Expensive Plastic: part 2

 Collecting $5 or $10 Funko Pop figures is one thing, $400 action figures is another.

When it comes to high end collectible figures, the Hot Toys brand 1/6 scale 12-inch figures are the gold standard; no other company even comes close.

A really big deal in Hong Kong, Sideshow is the biggest US distributor of Hot Toys in this country and releases the Hot Toys line approximately 3 months after their overseas release.

Getting into this very expensive hobby may seem overwhelming at first and for good reason; collecting these things are complicated.  Here's an introduction to the topic.

The most basic, human-sized figures start at low $200's, hit the $400's for large figures like Hulk and Thanos and go past $1,000 when you enter HUGE territory like the 21-inch Hulkbuster or vehicles like the Batmobile.

The Iron man ones are always unusually expensive because those figures are diecast, IE, actually made of metal as opposed to just plastic so most of them start in the high $300 range and go all the way up into the $700's.  Let's be clear: that's for one single human-sized (as opposed to "Thanos-sized") 12-inch figure with perhaps a normal assortment of accessories.

Yes, there's accessories.  Half the fun of these things are some of the accessories they come with.  Basic things like weapons don't interest me much (the John Wick figure comes with at least a half dozen firearms) but it's the unusual things from specific films that I find cool.

For instance, the Spider-man homemade suit re-release comes with a pretty intricate drone from the "Far from Home" film.  Compared to most normal-sized accessories (like pizza boxes and sunglasses), the drone is huge and makes the already in-demand honemade suite Spidey a great bargain.  As cool as some of them are, though, most accessories fall into the categories of guns and masks, shields and swords.

These things are such a high ticket specialty item and are in such demand that pre-orders open for some of them 2 years in advance.  You need to take those pre-orders seriously because once these things ship, they sell out quickly and then go up for sale on Ebay for twice, 3 or even 4 times the retail price.

Let me repeat that.  These things are going to cost you over $300 by the time you include tax and shipping when you buy them through the most reasonable channels at the most opportune times.  After released, they hit after markets like eBay and Amazon and can easily sell for over $1,000 each.  There's a whole bunch on Ebay and Amazon right now for $1,400.

Hot Toys must have made too many Stormtroopers for "The Force Awakens" because people are still having trouble selling sets of two for $300.  

"Force Awakens Snowtroopers," $269/pair, available now on Amazon

Finally deciding to pick up one or two of your favorite characters gets complicated fast.  There's many, many different versions of the most popular Marvel and DC superheroes, with the most beloved getting a new upgrade with every single new film.

Forget about Spider-man and Iron Man; there have been over 30 different Iron man suits released in the past 10 years and over 15 Spider-mans.  Even someone as unassuming as Pepper Potts has gotten a few figures released in her likeness, with her appearance as Rescue getting a deluxe diecast figure in the $400 range.

 

"Rescue,"  $407, arriving Q1 2021

Hot Toys has figures from almost every popular franchise you can think of.  Not just Star Wars, Marvel and DC but Harry Potter, Terminator, Robocop, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, single popular films like John Wick and Ghostbusters and horror film villains like Freddy, Jason and Michael Meyers.

Now that you've finally decided to pick up one or two of these, where do you even begin.  Like I mentioned up top, start with the most reputable US dealer, Sideshow.  Choosing to enter the market is only the first step so where do you go after that?

Do you buy the newest ones that have just gone on sale and are likely to sell out the quickest?

Do you try to play the market and buy the ones you think will most go up in price?

Will you try to collect every character from a specific film?  Or do you love a superhero so much that you want every version of that figure?

For instance, let's say you love the MCU's Hulk.  Unfortunately, the Mark Ruffalo Bruce Banner figure has long since sold out so on eBay right now, a used figure is inching into the $300 range.

Gladiator Hulk is sold out so of course that large figure is around $750 on Amazon and $1,100 on eBay.

Good news!  If you're hot for smart Professor Hulk from Avengers: Endgame, that is still in pre-order status on Sideshow's site and can be reserved for a reasonable $375 plus tax and shipping.

The above picture also gives you a good idea of how large these figures actually are.  "Normal" human-sized figures are in the 12-inch range while larger ones like this are entering 16-17-inches tall.

If you love Thor, you're in luck.  There's still copies of his likeness from "Avengers: Infinity War" on the Sideshow site for a very reasonable $267.

If you're partial to chubby Thor from "Avengers: Endgame," he's here, too and due to come out at the end of winter 2021.

Let's give one last example of the reasonable variety of versions available for a more popular hero: Cap.  Still available is his rogue bearded version from "Avengers: Infinity War:"

Also available right now is the "concept art version," which is generally Cap from circa-Civil War era MCU.  You can't see it in this picture but the figure does come with both of his shields.

From "Avengers: Endgame:" (out beginning of 2021)

From the same film, the second Cap from 2012 (releasing middle of 2021):

I can write about these figures forever but no article is complete without showing Thanos.  Here he is from "Avengers: Infinity War" without armor:

Thanos with armor:

And coming in March 2021, Thanos with the highly-coveted battle-damaged armor:

There's so much more to say about the Hot Toys figures (I haven't even touched on the many Spider-man and Iron Man costumes) but I'm going to post this for now.

One thing that occurred to me while I was writing this: since Captain America will no longer appear in the MCU, it might be wise to grab what you can of him.  To a lesser extent, the same could be said of Tony Stark and Iron Man but there are so many different versions of that armor out and about, that character will never, ever leave eBay.  And those prices are only ever going to go up.

Happy collecting.