This year I find myself in the rather odd position of reporting on Toy Fair without actually being there. A casualty of the winter storms Pax and Quintus, I’m warm on the west coast but missing the fun of seeing the figures up close and personal. It’s the first time being on the sidelines since I started covering Toy Fair back in the heyday of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends run in 2005.
In many ways we’re seeing Hasbro’s (second) run of Marvel Legends entering similar territory. Back then, Toy Biz was making waves with the Marvel Legends Sentinel wave. And yet, macroeconomic factors were causing big changes in the industry, and the next year turned out to be Toy Biz’s swan song, with the announcement that they had licensed the Marvel toy lines to Hasbro. Those same factors – rising costs of raw materials and labor, consolidation of retailers – are still in play today for Hasbro. Rather than shutter the Legends line again, Hasbro’s Marvel team announced a shift in branding strategy at SDCC last year, and with their Toy Fair showing, we’re seeing how that plays out in the Marvel Legends line.
Continue reading “Toy Fair 2014: Hasbro Marvel Legends Report”
