Hasbro’s Marvel Legends lines are so popular and under such intense scrutiny that it’s effectively impossible for new products to sneak out that no one’s expecting. Marvel Mashers…? Not so much. And that’s why, just a week after being taken aback by their debut at the New York Toy Fair 2016, I was totally floored to walk into Toys R Us and come face to the face with the entire first series of Marvel Mashers Micro figures…

The sheer breadth and depth of new Marvel collectibles shown at the 2016 Toy Fair was so great that I simply haven’t had enough time yet to post photos of and talk about everything that appeared at the event yet.

That fact is backfiring on me now, however, as one of the lines that I haven’t discussed yet from Toy Fair has actually managed to already sneak out into retail stores right under my nose: Marvel Super Hero Mashers Micro Series 1!

As you might have guessed from the name, this line is an offshoot of the ever-popular Marvel Mashers figures that have been going strong at Hasbro for several years now.

Basically, this line consists of highly-stylized, non-articulated 2″ figures that have swappable parts that are cross-compatible with the larger Mashers figures.

Yeah, as weird as that sounds, you can actually swap parts back and forth between these Micro Mashers and the regular scale ones that are twice as big. Crazy, huh?

Series 1 consists of six figures that are popping up at retail stores such as Toys R Us now:

• Thor with (Frost Giant?) Head
• WWII Captain America with Red Skull Head
• Iron Patriot with Falcon Arm
• Spider-Man with Doc Ock Arms
• The Lizard with Spider-Man Head
• Anti-Venom with Red Hulk Head

The standouts for me in this wave are the Micro Mashers Lizard and Anti-Venom. Characters requiring unique molds such as Lizard are more possible in this small PVC figure line (as unique tooling isn’t such an insurmountable expense in a line with little to no articulation), and I feel like Hasbro really loaded the little The Lizard figurine with personality. (He does sort of evoke Leatherhead of Ninja Turtles fame, but everyone loves Leatherhead, right…?)

As these figures are only 2″ tall and are unarticulated, I was hoping they’d be super cheap–like, $2.99 cheap.

Unfortunately, they scan at $4.99 per figure at Toys R Us, which is sort of a crummy value, taking into account that the regular Mashers that are more than double the size and loaded with articulation retail for just $9.99.

While I really like the concept of smaller Mashers, I’m not digging the fact that these are in essence just little mini-statues. I’ve had a lot of fun with various standard-sized Super Hero Masher figures (they’re my guilty pleasure!), and I personally don’t see that happening with these smaller action figures that can’t really be posed at all.

In addition, the vehicles shown at Toy Fair–which also feature swappable, ‘mash-up’ pieces, looked pretty terrible. There’s no sign of those yet at retail, but I’d be heinously lying if I said I was looking forward to when those roll into retail.

What do you think of this Marvel Mashers Micro brand extension, collectors? Are you more likely to give these small-sized swappable figures the time of day than their larger counterparts, or is this line purely for the kiddos as far as you’re concerned?