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fantastic_four

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Everything posted by fantastic_four

  1. fantastic_four
    When Walker got knocked off the truck and fell onto the car the first thing I thought was how is he getting up. Any of us would be in the hospital after that.
  2. fantastic_four
    What's unclear about the rights? For the overwhelming most part Marvel has only hired work-for-hire creators, and that's been true for long over half a century. Stan managed to get Marvel to give him a small cut of the pie that I don't think he ever actually saw during his lifetime--aside from the large yearly salary they gave him all along to I guess make him feel somewhat better about not getting the full cut he had negotiated--but most artists don't. I get Brubaker's malaise in retrospect, but by 2005 he knew full well what he was doing by working for Marvel.
  3. fantastic_four
    I ask . . . and f_f answers. Thanks, bud, I thought that might still be the case. If it's the same rule I was thinking about, the max loss amount that can be used to offset ord. inc. is $3k. I just played around with different loss amounts and it appears that's right, the max you can deduct is $3000. Tried a sale where I kept changing the loss from $7000 to $5000 to $3000 and finally to $2000, and the $7000/$5000/$3000 losses all deducted the same amount. HR Block applied the loss to both my federal and state (Virginia) taxes. Thanks for that, I hadn't noticed there was a max. So if you're expecting losses try never to pool them in one year and either spread them over multiple years or be sure to offset the losses to keep them under $3000 for the year by selling some stuff at a gain.
  4. fantastic_four
    OK, just played around with this in HR Block. First I entered a $1500 net income sale, and yep, it taxed me on the $1500, no surprise. Then I entered a $1500 net loss sale, and it did cancel out the gain for a tax owed of $0. No real surprise. I then edited the loss sale to be a $1000 loss instead of a $1500 loss and it did just subtract less of a loss leaving me owing taxes on $500. Again no surprise. I then deleted the $1500 gain sale, and VERY surprisingly the net loss for the year was actually deductible, or so HR Block's software thinks. That floored me...I didn't think they'd let me deduct net losses on collectibles sales from the rest of my income, but apparently that does work. It makes general sense, but I still didn't think the IRS would allow it--but luckily they do. One last thing--there was a separate section for deducting costs related to investments. There was one box where it looked to me as if I could deduct maintenance expenses on collectibles, although I'm not entirely sure if that was just supposed to be expenses for 2020 or expenses between the time I first bought something years ago and today. So if I made $1500 on a comic and spend a few hundred on safety deposit fees, insurance fees, storage fees, etc I think I could deduct those costs on the items sold as one big chunk. But I'm not sure of it and will need to research more when I inevitably start selling some of my better stuff.
  5. fantastic_four
    It seemed problematic to me at the time, but I had already turned my brain off to accept the time travel impossibilities that allowed Banner to have the stones in the first place so I didn't feel particularly motivated to game out the issues. I didn't see a point given that the entire concept of Endgame already required me to not question it too much.
  6. fantastic_four
    Walker seems far more likable here than I recall him being in the comics, at least in the 1980s. Not sure how later versions of him were depicted.
  7. fantastic_four
    Wait a minute...now I think that second figure is based upon a comics version of Winter Soldier since it doesn't reference the show on the package or look much like Sebastian Stan. But the Falcon figure is somewhat of a spoiler, albeit one most of us were already expecting.
  8. fantastic_four
    A pardon for saving the world from Thanos makes complete sense, but why wouldn't they just mention it as opposed to forcing us all to figure it out?
  9. fantastic_four
    Someone leaked images of some action figures related to this series that are rather spoilery. It's mostly things most of us could have guessed, but still, seeing what they look like is a bit of a spoiler, so if you don't want to see Sam or Bucky's costumes from late in the show, don't expand this spoiler.
  10. fantastic_four
    Why are they still letting him have the wings at all given that he violated the Sokovia Accords and went to jail the last time he had them and was then broken out of the Raft by Cap? He showed up with Cap and Nat to save Vision and Wanda in Infinity War, then got dusted, then came back, and suddenly he has a whole new set of wings in this series when as far as I recall he should still be a fugitive. What happened? Was there some mass off-screen pardon given to everyone who helped get rid of Thanos?
  11. fantastic_four
    They were b-list until the movie came out. X-Men was always the A-listers. Unless you're splitting the hair of A+, A++, A+++, B+, etc listers like Cinemascore does. I was using the classic Hollywood A-list, B-list, C-list scale. Anyone who thinks any Avenger was on the same level as Spider-Man or the X-Men is discussing something else entirely.
  12. fantastic_four
    Revenue. Not profit. None of us can nail down the profit in the end. We don't even know total revenue because the studios never reveal the totals they rake in past the box office.
  13. fantastic_four
    Cap, Thor, Iron Man, and the Avengers were B-list characters before the MCU films, and a case can be made for them being closer to C-list. That's why Marvel didn't sell their film rights during bankruptcy--nobody wanted them. I was surprised they were making films based upon them at all before Iron Man came out and blew everyone away. I wasn't looking forward to Iron Man at all and was shocked as to how good it was. Kevin Smith said the same, even as a fan of these characters he was also surprised they released these films based upon the lukewarm popularity of the characters at the time. Hulk is the only Avenger who was a proven commodity which presumably is why Universal owned the distribution rights for him. One thing I'm still unsure of is why Fox owned the rights to Daredevil but had passed on the Avengers. Frank Miller's run certainly boosted his popularity so maybe that's why, but I never had the sense that Daredevil was more popular than most Avengers even at his height.
  14. fantastic_four
    Are we sure of that? I've never seen anyone who was able to tell that once broadcast licensing, merchandise licensing, streaming income, on demand income, and disc sales were factored in.
  15. fantastic_four
    I'm done questioning the logic in this series more than the director ever did. Feige let this one slip...hope he has fun cleaning it up in future series/films.
  16. fantastic_four
    Because investing in collectibles does not add to the productivity of the economy. By contrast, encouraging a liquid trading market where companies can issue securities and use the cash proceeds to invest in employees, factories, etc., increases productivity -- by turning raw assets (land, material, human capital) into productive economic assets. Yea I was thinking something similar when I posted, but you clarified it greatly, so thanks! I think I agree, although I need to mull it over a LOT more.
  17. fantastic_four
    I'm going to play around with form 8949 in HR Block when I do my taxes over the next few weeks. I don't have sales to report, but I'm going to enter a few fake sales to see what the software thinks I owe. I'm particularly interested in if I lose $1000 on one comic but gain $1000 on the other--do they cancel each other out? What if I lose $1500 and gain $1000, is the $500 loss deductible? I bet it isn't. And what if I gain $1500 and lose $1000--I presume I'm taxed on $500. If gains and losses cancel each other out then it would be advantageous to sell books you're losing on in the same years you're selling books you've gained on.
  18. fantastic_four
    Argh. Researching this it apparently went into effect in 2011, and I haven't looked into this topic since then so I wasn't aware. Here's IRS form 8949 that explains it and that you use to record the sale and taxes owed on it: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8949.pdf Here's TurboTax's explanation of the form and taxes on collectibles: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/investments-and-taxes/guide-to-schedule-d-capital-gains-and-losses/L1bKWgPea One thing I'm wondering about this is how to deduct maintenance costs. Stocks don't tend to carry overhead costs aside from broker's fees, but physical items like cars, comics, or whatever do carry ongoing costs of storage, bags and boards, safety deposit box fees, HVAC or dehumidifier electricity fees, insurance costs, etc. Is all of that deductible? It certainly should be. I always resented the idea that stocks were only taxed at 15% to 20% but the rate on collectibles was higher at whatever your income tax rate is, so obviously knowing now they've raised it even more to 28% absolutely infuriates me. Is there any logic behind this? Why is it DOUBLE the rate on stock profits?
  19. fantastic_four
    I've never been clear on how Sam has the wings. They're made by the military, but he's retired from the military--so why does he have them at all? Who fixes them when they get damaged, and who upgraded them for this series? They look completely different than the ones we've seen before. Who gives him the fuel to run them or the ammunition reloads after he fires his rockets?
  20. fantastic_four
    It was Snyder's daughter and her favorite song. So a father recognizing his daughter's enjoyment with the song. And why he had the song and that closing credit to her. Haven't seen the whole movie or this song, but this is the best spoiler ever--because without this I would have immediately harkened back to Nite Owl boning Silk Spectre II from Watchmen when he played Hallelujah and been like WTF, Snyder? This explains what I'll eventually see.
  21. fantastic_four
    I'm generally a fan of Zack. I absolutely revere 300, and I really love Man of Steel. I didn't much like BvS, and Whedon's Justice League was meh, but I recall enjoying it more than BvS. I've really loved the first hour of Snyder's Justice League, but that may be just my general love of Snyder's visual style coupled with none of the cringe-worthy moments BvS had in abundance. I never re-watched BvS to see if it was better than I remembered, and I never saw the ultimate edition. Probably should watch that over the next few weeks.
  22. fantastic_four
    Will this get released in theatres at all?
  23. fantastic_four
    Where is all the money HBO is getting for the Snyder cut coming from--mostly new HBO subscriptions? Also, will this disappear from HBO Max like all of the other theatre releases disappear after a month?
  24. fantastic_four
    Started watching last night and am planning to watch it across 3-4 sittings. The first hour was glorious. I only saw the original once and don't remember a ton about it, but so far I haven't recognized much in it. Certainly all of the trademark Zack Snyder slow motion sequences must be new. Looking forward to looking at more comprehensive breakdowns as to what's different. Did Snyder always plan to include Darkseid? If so, why did Whedon remove him?
  25. fantastic_four
    I've been enjoying a four-decades-long and EXTREMELY fruitful DC vs Marvel feud, thank you very much. Feuding is fine, as was every clip everyone has shared from Anthony Mackie where he was kidding entirely. How anyone took malice away from anything he's said in front of a camera makes me worry for a future of comedy that apparently requires many to carry a parasol and/or smelling salts to engage with.