I didn't collect a lot of Marvel Legends when they were available in stores, primarily because I am 'Team DC' and there were even fewer Marvel characters that I felt I had to have in my collection then than there are now. Which is still relatively few.
But the MLs I do have are undeniably superb toys. And if I had collected Marvel Legends back in the day I would surely hate Mattel and their product even more today, because there is NO DENYING that Marvel Legends put out a superior product to DC Universe Classics. FAR superior. In every way. Seriously, comparing Marvel Legends to DC Universe Classics is like comparing apples with dog doo.
To prove my point I submit Exhibit A to the good people of the jury - The Abomination:
The only thing that is an Abomination is this guy's name. First off: in Abomination's case, and not unique to Abomination, Marvel Legends released an extra large scaled figure as a standard release, part of the normal 'wave' or 'series' release and NOT a 'Collect and Connect' or BAF. Abomination is about the size of DCUC Gorilla Grodd who was a Collect & Connect, NOT a standard release figure! In fact, Abomination ALSO came with a BAF piece for his series! How they did this without MarvelLegendsCollector.com's exhorbidant shipping costs to offset production costs, or without charging upwards of 152 bucks for the big moe is anyone's guess.
Second, every piece of Abomination is unique to Abomination. Wait...what? Somewhere in Beverly Hills a Mattel exec just fell off his sterling silver toilet seat.
Really? Really. Really?
Really.
You won't find those green thighs on a repainted Banshee figure or those warty two-toed feet on a mis-proportioned Nightcrawler. No sir.
Unbelievable.
Did they even make any money on these things?
I bet Toy Biz execs drove pintos. Or took the bus to work.
Was Abomination hard to find? No harder than every dang DC Universe figure since the line started and still to this day and on and on forever and ever amen. In fact I will go on record and say Marvel Legends were always easier to find than DC Universe Classics.
I have a long memory and have been at this toy collecting game for too long, kids. I saw a lot of 'hard to find' Marvel Legends in stores, far more than I've seen of even your most standard of DCUC figures. I saw and own this guy, I saw Hulkbuster Iron-Man, I saw Juggernaut. I saw variant Iron-Man and Hulk with both bendy fingers and hinged fingers. I owned both green and grey 1st Appearance Hulks. I saw a lot of them, I just didn't collect them.
Distribution for Marvel Legends was superior to DCUC.
Period.
Finally, I could commit bloody murder with this bastard.
He's a frickin' brick! He's solid and heavy and I've used power tools more flimsily constructed. But that may just be because the contractor I worked for was a cheapskate. But that's another story for another day...
Yet if I sneeze three rooms over from a DCUC figure it's likely to disintegrate into a cloud of fine toxic powder and blow away, coating the DCUC next to him with a penetrating, discoloring mist.
One more thing...Abomination even had a variant.
Unbelievable.
Did I mention the price was lower for these than DCUC? Okay, adjust for inflation yadda yadda, the economy was sure better five years ago when Abom was released; in any case I'll give Mattel the benefit of the doubt and say with adjustments price-points were the same. But Abomination is the size of Gorilla Grodd - a C&C! So where's the bigger value? Do you even have to ask?
Next time you see a guy with a cardboard sign begging for money, give it to him, He must have worked for Toy Biz. They had to have totally lost their shirts on these toys, right? I mean, Mattel can barely keep afloat, charging us upwards of $20 for the same figure seventythousand times, with merely different paint apps and a new headsculpt. A good sculptor can sculpt bodies at a rate of about fifty two per second, but sculpting heads? That takes DAYS!
Right?
Right?
Right.
End rant.