Mock me at your peril...

Hello again…

First up this week I have the duty to announce the next figure in the extension – Mockingbird.

An interesting character, Bobbi first appeared in Ka-Zar’s comics (in 1971) before joining SHIELD and later becoming the hero Mockingbird. To say she’s had an interesting history would be an understatement. After supposedly sacrificing her life to save Hawkeye and being sent to Mephisto’s realm, Bobbi resurfaced in the events of Secret Invasion. She’s a classic Avenger and helps build up the West Coast Avengers team.



PREVIEW
Our sneak peek for this update is a look at a Sasquatch figure. The image is from an early stage model of the character, focusing on the upper body. We’re working on Puck but have yet to decide if he’ll be included as a double pack (on a separate base or on the same base), or as a separate figurine.



The pose for Sasquatch was chosen after looking through virtually all Alpha Flight Vol.1 comics. We wanted to keep John Byrne’s original feel for the character and capture him in action. The character needs to show his animal side but not look too savage (after all Walter Langkowsk is a scientist). Obviously you can’t see the whole thing but I’ll aim to update again next week.

MINOR CHARACTERS...
I noticed a few mentions of Jameson and civilians in the comments section as well as the discussion on characters having enough history to fill a mag. First I’d like to say that Jonah Jameson has not been ruled out of the collection and is actually one of the characters that I think would be good for this extension. He’s not confirmed however, as there are just so many characters that deserve to be in this collection. As a huge Marvel Comics fan I want every character to get a spot. Of course, there are a few characters that I like more than others but when choosing who makes the extension I look to your comments as much or more than the team’s personal choices.

As far as filling the magazine goes, yes some of you are right that a mag can fit around a character and that the figurines are clearly the focal point of this collection. However, we do need to make sure a magazine is viable and that we don’t drastically change the format every issue. As a Marvel licensee, it is our duty to maintain the magazine and not stray too far from our original series concept. Of course this doesn’t mean we can’t adapt, we just need to make sure we don’t go too far off message.

Anyway, what this all means is that no character is truly impossible, but we need to make sure you and Marvel (they can veto a character) are happy with our choices. The general rule has been that a character needs about 30 decent comic appearances to definitely make the collection but as the collection has continued to grow we’ve made this about 20 comics. It really comes down to whether the character will make a good figure and is popular. Just bare with us, there are 1000s of Marvel characters to go through and every collector has slightly different tastes.

Keeping on this theme and playing a purely hypothetical game, which would you prefer in the collection at this point, a Runaways Character or a Guardians of the Galaxy character?

I’m not guaranteeing either but just how popular are the two groups?

Have a good weekend.