The Rumor Buster

Ask Matty 3/1/10

Mattel just sent the newest round of answers to us, so here they are!

1) With the huge popularity of miniatures, are you considering making JLU miniatures?
We will continue to offer DC characters in the Action League line, if that is what you are asking. There are no plans for a separate JLU mini line.

2) Does Mattel have any plans on adding holes for pegs in the feet of the Brave and the Bold Action League figures? Many of the figures like Batman, Aquaman, and the Top suffer from difficulty standing.
Yes, we can confirm future figures will have holes in their feet!

3) Now that the suggestion has been “passed along” (in another Q&A) for the inclusion of Music Meister in the BatB lines; due to the episode’s and character’s popularity, is there any chance of also considering making him in a few of his different ensembles? The Action League line has not said no to doing repeats of characters before, and our beloved maestro of villainy just begs for it.
At this time there are no plans for Music Meister, but if he does get into the line we’d love to do some of the exciting outfits he had! Which ones would fans want the most?

4) The Batman Action League figures that are in a running position are extremely hard to stand up. Most of them end up lying on their backs after a few minutes. Collectors and kids alike have expressed their frustration with this issue. Can this leg pose be retired? There are many leg sculpts that work great.
We will certainly look into addressing this for future figures!

5) It was last stated that there are no new plans for The Secret Saturdays. Is it possible to provide us a list of the items that have actually made it to retail? The Griffin Attack Jet Vehicle that appeared last month has advertisement for Fiskerton and Piecemeal as well as other figures due out in “April 2010″ leading to confusion of their fate. Are these items still slated to come out in April?
Yes, these items are still on tap for this spring.

There you have it! As always, if you want you can go discuss it on the board.

Ask Matty 2/15/10

Mattel sent the latest round of answers to our questions.

Will we be seeing any more Action League multi-packs like the Toys-R-Us 6-pack?
Only time will tell. Nothing to reveal quite yet.

Will any other Pixar, Disney, or Mattel properties (such as Masters of the Universe) be getting the “Buddies” or “Minis” 2″ treatment from Mattel?
This is something we are looking into but we’re not ready to spill the beans quite yet!

While fans of some lines like DCUC are lucky enough to get a heads-up about what figures will be in upcoming waves (and when those waves will hit), fans of Action League and Brave and the Bold figures generally have to wait until the figures are spotted at retail. Any plans to start giving those fans more of a heads-up about upcoming figures?
These lines are handled by a different group from the DCUC team and we are working with them to make sure all collectors’ needs are met!

What DC property are you most excited to bring to DCUC and Infinite Heroes this year?
We can’t wait to get to some of the current Blackest Night characters, but it may need to wait until spring of 2011 due to new developments.

Each Action League 2-pack comes carded on a cool background. Is there any chance you’ll put the backgrounds online so fans can print larger versions for their displays?
That’s a cool idea, but nothing is planned at this time.

As always, you can head on over to the board to discuss.

Ask Matty Feb. 1

We just got answers back from our most recent round of questions!

Regarding the Secret Saturdays cryptid line, will we ever see the Popobawa figure on the shelves – even under the Devil’s Cave Bird name?
We are still talking about the Secret Saturday line so stay tuned.

Is Mr. Potato Head off limits for the Toy Story line?
Correct. Mattel will not be including Mr. Potato Head in our Toy Story line.

Will we see Brave and the Bold/Action League or a continuation of the Infinite Heroes pack-ins with DC DVDs?
We are looking into future plans for DVD pack-ins but we’re not ready to announce anything quite yet.

Are there any characters from the various lines that, due to legal or copyright reasons, we probably won’t see?
At this time we will not be including Filmation characters in the MOTUC line.

Do the packages with female characters sell significantly less than the all-male packages?
Female characters tend to appeal primarily to collectors so we typically produce fewer figures overall. All of our lines at retail need to appeal to both kids and moms as well as collectors.

Matty Q&A Voting

There’s not much time left to vote for questions in the current round of Ask Matty, but you can still submit questiosn for the next round of voting! Remember you can submit questions regarding any of the Mattel lines… Brave and the Bold, DCUC, Action League, Cars, Masters of the Universe Classics, Infinite Heroes… the whole Mattel world is your oyster! Head over to the Ask Matty thread to post those questions

Ask Matty 1/15/10

We’d like to thank everyone who’s participated in helping us gather questions for Ask Matty this month, it’s been great!

Alright, now that we have that out of the way, how about we get to our first set of answers from Mattel?

1. Is there another wave of Secret Saturdays 6″ figures on the way? If so, can you say who’s in it?
At this time, there are no new plans for Secret Saturday toys. Everything for the line is now at retail.

2. Are there any plans to extend the Batman Brave & the Bold style (mini or 5″) out to other characters that haven’t appeared on the show?
No, the Brave and the Bold line is a more kid-oriented line compared to a collector line like JLU, which is more of a luxury. The B&B figures will remain show specific for now.

3. Are there any plans to fix the DCIH new molds’ knees? The new knees are prone to break easily, but the old knees were great. Are there any plans to go back to something similar to the old knees?
Yes, we are constantly working to improve not only the joints, but paint ops and accessories as well.

4. Will posters be added to the Batman Brave & the Bold Action League 2-packs to encourage consumers to buy the sets & inform us about upcoming characters?
There was a great poster for the minis available at SDCC, which shows off the entire line. It is something we will consider.

5. Will there be playsets for Batman Brave & the Bold Action League, such as the Batcave or Justice League headquarters?
Nothing planned at the moment, but the future is wide open as the show remains popular with kids and collectors.

Mattel Q&A

Wwwyzerd has closed down submissions for questions to the next installment of Ask Matty and has set up a poll to see what questions you the readers think should be asked. Head over to the board and sign in to vote for which questions you want answered.

Merry Early Christmas!

I know Christmas is less than a week away, but we couldn’t wait to let you in on one of the cool things we’ve been working on to make The Rumorbuster even better in the new year.

We’re gonna be participating in Mattel’s Q&A program!

Each month on the 1st & 15th we’ll submit questions to Mattel to be answered. We’ll get the answers back in 2 weeks when we submit more questions.

We are allowed a total of 5 questions that can be about any action figure line Mattel is producing (for example; DC lines, Masters of the Universe, etc.).

Our first round of questions are due on the 1st, so hurry over to the board to tell us what questions you want Mattel to answer!

Newsclips 09/09/09

First off, DCUC Wave 12 is announced in Toyfare (Actionfigurepics.com has the rundown of the characters) revealing Copperhead, DeSaad, Doctor Mid-Nite, Eclipso, Iron, Mary Marvel, Spectre and Darkseid as the Collect and Connect. A distinctive, but generally low-level bad guy, two more Kirby/New World heavy hitters (both of which do double duty as rounding out the Super Powers Collection roster), two more JSA’ers, the first Metal Man, and another member of the Marvel Family… all in all a pretty successful roster. I still think the highlight is Eclipso though.

The Fwoosh finishes it’s interview with Scott Neitlich of Mattel and there’s actually some brief Infinite Heroes talk. The 2010 theme will not be limited to Infinite Heroes, but will run through all the Mattel DC lines and it will likely be introduced in the fall. There won’t be a proof of purchase clipping program though, so no more hunting for Anti-Monitor points I suppose.

And finally, Airheads is having a Batman Brave and the Bold theme, with 6 individual wrappers (Batman, Blue Beetle, Aquaman, Red Tornado, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man), but they’ve also got some fun and games on their site like a quiz to find what Brave and the Bold character you are, or the painting screen that lets you paint your own Batman!

Damn Dirty Pegwarmers

Mattycollector’s makes an announcement on their Facebook page saying:

Hey DCU fans,

It is no secret that their has been a delay in getting new JLU figures into Target stores. This is entirely do to our factor shutting down last December. We have already found a new factory and we have new packs ready to ship, the problem is, while we waited for the new factory to produce the new 2009 figures, we had to continue and ship 2008 product to Target to hold the place in the toy aisle.

So right now Target is full of 2008 packs. We need to get all of these sold before Target will take orders for new 2009 packs. So, to help, Mattel is funding a month long price reduction on 3 packs. So tell your friends and allies, swing by a Target and grab some JLU packs this month on sale. Once we move all of the older product, we have fresh new figures ready to ship and get into your hands!

That is the latest! We are doing everything we can to get to fresh figures. All we have to do now is clear out the 2008 inventory. :-)

Matty

Now, ignore the typos, and be aware that some people believe Mattel is just asking people to buy what they’ve already bought. There’s really two ways to take this: Either Mattel is being very transparent about their motives (they kept shipping the product they had to keep the shelves saved, and considering the number of people reporting that their Target halved Justice League Unlimited and Infinite Heroes space for Marvel Universe and Wolverine toys, it sounds like a reasonable plan), or it’s the same hash we’ve had with Mattel over Infinite Heroes (buy those figures without articulation and accessories and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get better stuff later), but either way, at least Mattel is trying to communicate with fans.

Newsclips 04/15/09

Happy Sinking of the Titanic Day to any that celebrate! For the rest of us, let’s take this slow time between toy releases to do another edition of newsclips!

First, some of you may have noticed that we’re slowly adding to our collection of checklists over on the Wiki. Recent additions include Hasbro’s Marvel Attacktix, and Toy Biz’s long-dead but not forgotten X-Men Evolution figures (and their related merchandise like the maquettes, fast food premiums and unreleased toys. Feel free to adopt one of the many abandoned toy lines out there and help with a checklist!

Second, Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics Mer-Man sold out in under an hour. Didn’t get one? You and a bunch of other angry folks over on the Matty Collector Facebook page insisting that Mattel engaged in some kind of insidious geographic preference. Scrolling through the messages, you’ll see allegations of customer service telling international customers the wrong time zone, European shipments getting error figures they can’t return and other accusations of geocentrism. Mattel has yet to officially address the situation, other than their repeated explanations that more Mer-Men are on the way. As for the allegations, even US buyers had issues with the site, including its notoriously buggy Digital River ordering system. While you’d think being there as soon as the Add To Cart button came up would guarantee a slot, the servers froze and buckled for all of us. As for allegations of double charging (did you hit the reload button when you thought the server/your order wasn’t going through?) and of a shopping cart zero-loop (your shopping cart keeps emptying), it may be evil pro-US-ness, but it may also just be the same poor website that locks up and has numerous bugs reported every MOTUC release day. Hopefully Mattel will get the bugs fixed soon, but in the meantime, hopefully they address the rampant allegations and accusations.

In happier news, Hasbrotoyshop continues business as usual (perhaps in part to never revealing when it’s going to add new product, although that would just make MOTUC collectors even more upset, but a search for “Squad” will reveal that the Hulk/Abomination, Hulk/Silver Savage, and Wolverine/Psylocke sets are going for $4.99, while the Genius of Tony Stark, and Crimson Dynamo Attacks sets are now $7.99, the Sand Pit Standoff is $5.99, the Iron Man Hall of Armor is down to $8.99, Gamma Lab is at $19.99, and the first Collector’s Pack is down to $17.99.

Did we miss some news? Most likely! Tell us about it on the board.