@therealsilvermane

I believe those ToyBiz/Hasbro Marvel Legends line of action figures with their small parts (like the ones pictured in this thread) have traditionally been sought out more by older collectors and I always see those figures on sale. The kids prefer the larger action figures as well as the accessory items like Thor's action sound hammer and stuff. Shang Chi official merch toys offers those more kid-centric items like Shang Chi's action sound sword, the Ten Rings with sound, a Protector Dragon figure with jaw action, in addition to the larger more kid friendly action figures. I went to Target the other day and none of those more traditional kid toys for Shang Chi were on clearance and the shelf stock was at about 1/3 full. The Protector Dragon figures and the Ten Rings with lights and sound accessory were sold out.

It's pronounced like SHONG Chi.

I was joking.

Actually, according to the Reddit lists I posted, Thor is the 3rd most disliked movie, and Captain Marvel and Ant-Man Wasp tied for 4th. But almost every list has Thor 2 or IH. The only reason I posted the above sampling from Reddit users is to show that in a general online conversation amongst MCU fans online, Thor 2 and Incredible Hulk seem to generally be the two most disliked MCU films. Look, I'm a harcore MCU fan. I talk with other MCU fans, online and in person. We all kind of universally agree that the two worst MCU films are Incredible Hulk and Thor 2. Even Disney knows they're bad. They're so bad, they recast the Hulk actor and for Thor they completely changed his character for the third movie and made him funny.

It's hard to really supply data for something like that as no real studies are done for it other than "user reviews" at RT and Metacritic which is what we're debating. I get my info on fan sentiment from social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. For instance, from a random search, here was a question posed on Reddit to MCU fans on "what their top 5 least favorite MCU films are." A random look at the answers reveals a general sentiment... ...that MCU fans generally universally dislike Thor Dark World and Incredible Hulk across the board.

The current user review numbers for Captain Marvel are compromised because it was already shown that a segment of RT users already had an agenda to bring down her movie's numbers before the movie was released, and there was nothing to stop them from returning to re-bomb the movie's RT score once the movie was released and RT opened user reviews back up to the public. The ideological hate campaign against Captain Marvel and Brie Larson was well publicized and known about and the Rotten Tomatoes debacle was just a part of this very public hate campaign. I can say with a straight face that the numbers for Thor Dark World and Incredible Hulk aren't similarly compromised because there was never an ideological hate campaign against Hulk or Thor or the actors like there was with Brie Larson and Captain Marvel and thus no reason to troll bomb their RT and Metacritic scores.

Hm, by that logic of numbers always being right, was Captain Marvel's Rotten Tomatoes user review score of 11% before the movie was released given by thousands of honest fans who somehow got a screener copy of Captain Marvel before its theatrical release and thus an honest opinion by moviegoers of the film's quality? If you're not sure, I'll help. No. They hadn't seen the movie yet and didn't care if it was going to be good or bad. These thousands of trolls had an ideological agenda against Brie Larson and Captain Marvel and were determined to bring down her RT score and only returned for more once the movie actually released.

Okay. Let's take a closer look at those Captain Marvel "user reviews" and compare them with ACTUAL awful MCU films Incredible Hulk and Thor Dark World. Before that, let's put it all in the context that Captain Marvel got nearly an 11% user review at Rotten Tomatoes before her movie even released as a result of troll review bombing, forcing Rotten Tomatoes to disable the score and to no longer allow audience reviews before a movie's release. Now, even to people who honestly didn't like Captain Marvel, I think most agree that CM is not a worse movie than Incredible Hulk or Thor Dark World. With that, the Rotten Tomatoes user review score for IH is 68%. The Rotten Tomatoes user review score for Thor Dark World is 71%. And yes, the Rotten Tomatoes user review score for CM is far below them at 45%. Now, looking at the Metacritic audience score, IH got a 7.1, Thor Dark World got a 7.0, and yes, Captain Marvel is far below them at 2.9. What should this tell us? Common-freakin-sense tells us that Captain Marvel hater trolls continued to bomb the film with negative reviews at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic after the film's release, giving her user review scores far far below even those MCU films that are universally acknowledged as bad movies. Captain Marvel has her enemies, and there's no more obvious place to see those enemies at work than at the user review scores for RT and Metacritic.

A lot of MCU fans actually liked Captain Marvel. Believe it or not, the general consensus among fans (without an implicit bias against the film) is that it's an okay movie. Over these years, I've honestly tried to figure out why it is that other folks honestly don't care for the movie, other than for ideological reasons ie hatred for Brie Larson and her social activism or a woman possibly taking over the MCU, etc. You indirectly said in your above post that Brie Larson lacked "emotion and personality" in Captain Marvel. A lot of CM haters give that reason for their hatred of the film. I've tried to surmise what they mean by that. For me and for a lot of other people, Brie Larson brought a lot of warmth to the role and imbued Carol with a lot of "chutzpah", or self-confidence. Her character spent real screen time with and developed on-screen relationships with Yonn-Rogg, Nick Fury, Maria Rambeau, and little Monica. She laughed, she cried, she got angry. These are things you actually don't see that much of in a MCU film. Real time relationship building. For instance, where was the quality time Steve should have spent with Peggy in First Avenger? Why are Steve and Bucky best friends? Was Peggy attracted to post-experiment Steve just because he's taller? Outside of Steve complaining what a loser he is, I never saw a real connection between them. Later in the MCU, we just have to assume they connected. A good example of a MCU film where its characters spend real relationship building time with each other is the first Thor movie. Thor, in particular, is the one film with a similar plot structure to Captain Marvel. But anyway, all those personality and emotional elements of Carol Danvers were in both Brie Larson's portrayal of the character and of the filmmakers' approach to the story. So I've honestly tried to figure out what was possibly missing for some folks who didn't like the movie? I think I've figured it out. As much as I loved Captain Marvel, what it did lack (that a lot of other MCU films have) is that dark emotional scene where our hero is at their lowest point of the movie, where they are about to lose everything, and it brings out an appropriate emotional response or action. Iron Man had this when Stane pulls Stark's reactor out of his chest. First Avenger had this when Captain Rogers sacrifices himself to save New York. Thor had it when he fails to lift Mjolnir and when his mortal self sacrifices himself to save his friends and the town. Spider-Man Homecoming had it when Parker is buried under tons of cement and debris. Doctor Strange had it when he's trying to survive a stab to his chest. That dark and emotional "low point" equivalent in Captain Marvel is when Vers is captured by the Kree Starforce and forced to face the Supreme Intelligence in an effort to re-brainwash her. This point in Captain Marvel, while it was definitely a moment of adversity, it still didn't exactly match those truly dark moments I mentioned above that really bring out our hero gnashing their teeth about to lose everything and dead silence from the theater crowd. I think that was also by design. Captain Marvel, and Ant-Man and the Wasp also, needed to be more of a fun light-hearted movie as a contrast to the utter despair of Avengers Infinity War and the soon to be released Avengers Endgame. Nothing in the MCU works in a vacuum. Four dark MCU films in a row would have been too much for audiences. That's why Captain Marvel and Ant-Man and the Wasp worked more like comedies or romps, than movies with a strong dramatic premise. I think this is ultimately why Captain Marvel lacked that dark emotional scene of near loss that other MCU films had. We'd just had a movie where we lost half of everyone in the universe, including the Avengers and the Guardians. As a result, we got a kind of even keeled light-hearted coming of age super-hero movie that didn't exactly match the dramatics of Winter Soldier, Black Panther, or even Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Maybe with Endgame behind us, we'll get that with The Marvels.

First, it's a fake meme. Second, the actual record holder (not this guy) saw Captain Marvel 116+ times and yes, held the record for most times watching a single movie in the cinema until another guy broke the record watching Endgame 191 times. That's how good MCU films are. They're highly rewatchable. And before anybody calls it a waste of time, the guys got their 15 minutes of fame from their feats of human accomplishment.

A new Werewolf By Night was introduced last year. Jake Gomez, a Hopi Native-American.

Right! I tracked that first Eternals story to What If? #25 (February, 1981) in a backup feature called "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe" and the story titled "The First Uni-Mind" which appears to be the first comic book story where Thanos' father A'lars refers to his brother as Zuras (the Eternal) instead of Zeus. Actually, What If? #24 (January, 1981) seems to be the first "Untold Tales of the Marvel Universe" story, "The First Eternals", that does take Starlin's original story of Chronos from Captain Marvel #29 and retcons it so that Chronos is established as an Eternal and is retconned as the father of A'lars, who is the father of Thanos.

I hear you. I'm a fan of those crazy Marvel 70's Kirby books, too, including 2001, Machine Man, and Devil Dinosaur. I have to read them in a certain context though as I've become aware (as I've gotten older) what awful science Kirby referenced (including the Chariots of the Gods hooplah that was prevelant at the time). With that...

In the end, though, it's the Eternals. Does anybody really care? As long as whatever creative choices they go with make sense in the movie and in the greater MCU I'm fine with. I just want a good movie.

Thanos, Mentor, and Firefox were not considered Eternals when Marvel Comics released The Eternals series in 1976. They were still just Titans with roots to the Greek gods of Olympus. When Thanos was turned to stone at the end of Marvel Two-in-One Annual 2 in 1978 and rendered inactive for several years, he was still not considered an Eternal descendant. The earliest book I found that officially refers to the denizens of Titan as Eternals is The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe from 1983, in the entries for Starfox, Thanos, and Titan. And I imagine this was done because of their Olympus connection and The Eternals having been confused in history for being Greek gods. It’s a little confusing.

Who needs the Avengers when you have a Captain Marvel, the original "Avenger"?

A nexus event necessitated the Timekeepers to prune that thread.

Titan, the moon of Saturn, continued to be Thanos' home in the comics. It was changed for the film Avengers Infinity War to be in another part of the galaxy.

Unless it IS Mephisto...

Call it what is is: Spider-Man Endgame. Looks cool. Beginning 9/03, it's going to be a marvelous movie cap to a crummy year. Brilliant move though bringing in the past two Spider-Man franchises into the MCU as part of the Multiverse. It makes those past franchises viable again.

I honestly thought Titan was established as an Eternals city in Thanos Rising #1 from 2013. But apparently it does go further back than that beginning with Captain Marvel #29 in 1973. In that issue, the origin of Thanos' father A'lars states that A'lars, or Mentor, was a son of Olympus. He was exiled to the moon of Titan by his brother Zeus. After the debut of The Eternals #1 in 1976, this origin seems to have been retconned such that A'lars was a son of the Eternals city Olympia (instead of Olympus) and was exiled to Titan by his brother Zuras (instead of Zeus), the Eternal. The actual published retcon seems to have first occured in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe from 1983 which states A'lars (or Mentor) and Starfox (Eros, his son) are not just Titans, but also Eternals. This is the earliest comic I found that establishes that. So, my bad. I believe Thanos is first established as an Eternal descendent in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe from 1983. The profiles for Starfox and Titan are in issue #11. The profile for Thanos is in issue #14.

Screw Delta. If they're coming out for Free Guy, twice as many will come out for Shang Chi. The Ten Rings takes round 1 in this cage match.

I'd tell my broker to "buy now." I think $49MM is more the second weekend. This one's gonna be a spreader.