selling out i totally understand, like you said, from a collector's standpoint.
i was under the impression the complaints were stemming from not carrying the items period
no, the complaints stem from the fact parents often think they don't sell things because they can't find them... but alot of black widow stuff sells out because female figures are popular among-st collectors and they are not packed 2 per case like the leading men are.. because little boys tend not to buy them (and there's usually only 1 or 2 spots for double packed figures)
for instance, the black widow figure from the Winter Soldier line was pretty hard to come by...
the Age of Ultron widow (in the smaller scale was an easier find, but was a toys r us exclusive... Wanda had a mass release and was also hard to find.
Parents went and complained (and got other people riled up) because they couldn't find widow merchandise anywhere... and thus immediate assumed marvel/hasbro didn't make any.. and there for were labeling them as sexist and began attacking them for it...
when a very easy search on google, amazon, and ebay will show you quite alot of black widow merchandise..... and make it much easier to get than hunting for it in stores...
that's the stuff that bothers me.. false rage caused by ignorance.
it's like people are now complaining about widow not being on the cover of a UK age of ultron dvd cover... and instead showing the big 4... the big 4 are the big 4 of the avengers.. just like the big 3 of DC are wonder-woman, superman, and batman... no matter how hard you try to make aquaman and green lantern happen... those 3 will always be considered the big 3... (and it's not like widow was the only one left out... Hawkeye, vision, war-machine, falcon, wanda, and pietro were all left out too...
then you have to get into DVD cover logistics... and what many don't understand (and im sure you of all people also know this) different versions get different covers... meaning there's likely a different image for the blu-ray as there is for the DVD or for the 3D blu-ray... all likely have different covers... and hell... the Winter Soldier blu-ray had multiple covers.... one with ONLY black widow on it...
so that's what i'm getting at... people jump on a witch hunt of outrage before actually doing any research. and that stuff bothers the hell out of me.