[man 1] The childhood me,
if you were to tell him that I would do what I am doing now,
I don't think he would believe it at all.
To be honest with you, some days I don't even believe it.
[woman] The toy industry is populated with people
who never completely let go of their intellectual child.
A lot of people leave that sense of wonder behind,
and toy people don't.
[man 2] I remember the stories I created.
I remember the hours spent building my own version of the Marvel Universe.
[man 3] Marvel Comics has created an entire universe,
and they really humanize, quite well, all of their characters.
And I think that's what the appeal is.
The storytelling in the comics 100% influenced our approach to making toys.
[man 4] Now you can actually, in three-dimensional form,
have this figure pulled straight from the comic book pages in your hand,
and now you can move it around, and you can articulate it.
You can have it hanging around, swinging, doing all kinds of stuff
that played out in your mind in between the pages.
[man 5] You can't underestimate the power of an action figure
and what that means to the user.
To a kid, it can be a gateway to alternate universes
and imaginary worlds in their minds.
That's the coolest thing about these characters.
Once you put the toy into a kid's hands,
they can create their own stories, and more power to 'em. That's awesome.
I shoot toys. I tell stories through photography of toys.
It's a hobby, and it's a passion.
A lot of the reason that I shoot Marvel toys today
is because of comics that I read growing up.
I liked Iron Man, and I read those comic books as a kid,
and somehow, by creating stories with these toys,
it just brings me back to that childhood.
When I was growing up and reading these comic books,
I didn't even know toy photography existed.
I ended up as a wedding photographer. I shot hundreds of weddings.
But it wasn't coming from a place of deep creativity.
My nephew, Johnny, says, "Uncle Mitch, next time you come up to San Francisco,
bring your camera. I'll take you out and shoot some toys."
I went up there, and I just thought, "Sure. Why not? I'll try it."
And from the very first click of the shutter,
I realized that there was potential to make it into a career.
I went from shooting "bridezilla" to shooting Godzilla,
and I couldn't be happier.
I like to show characters in ways that people aren't used to seeing them.
Squirrel Girl's superpower is being able to control squirrels.
And the fact that she has a big bushy tail,
I knew that that character has a lot of possibilities.
I know there's a precedent for her having fought Thanos.
So I thought if I could create this image where she's battling this villain
who is so much larger than her, especially to see her come out on top,
that might surprise somebody a little.
Okay, I'm gonna create two splashes.
And to do it in a dynamic water-splashing environment,
it's gonna make a much more engaging image.
I do feel like I'm using my imagination the same way
that a kid uses his imagination.
You're creating stories and you get so wrapped up in these stories,
that you live in that world for a little while.
I'm living in that world and capturing it through my camera.
[male announcer] The Incredible Hulk meets Spider-Man.
[Wu] Through the years, Marvel's been creating so many toys.
[male announcer] Captain America, fighting injustice the world over.
Thor, using his Viking power against evil.
They're creating the characters. They're giving you the story.
And then different toy companies bring their own unique style.
♪ Webs, webs, web-spinning Spider-Man ♪
In the '80s, Mattel had the idea
to partner with Marvel to make action figures.
They challenged them.
They said, "Let's develop a comic book where all of the core characters,
the most famous characters, are thrown into one giant adventure together,
and they have to fight one villain."
And Marvel said, "We're gonna make a thing called Secret Wars."
So all of the books, Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Avengers,
they all crossed over in this giant overarching story.
It was very successful, and kids loved it.
[male announcer] Marvel's supervillains are coming.
[man] Secret Wars.
[announcer] Can the Marvel superheroes stop them?
Marvel's supervillains and superheroes figures each sold separately.
[Falcon] I think it was exciting because it was really the first time
that kids really saw this comingling of all of these characters.
How do we stop them, Captain America?
That's our secret, Spider-Man.
The other thing that they had done, from a toy perspective that was really smart,
they gave their number one character a brand-new costume.
So on the cover of Secret Wars,
we see Spider-Man in his black-and-white costume,
and that costume would end up becoming a major part of his history.
Eventually, that black costume ended up becoming the character Venom,
who spun off into his own franchise
and has become super popular in and of himself.
It was at the beginning of what was to come for Marvel and toys.
[Vonner] But in the '90s, the comic book industry just bottomed out.
And Marvel, at the time, was the big player.
So, you know, long story short, they wind up going through bankruptcy.
[Falcon] A company called Toy Biz purchased Marvel,
and then Toy Biz started making all of the toys for Marvel.
And Toy Biz had this really awesome responsibility
to bring these characters to life,
and I felt that they had never really been made in toy form the way they could be.
The way that they're depicted in the comics.
[whistling]
[Jasperson] In the '80s and '90s, I worked for Toy Biz
doing art for hundreds of Marvel action figures.
I think I drew at least 200, 300 characters,
but then with all the iterations, it seems like hundreds more.
I never knew the Marvel Universe was that big.
I mean, just biblical proportions of characters.
As a kid, I just dreamed of being an artist.
My mom used to joke that I was born with a pencil in my hand
'cause, as soon as I found a piece of paper as a kid, that's all I'd do.
But I never, in my wildest dreams,
thought I could make a living drawing and working for Toy Biz.
We used to joke we're professional children.
We were a lot of artistic rebels, you know? And comic book geeks.
My mom didn't read me bedtime stories. I always had comic books around.
She was into Norse mythology. So she would tell me stories about Thor.
So, Toy Biz to me, that was like a university.
It was like going through this whole new growth process,
and we were kinda on the ground floor of that.
[Falcon] I started making toys when I was a kid.
I would see versions of the characters in different comic books I had,
and I would cut them out.
And I would play with the flat paper cutout.
Cut to years later, I'm in my college dorm room,
feverishly whittling away at Milliput,
a bonding agent that you use to fix leaks,
to create heads and hands of different characters
that had not been made into toys yet.
I brought a lot of those things to my very first interview
at a company called Toy Biz.
The gentleman I was interviewing with looked at what I'd brought in that day.
He said, "Did you make these?" I said, "Yes." He said, "You're hired."
Marvel was just at the beginning of rolling out
all of this insanely popular content that they've made over the past 25 years.
[woman] At that point, action figures were all pretty much the same size and scale.
That's really not what the world is about.
When you look at a comic book, characters are taller and a lot bigger than others.
[Falcon] JoAnn said, "Listen,
I think we should do something for our Spider-Man collector."
[McLaughlin] We decided that we were gonna do figures to scale and form.
So they were different heights, different body shapes.
They were more true to the character.
[Jasperson] There was a lot of interesting mechanism and movement
that we designed into the figures,
that really weren't that big of a thing before.
As the production process became more sophisticated,
now we can have different points of movement.
[Falcon] He was so flexible, he could do yoga.
[Vonner] We really pushed it with the other extremities, like the fingers.
So now you can have Spider-Man come at you.
[Falcon] It was a runaway success.
And then JoAnn looked at me,
and we both agreed that we should open this up for all of Marvel.
It was her idea to call it Marvel Legends.
[Vonner] It was uncharted territory, a whole line of characters
that look like they've fallen right out the comic book.
Bringing the characters to life, you just immersed yourself
in what the action figure was supposed to do and how the character would do it.
These are some original control drawings.
What this basically does is give the sculptor an idea
of what the action figure looks like.
A control drawing starts with you go to The Marvel Universe Handbook,
and you look up a particular character
that you've been asked to do the technical drawing on.
The Marvel Universe is, sort of, the bible for every character.
The amount of backstory and detail is just awe-inspiring.
This is Iron Man,
and Iron Man's suits come with really specific qualities
depending on what he's doing with them.
Each character has this really significant look
that you really have to honor in the control drawings.
You start to very roughly draw.
And there's a really specific silhouette within Marvel,
a certain proportion across the shoulders and a certain stance on the legs.
And you always, always exaggerate the muscles. Big time.
That's, sort of, one of those huge things.
I mean, you do not have small biceps on a Marvel action figure.
Once I get through doing all of this,
then I go to my side view, and I line everything up.
I try and keep it straight.
I'm gonna line up the detail of the helmet.
And after I do this really rough,
then I would just go ahead and do this final,
very clean ink, with permanent fine marker.
As you can see,
all of these particular details have to match on the same plane.
So, everything is exactly the same all the way across.
So that you end up with, basically, a three-dimensional view that's done flat.
[Vonner] We started to see certain comics,
and I would say, "That looks exactly like our action figure right there."
The toys started to influence the comics, and once that started to happen,
it's like now we kinda pumping on all cylinders.
[McLaughlin] Toy Biz passed the torch to Hasbro in 2007.
Many of the things that we invented at Toy Biz,
they have taken those products and really treated them with great respect
and really have taken them to new heights.
[Stall] I've been at Hasbro for 18 years.
Started here straight out of college, and I've been here ever since.
-Morning. -Morning, Dwight.
Growing up, reading comics definitely helped spark the interest
that I am able to tap into today.
I had some rough years from my seventh and eighth grade.
That's when I really started to draw a lot,
and I remember my best friend and I went to the store,
and we saw X-Men comics. And it blew my mind.
It was just about the X-Men coming together to try to fight something
that was way bigger and more powerful than they were alone
and the sacrifices they had to make to overcome it.
The poison shot through my veins, and it's just-- I couldn't let it go.
There's a lot of like-minded weirdos here at Hasbro and that makes it fun.
[Ting] I joke that I had given thousands of dollars
to Hasbro of my own money before I started working here,
because I've always really had a passion for the collector's side of the business.
Got my start with Marvel trading cards.
This was my bread and butter, and it still is to this day.
I have a collection of sealed boxes at home, in case of a rainy day.
I may need some more.
My wife deals with a lot of boxes, and she would say,
"Do you realize, every night when you brush your teeth,
you wander into that room and you just look around for a few minutes
and then you come out?"
I said, "Yeah, I never thought about it, but yeah, I guess I do."
These pictures were from my third grade expo.
"The X-po's X-Men X-hibit,"
with each word starting with the letter X.
Being around it just makes me happy.
Now I am working on the Marvel Legends.
I work on photography for the packaging.
I'm designing stuff that I want in my collection too.
[director]
[clicks tongue, inhales]
Why don't we lower his right arm a little bit and have his left arm higher?
Do you think we could tilt his head slightly so he's looking at his hand?
On Thing, could we raise his right hand?
Is this piece flexible?
It's never just good enough. It's like, "Well what if I-- What if we did this?"
I wanna keep pushing myself to try to incrementally make things
better and better until finally, you have to call it.
One of Toy Biz's biggest legacy points is the creating of Marvel Legends.
When Hasbro started making Marvel Legends,
initially we stumbled a little bit out of the blocks.
Well, we hadn't done a six inch, super realistic line.
We tried to just do what Toy Biz did but with some differences,
and that wasn't working.
In 2012, we decided we wanted to relaunch in a big way.
We built a whole bunch of new bodies, new sculpts,
to start from scratch and give a new era to it.
[Ting] Improved and more lifelike deco on the faces.
The greater "posability," the greater play you can have.
Launching new things like vehicles for the first time in the six inch scale.
Ghost Rider and his motorcycle or Professor X and his hover chair.
We know that the fans love that kind of stuff.
[Wu] Sometimes a good idea will just come out of thin air.
When that happens, you have to drop everything that you're doing,
get your toy, get your gear out, and just make that happen.
This is a hover chair.
It definitely needs to be up on wires to give it the effect of floating.
These figures, they are mutants from the X-Men.
Professor X, he's got telepathy.
He can affect people's thoughts and how they act by getting into their heads.
Dazzler can convert sound waves.
I was really drawn to her because of the roller skates.
Storm is a really rad character. She can control the weather.
And Psylocke, one of her powers is telekinesis,
so she can create weapons from psychic energy.
I will use a remote shutter release so that I can take the pictures
and also do some effects at the same time.
I want it to be a little misty, so I'm gonna use this spray.
It's Atmosphere Aerosol. It's basically fog in a can.
[rapid clicking]
I'm actually gonna have two effects going on here.
One is gonna be the dirt that's gonna be kicked up
in his turbulence from the hover chair.
If we can have the story plus some kind of practical effects,
the dirt and debris being kicked up by his hover chair,
the fog that we created with the Atmosphere Aerosol in the background,
it's just really gonna make the person become engaged with the image.
Right now I'm erasing the compressed air can,
as well as a bit of my hand, and that red straw.
A good toy photograph, in my opinion,
means the technical aspect of the photography has to be spot on,
which means, exposure, color, all of those things.
The composition has to be amazing,
and some type of effects, whether that's digital or practical.
I try to get all of those things together
because I think it's gonna make a much more dynamic and engaging image.
[Falcon] There are several different communities where people build sets,
pose the action figures out, put special effects into them.
It's so exciting to see people engaging with a product
that you've worked on to that level
and challenging and expanding who those characters can be.
Companies like Funko have leaned into that in a big way,
and it's worked incredibly well.
Funko's approach to making toys has a lot more to do with pop culture
than actual mechanics in the way that Hasbro does.
They like to play in the more whimsical nature of who our characters are.
They really love to pivot inside of a character.
You know, if there's a way to bring the character to life
in a new and unexpected way, that's their forte.
[Wilkinson] I've been here since the beginning,
since the original owner had started it up in his garage.
He made a quick handshake deal with the owner of Big Boy Restaurants
and made a Big Boy bobblehead.
And that's sort of what launched it all.
Working with Marvel started very simply, and it was a dream for me because,
from the moment I could turn a page, I was reading Marvel comics.
Hulk and Spider-Man were my favorite,
and because I was an artist, it was all about my favorite illustrators,
whether it was Jack Kirby or Stephen Ditko.
So it kept me just poring through these pages
and looking for the details and skill level.
I suppose facing these icons of my youth could be a little intimidating.
You know? A little bit of, "Oh, boy. I gotta do these justice."
But it was a blast.
I've created all the first series of bobbleheads.
Some of those, sort of, retro, classic characters.
Not too big of poses.
They were just very old-school bobbleheads hugged together with, you know, big head.
And it was a huge hit, and we haven't looked back.
We've been creating hundreds of Marvel characters a year ever since.
Once you get past creating every Thor and Spider-Man five or six times,
you know, you kind of want to reimagine what we do with Marvel.
We had the success with our plush line.
They were just, sort of, cute little button eyes and tiny nose,
and my challenge was to take that plush line and put it into a vinyl line.
[man 6] The 50-50 body to head ratio, the big eyes,
the cartoony quality, that appealing, simplified form.
[Wilkinson] No mouth, eyes low, far apart.
I always call it the science of cute.
-I got some stuff to show you... -All right!
...if you don't mind.
[Wilkinson] Man, we got classic Thor!
I might just barely go a little bigger with the feet.
-[Luu] Okay. Yeah. -And--
[Luu] Kinda small right now actually.
[Wilkinson] Yeah, and then zoom in on the torso.
Perfect.
And maybe I'd just pull back a little bit on the muscular of the rib cage.
Just pull that back a little bit.
Yeah, just soften it up so we stay in the Pop world and not quite as detailed.
And I'd probably punch up both the hands, size-wise.
Get that fist a little bigger just to kind of get that Pop feel to it.
-That feels right. -Yeah.
-Around that size, and this one as well. -Yeah.
Yeah, nice work on that hair.
The Venomized series--
There's multiple comic story lines in the Marvel Universe
that everybody seems to have been venomized at some point.
[Butcher] We talk about not just making it look like
you just threw Venom on top of a character.
Like, how do we keep the true essence of the character and still be venomized?
You know, what makes Groot, when he's taken over by Venom, different?
I wanted Groot to have a feeling of-- It's, like, engulfing him.
So, what I'll do is I'll make it feel-- Along these edges.
Give it, like, a little raised feel to it.
Making a little plant parasite on him.
[chuckles]
We work on characters that each character is different.
Each one has a different personality, and I can do this for hours
without even noticing that the time flies by.
We are very driven by what the fans want,
what they're into, what they're passionate about.
There's fan boards and our Funko Fan Fests, and that's never changed.
I've worked on thousands of Pops,
and I still get those toy tingles when I see a new Pop come in.
To watch an idea turn into a toy in a matter of months is amazingly rewarding.
Each toy company, Funko, Hasbro, they all have different ways in, um,
with every brand that they work on.
Funko is, without a doubt, one of the greatest novelty companies
that's ever come along in the toy industry.
Hasbro, they take the Marvel brand incredibly seriously.
And, when you're around the product and around the development cycle,
it makes me feel young.
It makes me feel like I am that same kid
that wanted X-Men toys when there were none.
And how do we take what we're doing today and make it the best possible thing?
[Stall] What you see all around you is our working archive.
We try to look at this wall and see what we've made in the past,
and what can we use that we can turn into a whole new figure
by just adding a few new pieces. So it's really fun.
We pull things down, see if they fit, if they would work,
and we mix and match, playing a three-dimensional puzzle game
with all these action figures to build new ones.
Today we're working on Cyborg Spider-Man.
He's about as '90s as they get.
Marvel Publishing has done a lot of crazy stuff over the years,
and some of the '90s stuff is some of the most awesome.
In the comics, he gets beat up, and they get him all patched up,
and he's superfied with a cybernetic cast to help his arm heal
and a cybernetic eye for the final fight.
We find all these awesome images of different versions of him
from the comics that he appeared in.
Once we have the art, once we've selected a style,
then the design team takes over,
and that's when we draw out what the figure looks like,
and we turn that over to sculpting.
Our sculptors take our 2D illustrations, and they turn them into 3D,
and then we can start adjusting this thing.
If you look at it, compared to the reference, his eyes are a little bit high.
Spider-Man's got really big eyes,
and these are sitting a little bit too high up in his head,
so we have to fix that.
We can start fixing the shape, the overall size.
We can start pulling it down to where you want it.
It's all subtle things, but you have to remember,
at the end of the day, these heads are only the size
of about a US penny. So it's the little things that matter.
And then I usually just wanna get the colors roughed out.
That shows where I want the colors to go.
So you can just bulk in the forms.
This is kinda fun. It's like Bob Ross with your happy little paintbrush.
Spider-Man, looking at the reference over there,
he's still primarily red and blue with some cool techy stuff.
Once we get these complete, we'll work with our model department,
and that's where you meet Laura.
[DeLorenzo-Jones] When Dwight passes the baton to me,
now it's my turn to come up with an awesome paint scheme.
Finding ways to use paint to accentuate what's already there in the sculpt
is what I aim to do.
I like the idea that my job is bringing these characters into the reader's worlds,
so they can have a little piece of them.
I do always like diving in and doing super detailed stuff.
Then I just get in the zone,
and that's when I feel my best as a person, honestly.
When I first started, I couldn't even drink coffee,
or at least I didn't think I could,
because I was so nervous that my hand would shake too much.
But, over the years, I am back to, you know, two cups a day. [chuckles]
It's always awesome, when I finish, to go back to Dwight.
-Hey, how's it going? -Good. What we got today?
Cyborg Spider-Man.
♪ Cyborg Spider-Man ♪
This looks fantastic.
Did we stay with classic colors, or did we update the blue?
-Um, I stayed pretty classic. -Cool.
-Yeah. -I think it works.
-Awesome. -How long till you have it all wrapped up?
End of day, I'll be done.
-Excellent. Cool. -Cool.
These little plastic figures, they've transcended toy.
They're more than that.
And working on something that reaches across and touches so many people
in so many different ways and at so many different levels,
that's powerful stuff, man.
[Wu] Today, I'm going to the New York Toy Fair.
The New York Toy Fair is the largest toy trade show in North America.
So you have many, many toy companies that are exhibiting there.
You also have many, many store buyers that go there to buy the latest toys.
And going to Toy Fair is a big deal for me.
To be brought in and to be the inaugural photographer, that means a lot to me.
They'd never had any kind of installation or exhibition at any of their shows.
That's gonna be fun. I'm excited.
It's a big spread.
[director]
No. I just thought he was just playing with a toy [laughs] in our backyard.
[Wu] I always had wanted to come to New York Toy Fair.
It's just kind of mind-blowing that I'm gonna be cutting the ribbon
because the ribbon cutting is the official beginning of Toy Fair.
So to be able to kick it off, it means something pretty important to me.
[McLaughlin] Toy Fair happens every year,
and it's where all of the toy-makers show off their new products.
It's the time of year where we're so excited to go see
all the great new toys coming out.
You can feel the electricity. You can feel the excitement.
[Vonner] That's what you want.
You wanted that, "What's next?" "What's coming next?" That magic trick.
You know, "How did they do that?" And, "Who are they coming with?"
And, "I can't believe they did that guy."
[Stall] Toy Fair is awesome.
We get to go to New York once a year,
and all of the big fan media comes into the Hasbro showroom,
and we get to put on a big presentation
and show them everything that we're doing for the upcoming year.
[Falcon] Every year you've gotta turn what you're developing over
and make an entirely new line, find another reason for people to get excited,
and it is one of the most satisfying things in the world.
Anytime there is a new reveal, everyone wants to be the first to see it,
and sharing that excitement and sharing that fandom,
it's never a dull moment.
And it's so fulfilling to bring these characters to life
and actually see it on a shelf.
[Rachel] Give me a little smile.
Awesome. Okay.
[Wu] My exhibition includes about 70 images.
-Showing the Hulk in a lighter moment. -[laughs]
[Rachel] Oh, the image is nice.
I mean, he's still grimacing but, you know, he's feeling peaceful inside.
-Here we have Thor. -[Rachel] Yeah. This is fun.
[Wu] Before Thor's hammer, there was his awkward handsaw period.
[both laughing]
I found toy photography so late in life.
I have so much creative energy right now that I wanna really just, kind of,
ride this and see where it goes.
[male executive] Who's ready for Toy Fair?
Come on!
This is the 117th annual New York Toy Fair.
And we are really blessed today.
If you look up behind you and you see Mitchel Wu Gallery,
that is some of the most amazing toy photography that you're ever gonna see.
This is Mitchel Wu,
and you need to check out that amazing gallery of photography.
-Three. Two. One. -[spectators] Three. Two. One.
Happy Toy Fair, everyone!
[whooping, cheering]
[Wilkinson] Toy Fair is very important to Funko.
Many of our lines, including Pops, were launched at Toy Fairs.
It's hard to explain that, sort of, joy of having something you like so much,
like venomized Marvel characters,
getting to own it and guide it and steer it
and create a new vision of amazing characters.
[Stall] The stakes are very high.
Our team is always chomping at the bit to elevate our game
and do something bigger and better than we did the year before.
Getting the chance to be here, creating these for that next generation,
we're giving them the fuel to create those stories
and create their own nostalgic memories at some point in time,
and to be part of that loop is really powerful.
[Vonner] Back in the day, we just had no clue where things would end up now.
And that's what's so exciting.
Like, to see so many fans that actually bought into your vision,
that actually dug what was lurking in your mind.
To be a spoke in that huge, huge wheel, that's a honor in and of itself.
Jesse, that one looks great.
Yeah, both of these came out great.
[McLaughlin] To be in charge of making toys of any kind is a huge responsibility
but also so incredibly rewarding.
You don't realize the effect you've had on, you know, people's lives.
If all the jobs, the toy fairs, were to go away tomorrow,
and if there was no place to share them,
I'd still be taking photos of toys.
Really, it comes down to just doing what makes you happy,
and, right now, creating images with toys makes me happy.
[Falcon] I think all toy collectors are kids at heart,
and some of the appeal is recapturing components of their childhood.
I think that play is one of the most important things that we can do as beings.
You know, play structures lessons,
from a standpoint of when we were a kid to when we're adults.
We're goofing around or joking.
We're building scenarios that can help and teach us to grow.
The comics are inspiring,
and they tell them who the characters are and what they do,
and from that point on, when the kids are playing with the physical toys,
they're really making their own stories up.
[Jasperson] I think that when you play with toys,
you imagine yourself as the character.
And I think that play fosters imagination.
It changes the way that you look at things.
When you look at some superhero doing something that you,
in your real life, could never do,
it makes your brain go in different places.
[Stall] I think my childhood self seeing me doing this now would be blown away
that this is actually an option for a grown-up person.
I think he'd be incredibly jealous of my children,
because they get to play with so many of these action figures.
I bring them home, and I leave them on the table,
and they'd make their own stories,
and you could just sit back and watch them a little bit
playing with action figures that you created
and see exactly that kind of storytelling going on in their minds.
They weren't following any script.
They were mixing and matching and combining things
and just having fun and being creative and using their imagination.
These little plastic figures, they got a lot of power behind 'em.