Gatsby77

Love me some Shane Black. He sold the Lethal Weapon -script when he was just 24 years old, and the man was _in_ Predator.

Good stuff! And Argh...my Acclaim run is more than solid, but I'm still missing the Shadowman vol. 3 # 2 Good/Bad/Ugly & a few others. Anybody out there actually attempt a complete VEI set?

So...is Megaton Explosion _not_ the first appearance of Youngblood then? It's been about 20 years, but my memory of the book is their appearance is just the centerfold, and at best it's only a few members of the "away" team who later reappeared in the b-story of Youngblood 1. Static centerfold image = not necessarily first "sequential" appearance.

I know there's a whole thread on this, but is X-Men Annual 14 now the first appearance of Gambit even if, as we all now know, that was just due to a publishing delay and story-wise, it clearly takes place after 266? The Wikipedia entry for him is surprisingly accurate, noting the annual as first appearance (cameo) vs. 266 as "first full" and correctly listing Jim Lee as co-creator.

Awesome! What are the other 13 books (if you don't mind sharing!)? Other 'specials' like Golds, etc? I found Bloodshot: Last Stand at a con in a "3 for $10" box at a show in 2000. I honestly had never even heard of it but saw it was Zeck and figured it was worth a read, only to find out a few years later that it was one of the 'rare late issues'. There are a ton of funny stories about the line b/c if it's really in the "if you weren't there, you didn't know." I saw a dealer just last year explaining to a younger reader why Solar #10 was just on his wall books! Here's what I'm still missing. A+A 0 Gold Unity Trade (Diamond) # 1 Unity Trade (Diamond) # 2 Bloodshot 0 (Gold) Bloodshot 0 (Platinum) Bloodshot 6 (VVSS) Chaos Effect Alpha Deathmate Epilogue (Gold) Eternal Warrior # 27 (VVSS) Shadowman 0 (Gold) Shadowman 0 (VVSS) Turok 1 (VVSS) X-0 0 (Ivory) X-O 1/2 (Gold) I'm good with Bloodshot: Last Stand. I got a copy somewhere along the way. And this:

Ditto Goobledygook # 1. I'm not opposed to ads having significance (Megaton Explosion is so cool because the characters didn't get an actual book for another 5 years) but I'm in the "must have sequential art/story" camp for a 1st appearance. So TMNT # 1 is the (true) 1st appearance of TMNT; New Mutants 87 is the (true) 1st appearance of Cable (vs. the thumbnail ad on the last page of 86), Youngblood 1 (if anyone cared), Man of Steel 18 (even though all those previews had the pounding fist, but in mere cameos), etc.

Posted before but... Despite my active & passive Valiant collecting (and occasional hoarding) over the last 20+ years, I remain 14 books short of a full VH1 set. One of those books I was never able to get was Chaos Effect Alpha (Red). I can, however, console myself with this:

Like many, I didn't collect Valiant until Unity 0. Even though, ironically, my first ever issue of Previews listed Magnus 1 as a "Gem of the Month" _and_ when it came out, my LCS flagged Magnus 1 as their "favorite book of the month." I flipped through it & put it back -- I liked superhero, and this was sci-fi, more akin to Buck Rogers or Star Trek. Fast forward to Unity 0 & insanity. I went away to summer camp for 6 weeks and when I came back had to pay $8 for Unity 1 (regular). Fast forward a few years to 1997, I'm a freshman in college & Shadowman (vol. 2) # 1 is my favorite book of the year. Why? Garth Ennis. Zero, a stonecold psychopath, walks into a bar, tells the bartender "bear" & the bartender pours him his usual drink & brings out the teddy bear he keeps at the bar. WTF? The point -- Valiant was a large part of my comic collecting childhood, and even some of the later Acclaim stuff (Shadowman Vol. 2-3, Quantum & Woody, even later Troublemakers) was really good, even as it remains ignored by speculators. Happy to see the pre-Unity stuff get their due again. In all those years, I've yet to see Harbinger 1 in a $1 box. But I'm proud to have scored Magnus 1 & 12 from the $1 box, and found Unity 0 (red) for $4.

Interesting. I hadn't heard of those before. I guess I'll have to be content with my double-signed copy from the 1993 Deathmate Tour. At least the comic shop's still in business. But my favorite from that day was a double-signed Armorines 0 Gold -- never uploaded a photo, but that's my only "pure" gold issue -- I won it for answering a trivia question from Bernard Chang -- name 6 members of HARD Corps.

Yup. But the point is a year ago, multiple copies were sitting unsold for $325. Since the (supposed) movie announcement the price has nearly tripled. Then again, we live in an age where Damage Control is spiking due to TV/movie rumors so yeeesh... Personally, I never liked Harbinger. Other than Zephyr, the characters were pale derivatives of the X-Men, and Byrne took the concept of outcast mutants & outdid Harbinger at every turn with Next Men. But as Valiant's first original property Harbinger paved the way for much better original titles like X-O, Rai & Shadowman.

Harbinger 1's up to 152 copies in 9.8. + 17 copies in the last 6 months.

Wow...really? I thought the film was about as good and faithful adaptation as could be crammed into two hours. It actually surprised me with how good it was, and I will defend Snyder's choice not to use the squid to the death. If anything, I thought the flaw with the film (as with V for Vendetta) is just niche appeal that definitionally limits its box office -- neither Watchmen nor V were meant to appeal to broad audiences -- they're far too violent / abrasive / subversive for the mainstream popcorn movie goer who prefers the likes of Avengers or the Nolan Batman adventure flicks.

Wow -- so, nearing the end of its theatrical run, this year's FF managed an (unadjusted) domestic total about equal to that of the first (2005) FF's film's opening weekend. Dang.

Yeah -- that looks like a wishful thinking list, since 1) It's been established that Kang is owned by Fox due to the FF rights. 2) Hasn't Deathlok already appeared a few times in Agents of Shield? Not that they can't won't do more crossovers within the TV universe, but wouldn't ABC (or whomever) have priority claim to him, not Netflix?

There's that. X-Men: DOFP was an excellent X-Men movie (and superhero movie). It was, however, an abominable, horrible & adaptation of X-Men 141-142 -- they had some cojones calling it DOFP.

Interesting. Can't speak to Blade rights but Never Say Never Again was a special case because apparently Eon only owned the rights to the Ian Fleming (& subsequent) novels, while the Thunderball rights were co-owned by Fleming & original authors Kevin Mccrory / Jack Whittingham. They wrote Thunderball as an original screenplay for Bond, after which Fleming subsequently wrote the novel. Result: Once the litigation started (early 80s), Eon lost the rights to Thunderball, meaning that neither Blofeld nor SPECTRE could appear in any more Bond films (until this year -- the litigation settled last year or so). But that freed up other studios to license / remake Thunderball, hence Never Say Never Again. It could use any elements from Thunderball but not other Bond films/books -- hence its still not being counted among the official "James Bond" movies. [Which has always annoyed me -- it's far better than that same year's Octopussy, but to say it's not a Bond film is the same ridiculous argument that non-Disney MCU films shouldn't count as Marvel movies -- even if the demarcation line is largely arbitrary (ie., The Hulk isn't a Marvel movie but Incredible Hulk is. BS).]

Hah! Hadn't thought of Homer Simpson. I still bet Miles Teller, though. He's proven to be an arrogant of Russell Crowe-like proportions, but I think he does have the track record to back it up. If anything, I could see Miles Teller jumping ship on an FF sequel even if Fox does go ahead with it. Doesn't matter if he's already under contract for an FF 2 -- he has the (post-Whiplash) clout to sue to break it if he thinks the -script is (again) mess.

So when is Marvel going to stop being a little person_without_enough_empathy and start publishing FF comics again?

Yeah -- it's hard for me to understand the blanket hate of Fox as a studio when 4 out of their 5 X-Men films have been really good. And Deadpool looks good as well.

So how is Reed's disappearance & survival any more ludicrous than a similar point in the Dark Knight Rises? You know, where Bruce magically heals his broken back with a rope, & hitchhikes -- presumably from the Middle East, sans money or more than the clothes on his back -- across the dessert and back into a besieged and heavily-guarded Gotham?

Wow -- I'm surprised at how far off I was in my $45-50 million prediction of 5-6 days ago. But, given the day-by-day acceleration of this train wreck since last Wednesday, it hasn't been surprising for awhile. The most damning data point so far? Mashable's reporting even Ghost Rider 2 had a higher per-screen average take than did FF its opening weekend ($6,968 vs. $6,558), and that's not even accounting for inflation. Ouch.

I don't think the general audience knows (or cares) which studio did the film. The same way that, as a Bond fan, I get pissed that critics don't count Never Say Never Again or the 1967 Casino Royale just because they weren't produced by Albert Broccoli. Particularly with Never Say Never Again -- sure it was a remake, but it should count as an official Bond film, even if Eon doesn't own the rights & wishes it didn't exist. Incidentally, it's only because of the 2013 legal settlement re. Thunderball that Blofeld can once again appear in this November's Spectre -- the Brocolis hadn't own the rights for decades. From the dozens of reviews I've read, this is a solid FF film up to the last third. And critics are calling a 2 to 2.5 star movie. So it's mediocre & a missed opportunity, but nowhere near 1 star bad (a la Catwoman or Jonah Hex). Sort of like...most of the Roger Moore Bond films.

Not true. From what I've read in other sources, the budget stayed at $122 million despite the re-shoots because the re-shoots were entirely financed out of the reserve originally earmarked for the 3D conversion. So they didn't go over-budget, but the necessity of re-shoots is why the movie's not 3D. Source? Superhero News, subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast, Cinema Blend, Dark Horizons, & others. http://superheronews.com/matthew-vaughn-fantastic-four-reshoots/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/29/is-marvel-sabotaging-the-fantastic-four-and-x-men.html http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/37109/trank-denies-fantastic-four-reshoot-removal http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Did-Fantastic-Four-Bring-Another-Director-Reshoots-71634.html http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=120916 http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four-matthew-vaughn-josh-trank-reshoot-rumors/ http://movieweb.com/fantastic-four-movie-2015-reshoots-matthew-vaughn/ http://www.blastr.com/2015-5-26/heres-rumored-reason-why-fantastic-four-will-no-longer-be-3d So basically just internet scuttlebutt.... We'll probably never know the real budget for this movie, much like ASM2.... Yes -- internet scuttlebutt, but more reliable than your unsubstantiated conjecture that the $122 million budget didn't include the re-shoots. At the end of the day, I trust the $122 million number primarily because it's been noted by several different reporters at Forbes, whose primary mandate is to highlight the business aspect of films, and thus to get the numbers right. None of the 5 or so articles there on FF so far-- each of which go in-depth with the numbers-- have mentioned re-shoots moving or increasing the $122 million budget. Therefore the rebuttable presumption is that the amount includes the costs of the re-shoots..

Exactly. As in the known cases of 47 Ronin & Punisher: War Zone. Single director, but both "fired" (i.e., rumored to have been locked out of the editing room) following the completion of principle photography. While I do believe that Trank's role was minimized as Kinberg stepped in to help helm re-shoots & quarterback the editing (becoming the effective director in post), I don't actually believe the other rumor, that Vaughn was hired to do the re-shirts (purportedly the last third). Because: a) It wouldn't make sense to bring in an outsider to the production at that late a date; and b) I like Vaughn. I don't want to believe he had any part of this.

Not true. From what I've read in other sources, the budget stayed at $122 million despite the re-shoots because the re-shoots were entirely financed out of the reserve originally earmarked for the 3D conversion. So they didn't go over-budget, but the necessity of re-shoots is why the movie's not 3D. Source? Superhero News, subsequently picked up by The Daily Beast, Cinema Blend, Dark Horizons, & others. http://superheronews.com/matthew-vaughn-fantastic-four-reshoots/ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/29/is-marvel-sabotaging-the-fantastic-four-and-x-men.html http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/37109/trank-denies-fantastic-four-reshoot-removal http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Did-Fantastic-Four-Bring-Another-Director-Reshoots-71634.html http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=120916 http://screenrant.com/fantastic-four-matthew-vaughn-josh-trank-reshoot-rumors/ http://movieweb.com/fantastic-four-movie-2015-reshoots-matthew-vaughn/ http://www.blastr.com/2015-5-26/heres-rumored-reason-why-fantastic-four-will-no-longer-be-3d