Remember the zany variants of your childhood?
Thunderpunch He-Man, Battle Armor Skeletor, Sewer Samurai Leo, Mutating Shredder, Neon talking super street bat-luge Batman... those variants. Back in the day when figures were under $5, they were an acceptable evil. When the adult collector craze caught on and figures were $20, these variants were begrudgingly tolerated. Now with mass produced figures reqching boutique prices, do we need the 10th Ryu figure? Or the twentieth-something McFarlane Batman?
Excess of pointless variants of the same characters can kill lines. We have already seen this happen throughout multiple Toy lines. I know what you're thinking:
But NEFTY, aren't you the one making variant lists as posts here?
Yeah, but I also mentioned that the line shouldn't be overloaded with variants.
My issue is more with "What variants are 'worthy' for Adult collectors"?
Canonical variants that are minor cosmetic changes on the exact same figure, ie: Black and grey Batman vs Blue and grey Batman, or oval vs no oval on the bat emblem.
Different continuity versions of the character, ie: 200X He-Man vs Netflix CGI series He-Man.
Weird Toy variants, ie: Farmer Michelangelo vs Rappin' Michelangelo.
This question is probably on the companies' minds when they release these to the adult collector community. Many of these lines rely on nostalgia. You can get away with selling Mirage Turtles, because they are the prime Turtles, and if for some reason, you're not a Mirage purist, you can always paint the bandanas... but a Space Cadet Raph, cannot be converted into a normal Raph. Unless your main Turtles as a kid were:
Wacky Action Michelangelo, Punker Don, Space Cadet Raph, and Lieutenant Leo, there is no real point in getting a "Village People" TMNT Team.
At the same time, redoing vanilla versions of them too much can lead to oversaturation. It's a lose lose situation.
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