One of the most entertaining panels I experienced during all of NYCC ’26 was the McFarlane Toys panel. It was a chance to see Todd McFarlane hold court over a room of captivated toy fans as he talked about his views on making toys and all the many new things they have coming to retail over the next few months. He started out talking about the end of their DC license as it moves to Mattel at the start of 2027. He thanked the fans: “From the beginning of 2020 all the way up to now, you guys have been fantastic. You guys have made this a giant, giant success.”
The McFarlane Toys panel showed off new Bruce Wayne and Batman figures along with a collector’s edition Star Sapphire, Mary Shazam, and Val-Zod Superman. A new GameStop exclusive Batman and Ra’s al Ghul from Batman #244, where they fought with their shirts off in the desert. New movie/tv based figures from Michael Keaton Batman from Batman Returns, Batgirl from Batman & Robin, and The Penguin from the HBO series. Two Page Punchers for GL favorites Arisa and Soranik Natu, plus a new Batman/Spawn 2-pack with the newer comic included. The Absolute Batman figure was excitedly received by the audience and comes with a ton of accessories. It looked like a great recreation of the character from the comic book.
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Todd took time to explain certain things about action figure production, like moving to pinless joints and the differences between making an action figure vs. a statue. On pinless, Todd stated, “The more you can keep the art, the better it is. If you can make the articulation as invisible as possible and still get the crazy articulation, that’s the win-win.” With statues: “When you’ve got a static pose, we can really go in, play with the art, and do the texture—things that sometimes become limited when you’re doing articulated figures.”
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The number of new figures based on gaming franchises was impressive. I never knew they did so many for a lot of the big AAA games. New God of War figures focused on the Norse era, and announced figures coming based on the Greek era of the franchise look fun, with PlayStation remaking those Greek era Kratos games that seems like a smart move for McFarlane. Ghost from Call of Duty is getting a brand new figure that comes with a code for an exclusive weapon charm, along with a new statue being shown.
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Fallout had a number of figures shown, and then Poppy Playtime is getting a second wave of figures and collectibles. Poppy Playtime creative executive George Krstic joined Todd on stage to talk about these toys. Todd showed off a ton of new Marvel comic book cover statues based on iconic covers, some of his own in there along with John Romita, Frank Miller, Jim Lee, and more. These look pretty cool and work if you want to bring these covers to life on your shelf.
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A lot of great sports action figures from MLB, NBA, and NFL all with great likenesses and articulation. Marc Silvestri’s entry into the Image Founders line of figures was shown in person – Witchblade, which looks good as it captures his style. I was surprised they went with this and no one from Cyberforce, like Ballistic or Velocity, but it will look good with the other figures and a needed woman character. He then showed Rob Liefeld’s Prophet as the last Image Founder figure to be released in 2026. Todd also announced that, for Judge Dredd’s 50th anniversary, there will be a new action figure line for the character.
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The McFarlane Toys panel ended with an actual Spawn cosplayer coming into the room to show off the new Spawn Warlock figure based on the character’s appearance in Blizzard’s Diablo Immortal game. When discussing the initial talks to have Spawn in the game, McFarlane revealed that he told Blizzard, “Make the character look like he belongs in your game. Don’t make it look like a comic-book character you shoved into your game. Integrate it so that character feels like he’s always been there.” It was a cool way to end with a solid high-end cosplay and a very nice figure that got the panel audience excited.
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Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from NYCC ’26.
