[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kylactus

isn't as popular? that's bull, there are 7 movies in the X-men franchise with 2 filming and 3 green lighted. Wloverine was recently ranked the fourth most popular super hero in history (with I believe Spiderman being the only Marvel character to top him) but I'm sure white tiger, Falcon cap, chick Thor, Tiger Shark, Jack o' Lantern, Misty Knight, Machine Man, and all of there other releases have a much bigger following than, what was until a couple years ago, the biggest comic book property on the planet! They're argument holds no water, they seem to be trying to produce more collector focused obscure figures, so if the X-men are all of a sudden so damn "obscure" then where are the figures? the real irony is that they're restructuring everything to be female and minority biased (especially Avengers) and rushing to make figures of the P.C. squad, while alienating the X-men, who are literally an allegory for racism and prejudice! (but at the end of the day I'll stick to the theory it's all about the money, and giving an FU to another competing company. I just wish they'd be honest about it.

I didn't say obscure, I said timing.
No movies for X-Men will be out this year. No toon series. It's harder to cross market when you don't have the material being prevalent at the time to the mainstream. Fantastic 4 doesn't sell. That's not on obscurity, that's on toy sales.

We are still getting X-Men figures in MU/I and possibly even more next wave as the All-New Marvel takes more center stage. I expect All-New Wolverine is one of the figures that'll make it out in both MU/I and Legends at some point. The rest of the newer is a wait and see on reception from their character changes and who has the stronger focus. We'll probably see a Psylocke re-release towards Apocalypse's movie too. Probably a re-release of apocalypse too.

If you look at the lineup shown, all are hotly sought after figures except for maybe 2. Those 2, one is a villain so it fills that niche, and the other had a legends figure that was pretty well received and also caters to the Zombie Marvel fans which bolsters cross play.

If you look at legends, it's a random mix n match, but they also have the BAF to help push those. Villains are highly demanded(everyone complains about no villains so now they provide some with Ant-man that doesn't really have a rogues gallery to draw on), and they also managed to work in a few hotly sought after new characters and toon represented characters. Spider-Gwen has a strong demand for a figure, and White Tiger actually does too. Heck, several of those villains were the exact ones that were complained about previously only being con exclusives, and also have appeared in the Avengers toon and the Spider-man toon. Jack-O-Lantern himself had a strong presence in some recent Spider-man stories too, and has an interesting look as well as helps round out more spider-man villains. He's a prevalent character to the spider-man library that isn't green goblin but still fits within that same rogues circle of the goblins.

It's about balancing it. With who knows how many wolverine figures already out there, it's easier to pass on those for now, and come back to them later. Covering characters that haven't been made should be the priority.

In fact, the complaints would be reversed if they did release X-Men filler in those lines(plus it'd make no sense to do X-Men characters in dedicated legends lines to Avengers or spider-man anyway). It'd be "why do we need another wolverine?" Etc. So let them hold off on that until the next Wolverine movie is in theaters. Deadpool being rated R means less merchandising room on that one too. Though that'd be a funny one to do, the bankability on it has yet to be fully proven outside of the collector crowd. The movie should up that, but then we still have to wait for after the movie first.

Timing is everything in the market. Causing a small drought also ups demand for stronger sales later.

We're also talking major retailer orders. This is where hasbro gets their orders from and they have to work within those confines to get what we want on shelves.

You have to keep in mind the disconnect between what the average person, the collector, and the kids would want and what retailers think they want. What retailers see right now is the demand for Avengers and MCU stuff. So that's what they want to put on shelves. Even when retailers dig a little deeper, what they see is demand for stuff like Spider-Gwen, the new Captain Marvel, Sam Wilson Cap, and Lady Thor.

And while you complain about the "Political correctness approach" and the "minority character representation" alongside the gender changes, Marvel is laughing all the way to the bank with stronger sales by reaching out to wider audiences to include them and give them representation too. Marvel is evolving and there is nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

So be patient. X-Men will get a merchandising foothold again later. Right now, the MCU, the toons, and All-New Marvel are the bigger media pushes. Previous X-Men franchise films except for 2, have all had merchandise made of them. The 2 that didn't were First Class and DOFP, but the reception was extremely strong for those, so we may see Hasbro try again later when the new films are closer to release. Releasing that stuff now when not even an X-Men trailer is available and no toon series on air makes zero market sense and retailers would probably skip on ordering it because in their eyes, there is nothing to push the sales of it.