Will We See Valiant Action Figures At Toy Fair?

Vague hints dropped by a Legend-ary toy designer have Bill thinking we’ll see Valiant Universe action figures very soon!

David Vonner, the man behind amazing toy lines like Marvel Legends and Marvel Universe (as well as his more recent work at Kasual Friday) has been teasing something BIG coming to this year’s Toy Fair.  When Vonner wants to tease something, he REALLY teases it– he’s a damn good showman about things… so for his big announcement, he’s been posting a series of clues on his Twitter page over the past days.

It started off generic enough, with a single Tweet and a tiny pic of a nicely sculpted torso.

Oh Boy! Getting ready for the “Showdown”! #ComingSoon pic.twitter.com/LeyZYGhw— David Vonner (@DavidVonner) Jan 5

That lead to some wild speculation, everywhere from Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter (properties owned by Jazwares), to Bruce Lee.  Most of these theories were shot down by Vonner himself, who said it was something MUCH cooler than any of those.

He stoked the fires again by Tweeting a new photo, one of his hand forming the letter “V.”

…. Always been my favorite letter! #ComingSoon pic.twitter.com/9fqBHpiS— David Vonner (@DavidVonner) Jan 13

Now, this could be a false hint… after all, V is the letter of his last name, and I’ve never known anybody to call him “David.”  But this Tweet came right AFTER someone on the boards at The Fwoosh first guessed Valiant was Vonner’s new mystery property.

But Vonner posted one more clue that has me convinced the line IS based on the recent (and fantastic) Valiant relaunch.  It’s a silhouette of a heavily armed superhero, standing in a circle of light… the outline of the figure plus the circle makes this photo SCREAM Bloodshot to me.

Getting ready to shake up the World… Again! #ComingSoon! http://instagr.am/p/Ur6VcnmEt9/— David Vonner (@DavidVonner) Jan 19

So that’s my best guess at the rumor mill David Vonner has started, three weeks out from Toy Fair.  If I’m right, this could be incredible– The new Valiant property has some incredibly strong character designs, and there’s fans who have wanted figures based on the Valiant universe since the early 90’s— this would be the first time any of these great characters would be captured in plastic.

And if this turns out to be true, Vonner is absolutely the guy I’d like to see fronting this line.  His work on the Marvel Legends team was stellar, and he really came into his own with Hasbro’s Marvel Universe.  He put thought into every aspect of that line, from the conceptually related assortment mixes, to the carefully hand-crafted SHIELD files in the early waves, to the constant QC improvements with new bodies, cleverly reused parts and very cool variants.  This attention to detail– both of the products AND property– seem like a great fit for Valiant’s carefully-planned return, and I think the toymaker and comics publisher could definitely pull off a new toy line that would be totally worth paying attention to.

Somehow I’m now even MORE excited for Toy Fair!!!

Source: Twitter