And suddenly everybody wanted them ...

Put another way, both Warriors of the Zodiac and Legend of the Blade Hunters have been canceled by McFarlane Toys due to "lack of retail support." That's simply another way of saying your local coming book and toy store didn't order the figures.

This is a damn shame. Both lines started out with gorgeous first assortments and both had killer lineups for a second series. Word to all the comic stores; if you continue down this path you're going to continue to hemorrhage customer support.

On the Spawn.com forums, the moderator Joe F. wrote the following:

"Both the Fantasy and Zodiac lines have been canceled. Fantasy is what the Dragons line evolved into, basically (and) the Dragons line has been cancelled as well. The company is focusing on licensed products for right now. The in-house lines have not been getting a lot of retail support. It is a possibility to see some of these canceled figures in the future, but we (the company) will have to decide where they will fit.”

That about sums it up. On the McFarlane front, we still have the terrific Halo line to look forward to, as well as some interesting Spawn assortments including the currently much reviewed series 34 (reviewed everywhere but here, inexplicably).