Some are claiming the line is ending next month at retail. To be fair the line does feel like it's been floundering over the last year around here with the local Target holding onto the Jitsu, Sorceress, Stratos origins wave over a year and the same at the local Walmart with the LoP Beastman, Eternian Goddess wave. Target still had a steady flow of Masterverse but a lot of it hit clearance fast, almost less than a week fast. And the Kids series.... It shelf warmed a while before they would hit clearance most times. I'll admit it really does feel pretty low for the brand at retail. Mattel pulled out of Power-Con just like Hasbro with BotCon. And the Kids series seems to be dead at Netflix
But It's very mixed messages right now. We have Mattel showing off new toys overseas to influncers in the states still. There are still a few waves in the pipeline we know are about ready for both Origins and Masterverse, Origins Snake Mountain is set to hit sometime in the future and Eternia got funded to a significant degree. The Revolution sequel to Revelations seems to still be coming, and we still seem to be heading towards a new live action film.
The biggest down to this is that Mattel in the states has been very quiet on the toy front other than the recent preorder for Goddess Lyn and some of the more recent origins preorders. Especially after the fun amount of announcements during the 40th anniversary last year. It's hard to say where the wind is blowing towards right now. The fanbase wants and craves more to come, but Mattel's actions and a certain former brand manager's pessimistic views do feel a bit valid at the same time. Although the latter has been calling the line dead for a while before and coming off as petty, especially with some of his recent actions.
But honestly, at retail, things aren't looking too rosy. But it really isn't just MotU with these issues. The Toy sections in general feel bloated with little anything new and usually it's something with some media tied in that flits in and out with a lot of the major Toy Brands sitting stagnant. I've seen the Jakks Mario line doing pretty well at moving their new figures. But Mario is definitely in the minds of people right now. MotU isn't there with the amount of hype. Mario is all over media, but very much in the cultural zeitgeist with never leaving the video game market, which is where more kids are heading to rather than physical toys. MotU has rarely ever been fully gone from media, but there are dead zones and unlike Transformers hasn't always been able to grasp kids attention with new shows.
Overall I don't know what to say. I'm glad the franchise has had the last few years of reinvention and revitalization, but I'm not sure it's enough to keep things going full steam as is.
