WonderCon 2024: Hasbro Toy Panel: Action Brands

On March 30, 2024, Hasbro hosted its first-ever WonderCon panel. The brand marketing team showed off new products, giving the fans a first look.

After the Hasbro panel, I was invited to a Meet & Greet where I got to see these toys upfront and close. I talked to Emily Bader, one of Hasbro’s brand managers in the marketing team. “So we always go to San Diego Comic-Con,” Bader said. “But this is our first time in Anaheim for WonderCon. We wanted to really celebrate and bring five of our iconic action brands together for this panel.”

The toys presented included a celebration of the 40th anniversary of Transformers with new figures, new COBRA team members for the G.I. Joe Classified Series line, Star Wars updates to The Black Series and the Vintage Collection, and figures from Marvel Legends.

“This is a really exciting moment for toy fans,” Bader said. “Especially nowadays, the world can be a terrible place sometimes. Toys bring people joy,” she continued. “One of the things that we love about our jobs is that we make people smile. Somebody once told me that you never know what toy you’re working on that is going to be somebody’s first toy or is going to create kind of that memory for them to become a core memory. And to be able to be part of contributing to people’s childhoods or adulthood or those moments that bring joy is why I do what I do.”

I asked if she had a favorite of the batch. “I’m not supposed to pick favorites between all of my children because I am on many brands here,” Bader said with a smile, “but I am super biased towards the new Ghostbusters plasma pack.”

“The 3-3/4″ O-ring figures are something that is iconic to Hasbro,” Bader said. “It is the GI Joe toys that everybody played with in the ’80s. Ghostbusters is another kind of iconic ’80s franchise that has never been done in that form before. And so this is really, really exciting to me that this is kind of something that we’re able to bring together and bring to the Ghostbusters fans.”

The ability to see the toys up personal let me take some great photos, which I turned into a slideshow.

The Star Wars figures on display were Ezra Bridger from Ahsoka, Kanan Jarrus and Garazeb Orrelious from Star Wars Rebels, and The Black Series Momaw Nadon.

The Marvel figures were Deadpool and Wolverine from Marvel Legends, and Iron Man Model 09, Marvel’s Whiplash, She-Hulk, Count Nefaria, Iron Man Mark I, and Whiplash.

The Transformers figures were Shockwave, Sideswipe, Dinobot Swoop, and Bumblebee Sunstreaker.

The Ghostbusters figures were the four main characters, plus ECTO-1.

And G.I. Joe figures were COBRA Eel, Beach Head, and Snow Serpent.

You can find all of these toys available for pre-order at Entertainment Earth.

See all my WonderCon 2024 coverage here.

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCWY_8OMa4g]

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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