sfcityduck

Comedy relief is probably the only use for Hulk.

Voice over attack on Eternals as a "diverse flop" while running film of Nanjiani, making fun of "Egyptian superhero," etc. Watch it again. Broader point is that racism, sexism, and religious hatred are all forms of bigotry. I'm with Stan Lee on bigotry.

Has there even been a good Hulk? If you say "Bill Bixby" I ROFLMAO! Worst character ever. He literally has no goals and nothing to say.

Watch video at 12:39 mark on.

More accurately, Marvel has been a voice for diversity for a long, long time. It is the most "woke" (in the correct meaning of that term) comic company. Here's a Stan's Soapbox from 1968 after the killing of MLK and Robert Kennedy: Marvel readers, you can be sure, noticed Stan Lee’s support of civil rights. One reader wrote Stan in 1969 to complain about Marvel’s support for civil rights, ending his letter by stating “I’m not a racist, just a concerned Marvelite who doesn’t want his favorite comic company to be ruined by something that doesn’t concern you as comic publishers.” Stan’s published response in the letters page of the comic?: “But, such matters as racism and inequality do concern us, Tim — not just as comic mag artists and writers and publishers, but as human beings. Certainly it’s never been our intention to portray all, or even most, white Americans as hard-core bigots or screaming racists. Maybe it’s just that we think that many people in the land of the free have too long turned their backs or averted their eyes to the more unpleasant things that are going on every day. Maybe we felt we could do something — even within the relatively humble format of what used to be called a ‘comic-book’ – to change things just a bit for the better. If we failed, let’s just say that we’d at least like to have it said of us that — we tried.” Shortly before his death, Stan posted a video in which he stated: ."Marvel has always been and always will be a reflection of the world right outside our window. That world may change and evolve, but the one thing that will never change is the way we tell our stories of heroism. Those stories have room for everyone, regardless of their race, gender or color of their skin. The only things we don’t have room for are hatred, intolerance and bigotry.” That guy in the video would not have agreed with Stan Lee in 1968 or even today. Diverse casting in a Spiderman movie (black Gwen, black Nick Fury, black Ned, SpiderGwen, etc.) doesn't ruin the movie. It's bad storytelling that ruins a movie. The video guy's focus on the diverse casting (or not hot enough females) and not the storytelling tells me more than I want to know about that guy. His analysis is embarrassingly bad.

Or its very very big. You are acting like 7,000 people is a big deal. While it is to them, its only about 4% of Disney's workforce. This is not an Elon Musk level failure where Twitter has laid off over 50% of its workforce or even where Tesla laid off 10% froze hiring and is doing more layoffs soon. As for the stock, what entertainment company is where it was 2 years ago? Or tech company? Elon Musk used to be worth $340B. Now he fluctuates around half that due to the decreased stock prices of his companies.

Disney stock is up over 7% on the year to date. DIS is a consensus "buy" among analysts. Why? Disney revenue for the quarter ending December 31, 2022 was $23.512B, a 7.76% increase year-over-year. Disney revenue for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $84.415B, a 15.66% increase year-over-year. Disney annual revenue for 2022 was $82.722B, a 22.7% increase from 2021. It's a tough environment for cinema and theme parks, and they seem to be bouncing back ok.

The recent shake-up was apparently because the executive was abusive.

Yep. The problem is not recasting. Its the concept of an event driven MCU. They need to be more creative in their story direction instead of papering over the cracks by merely changing characters. For me, Spiderman is the success story. Three different live action takes on the same material with a focus on the human story, and the third take includes a retcon at the end. Plus a different animated feature film with yet a different take on the material which was super enjoyable. Spiderman as a concept is stronger for those movies - and it did not matter at all that we had a black Gwen, black Ned, black Nick Fury, Latino Spiderman, SpiderGwen, etc. during the course of those movies. Folks who complain about diversity are focused on the wrong factor. What matters is storytelling. Good storytelling is much better than badly implemented nostalgia and fan service. The heading of this thread is an embarrassment and its implication is wrong. The MCU has tied itself to a formula that has run its course for now. They should have continued on with more standalone type movies for a while. But they aren't going to change the formula because they are still making gobs of money: * Antman & The Wasp is making more than Antman did. * Wakanda Forever made more money than every Thor movie. .* Spiderman: No Way Home is the no. 3 highest grossing Marvel movie. * Multiverse of Madness made almost a $1B. * Thor Love and Thunder made over $750M. They aren't going in the wrong direction from a monetary perspective, especially given the present state of cinema. But, it is my belief that they are going to hit a wall that just changing characters won't solve. They aren't learning from the mistakes made in the comics. They are repeating them.

I said aging actors not aging characters, and I praised the recasting of Spider-Man. But ultimately the problem is the MCU event driven structure. A lot of fans are driven by nostalgia and resist change (I recall outrage on this site about Miles Morales). New X-Men featured three diverse characters in 1975 and two were immediately excused leaving a single black woman. My recollection is fans got a bit upset about iceman later. But that is pretty much irrelevant because I agree the issue is storytelling and the MCU has largely chosen formula and fan service over story precisely because it appears to sell better … in the short term. Long term I think it is a formula for irrelevance.

Not much “character” to work with when it comes to Thor, Hulk, and Namor. The Thor movies worked best when they focused on the comedy not Asgard. Loki works well for the same reason. Hulk never works. And Subby is the Aquaman of the MU - a fatally flawed concept that should be ignored. I liked Agent Carter quite a lot. The Black Widow movie and Hawkeye tv show was an interesting human thread. WandaVision may have been the most creative idea that Marvel has ever had. I’d rather see stories like those than obvious fan service.

The problem with MCU is not that it now includes minority or diverse characters. That is only a problem if you are an insecure white guy. The problem is they went too big too soon with the phases concept and shared universe and they are in a straight jacket. Too many characters in a movie, no character development, so all you are left with to create drama is pointless “deaths” and “events” which are (1) boring, (2) fan service, and (3) by their nature universe reshaping. It is the same problem the comics have. The best Marvel movies are and remain the Spider-Man movies and those are on their fifth retcon. They have focused on the same compelling human story and when they stray too far from it they do a new version. It produces good movies but how often can you keep that up? The challenge for the MCU is staying fresh. You cannot do that by relying on a bunch of aging actors. So change is inevitable. Unfortunately MCU did not decide to change the stale “event” driven formula also. Would have been smarter to freshen up the formula along with actors. Loki was a smart approach. Sort of the Andor of MCU. Hawkeye was fun fan service like Mandalorian. Maybe Marvel would be better off getting out of the MCU and focusing on marque tv and more stand alone cinema that allows for more creativity.

Did you buy these volumes from Heritage back in 2008 or were the bound volumes dispersed first and you had to piece them back together? I see that back in 2008 they had a volume with 7 and 10-21, so I'm guessing we'll see another gap at the beginning of the run? Given how fresh the comics look and how old the binding looks, I don't doubt these could have been bound by Fawcett. But how do you know? Heritage did not say that in the listing. Love your volumes - makes me very open to buying bound copies!

Just got to add, for Duck collectors focused on more than covers, Good Housekeeping is a more important publication than Mickey Mouse Magazine.

It is a cool back cover. But I know of two earlier non-ad appearances of Daisy Duck. [Edited to include] Daisy's true first appearance in print (1939): First appearance of Daisy "prototype" "Donna Duck" in print (1937): BUT, it might be a legit claim that "Donna Duck" should be viewed as Daisy especially in light of this panel from WDC&S no. 1 (taken from low quality reprint) of a scene in Daisy's first animated appearance (as "Daisy" - the mystery is why WDC&S slipped and called her by the earlier name of "Donna". My assumption is that was the original name of the character when they storyboarded the cartoon and that's the name the artist saw when drawing this illustration): EXCEPT that later on Disney made clear Donna and Daisy are two different persons:

Up three points with a game in hand. Notts County no longer controls their destiny. Wrexham fans are getting a little crazy about Mint Mobile being acquired by T-Mobile for $1.35B. They seem to think that means Ryan Reynolds is a billioniare and can provide unlimited funding for their dreams. He's not. He's only making $300M or so. So his net worth is only up to about a half billion. He's going to have to up his productivity to get Wrexham into the Premier League!

A license is usually only required for a shipment of alcohol. The only time I show a license is for receipt of packages from a wine club. The drivers rarely scan the id (it is just the back of the id) but instead just ask me to flash it.

Quick question: Am I tripping or were there smaller than magazine sized versions of the early issues?

I get that some folks have grade standards. But many GA collectors of mega keys do not opt have that attitude towards those books. They will pay huge bucks for a fugly comic and epic prices for a highest graded or best reasonably available. The highest graded Superman 1 is going to punch above its grade weight.

Now this is an argument that I understand. If there are multiple better known raw books out there, then buying a CGC 5.0 just because it is momentarily the "highest graded" makes little sense if what you really want is the "best copy." And if you know what you are looking at in a CGC 5.0 may turn out to be the third or fourth or fifth best copy, I can see why demand would be low.

In this example you can get the top graded CMA 1 for about the same price as the fifth highest WW1. Just seems the boasting rights for top graded rare CGC 5.0 GA (1/2 - none higher) key are higher than for fifth tier CGC 7.5 (1/7 - 16 higher). Which begs question why? My answer: Same as the kid’s - rarity, ironically and nonsensically, drives down prices in this hobby sometimes.

The point that this book illustrates is this question: What SHOULD impact price more - grade or relative grade? Example: What is more desirable to you?: * Highest graded CMA 1 (1941 - 37 blue - tied with one other) or * Fourth highest graded WW 1 (1942 - 121 blue - tied with 9 others and 6 presently higher) or even fifth highest (tied with 7 others and 16 presently higher). The market seems irrational to me when grade is more important than relative grade for equivalent books. Especially when there has been an explosion in the population of higher grade WW 1s in recent years.

If you want the highest graded copy of a mega key of one of the most important GA superhero’s then this may be your one chance. To me CMA 1 is like Superman 1 - the low grade of the highest graded copy should not hold it back. Best is best and price should reflect that. So I tend to think the upside for this book may be good - especially if Blissard’s DAd is not potentially sitting on a “best” ungraded copy like he is with so many other books like Superman 1.

eBay seller "Blissard" put up on eBay for $100K one of the two highest graded Captain Marvel Adventures 1. Captain Marvel Adventures #nn (#1) Shazam Highest Graded Fawcett 1941 CGC 5.0 | eBay Questions abound: Does his family's collection include a better copy? Actually, Blissard answered that one in his listing: "I actually own the other 5.0 copy (and I have no intention of ever selling it), so the one offered here is truly the best available copy that you may ever come across." Really interesting answer! Was he talking about his personally collected books or books in the family collection. Who owns the Church copy? The other 5.0 sold in 2009 on Heritage. It has higher ow page quality but some glue and staples sufficiently ready to detach that Heritage advised against cracking it out. Here's what Heritage had to say about the other 5.0: Is there any other GA superhero mega-key with a lower graded "highest graded" copy? Is $100K too high, too low, or just right? Blissard has this to say: "I paid $38k for this book (in 2016); since then, there have been two Shazam movies, a Black Adam movie, and prices of virtually every Golden Age key have seen substantial growth. This one has admittedly lagged behind, largely due to the fact that there are simply no nice copies of this book out there (it's hard for a book to gain momentum when copies almost never come up for sale)." Does anyone care?