I really wish Hasbro would do soemthing about this.
As much as I wish that would happen, it won't, because Hasbro doesn't care. They see their involvement with the product as ending when it leaves their doors and although they will spin things to sound as if they care what their consumers think, they couldn't care less.
Hasbro sees money for the Clones regardless of whether or not we are able to find them. Target probably had to order a lot of product in return for getting these exclusives, and as long as they make money on them, Target couldn't care less about who gets them. One person buying 12 figures at 13 dollars a pop is the same thing as 12 people buying one figure each to them. Unless they're under tight restrictions on what they can and can't do (such as the Lava Vader), Target is going to do whatever makes Target the quickest amount of money.
With Hasbro basically saying at the Convention (if I read this right) that the Clone is "out now" and is not subject to the same type of rules and regulations that applied to the Vader, it's just given people, be they Target managers/employees, scalpers and Ebay speculators, or even a so-called collector whose world will end if he does not obtain all 12 for his personal collection the license to more or less do whatever they want. The thing is though that, like I said before, Hasbro doesn't care.
I don't know if anyone else has been around long enough to remember the complete disaster that was the 12" Hoth Luke and Wampa set that Target had as an exclusive. Target basically let people buy multiples of the set and left a lot of people empty handed. Scalping was rampant on the piece and still Hasbro (Kenner at the time) refused to make more of the set until LFL stepped in and said "Everyone who wants one will get one" and pretty much ordered Hasbro to make more.
I have a feeling that unless LFL (who in all honesty have much more important things on their plate right now than making sure we can all get a Clone Trooper figure) steps in, this kind of thing is going to continue.
Hey, while we're at it, let's do like I suggested in another thread (was it this one?) and make 12 different Clones and release one per month as a Target exclusive so we don't even have to stand up after they've finished reaming us.
