NorthRaider

Here we go again... DST unveils a wave with five armored guys, a Hulk, a telepath and a teleporter, and seven pages later we're all rambling on about dogs, frogs and Frenchmen.

Lemme guess: The Man In The Iron Mask remake is coming up next. Followed soon after by Titanic, Man On The Moon and, to bring this lunacy full-circle, Avatar. God, I wish we had a Protest/Forget button for Hollywood movies.

I'm probably going to need Miry to back me up on either these, but... I'm not actually up on Inhumans mythology - is this not the case? I assumed he was a human turned into a teleporting dog based on the Bio. . . Comic canon has sorta stayed up in the air on whether Lockjaw really is a regular Inhuman person who got mutated into a dog or whether he's a regular mutated dog. The former had been implied once or twice (mostly when Quicksilver, Karnak and Gorgon decided they wanted to play a really sneaky prank on Ben Grimm), but given that most Inhumans regardless of mutation still retain a measure of sapience and Lockjaw had rarely been depicted as anything other than a loyal team pet (outside of the Pet Avengers title at least), I'm really leaning towards the latter. Pet Avengers Throg isn't really Thor... IIRC he was some regular frog who was somehow deemed worthy of wielding his own version of Mjolnir, kinda like an amphibian Beta Ray Bill.

Oh man oh man oh man. I bet noone ever thought it would be possible for us to start building the Pet Avengers team. A disturbing implication of Lockjaw's bio though: the way it's written, you'd really think he was some poor Inhuman schmuck whose unfortunate Terrigen mutation literally reduced him to being the Royal Family's mutt. Also, anyone else notice how Stilt Man's helmet looks to be a clever reuse of Yellowjacket's?

... or maybe they're waiting for Kang to reappear in Marvel comics' editorial mandate? They are usually pretty updated on the big comic book events, after all. Clearly what needs to happen is for Kang to re-retcon Spidey's marriage back into existence

A post about IM2 Easter eggs This was actually written by a friend of mine, so I'm not sure how thorough all these are. I was really impressed at some of these though, like - the "definitive" planted evidence about - the tiny nods to - the bit of speculation about All in all, sweet!

Which reminds me... at my nearest LCS, Blammoids are peg-warming. Waves 31-32, meanwhile, have gotten virtually cleared out Back on topic: I was actually genuinely surprised for a bit that ill-executed Cosbaby bootlegs exist. Par for the course, I guess.

I hate to say it, but I've been seeing a lot of those... things at too many of my local toy stores. At the department stores, even!

You're too kind grannyhog. And OH MY HOLY FRAKKING CANNOLI! IT'S LOCKJAW! Seriously, anyone who can help me get my hands on this set will be a big goddamn hero. Otherwise I'm still supporting our LCS to keep them selling the regular waves, so the wave 36 rerelease packs are a friendly pass for me. But Hulkbuster and Gamma Hulk? Damn, I predict an eBay turf war for this set. P.S. Five pages in less than two days? That's gotta be a record

Here's a post about why they weren't included. And I have to say, surprised me a bit, partly because it was cut, and partly because it got shot in the first place

For fear of taking this a bit TOO far off topic, but any fan of Spoony should be familiar with the Nostalgia Critic as well. His review of the old live-action Captain America movie was something of a godsend for me: at least I wasn't the only one who found that adaptation a bit... "wack." (Maybe we should start a separate thread about this )

Now that I think about it some more... is it possible maybe to quick-custom this look using these guys?

Sadly this seems to be the only other lead I could come up with re: contacting DC Direct about reviving the Minimates. I'm guessing the "Business Development" () folks are the ones to turn to at a time like this. Some interesting things I've learned after poking around in the official DC Direct site a bit: - If you purchase a product with QC issues, the standard procedure would be to go back to the retail store you bought it from and have them contact DC Direct for you via Diamond Comics Distributors. Phew. - It appears we're not the only ones spitting venom over the premature demise of the DC Minimate line anymore. Over on the official DC Direct forums the Minimate-centric thread is seeing some activity again. I stand by my old theory: DC Direct does not have faith in its own product.

Unfortunately I'm a bit doubtful that the Spidey reboot can get incorporated into the shared Marvel Movieverse the Avengers are a part of, not unless Sony is willing to give back the Spider-Man film rights to Marvel Studios somehow. And frankly, the chances of that happening are practically next to nil.

(sorry, I had to delete this big-ass ranty bitch post I just typed out. I'm not thinking clearly right now, I just basked in the sun for two hours in the name of democracy.) For people here concerned about the way the Database is managed, if you want to prove how much of a better job you can do I recommend letting off some steam on the wiki. Back on topic: Now that I think about it some more I am genuinely concerned about how well this Through The Ages set is going to do. Steve Rogers completists aside, who's going to look at this set at a TRU and think "Hot diggity! A boxset full of nothing but Captain Americas! Just what I've been waiting for!" The only other saving grace I can think of is if this set really came coupled with a proper Cap-centric TRU exclusive wave. With all those Cap supporting characters we've been wanting for ages. And really? A Spider-Man Through the Ages set? I think I'm going to develop a hernia.

Careful now... you could get burned at the Minimate Inquisition for uttering such a heresy!

I think an important thing to note here is that while the Database is an invaluable reference resource for us Minimate fans, Ivan (the guy who runs the place) isn't really as much a diehard Marvel/DC guy like most of us. Conservatively speaking his familiarity with most of the characters who have seen Minimate form might just barely match that of those random kids romping up and down the Toys R Us aisles without years' worth of comic continuity to aid them (not to imply that Ivan has the intelligence level of a seven-year-old or anything ) The good news though is that if you just say so nicely, anybody can just ring him up either here or thru his email to help improve the Database's category scheme. To date I've helped him improve his search results by suggesting that Guy Gardner, Kilowog and Salaak be included in a "Green Lantern" search and by letting him know that Rachel Grey and Rachel Summers are in fact the same person.

Is there anyone left here who hasn't seen the movie yet? That way maybe this discussion would get less confusing. Oh jeez, don't make me make an avatar of that

One review of Iron Man 2. Say what you will about the film, but it's still "smarter" than a lot of the dreck that goes through the cracks these days.

Yeah I noticed that scene was missing too, along with Fodder for a future "extended cut" of the film, I'll bet?

Kudos on the interesting topic magicmilner I'm actually not sure if we've hit critical mass on the popularity of Minimates yet. For the past couple of days I've been trying to Google some random discussions about them to get a feel for what the public thinks of them, and so far I'm still stumped. I think mostly all I've been seeing is a combination of people decrying them for being Kubrick/Lego rip-offs, Marvel collectors dabbling in them to help ease the ML/MU growing pains, miscellaneous Ghostbusters/BSG fans squeeing, and maybe the odd DC diehard still lamenting the failure of the DC line... In all Minimates still seem to be a woefully under-the-radar property to me, which may not be a good sign if we want stuff like Halo, Universal Monsters, Pirates or M.A.X. to really take off soon. The fact of the matter is it's going to take a lot more than us core fans to keep the line going, let alone expand it to bigger, better things. And unless some major grassroots miracle happens, I'll be doing all that I can to keep 'mates a secure presence at my local LCS.

Incredibly enough I agree: The only other explanation I could think of for the "off" shade of blue used on Invaders Cap was to imply (and by "imply" I mean "bash us in the head repeatedly with a big stick") that he came from an "older" era, like to simulate the inking on the old pulp comics or something. Furthermore: If you'll look closely enough, there IS a hue difference. (Oddly the coloration of New Avengers Cap seems to be somewhere in between.)

I am genuinely boggled that we still don't have an official Hellcat minimate. Nice quick customs elhonez! I should really take note of that Clea recipe

I fear once the movie discussion goes into full swing I might revert to my old Watchmen Wall Of Text Mode, so let's just tackle all this in baby steps, shall we? We all have to remember that when the first Iron Man came out and became a huge hit a couple years back we were all surprised, and IMHO this was because for once we finally got to see a good, real fun superhero movie that wasn't founded on teen angst (coughSpiderMan) or ethically charged melodrama (NolansBatmancoughcough). That being said, it was a given that the sequel would have a LOT to live up to, and I'd much rather assess a film's merits based on how it holds up as a single story, considering its conformity to previously-established events (the first movie, NOT the whole of IM comic continuity) only to a slightly lesser extent. So is Iron Man 2 as good as Iron Man? . To be fair it's not as bad as X3 or Spider-Man 3, though neither is it the pinnacle of cinematic "respectability" that is The Dark Knight. I will admit to being pleasantly surprised that the character turns were still plausibly adequate and the plotting was better than that in Watchmen, and I would probably put it on par with the likes of V For Vendetta or the first Hellboy movie. tl;dr: I wasn't blown away, but Iron Man 2 was still some good, sweet fun to watch. And it thankfully didn't contradict or do away with too much of the developments from the first movie; it at least still feels like a natural progression of the first movie's narrative so it definitely ranks well on the Continuity scale. On this point I humbly disagree a bit, though I do feel you on the random subplots problem. I actually thought Tony's whole mortality conflict was one of the film's more redeeming qualities. More than giving Tony a much-needed (your mileage may vary) big slice of humanizing humble pie via cheap drama, I felt it was a something of a long-overdue release for all that baggage he was carrying since movie 1. For some reason even after he beat Stane/Iron Monger, deep inside I still wasn't convinced that Tony was finally a "self-actualized" hero. As silly as it sounds it was only until Tony got shaken to his core YET AGAIN (hey, life works like that, suck it up) and became more secure in his place in the Stark legacy that I finally got that vibe from him. Of course, there's always the chance I might change my opinion on this film after a second viewing.

In hindsight, is "Vote often" really even a good idea for this poll? You know how these things usually go: First there's the election fraud, then there's the settlement on the new undiscovered planet, then there's the one year of relative idle peace, and then the Shockini invaders come out of nowhere and hold the whole Minimate Multiverse captive again, leaving only the small resistance movement of Wolverine minimates and space-borne Riot Spideys to clean up the mess while we resume our search for the elusive Planet Kang... (Yeah, been watching the old Battlestar Galactica episodes again )