yojoebro82
Thoughtful
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2025
- Messages
- 1,272
My first exposure to McUse was Toybiz Marvel legends. "Magneto on an Iron Man buck? That's questionable", I thought.
Mattel DC Figures
- Thread starter TheSameIdiot
- Start date
jayjonah
Ponderous
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2025
- Messages
- 142
I've read the last couple pages but basically Mattel has said the DC line will copy their WWE line in certain ways not fully disclosed. The kids line you saw at ToyFair and online sites is similar to WWE Main Event. The DC Collector line will be similar to the Elite line and the Ultimate line which means more accessories, if it mirrors the Ultimate line. There was even talk of calling the upper tier line DC Ultimates. However looking at the kids line the DC team must have received a decent budget because WWE main event line doesn't have accessories like was presented for the kids line. I mean who has heard of a kids line that has figures with removable face plates.
This post is going to be lengthy, I think. I apologize in advance. But I’ve been thinking about how this all started and I wanted to get these thoughts down. Plus I think it’ll be interesting and a little eye opening for folks who don’t know the complete history of Marvel Legends and DC Universe Classics.
Back in 2001, ToyBiz produced a new line of action figures called Spider-Man Classics. It was pretty darn cool. The line was aimed at adult collectors that were fans of Marvel Comics. This was the first line that ToyBiz produced in the 6” scale and it was an immediate success. I don’t know what specifically it was that made it such a hit with the fans. I don’t know if it was the scale, the insane (for the time) amount of articulation, the fact that the figures included a comic book and a wall mountable display base or the clamshell packaging. Maybe it was all of the above. The point is the line was a hit. And this was a comic based line. No media was tied into it.
Well, it was smooth sailing for the first couple of waves. But ToyBiz ran into a little bit of a problem. In 2002 Sony released a live action Spider-Man movie. Now obviously there were going to be figures based on the film, that was a no-brainer. But that presented TB with a dilemma. They didn’t want two Spider-Man lines out at the same time because they felt that might cannibalize sales. What to do? They didn’t want to lose precious shelf space on the retail shelves. The answer was … Marvel Legends.
I was at SDCC on Preview Night in 2002 when ToyBiz showed us the first prototypes of Marvel Legends, a line that still continues to this day. I talked to Jesse Falcon that night and I got all this info straight from him. Marvel Legends was going to be a COMIC BASED line, six inch scale, highly articulated and would include a comic book and a wall mountable display base in clam shell packaging. It would be just like Spider-Man Classics but obviously without Spider-Man. It would feature Marvel’s most popular characters in their most iconic looks. The first wave was supposed to be Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk and Dr. Doom. Doom did not get tooled in time so at the last minute he got replaced with a Toad prototype they had left over from another line. No matter, Doom came out in wave 2. At the time, the plan was to alternate Legends with Spider-Man Classics. During years with no new Spidey movie you’d have Spider-Man Classics. During years with a movie you’d have a new wave or two of Legends.
Now no one expected Legends to be a hit. It was only there as a filler until Raimi’s Spider-Man series of movies ran their course. Myself, I was hoping for four waves. I’m an Avengers guy so I wanted Cap, Iron Man, Thor and hopefully a couple of others, maybe Hawkeye and the Wasp. I mean, there was no cartoon, video game or movie to sell the line. Wal-Mart wasn’t even on board and that’s 40 percent of your sales right there. I figured we would be lucky if the line lasted three or four waves. Five would be pushing it.
Well, guess what, true believers. Marvel Legends was a huge, huge hit. Wal-Mart jumped on board with wave 3. They started asking for their own exclusive waves. ToyBiz owned Marvel so they paid no licensing fees. Sales were so good they could do things like all villains waves, something unheard of prior to this. I could go on and on, but the point is comic based figures in the six inch scale with lots of articulation was a hit with fans.
Sooooo … that brings us to 2003 and Mattel first acquiring the DC license. Actually, screw that. Let’s just skip ahead to SDCC 2007. That’s when Mattel announced a new line called DC Superheroes. I got to speak at length with the line manager whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten. He used to post as Inside Traitor on the old Action Figure Insider message boards. He told me it was the buyers at Wal-Mart who went to them and said “Hey, we have a line called Marvel Legends that’s doing great for us. Why don’t you guys do the same with the DC characters?” DING! And so the DC Superheroes line was born. Same general idea as Legends. Six inch scale figures, wall mountable display base, comic book packed in, lots of posability, ect. AND … they would be sculpted by none other than the Four Horsemen themselves. I was beyond excited. DC figures in the Marvel Legends style was a dream come true.
When I looked at what Mattel had on display in their booth, I was a little confused. Many of those shelves had a wall mountable display base but no figure. The few figures I saw were Superman and Batman. No matter, I thought. This is only Preview Night. Maybe they just haven’t arrived yet. So I walked down to the Four Horsemen booth to talk to Cornboy and maybe get a quote or two for Action Figure Insider (I had my press pass in those days). Well, I got some info from Cornboy all right, but nothing I could post.
Eric laid a bombshell on me. The Horsemen sculpted a bunch of figures thinking they had the master license for DC Comics. In turns out they did not. They found that out at the last minute, which is exactly when you don’t want to find something like that out. A week before SDCC, some staffers from DC Direct (Remember them?) came to the FH studio and pulled nearly all their DC sculpts. No, they said, you can’t use these. That explained the empty display cases in the Mattel booth. Eric was heartbroken, and I could tell how upset he was when he was telling me this. He sculpted a beautiful Darkseid that would never see the light of day, he said. Needless to say, that started a flurry of calls between Mattel and DC. It was DC’s position that Mattel could use whatever characters they wanted in the animated style but anything comic based was strictly DC Direct. DC would allow Mattel to use the Superman and Batman family of characters in the 6” line but they were restricted from anything else. They didn’t want Mattel stepping on DC Direct’s toes. To make matters worse, Mattel couldn’t make anything story specific in the 6” line, either. The Horsemen sculpted a great Hunter/Prey Superman but that got yanked, too.
Well, that was the last straw. Mattel took DC back to the bargaining table and after they ponied up a lot of cash a new deal was struck. And so DC Superheroes became DC Universe Classics. And life was good.
Here’s some irony for ya: Hasbro acquired the master license for Marvel in 2007. They then immediately screwed up Marvel Legends something awful, I guess in favor of their shrinky dink 4 inch line. Well, that didn’t work out too well for them. And then in 2011 I heard Hasbro was planning on bringing back Marvel Legends and this time maybe taking their heads out of their asses. I talked to Dwight Stall at the Hasbro booth at SDCC that year and he confirmed they were indeed bringing back Legends. He gave me a couple of prototypes to handle and they looked and felt like honest to God Marvel Legends. I asked why the change of heart and he looked right over at the Mattel booth and said “They’re having some success over there.” Honest to God. That’s an exact quote.
I just find it supremely ironic that it was the success of Marvel Legends that inspired Mattel to create DC Universe Classics, and in turn it was the success of DCUC that inspired Hasbro to bring back Marvel Legends.
As my old friend @rodkeith once said “The child is truly Father to the man.”
It would have been great if Marvel Legends and DCUC were both going full bore at the same time, but in this business it’s always something. No need to go into the whole Super Powers/Geoff Johns/New 52 fiasco again. With this hobby it seems every time you get excited about something someone pulls the rug right out from underneath ya.
Well, here we are in 2026. Hasbro is still producing Legends and Mattel is about to start a new line aimed at collectors. What will the future bring? I guess all we can do is hope for the best but brace for the worst.
Back in 2001, ToyBiz produced a new line of action figures called Spider-Man Classics. It was pretty darn cool. The line was aimed at adult collectors that were fans of Marvel Comics. This was the first line that ToyBiz produced in the 6” scale and it was an immediate success. I don’t know what specifically it was that made it such a hit with the fans. I don’t know if it was the scale, the insane (for the time) amount of articulation, the fact that the figures included a comic book and a wall mountable display base or the clamshell packaging. Maybe it was all of the above. The point is the line was a hit. And this was a comic based line. No media was tied into it.
Well, it was smooth sailing for the first couple of waves. But ToyBiz ran into a little bit of a problem. In 2002 Sony released a live action Spider-Man movie. Now obviously there were going to be figures based on the film, that was a no-brainer. But that presented TB with a dilemma. They didn’t want two Spider-Man lines out at the same time because they felt that might cannibalize sales. What to do? They didn’t want to lose precious shelf space on the retail shelves. The answer was … Marvel Legends.
I was at SDCC on Preview Night in 2002 when ToyBiz showed us the first prototypes of Marvel Legends, a line that still continues to this day. I talked to Jesse Falcon that night and I got all this info straight from him. Marvel Legends was going to be a COMIC BASED line, six inch scale, highly articulated and would include a comic book and a wall mountable display base in clam shell packaging. It would be just like Spider-Man Classics but obviously without Spider-Man. It would feature Marvel’s most popular characters in their most iconic looks. The first wave was supposed to be Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk and Dr. Doom. Doom did not get tooled in time so at the last minute he got replaced with a Toad prototype they had left over from another line. No matter, Doom came out in wave 2. At the time, the plan was to alternate Legends with Spider-Man Classics. During years with no new Spidey movie you’d have Spider-Man Classics. During years with a movie you’d have a new wave or two of Legends.
Now no one expected Legends to be a hit. It was only there as a filler until Raimi’s Spider-Man series of movies ran their course. Myself, I was hoping for four waves. I’m an Avengers guy so I wanted Cap, Iron Man, Thor and hopefully a couple of others, maybe Hawkeye and the Wasp. I mean, there was no cartoon, video game or movie to sell the line. Wal-Mart wasn’t even on board and that’s 40 percent of your sales right there. I figured we would be lucky if the line lasted three or four waves. Five would be pushing it.
Well, guess what, true believers. Marvel Legends was a huge, huge hit. Wal-Mart jumped on board with wave 3. They started asking for their own exclusive waves. ToyBiz owned Marvel so they paid no licensing fees. Sales were so good they could do things like all villains waves, something unheard of prior to this. I could go on and on, but the point is comic based figures in the six inch scale with lots of articulation was a hit with fans.
Sooooo … that brings us to 2003 and Mattel first acquiring the DC license. Actually, screw that. Let’s just skip ahead to SDCC 2007. That’s when Mattel announced a new line called DC Superheroes. I got to speak at length with the line manager whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten. He used to post as Inside Traitor on the old Action Figure Insider message boards. He told me it was the buyers at Wal-Mart who went to them and said “Hey, we have a line called Marvel Legends that’s doing great for us. Why don’t you guys do the same with the DC characters?” DING! And so the DC Superheroes line was born. Same general idea as Legends. Six inch scale figures, wall mountable display base, comic book packed in, lots of posability, ect. AND … they would be sculpted by none other than the Four Horsemen themselves. I was beyond excited. DC figures in the Marvel Legends style was a dream come true.
When I looked at what Mattel had on display in their booth, I was a little confused. Many of those shelves had a wall mountable display base but no figure. The few figures I saw were Superman and Batman. No matter, I thought. This is only Preview Night. Maybe they just haven’t arrived yet. So I walked down to the Four Horsemen booth to talk to Cornboy and maybe get a quote or two for Action Figure Insider (I had my press pass in those days). Well, I got some info from Cornboy all right, but nothing I could post.
Eric laid a bombshell on me. The Horsemen sculpted a bunch of figures thinking they had the master license for DC Comics. In turns out they did not. They found that out at the last minute, which is exactly when you don’t want to find something like that out. A week before SDCC, some staffers from DC Direct (Remember them?) came to the FH studio and pulled nearly all their DC sculpts. No, they said, you can’t use these. That explained the empty display cases in the Mattel booth. Eric was heartbroken, and I could tell how upset he was when he was telling me this. He sculpted a beautiful Darkseid that would never see the light of day, he said. Needless to say, that started a flurry of calls between Mattel and DC. It was DC’s position that Mattel could use whatever characters they wanted in the animated style but anything comic based was strictly DC Direct. DC would allow Mattel to use the Superman and Batman family of characters in the 6” line but they were restricted from anything else. They didn’t want Mattel stepping on DC Direct’s toes. To make matters worse, Mattel couldn’t make anything story specific in the 6” line, either. The Horsemen sculpted a great Hunter/Prey Superman but that got yanked, too.
Well, that was the last straw. Mattel took DC back to the bargaining table and after they ponied up a lot of cash a new deal was struck. And so DC Superheroes became DC Universe Classics. And life was good.
Here’s some irony for ya: Hasbro acquired the master license for Marvel in 2007. They then immediately screwed up Marvel Legends something awful, I guess in favor of their shrinky dink 4 inch line. Well, that didn’t work out too well for them. And then in 2011 I heard Hasbro was planning on bringing back Marvel Legends and this time maybe taking their heads out of their asses. I talked to Dwight Stall at the Hasbro booth at SDCC that year and he confirmed they were indeed bringing back Legends. He gave me a couple of prototypes to handle and they looked and felt like honest to God Marvel Legends. I asked why the change of heart and he looked right over at the Mattel booth and said “They’re having some success over there.” Honest to God. That’s an exact quote.
I just find it supremely ironic that it was the success of Marvel Legends that inspired Mattel to create DC Universe Classics, and in turn it was the success of DCUC that inspired Hasbro to bring back Marvel Legends.
As my old friend @rodkeith once said “The child is truly Father to the man.”
It would have been great if Marvel Legends and DCUC were both going full bore at the same time, but in this business it’s always something. No need to go into the whole Super Powers/Geoff Johns/New 52 fiasco again. With this hobby it seems every time you get excited about something someone pulls the rug right out from underneath ya.
Well, here we are in 2026. Hasbro is still producing Legends and Mattel is about to start a new line aimed at collectors. What will the future bring? I guess all we can do is hope for the best but brace for the worst.
jayjonah
Ponderous
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2025
- Messages
- 142
It's actually the other way around. That Ironman was in series 1 and Magneto was in series 3. I actually thought it made sense since they are both around the same height and build.
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Gods, I'd argue Hasbro doesn't even plan that well.
I've said for years that you need eight superhero base bodies:
- Men
- Brawler (Superman, Thor)
- Standard (Batman, Captain America)
- Acrobat (Nightwing, Daredevil)
- Skinny (Flash, Mr. Fantastic)
- Teen
- Women
- Brawler (Wonder Woman, Jim Lee Rogue)
- Standard (Zatanna, Phoenix)
- Teen
secondwhiteline
Gun-Fu Terminator
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2025
- Messages
- 321
I feel like especially for DC I'd want an Acrobat equivalent for the women to cover all the female martial artists and thief types, assuming that base would allow for a greater range of posing.
Niko (protozoalord)
Guyver guy
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2025
- Messages
- 566
Ditto for wanting athletic/martial artist ladies. I'd want a body a bit different for a Cass or Lady Shiva when put side by side with Wonder Woman or Zatanna.
I wouldn't mind any company having several bodies that fulfill the same general purpose in theory, but that's under the assumption that those bodies are size/function variations and not just "Yeah this one's the brand new, nearly perfect iteration" and "This one is 12 years old and looks bulbous and disgusting." Knowing Legends, in like 4 years they'll try adopting the new "import style" construction that Jada and MOTU Chronicles is going for and it'd take 6 years for it to be on 2 standard bodies. They really just need a soft reboot for Marvel Legends at some point. Get rid of all the old molds, every single one.
I wouldn't mind any company having several bodies that fulfill the same general purpose in theory, but that's under the assumption that those bodies are size/function variations and not just "Yeah this one's the brand new, nearly perfect iteration" and "This one is 12 years old and looks bulbous and disgusting." Knowing Legends, in like 4 years they'll try adopting the new "import style" construction that Jada and MOTU Chronicles is going for and it'd take 6 years for it to be on 2 standard bodies. They really just need a soft reboot for Marvel Legends at some point. Get rid of all the old molds, every single one.
Reno
Thoughtful
Thank you for sharing all of that, @SDcomics ! I've been collecting all of Marvel and DC lines during all of that time that you covered, but I had no idea the story behind all of those that you shared. I found it fascinating! It only makes sense that a good 1/12th(ish) scale line competition between the two companies would bring out the best in both. Hopefully that's what we're headed for now.
Xavion2025
Pensive
- Joined
- Apr 20, 2025
- Messages
- 313
Yeah, that was bad.
My first exposure to McUse was the Toy Biz Marvel Universe 10” line…repainting Rogue into Mystique and Polaris…stuff like that. However that was a toy line that could be had ridiculously cheap at KayBee, even in mid 90s dollars, not an adult collector line with a MSRP of $34.99.
I agree. I feel like the line is getting stale, and it’s not just the molds. For those who follow the NFL, it’s like the Bills, Ravens, and Steelers parting ways with their head coaches this offseason. Half the teams in the league would give a nut to be as successful as those teams have been over the last several years, but sometimes you hit a wall and need to bring in some new blood with a fresh perspective. Look at the Patriots. A couple of seasons after moving on from Belichick, they made it back to the Super Bowl with Vrabel.
I’m not saying that Hasbro should clean house and get an entirely new team to oversee the line. I just think it’s time to shuffle the deck a bit.
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I'm not sure how close to accurate this number is, but some recently counted 489 unique people. That doesn't count wrestlers with multiple gimmicks, so someone like Mick Foley would count as one even though he's been Mankind, Cactus Jack, and Dude Love.
Reno
Thoughtful
Dwight from the Legends team did hint that he'd likely be retiring soon, but he has also said that they already have figures designed and done for as far as two years out, so it's going to be a bit.
yojoebro82
Thoughtful
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2025
- Messages
- 1,272
Those were still the days when you could still realistically make the argument that the figures were "for the kids" so yes, you are correct. Adult collectors paying these prices shouldn't have to put up with insane shoe-horned reuse that TBML and McFarlane will sometimes do.
We'll never know for sure because they aren't transparent with kind of stuff but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of ML's shortcomings are due to Hasbro penny pinching and not creative burn out, but who knows. Yeah, I'd be totally fine with a ML shake up.
Misfit
Got somethin' to say
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2025
- Messages
- 2,071
Didn't he say he didn't think he'd be around for the 40th anniversary or something? I wouldn't consider that "soon." If he's close to 50 then he's probably hoping to retire by 65 like most people and was just making a joke.
Reno
Thoughtful
I didn't catch that and I'll take your word for it that it was meant as humor. I have no idea how old he is, but I'm 50 and I feel like he looks significantly older than I do (in my own opinion at least). The only reference I could find was that he's been working in the industry for 20 years, which doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Of course neither factor is necessarily relevant. I know plenty of people that have retired in their 50's and at least a handful that are happily still working by choice in their 80s. I personally have no intentions to ever retire until I get to the point that I can't either mentally or physically handle it any more, but that's also pretty easy to say at only 50 years old. Both of my parents passed in their mid-60s due to natural causes, so longevity is not necessarily on my side.
I like Dwight so I hope that he sticks around for a long time and that certainly doesn't mean that a refresh can't still happen.
Of course neither factor is necessarily relevant. I know plenty of people that have retired in their 50's and at least a handful that are happily still working by choice in their 80s. I personally have no intentions to ever retire until I get to the point that I can't either mentally or physically handle it any more, but that's also pretty easy to say at only 50 years old. Both of my parents passed in their mid-60s due to natural causes, so longevity is not necessarily on my side.
I like Dwight so I hope that he sticks around for a long time and that certainly doesn't mean that a refresh can't still happen.
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