Mattycollector Re-Opens “Two-Thirds” Toy Subscriptions Just to Mess with Fans’ Heads

After trying to scare collectors sillier than Eternians basking in the light of Scare Glow about the possible death of all its online toy subscriptions, Mattel’s online collector store is at it again. I’m ashamed to say their scare tactics worked, and suckered me into buying two Masters of the Universe subscriptions instead of one. Terrible idea – I thought they’d be easier to re-sell, but I think everyone’s too pissed off at the line.

Anyway, they supposedly “hit the minimum” at the last minute, and couldn’t delay things any longer…but suddenly they’re giving fans the chance to hop onto subscriptions that are already 1/3 of the way through, starting April 15th (counting on tax rebates, maybe?) and lasting two weeks. New subscribers would miss out on the club-exclusive figure where applicable (there isn’t one for the Watchmen sub, though there should be, and it should be Bubastis, c’mon) but get the rest of the year starting with the May figure. For He-Fans, this is an odd deal – it means missing out on the most fan-demanded figure of the year (Ram Man) and still getting stuck with the least-wanted (The Fighting Foe Men). Likewise, with Watchmen, you’ve already lost the two most popular characters, Rorschach and Dr. Manhattan.

But mainly, one has to ask WTF? We were told there would be no second runs, so Mattel must have come into a ton of extras. How did that happen? Did irate fans cancel, even though you’re not supposed to be able to? Did Mattel lie the first time? Given the length of time it takes to make new toys, can they possibly adjust in time for May?

Maybe they just did the fans a wonderful favor and will crank out new quantities at no loss to themselves. But I doubt it.