On Facebook today, Mattel showed us our first packaged pics of DCUC Wave 16. I was expecting this delayed wave to be in the Super Power packaging (with buttons!), but it now serves as our first look at the 2011 packaging – the difference? It’s bigger. Plus, some early TRU finds of that exclusive Renegade after all.
Last month, we saw that the Green Lantern Classics packaging was somewhat larger than the packaging we’d been buying the figures into this point. Toy Guru would later confirm that the packaging was made that size to match the rest of the 2011 material. With these packaged Wave 16 images, we’re getting our first look at that packaging. Larger images (& cardback images) are available by clicking the links below.
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Also, we have a new figure in that cancelled TRU Singles line rolling into stores right now. The line has been on a bit of a roller coaster since it started. It surprised us back in February when Batman showed up at TRU unannounced with Flash & Hal Jordan following soon after. We had thought the 4th figure would be a Renegade version of Nightwing back in July, but when Mattel debuted Tuxedo Joker at SDCC without mentioning Nightwing and we expected him to be the 4th figure. In the November Q&A’s, Mattel said the line wasn’t going forward and that that would be the end of it. Apparently, that wasn’t quite correct. Various reports from across the net today of a new repaint showing up at TRU today. It turns out that Nightwing is the 4th figure after all, apparently squeaking out before the singles line (& Joker) was cancelled.
Finally, this is so last week, but Mattel also released images of the upcoming TRU exclusive Hal Jordan vs Sinestro two-pack. This gives us our first look at the repainted accessories constructs included in the pack. I’m surprised they went with the rifle instead of giving Hal his trademark fist and I’m not sure who those Metal Men accessories are going to fit on Sinestro, but hopefully that was addressed in the planning stages. Larger images are available by clicking the links below.
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Discuss Wave 16 on our DC Forum!
so… is the bigger package to facilitate larger figures or larger CnC pieces? or just a complete waste of packaging space in exchange for a larger aisle “visibility?”
Toy Guru said that larger ones weren’t planned, which calls the whole thing into question.
Looking at the waves 16-20 and GLC1-2 will be in this size package. Bane, Arkillo, & Stel don’t need it. Nekron has no business being that big, so that just leaves the 17-19 CCs to take advantage of it (if Mattel is even going to do it).
The bigger bubble is just wasteful, as is the 2 pack box. I know shelf presense is nice, but if they wanted that, then they could just make the backing card bigger and send less packaging plastic to the landfill.
All the 2pks have been way too big.
i don’t even see where the C&C pieces are.. i’m sure it’s underneath their feet but is the C&C Bane that small? or do pre-production pics don’t necessarily reveal it yet?
Since the package is overall bigger, I imagine Bane is just hiding out in there.
The new articulation looks really terrible on Robin.
I was looking at the 4H 2ups and they didn’t have the joints exposed on the outside like these do.
My Thoughts:
Wave 16: Want most of the wave… (Mercury will be a HAVE to BUY cause of the C&C) Maybe I’ll get the Jason Todd Variant… (If I had a Joker I’d give him the Crowbar from The Spirit… you can see where I’m going with this.)
But so far my must haves are:
Riddler, Dick, Azbats, Creeper, Jonah Hex
This is coming from a guy who rarely buys DCUC… Marvel Zombies FTW!
Too much wasted plastic on these.
Hal vs. Sinestro 2 pack.
Too much wasted plastic!
Most of the constructs do not seem to match the owner. Is it me or the yellow constructs are designed for a right hand?
The constructs are just Metal Men remolds so they don’t match the hands they should be on. I’m still worried if they’ll be able to fit the hand at all on Sinestro.
Are you saying that Mattel took the cheap way out!? How dare you accuse them of such treachery! They’re incapable of doing such a thing Especially with their beloved Hal Jordamn There’s too many reissues/redecos of him already!
Eh, you might be right… Probably they wasted all of their logistical power/development slots on the taller Sinestro.
DCUC need a DC version of the “Anime Hyperdetail” scapegoat…
I smell a price increase…
Most of those 16’s look great, and I actually dig how they pop out of the new packaging.
Az-Bats looks much better than I remember.
Is Aquaman’s hair brown on the packaging?
Looks brown to me.
Jonah Hex is a must buy.
But how big will Bane be??
So they didn’t fix Azrael after all? Toy Guru caught lying yet again.
Hopefully they’re softer plastic pieces that can be pulled out and put back in correctly instead of the guantlets being all one piece.
Hex – He looks great.
Creeper – Looks like Joker? What’s up with that?
Azbats – Meh. It looks good, but I’d rather forger that awful time in comics.
Robin – FINALLY!
Mercury – One more Metal Men for the shelves
Riddler – This is the Riddler I remember.
The new joints are ugly. Don’t fix what’s not broken, mattel.
I really hope these aren’t coming out soon. I’m about broke from DC Waves 14 & 15.
I don’t see how these taller packages are going to do any good. Matty said it doesn’t mean the CCs will be larger and these just take up more peg vertical peg space with no added benefit.
Good to see Mercury with a regular hand. I was worried they weren’t going to do that.
They had to include it. I would’ve been fightin’ mad. LOL
I suspect the larger packaging is, as DR suggested, a sad attempt to grab shelf space, but I think we can also expect to see yet more ‘EXTREEEEEEM!!’ posing of figures to make them appear more dynamic.
I’m sorry, maybe I’m just way out of the loop but the joints on these don’t really seem to lend themselves to EXTREME!!! poses. It’s not like they have 30-some points of arti, right?
And that Creeper, that’s just sad. it DOES look like they just plopped a Joker head on and called it a day. Dude has enough problems as it is.
‘Constructs of fear’. Is…um, is that a real thing? REALLY? I mean, sure, I’d be afraid of a glowing yellow giant axe if it was heading at me but I’d be just as equally afraid of a glowing green giant fist…
The larger packaging as a shelf space grab doesn’t really bear out because it’s just a couple inches taller. There’s no gain in width (maybe a slight loss). The most logical explanation so far is that this was yet another redesign to the J-hook. The first packages featured those awful attached hooks, the 2010 packaging had the hooks on the card but it was a tight fit and not peg friendly, and now the hook sits higher and more away from the bubble.
The only addtional shelf space Mattel would be gaining is to make a column of their figures taller, which doesn’t really do gain them anything.
Actually, it does. It forces everyone to drop the shelf under the pegs down a notch or two, which reduces the space available for boxed goods. It might cause a retailer to change their planogram and ditch the shelf completely. The hope from Mattel would be that then more space would be given to the line, instead of the one stripe they usually get.
Otherwise instead of a cascade of three pegs single row they might go to two wide and two down, and a lot of dead space, or shelve taller boxed goods. Pity there’s no boxed items regularly produced for the line such as Batmobile or secret sanctuaries or something. Playsets? Vehicles? for a collector line? nonsense.
yeah, 25-some years of retail here, I’ve seen this before. 🙂
You do have me beat by a few years there, but I’ve drawn up my fair share of merchandising planograms for different companies over the years. Look at what you’re saying has to be done for Mattel to get more pegspace: an entire shelf has to be lowered (aisle-wide) or dropped altogether or they’d have to go for a second column (which has the same problem as the first) and place something in beneath them. All for one product to get an inch taller.
In either situation the much more likely scenario for the planogrammer is to drop the third facing altogether and just go with two instead. That screws Mattel out of a third of the pegspace they were going to get. Whereas had they added an inch to the width, the shelf space increase would be automatic with no worries of losing a facing. This just doesn’t pass the sniff test to me. Particularly when Mattel is already increasing shelf space more simply with GL Classics.
Besides, most of the larger companies send a suggested planogram for a certain amount of (sometimes prepaid) shelf space to the retailer anyway. Now, I don’t know if Mattel is still doing that these days, but I wouldn’t doubt it.
Well, they still have reps that go look to make sure the product is placed and all that, but they sure don’t have the ability from the old days to actually respond to problems such as pegwarmers. 🙂
What you’re saying about what’s most likely to happen is true and what I figure. Changing the size of the package will bite them in the butt and actually reduce the facings. Why do I say that? Because we live in a time where companies just don’t communicate. I would bet money that the size change wasn’t communicated and when the stockers rack the product, they’re going to have their pegs set wrong and things just won’t fit.
And brother, I sure hope they don’t think Green Lantern is going to do Iron Man numbers. My gut says it just won’t.
I’ve got to find that Renegade Nightwing!