fantastic_four

I'm looking forward to seeing Ahsoka the most. She's by far the best original character from Clone Wars, and Rosario Dawson playing her is absolutely PERFECT. She was 14 in Clone Wars, but by the time the Empire fell she should be around Dawson's current age of 41. Seeing Cad Bane would be sweet too. I generally like him, although I'm not entirely a fan of his overall look being almost entirely guided by American cowboys.

Presumably Gomez won't be Nico Minoru since she was already cast with a Japanese actress below in the "Runaways" television show which like the Netflix shows is presumably within the scope of MCU lore. She's also too young to be Strange's love interest Clea since Cumberbatch is 44 and Gomez is 14. So I have no guess as to who she'll be...there aren't a ton of ongoing female characters in the Doctor Strange world.

Pulse doesn't put much inventory up for their non-exclusives. I've always assumed that's so third party sellers--particularly small ones like BigBadToyStore, Dorkside Toys, Entertainment Earth, etc, don't feel like Hasbro is flooding fans with so much product that they don't want to buy from the third parties. I'm fine with that, but they've also been putting up overly-low quantities of even their Pulse exclusives. They recently had a fan vote to create either a white Elektra, Sif, or Silk figure. Silk won, they put her on Pulse, and she sold out within hours. I'm still hoping they put more up, but no word yet on whether they will.

Obviously I'm four months late to this conversation and pricing trends have changed during that time--which I would have expected myself back when you posted this on May 1, and what I'm posting now is exactly what I would have posted then had I clicked into this thread this year--but the trend I see in GPA pricing for X-Men key issues (as well as keys from several other major titles) is a modest increase in pricing. And that's exactly what I was expecting as soon as the shutdown happened. There's an ironic truth about recessions that I saw hold true after the 2008 and 2001 economic downturns--the price of most in-demand hard assets like gold and collectibles rises during a recession. I'm not entirely sure why it happens, but in general people seem to stop putting money into markets when they're volatile and put it into other places, and collectibles ends up being one of those places people put money. I haven't been following comic prices closely during this recession, but I just spent about twenty minutes looking through GPA and see prices are largely up on the keys I follow over the last 90 to 120 days. The market I have been following more closely is action figures, and those are up sharply since the recession started. In the past I've seen a sinking national boat causes rises in all of the collectibles markets--guns, cards, coins, comics, toys, or whatever.

Odds are good people tried for those yesterday but they weren't somewhere employees could find, because I know my area of about 18 Targets sold out of all of theirs in under 6 hours. I got a few myself, and Storm is absolutely glorious. My favorite Storm in every way except the feet...the ankle pivot on these is horrible, which is the norm for heeled feet from Hasbro. Everything else is sublime. That wind-swept head and cape are REALLY hard to pose in ways that don't make them great, but any pose with those gain twice the appeal if you put her on a flight stand. Those sculpts were made for flight more than any other sculpt on any action figure I've ever seen. Seeing them on a flight stand transform this Storm from outstanding to one of the best action figures ever made.

I recently obtained Mafex 6" figures of Batman and Joker from this film and was inspired to re-watch it. I've seen it somewhere between 10 and 20 times before, but it had been a few years since my last viewing. Something new about its excellence occurred to me...I don't think there's a single five-minute sequence you can remove from this film and not have it be a worse film. I watched it looking for such a segment and could not identify one that if removed wouldn't make it worse I've ranked my top 30 superhero films in another dedicated thread, and even the other movies in the top 10 have some 5-minute segment you could remove and have it be either better or about the same because what's contained within that five minutes is just average at best and doesn't enrich the story or characters as a whole, but if you muck with the Dark Knight you've made the movie worse because EVERY five-minute segment you could pick has HIGHLY compelling and finely-crafted content interwoven into the rest of the film. There are moments you could remove and probably should--for example I don't mind Bale's voice, but I know tons of people do and you could replace it with something else and have it absolutely work--but no extended segment of five minutes, ANYWHERE. I know many people think the last half-hour seems extraneous, and I absolutely see why they think that, but there's just SO much goodness in that last half-hour, and five minutes absolutely does not pass without that superb quality being there. When I left the theatre on opening day in 2008 I was absolutely floored at how good it was. Twelve years later I still am. This movie's craftsmanship and compellingness is just as superlative now as it was at the time, and everything making it great seems relatively timeless meaning it should continue to age gracefully. It shines so brightly compared to all other superhero films it's hard to even envision another surpassing it. I could point out at LEAST a dozen elements, probably several dozen, that Nolan achieved that no other superhero film has. I hope I see something better than this, but I'm not expecting to. IT'S JUST SO GOOD! I'm a near-complete Marvel zombie, but Nolan made Batman my crossover passion. It hasn't expanded to other versions of the character which I do enjoy but don't revere like I do Nolan's Batman or multiple Marvel characters and teams.

The Target exclusive Storm and Thunderbird went up for sale at 1 AM EST and lasted online for about 2.5 hours before selling out. Target.com was also allowing "pickup in store" purchases. They usually won't allow those to sell inventory down fully to zero units, but all 15+ stores in my area sold anywhere from 1 to 3 of the 4 figures most of them had while stores were closed within two hours of the option becoming available. If anyone was thinking of going for this set this morning first thing is the time to do it. One reviewer known for being overly harsh on figures with Youtube name AnthonysCustoms called Storm the best Hasbro female comic figure in 5 years, one of the top 10 of this year across all brands and genres, and gave it a 9.5 out of 10, although he also took great delight in calling Thunderbird "Thunderturd" throughout the review because he thought that figure was so mediocre. Definitely the best first appearance Storm figure I've ever seen.

I saw that Kro product image, but I didn't realize he was the film's main villain...good to know. How was that confirmed? I haven't even seen confirmation that Kro was even in the film until now...he's still not in the IMDB credits yet. He looks to be a fully-CGI character, but I'm assuming someone voices him. Maybe IMDB just doesn't list characters when the actor is unknown. Not a particularly compelling character design, but I'm sure I'll like him a LOT more once I've seen the film. Really rough go for this film that it was already a stretch to make it given that even long-time Marvel fans are barely familiar with the Eternals, but the Covid delay and inevitable character leaks due to leaked toy images sitting ready to go in warehouses made it far rougher.

Oh I've heard those comments too, particularly about Scarlett. The other things I've heard people say is that there's a stylistic flair to the paint apps on some figures--particularly Scarlett--that makes them look more cartoonish than realistic, yet the sculpt is ULTRA-realistic, so it's a weird mix. I can definitely see what they're talking about, but I still love them overall...I'm just not looking to buy another line for now.

Isn't that just nostalgia overriding rational thinking? Almost every design change I've seen in this new Joe line is an improvement over the old design. One of the things the Legends team consistently overlooks is weapons storage, and it's something the Joe designers appear to NEVER overlook. I don't see any storage at all on the Legends figure even for those two scythes it comes with, but the Joe figure has at least six storage spots for all those bladed weapons he comes with. I'm not in the market for Joes, but if I collected both Legends and Joe I'd be FAR more happy with the Joe figure. The detailing just blows the Legends figure away. In fact if I did want to build a Hand army if not for the Stilt-Man legs I can't imagine I wouldn't fudge the Joe ninja in as a Hand ninja. It's just SO much better in almost every way.

GI Joe articulation is better than Legends, so for the most part there's no way the Legends one is better. The sculpt detailing and accessories look far better on the Joe figure as well.

So is the Razor Crest going to be completely unpainted as it appears in the digital promo pics? My favorite reveal yesterday was the Stilt-Man build-a-figure that you can keep adding leg extensions to indefinitely by buying Hand ninjas. Check out this pic of the 5+ foot one Dwight showed off during the Legends presentation:

What a tease...your mention had me thinking they had selected one of my dozens of mean comments about the Hasbro Legends team.

Oh! I thought it was one per person or household or something. Back to the website then! Their wording was "one per customer." I wasn't clear on whether or not that meant one per account or one per checkout, but it's one per checkout. Apparently when people have talked to Pulse customer service some reps have said Hasbro will cancel the extras bought on multiple transactions and other reps have said they will fulfill all orders even if multiples were ordered, so nobody really knows what will happen. Right now if you buy it's a pre-order that won't be fulfilled for 6+ months, so we're all assuming they're taking orders and will make more, but nobody really knows that for sure, either. I didn't mean to buy multiples, but I ended up with them. I filled a cart with the three items I wanted, checked out, and got an error. I assumed the order didn't go through, but my cart was empty so I filled it again, checked out again, and didn't get an error. I think I did all of that in less than one minute total. Turned out both orders went through. I was surprised and curious as to whether or not the error was what let me get multiple so I put a third Hellfire Club set in my cart, checked out, and it let me, so at that point I had two error-free checkouts of Hellfire Club and knew they were letting you buy multiples of the same item across transactions. A few people are claiming that they were told the people who bought early on Wednesday will get theirs shipped next week, so we'll see.

I had ALL the major Star Wars and GI Joe figures and vehicles as a kid--that FANG, the Wolverine was my favorite with all those missles, pretty much everything. Death Star, Millenium Falcon, everything Kenner put out up through Empire Strikes Back (I hated the Ewoks as a pre-teen and refused to buy any Jedi stuff). My mom gave it all away while I was in college, but for whatever reason I didn't even care and I've never had nostalgic interest in any of it. I was never fully happy with the poor articulation even as a kid, and I used to often pretend my GI Joes were Marvel characters, so I guess I always looked at that line as a secondary interest to my primary one that didn't exist in figure form. I fell off the action figure train around age 14 and got back on in 2018 when I saw how great the Marvel figures had become. I looked at Toy Biz stuff in the early 2000s but I just didn't like it and got into statues instead, mostly Bowen at the time. Now I'm fully out of statues and completely into 6" figures. I still just wince looking at the old stuff...all I can think about when I see it is how incredibly much better the designs have become since I was a kid.

It was one per order, and you could do as many orders as you wanted.

VERY easy buy. Much better exclusive purchase than last year. I snagged Hellfire Club, the Logan 2-pack, and Cobra Commander. If SDCC runs next year I assume we'll be back to the same sheetshow as usual.

They're announcing some kind of new membership incentives during the Hasbro con. Nobody knows what to expect from them.

I'm REALLY loving the Mafex line of action figures. The level of detail in sculpt and accessories is the pinnacle of 1:12 scale figures. Their craftsmanship doesn't rise to the level Hot Toys has achieved in the 1:6 scale, but Medicom definitely is currently sitting on the 1:12 throne. Been picking up their Nolan Dark Knight figures recently via Amazon Japan, and they're all just spectacular.

I'm working on my mouse clicking speed daily to land myself a Marvel Legends Hellfire Club set.

got it. I usually go in the afternoons or evenings. I love the artwork on the Baroness with the motorcycle toy packaging, looks like a Nagel print! I check Popfindr, see which stores got them overnight, call at 8 AM, ask them to hold them at customer service, and go pick them up. My success rate is about 1 score per 4 stores I call. The strikeouts are a split between they're still on the truck and I don't call back at the right time they unload them or the individual I'm talking to thinks it's unfair to hold anything based upon a phone call. So far I've gotten Baroness and two troopers like this. If you go in your success rate tends to be higher because it both eliminates the people who won't hold for phone callers and also puts more pressure on people to find things for you, but it takes more time. If I was trying to build an army of Cobra troopers I'd definitely be going in more than calling, but I just want three and I'm almost there.

It's a lot lower than half. About 8% of Brazilians identify as Afro-Brazilian, and another 20% identify as mixed race. Whereas in America those two groups tend to both identify as the same demographic group, in Brazil it's more common to think of them differently. They do the same with indigenous and mixed-race indigenous which I'm guessing Zaga is. And as you point out it is pretty key due to a similar form of racial discrimination that exists in Brazil that we have here in America. Our two countries share the fact that we held onto African slavery far longer than most other nations. They have almost the same comparative poverty levels and same types of self-segregation between white and black people that we have in America. Brazil is by far the closest demographic equivalent to America on the planet. So it is almost exactly like casting a black American comic character with a white actor. I'm not keeping close enough track of who's white and who's black in comics to know if that's whitewashing. In America about 13% of the population is black...what's the percentage of comic characters who are black? If it's well under 13% then yea, they should have cast either a black actor or a mixed African race actor as Roberto. I'm sure someone has stats on what percentage of the MCU is black. I'm not sure what it is, but I would guess it's well under 13% as long as you don't pull in every minor Wakandan character from Black Panther into the stats. T'Challa, T'Chaka, Killmonger, Shuri, M'Baku, and Okoye should definitely all count, beyond that I'm not sure.

As is true with news sources you learn to filter out bias. I still generally agree with the Joker reviews which are pretty much the same across all three aggregators. I find it to be one of the least rewatchable superhero-related films ever made, and I easily filtered out the stuff about inspiring shooters, that didn't apply to whether or not I would enjoy the film. All I use it for is to decide which films to see in theaters. Once I significantly disagree with critics on more than a third of films I'll stop finding critical reviews useful, but it hasn't happened yet. Should I take your angle here to imply you're thinking they're wrong, that this film isn't terrible? Fox and Disney not releasing it for years already pointed to the probability that it was, so the reviews so far aren't surprising.

If you have a better review aggregator for me to trust I'm all ears. I still generally agree with the aggregators I'm aware of including MetaCritic, RT, and MRQE.

Whew, the Rotten Tomatoes reviews so far are scorchingly bad.