History
The line began as a successor to Mattel's Batman toyline. Since Mattel only had the license to Batman and Superman characters at the time (with the exception of the Justice League Unlimited line), only Batman and Superman characters were able to appear in the line. Instead of primarily using variations on a single character, the line focused on secondary characters and villains.
At New York City's Toy Fair in 2006, the first five assortments were announced (though the fourth series was postponed). The entire line (with the exception of Robin and Nightwing) was sculpted by the Four Horsemen Studios. The figures have around twenty one points of articulation and initially came with a comic book centering around the character it came with, but in 2007 figures came with cardboard dioramas instead.
On June 28, 2007 Mattel's license was extended to include all of the DC Comics characters, including all movies and TV shows past, present and future. At San Diego Comic-Con International, Mattel announced they would be re-branding the line into DC Universe Classics. The first series was viewable at SDCC 2007 and was released in January 2008.
Read more about this topic: DC Superheroes (toys)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I believe that in the history of art and of thought there has always been at every living moment of culture a “will to renewal.” This is not the prerogative of the last decade only. All history is nothing but a succession of “crises”Mof rupture, repudiation and resistance.... When there is no “crisis,” there is stagnation, petrification and death. All thought, all art is aggressive.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)