External Rumorbusting

The status of the 60's Batman TV series are famously rumor riddled. Lying in the Gutters is famously rumor riddled. Put the two together and you get... an editorial at TV Shows On DVD.

I'm 67% sure Rich will post a response on LITG about some of the statements made, but a few things stood out and I figured sine there haven't been any good Super Hero Squad rumors lately (although I'm positive another crop of "Is the line doomed? Winter Soldier still isn't out, Sentry still isn't out, Ultimate Hulk isn't out, Collector's Pack 2 still isn't out!" rumors to start any day now) I'd just sort out a few misconclusions from the TV Shows on DVD site (which I actually like, and if they ever read this, hopefully they'll take this as constructive as it's intended to be.

1) It's not a CBR article. It's an edition of LITG. A difference, though subtle, is that most in the comics world know not to blame CBR if Rich is wrong. It's tantamount to citing something from Steven King's column in Entertainment Weekly as "Entertainment Weekly said a lot of books nowdays are stoopid". LITG is generally treated as a wholly separate beast and it's probably better that way.

2) Who owns what...

"Let's clear that up, though, about whom under the Time Life conglomerate umbrella owns the character of "Batman" (and related characters and trademarks). We're told, time and again by people at the company, that it's DC Comics, and not any other division of Time Life! The folks at Warner Bros. Pictures does not own Batman, nor does Warner Home Video (as we relayed at the bottom of our recent report of what WHV execs said on the subject at a live online chat held a week ago at the Home Theater Forum). And these "sister" companies to DC Comics have exactly as much right to tell DC what to do, as you and I have to tell our own siblings what to do (i.e., none). And the parent company apparently has very little interest in stepping in and telling these individual divisions how to run their day-to-day operations."

Right... but what Rich is suggesting is that Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc., which does own DC Comics and is, in turn, owned by Time Warner, via their ownership of DC. While WB Pictures and WHV are sisters to DC, it's not because they're all owned by Time Warner, it's because they're all owned by Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. What Rich is suggesting is that Warner Brother Entertainment, because DC is it's subsidiary, is "A Warner Bros. Entertainment Company." (as they note at the bottom of their website) owns what DC owns. An imperfect analogy would be the court system. At any given appellate level, no court is really able to inflict law upon the next... that would DC and WB Pictures for instance. They both, however, are bound by the decisions of the court above them. This would be Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. The subsidiaries report not to each other, but to the same boss.

Rich doesn't suggest any co-subsidiary owns any rights over any other, but rather that the company that owns the company that owns the rights, owns the rights by owning the rights owners.

How much day to day control WB Entertainment Inc. exerts is also subject to rumor... looking into the rumors regarding the "Death of Batman" is a good cross-section of the rumors surrounding WB control over DC. However, the fact remains, they own the rights owners.

Suggesting that the parent company has "little interest" in telling the divisions how to run the day to day operations is just conjecture, and in this case, off point. Just because Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. can't force a company it owns and a company it does not own to come to an agreement regarding rights issues, does not mean that Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. doesn't have some say in what goes on. TV Shows on DVD may have its sources saying there's no interest in telling the divisions what to do, but LITG has its sources saying the opposite. Truth? Probably in the middle.


Anyway, the rest of the TV On DVD article is a list of parties that may or may not have some possible claim to a possible slice of the pie.

For instance, on costumes: "In fact, we have heard it said that some of those designs were copyrighted (though we've never been clear on the truth of that)."

On the Batmobile: "It's rumored that the unique Batmobile design warrants royalties or residuals."

On props: "It's rumored that the unique Batmobile design warrants royalties or residuals. Other props, both large (Bat-Boat, Bat-Cycle, Bat-Copter) and small (utility belt gadgets, designs of something like a batarang or bat-phone, villain props, maybe even the Shakespeare-switch to the Batcave) could all possibly be unique enough to the show to require some sort of addition [sic] license for a DVD release."

On an old lawsuit: "While we've heard that this particular lawsuit may be over (we're not sure), all of these issues would have to be taken care of prior to a DVD release."

The optimist in me thinks that most of these issues would be easily remedied once the owners of the footage and the owners of the characters get together. If, and this is a big if, the owners of certain possible claims (props, costumes) have legitimate claims, then the fact that they haven't come forward in the past 4 decades to make their rights, or at least their claims, known (taking them from possible rights owners to known parties) may extinguish some of these potential claims, and those claims that survive... well... honestly now, how many pennies per unit could it really take to pay off a potential prop designer currently getting nothing?

So there you go, my take on the rumor busting of others.

Captain American is such a winner!

Everyone knows by now how I love data morphs and mutates like a virus on the Internet. I just read an interesting teaser at Digg for "Iron Man 2, 3 and 4" and the "may have Captain American and Hulk" comment. Now, I know we have our own typos here (and will continue to do so until we can afford a copy editor to take a pass at our posts), so no ill will about the good Captain's name, but I do have a pet peeve for the link-aggregator-post-that-has-something-rather-sensationalistic-as-a-title-but-is-actually-wishful-thinking-based-on-misinterpretation-of-something-else.

See, on Digg, where 500+ people have already "dugg" it (meaning they like it, they enjoy it, they support it, or maybe they just wanted to bookmark it for later and don't know how to use standard bookmarking) it's passed off as a possibility that Cap and Hulk will show up in these movies.

The article that is being "dugg" doesn't actually suggest that headline. Instead, that article says "Favreau does intend to include background links to the likes of Hulk and Captain America in the sequel, but finds Thor a little difficult to do so" and that this information came out during an interview with "Jon Favreau sitting down with a major contingent of online press".

And then at the end it points to the transcript of said interview with a "major contingent" (which was apparently just ComingSoon.net/Superhero Hype! the way I read the transcript's intro.) The intro itself translates the interview as saying:

Marvel's current plans to set its upcoming slate of films – including Iron Man 2, Captain America, Thor and The Avengers – in the same shared universe as Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk is a tricky but still inviting prospect for Favreau, who plans to utilize his improvisational background to find clever ways to integrate certain elements of the other films into the sequels, enhancing and not disrupting his own storytelling needs. He thinks Cap and Hulk fit fairly easily into Iron Man's world, while Thor is more of a challenge.

And of course, the actual interview itself features Favreau just talking about how cool it is to throw in Nick Fury or Captain America's shield, the continuity problems inherent in these things (since Iron Man is looking to start a team at the end of Hulk, the story probably doesn't take place the day after Nick Fury approaches him at the end of Iron Man), and giving a ridiculously flippant dismissal of Marvel Comics continuity. When discussing the issue of timing between Hulk and Iron Man (and sequels) he wonderfully says:

That's clearly not the day after "Iron Man" ended. Where does it fit in the time continuum? I don't want to just ignore it or do what the comic books have done. I guess you could do what Marvel has said: "It's an alternate universe." They've gotten away with that one for a couple of decades, but how do you make all that work within that world?

Which is just sort of insulting to Marvel. Let's be honest, the "alternate universe" is not Marvel's answer for continuity problems... they've long since mentioned their sliding time-line principle to explain aging issues and pride at never having had to "fix" their continuity a-la Crisis. If someone nit-picks how Captain America couldn't have had a beer with the Juggernaut on the same night Ben Reilly and Jubilee were locked in deadly battle with the Checkermaster, Marvel doesn't "alternate universe" it away. They give a no-prize, or they say say it's not a big deal (and these things usually aren't that big a deal) and everyone moves on, or maybe a later writer will come in and fix things. Sorry, that's just a personal nitpick, that this guy lauded by some comic fans as so "respectful to the material" thinks Marvel has just spent "decades" dismissing every uncomfortable plot point as "alternate universe." If Marvel HAD been throwing plot points out as alternate dimension, many fans would probably be a lot happier.

Back to the interview though... Favreau doesn't suggest appearances by Captain America or Hulk in any of the Iron Man sequels. He says that these callbacks and nudge-nudge-wink-wink references are fun, they're a way to prove themselves to the fans, and that he sees problems in incorporating some of the superheroism of Avengers mythology (which Favreau says isn't tech but rather "dealing with inter-dimensional portals and all the sh*t that makes you jump the shark if you don't handle it right").

He goes on to talk about the difficulty of these convergent elements by saying:

Then "Hulk" went a little the same way. It's still kind of tech-based. You get to Cap and you say, "Okay, he was frozen in that thing –" and it's like, "Okay, I could maybe buy that, with the super-soldier thing." Then you get into Thor and it's like, "Okay, well now..." and so how do you make that all feel like it's in the same world as our movie is? That's going to be the challenge moving forward.

So long story short, we start with an interview where Iron Man's director says mixing these elements are difficult. The same article summarizes the interview as Favreau planning on using improvisation to "integrate certain elements of the other films into the sequels". And when this article is re-summarized by Dark Horizon it becomes an intention "to include background links to the likes of Hulk and Captain America in the sequel, but finds Thor a little difficult to do so." And by the time it gets to Digg, it becomes "Captain America and Hulk in Iron Man 2, 3 and 4?"

Now, does that mean Captain America and Hulk won't appear? No. It just means that there's nothing suggesting they will. A director saying that the shared universe is fun and challenging at the same time, and that some aspects work together better than others, is not the same as (or anywhere close to) suggesting character appearances or whatever else.

Ah telephone game... how we love you. Now everyone reading this post... quick... go out and post that Tigra and the other-dimensional Cat People are going to be in Iron Man 2. Post that everywhere... tell everyone! Oh, and say that a Hawkeye movie is in development too! What else... oh... and that the Doctor Strange movie is retroactively being including into Marvel's movieverse so Peter Hooten is going to reprise his role for the Captain America movie. I can't wait to see what these rumors turn into.

Infinite Heroes Shipping Schedule?

Action-Figure.com has posted a shipping list for the Infinite Heroes... of note, coming out this month (in addition to the ones already out) are:

Black Adam - September
Qwardian Soldier - September
Manhunter - September
Batwoman - September
The Question - September
Wildcat - September
Hush (Masked) - September

But check over there for the full list. As always, stay cynical... the dates mostly correspond (as in, they're within a month or so) with the pre-order dates from Entertainment Earth and Big Bad Toy Store, but no clue who their source is. All they mention is that Cornerstone Comics is reporting Scarecrow, Nightwing and Joker as "late additions"

Squad, the Cartoon

Alright folks, this is a long post, but hopefully the edutainment value makes it worth your reading.

We’re still experiencing a bit of a post-SDCC boost in unique visitors but I’ve heard a couple people are disappointed at what we were NOT shown at San Diego. Namely? The Super Hero Squad cartoon.

Shows like Iron Man Man Armored Adventures, Black Panther and Wolverine and the X-Men were all given some good publicity at SDCC, while fellow Spring 2009 launches for Hulk Gamma Squad and Super Hero Squad didn’t get equal treatment.

Marvel’s other recent animation endeavor, Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes, which was just recently released in a “season 1” set, is likely dead giving Chris Yost’s interview at Toonzone and the fact that the last new episode was aired in October 2007, with many episodes never being aired on Cartoon Network.

So far everything makes sense, because Wolverine and the X-Men was scheduled to air in the BBC soon (although our own quick scan of BBC's channel listings indicate that it won't be making it's earlier announced August 2, 2008 timeline, Black Panther is already into the casting stage and the Iron Man trailer has already been shown, featuring Teen Tony.

But with 2 other series launching in the US around the same time, you’d expect comparable coverage… trailers, something. Steve Hulett, business rep of The Animation Guild reported on a recent visit to Film Roman getting the following information

"One of the Marvel shows (a direct-to-video feature, I think) as canceled. There's another Marvel project that, if my info is correct, is still on the calendar.

I was tipped off by a couple of artists about this when I went through the place Monday."

Film Roman is producing the upcoming Super Hero Squad series (or so the press release copy/pasted EVERYWHERE said way back in May - 133 hits with Google) and is known for work on everything from the Simpsons and King of the Hill to X-Men Evolution and the animated Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm series.

Browsing through the comments to Hulett’s post speculation included both Hulk and Super Hero Squad (neither of which are direct-to-video releases, but Hulett did say "I think", and there was nothing solid, just some anonymous rumors.

Then livingfruitvirus from Toonzone’s forums reported that his producer from Starz Media (owners of Film Roman) said the project was scrapped. For more information on “livingfruitvirus” check out his work at The C Word and 101 Megahertz and apparently he’ll be doing storyboards for the upcoming Goode Family series.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the project is totally dead. Nor does it mean you won’t see an animated Hulk, as he’s going to be visiting Wolverine and the X-Men.


What it DOES mean, is that Sure Hero Squad is NOT the canceled Film Roman project from the rumor going around the animation circles, and that Hulk: Gamma Squad has apparently been shelved. (bolded so that this post's bottom line doesn't get lost amongst all these pesky facts and reports.)

While Hulk may visit the X-Men, there’s still some question as to whether the Spidey will visit the Squad. We’ve been following the press releases and noting his absence since May. While some speculation is that the CW’s deal for airing season 1 of Spectacular Spider-Man (season 2 is currently homeless...) may prevent him from being in the cartoon, but a far likelier problem may be SONY (producer of the Spectacular Spider-Man and one of the producers of the upcoming possible musical) and their long history of being insanely protective and greedy with Spider-Man rights ever since Marvel and SONY formed Spider-Man L.P. to share the rights, rights that include shared publishing rights and resulted in oh, about 30 million dollars of profit for Marvel in Q1 2008. Would SONY want to allow a character in a series they produce and have shared publishing rights with starring in a series promoting a toy line that benefits Marvel’s other major licensing agreement (the one with Hasbro) and produced by a different company? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll keep our eyes out for further proof one way or the other regarding Spider-Man in the Super Hero Squad cartoon.

News Clips 7/27/08

New crisp photos of the 3 3/4 Marvel Universe line (the one Furyfiles.com, which is back up now, is promoting)? right here.

Want to see what the line looks like in action? right here

And just to explain how difficult our job is fighting rumors over here on this site, after months and months of speculation and mis-information we finally receive official word on the Collector's Pack last week. So we've got an official time (Late Fall), and an official place (Toys R Us), but what happens on one of the trading boards when someone asks when the set is coming out? He's told that it was officially confirmed to come out in August. At Wal-mart. Now, we thought that when that rumor started in April it was so silly nobody would fall for it, but apparently some did. To break it down once and for all:

Rumor: Collector's Pack 2 will be released in August, at Wal-Mart, and was delayed because characters in wheelchairs don't sell. Source: A guy that had a total of 5 posts to his name, posting on an out of the way thread on a random trading board about something a friend of his says he was told by someone else.

Truth: CP2 will be released in Late Fall, at Toys R Us. Source: an official Hasbro Q&A hosted by Raving Toy Maniac and thus slightly more believable than some guy who says he heard something from his friend who talked to a guy at a Hasbro booth

And finally, since a fair number of readers are interested in the DC Infinite Heroes, we hope to bring a few new surprises for them later this week.

Kitty and Professor X are coming?

Toymania has a second July Q&A up which has this interesting bit of news:

5. Any chance of a Superhero Squad boxset featuring the 90s X-Men Animated characters and designs (Cyclops, Wolverine, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Jubilee, Jean Grey, Professor X)?

Answer: There will be a cool new boxset coming out late in the Fall (at Toys R Us) that will feature an X-Mansion theme. It isn't specifically 90's, but it does feature Professor X, Kitty with Lockheed and 6 other X-Men faves. You'll get your 1st look at this one at SDCC this week!

Shucks. Looks like the guy who heard from his friend that the Collector's Pack (ie, Kitty and the Professor) would be a Wal-Mart exclusive this August was just mis-informed. Who could have guessed that?

Actually, we'll play fair here. It's possible that the new box-set featuring Professor X and Shadowcat won't be THE Collector's Pack 2, since we were told it has "6 other X-Men faves" (the original Collector's Pack 2 featured 6 X-Men related characters, a chrome Silver Surfer and a Spider-Man), which could mean that Wal-Mart gets the Collector's Pack 2 while Toys R Us gets this. But then wouldn't Q&A Man have said "Professor X and Kitty come in August to Wal-Mart, then in the fall to Toys R Us"? So while we did suggest shenanigans way back in April when that rumor started, and this Q&A certainly lends credence to that theory, we're willing to eat crow if it turns out we were wrong.

Potential re-releases in 2009?

Apparently Hasbro's doing the Q&A rounds this week as Action Figure Insider has a Q&A that actually talks about Super Hero Squad.

"Q2. Several of the Superhero Squad 2 packs released last year were extremely difficult to locate…especially Rogue/Gambit, Spidey/Kraven and Spidey/Vulture. Are there any plans to re-release any/all of these guys in an upcoming wave/set?

A2) We do have some plans to source some (but not all) of these again in 2009."

Now, we understand that Spidey/Kraven was never released, so that would be a welcome addition, but it's too early to figure what sourcing "some of these" means. Straight out re-releases? Repaints? Resculpts?

And there is, of course, the old rumor we mentioned way back when where a guy on the Marvelous News forums said at NYCC another guy told him "Some of the figures, like Kraven, may be worked back into future waves of the main line". And like any good rumor, it was quickly stripped of sources, spread all over, and remixed.

So there you go, there's still hope for the hard-to-find sets, and for the ever elusive Kraven.

Minimates are dead, long live the Squad?

In a bout of irony straight from O Henry, while SHS fans are out on the trading boards claiming that the line is doomed (despite the impending video game, cartoon series and merchandizing efforts) and not selling well, of products being pulled, Minimate Headquarters is running a bit of a rumor rundown regarding DC Minimates and the possibility of a DC Super Hero Squad type line.

Essentially, at a convention, a guy said he heard from someone official that DCD was pulling the minimates and focusing on a Super Hero Squad type line, and we've already talked about how they could be successful at it, and so now various fans of the minimates are bemoaning the lack of completed teams, assuming that SHS style toys compete with Fisher Price, that the toys are both extremely popular and if they succeed it's because of the "numbers and buying power of tasteless morons". Of course, there's also more than a few posts threatening boycotts, people saying the line didn't sell, that the line sold great, and of course, that the squad "sucks". Oh well, there's no accounting for some people's taste right?

So the next time you're reading a message board and you start reading doom and gloom posts about the Super Hero Squad, go give those threads a read, or go to Marvelous News and read one of the Marvel Legends cancellation threads.

On the plus side, that's one more rumor for the DC Squad line.

But it's still a rumor.

The Monthly "the line is doomed!" Rumor

It’s time for our monthly “the Super Hero Squad is doomed!" rumor.

But first, let’s deal with shortpacking! She-Hulk is apparently the first 2-pack to be sold out of Hasbro Toy Shop and that probably has something to do with what Entertainment Earth is reporting as the current case ratio of She-Hulk and Absorbing Man getting 2 packs per case, Black Bolt and Wolverine getting 4 per case, and with upcoming case revisions in July where She-Hulk and Absorbing Man are packed at 1 per case, while Hulk/Wolverine and Hulk/Black Bolt get 5 per case. With 5 times as many Wolverine/Hulk repaints floating around as original She-Hulk and Absorbing Man sculpts, and the generally reliable Hasbro-branded store selling She-Hulk out before the figures get to mainline stores, we could have a scalper’s dream.

Don’t panic, however. When items sell out in Hasbro Toy Shop, they don’t always permanently sell out and they may come back in stock, and while HTS availability is usually enough to temper scalpers (after all, there’s no premium for certain individual figures, there’s often coupon codes, and the prices are competitive with stores like Wal-Mart and thus far more friendly than many online retailers) inability to purchase the figure on HTS and a reported short-pack doesn’t necessarily equal higher prices. Searching through completed auctions on eBay show that all 4 2-packs have been selling at $10 (most likely due to the drought at retail level.)

Also, online retailers are sometimes wrong, or at least offering unusual products, like Cmdstore which is pre-selling the Toys R Us Exclusive Brawl That Shook The World for $16 which is only $1 more than pre-orders of the upcoming Iron Man packs. So they’re selling the Iron Man packs with a 50% mark-up, but the TRU exclusive at a 35% discount? Huh. Ok. Their retail locations are Canadian, so all things are possible, but remember to take things with a grain of salt.

Now, the Hulk Wave 2 drought at retail is what led to the most recent theory about the line being doomed. Essentially, the rumor goes like this:

“OMG! I haven’t seen the new Hulk figures out yet at retail and the Gamma Lab playset hasn’t been released even though some (well, one) checklist said it would be out in May! They must be pulling product and cancelling things! OMG”

“Yeah, I know, all I see are the same Hulk wave 1 figures. They’re not selling!”

“OMG. I knew it. The line [or at the very least the Hulk branch] must be doomed.”

And now for the reality… nobody EVER had ANY information on when the Gamma Lab was going to be released. Any checklist putting out “May” as the release date was guessing based on the Hulk Wave 1 figures.

Cool Toy Review didn’t even publish the typical Hasbro promotional pictures until May 4, as we talked about way back when.

Any delay from a date that was pulled out of thin air means absolutely nothing. What IS known, is that Entertainment Earth is saying it will “arrive” in August and… well... that’s about it. Look for me to use this exact same line of reasoning in two weeks when people start saying “oh no, the Sentry wave was supposed to be out in July and it’s not out yet! The line is over!”

As for the Hulk Wave 2 not being spotted at retail yet, there appears to be manufacturing issue as we addressed when we debunked the myths surrounding the Wave 2 order cancellations many collectors experienced so one could probably assume that if Hasbro’s branded store is having problems getting the stock to fill their pre-orders then the amount of stock trickling out to the mainstream is likewise limited. And just as a general common sense principle, an inability to meet pre-order demand is not a sign of poor sales.

There may in fact be a glut of Hulk Wave 1 out there, and that may result in some stores limiting orders for Wave 2 or the potential Wave 3, but let’s be logical: If you’re pulling stock from the back room, are you going to fill the Hulk pegs with the Wave 1 figures you have in a case in the back, or are you going to fill it with Wave 2 figures that your store does not have and can not put out? Let’s go with “in stock” for the win. And because the pegs are filled with the 4 packs you’ve already seen, that does not mean that there are no sales, and even assuming you have some photographic memory for the exact packs and know that these identical packs have not sold in however many days, anecdotal evidence does not a truthful statement make!

So there we go: Shortpacked She-Hulk might be the next Vulture, Entertainment Earth says the Gamma Lab will be out in August, Cmdstore is pre-selling a TRU exclusive at a hefty discount, and a product not making an imaginary shipping date does not mean that product has been discontinued.

No SHS in Marvel's September Solicitations

Way back when we reported on MSN's report on the Super Hero Squad video game. We had some questions about the reporting, notably when it said "Marvel Comics is now featuring Marvel Super Hero Squad comic strips within several of its all ages books and will be introducing a dedicated Marvel Super Hero Squad comic book series in fall 2008."

The problem? Marvel doesn't feature Super Hero Squad comic strips anywhere, but does reprint some Mini-Marvels strips in the Marvel Adventures line, and nobody else referred to a dedicated comic book. The closest anyone came to was Hollywood Reporter's claim that there's an upcoming "book series" for the fall (Hollywood Reporter just says "the fall" while MSN said "Fall 2008").

Because of that report, we've been eagerly awaiting Marvel's Solicitations for any of the fall months. The bad news? September has come and gone without any sign of the Squad.

But of course we'll keep looking.

Is Wave 10 Cancelled?

And the second rumor for today: that the Sentry/Red Skull/Electro wave is canceled.

Entertainment Earth has listed the set of figures from the Sentry/Red Skull wave (known as Wave 10 on Wikipedia and here, Wave 9 elsewhere) as canceled. Lending a little more credence to the rumor is the fact that Hasbrotoyshop.com still has the figures as “coming soon” but not listed as pre-orders.

The truth? Nobody officially knows what the hold-up is. It’s just as likely that when an “official” date couldn’t be met (and certainly not the “June” release date some online sites have reported) Entertainment Earth decided to pull pre-orders for the “set” rather than having to explain to people why the order date was being pushed back. It’s also possible that Hasbro decided that releasing so many Super Hero Squad sets back to back, like the Deadpool wave in April, the Psylocke wave and the first Hulk wave in May, and the Ares wave and Hulk Wave 2 in June, was a little much for the average collector and decided to slow down the releases. Who knows. But as of yet, that figures from that wave are still officially up as “coming soon.”

Spider-Man Wave 1 on sale at Toys R Us, Hasbro Coupons, Collector Pack 1's price

TRU Sale

Toys "R" Us (aka TRU) is also having a sale on Wave 1 of Spider-Man Super Hero Squad shown here.

Iron Man Wave 2 Up for Order

And for those that prefer Hasbro Toy Shop The Genius of Tony Stark and Crimson Dynamo Attacks are up for sale. Unfortunately, they don't start shipping until August 28, 2008.

Hasbro Coupon Code

And after trying the SPRREQ8 coupon code, I can verify that it worked (at least for me) so happy shopping (for those that live where Hasbro Toy Shop ships... sorry friends in other countries.)

Collector's Pack Price Rumor, Finally Busted.

Rumor: The Collector's Pack was originally intended for sale at less than $30.00
Status: Soon to be busted.

This is just as something that's been on my chest for a while... the Collector's Pack's $30 initial price tag isn't a price goof-up, a mistake, an error, whatever. Toys R Us, in the stores at least, still have the set marked at $30 USD. Walmart, when they had them, priced themat $23 before their last mark-down, Marvelous News concurs with the $30.00 MSRP.

Yes, now Hasbro has marked regularly at $20, and currently on sale, but that does not mean that stores charging $30 were "mistaken". Sorry, that's just one of those persistent rumors that hasn't really bothered me enough to get a post, but one person keeps repeating it and it grates a little.

Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price isn't stone though, it's "suggested", and it's why you see Amazon listing movies at $30, "marked down to $20!" for a 30% discount. But, the fact remains, stores were told the MSRP was $30, and some stores still try to sell it at that much.

More Spider-Man/Kraven/Vulture/Venom rumors

A couple of recent rumors have started, all apparently by one source who doesn’t like to be corrected by yours truly, so while I intended to do a quick run-down, it looks like there’s going to be a couple posts here:

Spider-Man/Kraven

The rumor: Poor Sales killed Kraven

Truth: Nobody knows why he was pulled. This rumor is essentially a portmanteau of existing rumors and unrelated theories. In early January, 2008, a user on a SHS forum reported that he heard it was pulled for a design issue. Also in early January, other users on the same forum reported that their Walmarts were restructuring the toy departments to take out Spider-Man SHS, leaving only Robot Heroes, Super Hero Squad, and Galactic Heroes.

(insert message board posts from people claiming they’ve seen Kraven, they’ve seen others who have purchased Kraven, etc.)

In late January 2008, the same user said his source from Hasbro said that Spider-Man/Kraven would be officially released May 8th.

(insert message board posts from people complaining that Kraven is going to be “movie” version, whatever that means.)

(insert message board posts from people insisting they heard that February was the release date, that March was the release date, that they see it for pre-order here, or there.)

In February, the user with the source said Big Bad Toy Store sent him notice that Hasbro was not able to fill the order for a case with Kraven, and that Hasbro “have just informed me that they do not have any new assortments that include this item scheduled for 2008.” He then says his source still says May.

In March, the user with the source said his source now says that the Spider-Man line didn’t “do well enough at stores to release any further product.”

Note, this is not “Kraven was cancelled because of low sales”, but that Kraven was never released and a guy knows someone that said Kraven would come out months after the Spider-Man line was phased out of stores and stopped having new waves announced, and that someone later changed their mind.

Now, there’s a Vulture rumor from the same source that says Vulture and the Venom/Sandman packs are rare because poor sales resulted in limited quantities. Again, totally unfounded. While Marvel did say that Spider-Man sales were disappointing in an earnings call documented here on Seeking Alpha that was in August 2007. So they knew the sales were disappointing line wide on Spider-Man toys in August, continued to announce upcoming waves including the Kraven wave, released 2/3rds of the wave, and finally 5 months later major retailers take the line off the shelves (months after the wave had hit shelves, sold out and was not refreshed.)

In fact, Marvel does not even discuss the possibility of toy product scale down in the earnings call mentioned earlier. They do say “While Hasbro has not been disappointed with licensed Marvel toy sales to date, we have reduced our forecast for the second half of the 2007 to the lower end of their forecast to reflect a possibility of lower reorders, though we are hopeful that the planned DVD releases in Q4 will further stimulate sales.”

Which, in English, means Hasbro is ok with toy sales (if Hasbro was disappointed in toy sales, Marvel wouldn’t come out and say it, they’d just avoid mentioning Hasbro altogether rather than misrepresenting facts to their shareholders and then publishing those mis-representations) but Marvel doesn’t think they’ll get as much money from the toy line as they once thought they would.

No consideration of distribution problems whatsoever though, or the fact that every message board post I’ve ever found of someone finding the figures was at a Walmart, or how the toys were never even included on Hasbro’s site. Of course, for the distribution angle, the closest we have to an “official” (and I use the term loosely) word is discussed in this post where we nitpick how a guy named ransomz on Marvelousnews says that when he talked to a guy named Scott, from marketing, that the third wave of Spider-Man had crap for distribution and "Some of the figures, like Kraven, may be worked back into future waves of the main line” (keeping in mind that the third wave was the Green Goblin/New Goblin 2 pack wave, and not the Vulture Wave)

Grains of salt people.

And while I’m talking about the dearly departed Spider-Man line, there’s a really, really silly rumor regarding the switch from prototype Venom in the Venom/Puma pack, discussed in an earlier post. Basically, the new rumor is: “the Venom on the back of the package was the Venom that was originally supposed to be released in this 2-Pack, because it was too small to fit in with the line it was removed and replaced with this Venom.”
Of course no source whatsoever would be foolish enough to put a name to this.

The Venoms were switched, but there was never a reason given, either officially or unofficially, on the record or off. The Venom depicted was less hulking than the sculpt that had already been released, and the later re-sculpt, but this is a great example of a misapplied deduction.

There’s a pattern of circumstances made obvious after an event, so thus the event must have been triggered by non-conformity with the pattern. Unfortunately with this line of deduction while the guess may be logical, or “truthy” in a Colbert sense, it’s not actually supported by anything, and can easily be mis-applied. For instance, one could also argue that because the new Venom wasn’t the same as the Venom that had been released, he was replaced. It uses the same facts to arrive at the same truth, but it is not supported.

So while there may be some truth to the rumor, it’s pure guesswork based on faulty deduction.

Secret Wars, Alien Invasion, and more speculation

I'm going to do a mini-rumor run-down of the new 4-pack SKUs that were released:

4 PACK SECRET WARS 65356937551
4 PK ALIEN INVASION 65356937552

Now, I've already heard theories about both, but for the most part, everyone has acknowledged that they're just theories. I did hear one guy posit that Beyonder was in the Secret Wars pack (thus making it a 1980's Secret Wars pack by default), but I want to caution everyone, as I always do, that there's nothing official. Absolutely nothing. Not even the SKUs (although they've proven rather reliable).

So while Secret Wars could be a 1980's Secret Wars and Secret Wars II flashback, with Beyonders, Julia Carpenter version Spider-Woman/Arachne, Molecule Man, Symbiote Spider-Man, Volcana, or repaints of various Marvel Heroes (since many Super Hero Squad figures were involved in those two retro-runs there's lots to choose from.)

However, they could also be referring to the recent Secret Wars series that directly leads to Secret Invasion. Repaints of Spider-Man, Captain America and Wolverine? Luke Cage and 616 Nick Fury getting figures? Daisy Johnson, lady Octopus, Generic S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent... who knows. The one thing we do know is that we don't know.

Alien Invasion is just as nebulous right now. Is it Skrull army builder set tying in to Secret Invasion? Skrull-Elektra/Skrullektra? Nick Fury? Iron Man? Ms. Marvel? Wonder Man? Yellowjacket? Captain Marvel? Maybe it's just run-down of various aliens, like Kree Soldiers, the Hulk's Warbound or the Brood? Nobody knows!

So all these ideas are possible, some are more likely than others, all are likely to excite someone, even if not everyone, but remember to take speculation with a grain of salt until something official comes along.

Iron Man Toys vs. Hulk Toys

I know I've talked about the disparity between Hulk toys and Iron Man toys before, specifically here but so far it's been a feeling. And then I read this on Seeking Alpha

"F. Peter Cuneo

With regard to the size of the Hasbro line, it’s a modest line. I think that though from Marvel's standpoint and from retailers’ standpoint, there is always a bit of conservatism when it comes to a first film in a franchise. So retailers were conservative in their ordering patterns, which makes sense, and Hasbro and Marvel also were conservative in the size of the line that we produced.

We certainly think that with the sequel, that that line would be substantially larger."

That was in response to a representative from RBC Capital Markets asking "can you clarify how many Hasbro related SKUs you have coming from Iron Man?"

So there you go. "Conservatism."

With luck, the next Iron Man movie will have a better merchandising presence, and hopefully some Super Hero Squad toys that aren't waves of repaints.

Addition to the Collector's Pack Post

You can tell I was pre-occupied last night when I posted about the Collector's Pack.

I forgot to mention that marketing decisions and character selection are done before sculpting, drafting of solicitation material, release of that solicitation materials to the public, and demonstrations of promo-shots. Hasbro has been known to announce less-than-desired figures before, but they always follow through with the figure.

In character selection, marketing and manufacturing typically look at what figures will sell, what figures are requested, (and during the Jesse Falcon Toybiz Marvel Legends era) what figures complete sets.

Deciding, ex post facto, that the wheelchair was going to undersell the line, is not just bizarre marketing strategy, wasteful and counter-intuitive but... well... this is a family blog so we'll watch our language.

The original poster has followed up with information that he didn't hear the information, but that it came from a friend who heard it from a rep (telephone game! I love it!)

The gentleman who's spreading it is using anecdotal evidence that Professor X has been a peg-warmer before, but... well... one man's experience is not necessarily determinative of the rest.

Points other people have made on the thread: well... my word count stalker posted to roll his eyes and say "here we go again", and a Mr. Woodsmok pointed out that 4 months isn't much headtime for Hasbro to get production amped up, packaged, sent out to the multi-national corporation that is Walmart (and who typically pre-orders way in advance), etc., etc.

But like I said, maybe it'll turn out to be true. Maybe not.

Fresh off the rumor truck: The new Collector's Pack

The freshest rumor I've come across yet: That Collector's Pack 2 will be released this August as a Walmart Exclusive.

Key parts of the rumor:
1) That it was pulled because Hasbro thought kids didn't want characters in wheelchairs (which is non-sensical because if that was the case, Hasbro would have replaced Xavier with any other character they could think of, including another repaint which would lower the cost of the unit even further. Besides that, of course, we have the fact that Professor X is a long-time mainstay of toy lines featuring the X-Men, from back in the days of 5-inch Toy Biz, X-Men movie figures, The Marvel Legends Galactus series, so why marketing or whoever would think that one figure out of the 8 in the pack would negatively effect sales to the point it offsets the market for collectors who want new characters for their sets...)

2) That demand for Xavier brought the set back from the dead (which doesn't carry on with the anecdotal experience of message board travelling where people are either calling for Chrome Silver Surfer, Iceman in Booties, or debating Shadowcat's sculpt)

3) That Professor X will come with Cerebro, which means either the sculpt is going to be re-done or we're going to have the first ever non-attached figure accessory (what toy-manufacturers like to call a choking hazard in a line that's safe for 3 and up)

4) That it's a Walmart exclusive.

The problem:

The rumor has no source.

The main source, the one that's posting from place to place, is using a guy from Sirstevesguide by a guy who'd posted 12 times in 3 years who says he heard it from a representative at NYCC (who then kept the information from everyone else). Telephone game anyone?

Does that mean it's guaranteed wrong? Or that there isn't a legitimate source for this information? No. It could happen, and heck, it could happen exactly how this rumor says, but in the meantime we're looking at a fairly unsourced rumor, with questionable authority, based on a dubious premise of action figure discrimination and unusual marketing theory.

Generally with these types of "reports" the toy forums will start the normal circular self-referential stuff that normally goes on (which I already explained once before with the example of A posting one place, B reading the post and reposting, C reading that post and posting elsewhere, with A reading that post and determining that his original post is now verified) and soon enough it will be considered true but at least people reading this will think twice. The irritating part? It's already being posted in the typical forums as truth.

We'll see in August or maybe earlier how much, if any, of Mr. Slayer's rumor turns out to be true but I'm going to treat this rumor the same way I've treated every single "release date" that's been promised so far. You know, the guys who heard it from this guy they met that the pack would come out in May. Then June. October. November. January. No no, February, for real this time. March.

Anatomy of a rumor...

So if you'll remember back a few weeks when I pointed out the Green Goblin in the Mousedroid picture, you may remember there being a little bit of speculation about the mysterious box, mostly obscured and not photographed. There was a bit of orange fuzz and a fraction of a face and so some people went to lengths to try and decipher it, expanding the picture, etc.

Then on the forums the speculation continued... and by speculation, I've got to confess, it was mostly wishful thinking. Basically, I'm going to give a rundown of how one thread on one board, quickly spread and resulted in SHS fans all over the net thinking that City in Crisis is going to be Spidey, Kraven, Green Goblin, Vulture and Mary Jane.

First off, I don't have a problem with the theory that Green Goblin's set is the City In Crisis... I actually suggested that Crisis was going to be the next 4 pack to be shown, and Green Goblin's set would be that set, but back to the anatomy of a rumor.

So the picture is shown, the corner is Green Goblin. Then someone comes out with (and I'm going to slightly change the words to these posts so that they sound a little more grammatical, or at least a little less silly)

"Wouldn't it be nice if the other two figures included Kraven?"
"It is Kraven! I zoomed in, the orange is the main of his vest... the head in the glass is his forehead!"
"Hoping Vulture is in there!"
"Yeah! Me too!"
"Maybe they can put a younger head on it so that it can be a variant!"
"That's totally Kraven. I know my SM characters by forehead alone"
"So the four pack is Kraven, Green Goblin, Vulture and Spider-Man! That's exciting!"
"I think the other people in the set should be chameleon,shocker,electro,or scarlet spider"
"Well, we know that's not going to happen since Kraven is in there"
"Sandman is getting re-released for those who missed it. Probably in the 4-Pack with Green Goblin and Kraven"
"Where's Kraven?"
"Mary Jane was shown but not photographed."
"She's probably in the pack with Green Goblin and upside-down Spidey"
"I bet the 4-Pack will be Green Goblin, Spider-Man (Hanging), Mary Jane... and dunno. Maybe it's not Kraven in that 4-Pack."
"If Mary Jane really was seen she is probably the 4th"
"Where's Vulture?"

Now, a lot of this is simple telephone game BS. A posts their theory, B likes it and posts it elsewhere, C reads it elsewhere and doesn't correctly attribute it was speculation. C posts elsewhere. A reads C's post... finally "confirmation"! Things get changed one word at a time from post to post until finally the original person reads the twisted mutant of a rumor and decides it must be truth. Of course, some people are more notorious than others (for instance, one of the Kraven/Vulture/Goblin rumor spreaders is also behind the myth that Hasbro's release of repaint packs is due to Hasbro's wave cost balancing and thus the pack that balances out Winter Soldier must be a repaint set... his source of info on Hasbro's wave cost balancing? An earlier post wherein someone said they hated repaint sets and he said he thinks Hasbro does it for costs, and he's also behind the multiple postings that City in Crisis was the Emma Frost set, which resulted in the subsequent rumor that there's a second second X-Men theme pack on the horizon.)

So for the rundown:

Truth:
- there's a multi-pack box that we saw the corner of in Australia featuring Green Goblin, and a part of a sliver of a face with some orange-ish stuff around it
- there's photos of Green Goblin, Spider-Man hanging from a lamppost, and repainted Sandman II at Marvelousnews.
- The case of Winter Soldier 4-packs will come with a set called City in Crisis.

Rumors:
- one guy says Mary Jane was shown but not pictured.
- one guy says based SOLELY on the rumor that there was a Mary Jane shown, that she's in the 4 pack
- a few people would like to see Vulture.
- a few other people thought those people meant Vulture was included in the four pack.
- because we saw Sandman, Green Goblin and lamppost Spider-Man grouped together, they're likely to be the next set.
- A guy named ransomz on Marvelousnews says that when he talked to a guy named Scott, from marketing, that the third wave of Spider-Man had crap for distribution and "Some of the figures, like Kraven, may be worked back into future waves of the main line"

So that's what's known, and what's unknown. I have to admit, some of the coincidental stuff is more likely (when I saw the Sandman re-paint, Spidey on a lamp-post and Green Goblin, I picked them as the most likely candidates for a four pack) some of the obviously incorrect (I want Vulture =! another Vulture's coming soon) but hopefully as long as people keep pointing out facts from fiction people like you will continue appreciating it.

The End of Marvel Legends! BWAH HA HA

I was going to post a myth about the secret truth behind repaints in 4-packs, but unfortunately can't get to the source of the myth right now (site's down) so maybe I'll take a break later on to post it (assuming the source comes back.)

Instead, I'm going to talk about Marvel Legends for just a second. Basically, ever since the Hasbro take-over, the take-over that resulted in the birth of Super Hero Squad, there has been nothing but internet sturm und drang about (1) the quality of the figures and (2) the ever impending death of the line.

Now this week Super Articulated posted an article about the cancellation of Marvel Legends (or rather, th cancellation of retailers orders for Marvel Legends ICONS).

Since then, a bunch of other places have picked up on this article and everyone is spinning the story darker and darker. Look at the comments of the Super Articulated article for examples of some of the craziest conspiracy theories and angriest F.U.s to Hasbro you'll read on a toy site.

"This is not surprising though and I anticipate the complete cancellation of ML at any time. I only hope I get my FF Foom first. I consider the Hulk series coming to be ML."

"in toy globe wave 4 and 5 said canceled too, so i think this is it for Marvel Legends… a very little smart move from the guys of Marvel given the license to this crappy toy factory, and now a worst move from Hasbro killing the golden eggs chiken"

"3. (kinda pessimistic, but most likely in my opinion) Hasbro has been begrudgingly dragging along the 6″ ML figures at Marvel’s behest, and have finally decided they’re done with that."

Now, those are actually kind of tame compared to some of the other posts I've read, but seriously, wishing a toy company to hell, conspiracy theories that Hasbro was just putting on appearances when they put out the first few waves of Marvel Legends.

But this has all been warm up for my pet peeve: people re-posting suggestions of possible doom-and-gloom on message boards in a totally mis-characterized fashions.

Like this, from the Marvelous New forums:

"In brief, it says that the wave is canceled w/retailers, and that Marvel Legends in general are quite literally the bottom of the totem pole as far as production concerns go. The movie figures can't share space with Marvel Legends, so they're gonna get bumped. I don't really know the source, and I'll wait til NYCC for official word, but this is the trend many of us have been feeling, and this minor confirmantion could end up being big."

Now, here's what the article actually says:
- orders of Icons by online stores have been canceled
- those lines had proposed line-ups already
- the author liked Nightcrawler
- FANS think the Marvel Legends line is doomed.
- Hasbro hasn't told released any information about what comes after lines that aren't released yet.
- the author thinks Hasbro is trying to avoid over-saturating the market with wave 4
- many stores have space for Marvel Legends.
- The stores he's visited ARE OVER SATURATED WITH FIGURES FROM THE LAST TWO MARVEL LEGENDS WAVES.
- And finally, that in the author's opinion Hasbro only cares about movies and the line is doomed but he's not going to officially say it because it's all guesswork.

To sum it up, the author of the original news piece really liked one of the upcoming figures, he's heard nothing but rumors, one rumor said that there was too much crap out filling shelves, and he's got some anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that there actually is too much crap still out there. In short: the line of giant-sized Marvel Icons may be canceled. Everything else is speculation.

I have no information one way or the other regarding the future of the line and that's because there is no information to know. The point of this entire post is to encourage people to look at what "news" is actually saying, what is actually information. Some of the rumors (re: theories) have more sound principles than others, but re-posting an opinion piece based on rumors as "official confirmation" elsewhere doesn't make them facts!