2008 NY Toy Fair Coverage - Marvel
This weekend is the 2008 International Toy Fair in New York. It’s a media/retailers event where toy companies show off their product for the upcoming year to entice retailers to pick up various lines for distribution in their stores. It’s not like a comic-con, so it’s not really focused on fans/collectors. Nevertheless, we do get to see some exciting toy prototypes and here some big news from the major companies about what they’ll be producing this year. TheFwoosh has nice galleries of images covering everything that has been show so far. Expand the post to see my rundown of the highlights of the fair.
Okay, I’ve been pretty vocal about Hasbro’s upping the price of the Hulk Marvel Legends figures to 15 bucks a pop. Hasbro eased some, but not much, of that tension by showing the Fin Fang Foom BAF. It’s pretty impressive. But outside of Wendigo, none of the standard figures are impressive at all. They are no bigger/better/nicer than any of Hasbro’s previous legends. So, clearly, the price increase is all about the BAF. Which is poor marketing in my opinion. Hasbro did say that they’d sell Foom on his own, fully assembled, as a SDCC exclusive, but that it would be limited to 2008 pieces. So that kinda sucks too. See pics of all these figures here.
However, Hasbro did redeem themselves a bit with the figures they showed from their upcoming 2008 two-packs of Marvel Legends. They showed Elektra and Ronin - who both look pretty good and have solid articulation, as well as an Ultimate Nick Fury and Ultimate Captain American set that also looks good. We don’t know the price on these yet. It *should* be about twenty bucks like Hasbro’s other 2-packs. But with the hike in the main Legends line, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Hasbro go to 25 or even higher on these. And that would also suck… Check out TheFwoosh’s pics here.
Hasbro also revealed that their The Incredible Hulk movie figures will be 3 3/4″ scale. That’s no real surprise. Hasbro loves that scale and they’ve already stated they’ll be launching a new Marvel Universe line in the 3 3/4″ scale this year, so I expect to see all movie figs that size to tie in with their new line going forward. The Iron Man movie figs are still 6″. So that’s cool. Hulk pics here. Iron Man pics here.
Tags: dcuc, gijoe, hml, lcbh, marvel legends
Mattel is doing it great with DC universe and is going to do it better, the box set are a pretty cool idea, and the cyborg and wonder woman looks awesome. about LCBH is a shame, i heard something about the guy working with these line will work with hasbro and marvel legends, that would be really good. the foom figures is great but, still dont get why rise the cost; is because is bigger than others hasbro BAFS??? the sentinel is the bigger BAFS, second tyhe giant man, and apocalyse and then galactus, and toy biz didnt rise prices, thats ridiculous, so if they increase prices, i want my comic book and my stand back also. the absorbing man and the wendigo looks decent, but, why do i need another she hulk??? in two years this is the third one… and those scales for toys are a jump backward to a toy line that is not star wars or gi joe, i like make displays like marvel vs dc or straat fighter, not alike marvel vs star wars or gi joe….
yeah, i couldn’t care less about the smaller scale figures either. i like gi joe in that scale, because it’s classic. but the “modern” action figure is the highly detailed, highly articulated figure. that pretty much has to be done in the larger 6″ scale in order to be done right. to me, 3 3/4″ = kiddie toy.
Jesse Falcon was the guy behind ToyBiz’ Marvel Legends and apparently he is now working with Hasbro in a greater capacity. That is a very smart move by Hasbro. Jesse, while not perfect, is at least a comics geek who understands what collectors want in their toys. So hopefully he can battle the Hasbro bigwhigs enough to get some pretty good figs pumped out in the coming year.
Sadly, only Cyborg and Wonder Woman will be with DCUC. The rest mentioned in the mattel section will be in a smaller 3inch collectors line. Does it make me sad? Yes. Am I excited to see what other figures will be in DCUC wave 4? Heck Yes.
Oh well, i dunno why make figures in that scale anymore, the hawk man looks cool but im not interested in that scale. anyway, i guess wonder woman is going to be the main character from DCUC 4th series, so there must be a villain of her, i bet well get a chettah or giganta, but mostly a chettah, so who could be the other 3 figs and the collect and connect?. by the way the elektra from the two packs is going to have a variant skrull like in new avengers stroy line, and the cap and fury are including interchangebles parts, like a cap´s clear head and hands for both of them, i always saw the alternate heads a logical step on toy biz line (like dead pool and weapon x) but instead they gave us those, sometimes, ridiculous variants (like bullseye or abomination), the hands…i dunno, why just dont make them articulated like mostly of marvel legends that actually can show a bird????
Oh my…this is bad…I don’t like the FFFoom! He has less articulation than he should to say the least. The sculpt…eh… the articulation is pathetic! AND that is not the biggest problem with the line…Hasbro complains that Toy Biz did all the charaters but then they copy what they did almost exactly with the damned Absorbing Man. I have a nice absorbing man you idiots I wanted a Bi Beast or one of the other characters I was at least a little excited about. You already did a She Hulk you morons and you messed her up the first time! The Sasquatch looks almost just like the Sasquatch Toy Biz did …Wendigo sorry but they were the same figure just a repaint but you get the point. I only saw one Hulk (and He looked almost like a Zombie Hulk) that looked decent. Doc Samson better not have been cut!
Anyway I don’t know now if I will get these cause that FFFoom is a BIG let down. Hasbro is the worst now! Yeah Mattel! Oh but what I am most upset about is the Legendary Heroes… is that on this thread? This may be the worst news of all since I will now NOT get a superarticulated Grendel! Or that sweet Frost Giant! DAMN!
I am at least given the gift of The Maxx but watch that line get canceled or something! I WANT A HUNTER ROSE -GRENDEL figure I can play with!!!!!!
i actually think the foom figure looks pretty good, but i agree with you on the other points. We don’t know yet who has actually been dropped from these series. there is another set of four figs coming in the second wave of Hulk Legends, but if i had to wager a guess, I’d say that doc samson and valkyrie are the two who don’t make the cut. Maybe they’ll show up in one of hasbro’s legends 2packs this year. shrug. i’m really interested to see how well this hulk legends series sells for hasbro. i predict a lot of strong pegwarmers.
Yeah, now that toy fair has had a couple days to “settle in” for me, I have a pretty positive outlook on Hasbro and Marvel legends. Hasbro has always discounted the collector as a major player in their market base. They care about kids and kids toys only. But I think Hasbro is finally realizing that collectors buy a lot more of their toys - particularly marvel legends - than they thought. in fact, i don’t think i’ve ever seen a kid browsing MLs in the toy aisle.
The Hulk wave is a clear indication that hasbro is marketing ML to adult collectors now. There’s no way a kid is going to pay 15 bucks for a weirdo figure and a piece of a dragon when there’s a 7 dollar Eon Kid fig on the shelf right beside it. Maybe 2008 will be a year of experimentation for hasbro, trying new things, new price points, new articulation models, etc. to try find something that works for them, and works for us. whether anything they try actually works or not… well, that remains to be seen. but at least they’re finally putting forth the effort with this line.