Figures In Action! On The First Day of Summer, VICTOR FREEZE Is NOT Pleased

MISTER FREEZE 

DC Superheroes, Mattel (2007) [via]

Figures In Action! AQUAMAN Hates HydroTherapy

[via]

Gone, Gone, The Form of Man...Arise 'DEMONS IN ACTION' - ETRIGAN!

Etrigan The Demon

Inspired by the comic strip Prince Valiant, Etrigan (and his human tether, Jason Blood) was created by the late great Jack Kirby for DC in 1972.  As a demon, Etrigan's used to the heat and is looking forward to the summer -- as well as the 75th Anniversary of DC Comics celebration on abbracadabbling, his favorite comicsblog.  In 2007, Mattel's DC Universe Classics Wave 1 cast Etrigan in six-inch effigy, and now small replicates of his unholy Demon-soul now dwell dispersed across America in households unaware.....rhyming, and waiting (but mostly rhyming), for terrible beautiful Apocalypse to begin.                                                                                                                                        Photo by Tenzo

Figures In Action! The Popular and Fatal Attraction of DEATHSTROKE

DEATHSTROKE THE TERMINATOR

 DC Universe Classics (Mattel) [via]

Figures In Action! is back with a bang -- and a purpose.  We're not going to be detailing you on the latest DC Universe Classics news from Mattel - though we will be soon - and we won't be sharing our thoughts on the precipitously (and ridiculously) high prices the action figures are demanding from collectors, either. But if we were, Deathstroke The Terminator, part of Classics' third wave, would certainly be a hot topic of  discussion. With an MSRP of $11, two versions (or variants)  of the figure hit store shelves just over a year ago, but most retailers haven't stocked a Deathstroke since that time. And the few that do aren't giving him up without a fight:  these days, a new Terminator commands an asking price anywhere from three to six hundred percent above last year's tag. 
Popular in effigy, Deathstroke aka Slade Wilson is even more in demand as one of DC Comics' pre-eminent comic book villains. A violent, gun-toting mercenary with enhanced skills and perfect aim, Deathstroke is clearly one of the bad guys - although writer Marv Wolfman, who created the character in 1980 to be a nemesis for his and George Perez' debut series, The New Teen Titans, has said he never thought of him to actually be a 'bad guy'.  While Deathstroke's not afraid to kill, he's unlike The Joker or Lex Luthor in that he does so only because killing is his line of work.  


Deathstroke (or Slade) made his first comics appearance in the second issue of The New Teen Titans as a fully-rounded, well-conceived antagonist that, from panel one, intrigued and interested readers and creators alike.  Slade's depth of character made for an ambiguous foe; he wasn't all bad,  despite being a murderer. And with the introduction of his children - both of which later went on to be Teen Titans themselves - Deathstroke became even deeper.  The character some have described as an "anti-Batman" was well ahead of the curve when Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns redefined the superhero genre and gave birth to the 'anti-hero' in the mid to late 1980's.

If Slade's an anti-hero, he's an extreme example.  Nevertheless, DC Comics awarded Deathstroke The Terminator his own ongoing series in 1991, and readers were captivated enough by the mercenary with a moral code to support the title for a five-year run. Marvel Comics creators Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza were also quite taken by Slade Wilson, and in homage, created their own version of DC's character. Naming him 'Wade Wilson,' Nicieza and Liefeld introduced the comics world to Deadpool in their New Mutants, Issue #98 (1991).
 

Marvel's Deadpool has evolved to become one of that publisher's top-selling superheroes; Deathstroke, as one of DC's heaviest hitters.  As much of a co-star in the various Teen Titans books as any of the titular teen superheroes, Deathstroke played a pivotal role in Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales' game-changing Identity Crisis, in which he skillfully - and single-handedly - beat two-thirds of the Justice League of America.  More recently, Slade  and his family were the focus of last summer's Titans mini-series tie-in to DC's Blackest Night event.

Earlier this month, DC returned Deathstroke the Terminator to the 'pilot's seat' once again, relying on the character to inject a new twist (and hopefully the sales to match) into its much-troubled Titans title. Just two weeks published and featuring a team of 'heroic villains' much like Slade himself, The Villains For Hire Special has already succeeded at shaking up the comic's  status quo -- by becoming the focus of much controversy and DC's current 'hot potato'.

 

Abbracadabbling will be examining Villains For Hire's controversial storyline and its larger implications over the next several days. Understanding Deathstroke The Terminator is  necessary for that examination, and the dedicated dudes at Titans Tower have compiled excellent creative and fictional histories for the character on their website [here]. They put ours to shame, and we urge y'all to give 'em a look-see.

Dabblers who want to hang with us should check out the two-page Origin of Deathstroke The Terminator, which we have for you below. Remember, panels can be enlarged with a simple right click.  Stick around; lots more to come...!

Deathstroke's Origin [via]

 - COMING TOMORROW -

TITANS: Villains For Hire
T H E   C O M P L E T E    4 0 - P A G E   S P E C I A L

Figures In Action! Barbie Adding MAD MEN In July

Wondering if you're a Pop Icon? Check the toy aisle. Find a Barbie  or Ken doll in your likeness, and you'll know that not only have you arrived, but your place in the pantheon of pop culture is assured, reserved, and complete with stocked wet bar. Yes, when it comes to Mattel's infamous Barbie, there comes a point when the doll is no longer a doll, but a status symbol.

After just three seasons, Lionsgate /AMC's multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning  series about Madison Avenue advertising in the 1960s, Mad Men, has attained that laudable level of popular-culture popularity.  This July, Mattel's premium-price collectors’ series for adults - the Barbie Fashion Model Collection - will add four new  versions of Barbie and Ken styled after Mad Men characters - from left:  Joan Holloway, Roger Sterling, Don Draper and Betty Draper.

In top form, the  Mad Men Barbies and Kens will be attired and accessorized in iconic costumes fans of the series will immediately recognize  as spot-on to their televised counterparts, the key players from the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency.  Our fave: Barbie Joan Holloway, who's looking mighty chic in that purple skirt suit she tops off perfectly with the styled red coif and her staple accessory - a pen necklace. 

The Mad Men  dolls are the latest additions to Mattel's high-end collectibles line that's also been responsible for immortalizing The X-Files Mulder and Scully, the cast of Twilight,  Star Trek, Wonder Woman, and I Love Lucy in Barbie fashion.   But the Mad quartet are unique in that they're the first licensed dolls to ever join Barbie's esteemed signature silkstone collection. They'll also be in limited supply; the toy manufacturer's only making 7,ooo to 10,000 of each, and the dolls will be available only in specialty stores and on the web at either
amctv.com or barbiecollector.com.   Each of the four dolls will carry the mad price of $74.95.

For an even more elaborate run down of the new Barbie and Kens, we suggest you check out AMC's Mad Men blog and their interview with Robert Best, a former Project Runway contender and the Mattel fellow who designed the dolls in question. Check it out at the [link]. 

Otherwise, we'll send you home with the news that Mad Men's fourth season is gearing up for the big debut on Sunday 25 July.  Mad Men info is [here] and [here].

Figures In Action! Substitute Superman

STEEL 

DC Superheroes Collection by Mattel

Steel remains an integral part of DC Comics' superhero universe, seventeen after he first debuted in the 500th issue of Adventures of Superman back in 1993.  Also known as brilliant inventor and uncle John Henry Irons, Steel was one of the four 'Supermen' who rose to the occasion and attempted to 'fill-in' for Superman after DC killed their main man just months before (in 1992). Created by Louise Simonson and Jon Bogdanove, inspiration for their Steel was drawn from the African-American folk hero John Henry, most noted for carrying  a 20 pound hammer that he thought was light, and for being 6 feet tall, full of muscles, and weighing about 200 pounds.  The superhero Steel also carries a heavy hammer while wearing advanced, weaponized body armor that, to the untrained eye,  might be slightly reminiscent of Marvel's Iron Man.   But the similarities really stop there -- and no better evidenced than by the men who brought both characters to life on the Silver Screen.  Robert Downey, Jr., is currently doing the Iron Man honors for Marvel; Shaquille O'Neal, however, was the dude who climbed inside Steel's silver suit when Warner Bros sent him into theaters over a decade ago (1997).  For more about Steel, check HERE.  Image [via]

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.

Figures In Action! Three Eyes On The Prize

In the garage, TriClops makes himself a man. 

 Masters of The Universe Classics Collection by Mattel

TriClops & Trap-Jaw are both TM Mattel [via]

COLLECTORS WAR: The Free Floatin' Mighty Morphin' Power Universe Rangers Classics

  Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers  

Bandai America (2009) [via] 

Constantly hoping for the new Mattel DC Universe Classics action figures they never  have, last week's hunt brought me once again to the toy aisles of Springfield's mega Wal-Mart.  Overlooked and under-cared for,  the same eleven superhero toys they've had on sale for

close to a year hung on their hooks, pushed far to one side to make room on the shelves for mass quantities of the latest and greatest of Bandai's  Power Rangers.

'Latest and greatest' for the Power Rangers, toys that  have been around as long as their syndicated live-action Saturday morning namesake, simply means re-mastered. After 700 episodes and 17 seasons, the long-running Power Rangers fought their last battle  against Lord Zed and Rita Repulsa on Dec 26th, 2009. From their 1993 beginnings on then-new Fox Kids, the Power Rangers series morphed its way through fifteen different iterations, finally landing at Disney's ABC Kids channel, which canceled new production on the series one year ago. That doesn't mean Disney - or their merchandising partner Bandai - is oblivious to the dollars still there to be mined from the franchise, however. Returning to and re-mastering the early episodes of the series, the original Mighty Morphin' Rangers are back on Saturdays, young again and looking better than ever.

That's great for Amy Jo Johnson, Dave Yost, and the other former teen stars of the original show, but not so good for The Dabbler, frustrated as I was that one late night last week in Wal-Mart.  If the ratio of Rangers to Classics wasn't enough of an upset, the chain store giant added insult to injury by actually increasing the price of the Mattel heroes!  Instead of 'rolling back' their prices on my toys, they 'rolled out' a heap of toys about which I could honestly care less -- cheaper toys, lower-quality toys, all garishly painted a metallic pastel. 

And you know what, dabblers? It all makes perfect sense.

Mattel's DC Universe Classics have become a sell-out hit since the line's first wave of comic book action figures hit two years ago.  Despite ever-increasing demand and Mattel's exclusive agreements with its three biggest vendors - Toys R Us, Target, and Wal-Mart - to launch many of those six-inch superheroes, DC Universe Classics - averaging $15 a pop - remain scarce on shelves, unevenly distributed amongst store locations, and even victims of production shortages by Mattel itself. As a result, eBay has become the toy line's biggest reseller of DC Universe Classics, with most buyers paying $15-20 or more above retail for every figure. Other online vendors - including Mattel's own delimited online shop Matty Collector - have also entered the fray, but the costs remain just as inflated.

If the decision to buy even one DC Universe Classics action figure sounds like an expensive uphill battle, then you're definitely paying attention. It is.  It's a Collector's War, one fought by adults, not their children, and for which a terrible price is paid -- figure by collectible action figure. 

And that's why Wal-Mart's toy aisles are full of well-stocked Rangers, not marked-up Classics. Comic books have evolved into adult reading material intended for an audience that Wal-Mart doesn't bend over backwards to target. Thirty-four year old toy collectors aren't the chain's primary demographic; thirty-four year old parents of three are.  It's a far more general demographic, and the Power Rangers are far more general toys.  Superheroes and their unique identities and powers and origins versus six colors of Rangers, often reincarnated but always essentially the same.  The appeal of the toys is easy to see, even for kids who haven't seen a single Power Rangers episode.

Even if they did, the show's as general as its toys - non-linear, cartoonish, even ill-logical. Comics readers by definition have a taste for a structured, well-ordered universe. Comics are stories, and comics fans are meticulous about them, able to spot oversights and gaps while eschewing the unsubstantiated. Power Rangers was never a show to worry about form or follow-through; it was simply a vessel for free-floating imagination.

Unfortunately, imagination like that seems to be on the wane. Disney can't create it, only become its re-master.  The toys may help tow the line, but will they be enough to invigorate the raw imagination of a new generation? Judging from the small stacks of Mature Readers comic books here at the Home Office and my own mile-long want list of action figures called Classics, the answer should be obvious.

Figures In Action! HE-MAN's Mean Kitty

He-Man thinks his Battle Cat sure ain't no pussy!

From Mattel's new Masters of The Universe Classics (2009-2010)

[via]

Figures In Action! Villains Unite!

'Legion of Doom' members pose for a rare photo session

By Mattel's DC Superheroes and DC Universe Classics

Figures In Action! Dick's Old Duds

NIGHTWING

DC Superheroes (Mattel)

 

No Toy 4 Tots: Palm Beach SugarDaddy Ken Doll is Sweet!

We've been knee-deep in -- not to mention running behind on -- Star Trek XI coverage (which we'll note will continue Wednesday and Thursday on your favorite comicsblog, natch!) but we didn't want you to think that Trek is the end-all of abbracadabbling.

Our kind of magic wouldn't be any fun at all if sometimes reality wasn't stranger than fiction. And believe us, today's been one of those times.

But don't take our word for it -- take Mattel's. Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken is the Barbie manufacturer's latest version to take their popular neutered male's namesake. From his green print jacket to his pink shirt and that white little dog he's got on the Day-Glo leash, Sugar Daddy Ken is sure to give Barbie a run for her money as the toy world's reigning fashonista.

We'll admit this Ken doll looks like a college kid's homemade protest, but Mattel's behind this one. The company told the New York Post Sugar Daddy Ken came into being in response to the numerous requests they've received from collectors of their "Adult Barbie Collector's Line." He may not be the kind of doll young girls -- or boys for that matter -- should expect under their Christmas trees, but a few guys and gals at the Springfield Home Office would like nothing better.

Oh, by the way -- Mattel says Ken's little yap dog's name is Sugar, making Ken Sugar's daddy. Sure thing, Mattel. You get props on the doll, but we're not buying your name's explanation one bit.

If you'd like to buy Ken this Christmas, he's part of Barbie's Gold Label Collection. That means he comes with a Certificate of Authenticity and a $70 price tag. Entertainment Earth [Link] has him, but we'll be shopping around before we bring him and his Sugar home for the Holidays.