Gatsby77

I mean, it wasn’t good - slightly less enjoyable than Triple Frontier / The Old Guard / 6 Underground. except those all had endings that made sense and were internally consistent with the universe the film had established. On the other hand, this was one of the highest-grossing theatrical releases of the year 🤣 so I get why Diesel would consider a sequel.

Not to be a hater, as I read all of and enjoyed Quantum & Woody (at least, the original series), but if Amazon could barely keep The Tick afloat for two seasons, I don’t really see this moving forward.

Was glad to see this is available to rent via streaming for $6, rather than say...$10 or $20. I'm also wondering if it may get a higher profile now given how popular Anya Taylor-Joy is following her performance in The Queen's Gambit. I just finished that series yesterday and it -- and she -- were phenomenal.

I'm pretty sure that my paying $7 for Hulu and $7 for Disney+ = close to the amount I'm paying monthly for Netflix anyway, but with far less content. Mandalorian aside, the best thing I've seen on Disney+ so far was Hamilton.

I'd like some help identifying this image. I thought it was Rob Liefeld's cover to Deathstroke (2012 / New 52) # 13, but googling online it looks like it wasn't actually used as the published cover. Was it used as a variant cover? If not, was it used elsewhere?

I don't miss theaters in general, but there are maybe two dozen blockbusters I feel absolutely privileged to have seen on the big screen. These include: Ghostbusters Batman ('89) T2 Jurassic Park Titanic Lord of the Rings trilogy Gladiator Inception Interstellar Gravity Avengers Wonder Woman Alien (re-release) Lawrence of Arabia (re-release)

Nah. AMC will go bankrupt; Amazon will buy them and by early 2022 movie theaters will be back.

I think Portacio definitely improved from the early to the mid-90s. Like...his Punisher stuff was good; his X-Factor/Uncanny X-Men work was phenomenal. For consistency, I'd go with: Jim Lee (love him or hate him, he's pretty much doing the same high quality work now for DC that he did on X-Men and WildCATS). And Jim Aparo. My generation's Batman artist. Full stop. From the mid-70s through the early '90s, his Batman work was just...solid.

+1000. Loved his work on Daredevil and even the highly stylized Dark Knight Returns. He lost me with Sin City. Yeah - I *get it* but it's like he took the style he'd started in Dark Knight Returns and blew up into crazy caricatures. Haven't seen any of his *actually* recent stuff (last 20 years), but Daredevil vs. Sin City is like two separate artists. And Neal Adams. *Loved* his pre-1980 work, couldn't stand his more recent style, that I think started with Continuity. His more recent work can be excellent (The All-Star Superman # 1 variant) or horrid (Batman: Odyssey # 1 nearly made my eyes bleed). I'll go the other way, too, though. Mike Mignola improved to me once he developed his unique style - basically starting with Hellboy. That said, I'd put his career-best work as the covers to Death in the Family, back when he was still in his "mainstream artist" mode.

It's true, though. Nobody knew the movie would be a hit when the comic came out more than a month beforehand - and even 20th Century Fox thought it would bomb. It deserves to be a major Bronze key - and by your "comic total market cap" calculation, I'd wager it's fairly high up there. What other books sell for $200+ in 9.0, but are so *ridiculously* common (more than 6,000 copies on the census at 9.0 or higher)?

BUT re. # 1, Star Wars # 1 came out six weeks or so before the film was released. So technically, the comic came first.

No idea - haven't read the issue in 25+ years, but I remember it continued from 275, with the Starjammers, Death Bird, and the Skrulls.

Pondering this further, I think - print runs aside - Lee's work is hurt by never staying consistently on one title for more than a year. His Uncanny X-Men run (arguably his most popular) was 18 random issues scattered over 30. And itself leads to disagreement over 266 - since he created Gambit but didn't draw either of his first two appearances. The sweet spot for his consecutive runs seems to be 11-12 issues (Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, WildCATS, Divine Right, Batman, Superman). I'm pretty sure that, to this day, his longest consecutive run was just 13 issues (Punisher War Journal 1-13). Which makes it hard for him to build a truly iconic run (a la Byrne on X-Men or FF, Miller on Daredevil, McFarlane on Amazing Spider-Man or Hulk, Bagley on Ultimate Spider-Man, or even Liefeld on New Mutants). Has he surpassed 13 consecutive issues recently, say...on Justice League or even Suicide Squad? Also - this is my vote for an iconic Lee cover - blew me away on the shelf. (And no - it turns out that's not actually Prof. X on the cover).

I *loved* that run. In addition to 6-7, I still remember the stories in 14-15 (hostage situation in a school, w/ Spider-Man) and 17-19 (drug smugglers in Hawaii - where Microchip tries to come to the rescue by juggling a gun through a metal detector at the airport and, IIRC, Frank leaves one of the perps in quicksand to be eaten by an alligator).

And that right there, reinforces my argument for X-Men 256-257 (only because I forget which issue the Japanese Psylocke first actually appeared in). Worlds away from the British cloaked version of Betsy. And, unlike Gambit (who, despite his film appearance in Origins: Wolverine, peaked in the '90s) she's actually still around.

? The show runner / primary writer on Jessica Jones was also a woman, although the original books were written by Bendis (who also wrote House of M). And Magneto was the ultimate villain in House of M, although rumor is they may switch it to Mephisto for the show.

I'd be really into this if the rumors are true - that it's a "House of M"-style Wanda on a psychotic break, and then Dr. Strange has to go do mop up/clean up and fix it in Multiverse of Madness. Given what Marvel did with Jessica Jones Season One, there's precedent for taking this one *really* dark.

Zendaya's stock just rose considerably last night with her becoming the youngest-ever woman to win the Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama. And she won against formidable talent, including Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Coleman, Jodie Comer, Laura Linney and Sandra Oh.

I've long maintained Star Wars # 1 is a major Bronze key and its value is simply hurt by the ridiculous print run. Through all printings, there were more than 1 million of these. Non-superhero, but well worthy of respect.

I’m dead serious - it’s an important book, just like Spider-Man (1990) # 1 is. The book sold 8 million+ copies, introduced new costumes that carried through to the cartoon (and - arguably) the X-Men films and set up the Blue Team / Gold Team split that carried through the next few years. It may never be valuable because of its print run but it is one of the must-have X-Men books - and arguably, comic books, period - of the decade. It was also the book that gave Lee the power to leave the title in less than a year to co-found Image. Finally, value doesn’t equate to “key” but I find it incredible that 9.8s sell for $60-$90 shipped, given its 8 million+ copies. If it had sold just 500,000 copies, it’d be a $300-$400 book today.

This thread hurts my heart a little, if only because people seem to be equating "key" with "valuable" and/or "first appearance" and or "first appearance with a movie appearance imminent." Back when I was collecting in the 1990s, "key" meant "important" - and/or "more valuable than surrounding issues" - and included a lot of books that weren't first appearances. Just because Lee's output doesn't have a first Venom or first Deadpool in his run doesn't mean his vast body of work is devoid of keys. And - as has been noted, one of the things that inhibits the value of most of his books is that they were so popular, the print runs were sky high. That out of the way, my short-list follows: 1) X-Men 248 - first X-Men book, the team that made him a superstar. A bit of a nostalgic cheat, as it was also the first issue of X-Men I ever bought off the stands, but it was a $20 key for years - and deservedly so, the equivalent of ASM 298, Daredevil 158, X-Men 108, etc. 2) Punisher War Journal 1 - the highest-print run modern book prior to Legends of the Dark Knight # 1, first (non-magazine) origin of the Punisher, and the book (and run) that made Punisher a superstar. 3) X-Men 266 - Yes - he didn't pencil the issue, but he did co-create Gambit, designing his look. 4) Punisher War Journal 6-7 -- one of the most hyped meetings of the '80s, and lived up to it. Dinosaurs and iconic covers. 30+ years later, I see the cover to # 7 and still remember the dialogue from inside that went with it, Frank saying "Runt gave me a sawed-off shotgun" 5) X-Men # 1 - Highest print-run comic book ever, and mostly due to his art. 'nuff said. It may never be valuable, but it's a god-damn key issue if ever there was one. 6) Batman Black & White # 1 (1996) - His first Batman art. Lee's on record as saying "You can't really have a career without drawing Batman" and not only is his Hush run iconic (one of the best Batman stories of the last 40 years) but this presaged his eventually selling Wildstorm to DC, signing exclusively with DC and rising to eventually become the editorial head / publisher of DC Comics. 7) WildCATS # 1 - again - will *never* be valuable due to its then-record print run, but it's the first appearance of a major Image team that went on to have a cartoon and action figure line. 8) X-Men # 256/257 -- First new Psylocke. I'd argue that (like Hush), this is the most significant "first appearance" penciled by Lee - sure, Psylocke had been around before since her Captain Britain days but she was never popular until turned into a hot Asian assassin with a psy-knife. Essentially a totally new character.

This is ridiculous. Everyone *knows* there's a pandemic. It's okay to admit that Tenet will lose money -- or that perhaps it shouldn't have had a theatrical release this early.

Sure. But I'm not sure the end of the era of "hyper-masculine" movies is a bad thing. I had this discussion with a friend 8 years ago - he was pissed that Liam Neeson was considered a big action star following Taken, The Grey, etc. The Rock can still open movies - as can Vin Diesel (w/ Fast and the Furious, at least) but both have shown greater range as actors in other work - and Liam Neeson stars in more pure action films than either. I watched all three Expendables films. I'm good there, thanks. Much rather see more Fast and the Furious (which are now Ocean's 11-style multi-ethnic heist films) flicks. And Mission Impossible: Fallout was the best pure action film I've seen this decade. That says something.

Yeah - I liked the Jack Reacher films (particularly the first one), but the original trailer was an overt slap in the face of fans by: 1) Casting someone of Cruise's height 2) Putting him behind the wheel of a car

That's what I wanted to ask about -- the sound mixing. Multiple reviews have said the score is so loud you can't hear the dialogue at multiple points. Is that true?