fantastic_four

The people who make those predictions haven't been studying the history of the heroic myth throughout the entire recorded history of human civilization. The question isn't when the superhero wave will end; the question is what the next form of the heroic myth will be. It CAN'T disappear, it can only be replaced. And the people predicting the death of superheroes probably won't like whatever heroic narrative form eventually replaces it, either, so they can just suck it.

My twins are now 2.5 years old, so for the past few months my son in particular has gotten heavily addicted to action figures. As his interest in them grows, mine has rekindled. I've never collected, but I played with Star Wars figures in the 1970s and GI Joe in the 1980s. I gave it up about the age of 12 and never got back into it. I started buying statues from about 2000 to 2008, and I didn't realize that Hot Toys had effectively crossed the line between action figures and statues until just yesterday, and since then I've been thinking a lot about switching from statues to these figures. I've got a few newbie-level questions about this type of ultra-high-detailed action figure: Is there a better word for these high-end figures than just "high-end figures," "highly-detailed figures," or "Hot Toys figures"? Are there other major companies doing what Hot Toys is doing? Are any of the companies creating these things adhering to classic comic styles? Hot Toys appears to mostly try to reproduce the specific look and body type of actors from films, but is anyone creating highly-detailed figures that adhere to comic forms like classic Superman, Spider-Man, Wolverine, etc? I don't really want Hugh Jackman in jeans or in that dumb original X-Men black movie costume, I want a 5' 2" yellow and black Wolverine hunkered down and looking feral or a Juggernaut that's built like a Hummvee. Has anyone fully switched from statues to these figures? Suddenly statues seem MUCH less appealing knowing these figures are so much lighter, articulated, and fun to play with. My two-year old just broke down crying a few days ago when he asked to hold my Bowen Daredevil statue and I wouldn't let him, and I know how he feels, I wished in that moment I could play with it, too, and let him play with it. Is there a master list somewhere on the web of all the Hot Toys figures that have been released? Or even better, a master list of all highly-detailed figures available from all companies? Is anyone else turned off by action figures that look like real human beings? At first, I was amazed at the level of detail. As I looked at more and more of them, the idea of having a plastic version of a realistic-looking human being began to creep me out. I may get over it, but for now I'm torn between admiring the craft and feeling creeped out by their appearance. There's a well-known phenomenon called the "uncanny valley" where if something looks almost exactly like a human being but is very slightly off, it tends to creep people out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley The uncanny valley has mostly come up in society in relation to androids and realistic-looking robots. I think I'm having this exact reaction to Hot Toys figures, but I'm not sure of it yet. Like I said, I just found out they existed yesterday so my taste for them is still forming.

Yea, that was my first guess, hard to trust non-comic fans reviewing a comic film. Particularly Deadpool where the novelty may wear off fast if you're not a fan of the genre.

I thought the embargo lifted at 5PM tonight? Ah well, glad to see the reviews are decent. But if it's 82% now, it'll likely end up in the 70s. That's a bit worse than the first film.

I had never seen these Hot Toys figures until yesterday, and I thought a lot last night about selling all my statues and switching to the figures. My two-year olds really, really don't like that they can't play with my statues--my son just broke down and cried a few days ago when I wouldn't let him handle my Bowen Daredevil statue--and come to think of it, I don't like the fact that I can't play with them, either. Something realistic like a statue that is light and articulated like the Hot Toys figures seems far superior to heavy resin. However, is there a wide variety of styles, or competing companies to Hot Toys creating ultra-detailed figures? All of the Hot Toys I'm seeing are ultra-realistic, and most of them seem to be exact duplications of the actors' bodies and faces from the films. I want at least some expressionism in my figures, and preferably some styles classic to the comics. For example, if I had a Storm, I'd like her to look like classic 1970s or 1980s Ororo, not Halle Berry with a mohawk. Or I'd prefer a Wolverine who's 5' 2" with a yellow and black costume, not Hugh Jackman in jeans or those dumb black original X-Men movie costumes.

I'm leaving all accessories and sticking-out parts off of all of these toys until they get older, which in the case of Wolverine would mean the claws. Same with all of the figures and toys I'm buying, all small pieces go in bags until they get older. That's what's best about the Playskool figures, the accessories are fused into the body and don't even come off, and they're blunt so they don't hurt. But this time I figured I'd buy figures I enjoyed more and that they'd enjoy more as they get older. I've been debating about whether or not to even give them the shield for Toybox Captain America. They're 2.5 years old right now, so I figure it'll get lost within the first year if I give them that shield. They arrive today so I'll see how well it snaps onto his hand and go from there.

I saw those and generally enjoy the style, but the articulation is poor and I couldn't find a Wonder Woman in the cartoon style, hence I went with the latest Justice League figures. Ideally I wanted the Batman from this set plus a Superman and Wonder Woman of a similar style.

I think this thread is more for me than my kids, but it'll be theirs to play with. But if I ever switch from statues to those Hot Toys figures, that'll be for me!

It was, but then he explicitly told the Ford-controlled version of their daughter that he wasn't being noble. But it did seem personal there, so I'm not sure I completely believe him. It probably wasn't to save any of them, but they reminded him of something from his past and it inspired him to take the chance to make his escape.

It's certainly Arnold's body, so I've been assuming it's some variant of Arnold's consciousness, too, although clearly it isn't straight up Arnold. It seems like some Ford-altered version of Arnold.

Looking at pics of the full array of Hot Toys figures gives me mixed feelings. They're ultra-realistic, but of course not precise, and as a result some look incredibly awesome, others put me into the "uncanny valley" of feeling uneasy. Heath Ledger Joker is my favorite comic villain, yet his Hot Toy figure freaks me out. But someone like Deadpool where he's covered by the mask looks just totally awesome. As does Iron Man.

Wow, very nice. Do you prefer them to statues? I think I took to statues because of the scale and realism, but these seem to bridge the gap between statue and action figure.

I couldn't fully hear that last quote from Delos during the episode, so here's the full text of it since it sounded significant:

They look incredibly realistic--how's the articulation on those? I don't think I'll buy 12-inch figures for the kids, but I may end up a collector myself before long and if that happens Hot Toys is an option. I had 12-inch Star Wars and Mego figures as a kid, but I always preferred the smaller ones to those because of the articulation. My 12-inch stormtrooper, Boba Fett, Chewbacca, and Darth Vader from the 70s always seemed too stiff to play with.

Given that a Toybox line version of Wolverine isn't likely anytime soon, I may go for the Chinese Revoltech Wolverine figure. Revoltech makes THE most articulated characters in the history of action figures...even the ankles, wrists, and toes are articulated. I assume these are bootleg though, and I don't really even know how to buy them. You can get them for $20 from ebay from Chinese sellers, but I have no idea whether or not you can trust you'll actually get it since it's bootleg. From American sellers it usually costs more like $40 to $80. Plus the articulation may be way too advanced for kids, I can see getting it handed to me to "straighten out" a lot. But they look absolutely amazing and I'm tempted to pull the trigger from China.

I saw from the ad below that the next wave of Marvel figures in this line will be Dr. Strange, Ant-Man, and Wasp. Clearly they're prioritizing the characters that appear in Marvel films, so Wolverine or any other non-Marvel Cinematic Universe character may not even be in the works yet. REALLY freakin love the Thor and Cap from this line, they're just amazing.

Really good episode last night. I'm guessing they didn't reveal the big secret thing the Delos board is up to, but the idea that they're trying to develop android bodies to upload human consciousness to is definitely a viable candidate for whatever it is they're up to. It's probably that, but far more than that. When would you place that last scene between the modern-day William and James Delos version 149? Was that shortly before the big uprising that ended last season? None of the human bodies down there were decomposed, so it couldn't have been too long. At most a few weeks or months between then and when Bernard had everyone killed, which presumably must have happened just days before since none of the bodies looked bad. What a horrible concept--uploading yourself into an android body, you know you're dead and that's what happened, and you know you're glitching out but can't do much about it. Hopefully I wouldn't go insane and start carving myself up like that, but who the heck knows. Quite a hellish depiction of existence though.

And to not skip the DC heroes even though I'm a Marvel zombie, I just went with the recent Justice League film figures of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. I wanted figures in the style of the animated series to remain aesthetically consistent with the Marvel Toybox figures, but I just couldn't find the three majors all with any reasonable amount of articulation.

I've got twins that are a boy and a girl and their mom was pushing me to get figures my daughter would be more likely to enjoy as well, so I also went with a Storm figure in addition to the Toybox figures. I chose the Diamond Select classic Storm figure which looks REALLY freaking awesome with the great vintage costume styling. She's pretty well-articulated relative to the Legends line and most action figures in general, but in comparison to the insanely poseable Toybox figures she's going to seem SUPER-stiff.

I decided to go with the Marvel Toybox line. The character art style looks cute and cool, the articulation is SPECTACULAR, they're well-priced for play as opposed to collecting at about $12, and they're nicely sized at 5 to 6 inches so should last well into childhood. It also has the only version of Thor I currently like that doesn't look too realistic and styled like Chris Hemsworth from the films. My only complaint so far is that the line just started late last year and they're releasing new figures fairly slowly, so major characters like Wolverine aren't available yet. Even Spider-Man and Black Panther just came out within the past few months. I'm hoping more are on the way. A minor quibble is that I don't like the way they render calves on the characters...they're twice as thick as quads, and they have angled stances that make them look somewhat like minotaurs. But they look GREAT from the waist up, and the articulation is truly something special, they're INSANELY poseable and the most flexible figures for kid play I've ever seen. I was actually going to buy a recent Legends version of Iron Man because I thought the coloring on the Toybox version was drab, but when I saw a video of the articulation on Toybox Iron Man I flipped that entirely. The flexibility of the joints on these figures is really something special.

I didn't realize it but you're right...I forgot that Oliver escaped from the Astral Plane in the last episode of last season. I now have to re-evaluate all of Oliver's scenes this season...I thought his turning people to dust was all in the Astral Plane. So re-referencing the pics I posted I suppose both of those are in the real world. So why is the one with Astral Lenny in full-screen but the one with Astral Farouk is half-boxed?

This storytelling device has been around since the first episode. We first see it when David is on the phone trying to find out where Syd is, and Ptonomy and Kerry are chasing him. It switches from fullscreen to letterbox while he's on the phone, and switches back once he's been captured. In between, Syd shows up and explains she's not real, she's inserted herself into his memories. In my understanding, Hawley is letting us know when we switch from what I'd call 'the show's observable reality' to 'a character's internal thoughts/memories', which may or may not reflect the actual reality. It becomes a little tricky in the Syd-centric episode, because we're not in reality, we're in the Astral Plane, but the letterboxing lets us know when we're watching David or Syd's internal monologue. It's letterboxed when Syd's climbing out of the igloo, and it switches back when she's born. It's letterboxed while David finds his way through the snowstorm to the igloo, and switches back when you see he's entered the museum. That's good insight, thanks. Over the last two episodes I noticed that there are at least three different styles of boxing/no-boxing, and it's easiest to reference them by looking at the "FX" logo in the lower-right corner. What is Hawley trying to say with each one? I'm really not sure now. It seems that the more boxing there is the less real the scene is, but I'm really not sure what the intermediate level of half-boxing is telling us. Here's normal with no boxing, which in this example since Oliver and Lenny are in it we know is taking place in the Astral Plane, so obviously the boxing says nothing about whether it's the real world or Astral Plane: Here's partial or half-boxing where the bottom of the visible area is lined up with the bottom of the "FX" logo. This, too, takes place on the Astral Plane since we see both Shadow King in a body and Oliver. Hawley has used half-boxing a LOT the past few episodes. Then there's full boxing where the bottom of the visible area is fully above the "FX" logo. Coincidentally or not, all of the Jon Hamm voiceover narrative scenes are in this full boxing style.

I like Jerome ten times better than Jeremiah for now. Hopefully they're just slowly leading up to some major cranking up of his personality, because right now he's not even as compelling as the Cesar Romero Joker was from the 1960s.

Or they just enjoy watching superheroes wallop each other with a bunch of power pyrotechnics. There was a whole bunch of that, and that's usually all it takes for kids to love it.

That theory is viable but extremely complex...very little of "I killed them" implies Teddy, it's that coupled with half a dozen other tiny difficult-to-notice-on-a-single-viewing side elements leading people to that idea. Having heard the hypothesis you're referring to on The Ringer's "Westworld: The Recappables" podcast, I'm guessing the guy who came up with it watched the first episode many times before he came to that idea