>Mattel lost Disney license
>DC is doing its merch in-house
>nothing but wrestling and Monster High
Is Mattel dead?
>Hot Wheels
>Matchbox
>Barbie
>Ever After High
>American Girl
>Polly Pocket
They're dead.
>Implying they were alive to begin with
>Hot Wheels
Mattel will never die.
>>5347402
Not dead, but doing some boneheaded actions that are on par with Konami ATM.
Matty lost the Disney Princess line because they released the Ever After High line of dolls. EAH is a line of princess dolls that was directly competing with their own brand of Disney Princess dolls. That, along with Mattel cheapening the Princess line to Jew levels caused Disney to take away their license and give it to Hasbro.
And now they're "Softening" the Monster High line to be less scary and more child friendly. Why? The whole point of MH was the fact that they were wild, scary monster girls. That's what people liked about them in the first place!
And then there's the fact that while they hold the DC license, they can't for the life of them make profitable DC toys. The only DC figures on major retail shelves are those horrible "Titan" style figures. I wouldn't be surprised if they also loose the DC license sometime late in 2016, after the toy profits for Superman vs. Batman are tallied up.
WWE is doing extremely well. They're expanding lines like crazy and doing some kind of cool risky things, like accessory packs and those create-a-figures with themed pieces. Even their Target exclusive stuff does pretty well (save for the 4 pack that priced itself out of most buyer's level of interest). And their handling of distro for WWE is some of the best in the brick and mortar toy aisles.
They REALLY fucked up with how they handled DC, though.
Shit company deserves it.
I was in the LAX airport earlier this week, and there's a Mattel store in one of the terminals there. Their number one display, right in the front of the store? Hasbro Star Wars toys.
>>5347458
>DC Toys
I've noticed this too. With no animated DC series on television, Marvel is absolutely killing them in terms of mindshare for kids. I'd wager this generation of kids will grow up thinking of DC like many of us did Marvel.
The fact that there are zero DC toys on the shelves is a huge slap in the face. I've seen that they're making some kind of Marvel Legends analogue now that DC is making their DC Icons series, but now you have DC toys competing against DC toys, and DC Collectibles is better than Mattel could ever be. (And DC Collectibles sucks.)
>>5347652
> With no animated DC series on television, Marvel is absolutely killing them in terms of mindshare for kids. I'd wager this generation of kids will grow up thinking of DC like many of us did Marvel.
What are you trying to say here?
That Marvel didn't have super successful cartoons or that Marvel was the highlight of all cartoons for us as a kid?
Marvel always had a cartoon on the air. DC pretty much does too.
However, Marvel's shit was pretty retarded and not well done, but that doesn't seem to be what you're trying to say.
>>5347652
>I'd wager this generation of kids will grow up thinking of DC like many of us did Marvel
I don't understand what you mean by this. That Marvel was the lesser animated force for kids that grew up in the 90s? If we're looking at quantity here, I'm pretty sure Marvel was stronger on that front. Just in Spider-Man cartoon series alone I believe that there's more in quantity than there were DC cartoons in the 90s-early 00s.
Quality-wise... Yeah, it's DC. Marvel never produced anything close to BTAS (not TNBA, though) or Batman Beyond, and especially not JL/JLU. Even Teen Titans was arguably better than anything by Marvel.
The other aspect to this is that, outside of animation, DC is the out of touch "dad comics" and has been for quite some time. I was born in the 80s and everyone I knew grew up reading Marvel and ignoring DC.
>>5347671
>you ignored DC in the 90s
were you born in 89 or something?
DC had the Death of Superman and Knights End events, plus the TAS comics, to get everyone interested in their stuff. Then there was fuckawesome stuff like this, which basically started in 1996.
>Even Teen Titans was arguably better than anything by Marvel.
I hope you're only comparing it only to Marvel's 90s shit, because Marvel in the aughties had great cartoons like XMen Evolution, Spectacular Spider-Man, the amazing Avengers EMH, and... well, i haven't seen Wolverine and the XMen, but a lot of people seemed t o like it.
Also, re-reading that guy's post, he's really fucking stupid.
>>5347571
it helps that WWE breathes down mattel's neck when it comes to certain aspects of the figures.
Like with Yokozuna, they had to keep retooling it because yoko's ass wasn't big enough.
>>5347671
>>5347668
Marvel had cartoons, but let's be honest here- Marvel was a complete non-entity in the 90's. I don't know any kids who had any connection to any of those characters until the movies came out.
Marvel in the '90's was good for teenagers, but if you were in your formative years, yeah, they basically didn't exist. Kids just don't read comic books.
>>5347678
Marvel had some good cartoons, yeah, but they never had the same kind of impact that the DC ones did. Most of their earlier cartoons, like the excellent Silver Surfer one or the terrible Iron Man one, only lasted a season.
>>5347685
I dont know what you're talking about; kids fucking loved marvel toys in the 90s,and the X-men and Spider-man cartoons were played from 92/93 until well into 2000. They were some of Fox Kids biggest shows. And they made toys of all sorts of characters; I had a ghostrider figure despite not knowing hiswhole deal.
>>5347678
>were you born in 89 or something?
84.
>you ignored DC in the 90s
It was easy to. VERY easy to. Whatever looked attractive in Wizard, or got the whole-hearted approval of the LCS guy, I would pick up. But it was very few titles.
>DC had the Death of Superman
(I'll apologize ahead of time for the spiel, it's bad form on my part but oh well)
Yeah, and I was old enough to see it as garbage that would just realign to status quo liek every other comic "event". It's the type of trash that they make just to get normie news coverage, like Marvel has been doing for the last decade and some change at annoying 3 month intervals (muh black cap, muh whor, muh cap is dead, muh sniktbub is dead, muh etc). That was the "highlight" of DC for quite a while, because honestly everything that could have possibly been of quality was under the Vertigo banner. The best thing DC produced in the 90s that wasn't under Vertigo was Hitman, which sadly not enough people read because everyone was drooling over Waid Flash and Morrison JLA as though they were bringing anything new to the table.
>batquake
It had its moments, but it was a forgettable storyline. Batman and Alfred on the bridge was pretty cool, I really liked that moment.
>>5347685
>Marvel was a complete non-entity in the 90's
No.
NO. Think back to the toy aisles, dude. X-Men toys, and Spider-Man toys, and all sorts of crazy things. Remember Famous Covers? All those unsellable shitty silver and gold painted KB Toys exclusive figures? The 10 inch versions of the 5 inch X-Men figures? The metal-vac Iron Man line? God that was awesome... Marvel had a crazy level of connection with kids.
>>5347685
>Marvel was a complete non-entity in the 90's.
lolwut
Were YOU born in 1989?
XMen:TAS, Spiderman: TAS, Iron Man and Fantastic Four were all major cartoons in the 90s with very strong toylines backing them up. They were MUCH more popular than Batman/Superman:TAS, even if they were pretty shitty cartoons.
Toy Biz made so much money off of Marvel's series that they BOUGHT Marvel.
Kids were raving mad about XMen in the 90s, so much so that even comic-only characters sold like they were Spidermans and Batmans.
>Marvel had some good cartoons
NOPE, at least, not the 90s ones. But yeah, DCAU was great and holds up like the sky.
>>5347783
While I wouldn't say Marvel was a non-entity in the 90s, I'd be hard pressed to say Iron Man and FF were major cartoons. X-Men was certainly a MAJOR cartoon, Spidey was... fairly successful. It certainly had a lot of episodes, but it's hard to say it was top tier y'know?
A quick wiki search shows both X-Men and Batman came out in late '92.
My guess is that Batman felt more prevalent because there was a sense of continuity. We had Batman: TAS, followed soon by Superman, then Batman Beyond, then Justice League, then JLU etc. They never really had a huge gap.
Marvel had X-Men in 92, then Spider-Man in '94 to '98. And then they ran re-runs in 2000 after the movie.
>I'd be hard pressed to say Iron Man and FF were major cartoons
I agree. There was also the Hulk one, and the Silver Surfer one, and that weird Spider-Man one where he was in like the future or an alternate dimension or something that barely lasted for 7 minutes before it died.
And don't forget BTAS also had insane synergy thanks to Batman Returns coming out that same year and the 89 Batman still resonating so heavily with people as a pop culture thing. Beyond its inherent quality, it had one hell of a multimedia juggernaut force behind it.
On the toy front, which is the real battlefield that ultimately mattered most, Marvel came out ahead. I loved the Batman figures, don't get me wrong, but Arctic Armor Batman is a joke within our generation that everyone knows because we all saw the same thing: all Batman, barely anybody else. Then you look at Marvel and you got ridiculous shit like Starjammers and X-Force and all sorts of Spidey villains, and people went nuts. It was the ultimate toy line, barring Star Wars. I think that that's why, despite DC having the better media product, Marvel ultimately is going to be cherished more by people born in the 80s/early 90s who were big into toys.
>>5348017
BTAS was a joke line. X-Men/X-Force was great BECAUSE of the random fucking shit.
X-Men/X-Force had equal distribution so that you could (unless it was a girl) get ANY of the main characters PLUS the villains and side characters. Only a rare handful of figures shelf-warmed (Bonecrusher, Senekya) and the BTAS problem did not kick in for ToyBiz until the Iron Man line. Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men lines never had this problem.
BTAS had MOTU 2002 level problems. 95% of the cases were worthless Batman rainbow gimmick figures whereas the villains were one per case and scalped to the point that you NEVER saw them on shelves. The villains sold for thirty-fifty dollars early 90s money, which with inflation would be them selling for two-three hundred 2015 price-wise.
BTAS got so god-awful that they had to rush out a direct market box set of ALL of the villains in the dying days of the line, they had pissed so many people off and why later sets (post Batman and Robin) downplayed the Batman overload.
>>5348059
>X-Men/X-Force had equal distribution so that you could (unless it was a girl) get ANY of the main characters
There were a few impossible to find ones that weren't girls, but they were not on BTAS villain level. Blob, for instance. That's the first time as a teen that I had to suck it up and bow down to scalper demands. I still remember the shitty little hole in the wall shop I had to go to to get it, and the fucking $30 I paid (and they retailed for, what, $6? $7?). And the toy sucked! He had a chicken leg accessory and a squishy stomach like a cheap dog chew toy. How the fuck is that even marketable? Or worth scalping? But I needed it because of how hilarious Blob was to me at the time.
In retrospect, it's really kind of amazing how scalpers operated in the pre-online world. They really and truly were local villains, pure cancer of the highest order. We didn't have any other outlet to buying this shit, it was the shelves or nothing. That's why when I hear 20 year olds boohoo about today's 'scalpers' despite pre-orders, in-stock alert sites, and literally hundreds if not thousands of online shops to buy the product from, I just fucking laugh. Bunch of inept whiney bitches, really.
>>5347703
>Whatever looked attractive in Wizard
DUDE, Wizard was sucking off DC hardcore back then though. Specter, Sandman, Swamp Thing, Robin, fucking Morrison's Justice League, Kingdom Come. The almost 4 year long Batman epic storyline beginning with Contagion (or was it the earthquake?). You can't say it wasn't memorable when it's still in print thanks to it being a well liked storyline. And of course, dying and broken back capes.
>I was old enough to see it as garbage that would just realign to status quo liek every other comic "event".
You mean like the felt-like-adecade-SpiderMan clone storyline that went on for too fucking long that even Wizard was saying was fucking Spider-Man up? Avengers & FF being so fucked up and boring that they were given to image?
Nah dude, Marvel has been just as guilty as DC was even back then. You're just heavily biased because you liked Marvel more back then, and with good fucking reason: WOLVERINE AND SPIDERMAN LOOK KEWLER!!!!!!
Too bad the cartoons were trash, but whatever, the toys were awesome.
> Iron Man and FF were[n't] major cartoons.
Those cartoons were syndicated and basically the only thing holding up syndication when syndication was dying. They were very popular and only died because TV stations were joining WB/UPN.
Stuff like this were barely blips on the radar. You blinked and you missed it.
>>5348131
>Marvel has been just as guilty as DC was even back then. You're just heavily biased because you liked Marvel more back then
I backed away from saying Marvel was also exactly that type of publisher during the 90s because I specifically pointed out that they STILL are exactly that type of publisher, nothing really changed. DC adjusted itself well nowadays and is just bogged down by reboots and only goes for the occasional death/rape/character turn to generate buzz. It's not even worth pointing out how awful Marvel was at times, but in terms of how media whore-ish the companies were in the 90s DC took the thing to a whole new level with Death of Superman. It was pathetic, and in my opinion the lowest point of the Big 2 throughout the entirety of the 90s. Spider Clone was bad, I won't defend that one, and Heroes Reborn was insulting at best, but they weren't Death of Superman-level garbage. It's just unfortunate that that's now Marvel's playbook.
Also, Wizard always had a Marvel slant. It's just a fact. DC was second fiddle from start to close with them. X-books alone were easily 20% of the sheer content in any given monthly issue. They knew it sold well and the convoluted bullshit storylines allowed editorial to generate an absolute shit ton of content for articles explaining the incredible messes in storytelling or speculating on it all.
>>5348142
>death of superman worse than heroes reboot and spider-clone
Fuck off.
Were you only reading XMen or something? Because it sounds like you never touched how radioactive the rest of Marvel's stuff became.
Even though the death of superman was there just to cash in, it was still pretty well done, unlike how ruined Spider-Man became with the awful clone storyline.
The Avengers were mediocre as fuck before the soft reboot and the Crossing storyline was pure shit.
NOTHING good came from any of these storylines, whereas the Death of Superman brought up some great characters and great stories.
Yes, Wizard had a Marvel slant, but you're still ignoring when they did give huge praise and blowjobs for what DC was doing at the time. You're also ignoring the fact that their comics were still popular.
If i were to say who was more out of touch, it'd be Marvel, considering there's nothing memorable about them after the mid-90s. Bankrupt from pushing variants and tin foil covers and creatively bankrupt from years and years of nothing-to-remember-about until Max and Ultimate comics.
The exceptions were Busiek's Avengers and Earth X.
Sorry, but cash ins can be good, while shitty shit shits will always be shit.
>>5348171
>the awful clone storyline
>NOTHING good came from any of these storylines
Yeah, except, oh I don't know, maybe Kaine/Scarlet Spider, arguably one of the top non-A Lister hardcore fan faves of the past few years. Oh, but wait, Death of Superman brought us Steel as a relevant character! And the embodiment of the 90s, Superboy! And who can forget Doomsday? Well, I guess every competent writer did, because he has literally never had a good story ever.
We can keep going in circles till we're blue in the face, but at least Marvel made the 90s interesting despite their best efforts to confuse and frustrate the hell out of us. They gave Ka-Zar some legs, reinvigorated Cap under Waid, sculpted Deadpool into what he is today (for better or for worse),gave the best "teen team" books since Perez was on Titans, and made the best alt universe storyline of the 90s with Earth X. DC (NOT Vertigo) was only worthwhile in the quirkiest of books like Major Bummer or the aforementioned Hitman. Otherwise it was all hook-hand Aquaman and bullshit like that.
>>5348180
>maybe Kaine/Scarlet Spider, arguably one of the top non-A Lister hardcore fan faves of the past few years.
>top non-A Lister hardcore fan faves of the past few years.
>past few years.
So not in the 90s, but 2013? Sure. It only took them over 20 years to polish that turd, which is missing the point of how terrible it was back then.
>implying Superboy is bad
>ignoring how awesome Cyborg Superman was
uh huh
>but at least Marvel made the 90s interesting
Yeah, in the early 90s and mostly with their XMen stuff. Everything else was mediocre as fuck or just plain bad (with the aforementioned exceptions).
Seriously, fuck off.
Its hard to take you serious when you're ignoring all the mediocrity and shit Marvel was producing back then and trying to paint DC as worse just because they tried to cash in with stories instead of foil covers like marvel did.
I didn't even really care about DC back then either. I pretty much gave up on comics in the mid-90s as a weekly thing and only read my brother's stuff on the summer only to feel badly burned because of how bad Marvel's crap was.
I only began reading through DC's 90s stuff a couple of years ago and I was surprised on how well it still holds up.
I'd say I'm more of a Marvel fan than DC, considering my DC collection is mostly made up of old stuff, whereas my Marvel collection grows with new and old stuff.
Stop being so dishonest with yourself and don't try to push that BS to me, because i was there too and actually read more than XMen.
Also, hookman was just a rip off of namor. It made Aquaman a better book though.
They're doing DCUC bodies with BAF again next year + the movie
>>5348204
and I'm glad because Icons sucks
>>5347458
>I wouldn't be surprised if they also loose the DC license sometime late in 2016, after the toy profits for Superman vs. Batman are tallied up.
But who will I turn to when I want a Power Girl figure with the same proportions as Batgirl?
>>5348226
Actually, that's a good question. If Warner Bros pulled the DC license away from Matty, who would they give it to? Obviously, they can't give it to Hasbro. So...
>Bandai?
>Jakks Pacific?
>Jazzwares? (God help us.)
>>5348282
>Obviously, they can't give it to Hasbro
Why not?
>>5348320
Disney would kill a few people.
>>5348195
>Seriously, fuck off.
>Its hard to take you serious
>Stop being so dishonest
Maybe readjust your attitude and realize that conversations aren't open combat. Coming across as an abrasive prick doesn't exactly win you points when your basis for shit-talking someone comes from just as much opinion as the other person's end.
>>5348774
>implying your hypocritical bias makes you worth anything but insults
i tried to be nice and rational, but you just said too much flat out ignorant retarded shit.
>>5348325
>>5348320
Disney was letting Mattel make their Disney stuff even though they also were shitting out DC turds. Besides, Marvel is still making their own business decisions. The only time Disney ever intervened was when Marvel Studio guy was asking for the Marvel Comic guys to stop giving them notes on how to make the movies.
I don't see why Hasbro couldn't get DC's license as long as they don't share any molds.
But likely, Jakks or Funko could pick up the license. I wouldn't mind seeing either making mass market figures, but i couldn't care less now that DCC has upped their game.
>>5348282
>Shocker Toys DC Superheroes
>>5349885
I got my Tick
Y'all niggas never read the Gatherers saga.
Shit made me sane during the 90's in the middle of the X-bullshit.
Halo Mega Bloks...
