Hasbro has taken a beating from collector's over the years, a beating that they have deserved to a certain extent. I mean, sure, they didn't set out to please the adult collectors with the 12" line, but alot of their tactics were lame & repetitive. As a customizer, I've enjoyed Hasbro's figures over the years alot more than I would if I was just a collector. I enjoy the challenge & I enjoyed having customizing parts options with the figures..well.. up until the point that they started re-using so many parts & when they started all the molded-on clothing crap.
Sure, it's fun to say that the Talking Indy looks like Emilio Estevez, Treat Williams or even the evil sensei of the Kobra-Kai in Karate Kid but that's simply because it's Hasblow and their track record has been sketchy for quite a while now. Really, it's not that bad (I want to repaint his eyes and see if that helps any, he looks cross-eyed & goofy a bit), it still looks like Indy. For me, I was very excited to see 12" figures back on store shelves. It's nice to again have affordable customizing fodder without paying all those outrageous shipping charges. Even better, I actually like the figures. The whipping action Indy sculpt actually blew me away & looked way better than the proto I had seen before. It looks to me like the sculptor took some inspiration from the Arnie Kim sculpt. I also like that they are making some collector-friendly packaging. I gotta give Hasbro some credit for these figures, I haven't been this impressed with Hasbro since Ultimate Jango & Dooku. More importanly, it's nice to think of a new generation of kids being able to have Indy figures instead of just Dragonball Z, Naruto, Pokemon and any of the other imported force-fed mass-marketing nonsense.
There are some things that I don't like, but at their pricepoint I won't bust their balls too much (I do hate the drawn-on details on the shirt!). So far, I bought 3 of the 12" figures (Talking Indy, Whipping Indy & Cairo Swordsman) I used parts from all 3 to make one nice Indy (used the SA body from the swordsman). The leftover parts went into my parts drawer & once I buy one more figure, I'll have enough stamps for the Ark, so I'm happy. I'm trying to decide if I want to repaint the whole figure & weather it, etc. Maybe sometime in the future.
I wish Hasbro would actually make a small series of high-end figures along the lines of Sideshow's stuff. The Super-articulated body could be nice with some tweaking (it needs to be taller & they desperately need new handsculpts) Imagine a whipping Indy sculpt on a refined SA Hasbro body with clothing similar to the Relic Hunter figure...that would be a pretty nice looking high-end figure and could go for at least $65-$75.