2014 Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Series Reissued?

Strange store reports started cropping up over the course of the past week of collectors finding the original 2014 Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Series figures at their local Target stores. Three year old Hasbro figures suddenly hitting stores again nationwide is a pretty bizarre turn of events, so I went to investigate today–and can confirm that fresh cases of the GOTG Marvel Legends 2014 series are indeed being stocked once again…

Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Movie Figures Reissued

When I heard the first one or two reports from readers who went into their local Target stores and found the original 6″ Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy movie figures on the pegs, it was easy to write it off as isolated incidents of stores clearing out old stock found “in the back” that somehow got lost for a few years.

What’s harder to explain is hundreds–if not thousands–of cases of the Marvel Legends Platinum Series Guardians of the Galaxy figures suddenly resurfacing all over the country.

Marvel Legends 2014 Nova Figure Rich Rider ReissueI was lucky enough to arrive at my closest Target store this afternoon immediately after they’d finished stocking the old GOTG Legends figures, so I swiped the shipping box and dragged it over to a nearby aisle (baby socks, apparently) for a quick snapshot.

Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Platinum Series CaseBased off of the number on the box–A79030000–this is the exact same case that was shipped way back in Summer 2014. In fact, it’s still got the same “GGM Marvel Platinum Series 6In Legends” title that the series had when it shipped three years ago. There’s no doubt about it–these are either old cases or exact reproductions of an old case assortment.

Marvel Legends 2014 Star-Lord vs. 2017 Star Lord Vol. 2Target isn’t the sort of store that sits on unsold stock for years instead of putting it on mega clearance to get it out the door (*cough* Toys R Us K-Mart *cough*), so it’s almost unthinkable that they would have just happened to have found hundreds upon hundreds of cases of this old case assortment three months before GOTG Vol. 2 hits theaters.

Guardians of the Galaxy Rocket Raccoon Marvel Legends Figure Reissue

No, the most likely scenario here is that, for whatever reason, Hasbro themselves had a ton of unsold cases that they’re sending out to Target stores now.

The good news is that popular sold-out figures like Rich Rider Nova will be available again, and that movie Marvel Legends Gamora and Rocket Raccoon will be available when Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hits theaters, even if Marvel Legends GOTG Wave 2 hasn’t hit stores when the movie opens.

Target Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Figures EndcapThe bad news is that Target has upped the price only on the old figures to $23.99 per figure (where they’re shelved right next the $19.99 GOTG Vol. 2 figures). So if you want to complete the series and the Groot Build-A-Figure, be prepared to drop about $144 plus tax to do so.

What do you think of an old Hasbro Marvel Legends 6″ figures series returning to stores like this, Marvel collectors? Are you glad to have another chance at Guardians of the Galaxy toys you may have missed before, or miffed that this is going to hurt the value of the original figures? Are there any other old waves you’d like to see return to stores?

Comments

2014 Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy Series Reissued? — 19 Comments

  1. $23.99 is a bargain compared what most are charging on eBay. Although I suggest getting the Iron Man figure from BBTS…it’s on clearance. I can also confirm that 4 of the 5 Targets I hit up had at least some of the GOTG Groot wave. Since I missed the wave the first time around I’m extatic they are on the shelves again.

  2. I wish hasbro could re-release classic toybiz series favorites like: Galactus, Fin Fang Foom, Apocalypse, and Sentinel series. But I would be happy to even see a re-release of that Rhino series

  3. Any word on when/where that invisible woman will drop? Loooonnnggg overdue for new FF figures- and I want them super bad.

  4. Eons from now, historians and archaeologists will define the span of time between 2014 and 2017 as “The Starlordian Epoch” as defined by the easily discernible layer of overpacked pegwarming Chris Pratt idols in our middens.

    But seriously, reissuing and then immediately replacing figures seems like a terrible idea. With Starlord in the 2014 wave, two 2017 waves, and the exclusive EE 2-pack AND comic box, not to mention the Thanos Imperative from SDCC ’14, I can’t imagine anyone buying more slight iterations that aren’t required to build anything else.

    That said, a big THANK YOU to Dabid for keeping us informed on whats coming out when and where so we can make informed purchases.

    • That’s hilarious, but I never see Star lord pegwarming for long. That damn All Father wave lasted forever on the hooks mainly Machine man and Hawkeye, plus Absorbing man series: Beetle and Morbius and speed demon will forever be my pegwarming starting five.

      • Morbius is a MASSIVELY underrated figure.
        He’s simple, but he’s a badass.
        That head sculpt and those hands, with that undead vampire skin paint job and the cape and collar… he really comes off as a genuinely monstrous vampire.
        He could’ve very easily turned out really cheesy.

        Hell, I don’t understand why the classic Hawkeye is a peg warmer. He’s classic Hawkeye….
        Maybe he’s not the BEST that a Hawkeye figure could be, but he’s still pretty good.
        Solid figure.

        And I get why Machine Man is a peg warmer, but that figure has maybe the most fascinating colors in all of Marvel Legends.
        The weird pearlescent purple trimed with silver is just fascinating to look at. No matter how long I stare at it, I can’t properly picture it in my head later.
        And the bendable, stackable, interchangeable, extendo arms and alternate hands give him loads of wacky posing options.
        Plus, Machine Man himself is just a really fascinating character who it’s amazing that we ever got a figure for.
        You know he was created by the Monoliths from 2001:A Space Odyssey?
        Seriously, that’s his actual origin.
        2001:A Space Odyssey is part of the Marvel canon….
        He doesn’t deserve to be a peg warmer. 🙁

        • While Machine Man’s origin does occur in the Marvel run of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1977, it occupies the last 3 issues of the 10 issue run. The “star child” issue in #7 ends the tenuous connection to the movie material and starts over in #8 with related ideas from other Arthur C. Clarke material. The Obelisks have nothing to do with him, and while published by Marvel were not canon material. Machine Man’s 616 origin is thus confusingly absent from actual canon.

          All that said, I quite enjoy the figure and have built an army of clearance X-51s

  5. AGREED on Machine Man. I was waiting on the edge of my seat for that figure, and he ended up peg-warming to this day. I guess there are lots of people who don’t know who he is, which is sad. Kids don’t read any Kirby or Ditko anymore?

    Back to the subject at hand, I worry that the OLD GOTG will clog the pegs that are already clogged! Especially if they are marked UP, which makes no damned sense.

    • Agreed. My local target has a hard enough time getting fresh waves in because of old merchandise on the pegs. When they do get stuff in, it seems like the Target website clears out their warehouse-warmers to fester on the pegs of the slower retail stores (they got eight Havoks overnight in fall last year, I can’t come up with another explanation). The whole thing causes a negative feedback loop where the analytics read the store as underperforming and thus unworthy of new product. If they would just order new stuff, it would sell in hours!

  6. My wife found the full line at our target as well today. Being as I only had 2 of the 6, I am very happy.

  7. Fyi, Hasbro has some of the figures from the current GOTG wave in stock, plus a 15% DISCOUNT if you type in the promo code “SPRING17”.

  8. Maybe my local Target will get rid of the space armor Iron Man figures AGAIN in time for a hypothetical GotG Vol 3!