I think Aqua's fine as is. All ya gotta do is push the Mera bystander token, and voi-la! Aquaman gets a +1 to all stats. And yes, I generally play 500 and up with buddies, but still...Eh, I guess I can see the OP's point. But Aqua's not one of em, imo. The Avengers Taskmaster, would be a PRIME example of an over priced piece. Also, Taskmaster...? He's one of the best in the set, if used correctly. On a 1000 pt. Thunderbolts team, he's gonna be especially nasty.

I agree, and this is one of the reasons I miss the old REV system.

But despite the vocal portion of the Realms that does not like seeing the same character 3 times in a set, I kind of do, if they have a good range of point values for more options.

And like the OP said, I use the 75 point Cyclops because I can use the 35 point difference from the GSX version to add or upgrade another character.

I think the big issue with the REV system was that, at least when I was playing (for the first five sets or so), the figures in an REV set typically played roughly the same, and the change in weight class was not so much as to be notable. There'd be a 10-30 point gap between the rookie and the veteran, and usually it was just a better idea to take the more powerful one unless you were low on points or there was some unusual combo that worked better on a lower point figure (or unless the character had one trick that there was no need to pay extra for).

This, I feel, came about because early HeroClix was based heavily on Mage Knight, which very much just powered up figures as you increased the points. There, it made perfect sense (as you often were bringing an army full of small, low-powered units and having some tougher ones as squad leader sorts worked well with the formation rules). For HC, on the other hand, it made things boring because each set had the same character with the same basic powers three times, and most of the time one version was head and shoulders above the other two.

I think a better version of the REV system would take a page from Mechwarrior, where the different ranks of figures often had widely different powers and played in completely different ways.

As I see it, alternate starting lines are perfect for capturing the REV system of old, as they offer the same sort of scaling power along a single theme. Alternate versions (including reused sculpts) could/should be used to offer variety and totally different flavors/playstyles of characters, possibly in different weight classes (the two Avengers Movie Hulks [014 and 202] spring to mind as a great example of this).

TOTALLY agree with the OP. I compartmentalize characters by what I feel like their point cost should be. That's one of the reasons why I never held onto my WoS Deadpool- Deadpool doesn't 'feel' like a 150+ character to me. Same with the CA Kitty Pryde that was over 100 and the 194 point Joker from the DKR set. While I love the GSX Cyclops dial, it is hard for me to put him on smaller teams at 110 points.

They do need to start differentiating the ranges better.

The 111 point Aquaman is for a 200 pt Atlantis team with DC75 Mera and the JL Silver Age ATA for an even 200 points.

I can see both sides of this, but I tend to agree with Tyro quite a bit.

My example is the SR Reed vs the Chase Reed from Galactic Guardians. 130 is more points than I want to spend on a Mr. Fantastic. This is a guy that needs his teammates around him, and at 130 points, he is just too costly to build a normal FF team around. I much prefer my 100 point starter or 110 point Chase versions.

However, at least we have a decent little point spread there to choose from.

I say no. Point cost is not a consideration for me when I build a team. I say this with the disclaimer that I used to play a lot of games that were 1,000~2,000 points games.

As long as the character is (within reason) close to accurate, I'll play them regardless of point cost.

Excellent post!

I would say straight up point cost the original galactus was a little over costed. He should be somewhere around 1500 points