Wrong approach to Marvel Legends

[CJDDO]

Hello all, this is my first post but have been visiting the message board for some time now and collecting ML since series 1. It kind of seems to me that the approach that both hasbro and toy biz have taken with the ML line is actually straying from the "legends" aspect of the characters they choose to produce. The multitudes of wolverines, captain americas, hulks, iron men (you get the point) are interesting and welcome additions to a collection (well, for the most part), but these companies also forget that alot of B and even C list characters helped the marvel universe an interesting comic universe. Reading alot of posts you have started and repiled to make me think that alot of you would agree.

Focusing less on repitition and more on character variety is the key to success. A less "popular" character in the comics (ie Original Quasar, Nova (Frankie Ray) or any herald of galactus for that matter, Sting Ray, mocking bird, Original Thunderbird) may make for a visually stunning and popular action figure and breathe new life into that character from a comic book point of view. My point is, a popular comic character does not always tranlate into the best looking or best selling action figure. What do you guys think?

[Action Figure Soundwave]

Yes. A Majority of Us collectors would definintly love to see alot of secondary Characters like that , but 1. you can't blame Toybiz about that, cause they did give us a good amount of B characters.....and 2. now that Hasbro has ML, they look at Kids first and Collectors second, meaning that popular characters like Wolverine, Hulk ,and Captain America are usually what kids are looking for...... Do you think that a 10 year old knows who some-one like Stingray ,Moondragon or Starfox is ?.....

[CJDDO]

Yes. A Majority of Us collectors would definintly love to see alot of secondary Characters like that , but 1. you can't blame Toybiz about that, cause they did give us a good amount of B characters.....and 2. now that Hasbro has ML, they look at Kids first and Collectors second, meaning that popular characters like Wolverine, Hulk ,and Captain America are usually what kids are looking for...... Do you think that a 10 year old knows who some-one like Stingray ,Moondragon or Starfox is ?.....

 

Hehe, i know what you're saying. I absolutely agree with the fact that froma sales perspective, you need the continual resence of popular figs, but it's also those popular figs that become peg warmers. I think that you put out a visually interesting B lister and that figure may catch the interest of both collectors and kids alike (ie stilt man, radioactive man to name a couple, lol)

[DeDzBRACKADOOM]

Even the fellas at Toy Biz said in an interview that they always try to toss in a "Heavy Hitter" each line so they can rest assure kids will buy them up just the same as collectors. I totally understand why they put out 50 Iron Mans and Wolverines and Hulks and Caps, because you can't rely solely on collectors to pick up your figures.

 

I would like to see more B and C list characters in the lines. I mean the next line of Legends includes Nova and Tigra and Blackbolt, which fans I'm sure will argue they aren't B or C listers, but I highly doubt kids are very familiar with the characters unless they read comics. While we get "Heavy Hitters" Punisher, Daredevil and Beast (well possibly Beast). I welcome the addition of another Punisher figure and Daredevil's Yellow costume is sweet.

 

I think there's a decent enough balance between what they're aiming at kids and what they're aiming at Collectors. I mean the B-A-F is friggin' Holocau...er...Nemesis! That's just 5 shades of Awesome.

[tarot]

Yes. A Majority of Us collectors would definintly love to see alot of secondary Characters like that , but 1. you can't blame Toybiz about that, cause they did give us a good amount of B characters.....and 2. now that Hasbro has ML, they look at Kids first and Collectors second, meaning that popular characters like Wolverine, Hulk ,and Captain America are usually what kids are looking for...... Do you think that a 10 year old knows who some-one like Stingray ,Moondragon or Starfox is ?.....

 

 

i don't really a gree with the fact that hasbro uses the main heros. if you look at the last 3 waves only one or two were these big names. and, while i do believe is primarily a kids company, they do listen to the fan alot. i mean if we didn't complain we wouldn't have gotten the FF wave (cuase the FFROTSS line was 5 inch). they do alot of fan choices. the first wave had Banshee, Emma Frost ( both crap i know) and hercules were fan choices and the baf annihilus . the second wave had SHe-hulk, Quicksilver Yellowjacket, blob the best in the wave. and wave three had Rachel Grey, Black Knight, Ast Cyclops, Hydra. if wave 3 does come out it will be nothing but fan choices. Black bolt Tigra and Nova are peoples first choice with FA DD and Ast Beast needed for x-men, dd and fa fans. Nemesis is one of the most wanted baf for awhile, (not my first choice but i like that were getting him.) The hulk wave are the same. FA she-hulk is for she-fans and we finally get a Wendigo and FFF. even Absrobing man is a fan choice cause let face it who got the first one?

 

as for taking the Legends out of marvel legends. IT A BRAND NAME. it was only legend at first but that only cuase they didn't think it would last this long. most of the legends are used up and they have to dig into the archive to pick there wave.

[Pygmalion]

Personnaly I think the best way to get some B- or C-listers in the legends line, is the use of themed Waves.

Like the recent F.F. wave and the new Hulk wave. It is a way to spotlight some more obscure characters and use the heavy-hitters to grab customers attention. I think there are still a lot of visually appealing characters in the Marvel Universe left that are not A-listers, but could still sell. You just need some good attention grabber.

[ARROW]

Well, the problem lies with associations--specifically the publics ( re: consumers) associations to the characters.

The line is going to need anchors of some kind in each wave--its just a smart marketing tact.

Marvel claims some 5000 characters in its rosters, and probably only about 2 dozen can be considered to be top-tier mainstream. That's leaves a lot of lower tier characters no-one knows much about.

 

See, they have to address three groups of consumers: those that are diehard ( usually older)fans whom know the length and breadth of the Marvel Universe quite well, those that are comic fans but are younger and less knowledgable, and those that know squat about the characters aside from the last ones seen in a movie etc.

The last two categories are the most populous, apparently--so they have to stack the rosters with characters that everyone knows.

 

I'd love a line-up of obscure characters.

A roster with Starfox, Shaper of Worlds, Le Peregrine, Stingray, The Master, Overmind and Sabra would rock my socks off......but how many people know of the characters I've just named? How often have they been in comics in the past 20 years? They are relevant to me because they were around when I was first reading comics in the early 1980's--but they are probably a LOT LESS relevant to readers in the past decade.

Hasbro and Marvel understand this, so they salt the line-ups with A, B, and C-list characters.

Honestly, I think they are going about it exactly the right way for their needs.

[billmaru]

I would love a B & C wave. Most of the recent and upcoming waves are based on movies. Not necessarily movie accurate, but Fantastic Four, Hulk and I've heard there's another Iron Man wave coming. This bothers me just a little because I'm a huge X-Men fan. Does this mean we'll not see an X-Men wave until the Wolverine :Origins movie? However, a Dominic Monaghan as Beak and a Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool could bring some fun to the table.

[ScorpioKyle]

i'm for putting in A listers we've had before, when they are good sculpts and costumes. series one of hasbro had a hulk and iron man figure, both known charcters and ok toys. wave 2 had a wolverine, a horrible horrible horrible horrible toy. the abe lincoln face on it will plague my nightmares forever.

[Rollo Tomassi]

I think what CJDDO is saying is that rather than it be Marvel's responsibility to provide Hasbro with marketable characters, Hasbro should be trying to garner attention for lesser known characters by making figures of them, so that potential readers ( IE Kids) will see the toy and want to find out more about that character. Thus getting them into comic shops and increasing Marvel's bottom line revenue.

 

Hasbro's attitude that kids ONLY want Wolverine and Spider-Man figures is defeatist in my opinion. Kids tastes are constantly changing. And Marvel has PLENTY of visually interesting characters that would catch a potential purchaser's eye if it was on the shelf. Quasar and Radioactive Man being two examples given, but knowing there are literally HUNDREDS of potential figures to be made. And the problem isn't entirely Hasbro's. Marvel is reluctant to expand past its core "60's" creations in terms of mass marketing and cross promotion. I've oftened wondered what would happen if they marketed Alpha Flight or the Inhumans with cartoon series, seperate toy lines, etc. These are all great characters with rich back stories. Why couldn't they benefit from a little promotion?

 

But if you're going to get a license from a company whose tagline is "Over 5000 characters and counting" then perhaps you should make as many of those characters as possible and let the buyer decide, rather than second guessing them based on past sales charts.

[ScorpioKyle]

I think what CJDDO is saying is that rather than it be Marvel's responsibility to provide Hasbro with marketable characters, Hasbro should be trying to garner attention for lesser known characters by making figures of them, so that potential readers ( IE Kids) will see the toy and want to find out more about that character. Thus getting them into comic shops and increasing Marvel's bottom line revenue.

 

Hasbro's attitude that kids ONLY want Wolverine and Spider-Man figures is defeatist in my opinion. Kids tastes are constantly changing. And Marvel has PLENTY of visually interesting characters that would catch a potential purchaser's eye if it was on the shelf. Quasar and Radioactive Man being two examples given, but knowing there are literally HUNDREDS of potential figures to be made. And the problem isn't entirely Hasbro's. Marvel is reluctant to expand past its core "60's" creations in terms of mass marketing and cross promotion. I've oftened wondered what would happen if they marketed Alpha Flight or the Inhumans with cartoon series, seperate toy lines, etc. These are all great characters with rich back stories. Why couldn't they benefit from a little promotion?

 

But if you're going to get a license from a company whose tagline is "Over 5000 characters and counting" then perhaps you should make as many of those characters as possible and let the buyer decide, rather than second guessing them based on past sales charts.

 

yeah, agree with you fully on that. I miss when they would make the most obscure characters into toys, granted that was back when the toys were really basic.

[Maxim]

TB themselves did an Alpha Flight line in the 5 inch days. It didn't sell well and ended up on clearance. Why? Probably because there wasn't ANY real recognizable characters in the mix. The same thing happened with just about any of their sub-lines that deviated from having well-known characters.

 

Where is this attitude that Hasbro thinks kids only want Wolverine and Spider-man?? They've made ONE Wolverine ML in Series 2. As far as Spidey, they haven't made any more than TB did before them. He IS the flagship Marvel character after all. He DID just have a major blockbuster film come out last year. He DOES have a brand new animated series on Saturday morning TV right now. It would be silly to not expect a lot of Spidey product out to capitalize on that kind of exposure.

[ScorpioKyle]

hasbro should make a deal with diamond for distribution to comic shops, not major retailers, and through their website and do more obscure characters and box sets to the direct market.

[tarot]

i think spiderman line will alway be around no matter who's in charge. let face it who doesn't know spider-man. it like dc and batman. most don't know that spiderman and batman are different company but when you ask to name a dc characters they name spiderman.

 

as for wolverine, ah hello who was the three movie really based on? that right wolverine. who is the second most popular character that marvel has? wolverine again. who is one of the character alot of collector focus on? again wolverine. fact is wolverine sells. i don't like that he sells to kids (his not a kid characters) but he sells.

[ScorpioKyle]

i think spiderman line will alway be around no matter who's in charge. let face it who doesn't know spider-man. it like dc and batman. most don't know that spiderman and batman are different company but when you ask to name a dc characters they name spiderman.

 

as for wolverine, ah hello who was the three movie really based on? that right wolverine. who is the second most popular character that marvel has? wolverine again. who is one of the character alot of collector focus on? again wolverine. fact is wolverine sells. i don't like that he sells to kids (his not a kid characters) but he sells.

 

also, how many comics does Wolverine appear in? All of them!

[Superpowers1980]

I understand why companies put major figures in each wave to the attention of kids, I think the best way to get around this necessity is more exposure of characters. DC had the JLu cartoon which exposed a lot of their other B and C list characters. The only drawback was that there was no advertisement for these characters, you need middle of the road advertisements. Marvel and DC don't do commercials anymore for their main toys. Get a show that can showcase a diversity of characters, make it serious enough for older fans while being accessible to kids, then make kick ass toys and some commercials. Here are some flashbacks for you guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivrNOtEy-3s&NR=1

Trust if either Marvel of DC had a show in the afternoons or Saturday mornings the showcased diveristy in character and promoted like this, we could get more B and C on the shelves but competition would increase, to be honest I HAVE NEVER SAW A KID BUY EITHER A MARVEL LEGENDS OF DC SUPERHEROES toy,

[ScorpioKyle]

I understand why companies put major figures in each wave to the attention of kids, I think the best way to get around this necessity is more exposure of characters. DC had the JLu cartoon which exposed a lot of their other B and C list characters. The only drawback was that there was no advertisement for these characters, you need middle of the road advertisements. Marvel and DC don't do commercials anymore for their main toys. Get a show that can showcase a diversity of characters, make it serious enough for older fans while being accessible to kids, then make kick ass toys and some commercials. Here are some flashbacks for you guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivrNOtEy-3s&NR=1

Trust if either Marvel of DC had a show in the afternoons or Saturday mornings the showcased diveristy in character and promoted like this, we could get more B and C on the shelves but competition would increase, to be honest I HAVE NEVER SAW A KID BUY EITHER A MARVEL LEGENDS OF DC SUPERHEROES toy,

 

i've had kids buy some at work, with their parents. last time i remember though was with the Ultimate Iron Man figure, they were asking for it specifically so i checked and had a fresh case brought from upstairs. a few others times i remember as well, a kid and his mom buying a Baron Zemo figure and the other time a kid and dad buying a Black Widow

[Dagger]

It just boils down to making money for them. Sometimes they give us fans something. Hopefully the Adam Warlock wave will start a new trend in getting us some well deserved figures.

[ARROW]

TB themselves did an Alpha Flight line in the 5 inch days. It didn't sell well and ended up on clearance. Why? Probably because there wasn't ANY real recognizable characters in the mix.

It sold really well up in Canada, LOL.....seriously--but the shipments to Canada were only about 1/2 of what was pegged in US retailers from what I remember being told.

 

But the point made is pretty solid.......Alpha Flight or the Inhumans etc have never been A-list characters by any stretch......but then, neither was Wolverine or any of the X-men for the first few years they were around either...

[tarot]

TB themselves did an Alpha Flight line in the 5 inch days. It didn't sell well and ended up on clearance. Why? Probably because there wasn't ANY real recognizable characters in the mix.

It sold really well up in Canada, LOL.....seriously--but the shipments to Canada were only about 1/2 of what was pegged in US retailers from what I remember being told.

 

But the point made is pretty solid.......Alpha Flight or the Inhumans etc have never been A-list characters by any stretch......but then, neither was Wolverine or any of the X-men for the first few years they were around either...

 

 

alpha flight. Canada, am i the only one who know why it sold well there?

 

 

EDIT: oh right didn't read the full thing.

[Belmont13]

All of you have brought good points and I agree with you in the B and C listers issue. But we're missing a point about releasing an obscure which Toybiz had that Hasbro lacks: the inclusion of the comic book. What I mean is with the inclusion of a comic book with the figure the consumer had at least the hope that if they didn't recognized the character but bought it for any reason whatsoever they could read the comic book included and have an idea on who the character they just bought was. That way they could even like the character or at least know how the character relates to the marvel universe and even possibly understand why the character got the figure. Without the comic book it's hard to introduce a b or c list chraracter to a ML wave and have the persons Arrow mentioned buy the figure, that's just my opinion. I still want more heralds of Galactus and Living tribunal and Eternity BAFs but like Arrow said most people don't know these guys.

[TomTom]

2 words: squirrel girl

[ARROW]

All of you have brought good points and I agree with you in the B and C listers issue. But we're missing a point about releasing an obscure which Toybiz had that Hasbro lacks: the inclusion of the comic book. What I mean is with the inclusion of a comic book with the figure the consumer had at least the hope that if they didn't recognized the character but bought it for any reason whatsoever they could read the comic book included and have an idea on who the character they just bought was. That way they could even like the character or at least know how the character relates to the marvel universe and even possibly understand why the character got the figure. Without the comic book it's hard to introduce a b or c list chraracter to a ML wave and have the persons Arrow mentioned buy the figure, that's just my opinion. I still want more heralds of Galactus and Living tribunal and Eternity BAFs but like Arrow said most people don't know these guys.

 

 

I got a really good explaination from a comics retailer I know, as to why Hasbro is not lamenting the omission of the printed comics anymore......and its NOT due to cost savings.

 

The comics are essentially redundant, I was told.

 

See, almost anyone that is going to buy these toys is more than likely using the internet, and through the internet can easily find out plenty of info about the characters ( Wikipedia, Marvel.com, Google, etc.) in less time than it would take to read said comics.

That makes total sense to me.

 

The only thing the comics brought to the equation was as a bonus item and a bigger bang for the buck in terms of value in the package.

Personally I still miss the comics, and I think omitting them was a mistake because it reduced some of the fun with the product.

 

There's only been two characters made in all of the various ML lines that I knew absolutely nothing about ( Doop and Danger), and I'm a older Marvel reader ( late 70's to mid 90's) that's not read alot of stuff in the past 10 years or so. Hasbro would have to get pretty esoteric or pick a character that's pretty darn new to beat the association game with me.

[CJDDO]

All of you have brought good points and I agree with you in the B and C listers issue. But we're missing a point about releasing an obscure which Toybiz had that Hasbro lacks: the inclusion of the comic book. What I mean is with the inclusion of a comic book with the figure the consumer had at least the hope that if they didn't recognized the character but bought it for any reason whatsoever they could read the comic book included and have an idea on who the character they just bought was. That way they could even like the character or at least know how the character relates to the marvel universe and even possibly understand why the character got the figure. Without the comic book it's hard to introduce a b or c list chraracter to a ML wave and have the persons Arrow mentioned buy the figure, that's just my opinion. I still want more heralds of Galactus and Living tribunal and Eternity BAFs but like Arrow said most people don't know these guys.

 

 

I got a really good explaination from a comics retailer I know, as to why Hasbro is not lamenting the omission of the printed comics anymore......and its NOT due to cost savings.

 

The comics are essentially redundant, I was told.

 

See, almost anyone that is going to buy these toys is more than likely using the internet, and through the internet can easily find out plenty of info about the characters ( Wikipedia, Marvel.com, Google, etc.) in less time than it would take to read said comics.

That makes total sense to me.

 

The only thing the comics brought to the equation was as a bonus item and a bigger bang for the buck in terms of value in the package.

Personally I still miss the comics, and I think omitting them was a mistake because it reduced some of the fun with the product.

 

There's only been two characters made in all of the various ML lines that I knew absolutely nothing about ( Doop and Danger), and I'm a older Marvel reader ( late 70's to mid 90's) that's not read alot of stuff in the past 10 years or so. Hasbro would have to get pretty esoteric or pick a character that's pretty darn new to beat the association game with me.

 

Good points, but still the potential is there for action figures to have a "life" beyond their repsective comic book appearances. Yes nova is dead (She-nova herald) but what a great collector's figure that would be and a kid's (big kid's included ) toy. Keep the quality of the sculpts high (god those DC universe classic sculpts are grade A), marketing and distribution consistent, and many of those characters could flourish. Man-thing isn't the greatest character in the MU, but damn, that was a great sculpt. It made it one of the more interesting ones of it's wave. Those super popular character's can wind up as peg warmers just as easily as the no names, and can fall to poor quality as well.

[Maxim]

I love how people want to act like B & C list characters aren't getting made, yet forget all the ones that HAVE gotten made.