NYCC 2022: Marvel Legends Ghost Rider Haslab Engine of Vengeance Photos & Video!

Perhaps the singular Marvel item I was most looking forward to seeing in person at NYCC 2022 was the controversial Hasbro Ghost Rider Engine of Vengeance Haslab project. I haven’t talked about the Hell Charger here yet, but I’m ready to now that I’ve had the chance to see the 2022 Marvel Legends Haslab campaign up close and personal…

To say that this year’s Haslab Marvel Legends Engine of Vengeance project got off to a bumpy start would be an understatement. The initial numbers showed promise, but the campaign flatlined after the Robbie Reyes figure was canceled following the failure of the project to hit the Early Bird goal.

In response, Hasbro started revealing more stretch goal tiers, which they ordinarily wouldn’t. And thus, we came to know of the Marvel Legends Madelyne Pryor (Goblin Queen) figure, in addition to the previously revealed Marvel Legends Mephisto. Both figures made their public debut this week at New York Comic Con 2022 (along with Robbie’s car itself), and I was delighted to be on-hand to take photos of them for this auspicious event.

The Engine of Vengeance project is proudly displayed in a huge, transparent rectangle at the front of the Marvel booth. Despite being half-blind, I was taken aback by the size of the Ghost Rider car and its eye-catching light-up flames that made it very easy to spot from a distance (even for me).

I think the Hell Charger is getting a bit of a bad rap largely because of the way that the campaign has been handled. The $350 MSRP Hasbro set the price at is obviously meant to encompass the car itself and every stretch goal (for a total of $100-$150+ worth of figures), but making fans “unlock” those extras is the same kind of ill-advised tactic that killed the Star Wars Rancor Haslab.

If Hasbro had just shown every included figure stretch goal from day one (and not canceled the Robbie Reyes for not meeting a ridiculous “Early Bird” deadline), I genuinely think this project would have funded easily. But alas, this ill-advised, stubborn tactic on Hasbro’s part seems likely destined to put another project in the grave.

Having worked in marketing for a collectibles company myself, I can understand the value of generating continued hype and buzz by unlocking fresh content weeks into a product launch, but I find Haslab’s way of doing things to often be out-of-touch with what their audience wants and expects. Hopefully for future campaigns they learn from past and present mistakes, as I think Haslab still has great potential to make a lot of dreams come true.

Regardless, I think the Engine of Vengeance car itself is a beautiful model, far bigger than I had pictured and with a lot of presence. The light-up flame add-on pieces look spectacular, and the Ghost Rider figure looks equally impressive. Sold as a standalone $150-$200 set, I think collectors would have opted for this much more willingly than they are for a $350 “bundle” with stretch goal figures that seem less and less likely to be produced.

The Marvel Legends Mephisto figure looks phenomenal, and would easily overtake the old Marvel Select Mephisto as the best action figure of the character ever produced. His evil smile is perfection, and just including him with the car from the start could have made a colossal difference in the trajectory of the campaign.

Marvel Legends Madelyne Pryor I am less enamored with. I suspect the licensor would NEVER have allowed a vintage comics-accurate action figure of Jean Grey’s demonic clone—but without tons of skin and midriff showing, Maddie really does seem off. I’m a big fan of this character and would love to have her any way I can, but I understand why many other collectors are peeved that she can’t be a bit more risqué in a $350 adult collector’s set.

The Marvel Legends Engine of Vengeance HasLab campaign runs until Halloween 2022, and has about 5300 of the 9000 Target backers as of writing. I would love—LOVE—to see this project successfully produced, but the pervading negativity surrounding it at this time definitely has me seriously worried it will not be.

What are your thoughts on this Ghost Rider Haslab, Marvel collectors? Do you see this getting funded? And if not, where lies the problem or problems with this year’s campaign?

I for one will be happy to see this project fail. Don’t get me wrong, even though Robbie is probably my least favorite GR, I still would have liked a figure of him and the car looks amazing. But I honestly believe Hasbro could use a lesson or two in humility. Their way too many price increases the last two years alone and their go green in more environmental packages (which as such doesn’t really bother me as I’m a loose collector), BUT at a steeped price increase, pissed off a lot of fans and collectors. Please, inflation is like 8% at most, stop using that as an excuse… every toy company with some rare exceptions seems to have found the golden goose to up their prices with 20-30%… Kotobukiya is another example of this. After buying and collecting their Bishoujo statues for more than a decade I stepped out, as I’m not willing to pay 200 euro for them. In a record time of only a couple of years they went from around 80 euro to more than 200 euro. There’s simply no justification for that, be it inflation, COVID-19 or supply chain issues…
But back to Hasbro. At 350 euro this project was simply doomed from the start. And here I thought the HISS was already expensive (which I backed). And now the lead character is not even included…? As for those stretch goals, no way they will even get near them. Hasbro seems to think that fans are willing to pay any price to complete their collection. They have been pushing it with every project, checking how far they can go and how much they can milk out of us. I’m glad to see reason prevail. And then there’s the whole availability of the Haslab projects. Living in Belgium, Europe, there seems to be not even a way for me to back this project. Until recently, Hasbro worked together with local partners to make their projects accessible. But once again greediness has prevailed and with the continuing expansion of the exclusive Hasbro Pulse, this is becoming less and less the case. The only problem is that Pulse is still only available in a very limited amount of countries (it’s amazing that Hasbro doesn’t seem to grab the concept of the free open European Union market concept… you don’t need to have a portal in every single EU country… one country would do, all you need afterwards is setting up decent shipping). The result is that through this strategy, Hasbro misses out on a lot of potential customers/backers and once again lost a lot of goodwill with their fans, but also with previous partners and retailers which they basically kicked in the groin (see the recent move to make their Classified line Pulse exclusive).

Comments

NYCC 2022: Marvel Legends Ghost Rider Haslab Engine of Vengeance Photos & Video! — 3 Comments

Justin McIntyre on October 7, 2022 at 3:00 pm said:

Id Love to see it funded, but I have no intention of funding it as its my least favourite of all the ghost rider variants. And I have the Hot toys Robbie Reyes which is a much better design imo.
sgottahurt on October 11, 2022 at 1:24 pm said:

It’s a bummer it won’t make it. I tried to fund Rancor too.
LittleWolvie on October 20, 2022 at 8:20 am said:

I for one will be happy to see this project fail. Don’t get me wrong, even though Robbie is probably my least favorite GR, I still would have liked a figure of him and the car looks amazing. But I honestly believe Hasbro could use a lesson or two in humility. Their way too many price increases the last two years alone and their go green in more environmental packages (which as such doesn’t really bother me as I’m a loose collector), BUT at a steeped price increase, pissed off a lot of fans and collectors. Please, inflation is like 8% at most, stop using that as an excuse… every toy company with some rare exceptions seems to have found the golden goose to up their prices with 20-30%… Kotobukiya is another example of this. After buying and collecting their Bishoujo statues for more than a decade I stepped out, as I’m not willing to pay 200 euro for them. In a record time of only a couple of years they went from around 80 euro to more than 200 euro. There’s simply no justification for that, be it inflation, COVID-19 or supply chain issues…
But back to Hasbro. At 350 euro this project was simply doomed from the start. And here I thought the HISS was already expensive (which I backed). And now the lead character is not even included…? As for those stretch goals, no way they will even get near them. Hasbro seems to think that fans are willing to pay any price to complete their collection. They have been pushing it with every project, checking how far they can go and how much they can milk out of us. I’m glad to see reason prevail. And then there’s the whole availability of the Haslab projects. Living in Belgium, Europe, there seems to be not even a way for me to back this project. Until recently, Hasbro worked together with local partners to make their projects accessible. But once again greediness has prevailed and with the continuing expansion of the exclusive Hasbro Pulse, this is becoming less and less the case. The only problem is that Pulse is still only available in a very limited amount of countries (it’s amazing that Hasbro doesn’t seem to grab the concept of the free open European Union market concept… you don’t need to have a portal in every single EU country… one country would do, all you need afterwards is setting up decent shipping). The result is that through this strategy, Hasbro misses out on a lot of potential customers/backers and once again lost a lot of goodwill with their fans, but also with previous partners and retailers which they basically kicked in the groin (see the recent move to make their Classified line Pulse exclusive).