News and press releases from toy manufacturers and our sponsors
DC fans put up the good fight, and in the end, Doomsday was dead – but so was Club Infinite Earths. With the announcement of refunds coming to subscribers for 2014 , it’s official – Club Infinite Earths is dead. But to carry on the Death of Superman analogy, who knows what will spring forth to fill the void? Hopefully it’s not four all-in subs! 😉
You may remember a few years back, when Hasbro introduced its Marvel Mighty Muggs – this was their attempt to capture some of the high margin designer vinyl market with lower cost licensed figures. The line met with marginal success – Muggs still exist but have gone from Mighty to Mini to Micro.
Marvel is now trying it from another angle – with licensed designer vinyl figures from popular artists. These Venom and Wolverine figures are from graphic artist Frank Kozik – mashups with his Smorkin Labbit – a cartoon character that has been immortalized in a line of vinyl figures. The Marvel Labbit versions of Venom and Wolverine are available at kidrobot, alongside Marvel Munnys of the most popular Marvel characters.
If the $49.99 price tag puts you off these 7-inch Labbits, word is there will be a smaller, blind-boxed line coming soon for $9.99 each. We’ll let you know when we know more.
I saw the 1/6 scale Super Alloy Superman from Play Imaginative at SDCC – as much as I’ve disliked the New 52 costumes in the comics, somehow this figure grabbed my attention. Perhaps it was because with Batman already released and Green Lantern and more on the way, this will be a way to collect a comic-based Justice League of America in 1/6 scale with the kind of detail and quality I’ve grown accustomed to with Hot Toys.
This regular edition is the same as the event exclusive edition, minus the third head sculpt (with angry expression and heat vision eyes without flames) and three Kryptonian crystals that fit in the Fortress base. But you can actually get the event exclusive Super Alloy Superman at Yes Anime – they’re Play Imaginative’s distributor in the US.
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Masters of the Universe Classics fans have pulled through again, jumping from 91% of the target threshold to a massive 115% in the final four hours of the pre-order window – so Club Eternia has got the green light for 2014. Sadly, Ghostbusters fans won’t be getting the Ecto-1, moving the meter just 1% to 38% in the final hours of the pre-sale.
In the same time period, DC Universe fans managed to jump 5 points from 58% to 63%, but Club Infinite Earths still could not muster enough subscribers to hit even the first tier of the exclusive Doomsday – though I suspect that the tiered system contributed a bit of the sluggishness in the pre-orders, since the first goal was a lackluster jail-suited Doomsday, when compared to the unleashed Doomsday of tier 2. While Club Infinite Earths won’t move forward with the plan partially revealed at San Diego Comic-Con, there is still a possibility of getting DC Universe Classics figures through Mattycollector in 2014 – Mattel just has to figure it out.
I’ve got to believe there’s enough fans to support a DC line – maybe this setback with the all-in approach will spur Mattel to rethink something that works better for the fans. We can hope, right?