Toy Fair 2011 – Hasbro Marvel Report – Avengers Assemble!

Earlier this evening, I covered the Marvel Universe / Legends portion of Hasbro’s Marvel presentation from their collectors event today. But with two potential blockbuster movies coming this summer, Hasbro has a lot to offer with their Thor and Captain America product lines. This year is all about laying the Avengers foundation – because 2012 will see a the movie franchises coming together in the Avengers movie – and that will unite Thor and Cap with Iron Man and Hulk. I’d be lying if that doesn’t fill my inner Marvel fan boy with glee – and not a small amount of trepidation that it gets screwed up. But hey – even if the movies don’t pan out, at least we’ll have some awesome toys!

There’s a formula for the movie properties, so I’ll try to summarize them up front.

• Single figures – 3.75-inches, action features typically in the accessories
• Deluxe figures – 3.75-inches, with more accessories, gear, projectiles
• Feature figure – 10-inches with electronics (compatible with the Iron Man figure from last year)
• Vehicles
• Role Play – masks, weapons with Nerf projectiles, and in the case of Cap, a shield frisbee that should revive the sport
• Super Hero Squad – this line will transition to a new, slightly larger, and articulated line (so they work better with playsets and vehicles) still targeted at kids

Thor – toys hit stores March 1st, movie premieres May 5 – over 20 figures this year

Hasbro showed movie figures only, and didn’t hint at any comic-based figures coming our way. However, with the movie going wide with characters, we’ll see a broad array of figures beyond Thor, Loki, and Odin, including:

• Sif
• Destroyer
• Hogun
• Fandrall
• Volstagg
• Heimdall (only available in the deluxe format)

Captain America – toys hit stores May 1st, movie premieres July 22 – over 20 figures this year

One thing that distinguishes the Cap from the Thor line is the inclusion of comic-inspired and concept figures, much like what we saw with the Iron Man line. Kudos on the character choices for the comic figures:

• Captain Britain
• Ultimates
• Winter Soldier
• USAgent
• Bucky Cap (new sculpt)
• Crossbones

I did ask the Hasbro Marvel team about 6-inch figures for Thor and Cap. They had hinted at them when they debuted the lines at San Diego Comic-Con last year but didn’t have anything in their slide presentation or showroom. While the official answer was that there is nothing to announce at this time, my gut feeling is that we may see some 6-inch exclusives, like we saw with Iron Man at Wal-Mart, Target, and Toys R Us.

Even with the focus on Thor and Cap, the Iron Man and Spider-Man lines will continue this year, although they will really in a keep-alive mode until we get the Iron Man boost from the Avengers next year and the Spider-Man boost from the movie reboot. Hasbro did say that they were definitely getting the 6-inch Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man to retail shelves this year.

Iron Man

Spider-Man

That’s it for the Marvel report for this Toy Fair – if you’ve got questions, please leave a comment, and we’ll be sure to follow up when Hasbro kicks off the Marvel Q&A for this year. And be sure to check out the press gallery for Hasbro Marvel – they’ve sent us a bunch of nice, big images for all the Marvel lines.

Excelsior!