Mattel cancels Young Justice; Other DCU lines in trouble?
Wednesday, April 11th, 2012 by Pixel Dan
News has broken this past week through various Ask Matty answers across the net that Mattel has cancelled both the 4″ and 6″ Young Justice toy lines. While this is sad news for many knowing that they will now be unable to complete the main team in 6″ form, it’s not much of a surprise. The 6″ scale figures are quite expensive, and seem to be clogging store shelves as a result. The 4″ scale figures also don’t seem to be moving very well.
Matty posted an official statement concerning the cancellation of Young Justice and the future of their other DCUC lines via Facebook.
You may have heard that the time is nearing for the end of the Young Justice toy line. While we’re as bummed as you are, we want to be sure you know this doesn’t in any way mean the end of DC toys from Mattel. In fact, it’s quite the opposite!
Next month kicks off not one, but two new lines: our DC Universe Club Infinite Earths subscription service dedicated to true collector characters you won’t find at retail. The first shipment goes out in May and features an all-new 6” Golden Age The Flash figure. If you missed out on this awesome subscription, a limited quantity will also be available at MattyCollector.com on May 15th at 9am PT. Then, in late May, head to your local retailer and you’ll find The Dark Knight Rises, a kid-targeted Batman™ line. And for 2013, we’re planning an innovative collector-aimed line coming to retail stores.
Keep your eye on this spot and we’ll have more details as they’re available. Our partnership with DC is stronger than ever and we couldn’t be more excited for all the amazing new collector and kid toys to come!
What exactly does this mean? I guess time will tell. Mattel is obviously trying for a little bit of damage control by telling us about all of their other upcoming lines. But with DC All-Stars already getting canned before it’s release, and DCUC moving to MattyCollector.com (and just barely, for that matter), one has to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Mattel’s 6″ scale DCUC-style figures.
What do you guys think?
I'm not up to speed on the cancellation of DCUC and it moving to MattyCollector. What happened, exactly…?
Basically, Mattel announced at SDCC last year that they were moving DCUC to MattyCollector.com as an online subscription just like MOTU Classics. Then it almost didn't happen because they didn't meet the minimum number of subscribers. But they decided to go through with it anyway, so starting next month DCUC will be online.
Eh, I'm not really saddened by this. The figures really weren't that good to begin with in my opinion. The 4 inchers paled in comparison to other modern 4 inch figures in terms of both sculpt and articulation (Even Bandai does a better job.) while most of the 6 inch figures were hilariously off-model to their animated appearances and just looked like normal bulky humans with giant cartoony heads. (I'm lookin' at you, Robin.) Plus, at their rather expensive price point, it's no wonder that they sold poorly. It's sad to see a line go so quickly, but I'm not losing sleep over this one.