fantastic_four

I've always assumed it's a personal force field. In the comics I never noticed him turning it on and off, so the fact that he did turn it on and off in this film felt like a validation that it's a shield since he only enabled it while he was fighting.

I get why people would feel this way, but I LOVED them exploring how a quantum-sized world might look. I particularly loved the weird creatures, but I was--and still am--distracted by humans being among them. WTF? Why are there humans there?

I agree with this--much better than most of phase 4. I generally really liked it. The MODOK scenes were all funny to me, but I totally get how they would take a ton of people out of the moment. The character has seemed ridiculous to me my entire life, so I completely get people rolling their eyes at him. I REALLY love what they're doing with Kang. Can't wait for more of him.

Given that Chris Claremont ripped them off from Alien and that Disney owns the Alien license I'll be shocked if we ever see the Brood in the MCU. They'd get panned for what they are--derivative of Alien.

I never expect much the week of release until the reviews start coming in. Not much to discuss until there's something juicy about how good the film is.

Review embargo ends today at noon.

Picked up some new Mafex figures--Dark Knight Returns Superman, Arnold from the first Terminator film, MCU Loki from Infinity War, and Homelander from "The Boys." All are absolutely excellent with one exception--Loki's arms come off too easily while posing. Pretty trivial to deal with that though by pushing slightly towards his shoulder while moving the arms. I was most looking forward to Loki and Homelander, but DKR Superman surprised me and is by far my favorite of the four. I haven't liked the style of Superman as drawn by Klaus Janson and Frank Miller, but it has really grown on me in figure form. I absolutely love the ridiculously beefy version, and he looks good in almost any pose you put him in. They really killed it with that figure. He's been out for months and I've been passing on him, but he'll probably be sold out in a month or two and with Mafex it's REALLY easy to regret not getting something during the short windows they're usually available, so I played it safe and bought him so I didn't regret it later. Very glad I did since he's absolutely superb. Homelander is REALLY good. The head sculpts look really close to the actor, and almost everything on the figure is perfect. Two small gripes--the eagle shoulder pads come off fairly easily, and he's a bit overscaled as if he's 6' 3" when the actor Anthony Starr is 5' 11". As a result the figure is taller than both the 6' 1" Tom Hiddleston and the 6' 2" Arnold Schwarzenegger figures I got at the same time.

A new wave of Hasbro's Marvel Legends figures was announced today for next week's Ant-Man 3 movie. I'm noting that here because the build-a-figure for the wave is a spoiler I'd rather not know about at all before seeing the film, but too late, I'm spoiled. If you don't want the spoiler try to skip the announcement about the wave if you can manage it. The gem of the wave looks to be Kang, so I'll post a pic of him only. As spoilers go it's not TOO bad--nothing like revealing the end of "The Sixth Sense" or anything--but I'd still rather have had the reveal related to that character happen during the film without me knowing it was coming. Instead it'll be me waiting for the character to appear. Can't really fault Hasbro for this. They did at least wait until close to the film's release to reveal the wave. The only other thing they could have done was reveal it a few weeks AFTER the film's release, but meh, I get they'd probably lose some sales by waiting.

I read the Fwoosh action figure forum a lot, and people post there when new stuff is released. Because of that I usually get stuff when it comes out, and I rarely pre-order anything because that locks you into one retailer who very well may end up getting the item well after all of the other retailers, or in the worst case Hasbro occasionally stiffs a retailer and they NEVER get their full allotment of that figure, although that has only happened to me with small fan channel outlets like BigBadToyStore, Entertainment Earth, etc. The only things I do pre-order are anything on sale when the sale applies to pre-orders (I've only ever seen that kind of sale at Target and Gamestop, but half of the time Gamestop never fulfills my pre-orders so I never count on them), anything that's an exclusive at a store that sometimes makes their exclusives hard to get (mostly just Walmart exclusives) and anything that is likely to be very popular and hard to get once it comes out. Taking an example from recent discussions I DEFINITELY would have pre-ordered something like the GI Joe Classified Series Serpentor assuming it was ever even pre-orderable (I have no idea if it was or not). I haven't seen any Star Wars figures in a while that I thought might sell out. The last one was the Dark Trooper since it's cool and since it's an army builder, but nope, Hasbro appeared to also guess that one would be popular and over-produced that figure by a lot and most retailers have been selling that for a third off of MSRP for many months now. Star Wars doesn't have the character library of a Marvel or DC, so for most people there are only a handful or maybe for more hardcore fans a few dozen figures most of us would want. I think the only ones I didn't pre-order that I later regretted were both Walmart exclusives. One was Clone Wars Ahsoka in 2020, but that wasn't my fault since her pre-order window lasted only a few minutes . The other was the Walmart exclusive Mace Windu in his white uniform from the original Clone Wars movie, i.e. the one that pre-dates the animated cartoon series, but I managed to get that one when it popped up briefly for sale on their web site--which again I only got because someone on the Fwoosh posted that they were available again that day I got it. So yea, it's disappointing to see them ditch some pre-orders. Hopefully that won't continue so casual collectors can get them more easily, but I don't have much faith in the way the Hasbro Star Wars team has been managing the brand over the last year or two so I won't be surprised much if they just start killing pre-orders altogether. I noticed Hasbro assigned their upcoming Indiana Jones figures to the same team that handles Star Wars. I guess I'm not surprised since Star Wars is a smaller brand, but I was still disappointed they didn't give it to the GI Joe team since they've been killing it over the last few years. The props I can give to the Hasbro Star Wars team is that they have released some absolutely stellar figures over the last few years that are much better than almost any work they've done prior to circa 2020. Most of their releases are still sub-par--especially those re-colored lines they release like the Credit Collection or Carbonized Collection--but many are just fabulous such as the Dark Trooper, Saw Gerrera, both of the Black Series Ahsoka figures from the Clone Wars series and the Mandalorian, their Empire Strikes Back Darth Vader, all of the Sith Inquisitors from the Obi-Wan Kenobi show, Jar Jar Binks, Count Dooku, or the Luke and Yoda Dagobah training 2-pack. Any list of the top 10 Black Series figures ever that ignores our own character bias should mostly be comprised of releases from the past few years due to the jump in quality the line has taken of late.

You have to keep track of what you paid for things as you go or it's a nightmare. I have always done this for vintage comics, but I now also do it for action figures since 2020 because I sometimes sell those as well. I mostly do it there because the margins are tighter and it's REALLY easy with those to lose money if I'm not careful, so the feedback of what I paid and what I earned is more important.

It's worth noting that the GI Joe team has done a pretty good job at making desirable stuff available multiple times. I thought the Baroness with COIL bike was really cool, so I was all over it and snagged it from a local Target by watching Popfindr inventories at local stores, waiting for them to pop up, calling Customer Service and asking them to hold one for me, and then going in to buy it. That set was a Target exclusive, but Hasbro also later offered those for sale via the Pulse web site presumably because people had such a hard time getting it at Target. So I'll be pretty surprised if they don't make more Serpentors with that vehicle. The team seems really good at knowing what collectors like. But then again they don't always do that. For example the Snake Eyes with weapon rack set was never offered beyond the original sale. But that's a highly peripheral item to the line; only offering a big character like Serpentor one or two times seems far more egregious.

That Serpentor vehicle looks like the coolest thing in the line since the original Classified Snake Eyes that came with the weapons rack, except much cooler than even that. If I collected the line it would be a must-have.

There's an incoming solution to carrier mis-deliveries--Amazon is running a pilot with a few auto manufacturers to build codes into trunk locks that people can share with delivery carriers so that they deliver packages directly into the trunk of your car. I can't wait until this is a broadly-available service.

I don't read that subreddit; I only read the Marvel Legends one. But I'm buying more than just Legends these days so I should probably switch to that broader subreddit, although it has so many posts per hour with Reddit making it pretty difficult to read new posts that I'm not sure I can swing it.

I live in a moderately crowded city (Richmond, Virginia with a metro size of 1.2 million people), and I have a public sidewalk about twenty feet from my front door. On average I have probably two to five people an hour walking past my house. For 15 years I was buying expensive comics in the 'burbs kind of like you with no real concerns of theft, so when I moved to the city I wondered if that would be an issue. So far nothing stolen, but MANY mis-deliveries. So unless you're in a super-dense city and particularly in an area with high levels of poverty the risk of mis-delivery is still greater than theft in most areas--and I suspect that's the main risk in 95% or more of areas. In other words if your package was delivered but isn't on your porch, then my guess is that 95% of the time it's due to carrier error, not theft. I say that because the carriers mis-deliver for me relatively frequently. DHL has done it three times on about 30 deliveries (almost all of the Japanese import figures I buy come via DHL), FedEx seems to do it about once for every 25 to 50 packages, and UPS does it about as much as FedEx. Amazon used to be great about not mis-delivering, but then a few months ago they mis-delivered four straight packages to the same next-door neighbor for who-knows-what-reason; my guess is some kind of GPS problem for four straight drivers to all mis-deliver packages to the exact same place.

Same, mine is waiting for me at Walgreens. The irony is that I assumed I wouldn't be home (as I never am when FedEx comes around) so I had it redirected to Walgreens, and then...we had a snow day, and I was allowed to telecommute, so I ended up being home after all. oh well. I should have time to go grab it tonight. I did the same thing with both of the Haslabs I bought. I NEVER want to leave any package worth more than a few hundred bucks completely in the hands of a delivery driver if I don't have to. There are risks at these drop sites--for example I've heard stories of Walgreens employees assuming a large customer box is one of their store stock boxes, opening it up, shoving it in an out-of-the-way place because they don't know what to do with it, and then it doesn't get re-discovered until later. Someone on the Fwoosh had this happen with Galactus--they went to pick it up, and Walgreens just said they didn't have it when the FedEx tracking said they should. The person raised hell and one of the employees ended up finding the opened box in their stock room. But ultimately I fear that scenario far less than just dropping something expensive on my porch. Last year I absolutely did not want UPS to deliver my PS5 to my door from Walmart, but Walmart wouldn't let me redirect the shipment for pickup--and I believe Walmart blanket disables that option for ALL of their shipments, which I hate and may not use them to buy expensive stuff for shipment in the future. UPS dropped the damn thing at my address number but on the wrong street one block over, which is the exact mistake I've seen carriers make dozens of times that I never want to duplicate for anything expensive.

At minimum just keep track of what you paid for things. If you don't do that you're either costing yourself money by overestimating profits or risking an audit by underestimating them, and I certainly prefer to do neither of those two things. Keeping track of what you pay and what you sell things for is just good practice completely separate from taxes. That way you know what you did well on so that you can duplicate that success and avoid any failures.

I don't have the Sentinel, but I've watched reviews of it and it's definitely awesome. They're both so good that the definitive one is whichever style you like more, i.e. comic vs Spider-Verse versions.

Got the S.H. Figuarts Venom from "Let Their Be Carnage" in today. Definitely the best Venom ever made in the 1:12 scale. I've never bought Figuarts before now because they strive to be a true 1:12 scale which is a bit smaller than Marvel Legends or Mafex, but Venom here is bigger than average anyway so he scales perfectly with the other lines and is even slightly bigger than the Marvel Legends Sony Venom figure. That Legends Sony Venom was a top five figure in 2020 when it came out, but this one is a definite upgrade to that excellent sculpt Hasbro did. Their forthcoming S. H. Figuarts Carnage later this year also looks incredible with four of the back tendrils that Venom only has two of, plus the four Carnage tendrils have the weapons on them that Kletus Cassady is known to form Carnage into.

Quick shot of my Crow figure. Really love how this guy turned out. I usually hate cloth goods in the twelfth scale, but when they're minimally used as they mostly are on this figure and when the stitching isn't visible then it can definitely work.

I see Serpentor at a British retailer: https://www.robotkingdom.com/f41405s00.html I'm sure the shipping from Britain could be brutal. I also see a bunch of Serpentors on Aliexpress at semi-reasonable prices. Seems too fast for them to have reverse-engineered the molds on Serpentor so they may be legit.

Pulse Premium is generally not worth it. I had it when it was free in 2019/2020, but the only benefit it gave me was free shipping. Enough retailers already have that such that it isn't much advantage to me. You get to order an hour before non-members, but it doesn't appear there are enough Pulse Premium members for that to matter much, and I have yet to hear of an exclusive selling out during the Pulse Premium exclusive purchasing period since they started it in 2021. They may find a unique reason for me to subscribe to it, but they haven't yet. You weren't likely to get either of those unless you ordered within minutes of when they went live. Mindbender was a con exclusive; not sure which con but SDCC I think. Those have always been limited and always sold out incredibly fast for popular figures. I don't know how they were offering Serpentor, but I did notice he sold out almost immediately. Not sure if that was an intentionally-limited release like the con exclusives, but if it wasn't they may release more batches over the next few months. I don't follow Classified Series release much so I may not see when they re-issue it, but if I do I'll post here. I bet they re-release both of those, just not in the specific decos they did in 2022. Hasbro loves money, so whenever something sells out fast they usually can't wait to re-release it with new deco. Not sure we'll get the Serpentor vehicle anytime soon, and while I'm unfamiliar with the character I'm guessing that's half of what everyone wants.

Got the Mezco Crow figure in today. Forgot how much I loved that film until this figure came out, and I hadn't seen it since it came out in the theaters in 1994. Such a shame Brandon Lee died during that film...such a promising career as an action star until that happened. Saw they've finished filming a remake with Bill Skarsgard as Eric Draven...we'll see how that goes. The figure is absolutely awesome in every way. I'm sure the pleather won't hold up just as it doesn't with Hot Toys, but we'll see.

I've never missed anything, but I'm hardcore so I've figured out how to achieve that. What's the last figure you had that problem with? I can give general recommendations, and certainly anything that's really popular can be tough to get.

If you mean via their Hasbro Pulse web site it's because they specifically limit their pre-order inventory on mass retail releases so as not to over-compete with their retail customers too much. They also tend to ship items via Pulse last or close to last behind most of their retail customers, which again I assume is so they are a very minor competitor with their customers. Because of all that I tend to never order from Pulse, although I do buy exclusives from there since there's no choice. The main time you won't see items sell out on Pulse is if it's a Hasbro Pulse exclusive or a release that's similarly limited, i.e. figures that are exclusive to Hasbro Pulse and the Disney Store web site ( https://www.shopdisney.com ).