I totally get what you're saying. I agree that Mattel could do a better job pitching its products to retail buyers. But buyers always want the next big thing, so Mattel focuses on that. And because the industry is so competitive, those conversations are kept private. It's a business model that is slow to change.

But I disagree on one point. The company does interact with the final buyers: moms. Mommy blogs far outnumber adult collector forums like this one. So much so that they even have their own organization, BlogHer, which produces several conferences a year. We can't compete with that level of influence and purchasing power.




Agreed. Mattel would not have promoted the line at Toy Fair if it was already over. For whatever reason, Mattel chose not reveal new figures. My guess is that the deal is not quite done, and for legal reasons, Mattel decided to wait.

That is one quality line right there. Mind if I sig it?
Don't mess with the Mommies!

Don't mess with the Mommies!
hahaha that line catches me really

Not at all, knock yourself out

Cathy McMorris Rodgers, your 15 minutes are officially up.

Didn't Mattel get in trouble for being condescending to one of those Mom Bloggers?
Something/something about Mommies not knowing how to play with toy cars?
Well you know what they say... #Don'tMessWithTheMommies!

But yeah, I agree that managers need to do a better job when handling big box purchase agents. That whole "next big thing" mentality is the reason Target walked away from a proven 10 year winner (i.e. JLU), in favor of a rookie who didn't have what it took to make it past the one year mark (i.e YJ.)

I kid. I kid. I joke and I kid. But seriously, that whole differentiating thing between Collector and Non-Collector lines... stupidest thing ever! It hurts you with Target (who limits the number of Adult Collector lines they carry) and it probably hurts you with Walmart, too. And if a label were costing me sales, you betcha I'd rid myself of it faster than you could say "matty'd". Seriously. Super ridiculous. And the sad thing is that both the Batmobile and the '66 figures still display it. You know what it says in the corner of Hasbro's Marvel Legends Infinite Series? "AGES 4+"

Wasn't that ludicrous? I still cringe thinking about it. That blogger's curt response is still a classic: "It's a toy car. I get it."

Somebody should have been fired over that. I'm not kidding.

Let's not forget that they didn't acquire the rights for Batgirl until pretty late, so that was probably a snag too. But I agree with everything bnjmn said.

Would I have liked to have seen an Egghead figure there? Sure. But I'm not going to take them to task for not having one yet. There might be circumstances we're not privy to. I'm just hoping that figure, and Batgirl come to fruition.

The Batgirl thing is on them. They never should have launched the line without it.

So Mattel should of walked away from a successful line because they didn't have Batgirl? Looks like they did the right thing considering the success of the line and the very nature of this thread.

Every other company has scraped up the license so why shouldn't Mattel batgirl or no batgirl? Craig is on board so let's see what happens. Also the NYTF always has a surprisingly low number of reveals (this year being the exception), the big guns are usually left for SDCC and through the year to keep things going.

BTW is any other company doing 66 figures outside of the four main villains, I don't recall if the Mego styled Egghead I saw was a custom or official.

No they should have secured her rights before they ever started. They lost my money as soon as Batgirl was a no go. The quality on all the figures I saw was extremely shoddy anyway.

Yes, the Mego styled Egghead is official. It's from Figures Toy Company, who have already put out a bunch recreations of the original Mego Batman figures from the 1970s, and have a line of Batman Classic TV figures coming soon. So far the characters that have been announced for the Classic TV figures are Batman, Robin, Joker, and Riddler in Wave 1, and Egghead, Penguin, and Mr. Freeze in Wave 2. Their waves usually have 4 figures in them, so I'm assuming there will be one more character added for wave 2.

Ok, that is good news for Egghead and Mr. Freeze. I wonder if Mattel finds an interest in investing in them considering they are fringe characters. I think these would not sell as well as the original releases, maybe Mattel should do a final box set.

Also I must be very lucky, I bought all my figures sight unseen through Amazon and all have been amazing, except for one Robin that had a slightly warped leg from packaging. I went to two TRU's this weekend and didn't see anything on the shelves for this line. Hopefully everything was snagged up during Christmas and sales are strong to warrant an extra and final wave.