2014 SDCC Wrap-Up: Hasbro Marvel Product Recap & Interview

As San Diego Comic Con wraps up we just want to give you a detailed recap of all the Hasbro Marvel based product information that was announced over the course of the past week.

Super Hero Mashers: Wave 1 2015 - Logan, Skarr, Juggernaut and Whiplash

It's Marvel 75th Anniversary and they partnered with the folks at Marvel to launch action figure variant covers in October. The covers are by Alex Kropinak. There will be a total of 10 action figure variant covers released by Marvel.

Marvel Legends Avengers Wave 1 2015 - Machine Man, Scarlet Witch and Captain Marvel with a interchangeable masked and maskless head sculpt. Odin the All-Father will be the Build-A-Figure for the wave. If you buy the entire wave you will get swappable parts to turn Odin into King Thor. The swap out pieces are his head, Jarnbjorn Ax and his left Destroyer arm.

Wave 2 of Hasbro’s Avengers Legends in 2015 will include Spider-Woman which will have two sets of removable wings for under her arms. One of the sets will feature closed wings and the other will be open wings.

Wave 2 will also include Hellcat. Dwight said during the panel that they have been pitching this character since 2006 but where afraid it would never be made because of the name.

The Build-A-Figure for the second wave of Avengers Legends will be Thanos in his more modern costume.

Alex Maleev will be doing the art work for the Marvel Legends packaging for the Avengers Legends figures.

Hasbro is doing a Marvel Legends Avengers Movie S.H.I.E.L.D. 3-Pack that includes Nick Fury, Maria Hill and Agent Coulson with the blaster rifle he used to shoot Loki with in the movie. This will be a store exclusive but Hasbro has not revealed which outlet will be selling it.

They are also doing a 3-Pack exclusive to Target stores which will include Radioactive Man, Captain Marvel (pre-Marvel Now) and Ultimate Captain America.

Hasbro will also be doing more Spider-Man Legends in 2015. The ones they have revealed so far are Spider-Man (Comic), Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Girl and a Phil Urich Hobgoblin Build-A-Figure. Hasbro is keep the rest of the Spider-Man Legends they have planned under wraps for now, likely revealing the rest at their New York Comic-Con press event in October.

Guardians of the Galaxy Legends did amazing sales through amazon.com, especially the Nova figure. This year was the most successful year for Marvel Legends sales.

Since Guardians of the Galaxy Legends have sold so well they are doing a 5-pack that will include comic versions of Star-Lord which is a re-release of the SDCC version as well as a classic Gamora, Groot, Rocket Raccoon and Drax on their bigger sculpted body. This should see release in the second half of 2015 as a store exclusive, but again Hasbro isn’t say where yet.

Other Marvel Legends Hasbro says they will be releasing at some point in 2015 will be Magik (Uncanny X-Men Black Leather With Sword) & Dormammu. We don’t know how or when these figures will be released.

For the 3.75” Marvel Infinite Series the first wave of 2015 will include Black Cat, 90’s style Bishop and Big Time Spider-Man with no over spray like we saw with the Marvel Legends version.

Wave 1 will also include Jim Lee Beast and Sandman. There will also be two swap figures that include Grey Beast and All-Sand Sandman.

Wave 2 will include Thunderstrike, Classic Doc Ock, Juggernaut Colossus, Armored Daredevil, Vulture, Shanna The She-Devil and Northstar.

Hasbro conducted a Twitter Fan Poll vote for the 3.75” Marvel Infinite series over the weekend and the winners which are going to be made into figures in 2016 include Modern Gamora and Modern Captain Marvel.

Figures Hasbro can’t do due to licensing issues are ROM The Space Knight and Micronaughts, though Jesse Falcon would really love to see those figures happen.

Marvel Legends Bulldozer would have been in the first wave of 2015 but was two big to ship in the same wave as another big figure like Odin. They are still looking at getting Bulldozer released and it was hinted that we could see him released in a later 2015 wave possibly as a Build-A-Figure. The delay of certain figures has one positive aspect as it allows Hasbro to go back and make improvements based on collector feedback. Dwight Stall gave as an example of this the new Hawkeye and Iron Fist figures originally announced over a year ago which will now ship in the first wave of 2015. Iron Fist will have multiple Kung-Fu hands and Hawkeye who has a fully armored arm.

Vehicles for 6” Marvel Legends is likely never going to happen but larger characters are certainly a possibility, especially as sales continue to be strong.

Hasbro says its just fact based on sales data that female figures do move slower than male figures which is why you continue to see them typically only ship the female figures one per case. However they are working with many retailers, and more specifically etailers to start doing solid cases of key in-demand characters. They won’t be doing it with all characters but are looking to try and get those ones people want into their hands.

We probably won’t see anymore X-Men based Marvel Legends at least until 2016 when the X-Men Apocalypse movie is released.

When it comes to the reduced articulation for the 3.75” Marvel Infinite series, Hasbro says they are starting to use a new body mold and it will be a work-in-progress as they continue to try and tweak it balancing things like cost, articulation and deco. As we saw with Marvel Legends and how they have improved over the years since Hasbro started doing them, we can expect to see the same thing with the 3.75” line.

Just my opinion but what this really seems to mean is now that David Vonner who designed and worked on the Marvel Universe 3.75” line since it’s inception is no longer with the company, they are having to essentially start from scratch with the line trying to find ways to deliver the quality of figures fan demand while keeping the price point at an acceptable level for retailers to keep carrying them. Hopefully given time we will see things like wrist articulation and mid-section joints return, but only time will tell I suppose. Hasbro did say to me that they hope to keep the 3.75” line going for at least another 3-5 years and that sales on the line had been strong.

They also tell us they are continuing to work to improve the distribution problems with the line and are aware of that problem.

Originally we were told by Hasbro that Hawkeye and Iron Fist would be swap figures for the Avengers Legends line but then during the panel they indicated that Sentry and Machine Man would be swap figures.

Pictures where not allowed during the Marvel Panel at SDCC, but Hasbro has released PR images for many of the new items they announced which you can see below. The images they showed of the other things announced during the panel were either just concept art or unpainted digital scans.

Also check out this brief interview ShartimusPrime did with the Hasbro Marvel Brand Team on Saturday before the Marvel Panel took place.