Hasbro US Conference talks about a Cinematic Universe

[bowspearer]

Who exactly are "people like me"? Please elaborate on that a bit more.

As I previously stated:

Certainly the nostaligia demographic are going to fall into three demographics: people who don't remember it at all, people with the vaguest of recollections and the more dedicated fan.

People like you fall into the second of these - people with the vaguest of recollections. You remember it, might pick it up because it looks interesting or cool, but you're not invested in the characters or mythos at even remotely the same level as a dedicated fan is.

Yeah, because those "blue chip investments" have done GI Joe fans so much good over the years. And that fan base would dwarf anything MASK ever had. Even MOTU isn't doing great.

And yet they're doing infinitely better than Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Starcom, Air Raiders, Spiral Zone, Silverhawks, Sky Commanders and Centurions, to rattle off 7 now dead 80s properties off the top of my head.

I never said IDW wasn't a significant player in the comic market. But MASK is, by its very definition, a niche property.

If it's so "niche" then why did IDW try and piggyback it off one of their main titles? Just like if Visionaries is so "niche", then why are IDW trying to piggyback it off Transformers and make it mainstream? Why would the bean-counters at IDW have given that the go ahead if there didn't look like a sizeable return in making it mainstream?

So wait. You are resting the success of a billion dollar movie franchise solely on Megan Fox's boobs? Seriously? That's your argument?

Well that, car set piece chases and a litany of explosions - last I checked, that was the Michael Bay formula for churning out blockbusters which have little if any substance but are almost guaranteed to generate alot of box-office revenue.

And yeah, the franchise is finally loosing some steam... after 10 years and 5 movies! Now, I'm no fan of the Bay movies either. I haven't seen one since DOTM, but like them or hate them, that there is the definition of success.

Define success though? Financial success, sure, like I said, the Michael Bay formula works and it's arguably the only reason he keeps getting the director's chair. Critical success is another story. In fact a while back I watched an episode of Spicks and Specs where it was noted that Age of Extinction simultaneously managed to be the highest grossing box office film of 2015, whilst earning 7 Golden Raspberry Nominations and winning the categories for Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor.

In fact the Michael Bay formula proves that it's possible to make a movie that is both a steaming turn and a runaway financial success.

Try harder. None of this has convinced me that Hasbro dropped MASK from its CU due to IDW making Matt Trakker a black dude.

Because you don't want to see it. You don't want to see that it's the dedicated fanbase that is the reason that someone in a media or toy company floats the idea of resurrecting a property, by serving as a core clientele to build on. You don't want to see that tokenistic change for the sake of change, is going to be rightly seen by that fanbase as treating that property with disrespect - at which point it alientates that fanbase.

You don't want to see that losing that core clientele is tantamount to ripping the foundations out of a house - sure it might look ok at the outset, but the moment the supporting walls come under strain, the whole thing is going to topple - which is essentially what happened with it.

So you're right, I haven't convinced you that tokenistic change for the sake of change was the start of the end for the book.

However here's the thing, you haven't convinced me that you're even remotely open to being convinced.