Gatsby77

I get it. You're objective about it where I'm subjective. But you also addressed only part of my example. I'll stick with subjectivity because no one is going to convince me that a 9.2 copy of X-Force # 1 or a 9.0 copy of Walking Dead # 27 is "high grade." (At least for the next decade or so. After 2030? We'll see.)

The thread I remember here from years back settled on a consensus of 8.5 (VF+) as the lower-bound of "high-grade." That said, I'm with the subjectivity. I *still* have a hard time paying for 7.0 Bronze books, no matter how expensive they are (Hulk 181, ASM 129, etc.). Overall - 8.5 is high-grade Copper and Modern - 9.6+ is high grade For certain expensive books (TMNT 1, Albedo 2, etc.) 9.0+ is high grade. Silver Age: 9.0+ Golden Age: 6.0+ Example: Detective 1-50 in 6.0 is high-grade, whereas The Walking Dead 1-100 in 9.4 is not.

Partially right. Depends on the fame (and public associations) surrounding the character, as well as the original source. For instance, Universal made "Snow White & the Huntsman" and its sequel because it was based on the Grimm's fairy tale, not the Disney movie.

Disney actually needs a deal like this in the near future, as their original IP (including Mickey Mouse) begins to revert to the public domain starting on Jan. 1, 2019.

This. I know we're all comic book geeks, but the comic book properties were a footnote here. Disney was playing for the tons of other Fox IP. Also - misleading title. Universal still holds partial claim to any solo Hulk title.

Yeah. But it's more subtle than that. And _much_ bigger than playing for some comics characters. This is more about Fox realizing they don't have the content to compete in streaming. Fox eviscerated their IP when they sold Lucasfilm (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) to Disney. Aliens: Covenant, Independence Day: Resurgence, and War for the Planet of the Apes all woefully underperformed. Fox would rather sell now than make the R&D investments in a dedicated streaming service and high quality original small-screen content. Now -- if you were *really* a conspiracy theorist you might think Disney intentionally tanked The Inhumans TV show to dissuade Fox from pursuing another Generation X or X-Men show of its own. But I don't think that's the case -- this is about far more IP than just Marvel.

Yes - the proposed deal would give Disney all of those, as well as Modern Family, The X-Files, and Family Guy.

Here's a Forbes article on it. By someone other than my boy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alishagrauso/2017/11/06/21st-century-fox-has-been-in-talks-to-sell-majority-of-company-to-disney/#7279a77d1b2d Basic thrust -- With the Star Wars franchise gone, Fox doesn't think they have enough original content to launch their own streaming service a la Netflix, Hulu, Showtime, HBO Go or (most recently) CBS All Access. Related: Disney's expected to launch their own streaming service next year, so enjoy films like Rouge One & Dr. Strange on Netflix while you can. Intriguing, but not as left field for me as Amazon buying Whole Foods or CVS making a credible play to buy Aetna.

Sure. But comparing anything to Avengers or Force Awakens numbers isn't fair -- that's like comparing every movie of the last 20 years to Titanic. To be clear, I absolutely think Star Wars will break $1.1 billion worldwide but doubt Justice League will do so -- based more that it looks like than on the anticipation for it. Also -- consider that Box Office analysts blamed last weekend's poor box office, at least in part, on people staying home to binge Season 2 of Stranger Things. Given we now live in that environment, I think it's no mistake that Netflix rescheduled Punisher to debut directly against Justice League -- hoping it will mute its first weekend.

I disagree. Yes - stuff's streaming for $5 within five months now, but folks will still want to go to the theater for big event films. They'll do it for Thor, they'll do it for Star Wars, and they'll even do it for Transformers 6 next year (or whenever), as well as Fast & the Furious 9 or whatever.

Collecting from 1989-1993 was an absolute blast -- great time to be a kid comic collector. I'd throw in Batman as well. Dang. Batman 400-500 was about as solid a run as one could do in a 7 year period. So many classic stories: Year One 10 Nights of the Beast Death in the Family Many Deaths of Batman Lonely Place of Dying Joker's Return Dark Knight, Dark City Knightfall Okay - maybe skip 460-485 or so, but 400-457 and 488-500 were amazing.

Greg - since this thread's been resurrected, I can answer that no - foreign reprints tend to be all books from a given run, not just greatest hits. I can speak about two specifics -- first, I've got Mexican reprints of the first 28 issues of the Gold Key Magnus issues, although they were printed roughly 5-6 years later. For more modern books, my dad went to Italy every summer in the early 90s. I've got books like Wolverine # 41, but also Wolverine # 35 in Italian, as well as Kevin Smith's Daredevil # 1 and # 3; X-Men # 219; Black Panther (1990s) # 1, Punisher War Journal # 30; some random Web of Spider-Man issues, etc. I also lived in Tokyo in 1998. As popular as Manga is there, it was _very_ rare to see any American comics. In a year of searching, the two I came across were Spawn # 1 and Spawn # 3. For the Italian editions, they generally did two issues at a time, with only one issue on the cover. So in some cases the key's not shown. I don't have any specific examples but can imagine instances where say...New Mutants 86 is on the cover but the issue contains New Mutants 87 as well, etc. For this reason, the numbers don't correlate either -- Spider-Man in Italian is "L'uomo Ragno" but the series reprinted from among all the Spider-Man titles at once, so it could be an issue Spectacular and an issue of Amazing; next issue an issue of Web and Amazing, etc. It's actually just dumb luck that ASM 300 happens to be on the cover of the Italian version & not 299.

Fun fact: PWJ # 1 was the highest print run modern book until Legends of the Dark Knight # 1 came out. Doesn't matter. I started collecting when it was a $12, then $20 wall book. I love PWJ # 1-19. I'll also pick up Silver Surfer 34-51 or so when I see them. And yes -- Youngblood # 1. Just 'cuz.

Exactly. Disney has been guilty of this too, and Kenner before them? When they first started re-releasing Star Wars figures back in 1995, the rarest (and thus, most valuable) ones? Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian. Because they didn't think female or African American toys would sell. History repeated itself this summer, when they released a version of Star Wars Monopoly that omitted Rey due to "insufficient interest."

This. Exactly this. Writing is what makes the really good comic book films stand out, not incidental demographics. It could be The Dark Knight, Winter Soldier, Wonder Woman or freaking Guardians of the Galaxy (seriously - who thought that was a good idea? And yet - it worked). The common denominator was each of those films told amazing stories, regardless of the characters involved. Conversely, it's poor writing that led to some of our biggest disappointments (looking at you, Suicide Squad, BvS and Amazing Spider-Man 2).

I think WB knows they have a turkey on their hands -- a disjointed CGI mess, despite Joss Whedon's best efforts in editing and with adding more Wonder Woman (and Themiscyra) scenes. That said, there's something to be said for the secrecy angle too. (Although, Warner Bros. has proven they've run a tight ship -- and managed to keep Matt Damon's appearance in Interstellar a secret under embargo despite early previews) I think there's zero chance we don't see Green Lantern in this film. Again - the original Aquaman poster said "Unite the Seven" -- makes far more sense to be referencing the seven members of the Justice League than the seven seas. So, it's a given that Superman returns, and Green Lantern appears. If they add Supergirl and/or Darkseid on top of that, we may be in for a treat.

I like it. He's a good actor, and will bring a wry humor to the role. And if Hollywood can turn Parks & Rec-era Chris Pratt into an action star, they can certainly bulk Zach Levi up as well.

Just saw this last night. _Amazing_ film. And it did the impossible -- was a more than worthy sequel to the original. If you had asked me even two years ago I would have said even trying to do a sequel to the original was a stupid idea, and yet somehow Villeneuve and company pulled it off. It helped that the orginal screenwriter was involved as well. Stunning, if slow moving. But I think the pacing (and...to an extent) acting problems were equally present flaws in the original, so they're forgivable. Loved the ending too. Don't want to see a sequel.

Here's crappy photos of the CGC 9.4 U.S. version, as well as Spanish and French. Don't have a photo of the Italian version (the insides of which are in black & white) right now.

I've got Magnus, Robot Fighter # 1 (the 1963 Gold Key one) in CGC 9.4 as well as raw VG to Fine foreign versions in: Spanish Italian French (dated 1968-1973)

1982 wasn't bad. Conan, Tron, & Tootsie come to mind as well. Plus First Blood & Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I'm impressed that since the film's release, most of the discussion here has been about the plot rather than the box office. Good job, gents!

I'm ridiculously in for this! Impressed that Fox has framed this as a straight horror film. So refreshing when I was expecting "Junior X-Men 7." Fox made motions towards horror with the last FF film but then lost the courage to see it through, ending up with disjointed weak sauce. Now I've got to go read Demon Bear...

On the other end of the spectrum, I once saw Spice World opening day at a 4:00 pm matinee. At then-age 23, my date & I were the _by far_ the oldest people in the theater.

I'm sure y'all saw that when the actuals came out, It actually came in second, beaten by Kingsman 2 by less than $36,000. First time in awhile I've seen such deviation between Sunday projections and weekend actuals in terms of the top 3. Kingsman 2 was estimated to have come in third behind It (# 1) and American Made (# 2). All three movies ultimately finished within ~$160,000 of each other.