It’s been slow going news-wise for Marvel Legends fans lately (although new waves actually are beginning to hit some stores in dribbles), but Hasbro did have one unexpected new solicitation to announce this week to coincide with Earth Day: an exclusive reissue of an exclusive three-pack that contained three reissued figures to begin with! That’s right, following its release as a Toys R Us exclusive back at the very start of 2017, the Marvel Legends Groot Evolution 3-Pack is now up for order and going back into production! If you missed it, should you get one…?
But one Build-A-Figure I was absolutely NOT expecting to see announced this year… was a re-release of the 2017 Marvel Legends Groot BAF re-release (of the original 2014 release)!
Called “Groot Evolutions”, I actually was really psyched about this 3-Pack when I reviewed it in January 2017. It contains the original movie Groot Build-A-Figure with a different head from the one in the 2014 Guardians of the Galaxy Legends wave, along with repacks of Dancing Baby Groot and Little Groot from GOTG Vol. 2.
In fact, I had to refer back to my original review to see how I liked this set three years ago, and it turns out I loved the snot out of it—it got an ‘A+’ from me (which I stand by looking at my photos and commentary on the figure).
Prior to the announcement of the reissue, this $20 release was selling for well over double that on the aftermarket, so evidently the demand is there for another batch. And since Toys R Us isn’t around to benefit from another production run, “Fan Channel” stores like EE and BBTS might as well reap the rewards, right…?
While I imagine collectors who paid a healthy sum on the secondary market for this are going to be miffed, I don’t see a big problem with this particular release. Honestly, I sort of hope that we see some of the other rare Toys R Us exclusives like the two-packs of Cyclops and Dark Phoenix, Civil War Scarlet Witch and Vision, and Spider-Man and Mary Jane reissued to Fan Channel stores as well. There are certainly enough collectors who still need them.
Note that I’m using my photos from my review of the TRU Exclusive set with this article, as the official photos of the new release seem to indicate that the new version coming up later this year will be exactly the same, but without the Toys R Us sticker on the packaging.
If there end up being any changes to the toys themselves, I’ll post an update once the new Groot Evolution set begins arriving in collectors’ hands in late summer/fall.
The Groot Evolution Marvel Legends set is back up for order now online, and is scheduled to be released around September 2020. I suspect that this was initially targeted for a bit earlier in the year and had to be pushed back due to the pandemic setting the factories behind, but that’s just a guess on my part. Those who waited this long for an MCU Groot Legends figure can probably hold out a bit longer, though.
Any thoughts on this former Toys R Us exclusive going back into production? Would you be happy to see more old exclusives reissued, or are you crying foul on these types of re-releases?
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I’m glad to see these re-releases this year and I hope it’s a trend that continues and gains traction as I only started collecting ML figures in 2016 and would rather see these re-releases come out as opposed to backtracking and paying scalper prices. I actually hope they do entire re-release waves that include re-released AND newer BAFs but I know that it’s a blind hail mary throw at best. That being said, and as I’ve been sharking about on a few occasions on these boards, I would really like to see a Bruce Banner-to-Hulk “evolution” (5-pack, perhaps) set in the ML line at some point. I understand all about tooling costs but I think it’s a real possibility that there would only be minimal additives on top of what’s already available.
I’m betting that figures like this are being re-released because of the dreadful coronavirus. Some lines are probably being pushed back, like the Eternals, so they can coincide with the movie releases, that have now been pushed back. That leaves some empty slots for Hasbro to fill in with things like this.
I never got this Groot….only GOTG that I haven’t got. I was content with the little one that came with Rocket. I may pick this up, but I’m in no hurry to preorder or get it.
So this is a … re-re-issue?
I’ve been collecting ML since the beginning. This was an easy pass then and it’s an easy pass now for me. But for collectors like Raymond above and new fans to the Marvel Universe, I love the fact that Hasbro will make some of the older hard to find figures so they can begin their collections. Keep it up Hasbro! maybe while you’re at it, you could release a single pack Luke Cage for those of us who are still patiently waiting for him? 😉
Also, Box and Marinna from Alpha Flight! 😀
If they do an Alpha Flight Box, and I hope they do, I’d love to see the original Box as designed and drawn by John Byrne. Not the modified version that appeared later. Let’s go with the classics first!
Started collecting in 2004 so I was there for pretty much every release of Marvel Legends, Fantastic Four, X-Men Classics, Spider-Man Classics, DC Universe Classics and all the fill-in-the-hole lines like Marvel Select (Uatu, Mephisto, Brood, etc) and DC Direct/Collectibles/Essentials (Mera, Vixen, Geo-Force, The Ray, Superman of Earth 2) . I shudder to think of what everything would cost now had I started collecting in the past couple of years.
Glad you younger and late-to-the-game collectors have a chance to build your collections with these re-releases. Hopefully Hasbro can get some of the classic versions of characters taken care of that are in dire need of upgrade like Bronze Age Falcon and a good classic Electro that has… ya’ know… actual hands. Not to mention a Cannonball figure that isn’t “50% off”..
I do feel bad for collectors with an interest in DC action figures, though. MacFarlane seems to be hell bent on crashing that ship into the rocks.
I dunno about McFarlane, seems like the figures are selling reasonably well so far except for the DC 1000 Batman, which i mostly chalk up to the small head and that terrible torso cut. The rest are at lowest $1 below retail but most are still msrp or more. Obviously opinion about character choices and sculpture/articulation can vary, but i think the line has been a success so far. I would think the ongoing pandemic might make it tough for him to keep on schedule for some of the upcoming waves, though.
If his goal is to alienate the collector community he’s reasonably successful. These monstrosities being completely out of scale with existing DC lines as well as Marvel Legends and the sculpts being utter trainwrecks with wonky articulation and weird proportions are not doing him any favors. He seems hostile to the collector community and appears to delight in insulting Marvel Legends. His primary focus is obviously Spawn and I’m not sure I know anyone who has cared about that character since some time in the mid 1990s. I don’t know that any of this equals overall success. Fake pandemic or not.
I highly recommend this figure for anyone who couldn’t get ahold of it when it was a TRU exclusive. The smiling groot face is a joy, and while the articulation is limited it is still quite poseable and he looks great next to the other GotG or other ML figures, both mcu and comic imo. Also, the two “accessories”, sapling groot and baby groot, are extremely fun in their own right, despite no artic on either. Too bad they couldn’t throw in the ravager baby groot that came with Mantis wave Rocket, but i understand they plan to just reuse the same packaging as the TRU figure had.
to answer Dabid’s question, absolutely they should re-release TRU sets, wave BAFs, and sold-out solo figures via the fan channel route, altho usually a repaint would be nice just to differentiate it slightly from the original. even with groot i’m hoping he would have slightly different shades of brown & green but we’ll see. Would especially like to see Kingpin and Rhino get re-released as deluxe figs or even re-issued as part of two Spidey 2-packs. People looking to make money off BAFs still have a decent window for doing so, and as for people who pay a lot on ebay, well… caveat emptor.