fantastic_four

I'm not ruling out the possibility of Hopkins showing up at the end of the season and revealing an android copy was shot at the end of season 1. Can't trust anyone to actually be human in this show! I'm hoping he's dead, though. It's probably a better story if he is.

Looking forward to the premiere this Sunday. IMDB doesn't show Anthony Hopkins in the cast this season at all, so I guess he's either really dead or HBO is hiding his presence.

Just finished it. Definitely unusual, but I can't call it exciting. The visuals excite me, but I can't connect to the story, plot, or any of the characters. Everything that happens feels of no consequence because you usually can't tell what's real and what isn't.

I'm skeptical due to the supply. Undoubtedly even with the jump it took last year it has performed worse for me over the last decade than every other Silver Age key I own. Not that I care all that much because it's one of my top five favorite Silver Age stories and the story that got me into collecting FF to begin with. Note I'm referring here only to the amount of increase per year it will continue to see. I definitely have no reason to think it will go down, I just don't see any reason for now why it would break from its past performance of not increasing at anywhere close to the same rate as other Silver Age Marvel keys. I'm sure it will continue to increase at a rate that beats inflation as it has to date.

Does anyone know why the issue jumped in price last year?

I'm skeptical due to the supply. Undoubtedly even with the jump it took last year it has performed worse for me over the last decade than every other Silver Age key I own. Not that I care all that much because it's one of my top five favorite Silver Age stories and the story that got me into collecting FF to begin with. If a really good film featuring Silver Surfer or Galactus came out I'd feel differently. But dollar for dollar FF 52 has been a far better buy for the past two decades. Not because it's in more demand--definitely the demand for FF 48 is very high and it's a MAJOR mid-Silver key, if not THE major mid-Silver key--but because the supply is significantly lower for FF 52 it has appreciated far more, even years ago before the movie was announced.

I think I said almost everything I know about why February/March 1966 Marvels are so much more available than other Silver Age Marvels. My understanding is that all the warehouse finds containing those issues were bought by dealers by the 1980s. The only specific one I know details of was Mile High 2 which was bought by Chuck in 1985. I have no real idea how many were in warehouses, why they were there, or what the average grades of them were, but I think Chuck claims that his Mile High 2 comics were unsold newsstand copies that were returned to the distributor and were supposed to be destroyed but weren't. I'm not sure he knows for sure that all of the millions of comics were there for the same purpose though. Aside from simply noticing through the CGC Census that Feb/Mar 1966 Marvels are clearly more abundant than surrounding issues from the middle Silver Age, my source for all this is dealers who posted what they knew here in these forums. I'll search around and see if I can find some of their posts. The ones I saw were in the mid-2000s, and searching those is quite a pain with our search function.

Yes, definitely, because you could just think that the importance of the key accounts for why it has been submitted more. It's the ideas in these forums of dealers with stacks of high grade copies of FF 48 in the 1970s and 1980s along with multiple copies with Mile High 2 certificates that establish it was present in multiple warehouse finds. That's in addition to MUCH higher numbers for non-key issues from the same month on all the other Marvel titles suggesting something about that month makes something special about those issues being found in warehouses.

Nah, I just want to expose my twins to both DC and Marvel. I'm currently considering the Marvel Legends line, the Marvel Toybox line, and the Playskool Heroes line (it has both DC and Marvel figures). But I'm interested in the absolute best if one or both take to figures and want bigger/better ones later, but for these two 2.5 year olds I'm currently leaning towards the Playskool Heroes line pictured below because they also love the Star Wars "Galactic Heroes" line. The art style on the "Heroes" line is REALLY cool.

I've still got the last five episodes on my DVR unwatched. I'm still peeved/heartbroken about the cancellation and haven't watched them yet.

One additional note about February/March 1966 Marvels that are available in comparatively huge supply--I bet there's a root cause that someone out there knows. Something like a printing issue that caused a bunch of copies to sit and not be tracked. All of the issues are present in MULTIPLE warehouse finds; for example they're all in the semi-famous Mile High 2 warehouse buy by Chuck Rozanski at Mile High comics, but it's not just that one, so for whatever reason these issues were sitting undestroyed in warehouses in multiple locations around the country. Comics from that month also have an infamously bad front-to-back cover wrap, so maybe Marvel switched printers, or they saw the quality control problems with the printer and made them warehouse a bunch of books. Those are just educated guesses, but I bet there's a root cause someone could potentially identify. I've heard other people claim over a decade ago in these forums that they can see a distinct difference in the color palettes on different copies of FF #48, but I could never tell that when looking at side-by-side comparisons of the ones that supposedly had different colors. Here's an educated guess--the majority of copies of FF 48 (or Spidey 33, Avengers 26, etc) that have bad wrap are ones from the warehouse finds because Marvel noticed the problem and told the printer to fix it, and the more normal wraps are the ones that hit the stands. We'll probably never know if that's true or not. But I can say that all issues that coincidentally are available in huge supply today also have the consistently worst wrap of the early to mid Marvel Silver Age, so it would make perfect sense if that's what happened.

They're just too easy to find without stamps and writing. If they were as rare as Golden Age books I wouldn't care because I wouldn't have a choice, but knowing that another copy will come around within a few months or years, I always pass on writing/stamps.

FF 48 isn't comparable to any other Silver Age Marvel key I can think of due to the comparatively high supply. It's in greater supply because tens of thousands of copies meant to be destroyed weren't, and years later they entered the collector's market. The same applies to most other titles issued within a month of FF 48 such as Amazing Spider-Man 33, Avengers 26, X-Men 18, etc. One issue from around that time for every title is available in huge supply compared to all issues around it. It's not all March 1966 titles, some are February 1966 such as Spidey 33. The book is a mega-key and would dwarf FF 52 in value if it were available in equivalent supply, but it isn't, so the price will always be watered down by the fact that it's the easiest Silver Age Marvel key to find. If it were available in a supply proportionate to issues before and after it (i.e. #47 and #49) I'm guessing it would be the second-most valuable issue of FF behind #1.

1. Centering 2. Page color I avoid any Silver Age book that I see with writing or stamps.

My hopes are up, because I found the first episode marginal and last week's only a bit better. Either way it looks like this show is headed for the scrap heap due to ratings. The last show I absolutely loved that just didn't get the ratings is the subject of my avatar--the NBC series Hannibal. My avatar is Hugh Dancy playing Will Graham, the same role filled by Edward Norton in the film "Red Dragon" or William Peterson in the equivalent film "Manhunter" and one of my favorite fictional characters ever. He wasn't my favorite until Dancy played him...the Will Graham from that show is incredibly compelling because of what he's able to do with rampant empathy. I had ZERO expectations for that show and expected it to suck, but WOW, it's one of the best series on network television from the past decade. That show is just amazing and I still mourn its passing.

David Bianculli, the critic who regularly reviews films and television shows for NPR's "Fresh Air" radio and podcast show, called tomorrow night's episode of Legion like being on "some sort of amusement park thrill ride and just holding tight, when the visuals, the sound, and the story are equally exciting and unusual." And this is a guy who isn't usually a fan of superhero shows. The full text of his review of the episode along with the key text describing its uniqueness are below. https://www.npr.org/2018/04/16/602837680/latest-episode-of-legion-delivers-a-thrillingly-original-hour-of-tv

Thanks! Any particular year for Marvel Legends? Or is the most recent the best?

I'm looking to get my kids some superhero action figures. Which brand and model are the best quality in terms of detail, design, articulation, etc? I'm interested across all release years and decades, not just current ones. My main motivation is buying them for the kids, but I'm generally interested in them, too, so I'd rather buy the best for me even though I realize they'd enjoy almost anything I gave them. I'm interested in both Marvel and DC.

Anyone watched this yet? I gotta make some time for it.

Can't tell much from that short preview. I'm interested in seeing it but skeptical of its quality, mostly due to Marvel's mediocre record so far in television shows. Why are they releasing this on "Freeform"? I had to look up what that network even is, apparently it's a renamed version of what used to be called ABC Family. Is this Disney's first step in moving away from Netflix?

ScreenRant claims the review embargo lifts April 24th. The Civil War embargo lifted three weeks before the film was released, so I don't know why they're waiting so long this time since most Marvel embargos lift 1.5 to 2.5 weeks before release. The closer an embargo is to release day, the worse a sign it usually is to a film's quality. The real stinkers have an embargo right up until a day or two prior to release.

Directing a television series is mostly a nothingburger that doesn't require much skill and definitely requires very little creativity. On a film a director usually has carte blance to change anything, but on a television series they have character arcs, continuing story arcs, and tone restrictions they have to work within. Television shows are pretty much directed by producers and writers, not directors. Successful shows run themselves once the screenplay is done which is why you see so many different directors during a season of any given show. So whenever I see someone like Jonahathan Frakes directing the first thing I always think is they did it almost entirely to have that person's name associated with the show to promote it. Your main job is to make the cast like you, or at least not hate you.

This seems a weird way to do things. I was really enjoying Jerome's take on the Joker, so wouldn't we expect Jeremiah to be very different in personality? I'm interested in how he ends up being, but skeptical. Jerome was probably the best Joker behind Heath Ledger--although there's certainly a discussion as to whether it's him or Jack Nicholson--so to just completely re-roll his personality into a twin is disconcerting. It seems particularly strange that Jerome had the bizarre but plausible explanation for having the smile lines on both sides of his mouth. I suppose they'll just develop something new for Jeremiah.

Better episode than the first one. It's REALLY nice to finally have a face for Farouk that's not a morbidly obese guy who looks like he should be Mojo but isn't really Mojo. He was fat in Uncanny X-Men 117, but not exaggerately fat with a chin and neck no human can have without being at least half a ton. It's still the visuals carrying me through. This isn't the kind of show you can stare at your phone for 10 to 20 minutes with like Walking Dead where over half the show is conversation...if you aren't looking at the visuals the entire time, you're missing most of what goes into the show.

Harrison Ford is a man of very few words with an extremely heavy personality, and that always came across in Han Solo even though he tried to really lighten himself up for that role. He's about as far from Deadpool as I can possibly imagine. But the pace and tone of the film is vaguely Deadpool-like.