Toys / Comics to Toys / DC Comics Toys

DC Comics Toys

   Home of the most popular and largest fiction universe, DC Comics’ characters have frequently jumped from comics, films, and games to thew action figure and collectible’s world. Here at ComicBookBin, we have chronicled a lot of that history, beginning with DCDirect and following with many more DC action figures, props, and statues.   

In 1972, Mego Corporations, an American toy manufacturer produced the first systematic series of DC Comics’ based action figures, or dolls. These dolls wore clothing that could be exchanged between figures and solid heads. Superman, Batman, and Aquaman, were later joined in that same decade by several more characters from DC. A generation later, Kenner produced the Super Powers line, a classic update and probably at that time one of the best action figure representation of DC characters. This solid and well-remembered line was the basis for a revival with new moulds by Toybiz in the 1990s. Yet the Toybiz offering was never as inspired as Kenner’s.

In the late 1990s, DC Direct, the merchandising division of DC Comics tasked with producing collectors makes props, statues and action figures based on DC Comics characters, but also licensed ones stemming from Warner Bros-owned properties and others, produced limited run DC 1/12 action figures of several DC Comics characters. At first nor gaining the right to license regular and contemporary versions of its most popular characters, Superman and Batman. Later, when the banned was removed, DC Direct produced many successful and beautify action figures covering way more characters than any other vendor prior.

DCDirect competed directly with Toybiz’s Marvel Legends. Whereas Marvel Legends focused on availability, competitive pricing, exhaustive props, and crazy articulations, DCDirect focused on classical and beautiful renderings of its characters, setting once again DC against Marvel Comics in both style and branding.

Later, DC handed its licenses to Mattel which produced a wide-ranging line of action figures. MacFarlane Toys, one of the latest licensees, focuses on larger 1/10 action figures, bucking the 20 + tradition of 1/12 toys. MacFarlane does not care about making DC characters compatible with other similar lines. Instead, his approach to DC characters is to make them eclectic, with weird articulations, and something that always seems off for an action figure.

Hervé St-Louis, July 21, 2024.