wave 74

[elhonez]

I guess Ymir is pretty nekkid.

[Mirymate]

Myree. Trust me.

There's a single guess that's appeared on two different lists that Zach has commented on and said some were correct. And that's HydraCap. Feeling he's a pretty safe guess.
I'll have to go do some digging, was Thor wearing anything specifically different in his last battles with Surtur, Or Ulik. Thought at the back of my head says King Thor fought Surtur in the last Ragnarok. But I could be wrong.

the Ballad of Beta Ray Bill

So the Korbinites homeworld was in a region of space called the Burning Galaxy. Don't bother asking why, because Surtur and his fire demons began destroying/consuming the place as a forge for his Twilight Sword. Realizing their gig was up, the denziens of Korbin chose to retreat. Part of their plan involved creating a powerful champion, Bill either volunteered or was chosen or some combination of the two to become said champion. So with a combination of genetic and cybernetic mutations Bill was transformed from a scrawny weakling to the hero of the beach... er... Korbin. Given command of the greatest warship, Scuttlebutt, the rest of the Korbinite people placed themselves into stasis on board a fleet of starships. The newly minted Beta Ray Bill remained awake charged with the fleets protection and to lead them to a new home. Unfortunately, the demons weren't interested in allowing any survivors and chased Bill and the fleet after they finished destroying their home galaxy.
So a battle weary Bill enters Earth's solar system, and since SWORD hadn't been invented yet, SHIELD ask Thor to investigate. So a patented Marvel misunderstanding ensues, and Bill and Thor fight each other to a standstill on the decks of Scuttlebutt. It ends when Beta Ray Bill does what only Thor himself had been shown to do previously and not only lifts Thor's hammer, but in doing so is transformed into the Beta Ray Thor look was all know and love today. When all is said and done, Beta Ray Bill is given a uru hammer of his own said to be just and powerful as Mjolnir, called Stormbreaker. Interestingly, Odin effectively killed Dr. Don Blake at this time, by transferring the ability to transform into mortal form from Mjolnir to Stormbreaker instead of simply copying the enchantment. Nerd paper could be written about why, but that's not important right now. So now Bill could return to his pre-augmented form much like Thor became Blake. Bill and Thor go on to have a series of solo and teamed adventures, being capped off with Surtur's Fire demons attacking Earth as the Casket of Ancient Winters was opened leading to, I kid you not, a line wide Thor centered crossover. This lead to Odin's "death" fighting Surtur and the aversion of a near Ragnarok.
Bill then wandered the universe and had adventures. Guest starred a lot of place, got used as a jobber a lot. Korbinites found a new home world, fired Bill for wasting so much time on sidequests, and empowered Alpha Ray. Of course that didn't last. So a demon named Asteroth got loose, (she may or may not have links to Surtur)  and absorbed all the Korbinite race into a "soulsphere" and started munching on their tasty spirits. Teaming up with Alpha and a Galactus Herald named Stardust, Bill recovers the sphere, and knocks Asteroth, and the self sacrificing Alpha, into a black hole. So now Scuttlebutt and Bill are off again to find another new home and get his people "unsphered". Long story short, Asteroth possess Alpha Ray to become Omega Ray (who didn't see that coming?), big battle, sphere is lost, Bill "god-blasts" Omega, both die.
Bill is somehow awakens bonded to a human Vet named Simon Walters, and together they fight crime on Earth, eventually joining the short lived Canadian team, Omega Flight. (it's rumored this was Thor's doing, similar to how he caused the other Asgardians to become humans after the last Ragnarok.) Stuck with old Alpha Flight tropes, the Great Beasts of course come into play, and Bill sacrifices himself to stay behind in their realm while his teammates escape. Bill of course kicks the Beasts butt off panel and escapes, somehow free of his human ID, and able to transform back into his original form again. There's are more guest starring adventures, he finds himself embroiled in the Secret Invasion, the Cancerverse business, and I'm sure will continue to, as Bill searches for an storyline interesting enough to warrant keeping him around.

[BuffaloDelorean]

I wouldn't be surprised if the modern Thor variant is completely unrelated (well, besides being Thor) to the villain he'll be packed with.

[Kotter Comics]

On 6/30/2017 at 9:26 AM, hellpop said:

IMHO, Busiek's run on the Avengers is the last proper iteration of the Avengers. Everything since then, even when it's been good, has been... something else, but not the Avengers.

Except Dan Slott's run on the Mighty Avengers a few years back.  That was pretty Avenger-y.  Sorry to come late to the party and re-divert the conversation (if that ends up happening).

Edited July 1, 2017 by Kotter Comics

[Heinous]

I hope hydra cap is wrong, just to mess with you guys 

[Mirymate]

Oh I think Hydra-Cap is coming, maybe not in 74, but he's coming. I can't think of anything Marvel has done since the first Civil War that has generated this much interest in it's comics. I figure that there will be several Hasbro version revealed at SDCC in a few weeks. So a minimate of Hydra-Cap in a regular wave, a TRU wave, or Secret Empire boxed set is a matter of time.

[BuffaloDelorean]

1 hour ago, Kotter Comics said:

Except Dan Slott's run on the Mighty Avengers a few years back.  That was pretty Avenger-y.  Sorry to come late to the party and re-divert the conversation (if that ends up happening).

I was actually going to mention that. I've heard good things about it, but I can only find the second trade locally.

[Mnemosis]

Was that the awful Ultron/Jocasta arc? 

[BuffaloDelorean]

20 minutes ago, Mnemosis said:

Was that the awful Ultron/Jocasta arc? 

No, that was Bendis' Mighty Avengers, which really was awful. Slott's Mighty was Loki/Scarlet Witch and Hank Pym as the Wasp (among other things) around Dark Reign.

EDIT: Actually, you might be talking about this run. According to Wikipedia, around the end of the series, before Siege, there was a storyline about Ultron taking control of Jocasta.

Edited July 2, 2017 by BuffaloDelorean

[Mirymate]

I was gonna say, Pym gives Jocasta flesh arms and legs there toward the end and it goes downhill from there. Which was sad. It started so very well, and then I don't know, back down the Oedipus rabbit hole we go.

 

[Mnemosis]

I hated it if only because Ultron went from all powerful threat when Mighty launched to intergalactic threat in Annihilation to I want to screw Jocasta

[Mirymate]

Unfortunately, that's not that out of character for Ultron. He is dangerous, his IS an intergalactic and international threat. But even in my absolute favorite Ultron story bar none, the one by Busiek and Perez, he's got an obsession with having a wife and family he inherited from Pym. He's described as the living Oedipal complex. In a way that makes him dangerous and unpredictable, in another, it leads to so lame stories where the guy who can whip a dozen heavy hitters just wants to get back together with his first wife.

I once asked Kurt Busiek if he thought some of Ultron's lamer schemes could be attributed to trying to incorporate the reprograming Dr. Doom forced Ultron 11 to undergo during the first Secret War, forcing Ultron to serve as Doom's personal bodyguard and enforcer. Kurt said that was as good an explanation as any.

 

 

And now Heinous thinking "you mutinous traitor! you were supposed to keep things on track!"

Edited July 3, 2017 by Mirymate

[Freaqualizer]

I wonder if the Thor minimate is the new War Thor that's running around. I would be pretty stoked for that. 

[stegron01]

13 hours ago, Freaqualizer said:

I wonder if the Thor minimate is the new War Thor that's running around. I would be pretty stoked for that. 

I agree that would be cool but as he only recently debuted and this wave has been coming for a while I doubt it could be him.  Hopefully down the line though if not this time...?

[Freaqualizer]

2 hours ago, stegron01 said:

I agree that would be cool but as he only recently debuted and this wave has been coming for a while I doubt it could be him.  Hopefully down the line though if not this time...?

Yeah, a guy can dream. I enjoy the Thor characters, they're all usually so toyetic. I really hope we get Ulik in this wave.  Maybe Tanarus is the Thor variant. It would be pretty awesome to have Tanarus and Ulik in a two pack. The more Thor love we get the better. Now if only we can get that Wrecking Crew 4 pack.

[Mirymate]

Ya know, when you ask Chuck and Zach about will this character or that will every get a minimate, they are very fond of saying never say never... except on a Wrecking Crew boxed set. That, they said as closed to never as I've heard outside of DC minimates coming back.

But I too really hope that Ulik is on the roster.

[stegron01]

Yeah count me in on the "Ulik would be great" party!  Though I'd be happy with Surtur too for sure.

And I agree Freaqualizer, any thor love, especially classic in my opinion, is very welcome.  Wrecking Crew would be good and I still hold out hope for a comic warriors 3 someday.

 

[BuffaloDelorean]

Surtur seems more likely than Ulik to me, but I'd rather get Ulik, since I only have a very vague idea of who Surtur is.

I'm not really a Thor fan, so most of the Thor villains I'd like to see are the ones who have crossed over to the Avengers.

[Freaqualizer]

28 minutes ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

Surtur seems more likely than Ulik to me, but I'd rather get Ulik, since I only have a very vague idea of who Surtur is.

I'm not really a Thor fan, so most of the Thor villains I'd like to see are the ones who have crossed over to the Avengers.

I can dig that. I really enjoy mythology and gods and folklore. So a lot of the mythology around the Thor lore is very engaging to me. Even the very modern characters like Bloodaxe and Thunderstrike. I remember the Toy Biz action figures coming out in the 90s and I couldn't wait for the Thor figure to be released. 

I generally try to buy all of the Thor releases, except for the civvies in the movie waves and if the movie costume doesn't resemble the comic book counterpart. 

[Mirymate]

50 minutes ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

since I only have a very vague idea of who Surtur is.

That is my cue... 

Surtur comes directly from Norse myth, and unlike most of Marvel's Nine Realms denizens, the Norse might actually recognize him. Well they'd recognize his role and story at any rate, the horns and red color are pure Kirby magic. (black skinned giant with black hair, burning red eye, and a big flaming sword) Surutr is the king or the fire giants, and ruler of Muspellheim  He and his realm predates the founding of Asgard. Surtur is a simple man with simple goals, he is that man who want to watch the world burn. Except, he wants to burn the other eight relams, the wolrd tree, and every other conceivable dimension into one giant multiversal inferno. He is destined to march across the Bifrost and burn Asgard to the ground in Ragnarok prophesy, and in some versions lay waste to Midgard as well. Surtur's arrival on the seen is never trivial, and every time he's escaped his confinement in his realm, it's a race against time to stop him from destroying everything. One of those averted Ragnaroks resulted in the near death and disappearance of Odin. Surtur's power exceeds Odin's on the All Father's best day, and Odin's two older brothers gave their lives to trap Surtur in Muspellheim in one of the Fire Demon's first attempts to invade the realm eternal. (it wasn't called Asguard yet. Fortunately for Odin, Asgard is not Surtur's only enemy, not surprisingly Ymir the ice giant is also a rival. Although Loki has been cunning enough to get them to co-operate on a few occasions. Relatively recently Thor discovered the truth, that a group of beings a higher order gods than any in the nine realms known as "Those Who Sit Above in Shadow" (because, well, they sat in a dimensional plane above Asgard, in the dark) had long ago trapped the nine realms in a repeating cycle of destruction and rebirth that the Shadowy Sitters were drawing power from. So Thor unleashed Surtur and all the other elements of their armageddon off early, and somehow used this messing up of the cycle to destroy TWSAIS and break the cycle and die. But as Thor and company were all reborn, so was Surtur. And while the Ragnarok cycle may be broken, Surtur's power and goals remain the same.

[gentry]

I'm greatly looking forward to the reveal of this classic villain. Regardless of whom it is I hope we occasionally will see nefarious rogues from Thor's epic narrative.  

I do suppose that classic Grey Gargoyle would count as a slight underdressed villain.  But he appeared in another box set all bulked up.   

[Mirymate]

I would LOVE IT if the Grey Gargoyle was the Thor villain in question.
But while GG is a Thor villain who wears very little, (essentially a cape, some trunks, boots and gloves) I was under the impression that our mystery bad guy is Asgardian, or at least not from Midgard.
Man, I do wish it was Grey Gargoyle though.

[DSTZach]

I said some of the "locks" on Miry's list were wrong. But everyone has been guessed, I believe. One of Gentry's Thor villain guesses is right.

I have decided (I can do that, apparently) to call this assortment the "Greatest Stories" assortment, as each two-pack comes from a great or at least highly significant story. 

There is one discrepancy, that the Thor look actually comes from a different story than the Asgardian villain. But both are actually great stories, and the other Thor costume in that story was a pretty standard one.

Coincidentally (I swear!) I have begun reading the Simonson Thor run for the first time, and i had been only vaguely aware that Bill was the only one of thousands of potential champions to survive the painful and disfiguring process to become Beta Ray, and afterwards even his own people could hardly bear to look at him. So Odin's gift of Stormbringer and of the power to revert to his humanoid form was especially poignant, and probably one of the nicest things he's ever done. I will admit to not being an Odin expert, but in most tales I've read he's a bit dickish.

[BuffaloDelorean]

Planet Hulk Hulk & Red King is seeming more and more certain. It fits into the "Greatest Stories" grouping, and it would be currently relevant.

Surtur from Ragnarok seems like a good fit too, and it was one of gentry's guesses. There isn't really a specific Thor look from anything with Surtur, but Allfather Thor comes from the well-regarded Godbomb arc.

For the other half, I'm less certain. Hydra!Cap and Ironheart could be a Secret Empire pack, but what story would match a Spider-Verser and an Avenger/X-Man? 

[HellfireSamurai]

1 hour ago, BuffaloDelorean said:

For the other half, I'm less certain. Hydra!Cap and Ironheart could be a Secret Empire pack, but what story would match a Spider-Verser and an Avenger/X-Man? 

A Secret Wars pack or a Civil War/Civil War II pack

Edited July 4, 2017 by HellfireSamurai