elhonez

At least they're revealing the main character first... hoping for some classics in this wave.

Codes are backwards now, with no spaces.

If it IS backwards, it could still be Spider-Man. Can anyone do anything with this?

_ _ _ S E _ _ M SPIDER-MAN

If it IS backwards, it could still be Spider-Man. Can anyone do anything with this?

_ _ _ S E _ _ M SPIDER-MAN

I GOT IT!

House of M Spider-Man!

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but Moon Knight could easily have a variant -- Classic and Fist of Khonshu.

Maybe Armored DD will come with something obscure... like Mr. Fear? Heh. Or the Matador. Or... Gladiator? (Melvin Potter)

(or maybe DD is the one that will be packed with Hydra)

I guess I'm hoping either Panther or Devil will be packed with one of their villains, 'cause I would really dig Klaw, Man-Ape, or any one of DD's villainous menagerie.

Hmm. Random prediction for the last two in Wave 29:

X-Force Warpath

Klaw or Man-Ape

Black Panther / Klaw or Man-Ape

X-Force Wolverine / X-Force Warpath

Lee Storm Black / Hydra

Lee Storm White (var) / Hydra

The Klaw or Man-Ape is wishful thinking on my part, by the by.

What elhonez did was to assume that each number had a corresponding letter, and try possible 3 letter words that ended in double letters. This would give him the correct letter for those numbers. Then he replaced other numbers in the puzzle with those letters. He listed the possibilities, and the only one that could possibly have been a marvel comic character was Jim Lee Storm. When the second puzzle came out, we took those same letter assignments, and got a clue to what the character could be. The only character I could find that fit the letters was Hydra Agent.

I don't think there is any pattern to what numbers were assigned to each letter. I think they were assigned randomly.

I think that we have guessed correctly so far, but we will really know once the next clue is released, and the letters we already know will hopefully spell out another character.

Pretty much yep. And kudos on "Hydra Agent" -- I would never step to your Wheel of Fortune skillz!

Hmm.

Army builder: Hydra

Jim Lee Storm

Would these be packed together?... Hydra will come with the character that has a variant, since that's the new pattern with waves (Iron Man - AIM, Sabretooth - Skrull, Ult Cap - SHIELD). Maybe a black or silver costume Storm with a white costume variant?

JIM

LEE

_ _ _ _ M

JIM

LEE

STORM?

Maybe??... the only thing that would make me second-guess the Jim Lee thing is that he's with D.C. now, so it's possible that even if merch is based on his art, AA may not advertise it as such.

Assuming it's a standard crypto-whatzit, I've isolated the "most likely" 3-letter words. Based on nothing but my own twisted logic:

ass

off

lee, see

zoo, too

all, ill

odd, add

egg

err

inn

Examples of possible combinations:

BIG

ASS

_ _ _ _ G

JIM

LEE

_ _ _ _ M

GET

OFF

_ _ _ _ T

THE

ZOO

_ _ _ _ E

END

ALL

_ _ _ _ D

Yeah - thatsounds reasonable. Look - out of the options avaiable, i really only had any intrest in the females on offer, and more Specifically Storm because i read the X-titles. Since they were doing so well on there i Voted for Moecule man (which looks like he *might* make it in!!!)

At the end of the day, i'm happy to 'suffer' through the inclusion of another Spidey if it means we get Photon, Storm & Molecule Man. I just hope some of the other great designs (like energy form beyonder, Spiderwoman & Doom) still end up being made smoe day.

I still contend that, given the tidy selection of 8 characters with two variants, we're in for a double box set. At least I'm hoping for that, because I want every single one of these.

I just got my sets. Did anyone else have issues with Cap's mask? It looks great, but mine might have been mal-formed... it was ultra-mega tight, and now I can't move it. So now I want to buy or trade for another one.

Anyone interested in trading the Wolverine from this set for a Captain? I'm assuming someone out there wants to build an army of blue/yellow X-men...

[edit: yeah, maybe this should be in the trade thread, but I really do want to know if anyone else had problems with their Cap mask]

This set looks cool, and no doubt a good thing for TBolts fans. But I only collect older/classic stuff so I'm happy to not have to stress about tracking this down, since I won't be able to make SDCC this year.

The fix is in!!

Note how Spider-Man is always EXACTLY 10 or 15 votes ahead of Molecule Man. Nice, convenient multiples of 5... Hmm... I have a hard time believing that 150 people would willingly pick Spider-Man as their sole choice, above the other 9.

(yes, it gives me great pleasure to concoct nefarious conspiracy theories...)

Sweet! Molecule Man's now 1 shy of 100.

Now if only AA would switch off their cheatin' algorithm that makes sure Symbiote Bond Spider-Man is always 10 votes ahead of MM...

I have a theory.

If you'll notice, there are conveniently just enough characters for two box sets, with both Beyonder and Captain Marvel having "chase variants." It occurred to me that this may be a ploy to help them determine how to split them up and distribute the characters across each box by relative popularity.

Then when they announce at the end of all of this that there will really be 2 box sets, it'll look like they're doing us a big favor. Great PR. However, it will really suck trying to pin down those variants...

This is just a guess on my part, mind you.

If the voting trends continue, and this pans out, looks like we may see a split like this:

Box 1:

Storm

Beyonder

Molecule Man

Doctor Doom

Box 2:

Captain Marvel

Symbiote Transformation Spidey

Spider-Woman

Ben Grimm

Thoughts? Does this seem like a possibility? Am I crazy?

Well, shit. I want every single one of them!

I voted "Molecule Man" because I doubt we'll ever get another chance to see him, unlike the others.

Man, they are beautiful. I wouldn't assume that all those box sets are Marvel, though. New Caprica, anyone?

I'm guessing only one of the other two will be Marvel: their "complement" to the Dark Avengers set.

Well, the team has only existed for 3 issues, most of which have been spent on one big fight...

Osborn and Sentry (and Doom, really) may be hogging the spotlight so far, but there'll be several more issues out before SDCC for the rest of the team members to make an impact...

The team may only have 3 issues under their belt in their own book, but they have certainly made many appearances throughout the Marvel Universe in the past month or so, with fake Wolverine doing little more than existing. Heck, in the current Dark Reign arc in Wolverine: Origins, he's barely making an appearance, and even then it isn't in Gaijin brown, but rather as random drifter in the park.

What does Marvel Boy look like these days?

http://www.marvel.com/universe3zx/images/t...oy-Noh-Varr.jpg

Cheers, sir.

He looks a bit like Quicksilver with bling. Sigh. Well at least this set will have an updated brown Wolverine.

What does Marvel Boy look like these days?

I've seen trade threads that have done this, but the Column bbcode headings under "BB Code Help" don't indicate which codes should be used. I've tried standard HTML, HTML table tags in brackets, various custom bbcodes from the web, etc. to see what might work, but with no success. What's the secret?

Cheers,

elH

Your Top Ten List is AWESOME!

Thank you! And what's great is I just recently had to change it to remove Safari Wonder Man.

Somehow, I have a sense that before this year is done I'll be editing my list once more... (based on nothing specific)

Oh, come on, guys... isn't it obvious what's next?

It would be nice if this were a full 5-pack... I wonder what the chances are that they'll throw in an Iceman? Probably pretty slim if this is an exclusive & they want to keep it under 20 bucks.

I LOVE minimates and these little surprises, make me love them even more...

that is THE version of Wonder Man I wanted and Union Jack i mean SWEET! now we have the Invaders Baby!!!

Not yet, we still need Toro.

I bought two Invaders sets, and removed the shoulder and head flame effects from Torch. He looks smaller as a result. Bam! Instant Toro.