Gladiator was my number one for a long long time and I was glad we got him, but I always disliked the body they put the original figure on, because to me he's better on a slimmer body.
Hellfire Miles sounds like something Ghost Rider uses when traveling.
I think I earn Hellfire Miles rewards on my Hades Express card.
Ah yes. The "comic vs film IP confusion (quoting Dwight)" thing.
It was a "thing" for awhile. It was mentioned in a few livestreams and interviews they've done for the past few years, but never really discussed. It didn't seem to affect A listers (Spidey, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor were still being made), but it did seem to affect their supporting characters.
Ryan did say a while ago that they could start making more IM figures because his cinematic story ended. Then we started to get the IM retro waves. I take that as a direct message that there is/was some sort of mandate from Disney/Marvel to not offer the same character at the same time in both comic & film form, but once their "story concludes", they can.
Then came Gorr, classic Black Panther and classic Ant-Man (Yondu as well to represent GOTG although he wasn't in the 3rd film), available either just before or just after their recent films. That seemed to signify that the embargo on getting both film and comic versions relatively at the same time was over. Recently we've gotten classic 1st appearance Wasp, Monica and Carol/Warbird a year after their cinematic counterparts.
The comic ML Hela came out before her MCU introduction. We're still waiting on Skurge. If this had been reversed and we got comic Skurge before Hela, would we still be waiting on Hela? Was ML Skurge sabotaged by the poor selling MU version 2-pack with Enchantress?
This is what I posted after chatting with Dwight at SDCC this year:
-Comic vs IP confusion/embargo on comic characters for a certain amount of time to distance the release of the MCU version: This isn't really a thing anymore, and can be on a case-by-case basis. They are aware that comic collectors want the comic versions that haven't been done yet. In talking with Dwight specifically, I asked for a character like Starfox - which version would get the priority. He said in this case it really comes down to where the figure might fit in the best - if it made sense for comic Starfox to go into a wave, then he would. Same for Harry Styles. Dwight asked for some of my recommendations, and I said Skurge, Attuma, M'Baku, America Chavez, Nebula, Baron Mordo, Wong (Dwight grinned because he was revealed about an hour and a half later) and Mantis, of course.
Getting the main Inhumans family after over two decades of Marvel Legends will be the type of momentous occasion they sing songs about in bars and pubs across the world.
Cool list. Not blown away like I was in August or then with the last batch a month or so ago, but it's good. Gorgon is the win. I may be alone, but I'd like to see modern Inhumans from Joe Mad too. Frank and Nick....I need to look up this video game. Gladiator is a big win to me - how can anyone be satisfied with that shit-ish body he was originally. This isn't a repack, it's an upgrade for a key character. I'd like more of the Guard and Korvus.
Looking forward to tomorrow's reveals then Friday's stream. Let's go....
I don't think Disney/Hasbro wanted too many similar looking versions of non A-listers on the shelf at the same time or too close to each other. So yes, Taskmaster can get a comic figure before and after the MCU version. They just try and avoid them all on pegs at the same time. Obviously, this "rule" doesn't apply to A-listers, due to their popularity. I'm sure they still try to do this. It was probably never a hard rule but just a general sales tactic.
While I'm not screaming for Black Bolt and Medusa redoes, I'm curious to see who they handle Medusa. Making posable hair is an odd challenge. And having a giant mass of sculpted hair which doesn't interfer with posability and cause imbalance is difficult. Maybe her hair can reach to the ground and essentially be a tripod/stand to keep her upright? For posabilty, I think some masses of strands can be movable (peg/hinge). Maybe have some longer ones which can be swapped in to simulate attacking an enemy.
Regarding the new list, Rachel will be nice to add to Excalibur, providing she's in the correct look.
Completing the Inhumans Royal Family will be nice. We'll still need Maximus, but I'll consider the Inhumans complete even without him. Maybe they can throw in a more classic, Kirby-style face for Lockjaw with one of the 2pks.
I'm looking forward to an inevitable classic Punisher, but I don't need an arcade Nick Fury to get it. Hopefully, this is either a 2pk with 2 figures which interest me or none.
Astonishing Beast to fill out the team, but I was never a fan of this look. How does his costume even stay up?
Deathbird is a great addition. I've been wanting more Imperial Guard, so it's a bit of a shame we're getting Gladiator yet again. It seems like 2pks are really becoming 1 new character and 1 redo.
I'm a big Dr Doom fan, but looking at pics of Sorcerer Supreme Doom...he just looks like Doom with Dr Strange's cloak of levitation. Why does the Sorcerer Supreme always have to have Strange's cloak of levitation? I know it's visual shorthand but also kinda silly.
Let's be honest - if anyone exaggerated how much of a thing it was it was probably us, not them!
I mean... it's not made up. In addition to them actually saying it out loud you can look at the movies and their antagonists and see how long it took them to deliver and which one's we still don't have figures of the villains and ancillary characters:
Iron Man (2008) - Iron Monger did finally get a comic based figure in 2013 - 5 years after the movie
Iron Man 2 (2010) - Whiplash comic figure was released this year - 2024 - 14 years later (no MCU figure ever made though)
Thor (2011) - Loki got a comic figure with the second Endgame wave in 2019 - 8 years after the first movie, but he was barely in that film I suppose. Destroyer got a figure in 2023 - 12 years after the film
Captain America: First Avenger (2011)- Arnim Zola got one quick in 2012. Red Skull came a little later in 2014.
Avengers (2012): Loki was the main bad guy in this one and still no good comic figure for years. No comic based Chitauri (no movie based figures of them either)
Iron Man 3 (2013): I mean there's no real figure worthy bad guy in this movie anyway - so it was all alternate armors. Certainly no Killian in comic or MCU form ever made it out.
Thor: the Dark World (2013): Still no good Loki figure; we did finally get an Odin I guess in 2015. Malekith eventually made it into Legends first at SDCC in 2017 and then in the main figure line in 2018 - so just a 5 year wait - but better than the MCU folks who never got him at all.
Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) : A comic based Winter Soldier figure didn't get released until 2020 - 6 years after the film.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): This one is interesting because we had a Legends version of Ronan the Accuser before the movie ever existed as an FF BAF - but it would take until 2023 to get an updated (good) figure. And we still don't have a good comic based figure of Nebula yet.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015): This is one where Hasbro had given us the villain in comic book form a year and a half before the movie came out - in 2013 but they did also put him into a retailer exclusive 3-pack that year as well. So no wait. They put the MCU version out that year two - albeit in the Ant-Man wave for some reason.
Ant-Man (2015): Yellowjacket was the bad guy in this one and man oh man have we been waiting a long time for a new Yellowjacket figure. The last comic Yellowjacket they made was way back in 2007. Sheesh that was a long time ago.
Doctor Strange (2016): Hmm, so with this one they did give us the comic Dormammu as a BAF straight away in the wave that supported the movie. Huge win. Of course still no comic figure of Baron Mordo - who had more screen time by far and more movie appearances to date, than Dormy. Also no comic OR movie figures of Ancient One or Kaecilius to date. We did just get a comic figure of Wong for the first time ever this year a mere 8 years after his appearance in this film.
Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (2017): Still waiting for a comic based figure of Mantis, frankly. We did finally get a classic comic version of Drax the Destroyer this year though. It would likely be unreasonable to expect a comic based figure of Ego, so I won't hold that one against Hasbro.
Thor: Ragnarok (2017): Comic Hela had come previously in an SDCC 5-pack, though never again so boo. Still no comic based Skurge (grrr). No comic based Grandmaster figure to speak of either. Hmmph. No comic based Korg figure. No comic based Miek. No comic based Heimdall (still, 3-movies in?) No comic Baldur or Warriors 3. Come to think of it, no comic based Valkyrie since the 2010 TRU 2-packs... so going on 15 years. So that's a huge whiff all around for the Thor corner of the comic collection.
Black Panther (2018): Hmm - no comic based figures of Killmonger or M'Baku yet. I'll keep waiting. No comic based figures of the Dora Milaje, Everett Ross, W'kabi, Ramonda or any of the others either but I'd settle for the first two. They did give us a comic 2-pack of Shuri and Klaw this year though, so... something.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018): We'd already got comic Thanos as a BAF 2 years before and we got him again as a Deluxe a couple of years later, so no harm no foul there. But no comic versions of the Black Order still to date is a bummer frankly.
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018): Comic Ghost was released in an SDCC 5-pack a few years earlier, so preceded the movie appearance. No follow up release of the figure though, but probably not highly necessary? I'd love a proper super-hero figure of Bill Foster in my collection as Black Goliath and Giant Man, but that doesn't have much to do with his appearance in this movie as a scientist.
Captain Marvel (2019): Good comic based figures would be welcome of Yon Rogg, Dr. Minerva and the Supreme Intelligence please and thank you. At least we finally got Monica Rambeau (4 years later) in her classic look and some decent skrulls.
Avengers: Endgame (2019): I mean tons of the missing folks from above are in this film and still missing...
Black Widow (2021): This is one where we already had comic based figures of basically the whole cast before the movie was made - Taskmaster, Red Guardian, Yelena Belova and Natasha, so nothing to gripe about.
Shang Chi (2021): Still no Hasbro figure of the Mandarin from the comics. No comic based figure of Razor Fist or Death Dealer either.
Eternals (2021): Hey, this time it only took them 2years to get out a Sersi figure and 3 years to get out a comic Ikaris. Of course we still don't have comic figures of Gilgamesh, Thena, Ajak, Druig, Phastos, Makarri, Kingo, Sprite or Kro... and that's leaving off the cameos of Starfox and Pip the Troll. Sigh
Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness (2022): At least we're closer in time now. But no comic America Chavez, still no Baron Mordo. And no Wiccan and Speed... ok that one's not fair since they only appeared as little kids. Technically we didn't get a comic Rintrah yet, but I let the movie version pass on that guy. And apparently we are supposed to be getting a Shuma Gorath eventually, so I guess wait and see.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022): And here it is. FINALLY the movie where Hasbro went ahead and released the comic version of the villain at the same time as the movie version. Gor got a figure released in close proximity with this movie's release...so hooray! still no comic Valkyrie or Korg though...
We'll see what phase 5 brings us... but the track record of how quickly they've delivered comic versions of movie characters is pretty terrible - especially the villains and supporting characters.
If all of the rumors/leaks are true, it'll be an interesting Top 10 vote this year with Crystal, Lockjaw and potentially other usual top 10-20 contenders Rachel, Banshee, Mephisto, Gorgon, Triton, Deathbird, Mandarin, Kaine and Shuma-Gorath off the table.
Obviously they won't all be revealed before we vote in January (I'm on top of that), but as the leaks are revealed one-by-one, the results we get could be completely different by SDCC as revealed characters are crossed off and others take their place.
Actually, while we're on the subject:
Hey @ibentmyman-thing: is Fwoosh going to do the poll this year or should I prepare to do it?
Thanks Beamish for summing up. It took me so long to do my movie by movie rundown that I knew a couple of pages would probably go by.
But the evidence certainly supports that historically they made us wait for comic versions of villains and supporting characters especially if those characters got movie based figures. It is interesting that despite very long waits for characters like Malekith and Whiplash we did eventually get comic versions of them while MCU fans never got their figures of the same characters. It's tough all around I guess.
Luckily I saved mine (and his Captain America and Thing), when he got older and one of his neighbors convinced him it was cool to light fire crackers and stick them inside the bodies then put the heads back on and watch them blow apart. Sigh.
Oh the horror!
At least you saved what you could.
I kind of get that the general idea of not having the comic and movie versions on shelves around the same time made sense as, correctly or not, I suspect Disney wants to avoid any confusion such as Grandma picking up comic Loki when Lil' Jimmy wanted MCU Loki. And I'm not sure Loki being on the big screen was sending a whole lot of people to the toy aisles looking for Simonson-style Loki anyway.
But even with any desire to keep the MCU and comic separated for the B and C listers, there has still been plenty of gaps to get to many of the characters mentioned. Skurge in the MCU for an extended cameo in one film can't be why we don't have a comic version after 15 years...
Skurge in the MCU for an extended cameo in one film can't be why we don't have a comic version after 15 years...
I’ve pretty much come to accept that the reason we don’t have so many long, Long, LONG overdue Thor characters all boils down to the fact that we don’t have a giant Thor nerd on the Legends team.
We know the guys are huge Spider-Man and X-Men fans, and we’ve gotten more than a few of those characters. But there’s nobody with any influence at that level that feels the same way about Thor. So nobody pushes for him when they can use slots for their own preferred Spider-X characters instead.
I’ve pretty much given up hope at this point. But I’m also aware that Captain America and Iron Man characters fall into this same bracket, and they’re all left competing for slots in any Avengers-themed wave.
@thor-el They could correct all of this with just one wave.... Volstagg BAF, Fandral, Hogun, Balder, Kurse, Heimdall, Executioner and whatever Thor figure they feel necessary to throw in. Bang, done!!
Plus a deluxe Valkyrie with Aragorn done separately but to coincide with the wave. Heck, while they're at it they might as well do a made to order Frost Giant with multiple heads as well to represent Laufey, Ymir and a generic or two.
They could satisfy Hulk fans with one just one strong wave as well, but we'll leave that for another time.
@thor-el They could correct all of this with just one wave.... Volstagg BAF, Fandral, Hogun, Balder, Kurse, Heimdall, Executioner and whatever Thor figure they feel necessary to throw in. Bang, done!! (Plus a deluxe Valkyrie with Aragorn done separately but to coincide with the wave)
Simonson Thor
This would be the most perfect wave ever. Plus Valkryie and Aragorn. Chef's kiss assortment.
And it's actually feasible. This year the BAF waves were Fan Channel. Less production. Less loss prevention. Catered to collectors, not casual buyers in big box stores.
This would fit the new BAF structure.
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