Rarities - Funskool Late Run Incinerator Variants

The Funskool Incinerator was first released in the latter half of 2003.  At the time, the release was relatively ignored by the collecting community.  1991 Incinerators were cheap.  The Funskool version wasn't that different from the Hasbro version.  And, Hasbro was releasing a large variety of new army building figures with even better ones coming in early 2004.  So, the collecting community pretty much let the figure slide into obscurity.  

In 2004, Funskool also stopped producing new figures.  Their sales were slipping and the gimmicks they tried to boost sales were not successful.  On top of that, Hasbro recalled many of the figure molds.  So, a wide variety of figures that were insanely popular with American collectors ceased to be available.  But, that wasn't as big of a deal as the Hasbro Joe line was also dying out.  The 2005 Hasbro line was cancelled and moved to the DTC model.  Collectors were losing interest in all things Joe.  So, for that reason, some of the final variants of the Funskool line went unreported.

Among them are some variants of the Incinerator figure.  Here is the original version that came out in 2003.  You'll see a black missile included with the figure.

Below is a version of the Incinerator that was produced in 2005.  Notice that he includes an orange missile.  This missile was available in both black and orange with the Funskool General Flagg figure, too.  So, the missiles aren't too hard to find if you have them loose.  The real takeaway here is that Funskool was still producing figures into 2005.  I thought they had ceased most of their production in 2004.  Seeing this 2005 figure, though, opens the door to other figures also have end of line variants.  As Funskool imports were mostly done by the end of 2004, many of these late runs may not have the collector reach of earlier figures.

One of the big changes that Funskool made in 2003, though, is that they improved the construction quality of their figures.  So, while the original Incinerators aren't terrible, there's a good chance that these 2005 figures are higher quality than the earlier runs.