Mattel DC Figures

[SDcomics]

Respectfully disagree with you SD. JSA has been rebooted out of necessity.

Gard, the entire DC Universe has been rebooted, what, 4 times? At least. Some might say it was out of necessity. :::cough:::sales:::cough:::

Can’t do that with the Legion. I don’t think the characters are strong enough. Not even close.

Oh, come on now. The Legion has been around since 1958. Their books are still in print. They have fan clubs. I know because I see them every year at SDCC. They have a strong following. This isn't the Inferior Five we're talking about (Although admittedly, I like them too).

And the rumor, for whatever it’s worth, puts Josh Williamson at the helm of a new Legion title coming sometime in 2026. If he sticks with it like he did on Flash, abuse 100 issues, it should be amazing. 18 issues like on Green Arrow will suck.

Well, see, there ya go. Like I said, get the right creative team on the book and it'll be a hit. But that's true of almost any comic. Scott Snyder can write a hell of a Legion book. So could Tom King.

Let me tell you why I love the Legion, and why I love DC just slightly more than I do Marvel (Although I truly do love Marvel). It's the way both companies depict the future.

The future in Marvel is dark, dystopian and ugly. Mutants are branded and sent off to concentration camps. Cities are bombed out and deserted. Sentinels patrol the skies. Graveyards are filled with the tombstones of heroes. That means that everything the Avengers, X-Men and Fantastic Four fought for was for nothing. They died for nothing. Evil triumphed over good. Damn, that gets depressing after awhile.

The future of the DC Universe is utopian. It's bright and optimistic. Science triumphed over superstition. Disease, war, racism, these are all things of the past. The Legion of Super-Heroes protects the universe. That means that the Justice League and Justice Society succeeded in their quest to make the world a better place.

It all springs from Action Comics number 1 back in June of 1938. That's where it all started. A strange visitor from another planet thoght he could make a difference. And he did.

So yes, now that DC has brought back the JSA, I'm waiting patiently for the Legion. It's just a matter of ... time.

 

[SDcomics]

Legion reboots tend to alter details about the entire setting and massively overhaul the team, which already has like 70 thousand members.

That's ... a bit of an exaggeration, I think. Besides, have you taken a look at Justice League lately? Heh, excuse me, I mean Justice League Unlimited? Nearly everyone in the DC Universe is a member now, including Ambush Bug.

It's like, do you have any idea how impenetrable getting into actual X-Men comics is if you haven't been reading them since 1975? Imagine that, but also you don't have an audience's basic awareness of who all of the major ones are.

Yeah, except last I looked, the X-Men are still around and still selling. As far as basic awareness of who the characters are, there's this thing called Google. All anyone has to do to find out about a character is get their phone out of their pocket and look it up.

Look, I get that you guys don't care for the Legion. I get it. Me personally, I don't get Harley Quinn. But there are folks out there that do and I can't deny the fact that she's popular. I see girls cosplay as her all the time.

The Legion as a concept is as strong as ever. Especially in these days when we could all use a little hope.

 

[secondwhiteline]

That's ... a bit of an exaggeration, I think. Besides, have you taken a look at Justice League lately? Heh, excuse me, I mean Justice League Unlimited? Nearly everyone in the DC Universe is a member now, including Ambush Bug.



Yeah, except last I looked, the X-Men are still around and still selling. As far as basic awareness of who the characters are, there's this thing called Google. All anyone has to do to find out about a character is get their phone out of their pocket and look it up.

Look, I get that you guys don't care for the Legion. I get it. Me personally, I don't get Harley Quinn. But there are folks out there that do and I can't deny the fact that she's popular. I see girls cosplay as her all the time.

The Legion as a concept is as strong as ever. Especially in these days when we could all use a little hope.

The comic where everyone is in the Justice League, much like the cartoon that was on for years where everyone was in the Justice League? Yes, but even if I hadn't, "I guess we can call on Green Arrow in the unlikely event we need arrows" isn't much of a conceptual challenge when most of the characters are familiar. No one really cares about The Atom but we know he shrinks. (And honestly, a lot of that book's pretty incoherent even then. It's all very "[CHARACTER 1]! Get [CHARACTER 2] here! Only their [STUPID POWER] can resolve this crisis in [NATION THE UNITED STATES HAS ALREADY DEVASTATED WITH COLONIALISM AND SANCTIONS]!" It reads a lot like a bad Legion book, actually, except you don't have to learn any planet names.)

No one wants to do homework before they can get into something. I never said whether or not I cared for the Legion. I've read enough of it to know they have some great material in their catalog and I expressed a preference in this thread for a Princess Projectra figure, provided she have the ability to snap Nemesis Kid's neck and tell that twerp Element Lad where to stick it. "You can Google this" is kind of a disingenuous answer to the challenge of learning about something as convoluted as the Legion, and would still be even if there was a really obvious place to start. "You can Google the Legion" sounds great but falls apart immediately as soon as someone asks, "...but which Legion?"

"The X-Men are still around and still selling" - while X-Men have had status quo changes, many of them massive and even more of them stupid, they haven't really had the kind of continuity-shattering reboots that the Legion has had where you're made to follow a legitimately different team. If you like Storm, you've got 50 years of stories about the same exact Storm to read. And also, they've had endless mass media projects for three decades that this point. Legion doesn't have that benefit, and the X-Men don't ask you to care about any characters with "Lad" in their name.

 

[Atomic Knight]

Mike I love the Legion. I just don’t like the mess it’s become after Paul Levitz left in 1989. We’re lucky the LSH survived after Bendis’ catastrophe. I'm very hopeful for the Williamson Legion and will be at the LCS on the day the first issue hits. But I’m going to be realistic. If you can bring Superman and Supergirl in close, there’s a much better long term chance of success. Which means you at least use a semblance of the Levitz team.

 

[SDcomics]

The comic where everyone is in the Justice League, much like the cartoon that was on for years where everyone was in the Justice League? Yes, but even if I hadn't, I wouldn't have found that much of a barrier to entry. "Oh, I guess we can call on Green Arrow in the unlikely event we need arrows" isn't much of a conceptual challenge when most of the book's still going to be about Batman or whatever. It's also helpful that most of them are characters everyone knows. No one really cares about The Atom but we know he shrinks.

Well, you're the one who brought up the "70,000 members" of the Legion like it was a bad thing. I countered that by pointing out that JLU currently has a huge membership and it hasn't seemed to hurt them any. That's my point. The Legion by it's very nature is a huge group from different worlds with different powers and that's one of the things that made them a fan favorite. Not everyone has a short attention span. Not saying you do, but it seems to me you're not giving fans enough credit.

No one wants to do homework before they can get into something.

Learning about something is not "homework" if it's fun and interesting.

"You can Google this" is kind of a disingenuous answer to the challenge of learning about something as convoluted as the Legion, and would still be even if there was a really obvious place to start. "You can Google the Legion" sounds great but falls apart immediately as soon as someone asks, "...but which Legion?"

I just goggled Lightning Lad. The wiki entry was a five minute read. 10 or 15 minutes if you're a slow reader. It's all there. The Silver Age, the five year gap, Zero Hour, the "threeboot", post Infinite Crisis. That should help anyone get up to speed.

"The X-Men are still around and still selling" - you might note that while X-Men have had status quo changes, many of them massive and even more of them stupid, they haven't really had the kind of continuity-shattering reboots that the Legion has had where you're made to follow a legitimately different team.

Well, see, isn't the whole point of a reboot to give new readers a fresh start? I thought that was the whole idea. If they're a different team, do you really need to know everything about what came before? And I still maintain that's easy enough to do with all that information literally at your fingertips.

If you like Storm, you've got 50 years of stories about the same exact Storm to read. And also, they've had endless mass media projects for three decades that this point. Everyone growing up learns a little bit about the X-Men through osmosis because they never stop making cartoons or movies. Legion doesn't have that benefit, and the X-Men notably don't ask you to care about any characters with "Lad" in their name.

I mean ... you don't really sound like someone who likes the Legion much. Maybe it's just me.

 

[SDcomics]

Mike I love the Legion. I just don’t like the mess it’s become after Paul Levitz left in 1989.

I thought Mark Waid and Jim Shooter both had good runs.

We’re lucky the LSH survived after Bendis’ catastrophe.

I'm with ya there. Totally agree. His Justice League sucked, too. I think Brian gets Marvel. He doesn't seem to understand DC.

I'm very hopeful for the Williamson Legion and will be at the LCS on the day the first issue hits. But I’m going to be realistic. If you can bring Superman and Supergirl in close, there’s a much better long term chance of success. Which means you at least use at least a semblance of the Levitz team.

Well, yes. Of course. Absolutely. Superboy and Supergirl have ALWAYS had strong ties to the Legion. The Legion first appeared in the Superboy strip in Adventure Comics, after all. By all means Kal and Kara should be there.

 

[secondwhiteline]

Well, you're the one who brought up the "70,000 members" of the Legion like it was a bad thing. I countered that by pointing out that JLU currently has a huge membership and it hasn't seemed to hurt them any. That's my point. The Legion by it's very nature is a huge group from different worlds with different powers and that's one of the things that made them a fan favorite. Not everyone has a short attention span. Not saying you do, but it seems to me you're not giving fans enough credit.



Learning about something is not "homework" if it's fun and interesting.



I just goggled Lightning Lad. The wiki entry was a five minute read. 10 or 15 minutes if you're a slow reader. It's all there. The Silver Age, the five year gap, Zero Hour, the "threeboot", post Infinite Crisis. That should help anyone get up to speed.



Well, see, isn't the whole point of a reboot to give new readers a fresh start? I thought that was the whole idea. If they're a different team, do you really need to know everything about what came before? And I still maintain that's easy enough to do with all that information literally at your fingertips.



I mean ... you don't really sound like someone who likes the Legion much. Maybe it's just me.

It's fun and interesting to read good stories. It's not fun and interesting to read Wikipedia pages about stories. No one wants to do that rather than just start reading something accessible. Most other forms of entertainment don't ask that; the reward is in the art itself, not in learning trivia.

And Justice League Unlimited might have a ton of characters but most of them would be familiar to someone who had never picked up a comic before. And even then it's still a messy, overstuffed, incoherent book! So in a very practical way, the 70,000 character thing is an impediment to a book even when those characters are the biggest ones being published by DC.

"The Silver Age, the five year gap, Zero Hour, the 'threeboot.' post Infinite Crisis. That should help anyone get up to speed."
You say this like any of it is a normal way to engage with stories, or like those terms would make any sense to a normal person trying to find out where to start reading a comic book. Imagine those words if you hadn't already read those comics. Totally incomprehensible. Just imagine you had to explain to people what a Proty is.

I have no idea if the new reboot is about the original Legion or a new one, but my whole argument is that the Legion hasn't grown its reader base since its 80s peak because of questions like that. You disagreed with that, but I can't see how it's not obviously the case. They've taken a franchise that's already avoidable by most readers and made it radioactive over time by changing it so much no one knows the deal, and unless this reboot's the greatest book on the market it's going to end up in the same situation as every Legion reboot: maybe some interest at launch that fades over time because no one including DC has really established what a Legion book is or why someone should read it instead of X-Men or Justice League or whatever. These are basic marketing questions, and DC's only answer for them with Legion always seems to be, "We're gonna get it right THIS time!" And you just don't have a sustainable property when you're at that point.

 

[spinc]

Do you guys think we'll see something this weekend in Toyfair? I did hear they were gonna launch like some special exclusive collector's releases in SDCC, maybe they could reveal them now?

 

[SDcomics]

We're getting into some ancient history here, but ...

The Legion of Super-Heroes was a group of super powered teenagers in the 30th century who formed a club. Their goal was to help people in need and protect the universe. These teens were inspired by a 20th century legend, Superboy.

Then the Crisis on Infinite Earths came along and John L. Byrne took over Superman. John got the bright idea to toss Superboy and Supergirl right out of the mythos. All well and fine except that really screwed over the Legion. It was a domino effect. DC decided to start over from scratch with Wonder Woman. Again, all well and fine but if Wonder Woman is a brand new character then who helped found the Justice League? Not to mention her time in the Justice Society. And DC completely rebooted Diana, but kept Donna Troy. And that's why we had three or four "Who is Donna Troy" stories. And we're not even going to talk about the complete cluster fuck that was Hawkman.

Well, hey. It was DC's first company wide reboot and it was a little bit of a learning curve for them, I guess. They made some mistakes. And this led to Zero Hour ... and Infinite Crisis ... and Flashpoint/New 52 ... and Rebirth ... and yes, it's a lot.

But after all that, DC appears to be in a good place right now. Fans appear to have embraced the Absolute line and All-In. And they're getting a lot of new readers. Sales are up. New comic shops are opening.

Yes, of course, a Legion book can work. Get a good writer who understands science fiction and superheroes and you're there.

 

[Niko (protozoalord)]

Do you guys think we'll see something this weekend in Toyfair? I did hear they were gonna launch like some special exclusive collector's releases in SDCC, maybe they could reveal them now?

We'll likely see what we saw in the poster in-hand, then the Batmobile and whatever else they may have in store for the launch of this new Basics line. I doubt we'll get much more than that. If anything, maybe they'll show off a singular Batman figure for the collector's line.

 

[Reno]

I honestly would be beyond surprised if we'd see anything from a line that they can't release anything for almost a full year yet. San Diego Comic Con this summer would likely even be too early for that. The fall conventions? Sure! ......Of course I say that but it companies like Jada, Nacelle, Super7 and BigBadToy Shoppe are always showing things our more than a year, so what do I know?

The Legion of Super Heroes is easily one of my favorite things about DC Comics. Just the like X-Men is my favorite thing about Marvel. The characters are so diversified and rich and there's no limit to the storytelling. Casual fans and kids can quickly and easily get into Batman or Spider-Man and not really ever get any kind of grasp on the wide scope of the lore. To really love the Legion or X-Men you've got to be willing to invest a little bit more time, energy, effort and love.

 

[Stoopid_Sandwich]

Seriously. A lot of collectors disparage the Kenner line, but I grew up on that and I loved all the ridiculous metallic and purple and teal Batmen. And the crazy vehicles! Batman's a wealthy guy with serious arrested development, he should always have just the dumbest vehicles and they should all transform or split into tinier vehicles.

I don’t mind wacky accessories in a kids Batman toyline. But when we are still getting Batman figures with giant accessories in the early days of Mattel that was a bridge too far. I remember some of these figures had oversized jet packs and spring loaded batarangs that were about as large as a 1:1 scale prop. Who is this for??? Gee thanks Attack Armor Batman! This is what I always wanted!

(Btw what a name…especially considering that Batman wasn’t wearing the slightest hint of armor at all)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SDcomics]

It's fun and interesting to read good stories. It's not fun and interesting to read Wikipedia pages about stories.

But it doesn't take that long. And if you're really interested in the characters, it's doable. You don't even have to get up out of your chair.

No one wants to do that rather than just start reading something accessible. Most other forms of entertainment don't ask that; the reward is in the art itself, not in learning trivia.

So if you started watching, say, the Walking Dead in the middle of the sixth season, how long do you think it would take you to figure out what was going on and who those characters were? It would take a short while, wouldn't it? But if you liked what you saw you would do it.

Look, the DC Universe is 90 years old. Marvel is closing in on that. If you've never read a comic before and you want to start, it's going to take a little time to figure out who the characters are and what their history is. But DC is picking up new readers now. It's not impossible.

And Justice League Unlimited might have a ton of characters but most of them would be familiar to someone who had never picked up a comic before. And even then it's still a messy, overstuffed, incoherent book! So in a very practical way, the 70,000 character thing is an impediment to a book even when those characters are the biggest ones being published by DC.

Well, if their sales are going up ... The JLU certainly doesn't seem to be hurt by having a large membership.

"The Silver Age, the five year gap, Zero Hour, the 'threeboot.' post Infinite Crisis. That should help anyone get up to speed."
You say this like any of it is a normal way to engage with stories, or like those terms would make any sense to a normal person trying to find out where to start reading a comic book. Imagine those words if you hadn't already read those comics. Totally incomprehensible.

Like I said, five minute read. 10 or 15 if you're slow.

Just imagine you had to explain to people what a Proty is.

Sure. So I just opened another window and went to google. I typed in dc proty explained and this is what I got:

"Proty is a fictional, protoplasmic, shape-shifting alien from the planet Antares II, appearing in DC Comics as the loyal pet of Chameleon Boy in the 30th Century. As a member of the Protean race, Proty possesses telepathic abilities and can transform into any shape or person. Proty is best known for sacrificing its life to save Lightning Lad."

That ... wasn't hard.

I have no idea if the new reboot is about the original Legion or a new one, but my whole argument is that the Legion hasn't grown its reader base since its 80s peak because of questions like that. You disagreed with that, but I can't see how it's not obviously the case.

Well, Mark Waid had a pretty good run. So did Jim Shooter.

They've taken a franchise that's already avoidable by most readers

Not every writer is Brian Bendis you know.

and made it radioactive over time by changing it so much no one knows the deal, and unless this reboot's the greatest book on the market it's going to end up in the same situation as every Legion reboot: maybe some interest at launch that fades over time because no one including DC has really established what a Legion book is or why someone should read it instead of X-Men or Justice League or whatever. These are basic marketing questions, and DC's only answer for them with Legion always seems to be, "We're gonna get it right THIS time!" And you just don't have a sustainable property when you're at that point.

Come on, man. Scott Snyder, Joshua Williamson and Tom King know how to write. You've got all these reasons in your head why the Legion is doomed, JUST DOOMED I TELL YOU, to failure. And really, why don't we all just wait and see what happens? DC's publishing a lot of good stuff right now. They can make the Legion work. Give it a chance.

 

[SDcomics]

I honestly would be beyond surprised if we'd see anything from a line that they can't release anything for almost a full year yet. San Diego Comic Con this summer would likely even be too early for that.

You know, Mattel may not have anything on display at SDCC this year, but they may have a DC Panel with a slideshow. If they do, I shall attend. I may even go to the Mattel booth and try and make new friends.

The Legion of Super Heroes is easily one of my favorite things about DC Comics. Just the like X-Men is my favorite thing about Marvel. The characters are so diversified and rich and there's no limit to the storytelling. Casual fans and kids can quickly and easily get into Batman or Spider-Man and not really ever get any kind of grasp on the wide scope of the lore. To really love the Legion or X-Men you've got to be willing to invest a little bit more time, energy, effort and love.

 

[tenzilkem]

It's fun and interesting to read good stories. It's not fun and interesting to read Wikipedia pages about stories. No one wants to do that rather than just start reading something accessible. Most other forms of entertainment don't ask that; the reward is in the art itself, not in learning trivia.

Speak for yourself. I like reading stories but I also like reading Wikipedia pages about stories, teams or characters. Sometimes you find out something you missed reading the first time. I loved Who's Who and the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. I wish they would still update them. I also like the encyclopedias about the DC and Marvel Universes. I read wiki pages when I have some down time at work or am looking up information about a certain character. I've always been a cliff notes person (do they still make those?). Sometimes I'd rather read a summary of a movie or book than actually reading or watching it. If I'm interested in a book, I will read it. If I am interested in a movie or tv show, I will watch it. If I'm curious about a book, movie or tv show, I will read a wiki page about it so I have some general information. I have never seen the Sixth Sense but have heard too many people talk about it, I know about the movie. It doesn't bother me if it is ruined. I have looked up the wiki page about it and know what the movie is about. If I ever watch it, hopefully i will enjoy it.