Cute commercial, but something's missing...

Have you seen Target's new commercial featuring action figures from the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie? Cute, right? But even I - not an Avengers expert by any means - noticed something "off" about it right away, in that not all the Avengers were included. Most notably, the female Avenger - Black Widow - is absent. And apparently this is a big deal in the comic book community. As one reader has informed me: "There has been an uproar about this issue for a while on comic book, Marvel, Disney, and movie sites. They believe that no one wants Black Widow toys as girls aren’t interested in toys and boys don’t want a female action figures." 

This is indeed a hot topic; Variety posted an expose asking why Black Widow merchandise is missing, and MSNBC has reported on it. Even my local paper - The San Jose Mercury News - picked up on the story, and now actor Mark Ruffalo (who plays The Hulk) is demanding more Black Widow merchandise.

The bottom line is that Disney and Marvel - for whatever reason - are choosing not to manufacture very much Black Widow merchandise, perhaps because they don't anticipate as much demand for it as for the "boy character" products. However, a Black Widow action figure already exists. And, it's sold at Target. Which circles back to the original question: why didn't The Bullseye include Black Widow in their cute commercial? Target has posted a "behind the scenes look" at the making of the commercial, but it still doesn't answer this question.