We’re at the Mattel Nerd Herd today. Here’s some quick pics of DC Universe:
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Mattel is hosting its event for online media today, the official first day of New York Toy Fair. To get you the pics you want as fast as I can, I’m hooking you into my Instagram feed. If you’re on Instagram, follow me at afpron – that’s for AFP Ron, not AF Pron :). Stay tuned for better pictures soon.
A couple of days back, BigBadToyStore listed the second waves of Batman Unlimited and DC Unlimited, with estimated arrival in the 1st quarter of 2013. For Batman Unlimited, we’re getting the garishly colored Planet X Batman (I guess “Zur-En-Arrh” isn’t packaging friendly) and the Dark Knight Returns Batman. And in DC Unlimited, we’re getting Batman from Injustice: Gods Among Us and Wonder Woman in her New 52 costume.
There’s been a lot of flux in Mattel’s DC collector-oriented retail offerings – here are the five key takeaways from these reveals:
1) Thank Grodd that the DC Universe Club Infinite Earths subscription went through, because Mattel’s DC collector-oriented offerings at retail haven’t been this limited since before Classics launched five years ago.
It wasn’t that long ago that we were seeing waves of seven figures, with retailer exclusive waves and two packs – so we’ll be suffering withdrawal going down to waves of four figures. The first waves of Batman and DC Unlimited had 3 figures each, but if retail has pushed that down to 2, Mattel DC is at the stage in the retail channel that Hasbro was at a few years back with their 2-pack offerings. It took a couple of lean years before Hasbro came back with a reinvigorated Legends re-launch, and we’re probably just at the start with DC.
Continue reading “Five Takeaways from the Batman and DC Unlimited Reveals”
With DC Universe Classics pulling back from retail, we expected fewer reveals to open up San Diego Comic-Con. Mattel had a few reveals in Club Infinite Earths – Poison Ivy and Black Mask, and also had packaged samples of the DC Universe All-Stars lineup. I also snapped some pics of The Dark Knight Rises Movie Masters – I haven’t seen these yet at retail, even though they’ve been out for a few weeks.
Continue reading “SDCC 2012: Mattel DC Universe Preview Night”
Mattel held its annual Collector Night at New York Toy Fair yesterday, and we were on site to take pictures of the latest and greatest figures to be revealed across their collector-oriented lines. We’ll cover most of that over the next few days, but I did want to post what we has spawned from one of our favorite lines – DC Universe Classics.
So in this update, I’ll be covering the DC Universe Club Infinite Earths subscription, the retail-based DC Universe All-Stars, DC Universe Classics 2-Packs (Toys ‘R Us exclusive), Batman Legacy, and the 6-inchers revealed from the Movie Masters line for The Dark Knight. If you’re a fan of 6-inch DC action figures, there’s still plenty of stuff coming our way this year!
Continue reading “Toy Fair 2012 – DC Universe Classics Report”
Mattel provided a tiny sneak peek on MattyCollector.com at what’s in store for retail in 2012. DC Universe Classics will be relaunched as DC Universe All-Stars, picking up the tag for re-released figures in the Classics line that came with stands instead of Collect and Connect pieces. It’s a fitting name, since we’re seeing a re-release with Batman Beyond and the removal of the Collect and Connect altogether.
We saw Larfleeze at New York Comic Con, but I’m a little surprised at the rest of the line-up here. I had expected one of the big guns in their updated DCnU looks, since Mattel had referenced DCnU back at San Diego Comic-Con when it announced that it would be revamping its retail line. My for-fun-only theory is that these figures were hold-overs from an unofficially themed wave of Geoff Johns-inspired characters (Larfleeze, Superboy Prime in his Anti-Monitor armor, and Flashpoint Plastic Man are all from comics Johns wrote), and that we’ll see DCnU and Jim Lee-inspired costumes in the next wave.
Continue reading “Mattel Sneak Peek at 2012 DC Universe All-Stars Relaunch”