Mattel DC Figures

Alt said:
Lockheed and Bamf squishmallows would be sick, though...
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There was a plush Lockheed a few years ago that I picked up, just on principle:

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He hangs out on the back of my couch.
 
I've never been all-in on Todd's stuff, but even beyond my specific issues with that line, I just want something that scales with my other figures again. In my collection McFarlane DC only works with itself and maybe NECA horror, and the Justice League's presence does somewhat diminish the tension of a Friday the 13th film.
 
Not even just Todd. DC has been routinely fucked over so often on all fronts that a complete (and possibly positive) reset for one of their non-comic outings is going to spur up a lot of talk.
 
Mattel has only shown some basic line figures. They haven't even shown any collector figures. Yet people have shown their disdain towards character selection, line ups, size, articulation, paint, accessories, among other thing over no information whatsoever. Also, there are many pages discussing Marvel Legends, Star Wars, TMNT, & music & comics from the 1970s.
 
I understand that this is somewhat controversial, but I just saw something on Bleeding Cool that the three biggest comic titles of last week are Lobo, Batwoman, and Deathstroke. In that order. I didn’t read Lobo, but the other two were excellent. All three are a part of DC’s Next Level initiative. Next month we get Firestorm and Zatanna. Followed by a Barbara Gordon series that must be so good that Batgirl hasn’t even been mentioned. Plus a Deadman title. LSH and Etrigan the Demon on deck. These are set in the main continuity, not a parallel universe like the Absolute titles. Comic wise, DC is on a hot streak. Both in critical and sales terms.

So does Mattel recognize this, or continue with “classic/iconic” until the end of time? Personally, I believe that ignoring Absolute/Next Level leaves a lot of money on the table.
 
Atomic Knight said:
I understand that this is somewhat controversial, but I just saw something on Bleeding Cool that the three biggest comic titles of last week are Lobo, Batwoman, and Deathstroke. In that order. I didn’t read Lobo, but the other two were excellent. All three are a part of DC’s Next Level initiative. Next month we get Firestorm and Zatanna. Followed by a Barbara Gordon series that must be so good that Batgirl hasn’t even been mentioned. Plus a Deadman title. LSH and Etrigan the Demon on deck. These are set in the main continuity, not a parallel universe like the Absolute titles. Comic wise, DC is on a hot streak. Both in critical and sales terms.

So does Mattel recognize this, or continue with “classic/iconic” until the end of time? Personally, I believe that ignoring Absolute/Next Level leaves a lot of money on the table.
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I mean... who knows?

They literally have not released a single toy yet and we have no idea where their focus is going to be. Also, current sales figures are utterly worthless for determining who wants what toys. It's possible that Lobo is sitting at number 1 -entirely- on the strength of all the recent hubub over one of the most popular and famous action movie guys being cast a Lobo in film. We don't know if that translates into actual character interest over time. We don't know if the interest in those specific titles will relate to interest in action figures of those characters or of those specific costumes.

It's not just speculative - it's almost worthlessly speculative because there is simply no supporting data to draw any conclusions at all AND we have no idea what Mattel's plan is.
 
If Absolute or whatever else is still topping the charts in a year or two, maybe it's viable and could jump over to having some sort of focus in the toyline, but that's also completely ignoring what level of overlap there may be between the people actually buying those comics and the demographic that is actually interested in buying toys at retail. Unless we assume they're just 1:1 going for a Legends style (in which case, how they'd handle this is obvious) there's not much else to say.
 
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Atomic Knight said:
So does Mattel recognize this, or continue with “classic/iconic” until the end of time? Personally, I believe that ignoring Absolute/Next Level leaves a lot of money on the table.
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I don’t think anyone is arguing they will *only* do classic/iconic “until the end of time”. Hyperbole is generally unhlepful.

That said: I think any reasonable assessment must be that Mattel is going to be looking for *mass* appeal, and at this point current comic-book readers are a niche. That doesn’t mean the won’t do current-comics appealing items, but they certainly won’t be looking at current comic readers as *the* demographic to pump above all others. Joe Average and especially parents will be considered way more heavily than readers of what may turn out to be flash-in-the-pan titles that are selling well *for comics*.
 
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