The end of Friends
The Spider-Man and Friends line ceased production at the end of 2006, when all toy licenses for Marvel Comics characters passed from Toy Biz to Hasbro; the final wave of figures was released in December 2006.[1] Hasbro would however release a handful of products under the Spider-Man and Friends name from 2006 to 2008, such as unsold leftover Toybiz figures, singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider-Man" and "Hulkey Pokey Hulk" plush dolls, a "My First Spider-Man" action figure and some plush dolls.
Hasbro later carried over the concept of Marvel characters for the preschool set with a new line of action figures called Marvel Super Hero Squad, which debuted in January 2007.[2] Featured characters in Wave 1 include Archangel, Colossus, Captain America, Magneto, Sabretooth, Cyclops, Wolverine, and Hawkeye.[2][3] Wave 2 included Hulk, Wasp, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, Elektra, Punisher, and Ghost Rider. Super Hero Squad figures were much smaller than their Spider-Man and Friends predecessors, and are comparable in size and design to a similarly preschool-specific line of Star Wars toys already produced by Hasbro. In 2009, a full-length animated series based on the toy line debuted on Cartoon Network, titled The Super Hero Squad Show. However, though the series was popular, it aimed more around the 6-11 age demographic in comparison to the preschool audience the original toy line was aiming for. Additionally, because the television rights to Spider-Man were owned by Sony Pictures Television at the time, the character was completely absent throughout the animated series, though he did appear in the namesake video game.
While Marvel Super Hero Squad has been discontinued as of 2013, Hasbro continued the concept of Marvel characters for the preschool set with Marvel Super Hero Adventures (2017-2020), which spawned its own short animated short-form series, and later with both Spidey and His Amazing Friends (2021–present) and Iron Man and His Awesome Friends (2025–present), both of which have spawned their own full-length animated shows on Disney Jr.
