Dear Avengers and every superhero team ever: I have a battle for you. Please talk to licencors and licensees and tell them not to leave out key members of your teams when they release merchandise because frak me, it’s getting old. The latest blow of the “let’s push the female characters in the corner like they don’t exist” comes courtesy of Funko. They announced their lineup of toys for Avengers: Age of Ultron and guess who’s the only team member left out of the Pop! toys? Black Widow. Black Freaking Widow. Here’s who they have: Hulk, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Ultron, and Vision.
Gif via MovieGifss
I’m giving them a tiny bit of slack when it comes to Scarlet Witch simply because Quicksilver’s not part of the release either. It’s the Avengers and the primary villain. And I totally understand wanting to release figures of Vision and Ultron. Those are new characters to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, you can’t insert one more character in the release so that the whole team is represented? And if you absolutely couldn’t have more than seven Pop! figures, maybe leave one of the many other dudes out. [Editor’s Note: Surely Hawkeye doesn’t need to be included, right?
The Pop! figures aren’t Funko’s only offerings. They also announced Mystery Minis, Pocket Pop! keychains, Fabrikations, and mini Wacky Wobblers. Of all of those options – 31 total items – there is one Black Widow item available. One! And it’s a Mystery Mini blind box. Again, she’s a member of the team and according to Kevin Feige, “Her part in Avengers: Age of Ultron is very, very big.”
For the sake of comparison, here’s how the characters break down:
Iron Man – 7
Captain America – 5
Hulk – 5
Thor – 5
Hawkeye – 2
Vision – 2
Ultron – 2
Nick Fury – 1
Iron Legionnaire – 1
Black Widow – 1
When asked where the ladies were on Twitter (and that was a popular question posed to Funko when they tweeted the announcement), Marvel’s Executive Editorial Director of Digital Media Ryan Penagos said “hopefully in a future wave.”
Gif via Derrybean
Could Black Widow’s exclusion be an indication that she’s leaving the Avengers? Maybe. But, keep in mind that this isn’t an isolated problem. You want a depressing list of recent incidents? A peek at Hasbro’s Age of Ultron toys shows a marked lack of Black Widow. Star Wars Rebels toys often leave out Sabine Wren and especially Hera Syndulla. Gamora was often excluded from Guardians of the Galaxy merchandise. And if you go back to 2012, there was practically no merchandise for The Avengers that included Black Widow. Since marketing for the film isn’t in full swing yet, it’s hard to tell if things will get better in this regard. I’m not feeling so optimistic right now.
maybe they found grown women don’t buy toys.
make no mistake, these figures are for adults. they are not pose-able or geared towards children for actually playing with.
i’m just saying. if they thought they would sell ,you’d better believe they’d be making them by the truck load.
i love how people act like it’s a conspiracy to leave women out of superhero movie plots and merch.
it’s simple buisness strategy. they’re not going to invest millions into something that won’t sell to the target audience. there are strong female roles all throughout the marvel and dc universe. and i’m sure we’ll be seeing them on the big screen sooner then later.
but trying to force elements into any story just so a certain demographic doesnt feel snubbed or left out is just ludacris.
that would be like saying that enough men arent watching the romance genre because they dont feel represented.
I know it’s fun and easy to jump on the feminist high horse but they don’t need a Black Widow because they already have one from The Winter Soldier set. Her outfit remains virtually identical. What do you want, another pose? If your just looking for something to be pissed about, how about no Scarlet Witch she’s fairly important and has all the girly bits too.
There is a Black Widow for the Winter soldier collection
If you go to decent toy or pop culture ephemera shop, you’ll see a LOT of different Funko Pop figures for a whole TON of different franchises and characters, including many, many, MANY females, from Cinderella to Harley Quinn to the Bride of Frankenstein to Gogo Yubari(!). You’ll also see that they make SO MANY Pop figures that they’re clearly not opposed to making any particular type of character, no matter how obscure. They make what they are licensed to make. My point is that a.) This is not a Funko issue and b.) this is not a “Female toys don’t sell” issue. This is an issue with the way that Marvel is deliberately choosing to market their own films, which is within their right…to be completely backwards and terrible.
in funko and marvel’s defense they may have chosen to put out the characters they were 100% sure would sell and then release other figures slightly after they release the first one.
I guess i won’t be buying this line, or any, from Funco…
The viscous cycle continues: They don’t put the black widow on enough merchandise = people buy less black widow merchandise = the company sees that people aren’t buying the black widow merchandise = they make less black widow merchandise = people can’t buy enough… continues forever.
no one’s clamoring for a black widow figurine outside of whiny bloggers. marvel’s doing the right thing. female figurines aren’t big sellers. they’re not even small sellers. frankly, they don’t sell, which is why they don’t get made. and marvel wants to make money, so they go with what people want, and it’s this set. it’s not like she’s even a good avenger anyway. she’s just there to look pretty and sexy in a skin-tight outfit. this is all a tempest in a teapot, basically.
Female figurines aren’t big sellers because they don’t make ENOUGH female figurines to make good sales! This is exactly what people were complaining about TWO YEARS AGO! They would say stuff like “They aren’t making female superhero movies because nobody goes to see them,” but how can we see them if they haven’t MADE ANY?!
And if you haven’t noticed, all of the Avengers are wearing skin-tight outfits (except Iron-Man).
Modern day humans are so easily distracted with mundane causes. Women don’t buy these figures. Until females start purchasing Funko toys in droves their opinion on these issues is unnecessary and unwanted.
Its the retail store that gets stuck with unsold product. Its pathetic how people flip their lids over ridiculous things like this. Marvel Legends are releasing more female figures this year than ever. Because last year they sold well.
There are marketing strategies at play here and your whining and drivel has no bearing over the bottom line.
Looking for a cause to support? How about protesting for lower college tuitions or added taxes on companies that outsource labor? Something that will actually help us as citizens to get ahead.
Hey Greg, you’re a moron. Love, Alexei
I am female and I’m the one in my household that buys these figures for my kids or for myself. My five-year-old daughter has both Gamora and Black Widow Pop! figures, and she loves dressing up and pretending to be them. My 12-year-old has a Wonder Woman figure that she loves. Let’s all stop making the ridiculous claim that women aren’t into this stuff. It wasn’t true for Star Wars figures in the 70’s and 80’s, and it’s still not true today.
This does not surprise me, but it does disappoint me. I was pleasantly surprised to see Black Widow in the Disney Infinity 2.0 Avengers game, but was summarily disappointed in the Spiderman game since they brought in Spiderman, Iron Fist, and Nova, but left out…you guessed it…Powerman and White Tigress. Oh, they’re in the game, but as NPCs. You can’t play them. And since they’re NPCs, they will very likely never be released as playable characters…not in 2.0 anyway. I think the only ones left, Marvel-wise, are Red Falcon and Loki.
It makes me sad because they added all these really neat female characters as NPCs in Avengers and Spiderman–they even have Wasp as an NPC…but you can’t play them. And the two they added as playable…well…Black Widow kind of sucks. Her invisibility “special” is lackluster compared to…basically everyone else’s. Even Gamora’s isn’t that great, although it’s better than Widow’s.
The slight of Gamora in GoG merch really bothers me. Especially considering the team in the comics is virtually half women. When we play GoG at home, I get to be Gamora. My son recognizes that she is an important member of the team. He doesn’t care that she’s a girl. Why must we insist 1) that boys won’t touch anything that has a woman on it, or 2) girls aren’t playing with GoG stuff.
Acutally, I was really impressed with the Disney Marvel Infinity figure case I found at Target, which featured both Black Widow and Gamora on the top. The male heroes adorned the sides. Awesome.
It’s not just movies. For Game of Thrones, they didn’t make a Sansa Stark figure until she became ‘sexy’ and ‘dangerous’ Alayne Stone. And Sansa was a key player in the whole series from the beginning. But they made a fricking Hodor figure?? It’s crazy.
Can’t wait for the Captain Marvel movie merch. It’s either going to be non-existent or all girly shit cuz, she’s a woman, right?
why wouldn’t it be? the only people that will buy anything MS. MARVEL (she’ll never be captain marvel no matter how much people try to make her that) will be a few women and that’s it. anything you make with ms. marvel is going lose a ton of cash, because people rightly recognize that she’s an uninteresting character, and not worth wasting money now. now the original (and best) captain marvel, our favorite Kree Mar-vell – that dude would sell a ton. men make money, women lose it. it’s the way of the world – get used to it.
Carol Danvers IS Captain Marvel. Ms. Marvel is Kamala Kahn. The other guy hasn’t been relevant since the 70s and wouldn’t resonate with the current generation. It would be the dumbest decision to do a movie that e current generation knows nothing about.Carol is actually very interesting. She carries the Badass swagger you’d expect from a fighter pilot, and is half-alien. A Captain Mar-Vell movie would flop.
i get being upset with this but the fact is not everything is out yet looks at the guardians line we are just now seeing wave 2 after a year so cool it down there is no quick silver or scarlett witch either so their is a posibility for another wave. chill out till we know more
Let’s be honest. This isn’t about leaving out a pivotal character. It’s about leaving out a female character.
Stop the incessant whining. If Cap/Thor/Tony were disincluded, you wouldn’t say shit.
…Yes, this is because they left out a pivotal female character. So what’s your sexist,whiny and ignorant point?
she is not pivotal in any sense
She co-stared with Captain America in The Winter Soldier.
pivotal? in what way? if black widow wasn’t a part of the MCU, NO ONE WOULD MISS HER. she’s completely unnecessary. get over yourselves, sheesh.
Without BW, Iron Man would be dead, Hulk would have never joined the Avengers. There’s a good chance the Avengers would have lost the battle of New York. We also wouldn’t know anything about Hydra.
Ugh, great, what else is new. Literally almost all of the fan merc lines involving The Avengers leave out Black Widow. There are so many products that only have the guys, especially products with only Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. It frustrates me to no end! Especially because Black Widow happens to be my favorite of the bunch.
It’s pretty amazing, though: I even looked through the Disney store at one point and there was absolutely no Black Widow stuff. Zero. In the whole store. All the guys were remembered, sure. It’s just such poor marketing I don’t even know what to say.
Was it another misguided case of Disney trying to attract a male audience? (They’ve made statements where they appear to think they already have the female audience nailed down and therefore only have to work at the male one.) Have they bought into the Warner Bros idea of “girls don’t buy toys therefore we don’t want a girl audience” (-scoff-) idea? Do they also think that only female audiences would be interested in Black Widow products? We just don’t know!
In any case, Black Widow is left severely under utilized in merchandise and this Funko case is just another in a series. I doubt it’s any reflection on the character’s presence in the movies – if the lack of Black Widow products were telling of the character’s presence in a movie, she would have probably magically disappeared during The Avengers, right in the middle of delivering a line. It’s more of a reflection on ideas about gender, outdated marketing data and very poor understanding of audiences.
Movie Hawkeye has never had a Funko figure, and they just made a Black widow figure for Winter Soldier. Being a buisness, I would assume Black widow didn’t sell well, so they decided not to double up on a less popular character. That being said, why do people like these things? They’re soooooo ugly
All that matters is that people do like them and vehemently disagree with you about them being ugly. If they want us to get in the habit of buying a diverse range of characters, then they have to consistently put them out there.
habit? they want stuff to sell. if stuff doesn’t sell, THEY DON’T MAKE IT. that’s business 101. marvel is not in the business of losing money on making female figurines. they’ll go with what works, because they want to make money, not lose it.
Left out Black Widow? They have Ultron and The Vision but they left out Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver.
that kind of logic ain’t going to work with these people. can’t use logic on people that are immune to it.
Definitely doesn’t mean she’s leaving the Avengers, Funko left her out of the first Avengers series as well.
There’s a Kinder Egg promotional thing also; same thing, no Black Widow but they even have Falcon. Dafuq?
Has the Black Widow costume changed in Age of Ultron? Cap, Thor, & Hawkeye are all depicted in new costumes. Why release a new BW in the same costume already available?
Wouldn’t the same rule hold true for Hulk?
I’m gonna sound like a huge dork, but both Black Widow and Hulk have changed. Hulk has new stretchy pants, and Black Widow has this sick blue wiring running down her suit. That being said, I totally see both your points. ^_^
Hulk has new pants
Yes, it has a little and she has shorter hair
Women action figures don’t sell. It a business after all. #buymorewomen
Do you understand that we can’t buy women if they don’t sell women in the first place?
This is a consistent problem across all toy lines. It drives me absolutely crazy, and is a poor reflection on the toy industry. I remember when I was a child and among my favorite action figures in the GI Joe line were Jinx the ninja and Lady Jaye. There has been a trend towards fewer and fewer female action figures in the last decade, and it is starting to really tick me off. Another recent announcement that I’m irritated with is the LEGO Scooby-Doo set–all the pictures I’ve seen have shown Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby, but no Daphne or Velma. Toy manufacturers are trying so hard to enforce gender separation, and I have no idea why.
Funko never did a Falcon for their Winter Soldier series, either. Not fun.
I run a Funko website popvinyls.com and I totally agree with you. It’s BS that they leave out a key member.