mako

Still no Thing love at Walgreens. I did find something that gives me at least a little hope. One of the stores I tried had what looked like a freshly constructed Marvel Legends End Cap display. Of course it was still empty except for three figures, a 90s Cable, a Yellow Daredevil, and I believe a Domino. I'll give it a few days and check back. Hopefully by then it'll be filled with the good stuff. Until then, like Billy Joel, I'll be Keepin' the Faith.

I know, right? But its not even just the gas. Maybe the Thing will hit around here next week, or the next. I don't have that kinda time. After October I don't do any more figure buying till at least late December (Thanksgiving and Christmas eat a lot of green). It's crunch time, and I don't want the last action figure I bought before the hiatus to have been Deadpool in his boxer shorts! And quite frankly, it kind sucks driving across town only to find empty shelves.

Gonna check two more Walgreens today, if I don't find the Thing there, I'm just gonna break down and go Ebay. I know feeding the scalpers is bad policy, but at the end of the day, it's either a 10-15 dollar mark-up, or 20-30 bucks in gas driving all over creation. Do the math.

Not crazy about the DOFP Wolverine, and for a hundred +, I want a little more for my buck than a repackaged light and sound toy. Pass.

Guess that all depends on your idea of "crap." I for one am happy to be getting the Kree Sentry, and might even go so far as to say guys like this are the reason they make BAFs. On the other hand, I didn't even know Stature was a thing until news about the Ant-Man & Stinger set dropped.

No, not like this. I agree with JayC, whether its dirty pool or technical difficulties, something stinks at Amazon.

I certainly want Magik to, but my main concern is The Thing. I'm hoping he'll finally hit in my area in the next week or so, as he would make a great "last hurrah" before my annual holiday moratorium.

Fair enough. But I have no problem pulling the trigger on Megalopolis' shipping. Individually bubble wrapped figures covered in packing peanuts and shipping tissue, and they even email you with images of your order immediately prior to packing/shipping. Plus, its sent via UPS, which isn't subject to most postal holidays (I got my last order on Columbus day). Sure beats the snot out of Amazon stuffing a busted up blister card in a brown paper shipping envelope.

Not to defend Amazon, but this may not exactly be their doing, at least not completely. Don't ever underestimate the bloodthirstiness of the American scalper. I wouldn't put it past some of these guys to drop a thousand bucks buying up ten of these bad-boys just so they could sell them for AT LEAST twice the SRP on Ebay. On the other hand, I also wouldn't put it past Amazon to try influencing the market in the way described in the article. Lord knows they have no problem playing fast and loose with pricing. See, this is the main reason I try and stick with brick-n-mortar.

I've ordered from them a couple of times. I actually prefer them to BBTS as, while they still have that good ole' e-scalper markup, it's not as big as Big Bad's. They also don't provide a free shipping discount on larger orders, but what they do charge isn't to bad, they're pretty fast to. Good customer service as well. Basically, you get what you pay for.

In my experience, the only really reliable system is Target's... and that's not even 100%. Hate to say it, but this late in the game, if you're heart-set on getting Thanos, you'll probably be left paying Ebay prices.

I disagree. These people do their jobs just like everybody else. If you put in the hours, you deserve the best wage you can get.

I'd be all for that. Especially if they were done in the style of the Hydra and AIM sets. Come to think of it, I wouldn't sneeze at army builder sets for the Skrull, Kree, Ch'tauri, Atlanteans or the Hand either.

Look, I'm not eight years old, if there were three of such and such figure and they were bought up by three guys before I got there I could live with that. It's all part of the game. Another part of the game is the twenty or so roadblocks that face every collector as we pursue this weird little hobby of ours. Crap distribution, crap QC, retailer indifference, shop-lifters, repackagers, store exclusives, con exclusives, limited runs, scalpers, price hikes, etc. We don't need these guys buying up multiple figures just because they wanna have their MIMB cake and eat it to. It just muddies already choppy waters. Mind you, there are exceptions to the rule. Say you're hooking up somebody who legitimately can't find a certain figure, or some such thing. I don't consider that as the same thing. Dan at Toy Galaxy said it so well: "If you see two, leave one for the next guy." Might also help to remember, eventually, YOU are going to be the next guy.

Wow. If there's more than one of a figure I want, I leave one for the next guy. Then again, I open my stuff. Otherwise I just might as well take a photo. It's the exact same effect.