Axelrod

Nah, yours is mysterious in a cool way.

So, you want to know a secret? This thread, this raffle (more specifically last year's raffle) was the thread that made me want to get a CGC account. I arrived here too late to actually join last year's raffle, but I saw it, and it just looked like so much fun. And I thought, well, I guess I can go ahead and join now, and then, maybe next year? And here we are! My problem is that, even 30 years later, I am still overly possessive of my comics, even the worthless ones. And this despite the fact I don't actually own anything of particularly high value. It all early to mid-80s stuff. But nevertheless, I have scoured the collection, looking deep. And I believe I have come up with something I can bear to part with. So allow me to present for your consideration: One lightly used copy of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Issue 12. Featuring Wolverine! Come, learn the history of (some of) your favorite characters! And also, $100 Amazon gift card. But we all know what the real prize here is.

All the movie explained was that the planet needed to have a critical mass of "intelligent" life on it in order for the Celestial to emerge. Intelligent being the operative word there. One had to assume that the "intelligent" life was generating some kind of special energy/life force that the Celestial needed.

One has to believe that they would not have dropped that end credit scene without already having an explanation in mind The question is how the relatively poor reception this film has received will impact future plans. I doubt they will just drop them completely, given how connected they are trying to make everything in this cinematic universe, but they definitely might scale them back a bit.

Zach Snyder has just got a tremendous visual flair. I love looking at his movies. And I think his passion for the work can't be questioned. You can certainly question his judgment about certain storytelling choices he makes though. And he does tend to get a bit heavy-handed with his themes. I did enjoy this version of the movie more than the theatrical release. I really didn't think Joss Whedon would have changed so much from what Zach Snyder originally shot. Really fascinating contrast.

KInd of begs the question, but if you removed the glue, and it wasn't holding anything together, what was the glue even for? I suspect there is something else going on with this book other than that someone just put some completely unnecessary glue on it which you could remove and then get a Blue label.

Well, I saw it, and my reaction was - decidedly "meh." It was not terrible, but it was definitely not great. And in thinking more about it, I have come to the conclusion that many, if not most, of the issues had to do with the "Marvelization" of a story that really didn't fit the mold of a traditional Marvel film. In this respect my thoughts might actually align with several critical responses I've seen. Warning, lengthy analysis ahead. Spoilers! It was disappointing because, having now seen the film, I feel like I can see the movie it could have been, wanted to be, but that the studio was too afraid to actually commit to, and the whole thing suffers as a result.

I was going to say, did he really just come in here and complain that he was bored by a movie he pirated?

I would like to participate!

I asked about the possibility of them opening up a trading card marketplace subforum like the comic book marketplace, and the response was "we'll look into it." That was about 6 months ago.

omg, yes. Yes it was. That is neither here nor there. The trailers I've seen for Eternals give me cause for concern that it will be stupid. But Marvel has earned my coin by delivering consistent entertainment over an extended period of time. Even the "bad" ones are entertaining (to me). Like, I'm going to see it. The RT score has 0 bearing on this.

This is just another example of the maxim, everything good gets worse. I don't know if that's a real maxim, but I feel like it should be.

Heh, I have literally all these books also. What I don't have is the 80% of the rest of the books you say have hit. Instead I have more stuff like: The Alien Legion Alpha Flight Amethyst Princess of Gemworld Atari Force Captain Carrot (and His Amazing Zoo Crew!) DNAgents Dreadstar Electric Warrior Jon Sable Nexus Omega Men (I guess #3 did okay, but that's about it) Squadron Supreme West Coast Avengers (stopped at issue #26, so, no White Vision for me) I collected other mainstream series also, but those were already well into their runs when I started. These were some of the ones that I got that I kept buying for at least 12+ issues, starting with Issue #1. (and I paid cover price for everything, so, more than .25 per book)

Challenge accepted! Check your PMs!

Well, apparently, some people really want an unslabbed book, but at the same time also really, really want it to be "unrestored." So they are willing to pay the CGC surtax to guarantee it's unrestored, and then just crack it out. I guess they keep the label to "prove" to other people that it's really unrestored, but as you say, no one is going to just accept that this book is the one that went with that label, so if the idea is you are keeping the re-sale value intact I don't think that will happen.

Sounds like this is still a long way from actually happening, though. It's currently "in development," and J. Michael is currently writing the pilot episode for the proposed series, which has yet to actually be picked up.

I think this is my only one, from 1985. Walt Simonson is the best.

First four seasons were amazing (esp. 2-4). I do wonder about the reboot concept though. I assume he wouldn't just tell the exact same story again. Because, like, where would the excitement be for that? But if he were to change it up, why characterize it a "reboot" at all, as opposed to calling it something new? Just name recognition? The worst would be (I think) if he tried to do something similar but not exact, and then just filled it up with easter eggs calling back to the original show, and have it where almost like the entire point would be making people notice where things are different now. Sort of like what Star Trek Into Darkness did with the Kahn storyline. Ugh. I say this recognizing that Disney is currently making bank with remakes that do essentially tell the exact same story over and over and over again. So what do I know. Probably different for a TV series than a movie though.

I mean, are you suggesting that Disney hasn't been trying to change the copyright laws for decades (and succeeding) to lengthen the period of copyright protection? Because I rather think they have. And sure, it's absolutely true that Disney will still sue the ever-living hell out of anyone who tries to use Mickey Mouse for anything, even after the copyright has expired, using the exact same kind of rationale that the Holmes estate did. Whether or not the rationale will have any merit or not is almost completely besides the point. Most people don't have the legal resources to fight. And even those that do (Netflix, eg.) often decide it's still more cost effective to just pay than go to court. More on topic, I'm sympathetic, to some extent, to the heirs of creators who pretty much got the shaft during their lifetimes from the big corporations, but I'm less sympathetic than I would be if it was the creators themselves who were involved. And as is often the case, there's probably a large gulf between what the "right" thing to do is, vs. what the "legal" or required thing is.

I'm envisioning collectors the world over, proudly displaying their 3.0 CGC copies of Giant Boots! Because, a first appearance is a first appearance is a first appearance. I'm sure there are bunches of examples of comics where the 1st appearance cover is basically terrible, but that's the collectable one. Probably multiple threads about that already.

Why would you ever buy a slab with the intention of cracking it out? Why don’t you just buy a nice unslabbed copy? Which is, incidentally, going to be a lot cheaper. I just don’t understand some things.

If your concern is that someone cracked the slab, slid out the original comic, and then surreptitiously substituted and re-sealed this one, I don't think that is very likely - if it's even possible at all.

I don't think you can really make a determination about the page quality based on that photo. I have noticed that some books (showcased in the "please grade my book" subforum) come back from CGS with "White" pages when the interior pages didn't look particularly "white" to me. Which suggests there's somewhat of a range there.

Bump! Just because I've noticed in the recent mycomicshop auctions that these MofU "previews" are apparently being pulled out of the comics they were originally in, and then sent to CGC to be graded separately, and 9.8s of the graded preview pages can go for over $100.00. Doesn't seem like there's any indication or note of which particular comic the preview came out of. And as far as I can tell the comics these previews came in still aren't especially valuable, so it's weird that the pages in said books, separated out, could be more valuable. Also seems like there ought to be a higher chance that the pages inside a given book would grade higher than the overall book, since they are more protected. I guess it's probably still not a great investment risk to spend $30-$40 to grade and only get maybe $100 back if it comes back 9.8. But could they go higher than that? Or you think this a temporary fad? I do wonder how they get the preview pages out of the original comic. Do they remove the staples? And then put them back? Or just cut away the rest of the book? Anyway, I thought that was interesting.