"The line had a loyal following, as well as collector and kid appeal," a
Mattel representative said, "but the decision was made to discontinue
the
Avengers Unlimited series of action figures. Our marketing department
here
at Mattel has determined that consumers simply don't want a wide variety
of
interesting characters with detailed body sculpts. According to their
research, people would much rather keep buying repackaged versions of
one or
two characters, even if those characters looked exactly the same in each re-release."
This is a disappointing blow for Avengers fans, who had high hopes that the toy line would encompass each character glimpsed in the 2006 miniseries.
Now this final assortment (five Avengers and a variant John Stewart
figure)
marks the end of this worthy companion to the Justice League Unlimited
line. Even though Series 3 might never even see its way into stores, the
representative hinted that all might not yet be lost.
"We have
finalized
designs for at least four more Avengers, and partial sculpts of several
others. Maybe if there is enough interest generated for this wave of
toys,
Mattel might be persuaded to re-think its strategy." Let's hope that
it's
not yet time for this excellent toy line to disappear.
