When Warner Brothers announced they would be releasing a “robust” line of Wonder Woman merchandise tied to their DC Comics films, we wondered if Marvel was feeling the burn. They’d been taking heat lately for the noticeable lack of female characters in their merch, whether it’s Gamora being excluded from Guardians Of The Galaxy apparel or a memorable scene of Black Widow dropping from a Quinjet in Avengers: Age Of Ultron being turned into a toy… without Black Widow.
The lack of Black Widow merchandise has even led to complaints from Mark Ruffalo and rumors that the reason Disney/Marvel weren’t including female characters in the toys is because Disney can just sell their princess stuff to girls instead. Because you aren’t allowed to like both princesses and superpowers, and you certainly can’t play with more than one genre of toys, and the fact that Frozen merchandise (a princess with freakin’ superpowers) sold out so fast Disney was thrown for a loop, is just an outlier and should not be counted.
It seems Marvel has recently noticed women and girls buy things, however. At Licensing Expo 2015 in Las Vegas yesterday, Marvel senior Vice President of Licensing Paul Gitter told Variety they’re going to have “a big focus on adult female apparel” and build on their success with Age Of Ultron merchandise. They’ll be rolling out some Black Widow merchandise for Captain America: Civil War, and we’re guessing it might get easier for the many women dressing up as Black Widow for Halloween to find a costume that isn’t a bootleg version called “Sexy Russian Spy” or “Red Hourglass Lady.”
Better late than never, right?