All the Ghost Riders combined probably haven't moved 1% of the merchandise Batman has, and I'm sure Todd can get 20,000 retail orders for a Batmobile in a few phone calls. GR, especially Robbie, does not have that mass appeal.
GR is not as popular as Batman. But the box will say Marvel Legends which has been a proven seller in the toy aisles for 30 years. A bare-bones Hellcharger offering would sell if Hasbro wanted to. But, as was pointed out above, they don't want to.
Yeppers. It's sad, in my opinion, what we accept as (former) fans. Toy Biz had their faults, but I would love again for a more artsy company with freedom to have the license and crank out teams, new ideas, figures with paint and more detailed sculpts. When Marvel became big business USA it completely stopped being exciting to me. I just grab the cool ones like Punisher and Odin as aberrations.
That Hellcharger should be ours, lights or not. Todd puts out a Batmobile every 4 months.
I had to check the name on this post to make sure it wasn't something I wrote but forgot about.
All the Ghost Riders combined probably haven't moved 1% of the merchandise Batman has, and I'm sure Todd can get 20,000 retail orders for a Batmobile in a few phone calls. GR, especially Robbie, does not have that mass appeal.
GR is not as popular as Batman. But the box will say Marvel Legends which has been a proven seller in the toy aisles for 30 years. A bare-bones Hellcharger offering would sell if Hasbro wanted to. But, as was pointed out above, they don't want to.
This makes zero sense. Hasbro wants to make money. If they are confident an offering will sell and be profitable, they will make it. You really think retailers are clamoring to order a stripped-down Hellcharger and Hasbro is just refusing to make it?
@h-bird I really think retailers would order a Hallcharger if Hasbro offered one, yes. Just like they order anything Marvel Legends because it's a popular brand. I don't think it's a far out notion.
@h-bird I really think retailers would order a Hallcharger if Hasbro offered one, yes. Just like they order anything Marvel Legends because it's a popular brand. I don't think it's a far out notion.
That's a huge assumption that retailers will buy anything ML offers, and not one I have any reason to think is true. The biggest players like Wal-Mart and Target didn't even stock several of the recent comic BAF waves, arguably the bread and butter of the line. I'm assuming that's not because Hasbro refused to sell them any.
If Hasbro wanted to make a Hellcharger for cheaper than the failed HasLab, then yeah, they probably could. Would Walmart and Target want it? That's a whole other question. When was the last time a Marvel Legends vehicle moved units at big box retail? I honestly don't know. It doesn't even seem like the scooter sets years ago were all that successful or the more kid-friendly X-Men '97 toys. To comic fans and collectors, we can think of vehicles that pair with Marvel characters, but to the general public there aren't a whole lot of Batmobiles out there in the Marvel world. Hasbro would have to go the BBTS, EE, etc. route, but they might not get the margins they want to make it worth their while unless they could get someone like Amazon interested in paying for exclusivity.
That's a huge assumption that retailers will buy anything ML offers, and not one I have any reason to think is true. The biggest players like Wal-Mart and Target didn't even stock several of the recent comic BAF waves, arguably the bread and butter of the line. I'm assuming that's not because Hasbro refused to sell them any.
It's an assumption for sure. The assumption is based on this toy line being popular enough to last for decades and just plain taking the pulse of the ML fans who want a Hellcharger.
I can't say why Target and Walmart don't have the latest ML waves out. I do know that they still make a spot for ML on the shelves. Those many empty pegs were set by paid workers and it is valuable space that could easily be filled with other product. Why it's always empty, I can't say and is a different conversation. Would BBTS, EE, or amazon be interested in a Hellcharger? Sure.
That's a huge assumption that retailers will buy anything ML offers, and not one I have any reason to think is true. The biggest players like Wal-Mart and Target didn't even stock several of the recent comic BAF waves, arguably the bread and butter of the line. I'm assuming that's not because Hasbro refused to sell them any.
It's an assumption for sure. The assumption is based on this toy line being popular enough to last for decades and just plain taking the pulse of the ML fans who want a Hellcharger.
I can't say why Target and Walmart don't have the latest ML waves out. I do know that they still make a spot for ML on the shelves. Those many empty pegs were set by paid workers and it is valuable space that could easily be filled with other product. Why it's always empty, I can't say and is a different conversation. Would BBTS, EE, or amazon be interested in a Hellcharger? Sure.
Just to be clear, they didn't just "not have them out" - they did not carry them at all, because they didn't buy the waves from Hasbro. It's not a distribution issue. The point being, they clearly can't just sell anything with ML branding to retailers because the two biggest players passed on the most basic product from the line.
Not trying to be argumentative here, I just think the dynamics of what gets made and how is 1) interesting and 2) way more complicated than most people acknowledge. Honestly, I'd love to hear some of the ToyTubers get into these things during interviews.
Personally, I think the toy landscape is changing a lot, especially at big box retail. Action figures aren't the sellers they used to be, especially with kids. We're on a toy collecting forum so we're kind of insulated, but maybe the rising costs over the past couple of years have really diminished the more casual buyers. Success stories, like X-Men '97, could even work against Hasbro when they try to sell Walmart and Target on a wave of figures of obscure characters when they're probably telling them, "No, we want more X-Men!" Barring something unforeseen taking place, we should expect to see our hobby become more and more niche as the years go by and it wouldn't shock me to see most action figures vanish from the toy aisle and placed in the more nebulous "collector" area. I concur it would be interesting to hear from those much closer to the source speak on these. I'd love to hear the point of view from the producers as well as the retailers.
I concur - would love to have a person in the know speak on this topic!
But then I also see the Jokermobile on Target's store shelves for $60. That's roughly the same size, with paint, on Target's shelves.
If Marvel Legends aren't doing Haslabs anymore, and that's a big "if", do you think they'll do a pre-order Fin Fang Foom if the size and price is right? What size do you want Fin Fang Foom to be?
I definitely don't expect that because they don't want to solicit something and then have to announce they didn't get enough order participation to justify production.
The only way another Fin Fang Foom ever gets made is as a crowd funded HasLab and, I'm going to be honest, I would be mildly surprised if it succeeded in that regard. I would order it - but I don't think there's nearly the interest in Foom as there is for something like a Sentinel or even Galactus.
I might be wrong - and I might be underestimating the market that buys dragons, irrespective of source material, so there may be some people that go in for a big dragon action figure because it's a dragon and not because it's Fin Fang Foom... but for the price I think they'd have to charge to do it right, I'm not confident they could get enough orders to fund it.
The fact that several of the recent comic BAF waves were fan channel exclusives would indicate to me that no, retailers don't want just anything that has the ML logo on the box. And while it's very anecdotal, the Walmarts and Targets I see around me in Chicago generally have Legends stuff from whatever the most recent MCU productions are over the comic fare much of the time. The one I get my meds from had the No Way Home, Deadpool 3 and Spider-Verse stuff recently, but the only comic ones they had were from the most recent Retro Spider-Man wave.
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What day is the next event, for reveals? Sometime this week, right?
Dan said the remaining reveals for October will be at Pulse 1027 (Oct 27) and "Some EU conventions." London MCM Comic-Con is October 25-27 and Lucca Comic and Games is Oct 29-Nov 3, so likely those two events.
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