Don't know if you've heard or not, but there's some sort of new Superman movie coming out in a week or so - something about Superman Returns.And, of course, in the course of promoting the film, they've released a bunch of action figures. I've seen them in the local Target store, and I have a bit of a problem with the figures that they've released. It's not with the sculpts or the articulation or anything else, that all seems fine. My issue is with the strategy of releasing fourteen action figures only two of which are bad guys. Twelve different version of Superman and two Lex Luthors. C'mon, folks, if you want the kids to play with your toys, give them some bad guys.
Nobody played cowboys and cowboys when they were kids, especially if all the cowboys were the same.
We don't need forty-eight versions of Superman, just like we didn't need a dozen different Batman in the nineties - sky dive Batman, infrared Batman, lightning strike Batman, knight star Batman, highwire Batman, antifreeze Batman, power vision Batman, ground assault Batman, rapid attack Batman, tornado Batman, radar scope Batman, cyber gear Batman, combat belt Batman, and turbojet Batman - just to name a few from the B:TAS line of figures.
GI Joe wouldn't have worked without Cobra. Cowboys needed indians. The Super Friends needed the Injustice League. And Superman needs Brainiac, Bizarro, Lex Luthor, Mxyztplik, General Zod, Metallo, Doomsday, Darkseid. I don't care whether the movie has all of those guys in it or not, but to get a successful line of heroic toys, you need bad guys.
I am not, in any way, saying that the indians were automatically the bad guys. In the historical rearview, it clealry suggests that the bad guy were probably the cowboys.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, if anybody starts suggesting that Cobra is just expressing their need to be a part of a society that doesn't provide them with access to the decision making process from their current background, I'm gonna schvitz.