Mattel DC Figures

[Stoopid_Sandwich]

I think it's the general angst when a company like Mattel or Hasbro take over a license. When Hasbro took over the Marvel license it turned out people had good reason to be anxious as they did crap the line up for a number of years... I had similar issues when DST acquired the Trek license from AA... and then when Playmates required it... they also crapped out on that license.

Personally I feel like when Mattel first took over the dc line from Hasbro, the results were fantastic and a much needed breath of fresh air. Their problems started as the line continued into DCUC and beyond. If you track the progress of what Mattel’s Batman figures looked like when they first hit shelves in 2002-2003 and what DCUC looked like, you’ll see this downward trajectory in terms of the details in the sculpts, the type of plastics that were used, the body proportions of the characters and so on and so fourth. And the DC Multiverse line was problematic for other reasons because the sculpts were even less unique than their previous efforts. By the time Mattel had ended their run in 2019 they were practically thrown to the dogs because they were nowhere near the level of quality that their competitors were putting to market


But to backtrack a little bit because there’s another point I want to touch on , let’s not kid ourselves when it came to Hasbro’s offerings. They didn’t really ever do much worth a spit with the DC license. And unfortunately as a direct byproduct of this, they never found their footing Their most successful line was nothing more than Total Justice repaints and a smattering of animated Batman figures that used molds that were 10 years old. The one time they did put in the effort it was with their own DC Superheroes line but the sculpts were so awkward and oddly balanced that they just petered out after one wave. (I totally validated btw…I mean who makes a Superman figure whose entire center of gravity is on their shin bone for crying out loud????)


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[PantherCult]

Yeah... and Mattel may very well crap out in new and different ways.

I just didn't understamd the specific concern that they would revert to a 20 year old articulation style when there is lots of evidence they had moved on from that style when they had the license the first time... and evidence that Mattel has moved further along with their Mastervers and WWE product

 

[Stoopid_Sandwich]

Yeah... and Mattel may very well crap out in new and different ways.

I just didn't understamd the specific concern that they would revert to a 20 year old articulation style when there is lots of evidence they had moved on from that style when they had the license the first time... and evidence that Mattel has moved further along with their Mastervers and WWE product

I mean that’s true. But Mattel was also responsible for Origins if you want to use the He-Man stuff as per your example. And in that case those were 40 year old figures with maybe 3-4 adjustments in terms of the new articulation to “modernize” the original bodies. But still at first glance those look like the same MoTU toys I abandoned in my parents attic when I was like 6 years old


Also it’s like I said before, I don’t have many of my Mattel DC collection anymore. I got rid of like 98% of it


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[Chooch555]

I mean that’s true. But Mattel was also responsible for Origins if you want to use the He-Man stuff as per your example. And in that case those were 40 year old figures with maybe 3-4 adjustments in terms of the new articulation to “modernize” the original bodies. But still at first glance those look like the same MoTU toys I abandoned in my parents attic when I was like 6 years old

Origins was a deliberate move to make retro figures though.

 

[Damien]

I just found out Hasbro is getting the Street Fighter license and I pulled out my old WWF Demolition figures and, honestly, if THIS is the articulation and quality we can expect from our new Street Fighter figures, I am very disappointed.

 

[secondwhiteline]

Let's be fair to these old figures. Sometimes progress isn't linear or unbroken and the old figures have aspects that new ones lack. As proof, I submit to you that not since Kenner has a single Swamp Thing figure had a snare arm. If Mattel doesn't give Swamp Thing, and every other DC character they make, a snare arm that means this experiment has already failed.

 

[yojoebro82]

I need to see Mattel’s stuff first before I can offer anything besides guesses, and my guesses are:

Mattel DC will be to MOTU what Hasbro Marvel is to GI Joe. Fans will say, “Why can’t DC Legends be more like MOTU”, and the response will be, “Because licensing fees”. It will be “good enough”, you’ll get some winners, but in the end there will be plenty of short cuts and WTF design and marketing choices, which is the MO for all of these companies.

I don’t think Mattel is going to go back 20 years to the DC Superheroes design scheme (and I have that S3 black and gray Batman displayed proudly next to Mafex Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman right now, BTW), in fact Mattel was doing pinless on their final waves of DC figures a year or two before ML incorporated it (and Hasbro will still point out “pinless joints” as if it’s some new technology).

Multiple Batman, Batman family, and other A listers will dominate well before they start going to the deep cuts. It will be a long haul to a robust and diverse DC Mattel 2.0 collection.

I don’t know what scale it will be but it doesn’t matter. People’s knee-jerk request is 6 inch “to scale with my Marvel Legends”, and yet I almost NEVER see collection pics with Marvel and DC displayed together.

I don’t have much defense for Todd other than there are some offerings that turned out really well. But then of course there are the lazy-ass offerings, but that’s EVERY domestic toy company, Mattel and Hasbro included. I don’t see them as being very different at all. This license is going from one big corporation with an eye on the bottom line to another, so, “oh well”, I guess, is my attitude at this point.

Now if these were Jada DC figures coming in one year, I’d be spending 2026 clearing out ALL my Mattel and Todd DC figures to make room and start fresh.

 

[Sgt. Stinky]

I just hope the head sculpts are evolved. Every DCUC figure-including females- had square jaws and chins. I love what McFarlane has done with the line, especially recently and feel they were starting to hit there stride. So I will miss them and will take a wait and see approach with Mattel. Looking at there current modern action figures hasn't really impressed me much but to be fair, the haven't produced a line I am interested in collecting so I haven't bought and opened any of them. I am just speaking towards the current aesthetic of how they look. Hence a wait and see approach. I hope they are great because I love DC almost has much as Marvel. I don't really care much about scale as I don't really display/play with them next to Marvel Legends. If they match scale wise, that would just be a bonus.

 

[Reno]

Now if these were Jada DC figures coming in one year, I’d be spending 2026 clearing out ALL my Mattel and Todd DC figures to make room and start fresh.

I love what I have from Jada, but if they had the DC license we'd get under 10 figures per year instead of the 150ish that McFarlane did for DC Multiverse and Hasbro did for Marvel Legends in 2025. It's also likely that if the did try to significantly increase their output that quality would suffer. Great company, but likely not a player at that level (yet). Look at the wait on the Scooby Doo and Invincible stuff....

I've kept all of my old DCD/DCC, Mattel and McFarlane DC stuff so far but I definitely see myself moving on from a lot of that McFarlane product in a way that I never did from the other two companies. Not ALL of it, but likely 80% of it. As of right now I have at least one version of every character ever made from each of those companies (same with Marvel across Hasbro, Toy Biz and Diamond). I've just never loved the McF product like I did DCUC for example, but of course I still bought it anyway.

 

[Stoopid_Sandwich]

I need to see Mattel’s stuff first before I can offer anything besides guesses, and my guesses are:

Mattel DC will be to MOTU what Hasbro Marvel is to GI Joe. Fans will say, “Why can’t DC Legends be more like MOTU”, and the response will be, “Because licensing fees”. It will be “good enough”, you’ll get some winners, but in the end there will be plenty of short cuts and WTF design and marketing choices, which is the MO for all of these companies.

I don’t think Mattel is going to go back 20 years to the DC Superheroes design scheme (and I have that S3 black and gray Batman displayed proudly next to Mafex Harley, Ivy, and Catwoman right now, BTW), in fact Mattel was doing pinless on their final waves of DC figures a year or two before ML incorporated it (and Hasbro will still point out “pinless joints” as if it’s some new technology).

Multiple Batman, Batman family, and other A listers will dominate well before they start going to the deep cuts. It will be a long haul to a robust and diverse DC Mattel 2.0 collection.

I don’t know what scale it will be but it doesn’t matter. People’s knee-jerk request is 6 inch “to scale with my Marvel Legends”, and yet I almost NEVER see collection pics with Marvel and DC displayed together.

I don’t have much defense for Todd other than there are some offerings that turned out really well. But then of course there are the lazy-ass offerings, but that’s EVERY domestic toy company, Mattel and Hasbro included. I don’t see them as being very different at all. This license is going from one big corporation with an eye on the bottom line to another, so, “oh well”, I guess, is my attitude at this point.

Now if these were Jada DC figures coming in one year, I’d be spending 2026 clearing out ALL my Mattel and Todd DC figures to make room and start fresh.

I’m in agreement with the part about people never amalgamating their DC figures with their Marvel Legrnds figures. At least that’s not what they want in a literal sense. I feel like it’s more coded language for collectors who want to go back to a bygone era when we were all between the ages of 6-13 and we were smashing our action figures together and having our Batman Animated Series figs teaming up with Thundercats or whoever. Those people have some boxes to check on their bucket lists but for the most of us, if we at least have a DC collection that rivals the size of our legends display then that in itself is a shelf worthy setup


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[yojoebro82]

I love what I have from Jada, but if they had the DC license we'd get under 10 figures per year instead of the 150ish that McFarlane did for DC Multiverse and Hasbro did for Marvel Legends in 2025. It's also likely that if the did try to significantly increase their output that quality would suffer.

You are absolutely correct on both counts and that would be fine with me. If there was a lower output but every single release was the best it can be (like their SF stuff) I would love that. Getting those two to three Street Fighter figures a year.....every purchase feels like a special occasion. Quality over quantity, baby! That would be a totally new practice for the superhero figure genre.

 

[Damien]

I would absolutely display DC figures with Marvel figures and the reason no one does it is because there's never been major lines from both properties in a style and scale where that would look remotely good. The closest we came was DCUC and ML, but at the time they were pretty divergent in style and looked kind of shit together.

I don't see a lot of ability to defend McFarlane's figures in any way. They're trash. They function poorly and they look terrible. So of course people are gathering up a lot of potential excitement about DC figures that, at the very least, look pretty good AND function as action figures. Will they be perfect? Definitely not. They MIGHT not even actually be good. We'll have to wait and see.
Hell, we are excited because of MOTU figures that we don't even have in hand yet and might, also, not be good. Wait and see.

So it's equally clownish to sit here and be like "these will be the best figures to ever come from the DC license" (which no one is saying anyway) as to sit here and say "I don't think these will be good because of this 20 year old figure I found that I'm not impressed by."

 

[Niko (protozoalord)]

You are absolutely correct on both counts and that would be fine with me. If there was a lower output but every single release was the best it can be (like their SF stuff) I would love that. Getting those two to three Street Fighter figures a year.....every purchase feels like a special occasion. Quality over quantity, baby! That would be a totally new practice for the superhero figure genre.

How that applies to a superhero line at a much larger company doing a much larger (and simpler) IP is drastically different, though. Every Jada line we've gotten has had almost entirely unique figures for every single release. Those take a long while and a lot of effort. DC would mostly be a handful of standard base bodies to start that will be the basis of every single wave going forward, only needing new heads and overlays, and sometimes a new body or two for different builds or totally unique characters. If they put Jada effort into a handful of base bodies at the start, that may as well be a free money and laziness glitch.

 

[Niko (protozoalord)]

I would absolutely display DC figures with Marvel figures and the reason no one does it is because there's never been major lines from both properties in a style and scale where that would look remotely good. The closest we came was DCUC and ML, but at the time they were pretty divergent in style and looked kind of shit together.

I'm a bit of an outlier, but I've always displayed my DC and Marvel figures together. I have fairly limited shelf space and not many DC figures so I kinda have to, but I make it less jarring by having Mattel DCM between ML and DCUC. Those figures are mostly Aquaman, and look pretty decent with my billion Namors, so it works out well enough. I'd replace all those older Mattel figures in a heartbeat, though.

 

[Damien]

I'm a bit of an outlier, but I've always displayed my DC and Marvel figures together. I have fairly limited shelf space and not many DC figures so I kinda have to, but I make it less jarring by having Mattel DCM between ML and DCUC. Those figures are mostly Aquaman, and look pretty decent with my billion Namors, so it works out well enough. I'd replace all those older Mattel figures in a heartbeat, though.

Yeah - my action figure collection in general has been chopped down significantly over the last five or so years. And with how many Marvel and DC figures I actually -really- want to own, I think they'd look great on a shelf together as just 'my superhero stuff.' Problematically, as above, there are no DC and Marvel lines that really look good together, and certainly none that offer what I want.