fantastic_four

I thought you were implying you were going to sell your carded figures. Why sell the loose ones, just to get the value before they degrade?

This is going to sound like such an amateur fix but it worked. When I was a kid I would eventually run into GI Joes that had loose knees or something. What I would do is take a brace rubber band and extend the leg and then wrap it around the knee joint. Eventually the brace rubber band would work its way into the joint and I would cut away the excess. It was like placing a washer into the joint to tighten it up. 12 year old me was Effing Brilliant ! In this case I have a knee where the top peg attaches the inside part of the leg but not the outside visible in the pic below. If I'm lucky, they just didn't push it through far enough during assembly and heating it up and pushing it through the unattached hole will fix it. If I'm unlucky, either the peg or the peg hole are deformed and then I'm stuck with a more advanced repair. It mostly works as it is, but I'd rather see what I can learn trying to fix it. The hole it's supposed to go into looks fine to me, so if there's deformation I'm hoping it's the peg because those are far more easily replaceable.

Hasbro is forcing me to learn action figure anatomy. I'm up to about 40 to 50 Marvel Legends figures now, and seems like their QC is only good about 90% to 95% of the time...meaning I've got roughly half a dozen to a dozen figures in need of some first aid. Mostly it's warped plastic that I need to pull out the hair dryer to fix, but my Deadpool needs a sword hilt glued back on so I need to figure out the best glue to use and my Cate Blanchett Hela's knee peg is loose, so I've got to learn to perform surgery on Legends female characters to fix her. Can't believe how much that Hela figure costs now, I saw it in Target two months ago and didn't buy it and now it's sold out and REALLY hard to find for under $50. This article details how to disassemble a Marvel Legends female in great detail, probably will do this sometime soon with my Hela's knee joint: https://www.actionfigureart.com/how-to-take-apart-marvel-legends-female-body/ Most of me wants to just buy another Hela, but I think I'll learn a lot about how these figures work if I try fixing it myself.

In most cases, yes, but that's why I mentioned the companies that sell "premium" figures. In the Star Wars world, the bottom end of the premium market is the Black series and for Marvel it's the Legends and Diamond Select series. Hot Toys figures cost $200 to $1000 or more retail, so preservation really does need to be a part of their design.

Wonder if the newer figures are made of more enduring plastic. The comics industry went to archival paper for collectible titles, so have Hot Toys, Diamond, or Hasbro done that for figures? The rubber Hot Toys uses over joints is one of the main reasons I haven't bought any yet, but I've only seen that be a problem on their very early figures, not sure if they changed their materials over the years.

Is it just the rubber O ring in Joes that's the problem, or is the plastic itself degrading significantly in some way? All I know about the anatomy of Joes and original Star Wars figures is that Joes have the rubberband and Star Wars don't, and yea, mint on card therefore doesn't mean squat for Joes. Doesn't seem viable to collect them on card.

On a side note, my understanding is that based upon the study I'm referring to the Library of Congress stores a lot of its archives in stacks on shelves, and when they do use Mylar it's by default with multiple sides open. That's why Gerber sells what it calls "L" sleeves, which are Mylars with two sides open, which opens their product line up to be used not just by comic collectors but also by archival librarians: http://egerber.com/catalog_archivesL.htm However, this isn't as useful for you or I because we're not storing our items in sealed vaults and clean rooms with temperatures kept between 40 to 55 degrees that bugs don't tend to live in like library archives tend to have. Bugs are a real concern for you and I that they aren't for archivists because of the facilities they work in, so sealing the container matters to us. But I can't see that leaving holes for access is any problem for action figures unless you know of a critter that feeds on plastic.

I have. I saw a study on the Library of Congress web site over a decade ago where they ran advanced aging tests--which are basically shoving an item into something like an oven--using paper products and Mylar that was closed entirely, with one side open, with two sides open, and with all sides open. The least damage occurred on the two items with two sides and all sides open, and the most occurred on the one with all sides closed. The idea is that if the item itself releases acid, trapping the acid in a closed container is bad and the item essentially begins to eat at itself, whereas releasing it with open sides is better. There's a long thread from the mid-aughts in the restoration forum (started by me) where we discussed this in great depth. CGC also implicitly understands this, which is why they've always put microchamber paper in their slabs since the case design doesn't allow for much off-gassing. Yes we do, and preservation isn't even the main reason I think about this. It's more that I don't want to have to buy bags again, but it's both. I bought all those damn polybags when I was 8 to 20-something, and then had to replace them later? WHAT A PAIN! I spent more time replacing bags than the money I saved on polybags was worth at the rate I value my time at. I'm 47, and if I'm lucky I'll be alive and mentally present for another two to five decades. I do not want to have to re-bag everything when I'm losing my faculties, I'd rather buy storage items now that last longer than I do, so spending a few hours researching ideal long-term storage and going with that is more than worth it to me. My fear about acrylic with toys is that it's poorly researched. As far as I can tell with comics, the only reason we use Mylar is because one of two guys researched it and passed their knowledge onto the rest of us in the form of mylar bag products--either Bill Cole or Ernie Gerber. I tend to think it was Gerber, but that's just a guess based upon what I've seen from his existing work and I really have no knowledge of which of the two of them did the research, it could easily have been Cole, or even both of them since they were originally in business together selling Mylar bags for comics. If not for whichever one of them looked into the Library of Congress's research on Mylar, I'm not sure we'd even be using it with comics today. So my first fear is that the players in the toy hobby may have never done the research that Cole and/or Gerber did. I think you know this because I've said it a few times over the last year or so, but just in case you don't--keep in mind I'm a toy neophyte. I bought Star Wars and G.I. Joe as a kid, but I never got back into action figures until very late last year, so I'm just now starting to think about issues like storage for the first time.

Really like the Marvel Legends Venom wave of figures, although I may end up selling Poison because I know so little about the story of it. I also never read the Typhoid Mary runs in Daredevil, so I'm unsure if I'll keep her until I read those. My daughter loves Spider-Ham, which I figured she would and it's why I didn't feel so bad about having to buy it to complete the Mac Gargan Venom. Even if I loved Spider-Ham, which I don't, that figure is SO under-done with no leg articulation at all other than foot swiveling, plus it's tiny and not really worth $20. But it does have the massive Mac Gargan Venom torso, so it doesn't feel like a rip-off with that in it. This kind of posing is why I love the 1:12 scale. I can imagine posing scenes like this at the 1:6 scale, but wow, it'd take up SO much room, not sure where people stage that kind of thing. Or how they achieve flying poses. I'm very surprised that nobody makes really sturdy flight stands. All you'd have to do is make the risers two or three times thicker than what you can see on the Obitsu stand in the pic below that Spidey is mounted on, but nobody seems to do it. I wish they would, though, because even at the 1:12 scale I can only pose regular-size figures, I don't know of ANY way to pose the Hulkbuster or Mac Gargan Venom in the pic below in flying poses because they're too heavy for all of the stands I've ever seen, but I'd sure like to pose Hulkbuster flying and ramming Hulk into a building.

This picture shows it from the side, but I can't tell what's supporting the figure. I don't see her feet sticking into any slots like you described, so I dunno.

What do you keep all of your blisters in? And what do you do with accessories? My general plan is to keep most things stored and just pull out the ones I want to display. I prefer dynamic fighting displays, and those aren't terribly space efficient so I've got to find room outside of my cases for most of my stuff. Why would the material be different between the hobbies? The point of Mylar is that the Library of Congress's testing of the material indicated that it doesn't release acid for over a century. Is that true of acrylic? When I Google this topic, I see really basic info. More than anything I see people recommending polypropylene, and I know for sure from experience with comics that material degrades over a decade or two.

Shartimus Prime shows the Marvel Legends regular Phoenix mounted on the Marvel Select base, but I'm not sure how it attaches because he doesn't describe in the video how he did it.

Feige needs to mentor a cadre of understudies so that shelving anything isn't necessary. I'd particularly like him to do it to clone his judgement for Marvel television shows.

What do you guys store your loose figures in? The storage issues with figures seem essentially the same as with comics, i.e. you want to store them in archival plastic so you're not left with acid damage after a few years. Food ziplock bags, for example, would leave sticky reside after a few years. I've already seen paint scratching with piling my son's figures in a big stack in a plastic box. I'm also assuming that the storage challenge with figures is the same as with comics in that figures aren't created with archival plastic, so the figure itself releases acid in a similar--but probably far less pronounced--way that older comics made from wood pulp release acid. These look compelling, but they seem to leave you with no place to store accessories, unless you perhaps put them in a small archival bag along with the figure. It's a company called Toy-Gear that just started selling these after running a KickStarter fundraiser in 2015. The trays are designed to stack horizontally for storage as well as to be vertically displayed within the tray. They have trays that range from 3" tall for Hot Wheels to 7" tall for larger 1:12 scale figures. I haven't researched yet what the trays are constructed from, so I'm not yet sure they're archival even though the company that makes them claims their material is archival. Not sure what the ideal storage solution is, but I'm debating between something like these trays and little Mylar bags to store the accessories in that go into the tray with the figure, or just larger bags for the figures with smaller ones in there for the accessories stacked in something larger. Then there's the larger problem of what to do with irregularly-sized figures, like Hasbro Build-A-Figures, or 1:6 scale figures. No idea what to do with those yet. http://www.toy-gear.com

I think you're right. The Marvel Select one looks more elaborate than that ToyBiz phoenix backdrop, but I'm not sure how either compare to the newer Hasbro Marvel Legends backdrop.

I don't. I noticed the Marvel Select came with a flame phoenix, but I hadn't noticed that both Marvel Legends versions came with one. Guess I'll compare all three and get one, thanks!

Got the last Toys-R-Us exclusive two-pack in yesterday, the 80s Cyclops and Dark Phoenix pack. Loving both of them. I prefer the 90s Jim Lee Cyclops costume with the yellow straps across his chest and legs, but I bought that for my son for Christmas and the straps on his legs are a pain, they're not attached to the body and they constantly fall off. They also snap at the back, but the strap is too tight to ever actually snap in place so it hangs loose. The extra Phoenix heads are a weird accessory, I'd much rather have some flame effects other than the sorta-useless flame phoenix that really only fits in her hand with one specific pose and isn't terribly impressive. I'll probably end up using the heads on other figures...the one with the wild hair and no Phoenix coloring makes a great human head for Scream.

What percentage of the viewing audience do you figure are wondering whether or not Marvel will leave half of their characters dead? I'm slightly skeptical of this entire Thanos story. Comics are infamous for the terrible plot device of killing off characters and bringing them back, so for Feige to let this happen according to the long-held stereotype is risky. The main difference here is that they didn't kill off one or two major characters, they killed off dozens, so there's no real mystery as to whether they're coming back--of COURSE they're coming back. Everyone knows it, so what's to spoil?

I think we want the one that just looks the best for whatever reason. The old Ant-Man helmet looked a lot more ant-like than the film helmet does, but hey, humans are fundamentally repelled by most insects, so I'm left thinking that the problem with the classic Ant-Man helmet is it's TOO ant-like. Also, you can't really pick one look as being "iconic" for most characters, just a look you like the best. What's the "iconic" look for Iron Man when he's constantly refined his armor throughout the decades? The cover below is probably the most popular and classic style, but does it hold a candle to almost ANY of the film Mark versions? Even as a kid the suit design for Iron Man made no sense to me. How do you get armor that compact with exact muscle and abdominal definition like that? It looks like he's wearing spandex, not metal plating. The film design crushed it by solving all of the problems with the classic comic design. I've got the Classic Iron Man Legends figure, and even my three-year old calls it "Iron Man with muscles."

Ah, love an evening of posing new figures. The Wal-Mart exclusive Thanos came in the mail in addition to the Hulk/Hulkbuster I bought yesterday. I was surprised that Hulk's joints were so strong that he could carry Juggernaut on his shoulders like I was able to achieve, but it worked out. Hulkbuster's articulation is fantastic, he looks like he'd be stiff but he isn't yet he stands up easily in multiple positions.

Yea that all makes sense, you're probably right. I wish we knew something about the number of these toys that Hasbro makes. Has anyone heard estimates or rough numbers of that either past or present? It'd be really useful to know how many Rogue One Hovertanks were made, or original 1980 Yodas, or the latest waves of figures. Clearly Hasbro has figured out that less is more with their premium stuff and just keeps tweaking their production run numbers. Has Hot Toys ever said how many they produce of their models? The statue guys usually put it right in the advertising and sometimes right on the statues, i.e. this is statue 1678 of 3000, so I could see Hot Toys doing that since their market is one of the tinier ones in all of toys.

I'm sure most of them either learned that it existed long after that or took a while to decide it was something they wanted. I know I've had dozens of comics and figures I had absolutely no interest in until suddenly one day I really, really wanted them. Yesterday was a day like that for me...I had seen that Marvel Legends Hulk/Hulkbuster set for months and had zero interest, and then suddenly yesterday I just had to have it. The list of characters I want keeps dwindling, so a Hulk and Hulkbuster rose close enough to the top to pull the trigger.

Do we know how many barges they're going to make? The web site says they got around 8,800 people who paid the $500 for the fundraiser, but will they make more like 10,000 to 15,000 and sell them openly for a limited time like they do all of their other figures? If they do make something like double the fundraiser sales then your best bet would be to sell yours now and re-buy it once they make it available for open sale. If there is no guarantee of open sale then I suppose holding onto it and selling it later is your best bet.

Is that the reason for delaying the Phase 4 film announcements, or was it always to allow for the possibility of X-Men and Fantastic Four rejoining the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Once Feige knew that Disney would be pursuing the purchase of Fox--which I assume was long before the general public knew--he may have decided to put all announcements on hold to open the possibility of adding the new teams or characters from the teams to the phase. That's particularly evident in the fact that they did announce Spider-Man: Far From Home when Spidey was one of the characters who did poof at the end of Infinity War. As soon as they announced it we all got the spoiler that we knew was coming anyway that SPIDER-MAN'S ALIVE, Y'ALL! Once they knew that would spoil the end of Endgame, you'd think they would just start announcing Phase 4 movies, but nope, nothing yet. Which suggests they're mostly just trying to decide what to do with their newly re-acquired toys.

Picked it up at lunch today, gonna pose it tonight. One thing that occurred to me while taking Hulkbuster out of the box is that even though I largely prefer figures styled after the comics, there are characters that I'm the exact opposite on and strongly prefer the film rendering. Iron Man is the absolute best example of that because ALL of the movie armors just blow away any artist's rendering of the armor I've ever seen. That's mostly attributable to Industrial Lights and Magic who just knocked the armor design out of the park from the first Iron Man film onwards. Same with Ultron, I prefer the film version. In some cases I don't really care, or the comic and film versions are so similar that there's not much reason to care. Spider-Man and Venom at this point are very similar on screen and on the page, although that wasn't true of the Spider-Man 3 Venom which lacked many of the best aspects of the comic version, but the Venom from the recent film looks great, although certainly he'd look better with the spider logo on his chest. Characters I only half-like I generally tend not to care either. I was never an Ant-Man fan, so I've now come to prefer the movie costume over the comic one. Same with Vision, I rather prefer the film costume to the garish yellow and red comic costume. With Scarlet Witch I prefer the comic costume. I'm only a partial Hulk fan and like any version as long as he looks massive. I don't really care if it's a comic Hulk, the first Hulk film, or a Mark Ruffalo Hulk, as long as he's huge he's fine with me.