Re: What's next for ML in 2022-2023

[DetectiveHoag]

I'm sorry.

I remember checking my local TRU for the Arnim Zola wave back in college. It feels like yesterday and also a lifetime ago. For what it's worth, I never found a single new Legends figure there.

Now I feel old. The Toy Biz 5-inch line was just getting starting when I was in college ...

I was in grade 6 or 7 when the 5inch line started

Get off my lawn! Goldang whippersnapper.
Right there with with you Matt. That puts us pretty close to the same age.

[aceofknaves]

See when I think of Toy Biz “just starting” I think of the DC figures (and eventually Marvel) they started popping out in 1989 . . . when I was 11 years old. I was there at the beginning, for Doctor Doom with a spinning hand and hard plastic skirt, Doctor Octopus with suction cups on two of his tentacles, and Hulk with a squishy rock.

Oh and you could make Iron Man shirtless. Because . . . I don’t know.

[fac]

Hasbro pays no licensing on GI Joe, right? Pretty sure Disney expects a premium for Marvel.

They own GI Joe and Power Rangers. I assume they pay royalties to Takara for Transformers but I've never been sure.

No, I believe the name/brand "Transformers" is owned by Hasbro so they don't have royalties to pay. They licensed some of the toys with a transforming concept in the early 80's that Takara had developed under their Diaclone and MicroChange lines, and sold them under the Transformers brand name. Hasbro made it a hit in the US (getting the cartoon and comics going) and soon Takara started using the Transformers name in Japan. They still jointly develop product for the line as far as I know, but I believe Hasbro owns the copyrights/trademarks for things like Optimus Prime.

The whole history is pretty convoluted -

Warning! FRAT! :

Takara licensed 12" GI Joe from Hasbro for Japan in the early 70's, and expanded that to a robot line called Henshin Cyborg. Takara then more or less shrunk the Henshin Cyborg concept to 3 3/4" scale as the basis of the Microman line in the mid-70's. (Mego licensed Microman who branded it as Micronauts for the US - Mego could only afford one license so they chose that over Star Wars, so Star Wars went to Kenner.) Anyway, Microman later introduced some transforming toys in the early 80's, such as a cassette tape that could turn into a motorcycle, for the 3 3/4" line, as the Microman story was that the figures were life size characters and they hid some of their vehicles in plain site as common household items. Takara then developed a car-robot line a couple years later - which took it out of the "real life" scale and separated it from the ending Microman line - that was what Hasbro decided to sell in the US as the Transformers collaboration/line.

[supreme-d]

I'm sorry.

I remember checking my local TRU for the Arnim Zola wave back in college. It feels like yesterday and also a lifetime ago. For what it's worth, I never found a single new Legends figure there.

Now I feel old. The Toy Biz 5-inch line was just getting starting when I was in college ...

I was in grade 6 or 7 when the 5inch line started

I was in month 6 or 7 when the 5-inch line started

[Chooch]

I was 13 when the Toy Biz 5" Marvel Super Heroes line hit in 1990. I feel myself aging listening to others talk about their "before-times."

[Year 2 Robin]

I was 13 when the Toy Biz 5" Marvel Super Heroes line hit in 1990. I feel myself aging listening to others talk about their "before-times."

'Sup, Chooch!

I was 20 when the 5" line started, so I guess I am an offical Curmudgeon at this point.

The 90s Marvel era was great for me. New figures coming out constantly, and I had virtually no trouble finding anything. I found everything at TRU, KB Toys, and K-Mart, and I never had to set foot in a damned WalMart. Awesome memories!

[DerRabbi]

I had just graduated college in 1990. The only toys I bought around that time were the odd Pee Wee Herman toys. I was unaware mostly of the Toybiz Marvel stuff but did buy the Thing in a trenchcoat from the FF line a few years later b/c I thought it was so funny they would reference such an obscure classic comic motif. To me that was obscure b/c my world as a child was sheer longing that Mego would ever make Vision, Dr Doom or Cockrum era X-Men 8"s; such deep cuts just seemed impossible. It's been all downhill ever since.

[Ru_1977]

I was 13 when the Toy Biz 5" Marvel Super Heroes line hit in 1990.

Same. I remember getting the X-Men figures just because the only mutant I ever had a figure of was Wolverine from secret wars, but also feeling like I'd wasted my money since I no longer played with toys.

Now look at me.

This thread should now be What's Old For ML.

[Basil Elks]

I was 13 when the Toy Biz 5" Marvel Super Heroes line hit in 1990. I feel myself aging listening to others talk about their "before-times."

Ahh, so you're a year older than I am.

[Hbhf]

Born in 92. So I guess I was around ten when the line started?

[Chooch]

I was 13 when the Toy Biz 5" Marvel Super Heroes line hit in 1990. I feel myself aging listening to others talk about their "before-times."

Ahh, so you're a year older than I am.

Look out, this is the year it all goes downhill!

[Whitlow]

Oh you kids! I’m gonna be 66 in April. I was inking for DC before a fair number of you were even born and inking for Marvel when you were in Pampers. Got into action figures with the Kenner Super Powers - still have them all. Then there was the dry spell before the Toy Biz Super Heroes stuff, which migrated to the Spidey Classics and finally Marvel Legends. Still goin’ strong. Choosy, but strong.

[spideyboy1111]

Elder millennial here. 1985.

I was 9 and got hooked with marvel figure collecting starting with the spider-man cartoon. I think my first 2 marvel figures though were marvel superheroes tongue flip venom and marvel superheroes doc ock

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Beamish]

1980
I got all of my brother's hand-me-downs, including their Megos, Star Wars stuff, Adventure People, GI Joes, Big Jim figures and all of their comic books. Even as a little kid I loved the colors of the Avengers Korvac Saga covers, which became the first comic books I actually learned to read, hence my determination to finish that gigantic Avengers team in ML form, which explains my ongoing whining about Moondragon (Two-Gun Kid is next ). Super Powers, Secret Wars, He-Man, MASK and the 80's GI Joes were some of the first action figures I got that weren't hand-me-downs.

[Ru_1977]

1980
I got all of my brother's hand-me-downs, including their Megos, Star Wars stuff, Adventure People, GI Joes, Big Jim figures and all of their comic books. Even as a little kid I loved the colors of the Avengers Korvac Saga covers, which became the first comic books I actually learned to read, hence my determination to finish that gigantic Avengers team in ML form, which explains my ongoing whining about Moondragon (Two-Gun Kid is next ). Super Powers, Secret Wars, He-Man, MASK and the 80's GI Joes were some of the first action figures I got that weren't hand-me-downs.

Ah man MASK was so great. I remember when I had them team up with some dinoriders and sky commanders since they were all the same scale.