Sideshow
Swamp Thing must be a big flop due to be made of vinyl and PVC. That’s the only
explanation behind the existence of Prime 1 Gemora vinyl figure. To me is
pretty obvious that Sideshow asked Prime 1 to launch a second rate character
statue in vinyl for a price not distant from the polystone version (given the
polystone one comes with many swappable parts and the vinyl version has none).
Imho this
shows how close the companies are. Enough to plot this whole scheme in order to
justify the pricing of Sideshow Swamp Thing and help it to sell. I do believe
that Prime 1 didn’t have the plan to release this piece in vinyl before the
Swamp Thing incident. And I believe the production price shouldn’t be really very
distant being polystone or vinyl. I don’t know if the whole
prejudice/prejudgment towards vinyl figures proceeds since I didn’t get the
Swamp Thing figure in hand to make my mind. But I think I’ll maintain my
opinion that the material, be it pewter, polystone or vinyl or whatever, shouldn’t
really matter since it looks really good on the shelf. I will not move it,
apart from some rearrangement in my room. I won’t carry it with me anywhere nor
I plan to sell it so I don’t have any problems with the material whatsoever. I
don’t think the final result of Swamp Thing will be any different from the
prototype. But this remains to be seen. I don’t believe it will look or feel “cheap”.
I really don’t get what that means. But I am still astonished about how
Sideshow made Prime 1 launch a vinyl version of one of its figures. I can’t see
any other explanation for that. Prime 1 simply didn’t need to. Ironically, the
Gamera is a pretty detailed statue regarding textures even in polystone. What
makes one wonder if the level of details possible by polystone to be the real
reason behind the decision of Sideshow to make Swamp Thing of vinyl and PVC. I
believe it was really a way to keep the costs down to the buyer and especially avoid
breakage during shipping.
P.S.: Why the
figures nowadays come so disassembled? In older times, one needed only to fix
the statue to the base and all was done; maybe attach the head and that was it.
I don’t like this trend since the magnets of the joints will eventually fade
and the parts will fall. One will have to glue them in order to keep them in
place then.
