Toy Fair 2018: Hasbro

 

     So, now we come at last to one of the bigger name companies seen at Toy Fair. Hasbro has some of the biggest licenses in the industry, including Star Wars, Marvel and Transformers. 

This year, in the Transformers segment, you will see some highly anticipated characters make their debut, including the first ever female combiners, and a new line to tie into the new animated series launching this year. 

In the Marvel segment, you will see a special line celebrating the 10th Anniversary of Marvel Studios, a whole new Deadpool line and the coolest prop replica EVER!

Finally, in the Star Wars segment, you will see the return of the Vintage Collection, new additions to the Black Series line and the debut of toys for the upcoming Solo movie. This segment is also home to the first product from the Haslab division, the largest Star Wars item EVER conceived.

Lets’s dive in!

MARVEL

      The Marvel segment is heating up as we head towards this Summer’s Avengers: Infinity War. Nothing tying into the movie directly was shown, but there were a ton of new Legends figures shown. There were both Spider-Man and X-Men themed assortments. Besides Avengers: Infinity War, there are two other Marvel movies coming out this year to make mention of. Ant-Man and the Wasp, is the sequel to Ant-Man, and again features Paul Rudd in the starring role. And, the there is Deadpool. This is a very tricky property for Hasbro, since they have to stay a “family friendly” company, so while they can’t make a full movie tie-in line pre se, the character is a lot of fun and a hit with fans of all ages, so they have created a line celebrating the character and his rich supporting cast. 

Highlights for me included a stunning new Magneto figure, the beautiful Marvel Studios 10th Anniversary figures, and this guy, who did a spectacular job demoing the Infinity Gauntlet.

 

And here’s our gallery of photos from Hasbro’s Marvel area

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And, here is a gallery of images provided by Hasbro

 

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STAR WARS

     The world of a galaxy far, far away expands further this year with the addition of the Solo: a Star Wars Story film, which intends to fill in the somewhat murky back story of Han Solo, including the famous Kessel Run incident. The film will be supported by Black Series figures and 3.75” figures, as well as a new Millennium Falcon and a supercute and very cool new version of everyone’s favorite Wookie. Also, new for this year is the return of the Vintage Collection. These figures will again come in “classic” style packaging, but will represent both the classic movies and newer films, such as The Last Jedi

Also, the “Force Link” technology, introduced in the Last Jedi line, will be getting an upgrade, officially becoming “Force Link 2.0”. In addition to the previous functions, now you will be able to create small scenes since the Force Link wearable device, will now recognize two figures and create dialogue conversations between them. 

    Also new to the Star Wars Action Figure world, is a new scanning technique used in creating the figures, that creates the most accurate licenses possible. All new figures in the Black Series will use this process, and it will be rolled out across all Hasbro lines, including Marvel.

     Hasbro also took Toy Fair as an opportunity to unveil their new crowdfunding platform called HasLab. The first product under this new platform is a long requested Star Wars item which, if successfully funded and produced would become the largest Star Wars item EVER produced by EITHER Hasbro OR Kenner. It is Jabba the Hutt’s Sail Barge. It is 4 feet long. It is $500. If you are interested in becoming one of the 5000 backers necessary to guarantee production, visit: https://www.hasbrolab.com/

Here is a video of the new Ultimate Co-Pilot Chewbacca.

 

And here is the Kessel Run Millennium Falcon from the Solo: a Star Wars Story film.
 

 

Here is our gallery of images from the showroom.

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TRANSFORMERS

     The war between the Autbots and Decepticons continues to rage as the Power of the Primes Story continues. Being added to the mix this year are Predaking and Optimus Primal.  Also new this year is the first ever FEMALE Combiner, led by Elita-One

     Also new on the Transformers front is the upcoming animated series Transformers: Cyberverse. The designs for this series take their inspiration from the beloved G1 designs. Each of these figures also has an “action feature” that is activated when the figure is in it’s “alt” mode.

     Finally, in partnership with Takara, Hasbro is releasing a “Masterpiece” style line based on the Movie Universe, with each figure based on a specific movie appearance, with all figures being scaled based on the actual robot’s heights. 

Here is our gallery of photos from the showroom

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Also at Hasbro, the award winning Holiday hit board game Dropmix had a big presence, with new songs, artists are card packs being announced for this year, and Mighty Muggs returned in force. 

And then, there was this……

 

More on that Next Year.

     That does it for Hasbro. Start saving your pennies, cause even though there’s all this cool stuff coming, this doesn’t even count the inevitable Avengers: Infinity War line.

My Special Thanks to Kelsey Wojdyla and Jennifer Cruz from Hasbro for their assistance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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