With Mattel getting the DC toy license back, McFarlane Toys is out of the picture…..or is it? An investigation.
Last week some bombshell news was released: Mattel, the second biggest toy company in the US, regained a global license to make a full range of DC Comics themed “action figures, playsets, accessories, role play products, and adult collectibles.” Mattel had the DC licence for many years throughout the 00s and 10s, and produced many beloved lines, including the DC Superheroes line starting in 2006. With Marvel firmly in place at Hasbro, and DC embedded at Mattel, a long legacy of toy lines unfolded. Then in 2019, a shocking development: Mattel lost the DC license to Spinmasters, another toy company best known for Paw Patrol. And then, McFarlane Toys swooped in to announce they would be taking over the DC Multiverse line, a line aimed at adults that mixed movie, comics and TV versions of the characters. (Every company produces different sized figures as well, but I’ll leave that for toy maniacs to detail.) McFarlane also took over the DC Direct line
McFarlane Toys changed the toy game completely when it launched in 1994, bringing an insane level of detail to collector figures. The DC line was no exception, bringing the McFarlane style to DC action figures/collectibles for the first time.
With Mattel getting back the global license, starting in mid 2026, everyone has assumed that McFarlane Toys will be out of the DC business. But could there be a carve out?
The Beat team was on the scene for a tour at the MCFarlane Toys booth at Toy Fair yesterday, and The Todd-Father himself (founder Todd McFarlane) was also there, busily taking meetings. We did ask our tour guide about the DC license and he indicated that discussions were taking place, but that’s all he could say. However, from what we heard, it seems McFarlane Toys may not be entirely out of the picture. At least, it is fair to say that Todd is not taking this lying down.
All this may have been Toy Fair chatter, but it’s fair to say that Mattel makes great toys for kids, but they don’t make adult figures at the level that TMP does, although they have improved greatly. With Mattel getting back the “adult collectibles” license they will have to up their game a bit. Just walking around Toy Fair, everywhere you look, the level of detail, accessories and imagination that is going into collector figures now is off the charts, and getting more competitive all the time.
Could McFarlane Toys still fill a role making figures aimed at die-hard collectors, something they’ve been very successful at? Or could there be some kind of specific size or distribution license that could keep DC at TMP? Again all speculation, but probably the subject of the discussions.
Or, to get even more speculative, some Marvel licenses are coming up in 2026, and maybe TMP will get deeper into that world.
Just to indemnify myself from outrage, all the above is based on my knowledge of toy and comics licensing which is…average, at best. I am NOT an expert on the toy business, or collector concerns. Indeed, if you want to find highly specific complaints and commentary, one need only turn to Reddit, as Google requires us to do each and every day. In a thread on the McFarlane toys subreddit, all the above is discussed, and some collectors scoff at Mattel’s quality, such as this comment: “Just saw Mattel switched back to single-hinge elbows on the female MOTU figs in the 7 inch line. Meh.”
So to make myself clear: I am not aware why a single-hinge elbow is unsatisfactory, but I respect those who find it so. The level of highly technical concerns about action figure collecting is very technical indeed. I do know what action figures I would most like to have on my desk because they look cool, and that’s about it.
To wrap up, some photos from our McFarlane Toys tour. That Storm figure is amazing, as is the Joker playset that comes with a Robert DeNiro figure. Sorry my photos are so bad.
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