Top 5 Most Fun Collecting Eras Of The Modern Line

We're in a bit of a content jam here at the house of Skull, Bantha. Bret's currently heading to the offices of the New York Giants to ensure they don't draft Shedeur Sanders, and I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger at work. As I'm sitting down to write this it's currently 8PM. I'd much rather be watching the G-League Celtics take on the Orlando Magic as Joe Mazzulla is so aggressively resting his starters that he convinced Paul Pierce to come out of retirement just so he could rest him too. Bottom line is that I needed to write something that would effortlessly flow from my brain to the page. Nothing does that for me like reminiscing. Writing opinion pieces about the current line is sometimes like pulling teeth for me.

I thought about just embedding a bunch YouTube videos of Kenner and C-3PO's commercials, but I decided I needed to put forth a little more effort. I'll save the commercials for tomorrow. So I decided to write about what I think were the most fun eras in the modern line. For the purpose of discussion, the eras are mostly defined by their line look. The one exception you will see below is TVC 1.0 since it was a very distinct collecting time form the current iteration of TVC (2018 - present). This is clearly not what lines brought us the best figures because that is undoubtedly the current TVC 2.0. It's the eras where, in my opinion, the stress in the hobby was minimal, and the fun was at its peak. We will go in descending order...as is tradition.

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The greatness of the vintage Kenner look becoming the modern main line could not be overstated. In 2010, I would actually experience a mini-version the famed "wall of figures" at my local Target. When they expanded the toy section footprint for the holidays, a quarter of the aisle was dedicated to TVC figures. They got so many of the Return of the Jedi cases that a half dozen were on a "boat" to go back in the store room until some peg space cleared up. This afforded me the opportunity to pop one of those cases, and secure an unpunched Gamorrean Guard. During the early part of TVC 1.0, the "Shadows of the Dark Side" Saga Legends line offered some incredible super articulated figures, such as repacks of the VTSC Bossk and IG-88, for discount prices.

But this era wouldn't be all wine and roses, which is why it only comes in at number five. It also started to show weakness forming in the 3.75" line (a lot of it self inflicted). That "wall of figures" proved problematic when the toy section footprints contracted after Christmas. The pegs were now dominated by the peg warmers from waves one through three (yes, Wooof was a peg warmer), and new product couldn't make its way through the distribution pipeline. 2011 suffered fits and starts as result, and 2012 was killed from the jump with the TPM launch wave. I'm now realizing the I could have written an entire article of what went wrong during TVC 1.0. Let me know in the comments if that's something worth while.

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COINS! And that's all I'm going to say about the TAC line. Or is it? This line was perhaps a reminder that Star Wars was truly evergreen. We were two years removed from the last movie with no new big screen Star Wars in sight. In fact, George Lucas had declared that he was done with Star Wars movies. Despite this, retail was devouring TAC product. This was the last time I can remember 3.75" Star Wars figures breaking the contain of the action figure aisle. My Walmart was setting up middle of the aisle "4-way" displays for just TAC figures in the main aisle that cut trough the toy section. They even put TAC figures in the seasonal overflow toy section. What made TAC even better was the Saga Legends line. It had a lot of fan input, and as a result, there were some bangers, such as the RA-7 pack-in from the hard to get Sandcrawler.

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It would be impossible to exclude the era that resurrected Star Wars figures from this list. The figures are questionable, but the era was a blast. The internet wouldn't be widely adopted until the end of the century, so it wasn't a primary information delivery vehicle. We would still get toy news from periodicals, advertisements, and word of mouth (but that was admittedly over the net). The way we found out what was in a new wave was from some guy popping a case at Warlmart, and then posting the contents to USENET. Everyone from Froot Loops to JC Penney had an exclusive (the latter was the 12" Collector Series Greedo). You could buy figures at Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, Kay Bee Toys, Bradlees, Caldors, Zayers, K-mart, and Service Merchandise. What wasn't to love? I guess K-Mart.

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The launch wave had a Vader and a Chewbacca. We were so back. I want to say close to forty figures were available before the movie came out. I remember hunting the AT-TE Gunner every weekend before realizing the character didn't even make the cut. That figure was #36. Am I remembering that correctly? We were up to al least #36 before the movie came out? That's the way it should be. The figures get me excited for the movie. They don't spoil the movie (unless their heads fall off). The line was so popular that if would be the first of two times where it had to be extended with repaints to keep up with retailer demand. The 3.75" Star Wars line used to be an absolute juggernaut. This era would be number one, but it was also bittersweet. For the second time in my life, I faced the prospect of a Star Wars-less silver screen.

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The Episode I line was far and away the most fun I've had in this hobby. It felt like the entire wold was Star Wars obsessed. Everything was The Phantom Menace branded. If you walked through a Super Walmart, the only department that was spared from Star Wars iconography might have been automotive, but I can't rule out Armor All wipes in limited edition Darth Maul packaging. As with POTF2, this line existed before the information age was fully in force. You could still find out that a new figure was getting released from the packaging. Alternatively, if you were on the early edge of distribution, you might be the first civilian to find out about a newly released figure by seeing it on the pegs. I vaguely remember that's how we learned about the Coruscant Amidala. Some guy on California found it on the pegs, and then told the world via a series of signal fires. I remember being excited every time I went on a toy run because there was always the prospect of finding a surprise on the pegs. If I may be so bold, I don't think Star Wars have ever been bigger than in the summer of 1999.

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The toughest decision for me was leaving The Saga Collection off the list. It was a great era. The demand was so great at retail that the line had to be extended with a bunch of repacks and repaints. The 2006 SDCC was legendary. It revealed the Death Star Briefing Room set and the Republic Commandos set. Good times, but I ultimately had to acknowledge the classic Kenner card, and TVC 1.0 bumped TSC off the list. How about you? Do you agree or do you have other times you want to mention? Let us know below.

Welp, it's quarter to ten now. Time to go to bed. I love these wake, work, other work, bed days.

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