Mirymate

I thought that was the point of casting her? Still going to be sad if there isn't at least one scene with Rockwell in Hammer's "evil Hef" smoking jacket and ascot combo.

Interestingly enough, DST's own website store now says that 25 has a 6-17-9 release date. So I will try to be patient until then and see what happens.

No idea. But something odd is up here. I still have a set pre-ordered from BBTS. They have they non-variant packs "in stock", which tells me they did not get as many varaints sets as they planned. They are usually really really good with communication and not over selling, so I am trying very, very, very hard not to panic... again... But then I see a lot of other retailers still showing the wave as pre-order, and coupled with a distinctive absense of the usual eBay flood, something must have happened in the distrobution. At least that's what I keep telling myself to keep me from wigging out and being insuferably grumpy.

Okay, that Bullseye is frelling awsome! Did Toyfare mention a release date on that? I mean it doesn't look like TRU.com is putting them up for pre-order. grumble grumble But I <kirk> Must... Have... THAT... setofminimates!</kirk>

I hate spending on hour argueing with a tech support person, only to have it end with the equivilent of "Gosh, you're right sir, that is messed up just the way you think it is, but there's nothing I can do about it. Unfortuneatly I can't transfer you to the correct department directly, let me give you another 800 number so you can start this whole process over with a new tech that, after the hour of wrangling, might be able to actually do something about it. Thanks for calling, we value your business."

I really hope that a tail is included with the T-Bolts Venom, just to help justify owning yet another Venom with a different paint job. Okay to help me justify it anyway.

Hard to say. That looks like a prison uniform tied around Vanko's waist, so I' agree with Luke's Mk I guess. The comics purist in me wonders why Vanko's character is being shoehorned into what essentially sounds like Scarletti's origin. I mean, I understand why no Dynamo, you'd end up with another armor on armor fight. I have a lot of faith in this creative team, but I'm scratching my head on this one. Oh and they've pretty much stated no "drunk Tony" this movie. No more than last movie anyway. When you take a mintue to notice, Tony drinks like a Ewing most of the movie. (It's my kids' current favortie movie and we wind up watching it about once every two weeks at this point, so I've taken to trying to note little things with each viewing) They want to establish him more solidly as a hero before sending him into a downward spiral. I do expect an "Armro Wars lite" type story. The whole "Demon in the Bottle" story, according to Downey, is what they are planning as a third movie. Have we heard who's playing Hammer? And will they be keeping the "evil Heff" outfit?

Good stuff

I really, really think that they aught to look at army builder four packs as exclusives to some of the smaller shows. Maybe in very limited runs, 1000 sets, just to test the waters. I think they'd sell. But then, when you can get a couple of Luke's out there buying two full cases for the army builders (and the parts of course, let's not forget the parts. Now we know how that organizer got so full), why bother cutting the profit just to sell some sets?

Maybe we need to get some clarification of AA/DST time. A week ago we were told to expect an annoucement about the Secret Wars set "later this week" which has yet to appear. So now we're told to expect a big annoucement "later today". Clearly they are working on different time than the rest of us. And as an aside, Northraider, I could argue that Kang, who's fought everyone from the Avengers to the crew of the Enterprise D, (wish I were kidding) is no less obscure than Cloak and Dagger. (of course, I can still readily find those guys, so that may be it's own answer) But as gags that take on a life of their own, I can't think of a more deserving character. (wait, is that a compliment?)

You can still find the Invaders set very, very readily. On sale in some places. The Civil War and Spider-Man Classics just recently started to pop up less frequently on eBay, dropping from common to once a month. Really only the GXM set is something I'd call rare.

To me, it brings to mind old Stan Lee/Roy Thomas team books. Not sure how that would break the internet in half. Funny how the only minimate that gets clamored for around here that Chuck didn't mention they are thinking about releasing "soon" is Kang.

Well they shoe-horned him into X-Force for a while there.

GAAAAAAHHH!!!!! Too many pictures. Too many happy posts. And my BBTS wave 25 is still sitting on Preorder! Oh why does the universe mock me thus?!? WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? pant. pant. pant. I'm Okay. Just needed to let that out. Please continue your regularly scheduled wound salting.

yeah, I was thinking that too, about mixing them up a bit. and I might be mistaken, but I believe pete wisdom was created during warren ellis' run on the series I'd keep Kylun and replace Wisdom with Cerise. But that's just me. By the time Wisdom arrived the title was a shadow of its former self. It had become X-Men UK and not in a good way.

Saw somewhere today that Brian Blessed, former Vultan king of the Hawkmen for the cheeseriffic Flash Gordon movie, has been cast as Odin. It'll do.

Let me try to be more clear... I'm not trying to poo-poo the Ultimate U. I am just saying that as a method of attracting new long term readers, this sort of cataclysmic crossover rarely works. Usually, you end up ticking off fans of the characters you kill, and still didn't "simplify" things as cleanly as you planned. I like elements of the UMU. I think Spider-Man is the only book that Bendis has written that I thought was great. While I liked Ultimates 1 and 2 a lot, my enjoyment is tinged with frustration when elemnets of from Ultimates started bleeding through into the Avengers. (But then Bendis blew my team up completely) But Ult. X-men was mostly disappointing, and Ult FF... I was turned off at Satyr-Doom and they lost me with the attack of the giant mother-in-law. And eventually, the whole thing was rapidly becoming "Everyone takes turns fighting Magneto's guys" and ends with "Magneto kills almost everybody." Which is a shame. But then, I really liked the whole 2099 thing up to a point too.

I would like to congradulate the Ultimate Universe in officially becoming this decades 2099. Both were anchored by initally strong Spider-Man books, both got worse the more they expanded, and both tried large, cataclysmic crossovers to attempt to rekindel reader interst. History really does repeat itself.

Thoughts and prayers for his family. The coming days will not be easy for them.

Ah but you see if we don't tell the retailors, they'll think it's another Iron Man variant, so they'll b more likely to go for it. It's that or just repack a Spider-Man, with an Endo-skeleton head under the mask, as Kang's robot Spider-Man. Since clearly you have to have a "name" to sell a box.

What? No Kang? From YOU?! Stop the presses ladies and gents. He's angeling for that "Kang through the Ages" set. (Kang, Rama Tut, Immortus, and Iron Lad) Seriously though, I would not at all mind a wave of Secret Wars inspired 2 packs. I mean, yes there are a lot of chracters who appeared in SW that haven't been made yet, but there are a handfull of folks that could be redone as part of the line. Rhodey in the classic Iron Man armor, Wolverine Brown, Doc Ock with better tentacles, and hey GREAT excuse to reissue Nightcrawler!! Of course the main draw back is Hasbro is also doing Secret Wars themed two packs and would likely pitch a fit, and start the whole liscencing fight over again.

Never need to appologize for for mentioning Perez. Favorite artist ever. And Crisis had the benefit of not being written by Jim "my best writing happened before puberty, been coasting since" Shooter. And yes, I believe Barry is no longer Dead. So for those of you keeping score at home, here's the classic JLA death count: Barry, Hal, and Ollie no longer dead. J'onn, Arthur, Bruce, Ralph, and Ronnie currently not alive. Crap... need to get this back on topic... think man, think... um... okaaaaay... You know classically speaking, if there's a secnd secret wars boxed set then only one of the characters included should have actually apeared in the series. This would be in keeping with the fine Mattle tradition or filling your second wave with completely random... oh I give up, I got nothing.

Sure... everybody's doing it. All the cool kids have been dead a while: Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Hawkeye, most of the X-Men. Norman, Otto, Adrian, Eddie... all been dead, if only ever so briefly. Why should Spidey be left out? Heck, Aunt May was dead for a while. Poor Pete. I mean, Has Spidey been confirmed dead since Secret Wars, where Doom killed everybody there for a couple of hours? Alernate realities notwithstanding that is. (whew, managed to swerve that back on topic )

Whaddya know... it worked! It looks great.

DVR It's a beautiful thing. (unfortunately it's also a frustrating thing, once you get used to being able to pause and backup TV, it's hard to go back to being without it) But it also means that Saturday Morning is more on our schedule than the TV's. In fact 3 of the shows they watch on Saturday Mornings actually come on on Friday nights. (Batman, X-men, Iron Man) My son is a bigger Animated fan than I am. He's really bummed that the show is over. It was fun to watch with him, unlike the chore that was sitting through Cybretron or Energon. (Or Dinosaur King, dear GOD that's a bad show) It was cute, my brother got Paul (my oldest) an Animated Skywarp as a belated birthay present, and Paul was crowing that he had a complete collection of every charcter in animated he could get. And he did, not counting non-cannon repaints, and 70% of them purchased with his own allowance. He was very proud of himself. And then Sunday morning came, and he found out that more Animateds were coming. I am still not sure if he's more happy or annoyed. Considering he was asking me if I thought he could sell the Soundwave on eBay and keep the Ratbat, I'm guessing the former. (my Wife looked at me when he asked that and said simply "This is your fault.")