‘Disney Infinity’ is the latest to forget that women like toys, too

We’ve been here before. Big Marvel-or-Star-Wars thing comes out, new line of merchandise gets released — and the whole thing is a big, old sausage party.

The latest example is a new line of Disney Infinity figures, to be released in conjunction with the upcoming Marvel Battlegrounds playset. Ant-Man, Black Panther and “black suit” Spider-Man are all accounted for and draped in their Captain America: Civil War duds. But for some reason, noted #TeamCap member Scarlet Witch is a big no-show.
To be clear: This is just the first wave of game figures. Female characters are already well-represented in Disney Infinity, and we’ll probably see Scarlet Witch at some point. This wouldn’t be such a depressing turn of events…if similar situations didn’t keep coming up again and again with Marvel and Star Wars stuff.

First, Gamora was absent from the Guardians of the Galaxy toy line. Then Black Widow was left out from The Avengers: Age of Ultron toy line. Then she was nowhere to be found on the Ultron home video cover art.

That’s just Marvel. Over in Star Wars land, there was the whole #WheresRey mess, in which Rey — the most important new character in Star Wars: The Force Awakens — was left out of an action figure collection that nonetheless had enough space for a nameless Stormtrooper.

#WheresRey came up again, a few weeks after The Force Awakens came out, when Rey was excluded from a Monopoly set. Though to Hasbro’s credit, steps were quickly taken to add Rey to the box.

Marvel addressed all of this in a statement issued to Mashable.

“Interest in our female Super Heroes has never been greater, and we have been moving on all fronts to meet demand. Earlier this week we launched our first ever ‘Women of Power’ initiative that will feature some of our most popular female characters across publishing and games, and our most extensive line of Black Widow product will be hitting shelves in the next few weeks.

“For newer characters such as Vision and Scarlet Witch, we are rolling out select merchandise programs initially with plans to expand them as they gain in popularity.”

All of that is encouraging — particularly the “Women of Power” initiative. But for the moment, it’s hard not to feel like Marvel and Star Wars playtime is a boys’ club. A lot of people would like to see that change.

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