For me, I use the current articulation for my figures but I can live without the neck joint like that on the Namor and X-23. It makes sense on someone like Spiderman and maybe Cyclops if they wanted to show him with some versatility, but it can go and I would not miss it. Just another area resistant to paint with that oil-impregnated part. But the knee and elbow I am loving because the poses I can get are very emotive. I can have a figure prone at a dead body weeping, which you can't do that for most figures.

I hated the 'rocker ankle' as well, but only warmed up to it just a bit when I found how easy it is swap out the lower foot. Boil and pops with ease.

The full artic on the She Hulk was grand. For one, I noted that she has that extra-elbow artic. Another great thing is that her entire mold is molded from head to joints in the exact same color. Something that I wish they would employ with the rest of the figures. Don't know know many stripped down figures look so odd with their off-hue joints. Even the clear Invisible Woman has joints in white.

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this.

I'd prefer the o ring as well. as long as there is a back screw.

however I think that would make them stand out too much from the previous modern toys and turn off a large portion of collectors. Unless they were handled in a way that showed they were the end all beat all GI Joe figure. Then fans would buy them no matter what.

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Mid-thigh. In fact, PLEASE take it away.

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Yeah - that's pretty much all I'm willing to sacrifice at this point. It's fine of your figure is riding a horse, but otherwise, it's unnecessary

But that's it for me - we've come too far with the MU figs and Joes (up until Retaliation) to start taking stuff away now.

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NO!! My figures need to be able to point their knees, for some of the wide stanced action poses I like to put them into. They look knock kneed, without it. The mid calf joint that a lot of the newer MU figures have is kinda pointless, though.

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people think im crazy but i could live with regular old style 5 point articulation. im actuallt a big fan of the chap mei stuff except military and dont mind the 5 point, what i mind is the 5 point stuck in permanent action poses.

for newer stuff i dont understand the double knees and elbows in the first place and i hate the mid thight swivel. i sort of like the mid torso just for the customizing possibilities but i agree it doesnt actually seem to do much.

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The mid-thigh is closer to actual human articulation.

True but it looks and acts like crap on toys AKA not humans.

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I'm spoiled. Less articulation than the full original 25th Anniversary standard and I get bummed. The one exception? Double-jointed knees. I don't miss those on 25th Bazooka or Destro.

I love the 25th ankle joints because you can get the figures to stand on their own. The new ankles are OK, but I prefer the older style.

True. It's not too bad if they can hide it where a strap is or something though.

So maybe somebody could post a pic of how exactly the mid-thigh ever helps? If the fig already has ball hips, the only added help I see from the mid-thigh is when riding a horse or motorcycle, you can turn the knees in/out an add'l 10 degrees to get a slightly more realistic look. That hardly seems worth it to me? What am I missing?

On Joes, I think the essentals would have to be neck, ball-hinged shoulders, ball-hinged elbows, wrists, ball-hinged hips, at least one knee joint and either ball-hinged or rocker ankles.

Obviously having more would be a lot better, but these are the absolute essentials. Anything less would kill my interest in the figures.

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On Joes you would get the movement that's lost from the swivel ankles being replaced with rockers. The rockers are more accurate to human movement but you the swivel movement can make a difference. So if you have a rocker ankle with a thigh swivel, you get perfect human accurate movement from the figure.

I'm thinking if you want to keep that sort of pose-ability while minimizing articulation points, it'd be better to do the compound joint at the knee, with the hinge/swivel, like on 25th Scarlett, Baroness, or a lot of Star Wars figures. It's the same number of parts and cuts, if compared to a double-hinged knee.