The Hasbro Marvel team checks in for the latest round of Q&A.
1. We’ll start off with a couple of questions about Marvel Universe. Now that you’ve got a couple of waves of MU at retail, what have you learned about the 3 3/4-inch market for Marvel? How might that have influenced the line for 2010?
The reception for Marvel Universe has been tremendous and we’re already hard at work on our plans for 2010.
2. Will the Marvel Universe Fan’s Choice picks be made as single carded figures for retail, or are you thinking of other options? For example, Winter Soldier could be part of an “Evolutions” set with Bucky and the Alex Ross-designed Captain America. Archangel, Mystique, and Havok could be part of an X-Men box set or be comic-based figures in the Wolverine line. Mary Jane would seem a more likely pick as a show exclusive. Any hints for the two bonus picks? (One guess is Psylocke – are we right?)
We’re leading off with the first Universe box set at SDCC…so we’re definitely looking at other possibilities outside the realm of single carded figures. Just take a look at the slate for Fall exclusives: 3 different multi packs and 2 Gigantic Battles! That’ll give you a good idea for where our heads are at. Hint on one of the runner ups – you don’t want to mess with him.
Here’s our innaugural Q&A with the G.I. JOE team at Hasbro.
1. Since the recent announcement for the 2 G.I. Joe exclusives only showed packaging for the movie Destro 2-pack (pretty cool looking!), what else can you tell us about the Destro figures?When will the figures be revealed? And any more Joe exclusives planned for San Diego Comic-Con?
There will be two exclusives for Comic-Con this year.The first is a 12” Baroness figure and the other is the 3 3/4″ McCullen set.The figures will show the first McCullen as seen in the movie as well as the most recent McCullen in the family.The packaging is like a book with two single cards inside…it’s some of the best packaging the brand has ever seen.
2. Not that we’re not excited for the G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra figures, but folks are missing their 25th Anniversary Joes. What kind of timing can we expect for 25th Anniversary Joes given that the movie is opening on August 7th?Can you give us some hints of what’s to come?
This is kind of a trick question.The 25th Anniversary with the classic packaging will only be seen in the 7-packs this year.But, the 25th figures and styling will continue in movie as will the characters from the 80’s that you know and love.Going forward the movie line is the main line, but we are doing our best to bring in the classics that fans want in a new expression (like Firefly).
3. We’d love to get some more pictures of some upcoming G.I. Joe toys (we try not to publish any articles without pictures) – any chance we can get some more pictures of the SDCC exclusives, or maybe something you haven’t revealed yet?
We just posted SDCC exclusives on the G.I. Joe website.
I looked, but couldn’t find any news or pics of the exclusives on the Hasbro site. Anyone have a link?
Here’s the round-up of other Q&As from around the web. (Links to be added as they come up.)
Here’s the latest round of Q&A with Mattel. Thanks again to Toy Guru!
1. San Diego Comic Con is coming up soon. Have you figured out how many of the 30-inch Anti Monitors you’ll have available for the raffle? You’ve mentioned that these are being hand-made. I’m sure folks would love if you’d describe the process (what are the steps, who’s involved, etc.) – if you could include some pictures of the work in process, that’d be great!
Right now the plan is to have at least one of these figures per day to raffle at SDCC with Anti-Monitor points (available on the back of all Infinite Heroes figures). We’ll look at posting some images of the “work in progress” on MattyCollector.com in the near future!
2. The selection of the Wonder Twins and the big Super Powers influence on DC Universe Classics has many people wondering about what sources you might pull from for the retail line. For example, what’s the thinking on the possibility of more Super Friends, like Apache Chief, who weren’t comic book-based – would that kind of character selection be possible for the mass market, or is that more in line with Mattycollector.com 2-packs, or is it somewhere in-between?
JLU Super Friends Action Figure 3 Pack - Black Vulcan, Apache Chief & Samurai
A lot of the Super Powers characters have high mass appeal and we are doing an upcoming JLU pack with Apache Chief, Black Vulcan and Samurai. It is possible we will do more packs like this in different lines in the future. We do know collectors love these Super Powers characters and we do too!
3. Now that you’re getting deeper into the Masters of the Universe roster, with lots of the big-hitters released or announced, how does the team go about picking who’ll be coming up down the road? And seriously, what do I need to do to make sure Jitsu gets in the line-up? Do I need to start a Facebook group called No Jitsu, No Jacksons? 😉
We always take fan demand for specific characters into consideration as we’re planning the line. We will get to Jitsu in time, he is an important character with a big following!
4. The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man is one of the big (no pun intended) characters in Ghostbusters. Is something that big out of the question for the line, or could he be a Collect and Connect, or maybe a raffle item for next year?
We are looking at ways of doing Stay Puff extra large and in a way all fans can get him.
5. All right – here goes our latest attempt at fulfilling the ActionFigurePics.com mission to show pictures with each post – how about some more pictures of any of the upcoming SDCC exclusives?
There will be some new images in an upcoming issue of Toy Fare magazine showing off the different variants of He-Ro as well as the back of his cape!
Well, we tried!
Here’s a round-up of the other Ask Matty sessions from around the web. (Links to be added as they come up.)
1. Have the plans for San Diego Comic Con exclusives been firmed up, and when will we see pictures (also see question 5)? Last year’s Hasbro Toy Shop booth was one of the tougher lines at the convention, and it was further impacted by the ticketing system. Any plans to make changes to how it works at the show, and will all items be available for online purchase?
We are still in the planning stages for SDCC so it is too early to discuss specifics. We can tell you that there will be a limited number of all 3 Marvel Exclusives (Invaders 4 Pack, single carded Captain America and Wolverine Mighty Mugg) available online for fans who can’t make it to the show.
Before we get to this edition of Ask Matty, here’s an update from Mattycollector’s Facebook account:
Hey toy guys and gals,
So here is the latest. As many of you know Mer Man sold out AGAIN in very little time. We have therefore increased production again on MOTU figures. However, as we need to purchase raw materials for figures sometimes 6-8 months ahead of the “on sale date” the first figure we will be able to increase production on is Tri Klops.
So Zodac, Hordak and Man-At-Arms will have similar runs to Mer Man (which is still the highest run to date) and starting with Tri Klops we will increase production again. We are committed to continuing to increase the run until we get it just right. Keep in mind, that it wook 41 days to sell as many Beast Man as we sold on the first Mer Man sale. We don’t want to get stuck with excess product, so it is a very careful balancing act between producing to demand without over producing. But we have our best folks on it and are working overtime to get it just right!
But in other news it seems that the sale went off without the major IP issues we had last time. We will continue to improve both product and the sales process every day to meet all of our fans needs. Here are a few more updates and FAQ answers:
1: We do not yet have prices or limits for the SDCC items. We will reveal these well before the show. Hang tight for now!
2: The Legion of Superheroes JLU 4 pack and Zodac will both go on sale on May 15th at 12:00 noon.
DC Universe Classics Adam Strange and Starfire 2-Pack
3: We will also have more Adam Strange/ Starfire packs on sale soon. We just got the second shipment in due to a delay. Check back this weekend for more!
4: We have heard fans asking about order limits, but again, we looked at the numbers and the vast majority (close to 90%) of orders are for 3 or less units. Yes there will always be people who buy more to resell or to save on shipping, but unless we see a spike in large orders at the limit we are not going to alter the limits again (except for SDCC items). We set the limits based on fan feedback that 4 was not enough. We are not going to keep changing the limits every month. 10 seems to work for most fans since 90% of you are ordering less than 3 anyway. We announce product about 3 months prior to onsale date, so if you want new figures you will know just when to be online to order!
5: DCUC Wave 8 is now in stores. Be sure to head out to pick up the latest figures with Hawkgirl., Gentleman Ghost, Dr. Fate, Parademon (in two colors!) Mr. Terrific, Vigilante and Commander Steel helping to build up a bonus 10″ Giganta figure (with mini Ray Palmer!). Truly one of the best waves yet with more on the way.
6: We won’t have any more big reveals until SDCC. Some of our product (like JLU) was held up a bit do to factory issues back in December. We are doing EVERYTHING we can to work with Target to get fresh figures in stock. It is not always easy, but we are extremly committed to this! New JLU is coming!
7: We are working on the CARs, Ghostbusters and DCU brand pages and hope to have them up before the summer.
8: We are also working out the final details on the MOTU subscription program. Ideally, subscriptions will be open for a set amount of time (10- 15 days). Fans can place as many subscription orders as they want in this time. Each subscription will get you the final 6 or 5 (depending on when we can launch it) figures of 2009. We will then have a new subscription for 2010 for all 12 monthly figures. Subscriptions will not include convention or bonus figures simply because these do not have as firm on sale dates and we don’t want to lock in to figures which may move around release dates.
All figures (both monthly and bonus figures) will also be available to order in the standard way on the 15th of the month per norm.
We are trying to set up the subscription to work in two ways. 1: Figures ship (and are billed to you) each month on the 15th. 2: Figures are held and will ship and bill all at once at the end of the year. Ideally we will have both options up and running. We don’t want to open the subscription program until we know 100% it will work and their are no IP bugs. It is coming, please just give us a bit more time to make sure it will run the way we intend it before it is up for sale!
Okay, that is it for now. Please keep the feedback coming and we will continue to do everything we can to keep the Matty.com experince smooth and easy.
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