fantastic_four

Reviews are pouring in ULTRA-slowly for some reason. When I posted earlier the Tomatometer was at 31% with about 17 reviews in, now it's up to 58% with 36 reviews in.

Are they? Apparently they listed three new Star Wars Black Series figures today--an ARC trooper, Mace Windu, and General Grievous--all of which sold out within moments. But that's not the best part...the best part is they never even posted pictures of what the action figures look like, they just showed cartoon images of the characters. So I had a minute or two to decide whether or not to buy some action figures that I just had to hope would end up being something I might like. I could already list about 20 reasons why Hasbro's Star Wars team pales in comparison to the Marvel Legends team, but all of what I would have listed until this is relatively minor. This is a new low for that team, and the biggest WTF moment I've seen from them.

I'm three or four figures past tired of the Marvel Legends Hulk mold they've now repainted for this Walmart event. This is the lamest of all of those re-paints, but hey, I'm sure there are a few hundred people who enjoyed that specific storyline enough to want a rainbow-colored Hulk. I guess this is supposed to be some weird mix of Hulk (Bruce Banner) and Red Hulk (General Ross) created by the Impossible Man. Zany idea, definitely don't need a figure of it myself.

Looks like critics think this is the same kind of stinker the last two were. Not that big a surprise.

Another release for this week with the review embargo still in place.

No reviews yet?

Is there reason to trust their numbers? They HAVE to be estimates.

I've got friends and family accessing my Disney Plus account from four different states which they could easily prevent but don't, so that $30 could be used by far more than one family. But I went to the theater to see it this past Saturday, and wow, that 20 screen complex had about a fifth the cars in the lot it used to pre-Covid. People just aren't going to the movies again yet.

I recall last year there was a specific black actor or stuntman who was leaked to be playing Taskmaster, and people speculated he may have been the actor instead of the stunt man. Does anyone know who her stunt doubles were? I'd have to see the stunt doubles next to Olga Kurylenko to have much opinion, because Olga herself is as tall or taller than most men. She's relatively thin, but the suit was loose and armored enough for me to not have much feel for the person's bulk inside of it beyond I could tell they were at maximum average build for their height and not terribly bulky. Who knows, maybe her doubles be they male or female were similar in size and body to her at 5' 9", because it didn't look like there was someone in the suit in excess of 180 pounds. She's probably 120 to 130, but that suit definitely hid a lot of weight that either was or wasn't there. For anyone unfamiliar with the actress I know her best for playing the female lead in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. Here she is below next to Daniel Craig while promoting that film.

Review embargo is still in place. That's almost NEVER a good sign. I don't remember now, has any movie ever been critically acclaimed whose studio lifted review embargoes the week of release? I bet there has to be one or two examples, but I know for sure it's exceedingly rare.

Anyone heard when the review embargo lifts? I've searched twice over the last few weeks and been unable to find a date, but it's clear the meta-review sites have none to count yet.

I comes down to Feige being an expert on the Marvel universe extending back to his childhood and virtually every other executive who has ever produced any superhero film knowing very little about the content they're producing. Or put more simply--Feige's notes are good, whereas those from most executives are cringe-worthy.

Do you mostly want him for the Nick Fury head or to use him as a SHIELD agent? They teased a few months ago that they will be releasing a SHIELD army builder figure on Hasbro Pulse, so if you're looking to use that figure for SHIELD agents you can wait. If you want the figure for Nick Fury or Dirk Anger heads then yea, you'll want to get that figure because I presume the army builder won't come with those two heads. The teaser silhouette they showed of the army builder appeared to have that helmeted head on it, and that's likely the only head it will come with.

Yea I can't think of any other great Marvel Haslab projects that would reach the levels of a Sentinel or Galactus so going all in on this one makes sense. Having said that I expected more extras, but there's not much room for extras in stretch goals with the minimum set so high. The lack of extras is disappointing, although the figure itself looks superb.

Wow, they OVER doubled the backing goal from 6,000 to 14,000, and in NO way do I believe they need 14K to fund this thing, so sheesh, nice marketing ploy. And they didn't even bother to list stretch goals. They're FAR more confident about this project than the Sentinel, clearly.

The New York Times just ran a piece about Haslab projects and includes references to today's Galactus and likely twelfth-scale Star Wars Rancor project reveals: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/16/business/toys-exclusive-crowdfunding.html There's also a new Galactus teaser image:

Yea that's a tough call, it'll be interesting. I'm guessing it will sell somewhat less well than the Sentinel, but we really have to wait to see how much they're sweetening the deal with extras. Dan Yun, one of their marketing guys, said he was trying to add as much value as possible and was determined for Galactus to out-sell the Sentinel. If he comes with an extensive collection of heralds it will make a big difference.

Here's a re-post of Dwight Stall's tease of the Sentinel leg with Jubilee and Wolverine near it for scale (Dwight is the lead designer with the Marvel Legends team). They appear to come roughly as far up the lower leg as Reed comes up the leg of Galactus in today's tease. That suggests Galactus is pretty close to the 26" size of the Sentinel, although obviously it's probably taller with his huge helmet on.

Someone on Reddit found a placeholder for a Galactus Haslab project listing on the Hasbro Pulse web site for $400. It'll probably be announced later today.

I didn't get it either, but no, there was no option that makes sense other than killing him. Which itself doesn't make a ton of sense since if he knew they wouldn't take his place then he could've just stopped doing what he was doing if he wanted out.

I was wondering that too, but the comics have only hinted at potential familial ties with both Reed's dad and even Victor Von Doom, no solid ones. So I'm guessing they don't feel constrained to do that.

I've been assuming Loki's fluid appearance is due to Loki's magic and interaction with other magic users. Alligaloki might be like Throg--just Loki transmuted into an alligator with no way to transmute back. In the comics I've read over the last few days every Kang variant looks pretty much like every other Kang variant, and Immortus is just Kang older and without the purple and green suit. Still not sure why he's named "Immortus," but my current guess that Stan didn't have in mind in Avengers #10 but was later ret-conned in is that it ties to the immortality granted to him by the Timekeepers, but I haven't been able to yet find why he's called Immortus instead of Kang. So I'm guessing Kang will be looking like Majors in all of his versions, but with some MCU-ified version of the Kang suit.

In the comics Immortus was granted immortality by the Timekeepers in exchange for guarding the timelines. Doesn't seem like there are any real Timekeepers so it's unclear if he's ageless in the MCU, but he did tell the Lokis that he's "older than you can know" so it seems a safe bet he's significantly older than the 31-year old that Jonathan Majors is.

I was unfamiliar with "He Who Remains" from the comics, but I read yesterday there that person isn't Immortus and they merged him with Immortus for the MCU. I still don't get why he wanted Sylvie to kill him though, or exactly what he meant by being reincarnated. Still need to watch it again and mull his words over. The whole time Immortus was talking to them I tried to decide if Sylvie would buy into it, but the further it went the more I realized there was just no way it made sense for her to. She had been a captive of or running from the TVA her entire life, so she had every overwhelming reason to detest Immortus and kill him in that moment. And I can't imagine how he didn't realize exactly that--he MUST have known she was going to kill him, even if what he said was true about not knowing the future beyond that "threshold" time point he referred to.

This is the first page he's in from Avengers #8. Seems clear he's a white guy under a purple mask, you can see the skin inside the eye and mouth holes.