No matter how you slice it, it's a pretty great time to be a collector.
A collector of action figures, to be exact (coins and stamps never seem to go out of style). Who remembers their first figure? The one that set them on this hunters path?When I was a kid, the earliest action figure (hell, the earliest memory PERIOD) that I can recall is a Superfriends-styled Robin figure that I simply adored. I would later learn that he was a Karate-chop Robin from the DC Comics Superheroes line from Toy Biz released alongside figures from the 1989 Michael Keaton Batman movie as a way of coming out with characters unrelated to said movie. Toy Biz also held the license to make Marvel figures at the time (and would still for many years to come) and were good about making just about every character that appeared, even the really obscure ones. It was pretty fantastic as a kid, building the assortment of X-Men and their various villains, Batman & Robin, the whole team of Power Rangers, and Terminators, Predators, and Aliens you'd never see in any of the films. I definitely wasn't the only one part of this generation, this wondrous 'age of Action Figures'. They would usually retail for $6-$10 as I recall, and through them we were introduced to characters we may have never otherwise encountered. We were able to appreciate and hold in our hands characters we love and have them make an impression on us. Time has gone by, but I still remember my gold Endoskeleton figure, Spartan of the WildC.A.T.S., and the very first Spawn figure ever released. Plus, Robin is still one of my favorite characters.
There were several successful lines that stood out over the years. The extensive X-Men and Spider-Man lines from Toy Biz attached to their animated series, the Batman line from Kenner attached to his animated series and every single movie, and of course, the timeless Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Playmates, Todd McFarlane's Spawn and Image Comics figures, the monolithic 3.75" Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures. As action figures swelled in popularity, however, they progressively began to become more gimmicky and hokey: 'quick change' head-flips, light-up appendages, missile launching apparatuses. While not necessarily a bad feature in and of themselves, they were starting to become the focus and take away from the overall figures. As the market soared, it also began to swell, with more and more companies and properties cashing in on action figure mania (anyone else remember Xena: Warrior Princess figures or the line from the movie 'Congo'?). The shelves were flooded with more figures than could or would be bought. By anyone. Ever.
As with any oversaturated market, the bubble would inevitably pop. The rising production costs and inflation meant that it was becoming significantly more expensive to even create the molds for mass production, let alone produce, package, and ship enough to sell and turn a profit. This led to more expensive figures on the shelves, already packed with merchandise that wouldn't be sold. The price point increase made the figures an even harder sell on the bread and butter of the industry: the parent who is ultimately the one buying the figure for the respective child whose attention has been caught by it. Companies coming out with great figures weren't selling enough to cover the overhead cost to produce them and were forced to close down. However, companies were trying new things, experimenting with different scales and new styles of articulation, as well as.becoming more extensive with it. The figures began to evolve (Toy Biz and their figures ultimately becoming the meteoric Marvel Legends, for example) and it was clear the 'landscape' was changing alongside them.
With the decline of the figure industry, we saw Toys"R"Us become a rarity and KB Toys disappear completely. While US companies were improving in the standard conventions of their figures, they were slipping on quality and the figure as a whole. Sloppy paint applications, brittle joints, warped limbs. And for the asking price, now a minimum of $10, usually more, it was a lack of quality I wasn't able to abide for long. After several years solidly collecting DC Universe, Marvel Legends, and McFarlane Toys, I became disenchanted and began to part with much of my collection, keeping only a few Batman and Robin figures for myself, though they were put away. I picked up a figure here and there I just couldn't miss, like SOTA M. Bison, but largely ignored the mass market and seemingly kicked my plastic addiction. It appeared, though, that Japan had new and untold collecting wonders for me to discover. On the whole, Bandai was nowhere on my radar. I hadn't had anything to do with them since their brief US run of Gundam figures or Power Rangers when I was a kid. I had gotten the ones they did for the Thundercats remake but found them to be too toyetic for my tastes. Which made sense seeing as how most of Bandai's properties are from kids shows, it would follow that their merchandise be marketed towards the same audience. All of these were examples of Bandai of America, though. Bandai of Japan was another beast entirely.
I had chanced into a handful of Japanese figures before. A Play Arts Squall Leonheart, Revoltech DMC3 Dante. They were excellent in detail but felt a bit basic overall. They weren't anything like the SIC and SH Figuarts Kamen Riders I encountered. For those who don't know, Kamen Rider translates as 'Masked Rider' who they briefly tried porting to the US a la Super Sentai/Power Rangers to disastrous and comical results. Thousands of lives were lost due to this. Or at least several acting careers. He's effectively Spider-Man crossed with James Bond crossed with Rambo crossed with Captain America crossed with Evel Knievel. All rolled into one grasshopper-motif martial arts special effects superhero on a motorcycle, stopping evil as it were. In any case, SH Figuarts in particular became the new standard in action figures for me. With equal levels of great attention given to sculpt, articulation, and detail, as well as an across-the-board level of quality, they appeared to be the new paradigm. They've certainly evolved into a collector's market juggernaut to prove it.
It wasn't just the amount of articulation, it was the nature of it and how it was designed to have a full range of motion yet in no way sacrifice the sculpt of the figure or the 'look' of the character being (extremely accurately) represented. There was a practical intricacy and an attention to character specific details (hell, general character specificity) that was sorely lacking in much of the US industry but abundant in Japan. It was the first time I encountered alternate hands/heads/faces, effect pieces, flight/display stands, and collector friendly packaging as an across the board standard. For the entire industry! It was impressive. I was already paying $20-25 for US 'collector level' figures, but wasn't getting anything as high quality. Import figures going for roughly the same price and up, and almost constantly being reissued, it wasn't a very difficult decision. It will spoil one with its quality, though, and it is something of a slippery slope. You just become used to/okay with paying more for the quality and expecting more from every figure. Coming back to US figures was a tough move that took a couple years and only after Bandai Japan had burned a significant hole in my wallet.
It appeared US companies had learned in the interim, though, and figures were seeing something of a reemergence. Not to say they went anywhere, but they had finally come out from that stagnant period of overpriced uninteresting crap. New licenses and long awaited properties were popping up, churning out highly articulated and detailed figures everywhere. Alternate heads/hands and collector friendly packages becoming a more prevalent trend. Perhaps it's the wonder of the internet, wherein the collector has more of a voice than ever before, and the companies are in tune with and aware of what we want. Where once you'd be really lucky to find figures based on a video game character, they now come out with one for practically every new game that comes out. Star Wars has started producing 6-inch scale figures after literal decades. Marvel Legends changed hands, disappeared for a while, returned, and now just keeps getting better. ML and DC Collectibles are basically bulletproof. Funko keeps bringing great collector-quality toys from interesting and previously untapped licenses (The Rocketeer!, Firefly!) and NECA, Mezco, and even Old Todd (with his damnable 5-inch scale...) continue to come out with great figures to simultaneously feed our hungers and wake our appetites.
Just about anyone you could want as a figure has one these days. And it's largely in part to the likes of us, I think. The collectors, the fans. We've voiced our desires, they know what we want. They've been made aware of our exacting standards and know we won't settle for plastic bullshit. Equally likely, they're collectors themselves and they know what they'd want and are making sure to give it to us. There have been so many successful Kickstarters for figures lately. Warpo's Legends of Cthulhu, the Four Horsemen's Mythic Legions (and previously Gothitropolis). There's one going right now from TruForce Collectibles for the most wicked Megaman X you've never seen. Brothers and sisters, fellow hunters all. The power is in our hands. I know I'm not the only one who feels action figures keep us from falling into a cold, callous, and wholly 'grown-up' mindset. Let's keep the faith alive. The power is in our hands. I welcome you to the New Golden Age. Like I said, it's a pretty great time to be a collector.
The onus is ours.
Gray Fox is an overworked, underpaid counterculture expert, giant mecha pilot, and prospective next sidekick to the Batman. Occasionally, through bacterial fission, he is able replicate a clone to write Freestanding Figure.