[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChuckSass

he's right though, in the 90s X-Men and Spider-Man were everything. They desperately tried to make iron man and FF happen and they didnt. Marvel saw that, embraced it and then threw the X-Men onto everything they could, had 5-6 different X-Teams, some solos, not to mention two toy lines. Marvel made their bed in the 80s when they sold those rights.

Which if they hadn't they'd be a completely different company now.

The problem to the Ironman and Fantastic 4 lines were a bit more complicated than simply 'they didn't take off!' You had time slot issues for one. They were stuck at 5am-6am blocks instead of the prime 10am slot X-Men and Spider-man had at Fox, which also had premium season premiere kickoffs during a weekday evening because Fox treated those properties with expert care to monetize them well.

Ironman and Fantastic 4 couldn't even find an audience with their time slots let alone a steady channel. Then you also had the first season issues that treated the audiences like they were unintelligent which hindered the expertly handled season 2 of each that tried to fix those mistakes a bit too late, especially with the time slot they were stuck in without a universal network name to back them and make it easier for advertisements. All print ads had "Check your local listings!" Whereas X-Men and Spider-man had "Only on Fox!"

Then you get to the toy issues. For Iron Man you had Vac-metalized toys with high quantity diverse parts caused low returns on the figures over say X-Men or Spider-man that relied heavily on parts re-usage, repaints, and other manners of cost cutting to maximize profits. Also the issue that it was 4 ironman figures per wave, 1-2 villains, and 1-2 support heroes if lucky. Fantastic 4 had similar issues with the initial line up being very gimmick heavy. Mr. Fantastic with real rubber arms(which could not be posed at all), a spark chamber Human Torch and that gawdawful punch mechanism thing. They didn't even make a decent Thing figure until wave 3 or 4(the trench coat Thing). There were many issues to fantastic 4 and iron man's 90s toy run, and they contributed to that downfall, but they did make some stellar season 2s. Those were on par with X-Men and Spider-man.

Now where you really see the issue is with Avengers: United they Stand with the power rangers like armoring up sequences and non-compatible to previous lines action figures.

The toy biz toy market was a massive boom though and had a quite diverse assortment that covered many things. It was so diverse they even managed an initial Marvel Vs Capcom line as well as a Night Warriors line, Street Fighter vs X-Men, The Vault as it's criminal focused line, and many more. But you're also talking about a period of time when the comic boom was happening. When that bubble popped, toy biz themselves quickly went under outright. To the point the only thing "Marvel Toys" (What toy biz changed their name to) may still do to this day is Curious George toys. You'll even notice as the X-Men lines progressed, they started Comic influenced heavy, switched to toon heavy, and then for most waves and lines after were comic focused. Though they did manage to get a repackage line going that was very toon heavy on the figures and had a standard size threshold among them all. It's around when the size threshold went out the window that sales started fluctuating.

All of this of course eventually led to the birth of Marvel Legends itself. For the most part though, it was how well the toons were handled and the regularity of the network that helped make or break them.

If Ironman or fantastic 4 had come out the door with their season 2s to build from there, they would have lasted as long as X-Men and Spider-man possibly. But the time slot and lack of a universal network were already strong hindrances.

Avengers: United they stand was on Fox and was looking to be the next X-Men, but the people behind the show changed too much with the properties. They relied too heavily on gimmicks, and the writing was more towards those season 1's of Fan4 and Ironman with treating audiences like they were unintelligent.

It's kind of an unfair comparison. Hulk's show also had extreme promise, but it was on UPN, and no one really knew what channel that was or if they even had it. The toys managed to do well for awhile. Again it was one of those hit or miss shows though. Season 1 having some heavy problematic areas that season 2 tried to correct, but at that point they'd already lost a good chunk of their audience. Season 2 of Hulk had some great episodes though, including a really decent Iron man episode. Honestly, I'd take season 2 of Hulk's 90s toon and the season 2 of Iron Man over the current Hulk: Agents of S.M.A.S.H. any day. I'd take them over the 90s Spider-man toon too.