Templar

huh... well look at that... two right feet. i'd never noticed that before.

whoa... that... was fast.... Apparently my comic shop, (and the comic stores visited by a few friends of mine, even a few out-of-state shops) are reporting that their reorders of Star Trek Series 1 minimates have been canceled to to unavailability! The wave has even been removed from AFX (the previous order page now redirects you to the shopafx homepage) I knew Star Trek was pretty big for a lot of people... but holy crap, it's only been two weeks! can this possibly be true? anyone else hearing similar tales of unavailability? and... of COURSE i missed the variant dress-uniform McCoy. *grumble*

Honestly, i'd maybe not buy the other six from you LCS... i've found it's WAY easier to buy a whole wave at once (with variant) from online retailers, than it is to chase down that stupid variant all by itself on Ebay or something. i want to say that i saw the Avengers wave on AFX for a decent price (including Eric Masterson/Bearded Thor) but their site isn't loading for me at the moment, for reasons unknown. But even if AFX doesn't have it, lots of other online retailers... and even Ebay retailers... regularly sell the full set.

USAToday reports different numbers... got a link to your article? not sure who i'd believe at this point... but it's clear Spider-man 3 still holds the record, it's true. From the linked article: "Pirates fell short of Spider-Man 3’s record opening —Spider-Man took in $151 million in its first three days, and Pirates earned $115.1 million — but Pirates still set the Memorial Day weekend record by eclipsing last year’s X-Men: The Last Stand, which opened to $122.9 million. Worldwide, Pirates has taken in $401 million."

Doomsday, Lex and Big-D aren't broken enough to make me want to part with'em (and i'm hoping to be able to reinforce Lex's joints somehow and "correct" Darkseid)... and i don't own Parasite or Cyborg (being from waves 5 and 6). i wish you luck though!

I think the soldier mentality of Cap is more realistic than the somewhat naive 616 Cap. This is a man who was trained to be the ultimate soldier. He was taken into suspended animation at the height of WWII and his mind was still set in wartime. He obviously has trouble adjusting to how times have changed, and this makes him more arrogant and aggressive. Ult. Cap isn't presented as a hero. He is the leader of a super-soldier squad, much like an army leader. He may do heroic things, but at the end of the day, he was designed and made to be a violent soldier. I understand what you are saying about the irony, but I like it. After all, you wouldn't want the Ultimate Universe to be the same as the regular one would you? And see... that's my issue right there, 616 Cap *wasn't* a soldier. He was a skinny kid, filled with patriotism and idealism that was 4-F'ed out and rejected... and secretly given the serum. There was a story a while back in Cap that showed the dichotomy of the government trying to create a weapon, and instead getting a "hero"... and then realizing that Hero was actually a liability. It implied heavily that the US Government *knew* Cap was frozen in ice all that time... and consciously choose to leave him there. Which... when you look at all the times Cap has told the government to "stuff it", makes a great deal of sense to me. Cap doesn't represent the american soldier, he's the embodiment of the idealism of america... but yeah, you're right... i certainly would NOT want the Ultimate U. to be the same as the Marvel U. Otherwise... what would be the point of it? like... say... Heroes Reborn, or the current trainwreck; "ONSLAUGHT Reborn". haha yeah i really like Loeb, but he HAS done some things that just... baffle me. Pretty sure it was just Ultimate Spidey and the Ultimate Spider-man Video game. (well, and Heroclix too i guess)

I've only got the first four waves... and to be honest, the ones that *aren't* broken... i do really like (superman, bizzaro, Batman despite being a re-release of the signal-batman, etc...). i've actually seen most of the first four waves on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. I think i got a complete set of wave four for $30 (and Doomsday was a one-per every OTHER case chase-figure. so that was nice)... you may have decent luck checking there.

i don't think there are that many... apparently wave six just came out... there are others announced, but i haven't actually SEEN wave five or six in stores yet... so who knows how well these are doing. Superman and Bizzaro were actually from wave 2 so those are repacks/repaints of the exact same figures... wave four was another superman, Brainiac, Lex Luthor in his purple/green armor, and Darkseid. Somewhere around wave four-ish, they also released a future Superman (with the black/red S-shield) and a dark-colors Supergirl... but other than the repaints, they're the same figures from wave two. Honestly... i kinda wish i'd passed on these. all but one or two toys were repacks or repaints from other DC Heroes lines. They're ridiculously poor quality plastic (i've got a 50% rate of breakage from attempting to *move any given joint*). The posability is erratic and often pretty bad (killer croc, is "articulated" like an old Kenner Star Wars figure. )... and some of the sclupts are pretty awful... the Batman from wave-one is kindof hunched over, and his neck is a cut-joint instead of a ball-socket... so he is always looking down no matter what. which totally drives me crazy. the quality control for these was just... horrible. Superman was totally worth it, because there hadn't really been a good semi-poseable supey before... but overall, my advice is to pick your favorites, and don't worry about trying to collect them all. (i'm listing problems with my figures next to'em... stuff to watch out for) Wave One: Batman Killer Croc (left arm broke when trying to move it, feet are sculpted so poorly the figure does not stand on it's own.) Scarecrow (poor plastic joints won't support the weight of the figure) Bane (waist-joint snapped, seem in chest came UNGLUED! knee-pins came out/broke!... totally broken and unplayable) Wave Two: Superman Bizzaro Doomsday (two joints are painted shut) Supergirl (ankle pin-joints are broken, pin too soft for the weight of the figure when displayed apparently.) Wave Three: Batman (based on Jim Lee's "hush" i think) Robin (neck joint painted shut. also unposeable) Mr. Freeze Azrael (one arm came off when i moved the joint, had to be glued) Wave Four: Superman Lex Luthor (joints won't support his weight) Brainiac (both arms can't be moved due to impending breakage and paint-goo) Darkseid (left arm painted shut) Wave Five: Modern Supergirl Steel Parasite Wave Six: Cyborg Superman Kal-el Mongul Black costume Superman Varients: Bane with a Teddybear Black/Red S-shield Superman black/Red outfit Supergirl Red Doomsday Steel (with vac-metallized emblem) Darksied Repaint Bizzaro Purple repaint in Target Two-packs you can get Clark Kent (with wave two superman) Batgirl (with wave three batman) supposedly still on the way are: Batgirl (cassandra cain) Two-face Clayface Manbat and the Joker

How did you find that out? I don't like the idea. Millar and Hitch are a brilliant team with great artwork, dialogue and storylines. I doubt the new team will be a good as Millar and Hitch. It's pretty much a matter of just following various comic-news websites and occasionally looking at the publisher's sites. Newsarama, the Pulse, comicbookresources, Silverbulletcomicbooks, etc... they've all had news of the creative team changover for some time. Likewise Marvel.com posted a press release to that effect a while back too. the new team is Ed McGuinness and Jeph Loeb (who i should note is also one of the exec. producers of the TV show Heroes)... and honestly, i've got a LOT of high-hopes pinned on it... not the least of which is the hope that the book comes out slightly more often than A YEAR BETWEEN ISSUES! I actually really dislike Mark Millar. Between Civil War, and even his Marvel Knights: Spider-man run... his characterization is *dreadful* IMO. I thought the first 12 Ultimates were okay... in a dramatically "THIS IS NOT THE AVENGERS" kinda way... but Ultimates 2 was a trainwreck for me. I've come to feel that Ultimate Captain America, is what's wrong with comic books, as a medium, today. He represents everything a hero should never, ever, EVER be... which is ironic, because 616 Cap is the iconic "what a hero should mean" character. I really despise the "soldier" mentality of Ult. cap... he's too much of a thug in uniform. drives me crazy. But... that's all just personal opinion. I did enjoy the first Ultimates series... so that's something. The witting just wasn't as good on Ult. 2... this whole "sorta masters of evil only not" arc was very disappointing to me. way worse than Ultimate Six. What's kinda strange is that i really like Ult. X-men... for the same reasons i don't like the Ultimates. it's *not* the X-men (who i detest in the marvel u.)... and different enough that i can really get into it (doesn't hurt that Robert Kirkman is writing it these days either. *heart*) hands down Ult. Spidey is the best though... with Ultimate FF as a close second. I just... i can't understand why Greg Land keeps getting work though... that man is such a damn hack it's painful to read any comic he has his name on... WHY Marvel?... you know he's a plagiarist, you KNOW he just copy/pastes his own work into new panels and doesn't actually change a damn thing... WHY are you still letting him ruin comics?! WHY?!

The short version is that Jerry Siegel pitched the idea of a "young superman" to DC prior to going off to WW2, which they rejected... but while he was off fighting the war, DC had published "superboy" anyway using ideas directly from his original pitch. In 2004 a federal judge awarded the Siegel estate the right to revoke their copyright assignment of "Superboy"... which they apparently have now done. (additionally the name of the current Legion of Superheroes cartoon, was supposed to be "Superboy and the Legion"... just like the original comic books. but had to be changed) Warner Bros. has challenged the Siegel's claim to the character and name "superboy" pretty much from the get-go. Dan Didio insists that killing Kon-el off in Infinite Crisis was not due to the legal issue... and that if they'd really wanted they could have just changed the name of the character... but that sounds pretty fishy to me... seriously, what else would you call a young teen-of-steel? Superlad? Superteen? totallynotsuperboynoreallyweswear!? You'll also notice that no where in 52... was Conner outright referred to as "superboy". Always kinda bothered me that suddenly the public knew his real name a'la "the Cult of Kon-el".

so far as i know, Khimaera is indeed a new character introduced in Hawkgirl's OYL. Yeah... i had to drop Hawkgirl too, what really bums me though is that i freakin LOVE Walt Simonson... his old run on Thor for Marvel was *definitive* (So much love for Beta Ray Bill! zomg!!1). But Hawkgirl was not... good... i mean... seriously? a giant tattooed woman, who worships an over-sized glowing/talking vagina, who's primary method of attack is... apparently... to tear Hawkgirl's shirt off and force her to fight in her (ridiculously lacy and non-supportive looking) bra? ... what? I'm not sure if it's a blessing or not... but Hawkgirl's been canceled with issue 66

I may be able to help here... Nightwing's one of my all time favorite characters, so i've been following him for years... The biggest problem with all the Jason Todd/Nightwing shenanigans... is that Dick Grayson was supposed to DIE during Infinite Crisis. They actually decided... fairly last minute... that due to the legal uncertainty surrounding DC's use of "Superboy" that they should just kill Connor and not have a "superboy" any longer (and since they lost, we probably won't have a "Superboy" ever again)... problem solved... This is why at the end of Infinite Crisis, it's Dick and Connor you see going off to face Alexander Luthor. (this is also a sub-plot in both Countdown and elsewhere in the DCU... Dick Grayson was supposed to buy the farm, and the Monitors don't immediately know why he lived) So this left the writter of Nightwing's new "One year later" arc in a terrible spot... See... After the Crisis, "Nightwing" was going to be Jason Todd... 'cause Dick would be dead. But now that Dick's survived... and the writer has already *FINISHED* a huge chunk of his story well in advance of publication... this created a huge problem. Two Nightwings. Honestly, while that story arc wasn't very good... i really have to hand it to Bruce Jones for trying to rescue the plot now that he was thrown such a ringer at the zero-hour (heh, uh... no pun intended there). They fought... Dick won... Jason left and stopped using the name and stopped using the costume. Then the book went to Marv Wolfman (infamous Teen Titans writer)... and became covered in awesomesauce once again.

if i were to say something along the lines of "i've been TRYING to forget spider-man unlimited for YEARS man!"... should i make sure i get a running start first? hehe man that show sure confused the heck out of me when it was on.

yup, i blame Danny and Minimate Central as well... I had seen the Daredevil figures, thinking they were some cutesy movie-tie-in... then Spider-man i thought was okay... X-men, feh... but when Dr. Doom and the Thing came out i thought... well, i DO really dig Dr. Doom, and the Fantastic Four are among my favorite comics ever... sooo surrre why not. i had them sitting on my desktop and my productivity got worse by the day... the next week when i went into my LCS, i saw they had the Grey Hulk and Ult. Spider-man con-exclusives for a reasonable price, so i snagged'em. (apparently having exactly four figures on my desk at this point, inspired any and all who walked by and saw them to play with and re-pose them... but my favorite was coming back from lunch, and finding Hulk, Doom, Spidey and Grim... clearly doing the Y.M.C.A.) i probably would have been okay with just those... until a idle google search brought me to Minimate Central... and... the lists... *shakes little plastic fist* damn you Danny... i don't even LIKE the x-men!! look what you've done!

Or (for the sake of reference pictures of him in various costumes but identical poses)... how about a link to every variant cover from "The Other" storyline? Classic Black Costume Ben Riley the Amazing Bag-man Scarlet Spider Six-arms Captain Universe Armor Spidey Spider-man 2099 Wrestling Peter Parker Peter Parker Spider-man the Sensational Spider-ham and finally; Civil War "Iron" Spidey

yeah, it's entirely possible it's just the box-art that shows the non-snarly face. In fact... i just double checked my own LCS-bought 2-pack box, and it is indeed the straight-face on the box... (which, apparently i didn't notice when i made the purchase initially) Here's a couple photos i was able to google of the straight-faced AXM Cyke' (i'll note however, that none of these are actually out-of-the-package photos taken by a collector. the only non-box Cyke is clearly a promotional.) Cyclops and White Queen TRU 4-pack boxes 2-pack box cover I suppose i just assumed the TRU 4-pack had a variation since the New Avengers 4-pack had the angry-face Spider-woman... (and BOY was i glad to see her show up in a 2-pack at Target, i long ago missed the boat on the 4-packs... and eBay is no good for little variations like that... it's ridiculously difficult to search for "angry face variant minimate") Sounds like it's just a production thing then... glad to know there isn't a AXM Cyclops variant out there i was missing after all! :biggrin: (in fact... closer inspection leads me to believe they simply used the Classic X-men Cyclops head for the box-art, as the chin-squiggle looks "astonishingly" similar)

Heeeeey, i never posted to this thread.... did i? heh... i keep mine on my desktop where i can easily play with them... or... knock them over while i'm playing an MMO frantically... full desktop shot (also smaller/low-rez for dialups) ::Warning High-rez photos ahead:: (heh, what good are pictures if you can't zoom in and scrutinize every fiddly detail?) Left Side of the Desk Center of the Desk Right side of the Desk Top of my Hard-drive Sadly there's no room for my Batcave or the other Batplane... so they're currently in storage. Also, the mini-flyers are behind the large-batmobile (which is in turn behind the SF figures)... couldn't hold the camera at a good angle to get everything in that shot without it being super blurry.

I'm a little surprised to see no mention of the Astonishing X-men Cyclops facial variations. i was under the impression that the one in the TRU 4-pack has a straight-face, as opposed to the snarly faced one from the two-packs. 'course... as a friend of mine found out recently, much to his horror; the Target re-release of the Astonishing Two-packs, features the straight-faced Cyclops on the box... but inside is the same old snarly-face. Is the TRU 4-pack a similar situation? is there no straight-faced variation of the figure?

hrm. off to ebay with me then... that's a shame. I guess i'm remembering wrongly then... but i could swear that Stuckakid had the case pre-orders marked as "sold out" just recently... and i got all excited when they showed up again for future purchase.

So... my FLCS got shortpacked on one of their cases of Modern Cylons, and among the missing was the "Downloaded" cylon. (or so he claims! i'm suspicious) Either way, i missed'em and i was waffling on just going ahead and ordering a case of the guys for a Cylon-armada of DOOM! to rain down on my poor minimate's heads. eventually made up my mind and decided they ARE in fact cool enough to have a whole case of them, instead of just one-of-each-for-collection-obsession's-sake. i quickly found, however, they're pretty much... gone now. BUT!... i'm also seeing a whole bunch of sites that are listing pre-orders for cases of Classic and Modern Cylons (including Stuckakid) for Feb. 28th. Thought i'd pop by, skim the forums a bit and see if any of you informed gents were able to confirm that the Cylons are in fact, getting a re-release of sorts when the first wave of galactica-actual (heh) hits next year?

heh, yeah that's what i wanted the modern ones for... There are many copies... and they have a plan although it's been suggested to me, that i should declare all the spidey and wolverine clones to be Cylon skin-jobs.

awesome. *also sent* edit: oh, and i say WONDER MAN! c'mon... and an ionic purple transparent for a variant figure!... with a pair of Vision and Scarlet Witch minimates... think of the estranged love triangles! WOO

Just wanted to chime in on that... actually DC in general is *notoriously* picky about their licenses. A few years ago i was doing some work for Wizkids as a contractor, and you wouldn't believe the hell they put the sculptors on Heroclix through... over something as ridiculous as the length of supergirl's cape. They're extremely, extremely anal about the little details, and often... i mean really often, scrap an entire run of a toy/game/whatever... because of a fiddly thing like that. This is why so many DCD products are so frequently delayed... if the production test-piece doesn't come back *JUST SO*, they'll stonewall it until it's right. Kindof a double edged sword there... really awesome that they care, and that the quality is being protected... really frustrating when it means we have to wait on something like this.

Hiya... Been lurking between MinimatesHQ, Central, and AA for some time... maybe more than a year or so actually... and thought i'd actually delurk and say howdy. The addictive nature of this little plastic articulated crack, took me entirely by surprise... i remember seeing marvel wave five show up in my LCS and thought; "oh hey, Dr. Doom and the Thing... sure why not, it's not like i'll ever care enough to collect this line, i mean, just look at all these x-losers!... i'll just buy these guys to play with"... it was all downhill from there sadly... and now, surveying my desktop as i type this... i'm just a few blanks, santa/silver/gold, and some of the old 3 inchers shy of having the whole freakn' shebang. Anyhow... if nothing else i thought i ought to say "thanks" to a bunch of you... i've made great (if not maddening) use of various lists, news, reviews, discussions and announcements (i had no idea there would be minimates at Emerald City [i'm in seattle]... if it hadn't been for some of ya'll, i would have totally missed out on that), etc... both posted, linked to, and otherwise between the various sites... it's been awesome, if... you know... occasionally expensive. who knows, maybe i'll even stick around and toss in a bit or two in the future. cheers! (edit; due to size mistake. i said "2 inch" when i meant the older 3' mates.)