CRISIS OF INFINITE TOYS
written by Keith Chow
published in TOYFARE #84 (Aug 2004)
transcribed by Vu

Just in time for its 20th Anniversary, DC unleashes 'Crisis' figures.

2005 will be a banner year for the bullet logo.

As DC Comics celebrates its 70th birthday, collectors will get the chance to mark the 20th anniversary of the continuity-cleansing milestone series Crisis on Infinite Earths with action figures. The debut wave is tentatively set for June 2005, and will include five figures based on Crisis characters: The Monitor, Pyscho Pirate, Harbinger, Supergirl and Earth-2 Robin. While fans rejoice, we talk to Georg Brewer, DC's veep of design and retail product development, to get the skinny on the figures, the concept of infinity and dead superheroes.

TOYFARE: Recently, DC Direct has focused on lines of action figures based on landmark comic stories (such as Kingdom Come, for example). What finally brought about a line based on Crisis on Infinite Earths?
Georg Bewer: Well, it was one of the largest events in our publishing history, and it has been on our shortlist for a very long time. One of the ways we've always tried to distinguished our product is to make it as authentic to the comic as we can, tapping into those key moments that resonate with the fans.

Speaking of authenticity to the comic, will George Pérez have a direct hand in the making of the figures, á la Jim Lee with Hush ?
Obviously, there's such a body of work that George has done with Crisis and on JLA with these characters. I don't know that we'll need him to do new work, but I'll certainly have a conversation with him if he's interested.

But the sculpts will be based off of Pérez's art?
Absolutely.

So what can we expect to see in 2005?
What we're looking to do is some characters that were original to Crisis, character that were important to the story. That's the great thing about Crisis. We can do any characters every.

This is a perfect chance to offer collectors alternate version of DC characters. Since DC Direct has already done a Silver Age Flash, can we anticipate a new, more-articulated sculpt for the Crisis incarnation of Barry Allen?
We've done so many different lines of figures, but since [the Crisis line] is so specific to this particular point in history, we're gonna try to hit that look as much as we can. [But] when you add more articulation, you move further and further away from the source. I think on the average, there will be a minimum of 9 to 13 points of articulation. There may be more in some characters. We have to take it on a character to character basis.

Any chances for a battle-ravaged Supergirl or dead Barry Allen for the morbid collector?
It's possible. You could always take the Deadman sculpt from Kingdom Come and wrap a Flash costume around it.

Pardon the pun, but with Crisis you have an infinite amount of possibilities. If it's successful, is this an going line that could last say… infinitely?
Very possibly. Crisis is such a great umbrella to touch on things like Earth-2 that you can't do in other places and you can [incorporate] a lot of characters. I'd like to see us continue to do one or two Crisis wave a year. As long as the interest is there, we can keep it rolling.

(Vu: You can vote for wave two on www.wizarduniverse.com/../toyfare.)