fantastic_four

What is FactSet? I don't get what their revenue estimates are implying--with their higher-than-Hasbro-reported estimate are they saying that they (and other companies) are under-reporting revenues whenever their estimates are higher than the company reports?

Scalping to Gen Z is buying anything and selling it above MSRP. Scalping to Merriam-Webster is buying early and selling early above MSRP. Gen Z wants to use it to apply to anything whenever you sell, but they're just wrong.

It's because with the Black Series Hasbro started charging for Boba Fett as if he's a deluxe figure. Historically they've charged for him the same as other figures, but starting with this one they spread all of accessories out around him and put him in a double-wide box that usually larger deluxe figures come in. There's no apparent reason to put him in a big box or charge $31.99 for him instead of their usual standard price of $22.99 at the time or $24.99 now, so when they did this six months ago they started calling it the Boba Fett tax because they assumed Hasbro was doing it because people love Boba Fett. This appears to have started with Marvel Legends this week when they announced this Spidey figure from the Playstation game that has no elaborate accessories beyond what any standalone figure would have that costs $34.99 for some reason instead of the $24.99 standard. Absolutely no visible reason to charge that much--every piece shown below has already been sculpted and released before in different colors than we see here--but they're doing it anyway.

I want that Black Costume figure. What’s the price tag? Mafex figures usually cost about $80 to $100 retail and shipped from Japan where they're made. Well, they're made in China, but everything is, right? Medicom is the company that makes them, and they're in Japan. If you buy them from a US company like BigBadToyStore that imports and sell them they're usually $100, but if you buy them from a Japanese retailer and find decent shipping prices--which isn't hard to do as compared to American retail pricing which is why I buy almost all of mine from Japan, and that's particularly true over the last year or so when the Japanese Yen has dropped in price relative to the US dollar--then it's closer to $80, or even $70 now while the Yen is weak. But Mafex figures are red hot, and anything semi-popular sells out fast. They've really gained acceptance as the best action figures in twelfth scale among hardcore collectors, and it seems to have somewhat caught Medicom by surprise who seems to always under-produce figures of popular characters. Anything Spidey-related is usually red hot so I'm guessing this guy is sold out, which means if you can't find anyone with it then you'll have to go the eBay/Mercari route. Just looked at prices there and they appear to be between $100 and $150 right now, but I fully expect those to rise to $200 to $300 within a few months.

Also, if I were going to have just one or two Marvel figures I'd definitely go with Mafex versions. They just released two Spider-Mans within the past few months--one with classic colors and one in the black suit--both of which are the best versions of those suits ever made. Unfortunately the classic version doesn't have a Peter head like the original Mafex Spidey did, but the black suit one does have an unmasked head. The black suit unmasked head has symbiote goop on his neck though so you probably wouldn't want to use it with the other Mafex Spidey figures.

I only know of two figures released within the past five years with a Peter Parker head besides the Renew Your Vows set--the Toys R Us exclusive Mary Jane and Spider-Man 2-pack from 2018 in the first pic below that's rather pricey and likely to cost multiples of the Renew Your Vows set, and the retro Peter Parker figure from 2020 in the second pic below that's more moderately priced. But the retro Peter head doesn't have a fully unmasked head, just the one with the Coke bottle glasses and the half-Spidey head. LOVE that half-Spidey head so much. The Renew Your Vows head is a re-paint of the one from the 2-pack below. They're almost identical, but the Renew Your Vows paint job is very slightly better.

Here are my top Marvel Legends for 2022 in order of quality. I’ve had all of these on my desk for most of the past month to make sure I felt good about how I was ranking them while also double-checking against the 2022 figures at the FigureList web site to make sure I didn't forget any. Doing that led to several figures getting swapped on and off of my list, particularly Kate Bishop who I originally didn't put on the list and eventually decided was a mistake. As always I make an objective list that ignores my personal preference as much as possible and focuses on the quality of the figures followed by my subjective list of the figures I personally liked the best that is highly driven by my bias towards characters or other design elements I prefer. I started with a list of forty or so figures and narrowed it down to these twenty, so consider numbers 11 through 20 honorable mentions. Haslab Galactus – They fixed all of the issues with the Sentinel and cranked out what may be the best action figure ever made. Everything about this guy screams premium, and the only real issues are the lack of head tilt to look down on your other puny Legends figures and limited torso range to compensate for the lack of range in the neck. Khonshu – Best BAF of the year. Amazing sculpt, the staff is incredibly well done, excellent paint to make him look aged, the articulation range is exceptional and way better than the character usually needs, and the sculpt on the head is amazing. The only real flaw is the head is only on a simple ball peg and doesn’t get much range, but everything else about this figure is superb. Mojo – Amazing sculpt and paint, and while the articulation is limited all of the bits that do need to articulate do their job extremely well. Striking shelf presence, and they really blew the also-excellent Toy Biz version of the figure away. Morg – Probably the best sculpt of the year, and that’s particularly true for the head sculpt. Probably would have been second-best of the year with more paint and range of motion on the torso, but this is a superbly striking figure. Classic Doctor Strange – Aside from the heads this figure is mostly re-used parts, but wow, they found a mix of parts that work PERFECTLY for a classic Doctor Strange. Just a stunning figure that articulates in every way you’d want a Strange figure to. Kate Bishop – At first I wasn’t impressed with this figure, but once I got a chance to appreciate the articulation I realized she’s outstanding and may be THE best articulated female Legends figure ever made. She’s got all of the arm and leg motion of the Shriek mold, but also butterfly joints that work wonderfully. Often Legends butterfly joints bump into the deltoid peg and can’t get their full range of motion, but that’s not the case with Kate. The sculpt is nice as most MCU figures are, and the face print is a nice likeness of Hailee Steinfeld. Bonebreaker – It’s all about the sculpt on that tank. Wonderfully done, and if he had working tank treads he would have easily gone into the top five this year. Infinity Ultron – Wonderful sculpt, paint, and nice articulation. Innovative cape design that stays on INCREDIBLY well yet is still easy to remove if desired. Would have been top five if not for the engineering on the lance-holding hand–it’s too wide open to hold the lance well–and if he were depicted to be larger as he mostly was in the What If episode he appeared in. Lizard – I thought for sure this guy would be top three due to the EXCEPTIONAL sculpt, TERRIFIC head sculpts, and INCREDIBLY-well done lab coat and tail, but there’s a fatal engineering design flaw. He’s back-heavy, and the usual way to compensate for that is to lean figures forward–but this guy won’t lean forward much because they didn’t give his feet much forward swivel. You can mod the food by cutting into it to give the swivel more room to turn, but that should have been built in. Herald Thor – Great sculpt and paint. Would have ranked higher, but the articulation is fairly limited in the neck and arms and his Mjolnir-holding hand is a bit too big to hold the hammer well. Animated Cyclops – Surprisingly great figure. I almost didn’t order this guy, but they improved EVERYTHING that was wrong with the previous Warlock wave figure. The straps are incredibly well-implemented particularly on the torso and stay firmly in place even while posed, the butterfly joints are nice but somewhat limited due to the usual issue with the deltoid peg getting in the way, the range of motion from the Vulcan mold is fully intact and great, and the overall look is by far the best Cyclops ever in twelfth scale. Amazing Fantasy 15 Spider-Man – I’m still not sure why they created a new mold for Spidey given how good the Renew Your Vows mold has become over multiple iterative improvements, but they did it and it’s really, really good with most of the solid articulation from the previous mold. This new mold is also smaller, and that’s perfect for Peter who is usually depicted in Legends to be 6’ 2” or more even though the character should only be around 5’ 10”. The paint in particular is subtly striking and matches the source art extremely well. MCU She-Hulk – Completely new sculpt with great details and decent articulation. With butterflies and more torso range of motion she would have easily been top ten, but even without them she’s their best She-Hulk to date–and that’s no small feat given that the Super Skrull wave comic version was great and a top ten contender when it was released in 2020. Classic Black Panther – By far the best Black Panther ever released. The Vulcan mold is perfect for him, but he contends for top figure mostly due to the additions–great cape, perfect head sculpt, and nice deco. He doesn’t have much paint, but he doesn’t need it with the nice matte black appearance of the plastic. MCU Moon Knight – With more articulation would have made the top ten. His sculpt and paint are exceptional, but he lacks butterflies and needs more range of motion in the torso, legs, and arms. Still the range he does have is above average so he can still strike a wide range of poses. Quake – Simple and highly effective re-use of the Shriek mold. The deco is simple, but it works SO well for a SHIELD agent. The real fun factor on this figure is finding female heads from other figures to put onto multiple copies of the figure for army-building female SHIELD agents. Toad – Neck and neck with Renew Your Vows Spidey for the best articulation on any Legends figure to date. Oddly the diaphragm joint and lower ab crunch combo doesn’t get even 45 degrees of forward tilt which limits the crouching poses he can get into, but his hip and leg articulation is good enough to compensate and still get him into a nice range of crouches. Spectacular head sculpt. Shocker – All-new sculpt that is extremely well done. Minimal paint but nice articulation and a surprisingly well-done figure for a B-list Spidey villain. Namor – Really nice execution with the sculpt, paint, and articulation and a face print that captures the film actor extremely well. Iron Spider – May have been top ten if the legs didn’t have two sculpted joints that don’t articulate, but the legs are still super-fun to experiment with and can still get into a wide array of poses. One of the few Iron Spider figures whose legs can actually support the figure in a limited number of poses. Here's my list of subjective favorites. Several of these aren't at all innovative, but I just love them more for whatever reason. Haslab Galactus 3-pack Venom – Not much innovation here aside from the head sculpts, but Venom is one of my favorite villains and in many ways this is the best version of him to date, so I love it. 3-pack Daredevil – I love Daredevil, and this is by far the best Daredevil ever, so aside from the minor deco issues what’s not to love? Khonshu MCU She-Hulk Animated Cyclops Infinity Ultron Quake MCU Moon Knight King in Black Venom – I thought for sure this guy would be an objective top 10 this year, but the engineering on the wings has too many issues to compete for the top 10. It’s still a great-looking figure, and I love the ambition of tackling those wings. I just wish they pegged into the back better and that he could stand better with the wings on. Here's some posing I did of most of the figures from these lists while deciding which were the best.

Picked up the entire Marvel Legends Khonshu wave over Christmas. The figures in the wave are OK at best with He Who Remains (i.e. Kang the Conqueror) being the highlight, but the Khonshu build-a-figure was the Hasbro's best BAF in 2022. Great sculpt, surprisingly great articulation aside from the neck which is on just a simple ball peg, and the paint wash is subtly awesome. Looks great with the MCU Moon Knight figure released a few months ago.

The wine's not, though.

IRS announces delay for implementation of $600 reporting threshold for third-party payment platforms’ Forms 1099-K It may have taken a bit, but… Not fixed yet, though, just delayed. But maybe this time next year that fix will go in.

I've had a shortcut saved to Ikea's Billy product page for years now for exactly this reason.

As I mentioned it's possible it's loose and I hadn't noticed, so I just took it out of my display case. It's on there much tighter than you're describing yours is. Took more than a gentle tug to get it off, and I could tell it was on there tightly enough to hold the figure by its head and shake it around trying to see if the body would come off so I did that and couldn't get shaking to cause the body to come off. I would describe one or two of my Mafex figures as having heads that come off easily as I'm working them, but I barely remember which ones do that since I push down on the neck as I work them as I described earlier. In general I don't mind loose joints if one thing is true--they're at least tight enough to hold up their own weight and stay posed at any angle I pose it at. If they can't do that I start looking to do a return, or if it's something too old to return I sometimes look to get a new one. So if I couldn't pose Jean's head at a specific angle without gravity shifting it I'd definitely return it if possible.

One thing to note about Mafex heads is I often take them off for a non-obvious reason, so I'm generally glad they're designed to come off fairly easily--they include a bend in the neck peg that allows additional head tilt either forward or back. In the first pic below you can see the 075 Spider-Man's bent neck peg, and I have turned it so that the bend faces forward which means the peg angles backward, and in the second pic you can see the maximum tilt backwards that grants. You can easily turn that peg around so that the bend points forward granting more tilt forward and down. I own 30 to 40 Mafex figures, and I don't recall ANY not having this same bent neck peg.

If all three heads do it sounds like it's the peg. All Mafex heads come off for me with almost no force, and I don't recall Jean's coming off more or less than any others. I've learned to handle all Mafex joints the same way, so I suppose even if hers were loose I may not notice. When I'm working a joint on an import I push it not just in the direction it goes but also in the direction it's connected so that it doesn't pop off. That particularly helps with figures that have loose joints due to a bad copy or bad design. The easiest joint I own to come apart is the Mafex tiger stripe Wolverine's biceps; those have a design flaw that causes everyone's to come apart if you twist it and apply ANY force away from where the arm connects to the deltoid. But mine never come off because I don't just twist the bicep swivel, I twist it and push slightly up towards the deltoid, and applying slight force towards the connection point keeps it connected.

Mafex Jean is the best Jean released to date, but I agree that she's underwhelming. Most of that is I just don't like this costume for her. Everyone's favorite Jean costume is Phoenix or Dark Phoenix, so we're all waiting for that iteration of the character. Mafex's parts are designed to come off with some force. That's their trade-off for the more-attractive plastic--to design the parts to come off if too much pressure is applied as opposed to those parts breaking. You can also easily pop arms, legs, and torsos apart if you exert the right pressure at the right places in the right direction. Sometimes they design the joints to come apart too easily, and sometimes they design them to NOT come apart easily at all and those joints tend to be the ones that break the most. If that's a deal-breaker I'd avoid all of the Japanese imports because Figuarts, Mafex, and Amazing Yamaguchi parts all come off fairly easily as compared to the brands geared towards either kids only ($10 basic figures from Hasbro and Mattel) or a mix of kids and adult collectors (Marvel Legends, Star Wars Black Series, McFarlane DC Multiverse, etc).

I love the Daredevil and Elektra in that new 3-pack. DD and Elektra have by far the best articulation of any twelfth-scale version of the characters, and Elektra's wild Jersey girl hair is awesome.

Why's that? I haven't owned anything from them yet nor heard much. Which figures of theirs have had QC issues?

I've had the ThreeZero Mark 43 and Hulkbuster in my BBTS cart for a few weeks now. The top half of the Mark 43 fits down into the Hulkbuster as shown below. Only reason I haven't pulled the trigger is it looks somewhat difficult to finagle the parts on him to get maximum articulation range and to open up the chest and head to fit the Mark 43 inside. Even harder to finagle is the Hot Toys Hulkbuster that lets an entire Mark 43 figure fit inside. Whoo, boy, the reviews on working the parts on that guy make me feel like I would need a mechanical engineering degree to play with it at all.

Currently there's just the one thread that's like a Water Cooler catch-all for all toy topics. There are other forums that focus on toys. I use one called The Fwoosh that I post on more than I do here for the last few years, but that one is focused on new toys from what I can tell, not so much vintage. Or if people do talk about vintage toys there I haven't found the sub-forum where they're doing it. Anyone know what the best vintage toy forum is? I think those Spider-Man movie figures are doing well because of the recent No Way Home film that featured Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. Hasbro has the Marvel license for most toys sold at retail in the US, and for some reason they didn't produce any figures with unmasked heads of Maguire and Garfield so people are going back and buying the old figures that did have unmasked heads of those two guys. There's a Reddit thread where people talk about Hasbro's Marvel Legends, and I've been seeing people post lots of pics of their pickups of Maguire and Garfield old figures in that thread for the last year since that movie came out. Not sure why Hasbro didn't make unmasked heads of the older actors. We've been assuming there was some contractual or financial issue with either Sony or those two actors, but I haven't seen evidence that anyone knows what the issue is.

Sweet figures but those stands look painful! Andorian interrogation tactic. I know I'd talk before they got me this far.

I want to but 399.99 damn that’s like a billion in CAD but might pull trigger I can't tell if you guys are confused or I am, but the Marvel Legends Galactus was a crowdfunding project that ran for 45 days in 2021 and is no longer available to purchase at $399.99. That was the funding price last year, and to date Hasbro has never sold these "Haslab" (Hasbro Labs, presumably) items past their crowdfunding period so the only way to get them now is at higher prices from people who crowdfunded the item. The aftermarket prices on eBay range from $500 to $900 with the center of that range being the most common market price. I have one, and it's well worth it even at the aftermarket prices. It's not the best action figure ever made for multiple objective reasons I could cite, but subjectively it's by far my favorite action figure ever made.

That's one of the handful of 1960s issues that was clearly present in one or more warehouse finds of undestroyed, uncirculated copies. The others I recall in the 1 to 75 range are #46, #48, #58, and #59. Always strange when some Silver Marvel issues are far more available than others, and #44 is the earliest in the title that's significantly more available than most others. I always wonder which is more available between #44 and #48. Going by the Census there are over twice as many copies of #48 in high grade, but #44 wouldn't be submitted nearly as much since it's not a key so I'm sure there are quite a few unslabbed high grade copies of it out there.

I got my box set last week and love it. I almost cancelled it since they're surprisingly releasing a single-carded Longshot and they already released a single-box Mojo at retail separately from this box set, but I stuck with the set due to the superior paint job on the box set version and the upgrades to the Dazzler figure relative to the previous retro-carded Dazzler with a jacket and shorter hair. Nice set, and Mojo is quite awesome. If the $132 price tag on the box set scares anyone away then definitely hop on the single release Mojo at $56. It's even much less than that this week if you buy it at Target who has a 25% off on one toy promotion along with a buy $40 get a $10 gift card promotion. Not completely sure everyone gets that; it may be customer-specific because some of Target's sales are.

I only had a few minutes to futz around with it myself! Ok good, I’m glad I’m not the only one having trouble with the fx pieces. I also had a heck of a time getting the claws to stick, and even then it wasn’t a very “cool” pose. So I’m not sure if it’s kinda shoddy, or if I just need to work with it a bit more. And you’re also not alone on the stand peg issue! I’ve had the same problem with every Mezco stand I’ve ever owned, they are a huge pain to get that big peg out. I gave up at the time, will try again this weekend. For the pic he was just briefly balanced on the Sentinel stand. I've had this new Mezco Wolverine for a while. I really don't like the look of mostly-cloth uniforms on twelfth-scale figures. I could tell that from the promo shots, and yep, they look as awkward in person as they do in pics. I pulled the trigger anyway due to the awesome base and ridiculous amount of accessories and am not at all dissatisfied with the purchase, but I still place him well below the Legends and Mafex versions of tiger stripe Logan. My only gripe with the base is the head and hand are really in the 1:18 scale. They're about as big as the 1:18 scale Marvel Universe Sentinel head and hand, and about half the size of the Haslab Sentinel head and hands. Still like it though, and certainly there were much smaller versions of Sentinels in the 1960s comics that the smaller size is consistent with so it's not hard to mentally explain the scale away for a display.

Thank you very much. Will check 'em out later today. Also try searching "mattel rex" on eBay. Mattel has made a LOT of Rex figures the last few years, and with that new Hammond Collection Rex just released a few months ago I'm sure a lot of collectors are upgrading to him and selling off their older Rex figures.