rather crap and pointless Man Of Steel toys

hi there

toy designers and manufacturers sometimes get really funny ideas when they licence a film tie-in. one can only assume that they seldom get to see the film they are basing toys on, or otherwise just take wild gueses at what the characters would do.

this was particularly true of toys for The Avengers, which featured Iron Man and The Hulk riding on sort of quad bike things. neither character, transport wise, would ever really need one of those, and i cannot recall seeing them even considering using anything with wheels.

along comes Man Of Steel, then, and for some reason we have a bizarre range of toys featuring the hero of the film, Superman. i recently showed off an action figure i bought and warned that toys like this would turn up! have a look at this lot.

sorry the picture is not the best, but i think you can get the idea. they are basically toys of Superman in flying machines of some description. inflexible ones too, or in the case of the one at the top stuck to the flying machine. erm, Superman needs a machine to help him fly, does he?

for what it's worth, here's some free, and i would have thought obvious, market research. when it comes to superhero toys, all the kids (and, yes, their Dads) want is action figures. ones that you can move their arms, legs and feet on. some accessories are nice too. they don't want preposterous things that make no sense (as is the case with these) and they certainly don't want the super hero stuck to these objects.

the above will be bought by two types only - those on a "grab and go" mission to buy a present for a child, and those who buy all these things and leave them sealed for the "collector value". the latter will, oddly, have more fun and joy than the former.

this crap is just disappointing. it wastes shelf space, wastes an opportunity and kills the market, as few will willingly buy it. they should go back to the Star Wars model of success - action figures of every character (you can at this stage only get Supes and Zod; no Russell Crowe or Kevin Costner toys in sight) and some accessories that make sense to the character and film. George Lucas did not make billions from merchandising by welding Luke Skywalker to a bike.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!