Karkull
09-05-2001, 10:30 AM
As far as I still know, there is no final decision as to the fate of the Justice League animated figures, but I can provide you all with some information that I have gathered, and the results are that things do not look good for Hasbro/Kenner.
In a way, the real question here is not "which company will get to do a Justice League toy line?", but "will Hasbro get to keep the licenses for the DC characters that they already have?" For almost ten years now, Hasbro has had the license for Batman (and, for a shorter period of time, Superman), but while they have done some great work in the past (most of the Batman and Superman animated figures have been, in my opinion, spectacular) it would appear that, recently, they've allowed their lines to crash and burn. Holding to the (stupid) idea that kids will buy multiple versions of the hero and only one villain, they've reduced the Batman toy line to endless Batman variants, no female characters, and (maybe!) one villain per assortment--usually the Joker. A similar approach killed the Superman line, and now they've stopped creating new figures altogether, and are content to reissue endless repaints of their existing Batman molds.
Last week, I spoke to an employee at a comic store who claimed that Hasbro's license is almost up and that they are, essentially, scrambling to make a few more bucks on their old molds. This may explain why there are so many out right now: in addition to the regular series there are also the repainted Wal-Mart two-packs and the four-pack assortments. In fact, hitting stores yesterday was a new assortment of repaints that included--guess what!-- three Batmen, a Dick Grayson Robin, and a repainted Trenchcoat Joker.
It looks like time's up for Hasbro, and at this point I'm almost glad. While I'll lament that I'll never get to finish my collection (I have just about all the figures worth collecting) I can hope for a new one through a new toy company, which will probably be DC Direct. In fact, the figures that they've produced so far have been good and get better with each series, so I'd assume that if they did the characters based on the style and the designs of the cartoons (Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, and the Justice League--preferably in one intergrated line) that they would do a good job on them as well. I hope.
In a way, the real question here is not "which company will get to do a Justice League toy line?", but "will Hasbro get to keep the licenses for the DC characters that they already have?" For almost ten years now, Hasbro has had the license for Batman (and, for a shorter period of time, Superman), but while they have done some great work in the past (most of the Batman and Superman animated figures have been, in my opinion, spectacular) it would appear that, recently, they've allowed their lines to crash and burn. Holding to the (stupid) idea that kids will buy multiple versions of the hero and only one villain, they've reduced the Batman toy line to endless Batman variants, no female characters, and (maybe!) one villain per assortment--usually the Joker. A similar approach killed the Superman line, and now they've stopped creating new figures altogether, and are content to reissue endless repaints of their existing Batman molds.
Last week, I spoke to an employee at a comic store who claimed that Hasbro's license is almost up and that they are, essentially, scrambling to make a few more bucks on their old molds. This may explain why there are so many out right now: in addition to the regular series there are also the repainted Wal-Mart two-packs and the four-pack assortments. In fact, hitting stores yesterday was a new assortment of repaints that included--guess what!-- three Batmen, a Dick Grayson Robin, and a repainted Trenchcoat Joker.
It looks like time's up for Hasbro, and at this point I'm almost glad. While I'll lament that I'll never get to finish my collection (I have just about all the figures worth collecting) I can hope for a new one through a new toy company, which will probably be DC Direct. In fact, the figures that they've produced so far have been good and get better with each series, so I'd assume that if they did the characters based on the style and the designs of the cartoons (Batman, Superman, Batman Beyond, and the Justice League--preferably in one intergrated line) that they would do a good job on them as well. I hope.