JoeCanuck

well... broke one of my storm shadow nunchuck when seeing if it would fit nicely in the his backpack opening. Good thing they have two.

D'OH!

So I've heard a lot of complaints on YouTube about the cardbacks and I fully understand and agree with the comments, but there might be another reason why the cardbacks are so flimsy.

supply is short, demand is high. Nothing new.

The regular material might actually be unavailable at the time needed.
As most people are aware, many raw materials around the world are in short supply and paper and paper products are some of those items.
I work in the print industry and I can tell you that right now there are major delays in getting regular stock items.

Lead times have gone from 3-4X the usual turn around locally and if you order from overseas costs have gone through the roof (e.g.  ordering a container used to cost about $5,000US and can now range into the $20,000-$35,000+  for same container, at least in my experience)  and oversea lead times can add months to a projects completions. (e.g. Look at the number of ships out west delayed trying to get into harbours and offloaded)
There are also capacity demands and market limit restrictions, that are happening at the manufacturers (mills).
More importantly a massive increase in online sales and shipping the last couple years which have exceeded the industry ability to produce enough packaging material. (side note: many companies are making the transition to new packaging lines as they have seen traditional printed paper usage decline.)

As such printers have had to find alternatives to their regular products including stocks that might be lesser quality but are at least readily available.
Printers have seen price increases ranging from 5-8% and sometimes more which then costs about the same as the old stocks pre-pandemic.
If you have MRSP for a toy you need to make sure everything fits into that budget and when it can't you have a couple of choices: you cheapen the product in some way, or you delay your product, or you raise prices.

All in all it just show how intertwined the economy is. Anyways I'm sure there are other reasons but wanted to bring my perspective. I totally admit I could be completely wrong but this makes sense to me.

So first impressions.

1. Card back sucks. very thin card and mine arrived with a little curl. Not a big deal as I ripped these bad boys opens. File card is useless but then again what hasn't been said about those two.
I also can't figure out why they need the outer box. if you could open it somehow to see the carded figures maybe that would work but i suspect anyone who isn't opening the figures will probably remove the carded figures.Bit of a waste of money.

My 2 carded figures came in the decorative box which was in a hasbro box which was in a shipping box with airpillows. Thats a lot of money in packaging.

2. Overall appearances are excellent. Nitpicks are the black printing on the back of the legs which is hard to see on SE, but SS its obvious. These were made in Vietnam which was stamped on the butt which is interesting change. I like the painted rivets but I suspect that won't last long. My knee joints were stiff, enough that I want to get my wife hair dryer to warm them up. Arms were fine. No issues with the hands.

3. weapons - pretty good but if the weapons are the same on the original SS i can understand why the bow string broke as well the nunchuks. Thin plastic.
I was actually worried I was going to break the bow just getting peged on the backpack.

Its here I wish they would add a paint app to the weapons so they aren't just 1 single color. I'm fine with it but feel if they could have done that it would be one of those nice update touches. SS with painted swords instead of solid black would be much more appealing.
I like the inclusion of the extra easily lost weapon. I already know at some point I'm going to lose one of them but then at least I have a spare.

4. Overall very impressed. I didn't have either of these originals. Most important to me is they are playable toys. I expect to work their joints in in no time!!

Anyone else who got this have any thoughts and opinions?

out for delivery today.
It was supposed to be delivered yesterday but was delayed I'm sure due to the blizzard we just had on monday. Hopefully when i get home from work I will have them.

so judging by the comments I can't see this line doing much past the 1st year unless they release 2 army buildiers each wave. Price is very high for only 5 points of articulation. Well hopefully O-ring has more support.

Oh they're expensive! I originally added it with the skystriker preorder. If they're all going to be this expensive I will not be getting very many. Definitely getting the cobra trooper and officer (maybe 2) and then very selective about which 3 3/4 figures I don't have. I don't see a need to get a joe or cobra I already have in vintage line.

Normally I would have said no way I'm paying over $15 for a figure however, I made an exception here as I don't have version 1 of either of those figures, and honestly I'd be looking at $100CDN  per figure locally. More importantly, now I get some new toys I won't be afraid to play with as they should be able to withstand some play much better then the vintage ones at 35 years old.

I'll have to wait till later today to get you what I paid as the credit card bill was sent to my wife email and I can't remember her password. She'll forward it to me later. Come back to this post later for an edit.

EDIT $63.31 CDN is what i got charged including shipping