I approached this episode with a bit of trepidation. The previous one, about the Cosplay community was fine, if a little dull and I feared that this might be similar - but fortunately there was more story to this episode, about toys and collectables.
The licence for Marvel toys was first given to Mattel, who created a range of basic figures in the 1970s - from there Toy Biz, who bought Marvel outright, created the "legends" series, highly articulated and better modelled characters which became collectors' items, rather than toys. Later Hasbro took on the licence and recreated and revamped the Legends brand to include many more characters. Later bobblehead production company Funko licenced the Marvel characters and released successful lines in their Funko Pop series.
This was a more interesting documentary than the last episode as the history of the licence was explored in some depth and you saw the progression of the toy range over time (including some interesting toy advertisements). It was explained that the "secret wars" storyline in the comics was created to encourage cross play of various different characters and generate new toys. We also met Mitchel Wu thoughout the episode, a wedding photographer who has a new passion for photographic toys in various life like battles and situations, we see the intricate nature of the effects he creates for the models to look as realistic as possible.
This was a fascinating trip through the history of the toys, how they are made today and the artistic endeavours they can inspire.
The licence for Marvel toys was first given to Mattel, who created a range of basic figures in the 1970s - from there Toy Biz, who bought Marvel outright, created the "legends" series, highly articulated and better modelled characters which became collectors' items, rather than toys. Later Hasbro took on the licence and recreated and revamped the Legends brand to include many more characters. Later bobblehead production company Funko licenced the Marvel characters and released successful lines in their Funko Pop series.
This was a more interesting documentary than the last episode as the history of the licence was explored in some depth and you saw the progression of the toy range over time (including some interesting toy advertisements). It was explained that the "secret wars" storyline in the comics was created to encourage cross play of various different characters and generate new toys. We also met Mitchel Wu thoughout the episode, a wedding photographer who has a new passion for photographic toys in various life like battles and situations, we see the intricate nature of the effects he creates for the models to look as realistic as possible.
This was a fascinating trip through the history of the toys, how they are made today and the artistic endeavours they can inspire.
