Mattel JLU is dead

[palitoy]

This year is the last according to AFI.

[BlackKnight]

Really ?
TRU Just picked them up ..., as well as some online stores, and the whole Matty Exclusive thing ..., thats alot more support than just a dead line at Target.

[palitoy]

Action Figure Insider EXCLUSIVE JLU Interview

2011 is the final year, it's dead.

[jasonmego1277]

Wow .....surprised but not surprised.

[starsky]

i kinda figured it would end soon especially with the price jump from $5 to $9. i see the same characters on the pegs everywhere! i still want to get cyborg and firestorm tho.

[samurainoir]

It's a shame, but if ever there was a DCU toy line that has truly come to the end of the line in the best sense, I think it's JLU.

We've gotten characters that frankly I never thought we'd ever see... from Fire and Ice, to the Doom Patrol, Shazam Family, the various New Gods, Plastic Man.

When they are down to producing Vibe as one of the last figures, I think it's a good time to hang it up. We certainly don't need any more funny patterned repaint variants of the Big Seven!

So what are the holdouts that folks expect to see in that final MattyCollector seven pack? (in addition to Vibe)



The analogue ethnic Superfriends/Wonder Twins? Blue Beetle?

[MegoSteve]

That's a shame, but it's been pretty much dead for me for the past two years or so. They did a lot of great characters, but towards the end, it's been frustrating. Poor distribution hurt the line, and the price increase to $8.99 really killed my desire to chase anything down.

It was an amazing line, especially considering that the last new Justice League Unlimited show were made about five years ago.

Thanks for posting the interview, Brian. It's interesting to see the behind-the-scenes toy business machinations.

[wilbs518]

I love JLU, but this is good to hear.

[jasonmego1277]

You Know I would Have loved more Superfriends figs , Wonder Twins El Dorado. What about Blue Bettle , Robin jlu styled. Again surprised but not.

[samurainoir]

Given the fact that the wish list of characters not produced include Professor Hamilton, Granny Goodness, Circe, and King Faraday, I think we're not missing too much... although the Western figures would have been kind of cool.

So STATIC SHOCK finally gets his own action figure, but he's the geriatric version. Well played Mattel. The kids will be lining up around the block for their very own senior citizen toy!

Hopefully Young Teen Static will see the light of day in the Young Justice line-up?

[BlackKnight]

I wanted a Judus Contract set before they Left ....

Disco Nightwing
Deathstroke
BeastBoy
StarFire
Raven
Jericho .

[Earth 2 Chris]

I'm surprised it lasted this long. The show has been gone for years, and the League concept moved onto The Batman and Brave and The Bold. I'm sure Young Justice was the final nail in the coffin. A similar show with figures in the same scale.

It had a good long run, and we got most of what we wanted. Much more than we can say for most super hero lines!

Chris

[madmarva]

Considering the difficulty of finding theses figures since they went Target Exclusive and then the price for very limited articulation, I'm not sad to see the line go because I was sort of addicted to it.

Since JLU was kind of a continuation of Batman The Animated Series and Superman The Animated Series, I've been buying these figure almost 20 years.

Action Figure Insider has a good 3-part interview with the man who ran the line for Mattel. He said the baseline number of for-sure sales on 3-packs and individual characters weren't enough to keep the line going on MattyCollector and he said Mattel is basically wanting to use the effort in production and marketing of this line to spill into Young Justice.
He said the Young Justice line would be in the same proportion to the JLU figures, but there is a stylistic difference in the animation. He said Young Justice has basically an open book on the DCU so characters fans wanted in JLU could end up in the new line.

As for the line being opened to other toy vendors, it was because the minimum run on the figures were not selling out quickly enough on Matty or at Target. It was not worth running their machines for more past this year.

It seems most of the line is going to be on Matty this year. I like that there's going to be more golden-age characters with Green Lantern, Flash and Hawkman and Stripe. Blue Beetle and translucent Fire and another Booster Gold.
A 7 pack out late in the year with Gypsy and probably Vibe.

[samurainoir]

The great thing about Young Justice is we get the Hall of Justice! In scale with the JLU figures. Plus if they are in proportion to the JLU line, we get the kid sidekicks to the JLU we never got in that line.

[samurainoir]

I wanted a Judus Contract set before they Left ....

Disco Nightwing
Deathstroke
BeastBoy
StarFire
Raven
Jericho .

Given the Young Justice/Teen Titans connection, I'd say there might be a good chance to see those ones.