Slugterra

These figures are made by Jakks Pacific and range in height from 1.5 to 2 inches -- the perfect minifigure size.  They come in packs of two.  So far, a total of 17 different pairs have been released within various waves (which came to different retailers).  In other international markets, some of these figures were also available within single carded-packs or single blind-packs.

The characters are based on the Slugterra TV and movie franchise.  Slugterra first aired in 2012 and has been on for three seasons.  Additionally, two feature-length animated films have been made.

The Slugterra figures also made their toystore debut in 2012, and new characters have slowly been appearing since then.  I have them pictured here as their original 2-pack pairs:

Burpy v1 + Joules (wave 1)

Goober + Banger (wave 1)

Rocky + Buzzsaw (wave 1)

Spinner + Bludgeon (wave 1 and 2)

Doc + Stinky (wave 1 and 2)

Chiller + Grimmstone (wave 2)

Bolo + Spooker (wave 2)

Burpy v1 (again) + Bugsy (wave 2)

Mucky + Flaringo (wave 3)

Suds + Glimmer (wave 3)

Burpy v2 + Stunts (wave 3)

Tangles + Mo (wave 3)

Bluster + Hop Jack (wave 3 and 4)

Xmitter + Bludgeon v2 (wave 4)

Goon Doc + Forgesmelter (wave 4)

Chiller v2 + Fire Elemental (wave 4)

Burpy v3 + Thugglet (wave 4)

As you can see, Burpy is the superstar slug of the show.  He has been made in three versions and appears in four different packs.  Overall, with 17 different packs, we get 33 different figures.

But wait -- there's more.

Toys R Us -- who skipped carrying both wave 2 and wave 3 -- steps back in and releases an additional six variant figures.  But not without a catch. You have to buy two different 10-packs to get these six exclusive figures. So that's another 14 forced-duplicates you end up with just to get the six barely-changed "guardian" slugs.

"Guardian" Bludgeon + Joules + Stinky

"Guardian" Doc + Rocky + Chiller

In all, we end up with 33 unique figures (representing 28 characters), 6 more variants, plus a bunch of duplicates.  Jakks might as well have just put them all in blind-bags.  The most disappointing thing is not the duplicates or the barely-changed variants, but the fact that Jakks Pacific has not taken advantage of their license-agreement and made a crazy, insane bunch of figures.

Wikipedia alone list more than 90 different slugs identified specifically in the TV show!  There's a whole lot of cool names and interesting characters that could (and should) be made into figures.  As far as I know, the toyline is still active.

All I'm saying is -- Jakks get on it -- make MORE slugs.