Monday, November 19, 2007

Legion action figure line: it's dead, Jim

I spoke out on this over the summer, about why Mattel kept putting off a line of Legion action figures, when everyone and their brother from the rest of the Justice League show was getting one. Yesterday I found a post on Action Figure Insider that pointed to this interview at TheFwoosh with "Toy Guru", a senior Brand Analyst at Mattel, conducted last week that apparently explains what happened.

I guess I just want fans to know that we do listen to them and are working incredibly hard to get figures out they have been asking for. I know fans are sick of hearing “wait and see” but because things change so quickly at Mattel we can’t announce new toys until we know for sure they will be at retail. (remember the Legion of Superheroes toys? That line wasn’t picked up at mass retail and we are trying to avoid situations like that again, which is why you see us waiting to announce stuff).

He actually posted similar news about a month ago, but I wasn't checking AFI:
Just need to know what will be picked up before we announce anything! You can understand we don't want to announce toys that won't make it to shelves (look what happened with Legion...) This is what we have meant by "a little patients" [sic]. If all goes well fans of JLU will be very happy.

So it doesn't sound good for a new line of figures. There must be some sort of prototypes out there, though, since Mattel had to show something to the retailers, and there was even an article in ToyFare solicited. Now all we need are some insiders to provide pictures, and maybe we'll have more than just this one blister pack concept (that I borrowed from AFI):

1 comment:

chrishaley said...

I just now came across this entry, and I have to say that this is very sad news.