fantastic_four

The fourth and last 1:12 scale horse I have is the Mythic Legions Aethon and Arethyr set shown below, but I haven't taken the horse out of the box because I haven't thought of any good superhero displays to put it in. But when I bought Balius Aethon and Arethyr were available so I jumped on them. Mythic Legions is a really weird line in the way they sell them. The company that makes them is Four Horsemen, and they sell in two ways--directly through their web site and through third parties like BBTS. But when they sell directly it's MUCH cheaper, usually about 30% to 50% cheaper. And they make things it such limited quantities that everything triples or quadruples on the open market, so when I see something semi-desirable on their site I grab it since it's usually all gone within minutes. That line has one other mount I'm semi-interested in--a riding moose shown below. But that one I REALLY am not sure what displays I'd ever put it in, so I didn't pull the trigger when I could have. May find myself eventually wanting it though.

I have the McFarlane build-a-horse and love it. I also have the McFarlane Roach horse from the Witcher television series, and while I like it I prefer the build-a-horse slightly more just due to the mane style; the build-a-horse's mane sticks up which is better for action poses. The build-a-horse's tail can also support the weight of the horse for raring-up on two leg poses whereas the Roach horse's tail can't. Balius and the build-a-horse are the same scale and almost identical heights, and below is a comparative pic between the two. They're both bigger than the average horse at 6-inch scale, but there are so many large breeds of horses (Shire, Cyldesdale, Belgian Draft, etc) that would be the same size as a slightly oversized horse that I'm totally fine with it. I love the look of the build-a-horse, and the only downside is the articulation. The legs don't move in and out at all and the feet seem a bit too close together, so finding a stable standing pose can be rough. The head and neck also don't move left and right at all whereas a real horse can move its head so far left or right that it could bite a rider's foot if it wanted to. The Mythic Legions Balius can move its legs in and out and can move its head and neck left and right, plus the detailing is better, but it's more expensive ($55 retail from Four Horseman, around $80 from BigBadToyStore, and around $150 on eBay) so the McFarlane build-a-horse is absolutely fine since horses don't play much of a part in most superhero displays.

New Marvel Legends release announced today I'm looking forward to--a 3-pack with Venom and the Agony and Riot symbiotes. That half-Eddie Brock, half-Venom head sculpt on Venom looks spectacular. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09QFV3LK3

Agreed, it's fantastic. Every Mafex made over the last few years is, really. The Mafex version with the black suit is great as well. Mine is below shown on the Mythic Legions Balius horse.

It was--the only clearly marketable team Marvel had at the time. What happened after that is the side movies started becoming so surprisingly popular that they've branched off into multiple characters/teams/stories just as the comics already have. All of the Disney Plus shows are just OK, but the one exception was the final episode of Loki. That's the only thing from the shows I've watched more than once, and coincidentally I'm in the middle of a third viewing after we found that Kang is somewhat like the new Thanos over the next two phases. I didn't know much about Kang before that show, but now I'm all in. SO much potential in that character. The next Avengers vs Thanos -type buildup I would expect to involve the X-Men. There are a bunch of threads in the existing works that may (or may not) already be leading to their big reveal. But I'm sure they'll still manage to ruin that for us crusty old guys by changing the name of the team.

Is anyone familiar with the storyline from the comics where Atlantis and Wakanda had some sort of conflict? I'm curious about the reasons they conflicted in the comics as a general indicator for where they may (or may not) go in the film.

Interesting tidbit I just found about Namor--when Bill Everett created the character in 1939 he was trying to come up with unique character names by taking well-known words and reversing them. "Namor" was a result of him reversing the name of the Roman empire.

The other Namor reference in past MCU films I'm aware of was in Endgame. After the plot skips ahead years after Thor kills Thanos Black Widow is having a holographic conference with Nebula, Rocket, Okoye, Captain Marvel, and James Rhodes. Widow asks Okoye about an underwater earthquake, and she says that Wakanda tied it to a location off of the African coast and that it's nothing to worry about. That seems to generally match up with the Iron Man 2 SHIELD map and probably will end up being the first establishment of a link between Talocan and Wakanda.

The myth of Atlantis comes from Ancient Greece. At the time they thought it was probably somewhere off of the coast of Europe, and there are ancient Greek cities that are now underwater that are possible sources for where the idea originated. Fast forward to Iron Man 2 in the MCU. There was a map shown in that film pictured below that many have been assuming was the location of Atlantis. Atlantis in fiction has mostly been depicted as being vaguely Greek in terms of appearance and culture, but if this is the location they've been planning since when IM2 was written then you would assume their culture would be far closer to that of Africa, or possibly South America. The idea that they went with tying them to South American culture makes sense, and just the fact that it's between both continents is my best guess for why they wanted to tie Namor's emergence to Black Panther. There may end up being some ancient association drawn between Talocan and Wakanda. The far history of South America and Africa is that they used to be a single land mass that split apart around 140 million years ago, and that history could come into play within the film's story given that Talocan is located almost at the midpoint between the two continents. I don't have enough tie to the historical fiction surrounding Atlantis to miss it. The name change seems obvious--they've been planning a different Atlantis than history describes, so they changed the name. If they've been planning this since well before Iron Man 2 released in 2010 then this wouldn't be any change related to the Aquaman film given that the DC film wasn't on anyone's radar back in 2008 or 2009.

There are a near-infinite number of versions of Kang due to all of his time travel multiverse exploits, so the appearance, behavior, and goals of any one Kang variant doesn't restrict at all what all of the other variants would be like. He Who Remains is the version who has taken it upon himself to prevent his variants from ruining the multiverse, so it makes sense he wouldn't be wearing a combat suit like Kang does when he's time-travelling to conquer some part of his timeline. The outfit in the show is vaguely similar to the outfit the character wore in his first appearance in Thor #245 from 1976 pictured below.

You mean like EVERY MCU film to date has done? Drawing from the comic stories but altering them enough to keep you guessing has been Feige's entire thing since he started the MCU, and it's also what most of the Sony and Fox films did as well. It's similarly hard for me to remember ANY superhero film from DC, Marvel, or whoever that also didn't do this same thing you're describing as uninteresting. What truly original superhero films are you thinking of that you enjoyed? When I go through the list of the best superhero films ever made they ALL draw from comic stories hardcore fans are already well-versed in.

This is Paul Harding's Instagram where he usually posts a pic of the Marvel Legends sculpts he does: https://www.instagram.com/hardingstudios/

Yep, with those 70s Harding sculpts most recently used for all of their 20th Anniversary of Marvel Legends figures. He did the head sculpts for all three of these.

His revelation is much older than that. Here's a 2012 article that references his quote about his original title: https://uncannyxmen.net/secrets-behind-the-x-men/stan-lees-x-men I also first heard it when Victoria Alonso made the quote you're referencing, but it appears to long pre-date her or the Fox deal. Finding Stan Lee quotes can be VERY difficult since he's done so many interviews over the years, but I'm curious about how long he's been sharing his original title if anyone finds anything even older.

The name swap seems likely given Stan's revelation that "The Mutants" was his original title for the book. Anyone know when Stan's original name was first revealed? I never heard it until just before he died, but if you google it there are references to the original title at least a few years before that. I'm particularly curious about whether or not Jack Kirby ever verified it given that Stan Lee at times has remembered things wrong. But the way Lee told it the name was determined before Kirby even started drawing the first issue so it's possible he didn't even know the original title.

Liked this trailer even more than the teaser. CGI is definitely still WAY sub-par.

Still waiting for the first truly great Disney Plus show. So far every one is stretched out too thin. Did I hear Feige say Daredevil is 18 episodes? . Given that the current series are usually twice as long as they should have been this doesn't sound like a positive.

His Holocaust back story was ret-conned in much later anyway so it's no big deal to replace it with something else. Stan Lee originally hinted that he, Wanda, and Pietro were Romani (more popularly known at the time as gypsies). If memory serves the Holocaust background was introduced in X-Men #150 in 1981 by Chris Claremont on the page below. I suppose that's not mutually exclusive with him being Romani since the Nazis put lots of displaced people they didn't think fit the mold of their "master race" in concentration camps.

I'm still hoping Magneto is Fassbender who is still only 45. McAvoy could still be Xavier since he's only 43.

Cranston is 66 and Esposito is 64; between the two I'd enjoy Esposito more as Xavier. But I would think they'd cast someone in their thirties or forties who can fill the role for quite a while.

It's SDCC week! Diamond revealed a new classic Apocalypse figure that looks interesting, although it's odd that Hasbro also is doing a new classic Apocalypse at almost exactly the same time. We see that a lot with movie figures for obvious reasons, but why they'd release the same comic figure at the same time is odd. There's something semi-realistic about the Diamond version in the first pic below. He's the first rendition of the character who struck me as actually looking Egyptian as the character is supposed to be. Second pic shows the Hasbro version first revealed a month or two ago. I'm guessing the Diamond figure is about 9 inches and the Hasbro is about 8, although it doesn't matter much since En Sabah Nur can change his size at will. For now I prefer the Hasbro costume deco, although I've heard the Diamond figure may come with alternate effect pieces that it doesn't look like they're showing yet.

Based upon this observation I'm pegging your developmental age at somewhere between 7 and 12.

The great thing about this thread is that NONE of us are grown men; our development is arrested at some point between the ages of 4 and 15. I like to think of myself as being trapped somewhere closer to 15, but I won't be surprised if people think I'm actually closer to 4.

Stuck on episode 4. Just not enough action. Not feeling particularly compelled to continue.

The 4K discs for this are native 4K, which is unlike 90% of the other Disney films which are upscaled from 2K to 4K. Hopefully most will be native from here on out, but I won't be holding my breath since Black Widow and Shang-Chi were both upscaled. Eternals was native as well, and supposedly Love and Thunder also will be, so maybe the upscaling days are behind us now.