As for the difficulty to find at retail, that has been much discussed and I’m not sure I can give you an exact reason. I think it has taken some time for the larger retail store to understand the way that these figures need to be ordered and sold. The major chains ordered heavily on wave 1. Quantities that were enough to last them the entire year of 2008. So in March, when Mattel was ready to send out wave 2 most stores still had ample amounts of wave 1 to put out.

Judging from what I have seen at retail around here. These figures are selling very well. Mattel has stated that they are working more closely with their retail partners to help them understand they need to order less, but more frequently and that new waves will be available throughout the year. Hopefully this will help for 2009. Already, I’ve recently seen the availability increase for waves 3 and 4 at the local Toys R Us stores.

I’m sure that there are more challenges that Mattel is facing as far as distribution which is making it difficult to find these at retail. If you have a local comic/toy shop you might stop by there as well to see if they either have a direct account with Mattel or might order these for you through Diamond distribution. Hope some of that helps answer your question, happy toy hunting!