Hi guys, been out of the collecting Mezco One:12 for a while, I had sold half of my mezco figures a while ago, for various reasons. I had just kept the best ones imo (TDKR figures, regular Spock and Frankenstein, as surprising as this may be, I love them a whole lot more than the Shadowland Daredevil, Armored Batman and regular Bat V Supes I also had).
BUT damn, they finally released a lot of figures they had announced soooo long ago. I'm really surprised by how many figures they released this year, for those who have followed Mezco One:12 Collection since 2014, it's very surprising. Looks like they finally resolved their production problems and listened to hardcore fans. However some are still missing (where is Captain Kirk variant?! I'm still waiting for him hahaha). Sadly I can't pre-order anything from their website as I don't live in the US so I can't show them how interested I am, but believe me if I lived in the US, I'd pre-order most of the releases.
So I bought a bunch of Mezco's and I had to pay top dollars for them, hope they are worth it. I'm waiting for the Punisher "Fully Loaded" version (I **** you not, I was waiting like a mad man for this one but I thought it'd never come out with that black leather coat, I can't believe it's been out for over 6 months and I didn't know about it), Red Skull with green outfit (how comes this one is exclusive and so expensive as well? I don't understand, I thought it'd be a regular release and that the black leather coat one would be the exclusive version), Tiger Stripe Wolverine (once again I thought it'd be a regular release but it's exclusive??? And the brownish one is regular? Can someone explain this to me? Makes 0 sense, I love both designs, maybe even prefer the brown pants one, but the Tiger Stripe is clearly the most mainstream one), Variant Deadpool Blue & Yellow (for some reason I absolutely love what they did here, a "what if" figure with a lot of class to it, gorgeous), regular Deadpool and classic Superman.
And now they've announced Michael Myers, damn. They're finally doing it right. Now I will say I'm still a bit disappointed they mostly focus on "superheroes", I wish their was a bit more variation with non-superheroes type of characters, but the quality is back, at last. I even feel they've improved but I'll have to check in hands.
I was really a bit disappointed by their Batman V Superman figures. Not that they sucked, but I also owned the Hot Toys versions of those same characters, and the Mezco figures were no match. I ended up never looking at those mezcos, but worse than that, I wasn't looking at any of my mezcos anymore as a whole. I think those Batman V Superman figures got my attention away, it made the line look not so coherent as a whole, but again that's just my opinion.
They can't fully nail the realistic look. Sure it's more articulated, but I really prefer when they go for something not so realistic and add their own take on it, that they make it "cartoonish" in a way, and that they stylize it. Their Michael Myers looks wicked in that regard.
Wonder Woman for example is clearly a pass for me, the Hot Toys one is just so... gorgeous. I haven't bought it since I don't like Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, but I have to say, the Hot Toys version is incredible, I've seen it with my eyes, wow.
I'm saying this but I may buy Harley Queen. I wasn't too sure about it at first but it's growing on me, I don't know. I may end up buying it and selling it, but she looks cartoonish enough.
Anyway, glad their line has grown this much, I may even buy some older figures I missed like Flash, yellow Daredevil and Zoom (I saw them in person, wasn't "wow'ed" by any of them as I found them to be too similar but.. I kinda love this uniformity you get with those three). Only thing really pissing me off is the way they distribute their figures and their choices of "exclusives" making some figures almost Hot Toys-expensive. Tiger Stripe Wolverine is the one figure that shocked me the most. I was expecting a very wide distribution with a 70-80$ price tag since this particular version of the suit is so iconic to the 90's era, and I ended up paying almost $200 for it + shipping, couldn't find it cheaper on ebay.
I don't regret the money I spent since there was no other way to get those figures right now, but I'm sure it could have been so much cheaper had Mezco produced more copies. Speaking of which, does anyone know how there business is going? Does it sell a lot? Is the line so popular? Is there a very high demand for it?
I hope they make more reasonable choices of exclusives in the future. I don't buy a figure for the "exclusive" stamp, I just buy when I love the figure and the design, and I won't spend this much on every single release of a character I love. I made a big exception here as I had dropped this line for a while and that I had waited for some of those for so long, but let's hope they don't follow the Hot Toys path with prices getting up and up and up. Especially considering it's nowhere near Hot Toys production price. We're talking 65$-80$ tops figures, not $220-$250 figures.