Mattel’s Toy Guru was kind enough to answer some questions about the newly revealed product shown at their Toy Fair Showroom as well as the future of some existing lines.

Infinite Heroes

1. What is the release schedule for these?   IH will be on shelf at the end of the summer.  

2.  What is the actual scale of these?   Are they truly 3 3/4"? or more 3 3/4" Scale?  They are 3 3/4 figures.  

3. Are these the finished sculpts or just mockups?  They seem to be in a couple of different styles.  Figures like Green Lantern have regular anatomy on the torso, whereas figures like Batman have a very angular anatomy.   Some look like they are the same base bodies with just painted detail (Flash) where as others have a TON of sculpted detail (Black Hand)  The figures shown at Toy Fair are prototypes. Many did not have the articulation built in yet. We hope to have final sculpts to show at NY Comic Con in April.  

4. Any word yet if Wal-Mart will be carrying this line?  We continue to work with Wal-Mart and all of our customers. In the end, it is up to each retailer to decided which Mattel products they want to carry.  

5. Will the 4 Horsemen be involved in the line?  Not the IH line. The Horsemen will remain our sculptors on the 6 inch DCUC line.  

6. What is the estimated retail price?   - 5.99 for singles, 15.99 for 3 packs.

7. How many figures per wave?  That will be announced at NY Comic Con.  

8. I know big names need to be held back, but there’s some glaring absences (notably Superman, Wonder Woman, Robin, Joker, Luthor, etc). Are we looking at 2009 at the earliest for some of those characters?  Again, we will announce all character selection at NY Comic Con.  

9. There was close to 30 figures shown. How many waves are we seeing here? Is this all 2008 product or do the characters shown spill into 2009?  The figures shown at NY TF are there to educate retailers about what they can expect to see in the line. All of these figures are prototypes and not all will wind up in the 2008 line. By the time we reach NY CC we will have a better idea of the line up and can make a more direct announcement to the fans! 


DC Universe Classics 

1. I heard tell there are some other retailer exclusives planned for the line.  Will we find out about those ahead of time or will they be surprises.  – We will announce these at NYCC and San Diego.  

2. Will Wonder Woman have a variant?  Our lips are sealed until NYCC.

 

The Batman  

What is the future of "The Batman?"  Any expansion for that line?  Villains?   Green Arrow?  Much like JLU, Mattel is well aware of collector interest in more Batman Animated figures and we are working on finding ways to bring these to market.  

Justice League Unlimted 

Since Infinite Heroes has characters like Adam Strange, Power Girl, Shazam & Hal Jordan what are the odds of seeing all/some of these in JLU also?  The character selection for IH and JLU is handled a bit differently. Not all characters available for the JLU line are available for IH and vica versa. Just as certain characters could not be in the JLU cartoon, some are not available for the toy line. Each line is handled on a character by character basis with our licensing partners at DC Comics. I can tell you that Hal Jordan will not be available for the JLU line. (and neither will Lobo at this time).

 
The reason you see different characters showing up in different lines is entirely on purpose. With several major DC lines going on at once, Mattel is making a deliberate attempt to spread the character selection out. A figure you see one year in 6 inch may show up in another year in the 3 3/4 line or JLU. It is sorta like switching teams. We don’t want to burn out any character and have him or her show up in every single line in one year.  But over the course of several years, most characters should play a visit to every toy line. Currently Mattel has the DC license through 2012. You do the math!

Thanks to Toy Guru for the answers to our burning questions!


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