2012 is Marvel Legends' 10th Anniversary!
Has it really been almost a DECADE since Marvel Legends started in 2002? I remember buying the 1st Wave Captain America, Iron Man, and Hulk at TRU for only $7 each and each included a COMIC BOOK! I lived in Southern Arkansas then and small town Wal-Marts were GOLD MINES! I got 2 of each wave through Wave 5 1 to open and display and 1 to leave MOC! I remember finding the ENTIRE Wave 6 including DEADPOOL at a Wal-Mart and never saw any more Wave 6. Wave 7 and 8 were RARE too, I got 1 of each. Distribution was better with Galactus Wave 9. I collected ALL the Toy Biz Marvel Legends figures but SADLY SOLD ALL (along with Playmates Simpsons and PALISADES MUPPETS) .when I moved outside of St Louis 7 years ago since my smaller house has less room. I am 1st a DC Comics fan and still have ALL DC Direct and JLU, DCUC, etc!
I am collecting the NEW 2012 Marvel Legends and glad the line has returned! I am looking foward to new characters and BAFs and hope previous ML characters are REVISITED like Scarlet Witch! Marvel UNIVERSE is fun, but nothing beats 6" scale!
I actually found the first wave of Marvel Legends and its' predecessor, Spider-Man Classics, at Ames! Ames got them first around here and they were getting a lot of Gold Iron Mans too. I had about three of them for myself and picked up extras for friends (most on the Toybuzz at the time) and trades. I traded Ken Lilly of Palisades (at the time) a Gold Iron Man for a Muppet (the convention Invisible Spray Beaker, IIRC).
Ah, good times! Iron Man and Cap from that first wave are still great representatives of those characters and dare I say, still the best overall versions of them too.
I worked for Babbages when the ML figures first hit and we got our first case in with a Gold Iron Man. I put a post it note on it wrote my name on it and was going to come back on my day off and get it. I came back the next day and it was gone. My boss had bought it thinking it was on hold for him( we had the same name) because he was a die hard Iron Man fan. To this day it sits on his shelf with all the ML Iron Mans.
I collected them up to the later waves and still am pissed about passing up Deadpool I mistakenly sold all of mine off to a local scalper several years ago and cannot belive the after market that is on some of these. I still have my Giant Man and Galactus along with a couple of carded variants including Dark Phoenix but the package was chipped on the bottom when I bought it. I also have a Doom Bot somewhere still
" F***Ing Ebay!!"
Awww. Babbage's. I miss those days. When there were several options for shopping (that didn't include online)...KB, TRU, Hill's/Ames, Babbage's, Gamestop, etc. And EVERYTHING had a toyline. If this were 2002, there would for SURE be a John Carter line. 
Regardless, I remember picking these up at Babbages, myself. Fell instantly in love.
Definately one of my favorite toy collecting years, 2002.
TMNT 2k, MOTU 200X, the movie Hulk line later on in the year. Spider-Man the movie, Spider-Man Classics, Mezco's Reservoir Dogs, and Popeye.....amazing stuff that year.
I think it was 2002, as well that DC Direct finally was able to start making Batman and Superman characters. That was the year they started doing the SIlver Age Superman/Lois Lane, Superboy/Girl, Batman/Robin and Death and Return of Superman lines.
I think I had bough one or 2 Spiderman classics figures early on bud did not purchase any ML until Series 3 was out. Once I picked up that wave, I was still able to pick up wave 1 and two at a Pamida store or something. The only eBaying I had to resort to was paying $15 each for a Stealth and Gold Ironman and $10 for a Doombot. I'd been able to find all of the subsequent variants except for the S3 unmasked wolverine (which I got via a trade for some later variant).
When ML came out, I think I was still primarilly focued on the McFarlane stuff.