I've never bought a single Todd figure, all my DC stuff is the Medicom lot plus a Mezco Constantine so I'm not gonna be sorry to see the licence leave him. I don't like 7", I don't like the crummy plastic and misshapen sculpts, and dear lord, still using honkin' big pins in the year 2025? Still, there were some things I respected about the line even while skipping it all myself.
I'm interested to see what Mattel come up with, I'm hoping it's 1:12 and reasonably similar to Marvel Legends because I am not deluded enough to think Medicom will ever do the AWW Diana, Cass & Steph, the JLI gang, or guys like Firestorm or, say, the Wildstorm crew. As far as those are concerned, Mattel are my only hope.
This is personally a huge bummer for me. McFarlane's DC Multiverse is my favorite figure line. Todd seemed genuinely excited by what he was doing, with an almost childlike enthusiasm. While Mattel is a huge faceless, soulless publicly traded corporation that only cares about pleasing its shareholders. They don't care what you want. They only care about squeezing as much money out of the property as they can, and then once they've picked it clean, leaving its bloated corpse on the side of the road like they did before.
At least Todd tried to do something cool and original with the license. Some insanely detailed original sculpts and characters that matched certain art styles, etc. all for less than what other companies were charging for less. He is also the owner and face of McFarlane Toys and he actually interacted with fans and listened to their concerns. And sometimes acted on their suggestions in pretty short order. You think Mattel is going to do that?
So I for one am extremely saddened by this news. For those who are happy, I hope you get what you want. But most likely it's just going to be an inferior product for more money. That's a hard pass for me.
Lulz at McFarlane listening to fans.
Again, I have my own gripes with McFarlane, but I can think of at least 3 instances where he 'listened to fans' and course corrected:
- The first wave had the BAF mini-Batmobiles, which he had indicated would be a long-term strategy. Fans didn't like it, so he discontinued it
- The infamous 'side eye', like on the Batman figure from the '22 movie, which he thought gave the figures more life/expressiveness (it didn't). Again, people complained, so it stopped
- The Collector's Edition figures with those dumb stands/cards. Again, people complained, so those came out, and more accessories were added
I know there are plenty of examples of him NOT listening to fans (the worst being the continued lack of female figures), but I don't think it's objectively true to say he does not at all. Just my 2 cents.
I want to give him some credit for listening, but I’m torn because it seems like a lack of common sense. Of course your customer is going to be upset if their toy can only look in one direction, or if you upcharge your figures by $8-$10 without adding anything of value (or sometimes, anything at all). Or if your $22 figures have more accessories than the $30 figures.
They didn’t answer to shareholders but they used all the same tricks as the companies that do, plus chase variants.
I'm glad there is now a separate thread for people to gush over the potential of Mattel. Personally, I think its a pretty annoying thing to go onto a McFarlane thread where there are plenty of people who like the line and are upset by the news to simply state how you never had any interest in a 7 inch line, you don't like the sculpts, you never purchased any figures, you lost interest etc. Great- go buy the turds that Mattel dump out, because they'll be just as honed in as the turds that Hasbro are trotting out in the ML line.
Fact is, I never once paid full price for any Mattel DC figure- I had some used ones for customs, and scored some dirt cheap reduced figures once for the same reason, but I never once felt compelled to buy anything they did with DC at full price. Don't get me wrong, Masterverse has been great, but even then they are much more toys than having any feel of being a collectible, and Mattel don't pay any license for MOTU.
I'm really down about this- the line has never been perfect, there have been many instances of bad figures, silly choices for distribution, too few female figures, too many Batman, silly platinum variants that no one wants, making more desirable and established designs the variants that are hard to get, but putting all that to one side, McFarlane has still managed to offer figures that are some of the best we've seen at this scale and price point. Mattel could never in a million years make a figure that so closely captures the source as the recent Damian Wayne Robin figure. They could never give us cloth goods such as the Gold Label Superman cape that just works. Even the S symbol is done so well- you just don't see that in most modern lines. Even the interchangeable face sculpts for Huntress was done surprisingly well. There's so much more innovation in this line, its sad to see it go. I genuinely feel like McFarlane's DC run has almost been like the second version of Toybiz- flawed, lots of stuff that I can guess won't date that well, but man did they try different things and, when they got it right, produced figures that can still outshine more recent releases. I am hoping we get to fill many more holes as the line comes to its end, and hoping that maybe they could at least agree to let McFarlane carry the line in some way, like a DC version of Marvel Select.
Sorry for the rant, but seeing some of the posts here have just got me. Its a thread for McFarlane, I don't think its too unreasonable to expect people who want to celebrate the demise of the line to do so elsewhere.
Sorry for the rant, but seeing some of the posts here have just got me. Its a thread for McFarlane, I don't think its too unreasonable to expect people who want to celebrate the demise of the line to do so elsewhere.
That is fair... but to be equally fair, when the news first broke this site wasn't even up - it was broken. And when it came back the discussion started in this thread because it was the active DC figure thread. Discussion of the new Mattel line has moved over to a "Mattel got the license" thread now - but it is also fair for there to a 'post-mortem' of the McFarlane line in the McFarlane thread as it were.
I get that for the people who really enjoyed what McFarlane was doing it's no fun to feel like people are dancing on the grave before the body is cold.
I will also point out, though, that this exact thing happened to the people who liked the old Mattel figures when Mattel lost the license the first time. It's how these things go.
But it is totally fair to ask for this thread to be about McFarlane figures. What is unreasonable, or at a minimum unlikely to expect, is for it to be only people saying positive things about McFarlane figures, that's not at all realistic.
I think discussing next steps - positive and negative - after a massive announcement is totally appropriate.
GOOD RIDDANCE TO THE DIAPERS!!!
This is WB we're talking about. The same folks who are stripping their IPs for parts, closing gaming studios left and right, and resseling whatever's left. I'm willing to believe that Mattel didn't as much bring an interesting vision for the future of the DC brand, as they showed up with the biggest check.
This is most likely the result. Allow my logical conjecture here for a moment. Mattel outbid McFarlane. WB really is out of money & in heavy debt. Look at their stock price. It's why they had to reboot their DC film universe & hire new talent for their casts. Mattel will most likely offer a top tiered ultimate line priced 29.99-32.99 + reg elite line 22.99-24.99 + also take over Spin Master's handing of the kids' toy line, fully consolidated.
Let's see if McF makes an official announcement in the coming days of Toy Fair. If they don't, I suspect they don't want the dead brand walking bleeding sales much like how the DC films tanked at the end.
The last Mattel product I bought was the Jurassic Park Amber Collection, and when they switched to a smaller styled Hammond Collection, that was it for me; I'm not starting over buying the same stuff slightly smaller.
They did that for the same reason Hasbro releases most of their Star Wars product for the 1:18 scale Vintage Collection. You can't really do starships in 1:12 scale without them costing $100 to $500 and eating up more space that most of us have to spare, and the same holds true for the big dinosaurs everyone loves the most. Target and Walmart wouldn't stock a $100 to $200 twelfth scale T-Rex or brachiosaur, but those dinos are viable in the 1:18 scale. Dinosaurs are best done in that 1:18 scale, but it took Mattel a couple of years to realize that. I didn't like it at first because I would prefer them in twelfth scale, but I get the reality that the eighteenth scale is far more realistic for offering them at retail. And since they switched scales we've gotten many of the big dinos people wanted--Rexy, giganotosaurus, therizinosaurus, parasaurolophus, brachiosaurus, etc.
Hasbro can't even do accurate Star Wars ships in the 1:18 scale. Boba Fett's Slave I is far smaller than the actual scale should be, and their $200 Millennium Falcon is significantly smaller than the one in the films is.
But it is totally fair to ask for this thread to be about McFarlane figures. What is unreasonable, or at a minimum unlikely to expect, is for it to be only people saying positive things about McFarlane figures, that's not at all realistic.
Of course that's fine, even my own post wasn't entirely positive about this line 'the line has never been perfect, there have been many instances of bad figures, silly choices for distribution, too few female figures, too many Batman, silly platinum variants that no one wants, making more desirable and established designs the variants that are hard to get,'.
Mattel offering the biggest check makes the most sense. My understanding is that WB was overall pretty happy with Todd's offerings. I don't know about retailers as much with Platinum etc. editions, but he got rid of the all grey artist editions which seemed to be the glut of most complaints/returns via retailers. Most folks I know who got a Platinum edition they didn't want just seemed to flip it for more money on Ebay.
@dave-o Preach brother. I couldn't agree more.
I'm kind of looking forward to the day when Mattel comes out with their lackluster offerings that feature all the things that people were complaining about with McFarlane. Such as wonky scaling, odd character choices, and reusing parts, etc. And then watch these same people defend the hell out of it because it's Mattel and not McFarlane.
For example, I can absolutely guarantee that Mattel is going to employ massive body reuse on a scale hitherto unseen, (at least not since the last time they held the DC master license). But then it will be perfectly fine because "it's just good business" and "totally necessary with a figure line produced for a mass market." And, "Mattel is doing it right though, unlike McFarlane."
It actually should be quite entertaining to watch people tripping over themselves to justify paying more money for what's sure to be a worse product.
yeah that sounds about right.@dave-o Preach brother. I couldn't agree more.
I'm kind of looking forward to the day when Mattel comes out with their lackluster offerings that feature all the things that people were complaining about with McFarlane. Such as wonky scaling, odd character choices, and reusing parts, etc. And then watch these same people defend the hell out of it because it's Mattel and not McFarlane.
For example, I can absolutely guarantee that Mattel is going to employ massive body reuse on a scale hitherto unseen, (at least not since the last time they held the DC master license). But then it will be perfectly fine because "it's just good business" and "totally necessary with a figure line produced for a mass market." And, "Mattel is doing it right though, unlike McFarlane."
It actually should be quite entertaining to watch people tripping over themselves to justify paying more money for what's sure to be a worse product.
She'd make a fun food mascot figure for Jada to do. No?
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