Captain America VS Thor, A Valuable Lesson
 

I think Hasbro learned a lesson this year. A Very important one.

This year, as we all know, Hasbro released 2 Movie lines nearly simultaniously. Thor and Captain America. One had just movie figures while the later had a mixture of movie and comic figures.

As we see, Captain America Sells. I go to stores and see Captain America as a seller. The comic figures selling very well, with proper army builders mixed in and some great must haves.

Thor, meanwhile, is gridlocked. Its a miracle to actually find wave 2 in the wild, and the figures of Wave 2 have fallen mostly in the hands of the scalper. every store I see, I see pegs lined to the tip of wave 1. Hasbro successfully made a wave made entirely of Pegwarmer

In a side note, all remaining Ironman 2 figures are mostly movie figures. hmmm

So in the words of Kyle Brofloski "You know, I learned somthing today". Movie Toys dont sell as well as comic figures. while kids may be into the movie figures, most collectors are not, causing massive slow down. I hope hasbro learned its lesson, and will pepper the Avengers toyline with various comic figures, attracting many more to the line, allowing it to successfully move off the shells at a good pace.

Amen. I agree completely.

Captain America sells better than Thor, but it's still pegwarming.

With the exception of maybe Crossbones and the latest wave, every single figure from the line is readily available just about everywhere.

Quite frankly, I don't think Thor comic figures were going to help the Thor line sell. Thor's characters would look exceedingly silly compared to many Marvel characters, as many of them tend to look like brightly-colored renaissance fair refugees. I love the characters, but a comic-book version of the Warriors Three would be pegwarming just as bad as everything else. Collectors would buy the first few shipments...and then they'd rot.

Near as I can tell, with the exception of Wal-Mart most stores have sold through much of their Thor product and never even bothered ordering wave 2. That shows a deeper problem than just "They didn't include a comic line!" That shows that retailers were soft on the line from the beginning, which is all the more reason for Hasbro not to risk further overextending it with comic-based figures.

If anything, the only lesson Hasbro's learning from this year is that retailers are not so keen on comic movie based toylines after the glut of IM2 pegwarmers. Notice nothing new was shown for Captain America at SDCC...seems that line is just as "dead" as Thor is.

I would've been on board for a Thor comic line, but I think the general public just likes Captain America better than Thor.

Other than Bucky Cap (which is one of my favorite 3.75" figs) I think the comic Cap figures look absolutely ridiculous. To me they look as poorly made as those generic GI Joe figures that Target and Walmart carry. On the other hand, the movie Cap figure is phenomenal (for me).

I believe this is not a lesson learned from Hasbro's end. They've known this for a while. I asked the question earlier this year on this board if Thor's movie line was to receive comic figures as well. The response I got from a few members on this board was that Hasbro never intended for comic figs to be distributed in this line as part of their marketing strategy to improve sales figures.

It is my personal opinion that with Thor being a lesser known character in terms of popularity amongst children and casual fans (as opposed to the big names that I don't even need to mention), this was never expected to draw the attention of a household name like Captain America no matter how well the movie performed. This line was meant to suppliment the movie on the Toyshelves while also providing collectors an opportunity to keep their Marvel Movie figures in the 3.75" scale up to date.

In other words, Hasbro did not spend a lot of money on the production of this line, there was not a whole lot of loss. Factor in the Role Play toys into this line and I'm betting those sold better than the actual figures in most cases, with children at least.

Look to next year's Avenger's movie to provide our fix to a decent release of comic series characters within a movie line. Or perhaps even Thor 2, now that he will be a household name after Avengers hits, to provide more of his villains and ally's from Asgard in comic series.

nothing will ever be more ridiculous than a ninja spiderman and scuba spiderman. I can see kids playing all day with a brick Captain America with 4 points of articulation that is attached to a parachute...

...or I'm just speaking from pure nostalgia of those old army men attached to parachutes when I was a kid, lol.

I agree with both you guys.

And MAD LOVE for those old school parachute guys! That's absolutely why I bought the Cap with parachute. Freaking loving it!

I agree.

And MAD LOVE for those old school parachute guys! That's absolutely why I bought the Cap with parachute. Freaking loving it!

Thor's characters would look exceedingly silly compared to many Marvel characters, as many of them tend to look like brightly-colored renaissance fair refugees.

If these are the rejects from your renaissance fair, I gotta know where this is.

http://beyondthebunker.files.wordpre...shing-thor.jpg

Oddly enough, Scuba Spidey is their highest selling Spidey (after regular spidey). Kids love bath/pool toys.

As for Thor versus Cap, I think the bigger issue is A) Thor was not as good of a movie, and really only existed to set him up for Avengers, and B) Fantasy is out right now, army stuff is in.

Captain America not only had MUCH wider appeal, from what I'm hearing, (People who hate superhero movies loved it) but he appeals to those kids that love G.I. Joe. Stupid outfits with highly specialized "jobs". (Yes, I love G.I. Joe, I'm not hating)

It also helps that Cap's just more relatable. Scrawny little guy goes through a top secret experiment to become a perfect soldier and kicks the butt of bad guy soldiers with fairly modern "advanced weaponry". Thor is an immortal god who whines about nobody believing that he's a god. The movie really didn't make kids say "I wanna be Thor!"

Captain America IS more recognized and that played a big part, relatability may be a factor (but Thor never once "whined about nobody believing he's a god" in the movie), but mostly I'm pretty sure it's just Cap being better-recognized. Either way it's clear both were set up as short-term lines.

I'm just gonna jump in here and say I'm a movie figure guy. The only comic series figures I own from movie lines are the SDCC Cap and Deadpool from origins...

Yeah, I'm sure the kids would be all over the fat guy in fuschia and gold. Or the blonde Robin Hood/Green Arrow without a mask. My position is that Thor figures would be pegwarming just as bad whether there had been a comic series or not.

PS: What looks good on a comic page doesn't always look good in little plastic man form.

Quoted for truth.

I dont know if I agree with this entirely. I see pegs and pegs full of Captain America, Iron Man 2, Spiderman, Marvel Universe (all Iron Man), green lantern, and Thor so its not like its just the Thor figures that arent selling and because its related to the movie. I think it more has to do with an oversaturation of figures along with the poor quality and low demand of some of them.

I think it would be moving better with this simple idea: less Thors, more supporting characters. It's how the Star Wars POTF line stayed afloat so long...

The biggest mistake was loading the first wave with nothing but Thors. Destroyer was in the commercials so I don't get why they wouldn't make him available for all the good guys to fight. Sure, Loki and the Frost Giants were there, but not having Destroyer out before the DVD is the biggest mistake.

I would have bouht the heck out of the comic figs.

Inventory backlog is what is most likely being seen on pegs for Iron Man 2 and other lines that have been out for a while.

I know that to be one of the factors contributing to seeing so many old MU waves in the Targets, TRU's and Walmarts here in San Diego from my inquiries.

I don't believe these to be indications of poor sales.

That fact that Iron Man figures remain on pegs a full year and a half after their release suggests very good sales I would think. I doubt you will see Thor figures on pegs for much longer past the DVD release. Cap looks to make a longer run on pegs just because I believe he actually does sell well.

I see quite a bit of kids with parents looking for cap figures to buy with parents saying the following, "you don't have this Captain America yet." That to me suggests it has enough appeal to stand alone for a while.

Thor just doesn't have that same appeal to kids, whether fantasy is "IN" or not. They relate to characters who's speech they can understand.

Kids just don't get it and some adults don't either. (disclaimer: I like the manner in which Thor speaks, and shall smite thee who disapproves!)

Captain America = Cool, a army guy!

Spider Man = Cool, a small dude who beats up big dudes!

Wolverine = Cool, Claws!

Green Lantern = Cool, accessories!

Thor = A bully who is trying to learn how to not be a bully (based on the movie). When last I checked, kids don't like bullies. But they like lightning. Lightning's cool.

FYI- the above is based off of conversations I've had with my 6 yr old nephew and how he views these characters.

That is the problem with both CA and Thor: way too many of the main character, or at least not enough of the ones people would like. With Cap, give a Steve Rogers in street clothes or even a pre-Super Soldier Steve. I love the comic Caps, but a Winter Gear CA? With the many MU CA figs already out, they didn't have to go overboard. Same with Thor - give an regular Earth Thor if you need to make another Thor figure. Or give Thunderstrke, who resembles movie Thor quite a bit. In a recession, it is a hard sell to a parent that a kid needs 14 Thors with slight paint differences and some small difference in accessory.

As said before, the comic figures sell very well to collectors, and movie figures have a lot of appeal to both kids and collectors if done well. But if you make a movie figure, make it RELEVANT. Particularly movie vehicles!

you know, I'm starting to wonder how many of us have forgotten just how little we cared about how movie accurate figures were when we were kids. I'm going on 30 now, and maybe I'm the only one who was like this on here, but I had so many different versions of Batman growing up that I never once thought about how they shouldn't make another version of him.

Ninja Turtles was an even better example. My favorite ninja turtle toys growing up were the versions that had them playing different sports, and the one I played with the most was Donatello with his basketball hope that he could actually shoot the ball into.

I don't remember that even being cartoon accurate, but damn did those get massive play time in my room and just about anywhere I could bring em.

lol, sorry just made me reminisce.

the comics series for cap was a blessing, what with US Agent, crossbones, and both buckys. i've never seen the wave 2 of Thor anywhere, not even collectors shops. Ive only bought the comics series for IM2, and happy to have a silver centurian figure.

Same here. I would always think "I don't have any bad guys for them to fight!" and then go out and buy yet another silly concept Donatello.

Heck, I STILL buy all the Spider-man variants (the comic costumes, that is). And I assure other forumers that a five year old is not going to care that Scuba Spidey is stupid, they're going to be excited that Spidey can go to the pool with them, or that snowboard Spidey can go out in the snow!

That also seems to hold the distinction of being the only buck never reused.
It's shorter, more thin and generallu unsuited to anyone else! It rocks!

The reuse of body sculpts, being comic accurate and such have never bothered me. I just enjoy collecting what I collect. I have always loved the whole action figure genre and always will.

Yeah, I think the first time I really cared about "accuracy" was when the Michael Keaton Batman film came out, but I was 11-12 years old by then so getting to the point where I was a little more discriminating about my action figures.

Of course, the other big difference between our childhoods and now is that in our childhoods most toy manufacturers hadn't already demonstrated the technology to make good-looking movie-based figures. We were still pretty much in the "Kenner Star Wars" stage of things.