Did you guys hear about the Cardinals winning last night? Oh crap, sorry.
MU is a cash cow. *slowly backs away*

Supposedly you can til 2012.

marvel.com/archangel

thank you for the response.

sorry if i derailed the thread

if they can figure out how to keep the MU line going for even two years, ill be impressed. Theres only so far down the totem pole you can go to market obscure characters.

Totally argee, come on DC/WB, here is your chance, new movies coming out and you rebuted your comics, so let's have some 1/18 scale figures with gear and comparative articulation!

Maybe Hasbro and Mattel should have a meeting of the minds (in this tough economy, maybe one should do the six inch scale and the other the four inch scale). I know lol crazy talk....

I wonder what MU will do when they finally run out of costume versions to make for Wolvie, Spidey and IM. Would they dare release *shock* two consecutive waves without any Wolvie, Spidey or IM in the case assortment? *faints* LOL.

Nah... they will probably just go the Spidey 3.75" route and just start making up fantasy costumes I bet. If that's the case... theoretically speaking, MU could go on forever. LOL.

More obscure figures seem to generate more demand. Check out your collection, decided what is rare, and let me know what you think about my comment.
We have (Toyark) touched on this subject more than once, and if that was possible it would probably be great But. A monopoly would be horrible. That is why a board game exits about such things, and why it really sucks to lose that game.

So true, but one can dream....lol

Uh, MU has been going strong for about 2 1/2 years now and is scheduled to go at least 3 years.

Keep in mind that there is about 50-60 years worth of Marvel continuity to pull from, as well as the fact that writers/artists/editors create new costume changes all the time (Future Foundation, House of M, etc). So I don't think Hasbro has anything to worry about for a good, long while.

It'll be three years this March. They've been shifting the packaging every new year. Nick Fury, Osborn, now Rogers, next year could be Cyclops, Xavier, or Cosmic like Blackbolt.

Who needs fantasy costumes when they still have stuff like new Ultimate Spider-man, Big Time Spider-man's 2 versions, Bag head spider-man, captain universe spider-man, and much much more including the new Scarlet Spider in hoodie. Even if they finally cover all the costumes, they can go back and do them again with better articulation and detailing. Plus there's still Peter Parker variations of all the previous figures using a peter parker, or ben reilly head.

Hasbro knows what they are doing and how to balance mainstays with obscures to keep the lines catering to both comic fans and kids. We know for fact they have waves planned for throughout 2012. So the line will last minimum 4 years, but in reality much much longer than that. It's too profitable to cut off anytime soon. The 6'' on the other hand, neither Hasbro nor Mattel can seem to make that all that profitable. We'll see once the new Legends hit.

Marvel is an ever evolving story medium. New costumes and characters are created every few months besides as stated, the large volume of classic designs. MU will be around for a good long while. Minimum all of 2012, but I could see it lasting with all of the costumes and characters left all the way through 2018.

Per year we have 5-6 waves of 5-6 characters plus 8 comic packs. 2 comic packs per quarter. They've barely even scratched the surface of the mainstays, and they've got plenty of obscures to go. We don't even have a Rogue yet, and she's considered a mainstay as much as Wolverine, cyclops, captain america, and spider-man. Heck the entire 90s line up of X-Men(TAS) are considered mainstays and we're just now getting a beast a figure next year. Beast alone has 6 versions they could do, and he's also a mainstay.

Wolverine still has his dreaded fang costume too. Heck even X-23 still has several versions to go.

MU - Success and high profit marigins.
ML - Not so successful, canceled once already.
DCUC - Not so successful, can't even manage to keep a subscription going like MOTUC.
DCIH - Not so succesful, already canceled once.

I dont agree at all- look at all the figures that the DC Universe (animated tyle) line made- it went for several years after the cartoon was off the air, and sold in major chains like wal Mart and Target.

And those sucked.

The MU line is the best superhero action figure line of all time- in 3.75 in particular they rule the roost.
add to that the hype and new collectors that the Avengers movie will introduce and you have a recioie for real longevity.

Sure we can expect some repaints and YES, we'll get even more Spideys nad Wolvies- those are the big sellers for kids and so they get the most figures.

But everything not a Spidey or a Wolverine is fair game and there are a ton of popular characters that have not been made:

The Heralds of Galactus.
Almost all cosmic charcters, really.
The New Mutants.
The Young Avengers
Marauders (box set time!)
Asgard's heroes in comic form.
The Worthy.
Alpha Flight.
Age of Apoclypse figs.
Exiles.
Runaways.
Nextwave
Every unmade Avenger (over a dozen!)



...and of course, a million villians like Graviton, Count Nefaria, Living Laser (clear yellow!), Firepower, Kang (I know he's coming, but damn- finally!), Dormummu, etc.

These are just the unmade figs I can think of offhand....maybe we should make a thread list of every do-able (and not totally obscure) character.

Please no, I think we've already got 10 other threads that can be used for that.

There will always be a demand for Marvel superhero toys and as long as there is a supply/demand appropriate ratio then they will be made for years to come unless the economy becomes much worse than it already is and only a small minority of people have the money to spend on childrens toys.

As long as there is a Marvel and children still play with toys, there will be Marvel toys of some variety. I guess the real question is how long will the 3.75 - 4" format stay in vogue. Even GI Joe, which next to Star Wars is probably the most well know 3.75 toy line, has had periods where 6", 8", or even 12" figures were the big push. Same with Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe. To the corporate guys it's all a question of what scale sales, what the cost of materials and design is for a given scale, etc.

I've been collecting toys in some form or another since I was a kid (so probably at least 25 years of real collecting) and I've seen toy lines cycle in and out. Will Marvel 3.75" go out of style eventually? Probably. Will it eventually come back into style? Probably.

As for me, I am almost exclusively a 3.75" collector, so Marvel Universe has been the most exciting toyline for me in decades. It is by far the best super hero toy line in 3.75 - 4" scale ever. I hope it sticks around for a long time. the mean time, I'm enjoying every minute of it.

uuugghhh......what i meant was im hoping the line will go for ANOTHER two years. silly grammer. i know the line has been going for three already. jeez. of course, alot of the dc figs were obscure to me, cuz i dont read it lol. like pharoah? or the blue one with the horns? no clue.

Ah. Dry humor is a lost art.
We could just link the MarvelWiki, I suppose...

Have we run out of Wolverine variants yet? Maybe Wolverine in the Fang costume?
Sadly, there's like four new Spider Man costumes they'll slog out.

Yeah! Fang costume, bring it on! I could really use like 6 or 12 more!

we still need Albert- the robot Wolverine, Young James Howlett Wolverine, days of Futures Past Colonel Logan, Zombie Wolverine and Samuari Logan to name a few.
All in two packs with some awesome figure, so we'll have to get the damn things.


Or they'll go the obvious route and do a "Wolverine in Spider man costume" variant so they can just re-use parts from unsold figs...

Lol. Well, like Snow said, Hasbro's already got the line scheduled all through next year. So it will have gone almost 4 years by the end of 2012. And with the wealth of untapped characters/costumes, I'm pretty confident Hasbro won't run out of ideas any time soon.

I have trouble with a lot of the 3rd tier DC characters and below as well. I guess that's because I've always been a Marvel fan and tend to follow that universe a lot closer than DC.

IIRC, Hasbro has said they won't do any Marvel Zombie figures. Something about an edict from Marvel, I think. But, in that slot we could easily do Wolverine as Patch. There's a few others I thought of too:

Logan in traditional Japanese samurai robes (when he was married to Mariko)
Weapon X
Death, Horseman of Apocalypse.
Biker (wifebeater & cowboy hat). Yes, XMO:W already did it, but that hasn't stopped MU from doing the same figure over again.
Alpha Flight

And who knows how many more are in the works?

Just my IMO... but there seems to be a lot of lesser known characters in the later waves for 2012. I mean it is cool and all, but I wonder if MU can survive all the potential peg-warming by these characters that I doubt the casual MU collector has even heard of.

Toybiz made the old secret wars didnt they? Hmmm seems like it can go on for a good long time.

No, that was Matell.

Toybiz got the liscence for marvel stuff in the 90's and, after years of ultra suck, managed to make quite a few nicely sculpted figures (with poor articulation) like Ch'od or warstar that look perfect with MU figures.

DAMN!

I need to add Ch'od to my list of figs to photograph- if you do a nice black enamel wash on him, it really tones down the day-glo green he's molded in and brings out the awesome detail they sculpted in.

As to MU's longevity, I think it's got a huge run ahead of it- aside from the hundred characters or so that still need to be made badly, there's always new characters like the Worthy or Ultimate Spidey along with costume changes, updates and new armor fora certain Avenger....
Hell, look at GI Joe- that's still cranking out awsome 3.75" figures and most fans dont complain about yet another Snake Eyes!

Wow that was Mattel? Crazy to think DCUC could have been MUC. Either way my point is we have had comic book toys for what....30 odd years or so? With very low lul in the production.

Well, Secret Wars did not really sell great- the plan was to change the name to Marvel Universe once things got going- and they were going there with Daredevil, Falcon, Constrictor, Electro, Hobgoblin and Iceman (none of which were in Secret Wars) but they cancelled the line before it got past that wave and those figure are kinda rare- Iceman and Constrictor and Electro being European only releases.

There was a sizeable gap between Secret Wars and Toybiz getting the nod to make figures- and Toybiz' offerings are so insanely, comicly terrible that I'm amazed they were allowed to continue to the point where the sculpts were decent.

Secret Wars Hobgoblin is still a million times better looking and more comic accurate that the MU or Spidey line versions....thought the articulation is the same as an old SW figure.

Eh....Im getting too young for this. Call me a dreamer but Im not the only one. I just see a shift as lately (I think horrible comic movies help) but nerdy is becoming in and with that said I think it stands a whole lot better chance of lasting today then it did in years past. Especially with companies no longer only marketing to kids but now adults as well. I mean if in the 80s companies were willing to create 30 minute commercials (transformers, gi joe, he man, etc) and kids havent changed all that much except now they also want video games of these 30 minute commercials then it seems production would be up as they have choices. Heck even Companies like NECA hava taken to catering to the casual collecter.

Im not saying it will last forever as nothing ever does. I am however saying companies want to make money. With stuff like comic movies, SDCC, & NYCC being multi million (is it billion now?) Venues then I have a hard time just seeing the bottom fall out for no givin reason. Yes I am aware that our LCS are in trouble but the comic industry as a whole is extra having a slight upswing with things like digital download and again. The films.