ADour

I think this might be one of the best collections of variant covers Marvel has done. A lot of them are really playful and unique, and the more generic ones still work fine as pin-ups. I think my three favorite are the recreation of ASM #33, the one celebrating the 90s cartoon, and the one celebrating the games. The latter solely due to the inclusion of the low-poly PS1 Spidey.

War Machine heralding a retro Iron Man wave... that's awesome. I'm glad that this one comes with open hands, I always contemplated dyeing some extra Iron Man hands black, so now that wont be necessary. Kinda of a shame that they couldn't at least include two small blast effects for the forearm cannons. I gotta admit I'm not sure which one I like the most, the original colors or this new one's paintjob... I'm also debating whether to open this one, I'm not a MIB collector, but this figure is kinda redundant, yet it looks nice. Maybe I can just make a separate display for this figure and the eventual Modular Iron Man repaint.

I might not be into Mezco figures (or soft goods figures at all), but I need to express that this figure's selection of accessories is beyond impeccable.

Everytime I see this figure I think about how Hasbro missed the opportunity to use it to debut a pinless Wolverine mold. That would have made people look at this figure a bit more favorably since it would have been more than another Wolverine repaint.

The Fan First Friday stream had already showcased the wings' full range of motion.

Watched it the other day and I loved it. Raimi really got to flex his horror-movie muscles, not necessarily because the movie was scary, but because the visuals were fenomenal. What Strange did in the third act was the dopest thing the MCU has ever done.

I hope I'm not the only one who thinks this looks just a tad bit like a thing of nightmares.

I think the true potential of this line lies in revamping any figure from before 2017, basically, anything that predates the digital printing tech. My top pick would be the figures from Age of Ultron. They're not only old (therefore rarer and without digital printing), but half the roster was locked behind an exclusive even rarer 4-pack. I'd personally love to see Tony Stark and Don Cheadle open-faceplate headsculpts getting the digital printing treatment. I'm not sure how cost-effective the line is meant to be, but if Hasbro could also give the Iron Man MK 43 interchangeable hands, that'd be great. I know all evidece points to this line being only for reissues, but I'd also love it if they could take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of repaints to maybe sneak in a couple of new figures. For example, the Age of Ultron reissues could be accompanied by the Iron Man MK 45, coated Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch. I highly doubt this could happen, so this is just wishful thinking.

This is a great concept. I hope to see it extend to more releases soon, especially if they were to update paint decos. Something like the Age of Ultron figures with digital face-printing tech would be neat.

The first thing that came to my mind when Hasbro revealed the Amazing Fantasy Spider-Man was "they need to repaint this into a Romita-style release." To be honest, the main reason I want this is so people stop touting the retro Spider-Man as the "perfect" capture of Romita's Spidey. It's not. 60s-80s Spider-Man needs a leaner body. Not skinny, just with less defined musculature. That being said, here's my digibash:

He's already had a Spider-Glider.

I was hoping Marvel would do something interesting with reformed Norman past Spencer's run, so I hope this is it.

The highlights of this stream for me are the Renew Your Vows Spider-Man and the Amazing Fantasy Spider-Man. I'm still not sold on the musculature that carried over from the retro Spider-Man, but at least RYV Spidey has pinless joints. I also prefer the darker blue and the bigger eyes. A bit of a shame that the next definitive Spider-Man figure is tied to a 2-pack, but it's not surprising. Also, I think it's a bit funny that this new baseline Spidey figure is technically not even 616 Spider-Man. So, all in all, while this is not my personal definitive Spider-Man figure, it's a step closer. AF Spidey looks fantastic, and I love that they made him leaner. I hope Hasbro repaints it for a JRSr Spidey some time down the line. That way people will shut up about the retro Spidey being "jUsT LiKe rOmITa's aRtwOrk." Oh, and also I guess Toad was a good reveal. Only so I can stop hearing people ask for it. Too bad people will now instead ask for the next lame X-villain and continue the circle.

Wait, it's only going to be four pieces? That's... a bit underwhelming. I hope there's a "wave" 2 planned down the line.

Uh, the engineering of the hips is certainly a choice. The whole abdomen also looks a bit funky. I get that they're trying to play into the armor being form-fitting and streamlined, but I think it's counterproductive. I think the choice of nano weapons is also questionable. The katars and the dual blade are too alike. I think they should have swapped the katar for a hand cannon, both to add more variety and because the hand cannon is without a doubt the most representative of the armor's weapons. I know that they're going to release an accessory pack, but I feel like the bare minimum should have provided more variety than "blade, blade and blade."

And here I was hopeful Hasbro was going to take the opportunity of Mr. Knight to create a new set of pinless suit-body arms.

Alright, they just announced that Landy will indeed have access to any character who has been an Avenger, and the book will have a rotating cast, with Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spider-Man, Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Blade, and Spider-Woman being the debut line-up. Now I'm very exicted. I can only hope the art team is also rotating...

I'd love to see Landy use other classic Avengers like those. Aaron's near-monopoly of the Avengers brand really hurt the non-A-listers of the team. All of the characters you mentioned have been benched and collecting dust, with sporadic appearances here and there (at least Clint is going to lead the Thunderbolts again).

In addition to the ComicTropes video posted above, here's a good primer on Land's "artistry" (except for the image in the middle of the guy having a heart attack, that's by Land's fellow tracer Salvador Larroca): Tracing aside, I personally don't find his artwork good. The facial expressions of his characters feel artificial and their poses stilted, it's like he's drawing wax dolls. Many times the expressions don't even fit what the dialogue is going for, which really takes me out of the reading experience.

Yeah, Land is a fast "artist." I guess it's easy to pump out pages when your work was already done by your past self, other artists, cosplayers, adult magazine models, and Google images. I think the clearest and most recent example of this is when Joe Bennett was booted from Timeless #1 at the 11th hour, so his replacement was Greg Land.

Wouldn't be the first time I put up with Greg Land's "art" for the sake of an artist or character I like. Today it was revealed this book is going to be written by Derek Landy, so this will be one of those instances. I loved Landy's work in Captain America/Iron Man, so I can't wait to see what he does with more heroes. The line-up is shaping up to have Captain America, Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Black Panther and Spider-Woman. That's a pretty standard roster, so I'm gonna be selfish and cross my fingers for Iron Man to appear as well.

This is a really good concept for variant covers. It would be fun if Marvel ended up releasing them as actual postcards to collect. Can't wait to see what Patrick Gleason and Iban Coello do for theirs, they're my favorites of this batch of Stormbreakers.

Oh, yeah. That, definitely.

What do you mean they did nothing with him? Ben got his own ongoing series after Dead No More, which lasted for a decent amount of issues (in today's standards), then was in Spider-Geddon, in Iron Man for a bit for some reason, and then he starred in this last stretch of Amazing Spider-Man that led to him becoming Chasm.

It's not a symbiote. He was mutated by... uh, "a quantum-shifting polymer in a psycho-reactive medium." Kinda like the Joker but instead of chemical waste, he fell into technobabble.