abbracadabbling: hasbro

Showing posts with label hasbro. Show all posts

20 March 2010

Figures In Action: In-Depth! The Legend of LEGENDS

We've made no secret of how much we like Mattel's DC Universe Classics, DC Comics' licensed action figure line and answer to their cross-town competition's Marvel Legends. But we've been rather mum about Legends itself, and that's our bad in more ways than one. DC Universe Classics owes many of its concepts - and perhaps much of its quality to Legends. After all, when it comes to collecting action figures in 2010, Marvel Legends is, well, legendary.

As you can tell from our crowded little pic above (especially after your right-clicking mouse transforms it into a crowded super-huge desktop wallpaper), Marvel's Legends has been hanging around the toy aisle for quite some time -- 2002, to be exact. Toy Biz, the small toy manufacturer that merged with Marvel in the 90's following the publisher's declaration of bankruptcy, gained exclusive rights from the partnership to turn Marvel's entire comics Universe into toys, and did so in a manner that has since become the industry standard. The Legends line of six-inch action figures came packaged in large clamshell-type packaging (that also included a comic book featuring that character plus a base stand) making the figure easy to display in or out of the package. These considerations were very popular to collectors, and Toy Biz's later innovations - short-packed and therefore more rare figures (or chase variants) with each new Series and their subsequent incorporation of the Build-A-Figure concept - became wildly so.

Marvel Icons X-Men: Cyclops

Legends collectors may not have been as surprised as the rest of us were by Marvel's acquisition by Disney last August -- after all, when the price of oil (and therefore plastics) began to rise, Marvel sold off their master toy license in 2007 to Hasbro for $205 million and took themselves out of the game -- and the risk. Hasbro continued the line, but without Toy Biz' attention to detail while reducing selection and increasing price. While improvements have been made (such as the addition of the 12-inch Marvel Legends / Marvel Icons ) Hasbro's focus has been on developing their 3 3/4" Marvel Universe figures as well as figures based on Marvel's movie machine, satisfying their target market of young families' demands for more wallet-friendly Marvel superhero toys while keeping their own petrol prices at a minimum.

We all know that oil is the cause of too many wars involving action figures of a more human nature, and it's evident that oil also brought the Marvel Legends into the Collectors War. Unlike Hasbro's Marvel Universe, Legends made a comparatively very poor showing at last month's Toy Fair in New York City, and as recently as this morning, one despondent collector asked Is Marvel Legends dead? in a posting on Marvel's website message boards.

The answer is likely Not Dead Yet -- but the writing is on the wall and it looks like Galactus himself may have been the tagger. Whatever the future holds for Legends, the line's ongoing collectibility won't be a part of it. Still, Legends past contributions can't be ignored. Toy News International and several other industry websites named Legends the most influential toy line of the past decade, and the more collectible toys of today - DC Universe Classics, among others - are selling like gangbusters as they carry on the Legends torch.

At least, they are - for now.

15 December 2009

Marvel UPDATES: IRON MAN's Virus Continues! Sam Jackson Is 'Furious' with THOR

Believe it or not, we have yet to exhaust our Marvel movie news, but tonight's blog should put Iron Man 2 and Thor to bed -- at least until Christmas Day, when second Iron Man's first trailer opens ahead of Robert Downey, Jr.'s new Sherlock Holmes. However, we have told a few friends they'll see a short but sweet Black Widow bio on the comicsblog this week - so keep your eyes peeled, Scarlet Johansson groupies.

* * * * *

Dabblers, y'all better buckle in. What could've been an isolated incident when we blogged it only a few days ago is now looking like it's here to stay, and if you haven't given the first round of Iron Man 2's viral marketing campaign a closer look, trek back down the comicsblog and do that now.

A second viral bit hit the web on Monday, popping up on Screen Rant, followed today by a third clue this morning on CHUD. Scrutinizers of the pics, as well as last week's Whiplash teaser,are now referring to them as clues, as each of the images appears to be emphasizing a different word within it. This weekend's clue called attention to the word 'SECRET', while Monday's has highlighted the "STARK." This morning's faux-photo puts "CONFESSION" front and center.

Iron Man 2 : Viral Specimen #2

Iron Man 2 : Viral Specimen #3

If you jump the pics above, you'll get a better look at Monday's image-- all attention seems to be drawn to the photo below 'Walking on Air,' and you can see someone dressed in a Roman kilt (or something similar) apparently doing just that. But whether that's also a clue we're meant to find or not is anyone's guess. Screen Rant's posted several theories plus tons of feedback postulating on what these three clues may mean, so you might want to check it out. You'll know where to go at the link. [Link]

Unless we're alerted to some earth-shattering revelation tied to Iron Man 2's viral campaign, we've decided to refrain from posting future clues to the comicsblog. A t this rate, we're expecting a new clue to show up somewhere every day, and unless one suddenly appears in our in-box, we'll let interested dabblers pursue this mystery on the their own!

Yes, you know who that is. That's the guy from your home movies....err, and our's, too. No joke -- Samuel L. Jackson's such a prolific actor that he and an unknown collie be in the photo of the next picture frame we buy at Wal-Mart! Seriously, though, we dig the dude, and we can all rest a bit easier now that the 'I's' have been dotted and the 'T's' crossed, as Marvel has confirmed once and for all that Mr. Jackson will be reprising his role as SHIELD Col. Nick Fury in Kenneth Branagh's Thor.

Jackson's been signed to a multi-picture deal, as his Fury will appear in every Marvel movie up to and including 2013's Avengers motion picture. It's possible that he'll even play the lead in an all Nick Fury movie, although Marvel Studios has only speculated on that possibility. But the comics publisher did recently add Jackson's name to the cast on their Thor hub-site , and the larger picture gets even bigger, one day at a time.

Marvel also posted a this poster at the Thor hub, which showcases Thor artist Olivier Coipel's interlocking cover art from the recent six-issue Thor limited series, Tales of Asgard. You can't tell by looking at it, but the poster's actually made of vinyl, and stretches over 10 feet wide. Coipel's an amazing illustrator, and his Thor work has never been less than impressive. He's captured 63 different Asgardians in the piece - which is a helluva closer to being mural-sized than poster-sized -- which makes this Sistine Chapel rival more than an ample primer for the feature film.

Marvel's also created an ENORMOUS legend to help fans and film followers identify each one of the Norse gods Coipel's portrayed. We decided against posting to abbracadabbling, as no amount of enlargement we could offer would give you the close-up that Marvel can. You'll find Marvel's legend -- and Coipel's fantastically drawn heroes of myth -- at the link! [Link] (BTW, interested shoppers who may want to buy their own ten feet of Thor should see their local comics retailer.)

However...! We did go through the trouble to pull up some great scans of Thor's very first comic book appearance, just in case a few of you might enjoy a flashback to the Norse God of Thunder's humble beginnings. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced Thor in August of 1962, inside the pages of Journey Into Mystery #83. The comic had long been the home of horror stories, monsters, and aliens, but when superheroes once again became popular and the Silver Age of Comics began, Journey Into Mystery shifted its focus to Thor's adventures. Thor headlined Journey through Issue #125, after which the comic was retitled The Mighty Thor.

16 October 2009

HALLOWEEN 09: My Little Pony Mod-Party Pointers

Halloween '09 continues on the comicsblog today in pop-culture collision bang. While guys my age spent their 1980's pitting Hasbro GI JOE's against Transformers, Generation X girls kept busy brushing out My Little Ponies in numbers that made Hasbro's 1983 horsey line outsell Mattel's Barbie.

Hasbro's done amazingly well surfing the 80's resurgence wave with so many of their products -- they relaunched My Little Pony in 2003 -- that it's only a matter of time before a live-action Pony finds the trail to the mall movieplex.

If Hasbro and Hollywood do pony-up cash for a feature flick, it's looking like they'll sell tickets to a GenX crowd without GenY kids in tow. Creating custom-painted or "modded" My Little Ponies has become a huge horsey fad lately, and it's as big in Britain as it is in the United States. Who knew, right?

Well, now you do, dabblers. And if you're a teacher or a parent with a Halloween party to plan for the grade school set, we think a My Little Pony Painting Party would really do the trick. While our suggestion probably wouldn't fly if the kids have car keys, younger girls as well as boys should get a kick "dressing up" their Pony in superhero or Han Solo duds or as one their favorite Twilight and New Moon crushes. Plus, we can't think of a party idea that's this much fun that also gives your kids' artistic muscles an unexpected work out.

Halloween Pony-favors shouldn't make you say "neigh", either. Though single My Little Pony dolls are generally priced between $6.50 and $7.00, large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target often carry these dolls for less, and I came across several of last year's Ponies with a three-buck price tag at a local discount store when I was preparing to write this blog. Toys-R-Us probably has the best deal going right now: they're currently running a "Buy 2, Get 3rd Free" on many of their toys, including My Little Pony. And don't forget to check for coupons on-line -- we found a $5.00 off $20 purchase coupon for Toys R Us at Coupons.com here.

Other than the toys, easy-to-get art supplies are all that remains. School art departments should be fully-stocked with everything needed to paint or dress-up a pony, but if not, the dollar store and fabric outlets are great places to start. We recommend acrylic paints for this job -- they dry fast, stay on, and will trick-out every kid's Pony in a glossy, good way. Online art suppliers like Blick have fantastic variety of paints, brushes, paper, and pointers for budding Picasso's are everywhere on the 'net, too. We located great painting advice for beginners here and found some short and handy how-to's on You Tube here.

As you'll see, My Little Pony mods are quite the rage. Comic book illustrator Junko Mizuno (Marvel Comics' Strange Tales) was hired by Hasbro to complete a custom mod, and independent artists like the British deviant-artist Eponyart and Mari Kasurinen are just a few of the expanding Pony-modding community. Here's a few of our favorites: