[TheBlueMarvel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by En Sabah Nerd

I'm inclined to agree to a point. It's anecdotal evidence so feel free to dismiss it as conjecture, but I think the lack of a hugely successful franchise like the MCU is why the ToyBiz line only lasted for about four years. I'm not privy to all the details but ToyBiz got axed because of Marvel's bankruptcy so the line probably wasn't raking in that much or Marvel would've held on to it longer. Hasbro started out their Legends in 2007 but it kind of meandered through to '09 before taking a nap so they could focus on the 1/18 scale lines (both MU and movie specific lines). After The Avengers blew up in 2012 Hasbro brought Legends back and it's been running ever since. The line doesn't crutch on the MCU but I do feel like if the MCU hadn't been a hit then we might not have seen the line's strong return and the volume of figures that we have which includes a lot of comic figures.

Regarding the Fox X figures from Hasbro, in my area it was a pretty mixed bag. All of the Deadpool 2 stuff sold really well except for Domino but then the only X-Men figure that sold was Wolverine and I had plenty of Mystique figures and the Professor/Magneto packs shelf-warming all the way to the clearance aisle. The Amazon exclusives both sold very well, but then it might've been because it was another Wolverine and Deadpool.

Who knows what the financials were at the time, or the strategy employed, but when a company is insolvent and files for bankruptcy, restructuring firms (think Mitt Romney's former affiliation with Bain Capital) are brought in to facilitate the existing debt and begin paying off owners of said debt in ranking order - from largest to smallest. The idea is to bring in a turn-around manager (Bain) to get you out of the red, as much as possible and to level off and maybe look attractive enough for purchase vs complete dissolution. When this is happening, certain activities cease, assets are sold and the fat is trimmed. Stopping the Toybiz Marvel Legends line may not have had anything to do with their performance, but was resultant of general constriction of business in a global sense. Or, maybe Hasbro was willing to pay more seeing the potential of the pending Disney buyout.

Regardless, if the canon figs weren't selling, while MCU figs were, logic would dictate phasing canon figs out or abandoning them outright. Especially considering that MCU figs likely have budgets tethered to built-in marketing for the films. In that circumstance, why spend any money on developing so many comic waves, retro lines, etc that require line budgets unsupported by ticket sales? Again, who really knows; I can't foresee any instance in which Hasbro divulges raw numbers to anyone other than principle share holders. The truth of most things lie somewhere in the middle. I suspect that Hasbro's formula for success is a fine balance between MCU and canon wares.