Toy Bender

I’ll tell you, it’s not as fun doing these Nerd Questions features for toy lines that aren’t Star Wars. For one, I know where I can find all the sites that have questions for Hasbro. For another, the questions aren’t as terribly stomach churning. Oh well, I suppose my non-Hasbro coverage has suffered a lot lately so let’s see what I can dig up…

Fwoosh had this to ask:

Fwoosh: The DCUC Wonder Woman is a beautiful figure. The Horsemen really did a great job! One thing though- it doesn’t appear that she has the standard thigh swivel joint consistent with the rest of the line- will more articulation be added to her before production begins? How do her hip joints work?

Mattel: We do not have a final model of Wonder Woman at this point so it is not possible to comment on this yet. We hope to have a more detailed final toy to show at the summer conventions. Sorry we could not be more specific quite yet!

Please, whatever you do Mattel, just don’t make her a jointed mess like some of the horrible Marvel Legends females.

Fwoosh also asked:

Fwoosh: We have heard that, in regards to more New Gods figures showing up in DCUC, that there is a stance of “pleading the FIFTH”, on that. Would you say that the FIFTH would be an accurate stance?

Mattel: We’ll just see what happens as we continue to COUNTDOWN to the launch of new toys. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing so we can avoid any type of CRISIS.

LOLZ Mattel, you sure is sneaky.

Here’s another one from Fwoosh:

Fwoosh: Will the JLU 10″ figures continue to be made?

Mattel: Fans will find out the latest on JLU 10 inch figures at our summer conventions. Maybe some news to announce at NYCC in April…

So that’s not a no, so I guess that’s a good sign. I hope they keep making these so I can continue to not buy them. Unless they make a Powergirl or current Supergirl. Then I’d need like ten.

Raving Toy Maniac gets in on the action with this question:

Raving Toy Maniac: Is the wave lineup of “hero, archenemy, 2 B-list heroes, 1 fan-favorite character” going to continue in the DCUC line for the rest of the year?

Mattel: Not exactly to that equation every time, but we will have a good mix of A list, B list and fan requests in every wave.

Good. We don’t need a glut of Supermen and Batmen… we need a glut of 5th World nobody cares about! Bring on the Black Racers!!!

RTM asked about one of my favorite DC superhero groups:

Raving Toy Maniac: Any chance we’ll see any Legion figures in JLU or DC Classics?

Hasbro: A very good chance!

Uh wow, what a fantastically detailed answer.

Toy News International asked about the line that I’m kind of excited about and Yo Go Re seems to detest with all the detest he has (and he has a lot of detest):

Toy News International: When are the new DC Universe Infinite Heroes figures due out on shelves?

Mattel: Wave 1 should be out around August.

Man I can’t wait until these hit stores so I can decide for not if they are utter crap or not. But I’m still buying a Powergirl, because I’m retarded.

Wondering about He-Man? Who isn’t!

Toy News International: Can we expect any updates about the Masters of the Universe toy line this year, maybe at SDCC?

Mattel: We’ll have some news at NY Comic Con with a larger focus at San Diego on the future of the MOTU property. Good things are cooking up!

Our next question comes to us courtesy of a fellow named Poe Ghostal on Poe Ghostal’s Points of Articulation:

PGPoA: When building a collector-oriented toy line, I believe it’s a risk to offer unique characters as exclusives, rather than redecos of existing characters. A unique character will be a must-own for many, even a majority of collectors. Simply put, a redeco is a nice reward for fans who go to conventions, whereas unique character exclusives seem more like a punishment for those who don’t. What’s the justification for selling unique characters as convention exclusives?

Mattel: Our goal with the convention exclusives is to do a figure that is not only unique for fans but also might not fit into the mass retail line due to size, scale or logistical issues. You can never please all the fans with every choice but we feel confident that this year’s figures will really raise the bar on convention exclusives forever. Our New York exclusives will be repaints and our Comic Con San Diego exclusives will be new characters. Best of both worlds!

While Poe would say that the answer was a good one, I’m a little different in that respect. Yeah, you can say that figures that might not be good for mass retail would be perfect as convention exclusives, but there have been plenty of convention exclusives that would have done just fine at retail and are way too expensive to try to get via eBay because I couldn’t make it to a con. Let’s just wait and see which figures they’ll pick for exclusives. The proof will be in the pudding. Mmmmmm pudding.

So did anyone enjoy this post? For me the main problem with Mattel’s questions is that most of them are geared toward what figures are upcoming and Mattel not being able to answer. I guess fans are pretty happy with them right now so we don’t get the fun, yet highly aggravating nit picking found in the Star Wars questions.