Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that DC Comics has made the decision to end all of its books, reboot/relaunch its entire universe, and give every single character some sort of makeover. While I think the idea itself is solid (a last ditch effort to bring in new comic book readers), I hate most of the new looks. Adding random lines and turning costumes into armor is so 1990s. But, DC has definitely achieved its goal of garnering its reboot loads of attention from the mainstream media. What most toy fans have wondered since the big relaunch/reboot is how will this affect the toy lines of Mattel and DC Direct?
To be quite honest, we still don’t really know that much. Mattel announced a Flashpoint Action Force tie-in at San Diego Comic-Con 2011 and that was really about it (pretty disappointing if you ask me). DC Direct wasn’t much better, but at least they debuted the six DC new Universe (“DCnU”) Justice League action figures you see above: Aquaman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman and The Flash.
What you see is pretty much what you get when it comes to the new uniforms, but there was one glaring omission from the set of action figures! You see the new core of the DCnU Justice League are the six characters seen above and Cyborg. What’s even more shocking is that one of DC’s stated goals is to bring diversity to the DC Universe and yet when DC debuts their very first line of action figures based on their universe they leave out the team’s sole minority member. Seems like a PR disaster to me! I’ll withhold final judgment until I see these figures in person, but don’t expect me to be running out and collecting the series based on this first look.
