fantastic_four

Who's the hero of Infinity War--the Avengers or Thanos? I'm still not sure it isn't Thanos. That's what I love about both that film and Black Panther, the central conflict is controversial enough such that the villain may actually be the hero. In Black Panther I wasn't sure for a while that Eric Killmonger wasn't the actual hero.

That late premiere is why the embargo doesn't lift until tomorrow morning at 9 AM. Looking forward to the reviews pouring in because they will dictate whether or not I go see it in the theaters since the trailer is to me.

Does that mean all three seasons will be heading to Netflix?

The Kree and the Skrulls are from different solar systems. How can you have a war between species from different parts of the galaxy without space scenes?

It was far more than Avengers 2.5, it was the first truly epic universe-wide crossover that Marvel first started back with the original Secret Wars comic. It was more like MCU grand epic film #1, with Infinity War and Endgame being MCU grand epic film #2. Which is fitting given that Civil War was a Universe-wide event in the comics, too. I'm just as completely fine with Universe-wide films as I was with comics. The individual characters get their deep dives in their own titles, and having them all group up for battle royales is a terrific thing indeed. If Vegas laid odds on this type of thing, I'd put my bet on a Universe-wide Galactus film as next up after Thanos.

The entire reason I watch superhero movies is to watch super-powered people fighting, so if I don't get a big battle I'm disappointed. The problem wasn't that Wonder Woman vs. Ares was a battle, it was just a mediocre battle. I didn't care a whit about Ares, found him goofy as a villain, and I didn't enjoy the way the fight was depicted. Grading it on a battle scale with the big Civil War airport fight being at the awesome end of the spectrum and Halle Berry Catwoman vs. Sharon Stone at the awful end, Wonder Woman vs. Ares was closer to Catwoman than Civil War.

I'm going to be shocked if Bran ISN'T the Night King. The facial similarities are just so great that I'll be needing an excellent explanation for why they look identical if they don't reveal that it's him.

Yep. I loved the first two-thirds, but that last third left me wondering why so many critics loved it. The only way it made sense was that they were mentally editing the ending out for whatever reasons.

That's definitely the arc of the trailer...the first half to three-quarters is average, but that last scene where all of the X-Men are in shackles and Jean lifts the train into the air is just freaking awesome.

I didn't like Reeva's powers either. I thought they were kind of silly with the whole zooming effect. She's like Banshee but more powerful, or if you prefer she's like Black Bolt but far less powerful. Her voice can hit a pitch that affects the brain and causes people to get dizzy and hallucinate. First appearance was X-Men Annual #3 in 1994 where she was introduced as the new Black Queen of the Hellfire Club. Dunno if it's a realistic concept, but if it is I hope we can eventually weaponize it and use it to replace tasers. The military has been developing multiple types of similar non-lethal weapons for decades that induce sickness and vomiting, but all of them require far more power than you can currently carry around in a portable weapon so they're not viable replacements for guns yet. While I'm skeptical of depicting superheroes in weekly television shows because you won't have the budget to do justice to their powers, if you're going to do it, it's better to choose a character like Reeva than Polaris. It's easy to depict Reeva's powers, but all you can do with Polaris is imagine what she could do if the budget weren't so damn low.

The distinction between producer and executive producer. Nix is an executive, so at best he painted broad strokes for the series.

But presumably less so that Feige is in MCU films who almost always gets full producer credits in every film.

Not a single one of those people ended up with a producer credit, so it's difficult to know how much they actually influenced the show.

If they bring it back they really need more of a tie to the MCU, more costumes, and more display of powers. Polaris should be incredibly powerful, but all they show her doing is super-cheap effects that make things fly, fall, or explode. The Apocalypse movie had a lot of problems, but it did feature the best Magneto effects we've ever seen and was the first glimpse in any of the films of how powerful he could be.

I pay no attention to "executive" producers since they almost never play an active part in production. I see the list of producers on IMDB but don't recognize a single name, so I suppose even if I knew one or more of them were Disney employees it wouldn't mean much without knowing their background.

Generally enjoyed the trailer but wasn't blown away by it. I'm optimistic but skeptical. Sophie looks as wooden as ever in all the shown scenes, so no matter how good it is a remake will eventually be in order just to get a better actress in the role.

Who at Disney was producing the show? Wouldn't this series switch to Disney's upcoming streaming service if it was made at all? The main thing I'm wondering is which executive will be responsible for the television properties once the Disney streaming service is live. Will it still be Perlmutter and the Marvel Creative Committee, or will it be someone else?

Got a chance to pose with Angela, Valkyrie, and Magik last night. Lovin' all three of them, although Magik is WAY too short at about 5' 1" in scale yet she's supposed to be 5' 11". I suppose you could think of Illyana as the New Mutants young teenage version of the character. I'm still extremely happy with Angela, she's just spectacular. Just love her back half-skirt, her functional sword scabbard across the back of the belt, the paint and styling of the sword, and the styling on her two axes. The short axes are just so easy to hold pointing facing forward, back, up, or down creating so many possibilities.

Meh. Alzheimer's doesn't make for a terribly compelling major story element. That's how I took that last scene when he's back in the jungle, he's stuck finding his way out of the confusion of dementia. Why never reveal what happened to Amelia? She could be dead, or she could have moved. Dunno why you'd prompt your audience to try to figure it out then never cover it.

Walgreens is running a sale through the end of March where Marvel Legends figures are $6 off, $13.99 instead of the normal $19.99. Just drove around to five in my area and picked up Magik, Angela, and Valkyrie, although the main one I was after is the newly-released Mystique figure which I didn't find. Angela has to be the most ornate, beautiful 6" figure I've ever seen. The detailing and paint on that thing are INSANE. I liked her when she was in Spawn in the 1990s, but I didn't realize until a few weeks ago that Neil Gaiman had sold her to Marvel and that they made her the sister of Thor and Loki.

Was just searching for Hot Toys posing photos and found this one. It's a funny idea overall, but the way he has Joker leaning into it is just hilarious. A link to the guy who did it and his Instagram account is above the pic. https://www.instagram.com/hrjoe_photography/

And as an example of what the stands WON'T support--I tried last night to do a pose where Archangel was lowering his wings, ramming into the Legends BAF Juggernaut, and Juggernaut was being knocked backwards. I tried putting two stands under Juggernaut's arms, one under each, and he's just too heavy for two stands under any circumstance, they buckled every time I tried to use them no matter what positions I put them in. I could probably have made that work with four stands, one for each of Juggernaut's limbs, but I wanted his feet to still be on the ground so it didn't make sense to do that. Not sure how much each figure weighs, but I'm guessing Archangel with wings is about 3/4 of a pound and BAF Juggernaut is about 1.5 pounds. I really wish someone would make a version of these stands with thicker supports. The struts on both Obitsu and Tamashii stands are about 1/4" wide, and I wish someone would make a stand with 1/2" struts. I get why they don't--the thicker the strut, the uglier it looks in photography--but still, sometimes you want to pose a larger figure and a thicker stand is the only way you could do it. I'm particularly surprised that the 1 to 6 scale guys and Hot Toys collectors haven't already driven someone to create thicker stands, but somehow nobody's done it yet that I know of. I haven't seen anyone doing dynamic poses with Hot Toys stuff, but I also haven't made an effort to look for it, so if anyone has seen someone doing dynamic photography poses with 1:6 scale figures, let me know, they may be aware of thicker posing tools than I've seen 1:12 scale collectors using.

None of the flight stands seem sturdy enough for anything other than small action figures, but they're sturdy enough for Archangel if you adjust the articulated parts of the stand in a way that supports the weight of the wings well. I have the Obitsu and Tamashii Act 4 stands, and I was able to get both to support him. In the pic below both characters are on Tamashii Act 4 stands, and I'm using the cheapie Chinese knockoff versions of those that cost about $1.50 each on ebay or via overseas suppliers like aliexpress.com. In the stand Archangel is on I've installed all three extensions that come with the stand, and the stand that Ultron is on is only using two of the three extensions it comes with.

The trailer for this looks amazing. I mostly have the same disappointment here that I did with the new Star Trek series--I have no current intention to subscribe to a monthly service just for one show. So I guess I won't be seeing this for awhile.

Yea I'm probably buying Archangel too Ordered mine on Thursday and it came today. I had no idea the range of articulation on the wings was so great, LOVE posing this figure because of the massive range of motion on them. He's kneeling in the one on the right, you can get poses where he's completely shielded by the wings one side.