Its is already July and you can already feel the calm before the storm. Not only are retailers ramping up orders for the Holiday season, they are also getting antsy for Force Friday, which is Sept 4th. There are no pre-orders up on the wholesale level so they are keeping this one close until the very end. Most Force Awakens solicits have no pictures, you just order on blind faith that it will be bad to the bone like previous Star Wars merchandise. But here is what we do know. Hasbro and Star Wars have cut the Black Series production significantly. Waves 1-7 are no longer being shipped and waves 8 and 9 won’t be far behind. There is only one good reason for this and it is to clear the factories out to start cranking out EPVII merchandise. Maybe they are starting a new phase or something who knows. Retailers are starting to take notice and are slowly creeping the prices up on figures from earlier waves. Look at wave 1 for example. Retailers were panicking and unloading them for cost in some cases. Now R2D2 is an easy $50-$60 with the rest of the wave fetching $30-$40 each. As far as I know there have been no cuts to the deluxe series, which is already on its third wave. Check out the full Black Series check list below.
Wave 1
Wave 2
Wave 3
Luke Skywalker (Bespin Fatigues)
Wave 4
Wave 5
Darth Vader (always hot)
Wave 6
Obi-Wan Kenobi (repack sort of)
Wave 7
Wave 8
Wave 9
Deluxe Wave 1
Deluxe Wave 2
Speeder Bike with Biker Scout (repack)
Deluxe Wave 3
Han Solo and Tauntaun (repack)
