1. Grand Moff Tarkin, General Veers, Captain Piett, I am over the moon about these being released in black series, New Troopers, from Solo, and Clone commanders, etc.. The Black series is going from strength to strength in my opinion.. Do you think the Black series has longevity,? The 3.75 inch market been around for 20 odd years and more.. What do you say to the question, that the 3.75 figures range is dying out.. getting least popular.
--Michael

The 6-inch line has longevity because Hasbro is treating it like a slow-drip IV. It started 5 years ago, and we get maybe a dozen or two figures per year - in the 1990s, we'd get a bit more than that as the line ramped up. With only one Cantina alien, no obscure Rebel pilots, no Ewoks, and a lot of the main character costume variations left unexplored you can see Hasbro has years left here. Can you believe we don't have Endor versions of Luke, Leia, or Han yet? Or Nein Nunb? Or the original costume for Admiral Ackbar? Return of the Jedi and the prequels are lacking in figures. We have Jabba, but none of his henchmen yet.

The 3 3/4-inch line is kind of fascinating to watch. Back in 1998, Kenner told us that because the Expanded Universe line wasn't selling, they would probably never make more. The reason for this is the Expanded Universe case - Collection 2, if you recall - also had 8D8, Ugnaughts, and Malakili in it during previous waves, and they backed up. This meant Kenner had unsold inventory in their warehouse because stores don't order by the wave. They just say "Oh, we've got a lot of Collection 2, don't reorder until we sell it down." It's the same principle that caused back-up on The Black Series since 2015.

If you follow me, what I'm saying is one bad decision - like a bad mix of figures, with carry-forwards people don't want - can hurt a line. Weirdly enough it seems Solo singles and 2-packs are selling like hotcakes in my area, with waves 1 and 2 of singles coming and going in days. The interest is there, but I would argue Hasbro is doing fans a disservice by putting some characters only in the bigger size and some only in the smaller size. You can't really "collect them all" if you have to straddle two competing and seemingly successful formats.

The future is up to Hasbro, Lucasfilm, and Disney - they opted to introduce a second size, and now it can get a little messy. I for one would hope Hasbro eventually does everything from 6-inch in 3 3/4-inch, regardless of the points of articulation. (General Leia, red Stormtrooper, Inferno TIE Pilot, Battlefront Shocktrooper, etc.) Hasbro did a very good job of this with Solo, in part because there's not very much out right now. But hey - it works. I'm happy. I hope they keep everybody in 3 3/4-inch with the best of the best in 6-inch too.

 

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2. Now that the spoiler time has passed, what were your favorite easter eggs in Solo, and which ones do you think have a chance at becoming toys?
--Rick

My knee-jerk response is "all of them," but right now what I want the most are more Mimban Imperials and all the aliens they can give me from the card game scenes. I could detail specifics but you've seen how this all goes - it'd just break our heart. I do not anticipate much from this movie becoming a toy unless fans start hollering and it becoming some sort of streaming classic. It would seem fans that watched the movie love it, but a lot of you guys didn't even go see the movie. Hasbro keeps track of which movies are unpopular, or that the fans dislike, and the line tends to reflect this.

3. Could you break down for me which characters from 'Solo' are available in which scale? I've stopped expecting all of the characters in the same scale, or even all of the characters. And I know you can't tell me about possible upcoming figures, but as of what's out or announced now, who is available in 3.75 and who in 6"? I'm not interested in the larger size 'candle' figures that seem to loiter on the pegs. I can't find anyplace that has a good listing of any line, let alone 'Solo.' Thanks for any help you can offer and also in general for the enjoyable, informative column.
--Ed

This might change in the likely chance of new waves being announced prior to publication - and I'm just going with which characters have been released or officially announced from Hasbro for now.

6-Inch:
From the prelude on Corellia: Qi'ra. From the rest of the film: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, Range Trooper, Mimban Stormtrooper, Tobias Beckett, Enfys Nest. At this time Tobias has not been shown to us in the smaller size.

3 3/4-Inch:
From the prelude on Corellia: Han Solo, Qi'ra. From the rest of the film: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian, Range Trooper, Mimban Stormtrooper, Moloch, Enfys Nest, Kessel Guard, Rebolt and Corellian Hound. More have been leaked, but I can not and will not confirm them for a variety of reasons - not the least of which is we don't actually know if they're going to make it out or not yet.

While I can't tell you when future waves are (or aren't) coming, I can tell you that the performance of existing figures make a big difference - so if there is big retail demand for these figures because everything else sold, they should come out. (This is optimal and what I want to see happen.) If they do not come out, and you want to see them, I would also hope this means you went and got the previous hard-to-find/rescued figures like the Finn & Phasma 2-pack, Fenn Rau, Bistan & Shoretrooper 2-pack, TLJ Flametrooper, and TLJ C'ai Threnalli (which are now in stock, I just got mine.) What you buy (especially at regular price) sends a clear signal to manufacturers as to what they should do in the future.

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FIN

The mailbag is almost empty! If you have questions, please send them in. If we missed your question, and it's not "Will Hasbro make X," please do send it our way. Otherwise I get to take a week off, and nobody wants that.

There are a few interesting announcements on the way - one maybe this week - and some more, of course, at Comic-Con. I sincerely doubt you are going to be blown away by many of them since there are thousands of figures and none of us are 12 anymore, but some are certainly to be of interest for long-time readers of this feature.

I can tell Star Wars is boring because I may have had one of my best toy weeks in months - and none of it had to do with what Hasbro was doing. Mattel/Fisher Price put out DC Series 5 next to Imaginext Blind Bag Series 11, which I found over the weekend. The homage-heavy wave has new versions of classic Fisher-Price Adventure People X-Ray Man as well as a 2-pack of Muscleman and Terri-Bull-inspired figures from M.U.S.C.L.E., but the most fascinating figure - in a Mattel assortment - was a tribute to Hasbro (and Takara) classic Battle Beasts Triple Threat Snake.

On the left: @battlebeasts Triple Threat Snake from @hasbro and @takaratomytoys, 1987. On the right: @Mattel and @FisherPrice 2018 unnamed Imaginext Blind Bag Series 11 figure. I like this one a lot. pic.twitter.com/hI3Z7cDwDZ

— Adam Pawlus (@Adam16bit) July 1, 2018

Indie toy line have been doing tributes for years, as have "bootleg" figure makers and artists, but seeing something like this is rather new - it's basically like Mattel did a "third party" Transformers figure. It's different, but I know what they're doing. It also avoids stepping on trademarks, as Imaginext's whole MO is to avoid giving any of these blind-bag games on-package or in-catalog names. I ran around town Saturday trying to find these, and I picked up 5 of the 6. (For the curious, there's a freaking stunning Alpha Star alien and pilot from Adventure People in series 10. I love it.)

So yeah, go get those.

On the left: @zoids_official Zoids Wild Gannontoise (2018, new). On the right: my Hasbro Zoids ca. 2000 Cannon Tortoise. pic.twitter.com/CB0n9Hya7g

— Adam Pawlus (@Adam16bit) July 1, 2018

I'm also very excited that my Zoids Wild toys came from Japan - I got the first six kits and put together Gannontoise and Kabtar. They're pre-cut from the sprues, with parts in labeled baggies. Since no trimming is necessary, I am not currently bleeding. Stickers are trimmed more cleanly than in the 1999-2000s generations, and they're bright and cheery 1:35 scale creatures rather than 1:72 scale. That means the figures are bigger. The motors are nice and largely quieter than some older ones, and I'm really digging them so far.

But what of Star Wars? Hopefully we'll have much to discuss shortly.

Also don't forget that 16bit.com will post its 2,000th Figure of the Day feature this week! Please check it out. (It's one of my projects.)

--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.