We are joined by Marvel's very own, toy hunter, pop culture
expert, expert in all things toys
and things that make you smile and have fun.
The one, the only, Jordan Hembrough
How are you, my friend? - Thank you.
Thank you.
You guys are always so good to me.
It's great to be back.
San Diego Comic-Con.
We're back after what? two, three long years.
Yeah, three, yeah.
Feels like 30, but it's good to be back.
It also feels like yesterday.
It also feels like it's been three hours.
Yeah, it does.
It's like, you know, it's the vibe
and the energy is still so hot at Comic-Con,
it's almost like even though we kind of went away a little bit
and we did our own things, we're all back
and the vibe and the energy is like we never left.
And that truly is what Comic-Con is to me.
I love this.
I love being here.
INTERVIEWER: We love having you.
Speaking of which, aside from the obvious energy
and excellence that is happening all around us,
what's bringing you out at SDCC this year?
So actually, I'm actually very, very lucky.
I'm back with my Marvel family, and I do call them my family
because I do love them so much.
We actually partnered with Marvel and Whatnot Collectibles
and Whatnot Comics.
We cultivated a giant display.
And I'll tell you, if you guys are here on the show floor,
you've got to take a look at it.
It's a display of Spider-Man, Marvel goodness
from the past 80 years.
Everything going back from the 1960s
all the way to the 1980s--
toys, comics, original artwork, just incredible stuff that you
all have to check out, all brought to you
from the courtesy of Whatnot and Marvel.
Beautiful, beautiful stuff.
Oh, speaking of beautiful, we just saw some beautiful
Spider-Man cosplay on stage, and we're celebrating
Spider-Man's 60th--
60th, 60 years.
--so in your history of all things toys,
this is going to be very, very difficult,
what is your favorite Spider-Man toy that you've ever--
your favorite Spider-Man toy. - Putting me on the--
I know--
They do this all the time.
They do this.
OK, well, here's the thing, we're
actually in luck because we talk about why we're here.
I just told to all of you guys why we're here for San Diego.
One of my favorite Spider-Man toys is actually at the show.
No, what is it?
And you can actually go to the Marvel booth
and see it right now.
From 1967, the Captain action line of toys,
they actually did a Spider-Man outfit.
We found one in the box.
Now, you guys might go, Jordan, it's rare.
It's old, but let me tell you something, OK,
this is one of only four known in the world.
Wow.
Four.
1967, they call it the Spider-Man
Captain Action outfit, only available here
in the Marvel booth.
Whatnot is going to be doing something very,
very special with it on Sunday.
You guys all got to come back and check it out.
I don't want to give it away, but it
is truly something to behold.
So this was some other action figure that you
could then dress as Spider-Man?
Captain Action was a line of action toys in the 1960s
that you were able to dress him.
He was a man of mystery.
He was an international spy.
You can dress him in all these different outfits,
and they had two outfits by Marvel-- one
was Captain America and one was Spider-Man.
Spider-Man was short packed, one per case,
extremely, extremely rare.
He came with an outfit.
He came with all these really, really cool accessories
and a very collectible ring.
Now this was the 1960s, kids opened the toys,
they threw them out.
They played with them.
The packaging never really saw the light of day.
We found one in the box.
Wow, that's--
Truly incredible, and I've got to tell you something, what is
2000, oh my God, it's so old.
I've been doing this since I was 16 years old.
I've been doing this for almost 40 years.
It's only the first one I've ever seen.
First one I've ever seen in my life.
Held it in my hands.
I was shaking.
Yeah, what does that feel like?
Yeah.
You know what?
It's so funny because it's nice to know that after doing it
for so long and after seeing hundreds
and hundreds and thousands of toys, I still get excited.
It still gets your pulse racing.
Your heart starts beating, and you're like,
oh, I can't believe I found it.
Truly, truly one of the bucket list moments in my career
and I love it.
And I love that it was all part of Marvel
and San Diego Comic-Con, my favorite, dream come true.
It is.
Now you talk about your 40 years of experience,
so throughout your years experience, seeing toys evolve,
right?
Seeing toys go from kind of like simple articulation,
to now, however many hundreds of points of articulation.
What has it been like seeing toys grow in popularity
and complexity over the years?
You know, it's an interesting evolution.
In my mind, it's almost like a double-- double edged sword,
OK?
We have evolved the toys in such a state
that they can pretty much do anything we want.
They can do any kind of pose.
They're very, very mechanical right now.
We're getting into the digital age, where now people
are incorporating NFTs and the non-fungible tokens
into the toy lines as well.
It's really incredible to see the designers
and the engineers finally be able to achieve what they want.
That being said, I do miss the simplicity of a simpler line.
I do miss the simple articulation, the five
points of articulation.
But you know what? time marches on.
And with that, the evolution of the toys marches on.
And we're all going to become dinosaurs in this era, but--
but I love it.
I love the younger generation coming
in and playing with these toys.
And I love the younger generation
coming in and getting such love out of it
that we all did when we were kids
too because I know we're all a bunch of toy guys as well.
Yeah, it's totally true.
Before when we were just hanging out, before we were live live,
we were talking about the old Toy Biz line, and I got to say,
speaking of Spider-Man, one of my favorite toys of all time
was for some reason, the Spider Dragster.
Yeah.
And we had talked about it shot this spinning disk
and you could like overclock it, basically,
like do some damage with it.
I also forgot that it had a grappling hook in the front.
It did.
And it was a very satisfying motion.
Yeah, it was great.
You know that was a really fun time with Marvel and Toy Biz
because I believe at the time, I believe Toy Biz owned Marvel,
or Marvel owned Toy Biz at one point.
You know, it was very interesting
because they made the Punisher van, which was fantastic.
And you're like, oh, Punisher drove van.
It was awesome.
But then they did the Spider-Man dragster.
So like for a bunch of kids on the--
walking down the toy aisle, they're like, oh, man,
Spider-Man has a dragster?
This is fricking cool.
INTERVIEWER: Sick.
I love it.
He's racing for pink slips down on the Boulevard.
It was an awesome toy.
They got creative.
They gave them a little bit of creative license.
Really fun stuff, and that's really
what I miss about toys, just having a lot of fun with them.
I love it.
I have one more question and it's on behalf of both of us.
I was going to ask him--
I want to ask everything.
Please.
I can come back.
I'm here all week.
Don't worry.
Tell our significant others the justification for still
being obsessed with toys.
OK, so you know what it is?
And I'll say it's really quick.
I'll wrap it up.
You know, this truly is a connection to our childhood.
This truly is a connection to something
we loved in a simpler time.
And in a crazy world with everything going on,
I think we all need that.
So it is a little bit of mental health break.
Enjoy the toys.
Let your significant other buy the toys.
Enjoy it with them.
Enjoy the toys, that's right.
Thank you so much, Jordan, for joining us.
Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
It's always a pleasure to talk to you
and pick that amazing brain of yours.