With every convention, there comes the inevitable smorgasbord of reactions across the Internet toy-collecting community. Some are thoughtful and articulate, some are knee-jerk crazy, and some are apathetic. Mattel, in particular, has been ground zero for a ton of emotions. While SDCC’s post-thermometer meltdown put a bullet in the brain of the twitching and jerking DC Infinite Earths line, NYCC has provided at least a small glimmer of hope. Let’s take a look at DC news, along with some other Mattel news you may be interested in.
Along with Doomsday’s oversized tier-humping thermometersaurus existence, SDCC showed us three figures they believed were guaranteed sub-bait, one in particular whose existence was especially cruel. See, for most, people, the existence of one character in toy form presupposes the existence of the second: Power Man and Iron Fist, Cloak and Dagger, Batman and Robin, and Fire and Ice. It’s the height of cruelty to supply one without the other. When fire was released as a DCIE figure in 2013, most figured Ice would be coming later in the year, or at the very least head up the 2014 roster. Well, she was intended to do just that, but then they trotted out their thermometer, told the fans to vote with their wallets, and the fans wallets decided to walk away unimpressed.
So Fire would be Iceless and that ticked a few people off.
But rejoice, for NYCC has come and now we know we’ll be getting Ice as a quarterly slot next year along with Superboy, Damian Wayne, and harpoon-hand Aquaman.
For me, I will agree that not getting Ice after getting Fire would have been a pants-kicker, so for those of you who were apoplectic with rage that you may not have been able to flesh out your Giffen-era League — score one for you.
DCIE was planning on ending on the brown note of Batzarro, but now it’s going to cling to life in a sad zombie-like existence, pooping out a quartet of pity figures before slumbering off into the toy history books. Don’t get me wrong, the chance to add a few more to the collection is great, and I’m glad for those who were bummed that Ice may not make it out, and it’s keen of Mattel to pump out this last offering of figures when they technically didn’t have to, but this is a sad end for a line. I’m sure they’ll scrounge up a figure here or there to offer on Matty at an elevated price, and since most fans will have long ago sold off their collections or given up or whatever it is people do, it will probably sit there for a long time. Unwanted. Unloved.
Also, remember that Doomsday thing? With the thermometer and how Mattel put the (overall) least-wanted version on tier 1, while making the one everybody wanted essentially impossible to get, which led to people not even trying? Yeah, so instead of incurring a little bit of goodwill, they’ll be putting the Doomsday that people didn’t sub hard enough for up as an SDCC exclusive next year.
Now, I’m taking myself out of this completely, because of the two, I like the green jumpsuit Doomsday a lot more. Like, a lot, lot more. Yeah, I’m that guy. In the beginnings of the “Death of Superman” storyline, he was this mysterious, bad-ass thing wreaking havoc and knocking the apepoop out of heroes left and right. Then he lost the jumpsuit and he was… Hulk with bones. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I really liked the silent, angry mystery of the jumpsuit version, and I’m actually digging that I’ll have a chance to get that.
But seriously … most people want the regular, rather oversized, bony gray Hulk version of Doomsday. Mattel could get a bit of goodwill over offering that up for SDCC, but instead, they’re going against that common logic again. I’m not a Mattel basher because those guys are nuts, but this isn’t the most fan-friendly decision that could be made. I’m sure there’s all kinds of tooling reasons, money reasons, and the same old, same old … but still. This decision is not making friends.
Following up the DCIE news, there’s some DC Multiverse news.
What’s that, you say?
Apparently everything non-comic goes in that line. Which nowadays means pretty much everything. Yeah, movie and video games apparently trump comics in the hearts of the suits and the wallets of the consumer.
Side-note: all those video game Batmen all look like crap. I don’t know when Batman turned into Iron Man, but dial it back, world.
Anyway, for as long as I’ve been on forums reading people’s DC opinions, people have wanted a Christopher Reeve Superman and a Michael Keaton Batman — two iconic performances, two iconic looks, two great tastes. Well, Mattel is finally going to make fans’ dreams come true … except a bit smaller.
Instead of 6 inches, they’ll be coming out at 4 inches.
That sound you heard was thousands of angry toy fans hitting their keyboards in unison.
Now, I don’t want to second guess anyone, but that’s … oh, let’s go ahead and say it: short-sighted.
Narf narf narf.
But seriously. Dropping to a completely different scale means no cross-posing with your Bale Batmen, or your Cavill Supermen, or your West Batman, or whoever else. I guess people do that. I don’t, because I personally don’t buy movie figures. Well, I bought the ‘66 Batman characters, but that’s kind of nifty. But modern cinematic takes … I have no use for them.
Keaton and Reeve, though? I’d have been all over them at 6-inch scale.
Hypocritical, perhaps, but I’m all about hypocrisy in my toy sandwich. I watched that Superman movie a ton of times on ABC Sunday night movies, whenever it or the second one was on. There will never be a better Superman than Reeve, and Michael Keaton’s the best Batman we’ve ever had on the big screen, Bale included. And I’m retroactively including Affleck.
The bitch is, the figures look nice. How they’ll end up, who knows, but I will be buying at least the duo. Maybe no villains … well, maybe Zod … but I don’t know. I’d just rather they be in the scale they’ve been working with. Of course, there are the smaller scale guys (those weird ones) who are thrilled, and more power to them. Write your own reaction article! This just wasn’t my first choice, scale-wise.
Ghostbusters news is similarly negative. I’m sorry, Mattel, this isn’t a habit of mine, but you gave me no choice. Ecto-1 did not make it, of course. But you will be able to buy all four of the Ghostbusters in a manner which you should have been able to buy them in the first place, so you wouldn’t have had to buy them all over again in the eventuality their signature vehicle was made.
*blink*
Yeah, I know it seems like I’m doing a lot of Mattel bashing in this reaction article, but making an Ecto-1 where you have to buy the figures all over again because the regular proton-packed versions won’t fit inside the vehicle, and then trying to sell those packless versions without a car to put them in when nobody wants to buy an expensive Ecto plus figures … is dumb. There’s no other way to put it.
But on the flip side, this opens up the door to a whole new customer that might not have any of the Ghostbuster figures, and two-packs are a nice convenient way to get the figures. I’d have preferred two-packs initially, instead of the slow trickle of slimed, unslimed, lab coat, courtroom, blah blah. I love Ghostbusters, and I love the figures and ghosts and everything we got from the line, but it was an annoying line to collect at the time. It was.
Now, to end on a positive note and get away from all the negativity, let’s look at some of the good things.
First off, though the line had been rumored to be dead, they’re trotting out a Surf’s Up Joker to go hand-in-board with their Surf’s Up Batman. Come on. Who among us is so dead of heart to not think that’s awesome? Joker in surf trunks is one of the wonders of the world.
And finally, we turn our attention to the Masters of the Universe line. Ahhh … this is better. Deep breaths, blood pressure lowering.
Extendar received his debut, along with Flogg, a “New Adventures” character. Those always bring the same reactions, but Flogg looks awesome. If you don’t like him, if you don’t dig the NA stuff, you don’t dig MOTU, and you don’t dig toys. I’m sorry, but it had to be said, like a band-aid — right off! They’ve been some of the coolest. I think my unfamiliarity in general helps me get hit in the face with them when they’re revealed.
Extendar was one of the later figures in the original line, and I was a huge fan of his. I loved his extending feature, and it looks as if it will be well-represented with the same type of extension pieces used on Mekaneck. MekaTek — it makes things grow. Patent pending and such.
Also, Mara won the New Adventures poll. Yeah, I didn’t know who she was either, and If I’m being honest, I would have preferred Tuskador, but chick with spiked-ball ponytail is pretty cool in the grand scheme of things. I’ve heard her called the “Teela” of the New Adventures team. Except Teela never had a spiked-ball attached to her head. Round 1 goes to Mara on that. I whip my hair back and forth and so forth. Dated reference? I don’t know what I’m talking about either.
So overall, Mattel made some very odd decisions that I’m sure are backed up by science, but they did right by MOTUC, which by now is all I’m expecting. I know it seems I was overly negative on some points, but it’s less negativity and more a sorrowful glance back at the way things once were and how they are now. Things change.