if the movie hasn't started shooting Disney will hopefully not shoot itself in the foot to launch with no product (lookin' at you, Quantumania.)  There are seemingly unsubstantiated rumors about what movie the media seems to think will be the focus of Star Wars Celebration next month for a 2025 release, but I'm not even going to repeat it since the track records of so many of these sites are pretty iffy.

New The Retro Collection Action figures were revealed and proved that they are just as capable of the other lines... of being just different enough to make you mad. Back in the day, Kenner was pretty good about avoiding repaints - C-3PO and R2-D2 added new action features or new colors to make them interesting over the course of seven years, otherwise they typically just kept pumping out figures (with the occasional head variant or new cape or other tweak.) Hasbro's third Mando adds literally nothing new - it's the Moff Gideon Darksaber accessory added to the Series 2 Mando, which you can cobble together with easily purchased figures. Grogu adds a new backpack, which is, again, a pretty weak upgrade. (A different head expression would have been nice.) The Tusken Raider is a new redeco of the 1978 Sand People, but with new soft goods. Which, honestly, is probably would Kenner would have done eventually - look at Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' toys from Kenner. Not shown was a new Jedi Master Luke, which I assume could well be the Return of the Jedi figure on a new package. And, honestly, I would not fault them for doing that, or a recolor of the hair with a color variant cloak.

Hasbro actually confirmed a line was ending - which is very, very rare. The Kenner-branded Marvel Legends 3 3/4-inch line is resting, and because it was announced by someone with an English accent we're all going "it's not pining, it's passed on" as we read about the arguably better-packaged sibling to Star Wars joining the choir invisible, ceasing to be, and otherwise not pining for the fjords. But the line is seemingly pretty easy to get around SRP, especially if you buy a "lot" or three on eBay, and at around 50ish figures you can probably collect it all. Very few lines die before bloat sets in, so if you like (but do not love) Marvel I'd recommend picking it up. 50 3 3/4-inch figures with a giant and a bike is a pretty fun, varied offering compared to 6-inch Marvel Legends, which could have 50 $25 figures drop in a particularly robust quarter. (I'm not made of money.)

Also we got two new episodes of Star Wars with The Bad Batch and The Mandalorian. Obviously not everything here is good news, but at least it isn't boring. (Although it is a little predictable - I won't post a spoiler but the climax of the episode seemed obvious when the week's Imperial officer showed up. You could smell it coming.)

I hope you're having a good time and whatever you're still collecting is bringing you some level of joy. There's a lot out there and not all of it is thrilling these days, but given the Jazwares Starships line, and Mattel's Starships line, and Hasbro's Vintage/Retro/Black Series/Mission Fleet lines, and Hot Toys, and LEGO, and goodness knows what else I'm forgetting - you've got options. Heck, I'd be a bad collector to not remind you that a lot of the older 1990s and 2000s stuff can be had cheaply if you like it, and it's held up incredibly well to the ravages of age. It won't be super-articulated, but it's not like most collectors buying them open and play with them anyway.

--Adam Pawlus

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