POE: Toy lines often “evolve” in terms of design and style as they go along (e.g., Batman > DC Super Heroes > DC Universe Classics). How much evolution is going on behind-the-scenes for DC Infinite Heroes?
MATTY: While we are trying to keep the general line look of IH the same, we are constantly improving sculpts, articulation and character selection. So the answer is “all the time!”
Does Mattel have any sense of how much overlap there is among collectors of JLU, DCUC and DCIH?
We spent a great amount of time both reading the fan posts and reviewing sales data broken down by stores and customer demographics so we do have a good handle over who is buying each line.
Inquiring minds want to know: who was lobbying the most for a classic Killer Moth figure? Talk about (awesomely) obscure…
Truth be told, this was a figure that actually came about due to a happy accident. Originally a different figure was planned for this slot. Killer Moth made the cut after the original figure ran over cost. We knew we wanted to do a Bat-Villain for this slot and we looked at a group of characters that had not been made as a figure before. Doing Moth was an idea that rose to the top from Mattel design and marketing and discussing possible characters with DC Comics.
We’ve had quite a few Hot Wheels Bat-vehicles. Is there any chance of expanding into other DC superheroes, such as Wonder Woman’s invisible plane or Blue Beetle’s “Bug” airship?
Yes, but you will have to wait until 2009!
Is there any possibility of offering a DCUC accessory pack on Mattycollector.com that might include accessories that were sculpted but didn’t come with their figures, such as the Penguin’s robot penguin, Ares’s mace and spear, Despero’s sword, and Grodd’s hand-weapon-doodads?
It is more likely we will include these “lost” accessories with other figures. For example, Kalibak was sculpted with additional Apokolips weapons and one of those will come with a future New God figure.
Lee in MI
This is funny…regarding the weapons question. At SDCC, Scott said they were considering releasing the "lost" accessories on MattyC, now the story has changed not even 6 months out.
Who the hell they gonna put Terry Mc's Batman Beyond wings with?!
orionpax636
Good questions as usual, Poe.
Sad to hear about the nix on accessory packs, but not entirely surprising. Adam Pawlus from Star Wars collecting fandom has always postulated that those packs just don't sell at retail, and I'm inclined to agree with him. I can remember that lots of the old 2002 MOTU snap-in gear lingered at retail, as did a lot of the weapon packs for Phantom Menace.
The only exception I can think of where those packs sell out were Joyride's Halo weapon packs…but I think those work because they were website-only and because the Halo strategy/mythos is highly geared to have fans strongly identify with particular weapons. I do think it would be worth Mattel's time, however, to offer a DCUC pack like that at least on MattyCollector.
Esbat
Or a Jim Balent Catwoman?
*cries*
Those Jello molds could've been reused for Power Girl *CRIES*
Poe
Maybe it was originally going to be Charaxes 😉
Other than that, I'm not sure. I doubt it was Ra's–perhaps a larger-tooled Bane?
BAM BAM
Too much eyeliner.
Pete
Nipple tax?
TSR
why would Ra's go over budget though?
Chuck20
interesting. I want to know who Killer Moth replaced….And if it was Ra's I'm so killing someone.