DC Signs Toy Deal With Mattel

Late last month DC announced that they had inked a deal with Mattel to produce toys based on any and all DC properties. So what does this mean to us comic fans? Well, quite a bit actually. First and foremost I was worried that with this move we would get more of "Marvel Legends" feel to all action figures coming out of DC and that DC Direct would stop producing figures. Not true. DC Direct will continue to publish figures based out of particular story-lines and artists. These products will still be available only to the direct market from what I can tell, keeping them, and even elevating them a little bit, as more of a collectors item.

What Mattel is doing will be multifaceted. First, they are going to keep producing many DC and Warner Bros. properties that they already had access to, such as Justice League Unlimited and the Batman movies. They also have free reign to produce toys of any character in the DC library, and while they may chose to focus more on some of the "big guns", they by no means have to. Of course, the flip side of that is that DC Direct no longer really has to worry about there not being Superman or Batman figures available, and free them up to dip deeper into their own back-stock of characters. How about a Starman series of figures, DC? Next, Mattel is planning on incorporating many DC licenses into pre-existing lines such as Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price, and Barbie. Mattel has already produce several heroines under the Barbie line, but most of them have been
prohibitively priced and are more collector items then actual toys. Personally I can't wait until the backlash hits and we start getting comments about how Wonder Woman and Power Girl set unrealistic examples of beauty and body shape for little girls. And can you imagine the cool Batmobiles that the guys over at Hot Wheels are going to start producing, I mean, that's just a no-brainer. Lastly, Mattel will also be looking to create DC branded Super-heroes sections in toy aisles. So a year from now I can go to the local Toy's 'R Us (is there one?) and ask, "Excuse me, where is the DC Comics aisle?"

-dan