If there was a musem dedicated to figures that is haha. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of statues. I do appreciate seeing them in person, some are mindblowing and worthy of being in a museum indeed, but I've never brought myself to buy one, I need to decide the pose myself. With a statue and a painting, you have no choice, except your own interpretation and feelings. I've always preferred the freedom a figure gives you.
Yeah they captured magic with their first figure, there was an interview with Pierre on Youtube, you could tell how passionate the guys from Mezco were.
When you think of it, it's not that surprising it's still the best one because they put so much thoughts and time on that figure. It was clearly a passion project. Then it became slowly but surely a money project.
After TDKR, Star Trek & Judge Dredd, they kept announcing more & more figures, to the point they became more concerned with how to respect their schedule (which they almost never did), getting the rights to movie licences and try to make them available not to far from the movie release (but they failed with the timing, I could name Knightmare Batman, Justice League Batman, Harley Quinn from SS, the Thor Ragnarok figures and so on).
Around mid 2017, that's where they dropped the ball and began giving up on the quality to speed up the releases (my best guess is that they couldn't produce real quality on so many obscure exclusive pieces), my most memorable examples are Red Son Superman and Symbiote Spider-man. Red Son Superman was supposed to have its emblem sewed on the costume, and they said "******* that, let's just put a sticker". Complete cop-out. The symbiote suit was supposed to be real clothes and turned into a rubber suit (and they clearly lied on that one because the promo shots were selling a completely different figure, I'll never forget that).
Add to that the huge problem where they began to make the most famous designs the exclusives instead of the regular release: Tiger Stripe Wolverine (which I owned and sold for a fortune, totally not worth the price) and Classic Punisher (which I bought for too much originally and sold for over too much). My best guess is that they had to pay for the licence of those suits and decided to make more money by making the regular release their own design so they don't have to pay as much.
And it's at this point that they went their way 100%, giving up on adapting the characters faithfully. You'll only get an exception here and there (Keaton & Reeve), and even then, they are exclusives. When you buy regular versions, you'll end up with Mezco's vision (which was okay originally and then began sucking more & more).
Add to that the biggest problem of them all: the Mez flair/vinyl/pleather on figures. It began with the pants of Tiger Stripe Wolverine and Red Son Superman. I remember we all complained about this, but at the time, we tolerated it. We shouldn't have because then they began to extend the vinyl everywhere on the suits in 2018! That's when I said "******** it that wasn't the deal" and when I sold most of my figures. And collectors eventually accepted this tragedy. That's why we end up with what we have now which is a far cry from the original promise.
I could also talk about the bodies they use. The TDKR body was perfect, I just don't understand why they dropped it, and why they don't improve on it. A lot of characters just look to slim next to TDKR in your collection. Even their latest "Supreme" Knight looks miserable next to TDKR. I understand why Miles Morales has the same height as Spider-man: because it's a variant figure, and not really Miles Morales. But they should have released Miles Morales later (which they maybe will, full of ugly mez flair everywhere) with the right height (I do think the Morales figure is great though, except for the ankles, but he's still better than most things released afterwards).
There are so many things wrong with this line. Oh yeah I could talk about the Spec Ops Punisher figure. That was also about that time I saw it went completely wrong. I had all the Punisher at that point (normal, classic, PX & Toy Fair Stealth), and they released Spec Ops which had the mask we were supposed to get with PX. Problem was, the Spec Ops suit was modernized with their Mez Flair and looked terrible. Decided to pass on it and it really disgusted me from the line.
And now Pierre (who was an amazing PR guy for Mezco, he has the fire) is gone from Mezco, so I'm not surprised things went downhill. You can't get rid of a guy like that, he's one of the reasons I was so passionate about Mezco.
It's just so sad, this line was gold when it started, and it still has some qualities to it, but I don't accept how they blew what they had. It could have been the best toy line ever, the one you collect all your life, where you chase all the variants just because you love the line. If only they had stayed true to their original vision. Damn.
The problem doesn't only come from Mezco of course, it also comes from the collectors who accept this. At the end of the day, what speaks are the sales, but there are waaay too many scalpers in this hobby, and Mezco abuses the exclusives because they want to play the rarity card. It clearly works on weak psychologies, but not on mine. You can't ******* the customer.
Edit: I forgot to talk about another thing which contributed to the problem: D-Amazing (the youtube reviewer). I have nothing against the guy, he seems like a very nice person, and I actually followed his channel BEFORE he became a Mezco sell-out. He's always been a positive reviewer, but at some point, I noticed he wasn't criticizing the Mezco One:12 figures in any shape or form (which is what you're supposed to do when you're a reviewer), it was clearly promotion. According to him, every release was perfection. I don't remember when I noticed that, but I eventually completely stopped following him. It's clear that Mezco was/is sending him the figures in advance of the release (and he probably gets to keep them for free) and he gives a completely biased review.
That great for him personally, but there are three problems with that:
1) Mezco doesn't see where they mess up on figures
2) The public is influenced and even them get over huge flaws
3) It participates to the increase of sales and given Mezco plays the rarity card, everything sells out extremely fast
That was my summary of how what used to be an amazing toy line turned to s***.
