Gatsby77

? Maybe not those characters, but the "man hating" is absolutely there in the books - the whole arc with the Daughters of the Amazon, which also leads to his sister's rebellion and her reconciliation w/ Yorick.

He absolutely can act. He played MC Ren in Straight Outta Compton and was the primary antagonist (rival quarterback) in the first two seasons of Friday Night Lights. Also - fun fact - he had bit parts in both Die Hard 3 (1995) and Die Hard 5 (2013).

Not surprising, given that the show never even got traction here - comic geek central. And honestly, after the first episode, I never felt compelled to go back and finish Season 1. I did, however, reach out to my bookshelf and reread the first two trades. Still a great series.

This looks really good.

I rank episode 6 (Gganbu) as the best episode of television of the pandemic era (2020 or 2021). Only thing I've seen that comes close is the final episode of Queen's Gambit.

Still - I stand by the rest of my points - Conan would still have been a success with Buscema at the helm from issue 1.

I fundamentally disagree with this. And, more importantly, so does Roy Thomas. Check out his 6-page article "A $50 Misunderstanding" at the back of Chronicles of Conan Vol. 1, that reprints # 1-8. A few things stand out: 1) John Buscema was the first choice to draw Conan from the jump, but was too expensive, given the additional licensing fees Marvel had to pay. 2) Gene Colan was the likely second choice but same story - too expensive. 3) Conan was *not* a big seller out-of-the-gate -- and, contrary to the Overstreet's Guide and fiction perpetuated for decades, issue # 3 didn't have a low print run. Rather, sales for each issue after # 1 steadily decreased until rebounding with issue # 8. So, per Roy Thomas himself, Conan # 7 is lowest print run issue of the first 24 or so, and # 8 basically saved the book from cancellation. Add in the fact that the mafia heavily speculated on Conan # 1 - and helped manipulate its price as a new back issue during the first few months, it would likely have been a hit even if Buscema had drawn it rather than BWS. But the primary point here is BWS's art got notice, but sales decreased from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4...until around 8-12, and Marvel themselves didn't even know this in real time, because they only got final sales numbers months after the fact. Finally, today there's not a demonstrable difference in high-grade back issue prices of the #10-24 issues Gil Kane drew (12, 17-18) vs. Smith. If anything, # 12 is extraordinarily expensive - because it's nearly impossible to find in 9.6 or 9.8 - but because of its black cover, nothing to do with the (non-BWS) artist. (Less than 25 copies in CGC 9.8 or 9.6 combined).

New to this topic, but I remember well all the Him / Warlock and *every Thanos appearance ever* debates from 30+ years ago, when Infinity Gauntlet first came out and suddenly everyone in the world was chasing the 70s cosmic books. FF # 67 is the first appearance. Marvel Premiere # 1 is the more important appearance - and a book I cared far more about than either of the FF books. I never cared about the Thor appearances - because (as noted at the very beginning of this thread) - they happened more than 2 years after Him first appeared - in FF 67. Full stop. First cover? Only matters in the CGC era. I needed to do it at the time but I regret selling my Marvel Premiere 1 copies now (CGC 9.6, 9.0 & 8.5). It - and Warlock # 1 - are *evil* to find in 9.6 or above. No regrets whatsoever about having sold FF 66-67 (5.0 raw copies picked up years ago for maybe $10 apiece).

U mad, bro?

Denny O'Neil. His work on Batman alone qualifies - as he put the cheesy sci-fi stories of the 1950s and campy TV-show'esque stories of the 1960s firmly in the rear view nearly from the jump, with Batman 217. Batman moves from Wayne Manor & the Batcave to Wayne Towers down-town so he can be better positioned to tackle white collar crime; Grayson leaves to go to college; and the actual mystery - "One Bullet Too Many" is about as Sherlock Holmes-y as you can find in a comic book. He made the Joker scary again, brought back Two-Face, gave us Ra's Al Ghul and Talia, and even gave us the tragic character of Man-Bat. Green Lantern - it's easy to forget now in the CGC era but for 20+ years Green Lantern 76 was considered more notable for its story - and overtly confronting American racism - than for its cover. And over the next dozen issues Green Lantern and Green Arrow tackled everything from cults to drug addiction - to say nothing of introducing John Stewart. Superman underwent a similar modernization - with Perry White fired, Clark moving from newspaper reporter to broadcast TV anchor, etc. O'Neil made a concerted effort to bring superheroes into the modern "real" world of the early 70s - and gave the template for the type of "realistic" superhero portrayals we'd see in films decades later. See also de-powering both Oliver Queen and Diana Prince. This doesn't even count the work he'd do in the '80s, ranging from helping develop The Transformers to editing all the Batman titles for 15+ years.

What do you mean "new normal?" BvS grossed 2.0x its opening weekend. Justice League a whole 2.44x. Oh...wait...

1. He didn't, actually. All those graphics were actually in Luiz Fernando's tweet itself. Partial screenshot below. 2. I don't understand - you post Luiz Fernando's positive tweet yesterday about Venom 2's seemingly good Monday-Monday hold (that disregards that yesterday was a holiday) and then don't like it when someone else posts a more accurate Tuesday-Tuesday comparison Luiz Fernando tweet the very next day? As Paperheart noted, this will limp its way to $200M domestic, but not come close to the total of its predecessor. Which is fine, respectable even (pandemic and all).

Agree. I think it's a true 9.0 in a 9.2 slab. Also - TMNT # 1 is one of those fragile books where pressing's just as likely to result in additional cracks/creases than not. 100% not worth the risk.

Sure...but the first Venom film opened on the 3-day holiday weekend. For this one, the second Monday was the holiday, so *of course* it held better than its predecessor. Context matters, kids!

This. 100%.

1) Yes - because it's stealing a job from otherwise qualified people who fit the actual cultural (and - from the employers' perspective - desired) background. 2) You're misunderstanding. Fraud is fraud - material misrepresentation. Here, his cultural appropriation is a subset of his fraud (lying on his resume - and in media interviews, etc.). This is fraud - which is wrong and illegal. It's *also* cultural misrepresentation. No different than if he'd stolen valor by pretending to have been a military veteran.

Doesn't matter. Corporate America is littered with the dead careers of former rising stars and/or executives who were fired for lesser instances of fraud. One example? Scott Thompson - former CEO of Yahoo! He came to Yahoo! after having been a CTO and President of PayPal. He was fired when it was discovered he lied on his resume about having received a Computer Science degree from his undergrad decades earlier. Dozens of other examples. This is worse - not just fraud, but cultural appropriation.

Yes - that's what I'm saying. But whether it's true or not is irrelevant - because the issue is CB himself clearly thought it was true. This wasn't just adopting a pen name, a la Stan Lee. He literally invented a whole fake childhood and backstory and gave interviews in which he pretended he was Japanese. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/19/the-curious-tale-of-the-marvel-comics-editor-who-pretended-to-be-a-japanese-writer/ So: 1) He knowingly violated Marvel's corporate policy of not allowing editors to be paid simultaneously as writers; and 2) He lied about his identity - pretending to be an under-represented minority (at least, within Marvel) to further his career. That's reprehensible. See also Rachel Dolezal

I'm with DeKnight on this one. Resume fraud is resume fraud, full stop. No different than folks claiming to have a degree that they don't in order to land a job. CB wouldn't have gotten the work he got for Marvel, Dark Horse, etc., had he used his true identity. And - in the process - he arguably stole the job with somebody who actually had that cultural identity. And I say this as a fellow white American who speaks Japanese - that doesn't make me Asian. Also - DeKnight was the showrunner on the bulk of Daredevil Season 1 after Goddard left. That's far from insignificant.

I’d definitely categorize Squid Game as more psychological thriller than action. And overall, it’s probably not as good as Battle Royale - but I’ve been amazed at how the series has tapped into something visceral and resonated broadly in our culture: # 1 in 90 countries on Netflix last weekend, still # 1 in the US this weekend - and it’s inspired hundreds of memes - plus, I’ve heard about it from more friends and colleagues than any show since Queen’s Gambit. I’ll check out Iris. Thanks!

Or…it could be that the first one was Ghost Rider-bad - and this looks like more of the same. That said. Waiting for JayDog’s review…

Sure - but in my case, this happened before CGC existed. And - who would think to check copies of a modern like Captain America 241, esp. when it's in a $1-$5 box?

It is. Similar experience and disappointment.

Plus, this has been an issue as far back as the 1970s, with the Famous First Editions. Yes, they were bigger than the original issues, but if you pulled off the outer cover, they were absolutely identical. And some disreputable dealers sold them as the original books. And...I actually got scammed by some of the JC Penney's reprints as well, although this was in the mid-90s. Specific issues were X-Men # 60 and Captain America # 241.

Yes - from what I understand, Amazon's purchase of MGM was contingent on honoring EON's demands re. the Bond franchise. Specifically, that: Bond films go exclusively theatrical-first in perpetuity; and EON retains veto power over casting.