|
|
|
At
82, with far more energy than I had...
|
Comic-Con
2006:
Inside Hasbro's
Marvel "Vault"
Last
January, Marvel made the unusual move of taking its action
figure license away from its own company, ToyBiz, and handing
it over to Hasbro.
The
veteran toymaker, well-known for G.I. Joe and Transformers
lines, has a pretty significant booth at Comic-Con, featuring
a wide array of Marvel characters in different shapes, sizes
and assortments. In addition to handling the figures for
Spider-Man 3 and Ghost Rider, Hasbro has
a line coming called "Spider-Man Origins" that
digs deep into Spidey's history. Sure, we've seen that before,
but this one has the best Mysterio figure ever. For some,
that's a plus.
Thursday
night, Hasbro held a special off-site party called "The
Vault." Playing off of the maximum security prison
in Marvel lore, the party didn't imprison the press. Instead,
it gave employees of Marvel and Hasbro the chance to mingle,
chow down and dance among these new action figures.
Craig
Kyle, Ari Arad and Stan Lee himself all presented snippets
of upcoming Marvel projects, including never-before-seen
footage from Ghost Rider. With all his usual affability,
Stan admitted to the crowd that he had no real hand in Johnny
Blaze's creation, so he had to create some buzz of his own
with clips from his upcoming reality series, Who Wants
To Be a Superhero?
AND...then
we all got to go downstairs and see the stuff they hadn't
unveiled at the show yet. Stuff we can't show you, but we
can tell you it included a line of X-Men: The Last Stand
figures, with beautiful detailed sculpts. Hasbro will also
launch a line of Spider-Man toys for little kids, Superteam
Squadron. As far as we could tell, the cute little Venom
did not say "I wuv you. I want to eat your bwain."
|
|
|
A
crowd of eager journalists.
Sadly, it really was the action figures and not
the free booze that had us excited.
|
|
|
|
It
really was a red carpet affair...
|
|
|
|
The
drink menu. Remember, don't drink and fight evil
at the same time.
Unless you're Iron Man...
|
|
|
|
Beyond
that vault door lay plastic goodness...
but they confiscated our camera.
|
|
