elhonez

Their deal with Marvel Select was to produce a figure a month for three years. While they didn't hit the one-per-month mark, right now, if you inlcude the yet-to-be-released figures of Thor and Hulk, they're at 35. I hope 36 is the rumored SHIELD Agent / AIM Agent 2-pack.

As for MiniMates, I agree with what's been said above about it not being up to DST. They're not "giving up" Marvel -- it seems entirely up to Marvel whether or not they'll grant a license extension, and how much they'll charge for that license. Hasbro could lean on Marvel not to allow this, which would really suck.

I don't have much hope in Hasbro carrying the MiniMate banner... it's a smaller niche market, and they're already pretty over-extended with all of their channels... movie figures, Icons, Marvel Legends, the new Spider-Man line coming out, the 3 3/4" figure line to be announced, the 6" 2-pack series that will be announced at Toy Fair, SHS... I really hope DST can fanagle hanging onto this line, b/c Hasbro wouldn't touch it, even if they leaned on Marvel to nix it (either outright, or by making the license so prohibitively expensive that DST couldn't justify extending it).

And let's face it... to echo what has been stated above, Marvel does not want to piss off Hasbro. They know who butters their bread. Truckloads of cash from that partnership. Of course this is all speculation, and maybe Hasbro doesn't care about this license, and maybe Marvel thinks it's really cool and can see the value in competing in a market where DC has a lot of visibility as well, and the margins are pretty low for everyone anyway.

Taskmaster rivals Deathstroke in accesories / coolness factor. This is a great exclusive, I couldn't be happier. Total home run.

TOS S4:

McCoy Sick Bay / Nurse Chapel

Ruk / Andrea (Korby's androids)

Kirk (stabbed) / Thelev

Lt Leslie (variant) / Thelev

TOS S5:

Piece of the Action Kirk / POtA Spock

Yeoman Rand / Salt Vampire

Shahna the Thrall / Kirk in training

Darnell (Salt Vampire victim, variant) / Salt Vampire

TOS S6:

Kirk in Romulan disguise / Romulan commander

Lokai / Bele (Cherons)

Spectre of the Gun Kirk (with six-shooter) / Melkot

Spectre of the Gun Chekov (with six-shooter, variant) / Melkot

...they can still do a lot with TOS if they start to include more aliens & interesting characters.

I want these guys to show up, however they can:

Ruk

Thelev

Melkot

Shahna the Thrall

For main character variants, the Mirror Crew, spacesuits, and Piece of the Action are all good candidates.

Supporting crew of importance: Chapel, Rand, Gary Mitchell, and LT. LESLIE! Check him out, he was the Wedge Antilles of Star Trek:

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Leslie

And of course Romulans, Tellarites, Lokai and Bele, and Balok's puppet are all pretty cool.

Hi Chuck,

For the Star Trek line, are you going to be done with TOS after Series 3? I ask because I'm hoping to see more aliens and adversaries from that series in the mix. Like the giant RUK!! Lokai/Bele, Romulans, Tellarites, Thelev (who actually stabs Kirk -- action feature!), a Keeper, Balok's freaky puppet, the giant Taureans, the hot Shahna, a Metron, a Melkotian... plenty of worthies to mix in with main character variants.

I was really happy to see Sarek & Spock's Brain in S3, hoping to see more fun characters and variations from TOS.

-elH