Mattel’s marketing extraordinaire, “Toy Guru,” has graciously agreed to answer a few questions regarding their DC Universe Classics line.
PG: Does Mattel view DC Universe Classics as a collector-oriented line that can appeal to kids, a child-oriented line that can appeal to collectors, or a mix of both? (more…)
Despite having just been mentioned by Mattel’s ToyGuru last week, it seems the 12″ Giants of Justice line has already started hitting eBay. (Doesn’t “Giants of Justice” sound like a rock album by members of the Supreme Court? Anyway…) The first three in the line are Superman, Batman and Killer Croc. (more…)
I got the idea for this image from two sources–a shot from the opening sequence of Batman: The Animated Series and a panel from “Wanted: Santa Claus–Dead or Alive!” (drawn by Frank Miller) from DC Special Series #21 (Holiday Special); Spring, 1980.
Composition was pretty simple–took the shot of Batman in my light tent, then took a super-macro close-up of the batarang on the floor of the tent. In Photoshop, I cut out the batarang, flipped the image vertically and pasted it into the first photo. Careful use of the Smudge function added the motion blurs. Then the usual retouching and that was that.
I wish I had a nicer background, but the white still gives it a certain comics feel.
Here it comes…the obligatory Convention Exclusives Editorial.TM (more…)
ODD: I spent some time putting together a page that will offer you, dear readers, a complete list of links to all the toy reviews I’ve written since 2002–for OAFE, Michael Crawford’s site, and even Epinions, as well as here. I’m just waiting for OB1 to give it his stamp of approval, since I actually tried to code the thing myself. (more…)
Just a quick note for those of you participating in the contest (for which entries are now closed, btw). (more…)
ODD: Saw Rambo last weekend. I’ve never seen any of the original three films in their entirety, so it was a little odd that I went to see this one; but it had been far too long since I’ve seen a 1980s action flick. Which is definitely what I got, with about twenty years’ worth of harder “R” violence.
Rambo takes a while to get going, but once it does, it’s like the opening ten minutes of Saving Private Ryan, except it’s forty minutes long and you don’t care about the guys who are being blown apart, since they’re bad guys. Utterly evil, irredeemable bad guys who, during the course of the film, engage in gang rape, pedophilia, mass murder and a particularly cruel variant of Russian roulette with their hostages. (more…)
NOTE: I tend to write very long, intricate reviews, so I’m going to break this one up by posting the reviews in regular text and the “flavor text” in italics. If you just want to get right to my assessment of the toys, skip the italics. If you want to be fascinated by engaging, brilliant prose, read Tender is the Night. But if you want to read some mildly interesting commentary on the action figure industry, then by all means read the italicized text.
Back in the 1980s, Kenner produced a fondly-remembered action figure line called Super Powers, which featured DC heroes like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, as well as more obscure characters such as New Gods Orion and Darkseid. At the same time, Mattel–home of Barbie and the then-hugely popular Masters of the Universe line–put out a line of Marvel superhero action figures called Secret Wars.
Fast-forward twenty years. Last year, Hasbro (who absorbed Kenner in the 1990s) took over the Marvel license from ToyBiz and resumed production of its long-lived line of six-inch figures, Marvel Legends. Mattel, on the other hand, had already gotten the Batman and Superman toy rights, and last year they secured the rights to the entire DC comics pantheon. After some growing pains–their Batman line morphed into the combination Batman/Superman DC Superheroes line, and then into DC Universe Classics–Mattel hit their stride with their own six-inch superhero line. So now the roles have been reversed–Kenner/Hasbro now plasticizes Marvel superheroes for the mass market, while Mattel gives us six-inch totems of Superman, Batman, and…Etrigan? (more…)
Spent a little time with Photoshop today mocking up these potential redecos of the DCUC Batman figure. The third one would be a must-buy for me. (Though I’m sure it would be one of those cases where Mrs. Ghostal-to-Be would be completely perplexed as to why I needed yet another Batman.)
I think I did a decent job with my amateur Photoshop skills. The original photo is at the bottom for comparison.
ODD: Well, Raving Toy Maniac has managed to get their RTM Spotlight of the DCUC wave one up, while I continue to dither on my own mega-review. I have a good reason for dithering, as I hope you’ll eventually get to see, but I’m still gonna be real late to the party.
In the meantime, Mattel has released some PR images of mock-ups of the second and third wave figures. You can see them all at the DCUC Info Archive. For fun, I edited together this image of the DCSH series eight Batman and the upcoming Robin, shown here next to their 1984 Kenner Super Powers counterparts (the latter taken from Jason Geyer’s Super Powers Archive).
Talk about coming a long way, baby. (On a side note…Batman went through three or four costume alterations from the 1940s through the 1980s, but DC Comics left Robin with that exact goofy uniform for fifty years. Why?)
END: In other news, Paul from Toy Bender has for some reason decided I would make for a gripping interview…but you can decide for yourself.
ODD: It seems I started a trend with my review of Cleatus the Fox Sports Robot; both Michael Crawford and OAFE have hopped on board the bandwagon.
END: I think I can declare PGPoA’s first contest a success–seventeen entries and counting! There are still plenty of days left in February and March, so if you haven’t entered yet, go for it.
ODD: You may have noticed this blog has its first ads. More are on the way. Have I sold out? Short answer yes, long answer…more or less, yeah. But I just can’t do this sort of thing for free anymore. If I can make back some of my expenses with a few relatively unobtrusive ads by retailers I approve of, then my conscience is clear.
END: I finally received my proper, horn-less Gentle Giant Hellboy. There are photos on my Flickr page, and I’ll try to get a quick review up soon.