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One of our representatives at CustomCon actually
managed to get an interview about these figures.
Two other people were in the showroom, Don Drake,
who actually looks official, and Jack Jorgins, who doesn't.
Andrew: The style of these figures screams
Hasbro, but these are Marvel characters, normally covered by Toy Biz. Which
company is behind these figures?
Drake: We're Hasbro. What happened is, we were
looking through some of the old Kenner records, when we came across a note
saying the DC rights had been reacquired from Toy Biz. We sent our lawyers
to talk to their lawyers, and it was decided that since they had done a
line of our characters,, we should be able to do a line of theirs. They
bought it.
Andrew: Why the Avengers?
Drake: We thought long and hard about doing the
X-Men, but decided there are already too many Wolverine figures out there.
Besides, once the movie comes out this summer, the Avengers are going to
be the biggest thing anywhere.
Andrew: The Avengers aren't getting a movie.
Drake: What?!? But they told me--
Andrew: The X-Men movie comes out this summer.
Drake: Why those lying little--(at this point
he storms out in an explosion of barely coherent ranting)
Andrew: So, Jack, you were the head designer
for this line. Where's Spider-Man?
Jorgins: From the start, this was going to be
a Spidey line, with Avengers and Avengers villains in the supporting roles.
We even had a whole storyline to wrap the line around, but at the last
minute we were told to drop a figure from the assortment. He'll be back
for wave two.
Andrew: I have to say that these are some very
distinctive figures. What was your inspiration?
Jorgins: I was told to base this line on any existing
Hasbro property, and I chose ... well ...
Andrew: Was it Total Justice?
Jorgins: (loudly) No. Mummies Alive. I love the
way those figures were sculpted, they look ready to leap into action. (much
softer) Yeah, but that's off the record, okay?
Andrew: Sure. What made you decide to choose
the characters you did?
Jorgins: Well, we knew we were going to use the
big three alongside Spidey--which obviously didn't work out--and Marvel,
who's getting a lot of attention right now with his new book.
Andrew: What about accessories?
Jorgins: We're going with what's appropriate to
the characters. That was important to all of us on the creative end of
things, even though Drake wanted snap-on armor like in the cartoon. Thor
has his hammer, Cap has his shield--it's not here because we couldn't get
him to stand when holding it. We've also got some nice variants planned:
silver Iron Man, Cap with energy shield, non-powered up Marvel, and a few
others we're not allowed to talk about yet.
Andrew: How are the variants being shipped?
Jorgins: There will be one variant per case, but
there's going to be no way to tell which case holds which variants.
Andrew: And finally, what's planned for the
future?
Jorgins: We'll be doing more classic Avengers,
some more recent villains, and Spider-Man, as long as this line sells well.
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