Today, My Faith in the Toy Business Was Restored

It's been a while since I've seen action figures that I've liked. Back when I sold action figures and other collectibles on eBay with my dad, I felt like all the figures being released had the excellent detail and endless articulation. Also, many of the figures fetched high prices on eBay and have only gone up in price over the last few years*. Since early 2006, I felt that the action figures market took a small dive from incredible to meh. The now defunct Toybiz- one of my favorite toy companies- was bought out by Hasbro toys, who are known for their Transformers and Star Wars line. I remember reading about the excitement from fellow toy aficionados about the endless possibilities Hasbro could come up with for the Marvel Legends toy line. They could giant toy sets based off of Mr. Fantastic's lab or, like the Star Wars line, make an action figure for every secondary or tertiary character. Sadly, none of this happened. What did happen was Marvel Legends taking the back burner to Transformers because of the movie. Detail took a major fall and it seemed like every toy company was trying to mass produce a rare figure and thus taking away the value on the second hand market.
I gave up on action figures for a few years, but every now and then I would check in to see if anything new would catch my eye. Today, I did just that. I stopped by Toys r us to browse the store for a few minutes and to my surprise I found a few things. For one, Thor has several new action figures- most of which were already picked through. However, for the new movie this summer, Hasbro has come out with a toy hammer in lieu of the Hulk Hands that were released for the Hulk movie in 2003. It's a pretty cool prop, my only issue is that I think the hammer should be made of foam and not a flimsy rubber in shape of a hammer. Because I saw that Thor products were being released, I kept my eyes peeled for Captain America products, but sadly there were none. I will set my hopes high for that one.
Lastly, the bargain rack surprised the hell out of me. I found a few things that I've managed to miss over the last year and a half: Back to the Future mini figures, Star Trek figures, a Big Daddy and Little Sister from Bioshock 2 and Ghostbuster figures with Santa hats. The Back to the Future toys were a definite pick up for me, because I'll buy just about anything that bears the Back to the Future label.
As my trust for action figures comes back, I realize that given the current state of the economy or anyone else for that matter won't see major profits on most new lines coming out. As I said before, it's all mass produced now with the intention of taking the big profits from sellers on the second hand market. On the other hand, I have to remember, it's intended for children and not twenty-something males trying to make a quick buck on eBay.

*A mail order exclusive Invader Zim and Gir figure that I purchased for $25 or $30 dollars in 2006, sold for $75 last November.