So, it turns out that, sometimes, it pays to actually watch the corporate shilling. Hasbro’s Marvel guys were on stream with Marvel Entertainment and “officially” revealed the X-Men 97 product line. The big reveal we hadn’t seen was a Target exclusive 5 pack, featuring all the figures we’ve seen thus far plus…GAMBIT. Hasbro’s Ryan Ting confirmed the multipack is the only way to get Gambit (at the moment).
In order to get “everything”, you invariably end up with an extra Storm figure.
So there you go, that’s this fall’s X-Men 97 line up. We’ll see how things go, but I could see Hasbro getting some decent mileage out of this line if Disney doesn’t screw around with too much crap (an issue they’ve said they are addressing). Even at the slower rate of a “kids line”, next spring could easily see a single release of Gambit With other characters. But with the way the toy industry is and how short sighted Disney has been with its various projects…I’m not sure I’m going to roll the dice on MAYBE seeing another round of toys through next year.
Assuming Hasbro is still throwing support behind X-Men next year (they might, cartoon got pushed to January 2024), I could see this for next year’s product:
Spring 24 Single cards- Gambit, Magneto. Fall 24 Single cards- Jean Grey, Morph, Wolverine (new deco)
Deluxe figures Spring 24 (Hasbro is apparently stingier with their size and budgets, Hulk also got spun out of the basic figure assortment)- Beast. If Hasbro is feeling jiggy, maybe Sinister as well here. Fall 24 could keep Beast and add in Cable, or Sinister if he doesn’t make the earlier cut.
It’s weird trying to “plan out” Epic Heroes because it’s so new, in terms of Hasbro’s recent strategies. That’s on TOP of the shorter lives of most of the kids lines these days.