AndyL

Re: Spider-Man #1 Statue This thing is Amazing. Pun intended. I think once everyone heard Todd was doing statues for Marvel this is the first Image we all had in mind. Pun intended. It couldn't have come across any better in statue form. Often imitated this is by far one of Todd's most iconic pieces. And now he's done the sequel in statue form. Not sure where I'd put it and I'm not going to pre-order it or anything but if I come across this thing in the wild I don't think I could stop myself from buying it.

Wow, I couldn't agree more. Kind of goes with the discussion about Ryan being let go. How Hasbro is not our friend but kind of has to put a friendly face to get us to buy the products. Even when it's a product nobody asked for. In this case everyone has wanted Mephisto for like ever. We just all assumed it would come as a single or maybe as a BAF. And yes they were kind of mean and IMO out right antagonistic during the EoV Haslab. First time I ever felt they were holding our feet over the fire. I really did lose a lot of respect for Hasbro at that time. That's kind of when I decided I was going to move over to the cherry picking style of collecting. Made me reflect on what I really needed. Recently I even cancelled my pre-orders for Shuma and the Cap/Venom packs. I was just looking at my collection and realized both my Cap and Venom were pretty darn definitive and I don't really have or need a Gamerverse collection so Shuma really is an unnecessary cost. My friend got me my Psylocke/Thanos pack. Tried to unload my Thanos on Ebay for practically nothing and haven't gotten a single bite. Really makes you step back and remember Hasbro's standard MO when it comes to these two packs. They could have easily done a Psylocke/Cap set and a Wolverine/Blue Venom set and sold a ton of them but they had to do what they did to pack in a few more redecos that no one wanted. Whatever. Stuff like that makes it easy to be a cherry picker these days. But yeah I bit on Mephisto as well and also Dragon Man. And I'm really not that sad about it. The way I look at it it really stopped me having to buy figures I don't want in order to build them if they had been BAFs. Is it an even trade off? Probably not but in this current rotation in ML and if they do end up getting rid of the BAF system I'm happy that I may never have to buy another figure again that I just don't want. In this latest X-Men '97 set I just picked up Emma and Morph. And judging by how the sales and sale outs are going I'd say the majority of us are in the same mindset.

Re: Mary Jane as Iron Spider See this is exactly the problem so many people have with Hasbro and it's decision making. If there was ever any time to use the added articulation female model it would be for MJ Iron Spider. But nope. They use it for characters that historically do not need extra articulation like Phoenix and Ms. Marvel. SMH. Hasbro.

Re: Cyclops & Jean Grey I really like that new Jean Grey. Looks better than the last one. I just wonder if it's nothing more than a repaint. This is a total wait and see.

Re: Cyclops & Jean Grey I really like that new Jean Grey. Looks better than the last one. I just wonder if it's nothing more than a repaint. This is a total wait and see.

Got tickets for tomorrow. Heard it was pretty good. Between this and Superman it's been a pretty good summer for hero movies.

Re: Anti-Venom It's just a redeco but I love it. The guns do look goofy but at this point it doesnt even matter anymore for me. I got so tired of that goofy looking skinny barrel pistol that they kept using that i started having my acion figure guns 3D printed a while ago. It'd be nice if they could figure out a way to do cool looking guns but my guess is they're skirting that non realistic looking gun thing that other toy companies do.

Now if he can find some talent like Pugh, Russel and Harbour to carry the rest of the cast he might have another winner. The fact that Julia's performance didn't drag that movie into the pits of the abyss was almost a miracle on it's own. Sorry to break it to you Elaine, but you ain't no Amanda Waller.

McFarlane is killing it with these things. I give the guy credit where credit is due. And he's doing them so darn fast. Almost like he's had them just sitting on his shelves for years. It looks like someone at Marvel set him straight right up front to avoid another DC type situation though. Otherwise we'd be drowning in Spider-Man(s) by now and 90 percent of them would be his own art. This is his happy place. This is his lane and the one he needs to stay in. Statues (not posed figures) and limited production 7" scale "action" figures of a wide variation of properties that you can only find in the collector's corners at WM and Target is the game plan he needs to stick to. There is a bit of the market share he can latch onto with the exit of Marvel Select and this is part of it. And no scale to worry about, right. Scoreboard again for Mr. McF. I must admit even though I haven't purchased a MS in years I eventually caved in and bought one of these things the other day. Have no idea where I'm going to put it or why I needed it but he got my money. You want more of my money Toddy? Keep doing this. This thing looks great. The only problem is he looks like he's doing the little girly pee-pee dance from this angle. I'm sure it looks better from the angle it's shown on the source art but this pic just make it look strange.

There's not much I agree with McFarlane and his ego about but I agree with this. I believe MS has been a thorn in MLs side for a long time. I never really considered them competitors. I know some ML collectors that dabbled in some MS but I knew zero people who collected only MS. Seriously I wonder what their target audience was. And while I don't think MS ever directly impacted ML sales I do think it eventually became very clear that they did impact the character selection as to what figures Hasbro decided to let ML do. I'm fairly certain the reasons we don't have the versions of Crimson Dynamo and Titanum Man that we all want and we don't have an updated Annihilus or any Mephisto at all is because MS did them first. I don't think anyone needs to fill this void. Actually I don't even think it's a void. Honestly I'm not even sure what kept MS going this long. But between McF's statues (posed figures is not a thing) and ML i think the bases are more or less covered.

Yes I was starting to warm up to the fact that I might have to buy Psylocke on the secondary but I decided the last Psylocke they'd done before this one was really not that bad and was fairly comfortable thinking this one would eventually be re-released under a slightly different color palette. If not then no harm. But I did manage to get one and now have to go through the trouble of trying to unload the Thanos figure. I imagine I'll end up settling for much less than I will have been charged for it in the 2 pack but buying 2 figs to get one is not something I see changing anytime in the future so it is what it is. Any money recovered from this set will be appreciated.

They're just luxury items my friend. This is not something I like to spend my money on but I have several friends who do and they love them.

True story. My passion is in sculpting. My Ex was an artist. Not a major artist but he's quite popular at conventions and online for doing commissions. LOL. Let's just say he really appreciates the female form. Anyway I said all that to say that under his urging he got me to submit some of my work to a studio that is more associated with Mattel and it had to do with a classic line that Mattel was revamping and I had done my take on a character they hadn't got around to doing yet. And I had done it in proper scale so it didn't lose any detail when the sculpt was scaled down to action figure size. The company was impressed and sent me a letter of intention and a conditional contract to review. To this day I'm still not clear what happened but between that time and having my lawyer examine the contract the line was cancelled by Mattel and the studio somehow managed to lose several other licenses as well. They even had to lay off a few people as I understand. They have since recovered and scaled down and have won some new contracts and do a lot of their own products. Long story short they're doing fine but they ain't what they used to be. The way the contract was designed was even though it would have been basically a subcontractor type of set up the conditions that it was set up under would have given them 100 percent ownership of not only any work I did for them under that contract but also any work or designs I'd done previously and presented to them for use under that contract. Meaning if I brought any new art or design or brought any older ones to the table to be used it was no longer mine. Even if I did art similar but not directly associated with one of theirs it would have been subject to litigation. And this was a company not even a fraction of the size of Disney. And then it was laden with NDA's and Non-Compete clauses which basically ties your hands from working in the industry in the event that you do part ways with the company in a way that wasn't satisfactory to them. And then it was up to them to decide what defined what was or wasn't a satisfactory separation. Then to top it all off they got to keep the work I sent in to them for submission. That was in the preliminary application agreement. So all I have left of one of the best sculpts I've ever done and in record time are a few pictures on an old digital camera that I just can't seem to locate anymore. And let's just say when Mattel began another revamp of the property which is doing very well this time around and their newer version of the same character finally got done there were some very familiar looking aspects to the figure. Especially in the way the insect like torso was designed to allow that all 4 legs got done properly rather than the way they had been done originally. Which only makes me want to locate the pictures more but honestly will be worth nothing because I willingly gave that property to the studio and I guess ultimately the toymaker themselves. I do still have the concept drawing my ex did and they are eerily similar but again they are more or less worthless. LOL. Long story short. Sometimes passing on opportunities like that really do happen for a reason. And just a little note for anyone that doesn't know. While an NDA will hold up in court Non-Competes rarely do. No court in the world wants to be the one to prevent you from making a living in an area where your talents take you. As long as you don't steal any of their intellectual property you're good. The thing is a larger company with bottomless pockets can tie you up in court forever or at least until you run out of money if they really want to.

As a professional complainer I got to wonder if this thing would have been better with articulated wings rather than interchangeable wings. I do like that we get more plastic with the product but I think the cost to add the extra articulation versus the cost to include an entirely different set of wings would have offset each other. I get it. The optics mostly say More Plastic, More Bargain but that's not always the case. No matter. Looks good. I'll only pose it one way anyway. Just wondering what everyone else thinks. As a side note I really like this body model and I really hope they find a way to tweak it to serve for the new Abomination figure. Actually the mold looks pretty great as it is but I'm afraid if people don't see the horizontal bands on the figure there will be an uproar. But what else is new? Personally I don't think they're 100 percent necessary because many times and especially in his earlier appearances the bands weren't actually a static detail in his appearance. But based on the fact that the excellent Toybiz version had them and the current Hasbro version has them I think it will be expected.

Still nothing at my local Targets but I do have a friend that found some at a few of the Targets in his area so he picked me up one and I'm seeing a ton of the Thanos' going up for sale on the secondary market. Spoiler alert: nobody's buying. LOL. I'm interested to see what the Psylocke figure will be going for as a single. I'm betting around $60. Anyway, I did manage to get mine thanks to a friend and now I got to worry about trying to get my hands on that new Mystique figure. Target kills me.