battlecat

They are, but they're not an active team anymore, some of the members do still pop up in various titles. And yeah, the original run was cancelled, but then it sold well in digest trade format and they brought it back for several more years. It was pretty critically acclaimed, at least up until Brian K. Vaughan left the book. Could work as a series, not sure if their pet dinosaur would fit a TV budget though, which would be a bummer.

I think Zach already hinted an acid helmet Kaine was likely at some point, back when someone complained about this one being an exclusive. Or I could be misremembering.

It's real good.

I went into it only knowing it was supposed to have an '80s Spielberg/Stephen King vibe, so it was also great to see something without any preconceived notions for once. They just got everything right -- casting, camerawork, music, even the title screens are cool.

49 minutes ago, stack32 said:

I'm mostly thinking of big box and especially Amazon, since even the LCS fanbase is largely going to buy the figures at places other than local stores. Granted, it's an imperfect comparison to a minimate wave, but it does give some idea of how actual character preferences play out. Mostly I'm saying there's enough evidence to support the conventional wisdom without resorting to the idea that people making these decisions are idiots or misogynist (not saying you are, I've just seen exactly those accusations on this topic before).

Definitely wasn't trying to imply anything like that, it's the conventional wisdom because it's been measured in a market/customer base, I just think that then applying it to the narrower market/customer base at your average LCS is making an assumption. I just think they're different animals. Or maybe more comic shops reflect BuffaloDelorean's post than mine. I do think Wave 69 kind of blows up the needing an anchor to avoid sales disaster thing though (providing it doesn't end up being a sales disaster).

Also, I didn't mean to derail the thread, sorry Swarm198!

7 hours ago, stack32 said:

Marvel Legends has a base of older fans too and since they stopped short-packing female figures many of them (not all) have ended up peg-warming or discounted.

Peg-warming at comic shops or big box stores? I'm just talking about the LCS market/fanbase, where I haven't really seen that at all in the stores I visit, with recent Legends or DCC figures or anything, but that's only a couple of stores and anecdotal of course.

7 hours ago, stack32 said:

Whether they sell worse or not, you're still talking about a wave made up of less popular characters, most of them not highly demanded, and no Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Peter Parker, or Logan (because with Marvel's current approach I actually have to specify) to anchor the wave. It would be a big risk, and for what?

My bad, I guess I did assume you were just talking about female figures selling worse, not character obscurity. That said, I think quite a few of the proposed characters in the thread are much less of a risk than the upcoming Wave 69 in that regard.

And for what? I don't know, why do any themed wave? It's just a fun gimmick. I doubt DST would go for it really, but I don't think this particular theme would be any more or less a disaster than anything else they've tried, YMMV.

On 2016-07-29 at 11:24 PM, hellpop said:

no doubt these would be the worst-selling waves of all time....

8 hours ago, stack32 said:

I think the idea would be a sales disaster,

I understand that historically toy companies don't want female figures at TRU or whatever, because they think young boys won't buy them, but surely most of the LCS customer base is older comics fans? I see so many female character action figures/statues/merch at my LCS these days, and it all seems to sell just fine. I mean, did people see that Captain Marvel/Jane Thor 2-pack sitting on the shelf any longer than the rest of Wave 64? I don't know, I just don't buy the argument I guess, at least in this market, and with so many of these characters starring or co-starring in books right now.

And Hellpop, nothing can ever sell worse than Wave 15!

Hellcat and Kamala are the big wants for me. For a wave, I'd probably go with:

Hawkeye/Ms. America

Mockingbird/Madame Masque

Jessica Jones/Gwenpool

...because they all have current books on the shelf or in the pipeline, so I think they'd sell fine.

More old school, I'd like Crystal, Moira MacTaggert, '90s Wolfsbane, Marvel Girl, Spider-Woman update, Black Cat update, a full TTA box set of Rogues...

Huh, that's definitely weird Polarboy, not cool to spring fees on you after estimating $0, and the second listing specifically says USPS not GSP. I wonder if it's eBay not displaying the shipping info properly or something in how those specific sellers set up the listings. Either way, that's no good.

But yeah, not sure how you could even avoid that happening again in the future, I guess the only option is to request the seller cancel the sale like Tenime said.

Yeah I hadn't heard that it could be hidden. On the Canadian eBay portal, there's a GSP notice right under the price/current bid, and there's an estimate of their import fee (based on the current bid if it's an auction) listed right below the shipping cost. Looks like this:

Their import fee seems to cover customs plus some "handling," it's just annoying to have to pay customs on packages that would likely slip through without any charge in the regular mail. I just avoid those auctions like Shane said, but its popularity is one of the reasons I've cut back on eBay a lot.

Very excited for Ivy/Freeze, hope we get a look at them soon.

The last ones really missing for me are Alfred and Batgirl.

Have a good one, Lobby!

I loved the character designs on Spectacular, Sean Galloway did them, I found it to be a fun style well suited to animation. I'm with Shane though, bring back the '67 cartoon in all its psychedelic glory, you could air it next to Archer or something.

Are these even articulated figures though? I don't think the GI Joe Micro ones were.

I only had one or two Super Powers figures as a kid, but I'd love HP's idea to be applied to Secret Wars instead. They actually made a Deadpool in the Jumbo line for SDCC, but it would be pretty rad if they just "continued" that toyline in its original scale.

For that matter, is there a reliable site that lists confirmed release dates for all upcoming Minimates? I haven't really been able to find that info in one set location.

All DST's release dates are just estimates, so they can get pushed back pretty frequently by shipping delays etc. The 'Ship Dates Update' posts on their website are the closest you'll get, although I think Luke has mentioned trying to update his estimates when/if he gets new info from his Diamond rep.

The only confirmed release dates you'll really find are in Diamond's 'Upcoming Releases' list, which is posted on their website every Wednesday morning, and shows everything that will ship to comic shops the following week. So it's only a one week window, but at least it's something.

Well don't tell any moms in Florida, but I just bought a children's toy with a giant prescription pill in its hand. I don't think he's a real doctor either.

Series 50 was definitely random, because I pulled the characters from a fan poll on this forum, which was probably voted on by a few hundred people, based on the top vote getters. The characters were only tangentially connected to start, and then 30,000 people voted on them, meaning the more obscure characters we chose mostly didnt win, and the winners were mostly unconnected. The nominees were all unmade characters or looks, which means they had a better chance overall, but I'm sure few people voted for all of the winners, so there were likely figures people didn't want -- same as any other wave.

Meanwhile, most waves we do feature characters who are united by a common theme or story, and while we decide on the popularity level ourselves, we also take into consideration the need for updates, or an utter lack of representation for a character or look. So while people may not be into the theme, the ones who do are more likely to want them all. Another factor is amount of tooling, or even a need for tooling, as there is sometimes not any room in the tool or anytime to tool it. So that can often put the kibosh on certain characters.

50 didn't have an in-story theme connecting the characters, sure, so I guess if you didn't participate in the poll then it would appear random. But if you did, then the theme was that you helped choose those characters, even if that's a bit meta. (You could also argue that having Songbird, Onslaught & Zemo in there creates something of an impromptu story theme I guess.) But like I said, "random" means no conscious thought or reasoning or method or whatever is put into a decision, but you're saying 30,000 people voted on their favorites... which is a whole lot of thought and reasoning, and the entire thing is a method. On top of that DST selected who was feasible for the poll, and who would go up against who in each of the votes, which is even further input. So I really think you're misusing the word here, but maybe I'm also feeling defensive of that wave because I loved everything about it and its selection process, so I'll leave it at that.

Whedon's biggest issue on Resurrection was casting, I believe. He wrote certain characters so that they'd either be neutral or sympathetic only to have their true colors shown as the story unfolds.

Interesting, yeah wasn't 4 the French dude who directed Amelie and City Of Lost Children? I remember reading something about him needing an English translator on set, which has got to make it tough to get the performance you want from the actors too. I know I thought Winona Ryder was good at the time, but I barely remember the other actors.

Have you guys seen the Assembly Cut of Alien³ or just the theatrical version? Ideally, I'd like to see both.

I've only seen theatrical, and not for years, so my opinions above could be totally different now I guess. Might check out that other cut now that you mention it.

Both of the sequels have interesting ideas in them, so I'd say watch them but go in with your expectations kinda low because they're both a bit of a mess, from what I can remember 3 especially had a lot of studio interference, and was two different scripts mashed together. A lot of the Alien 3 hatred was over your spoiler, and Cameron even trashed the movie publicly back then by saying that that was a personal insult to him, which is dumb. Fincher himself has said he hates how it turned out, and Whedon has said he didn't like what the director did with his script for 4. I think they're both interesting though.

Some of the characters in Prometheus make very stupid decisions, like teenager in a horror movie stupid, but if you can look past that it's pretty good. As I understand it Lindelof just did a rewrite, mostly to get rid of sections that Scott thought were too Alien-y, and any unresolved stuff is meant to lead into the upcoming sequel.

I hope Blomkamp is just talking about inspiration, and ends up doing his own thing more than worrying about tying it into the first two perfectly, I mean it's that kind of thinking that got us Superman Returns.

Cool dog! Does he have David Bowie eyes, or is that just the lighting?

They are based in Canada from what I remember. Just be sure you are keeping what you order because they are useless with cancellations, or customer service For that matter.

Hey don't blame us, they're based out of Minnesota I think.

Personally I've never had a problem with my one-off orders from them (including one easy return), other than the slow website like Karamazov said, although that seems to have improved in recent years. But yeah, lots of stories online from far less satisfied customers.

But they are so hypercritical of the merchandising they thankfully don't collect the figures. They're too off-model from the show. Sorry, Hasbro.

The big Funko figures aren't bad. Well they're badly made, being Funko figures, but they look a lot more like the cartoon.

Squirrel Girl + Man-Thing is amazing, nice one Steve! That 2099 looks to have turned out great, so these should too.

I don't hate the MOTUC proportions on Lion-O like I thought I would, but I'm not sure why they gave him Eugene Levy-strength eyebrows. Jackalman looks pretty great though. I need to see more figures but I might sign up, those subs are just so much money.

Definitely getting the '80s cartoon He-Man and Skeletor.