It's A Small Universe

If there's one thing that Hasbro knows how to do at this point, it's making small scale action figures of various pop culture characters. And what could be a more fruitful place to find those pop icons, than the Marvel Comics universe?

This year begins the launch of a new and in so many ways well timed line of 3 3/4-inch articulated action figures, based on the seemingly endless pantheon of Marvel heroes and villains. The first figure (number 001) to be released is this "modern" version of Iron Man.



Seeing as how everyone and their grandmother is probably reviewing these figures right now, I'm not going to bother with the regular routine. What I find most interesting about this line anyway, is the way that its release parallels the release of so many other small scale figure lines. The miniaturization of what has been up until this point a primarily 6-inch scale dominated market, immediately reminds me of how and why other toy lines shrank in the past.



Looking back at the '70s when the Japanese toy maker Takara created their Microman line, and then Micronauts from MEGO, we can see so many of the same conditions occuring today. It's not just about material and production costs either; it has as much to do with the idea that toy purchasing parents want to spend less, and scale back on the amount of clutter that their kids have lying around. When we're dealing with "pocket-sized" toys, it's so much easier to get the kids to clean up their mess.



Kenner saw the benefit of manufacturing small scale Star Wars action figures, and later that same idea was transfered to Hasbro's GI Joe line when they compressed all of the 12-inch GI Joe fun into a line of much smaller fighting heroes. Smaller heroes that could be marketed along with an endless variety of vehicles and play sets, that were tied very closely to a media (television) success.



I'd argue that Marvel Comics is enjoying a similar kind of success right now, and it's probably something closer to the kind of enthusiasm that they had brewing in the late '70 and early '80s. With so many films being released, I'm curious to know if we'll look back on this time as the "celluloid age" in Marvel's history, as a rival to the gold, silver, and bronze ages.

At any rate, this new Marvel Universe toy line looks to be a huge winner, even before it has officially hit the streets. Iron Man is a great figure, with the kind of design that made me think instantly of Microman or Micronauts, rather than other Hasbro figures like those from the Star Wars line. Given my love for Microman style figures, and brilliant Marvel characters like Iron Man, I'm seems that the Marvel Universe toy line will probably rank as an instant classic.