The Silence is Deafening

still kinda sucks, can’t deny it. For almost 40 bucks it should be painted especially when we saw a similar version come out fine 10 years ago for half the price. They’re capable of doing it correctly they just cut corners. It’s was an avoidable error, one that should’ve been caught, it’s not the end of the world but it’s still wack

I agree. It was an avoidable error but I just think that the amount of heat that this top is has generated is a little over the top. I’m old school, I’m from the days where my Dlo Brown just just a Vader body repainted and my Razor Ramon came with Goldust / Undertaker arms.

I will agree the Mattel’s communication in general has been horrible for the better part of the last 11 years.

Accurate. Concise. SANE.

A trifecta rarely achieved in these parts.

I love you.

Very well said. What annoys me is when you bring up any valid criticism whether it's manufacturing (the Kane elbow really is unacceptable) or the ridiculous lengths of trying to get a Beefcake or DDP from Target ("Beefcake was briefly up for 8 seconds at 4:20am!!"), there's always some idiot saying stuff like "Imagine getting this worked up over a plastic toy."

They may think they're "above it all" and have delusions of grandeur, but all they're really doing is revealing their own low standards and enabling this BS.

100% agreed.

No. Just… no. There’s no narrative. It’s not unreasonable to complain. It’s quite simple really and I’ve beaten this dead horse into glue, but why not one more time: google the definition of the word tact then come back and try again. There’s a big difference between “I wish they could’ve got the paint right” and “they suck and I should get something for free” when it comes to complaints. This world would be a whole lot better if a lot of us could try a little common sense before commenting more often. Some of these posts make it seem like the heads of Mattel sit on their tower and maliciously think of ways to make us mad. As if Bill himself called the production plant and asked them to mess up the paint. Maybe the mistake wasn’t caught until it was too far into production and they decided it would cost too much to stop and delay.

And really, how long have some of you been in this forum? “Why won’t they respond?” When in the history of these great boards has a response from one of the reps over a critical issue ever actually calmed many of the masses? They know damned well the insults will get worse and they’ll have no choice but to leave and ruin it for those of us that show a little class and respect.

Well looking at most of the people causing the most problems, I’d say we could easily rename this thread to “Revenge of the Previously Banned Members”. Seriously like two of you have more than 50 posts.

Anyways, it shouldn’t take much thought into why Bill (and probably now Steve) never come around here anymore. Very few people on here know how to post constructively anymore. That if they kick and scream enough they’ll get what they want, which in this scenario your best case option is likely going to be a post from Steve. And its likely going to state that its too far in production to fix, at which point we’ll circle right back to half the members of this thread taking up arms against the evil Mattel empire. Forgetting that the last company used to give us topless Mark Henry and things of that nature but we’ll hit 10 times the complaints on this one because an arm wasn’t painted properly. Because thats how far we’ve dived into ridiculousness over figure issues in a decade.

For the record, I’m not thrilled about the paint job on Kane, I’m also not thrilled about whats going on with my Ultimate Jeff Hardy order from Amazon. It also is not ruining my day from the time I wake up in the morning to the time I go to sleep. I highly encourage some of you to take a breath and put things into perspective. There’s worse things in the world to be upset about.

I mean you can't expect me not to have read all that! I'll always give you a response as long as the thread's still open.

I'm not here to bring anyone down to anyone's 'standard'... I have a pretty high personal collecting standard with these lines and their history in particular. If you go back to the early days of the Mattel line and the late days of the Jakks lines when I started and later, any of the Ringside or Riot episodes, I was as vocal as I could be without looking like a complete a**hole just for the sake of being one knowing I was speaking to a wide audience that includes not just kids but people who are more casual. We never would have connected over the years like we have if I was just a constant, on-camera whiner. And trust me, I have some really strong opinions, even now, with how some details and things look from multiple companies. With that said, I'm just kind of trying to get people to chill and enjoy. Maybe I'm too old and have been through too many years of seeing people take hobbies in general in this new age of influencers so seriously I've softened up a bit and tried to just place a positive spin on the situation no matter how annoying. That's what I did in the other thread and that's what I'm doing here, but things have gotten repetitive and to the point where we got lots of sass going on.

I gave my opinion on the fact that I think some folks are being over the top with their complaints and in doing so I should really probably specify in this type of situation, but I'm for sure not that guy trying to pick fights over action figures. Either way, I made those comments and make the ones in here without worrying about how that would look to this person or to that company so painting me as a shill of some kind doesn't really work. I get the frustration and I get the issues with pricing, which admittedly you could point an even more direct finger at me because I've paid less for wrestling figures than the average consumer. I am and always will have been in a pretty unique spot when it comes to this but the hobby end of it isn't really about the money to me and it has always been about being passionate about wrestling over collecting, honestly.

In other words and with that said, I see where you and where everyone else are coming from. But sure, let's say I'm shining up an inexcusable consumer-collector situation instead of just trying to make light of it since it won't change in our foreseeable future.

Even with that, some of the ways that people come in basically internet-shouting without a full, clear understanding of how the business side they aren't involved in even works at company representatives who, here 'doing their job' or just being fans, actually DO have a professional public image to adhere to, regardless of what you think of it, can be really over the top, no other way to slice it. It can also sometimes get flat out rude in addition and those types of things just completely screw up the privilege of having direct contact with a marketing manager or a designer or any number of folks from the companies who have come in and out over the years that we all know for a fact tons of other not just toy lines, but products and hobbies in general simply don't have. Like, the guys really don't have to be here, at all. They could just as easily never come back and just talk with a few specific collectors, or even worse just an unrepresentative focus group or something and guess what?! Some things like this would still happen the same way anyway. That's a big part of why I try to take a chilled out approach to this sometimes because the corporate aspect of this, I'm sorry to say, is larger than our nice slice of community life we enjoy together.

I of all people that are part of this community absolutely don't want it to be like that, but it's the truth! Sometimes writing to people who work for those companies with a mutual, reasonable understanding/respect in that they can't necessarily go full in-depth with their answer instead of absolutely insisting on a point with frustration and anger (which actually happens a lot without being called out, just ignored) is a better approach to take. That kind of behavior is what I mean when I use the word 'entitled' and I'm not sure what else to call it because it definitely a lot of times can't even be called polite. If you don't want to be a polite person that's cool, but respecting the community so we can all use the line of communication, regardless of how good or terrible we think it is, really is fair to all of us and was the point I was trying to get across. The fact is until the days that everyone is just able to print their own perfect Kane figures down to the armpit hairs in the comfort of their own home which is still a long, long ways away, this is what we have.


Which brings me back to my original point even jumping in here, how hard is it to keep the complaints in one place?! I do think this thread could have existed with the photo as a joke or something for all of us because lord knows I miss the Stang days, and we could have laughed and just kept it rolling. Instead, it just descends into madness so quickly over again, a bad inner-joint paint app on a $29.99 MSRP action figure as opposed to a major defect or something wildly off. Huge figure release, yeah, but it just doesn't seem to warrant all this attention in my opinion. I have mine, you have yours.

Anyways, if anyone wants to give the harshest criticism you can think of like I said I am all for it. But first and foremost it's important to be respectful and cool about it directly to the individual you're asking questions of and second the loose, unwritten rules of courtesy and even some of the written ones say one thread at a time for a subject I believe so I was just trying to derail that before it went too far. Not criticize the main photo, which I actually liked.

I might need to get a 'running change' tattoo after this.

Well said Tom, I’ve been around almost as long as you and you might be right, maybe once you get older these things just don’t bother you as much, is it a big flaw? Of course, is it something that ruined the figure, no way

It’s a great figure, I don’t pose so it’s not going to affect me as much as the next person, it’s annoying yes, I wish it was fixed, but I would much rather have glossy boots and better paint job on the mask, but maybe me being a customizer for 20 years makes buying some red paint and painting the inside of that elbow easier than the rest of people who own this figure that are not.