I'm not sure about Fin Fang Foom either. When push comes to shove, are there 10,000 folks big enough fans to shell out $250 or whatever?
No. Legends collectors think there would be because for some reason I've never heard explained the BAF is quite rare.
Why is that BAF in so much lower supply than other BAFs from the 2000s, does anyone know? Was distribution limited, or did Hasbro just not make as many figures as Toy Biz did when they first took over the license? I've always wondered, so if anyone knows why there are so few Fin Fang Fooms that aren't knockoffs please do share.
That wave was designed and sculpted by ToyBiz before the Hasbro deal closed. There were some other waves that happened on either side of that deal where production was really low. My recollection is FF Classics (with Dragon Man), Ghost Rider movie wave (Target passed entirely because of the 'Satanic' connection) and this Hulk set.
As someone mentioned, you had to get two waves of Hulk figs to build FFF, and the price was going up because Hasbro a) has more overhead, so their margins are bigger than ToyBiz' and b) Hasbro wasn't going to cut corners on manufacturing (TB was notorious for using re-grind, which didn't seem like big deal at the time, but some of those old figues are falling apart).
They saw that whole Hulk wave as a pain, but they inherited it in progress, so it got made. I think the second wave was only at TRU (maybe both waves?) and in the SDCC "suitcase" pack. Even with the higher price, my understanding is they only broke even.
There was some agita between the companies at the time because Hasbro intended to reuse a lot of TB molds, but when TB essentially closed up shop, the plant they worked with closed too and all the tooling vanished with them. Hasbro was pissed.
The first full wave that Hasbro did top down was the Hercules wave with the Annihilus BAF. Glad they took that break to re-think ML, because those early Hasbro waves were stone cold trash, aside from the BAFs. I still have a few of them in my collection as placeholders (Banshee, Hercules) but will be glad to see them go.
I'm fairly certain FF Classics with Dragon Man was released under Toy Biz, not Hasbro.
Are you confident that the Foom wave was inherited from Toy Biz? The Annihilus wave was the first one released under Hasbro as the license holder, and several more immediately after; the Foom wave came a few years into Hasbro having the license. I don't think any figures in that wave reuse Toy Biz sculpts (unlike the Annihilus wave and the others that came earlier), and the higher price point made sense at the time since it was a wave of Hulks - bigger figures overall, with the exception of She-Hulk and Samson. What's more, a repaint in orange was intended to be released as part of the Masterworks series (that had Galactus and Sentinel) which makes it seem like it was developed in-house.
and b) Hasbro wasn't going to cut corners on manufacturing (TB was notorious for using re-grind, which didn't seem like big deal at the time, but some of those old figues are falling apart).
What is "re-grind"?
I'm trying not to let my own character biases factor in, but I think of Apocalypse as an "A" level villain. The rest of these are mostly B- and C-listers.
If Apocalypse is A-list, what list are Doctor Doom, Thanos, and Magneto on? All three are significantly more popular than Apocalypse, and I didn't think there were any letters before "A". 🤔
I see this mistake with the heroes constantly. People call Iron Man or Cap A-list, but then what list are Spidey and Wolverine on? Both are significantly more popular than ANY other Marvel character.
tier list are always defined by the users own parameters. maybe he considers them all A list because he only has 3 or 4 tiers in ranking.
Looks like a classic subjective objectivity here.
As someone who works as a data scientist for a living the idea of who is an A-List, B-List, etc character is not something that is subjective for me, personally. I use hard data based upon number of comic appearances. I don't care about movie, tv or animation appearances because quite frankly those versions of the characters are often so different than the source material that they can rarely even be considered the same character.
Based upon comic appearances, here is some hard data. The only 2 comic book characters that have appeared in over 20,000 issues are Batman and Donald Duck. For Marvel only:
15,000+ issues: Only Spider-Man and Wolverine
10,000+ issues: Captain America, Cyclops, Iron Man, Storm
5,000+ issues: 17 more characters (in order: Beast, Thor, Iceman, Thing, Jean Grey, Hulk, Colossus, Professor X, Angel, Nightcrawler, Human Torch, Mr Fantastic, Rogue, Kitty Pryde, Invisible Woman, Emma Frost, Magneto)
That's probably where the line for "A-List" ends.
1,000+ issues: a total of 165 marvel characters make this list - this is your "B-List".
There are nearly 23,000 different characters who have appeared in Marvel comics over the years and the vast majority have under 100 comic appearances. Generally, villain appearances are far lower than hero appearances because the hero doesn't fight the same villain all of the time.
There are 22 remaining characters who have at least 1,000 comic appearances who have never been made in Marvel Legends form (in order they are Rockslide, Pixie, Anole, Phoenix Force, Armor, Robbie Robertson, Edwin Jarvis, Husk, Magma, Rick Jones, Cypher, Crystal, Hellion, Sage, Betty Brant, Valerie Cooper, Madelyne Pryor, Surge, Jim Hammond, Liz Allan and Mercury).
In terms of characters mentioned recently in this thread as HasLab candidates (in no certain order):
Apocalypse 1,742 appearances
Fin Fang Foom 382 appearances
Giganto the Mole Monster 108 appearances (my favorite HasLab candidate!)
Arishem the Judge 190 appearances
Dragon Man 438 appearances
Mangog 103 appearances
Living Tribunal 172 appearances
For what it's worth, Hank Pym has appeared in 3,680 issues. Galactus in 1,719 issues, Sentinels in 2,504 issues. Robbie Reyes in 239 issues.
Sorry, I could go into far more detail but don't want to derail the thread. Appearance/Issue counts based upon most recent data available and updated weekly.
this is fascinating, but that being said "A-List" is very subjective. Are we talking only in comics? or are we saying "in pop culture" because pop culture as a factor greatly skews what is or is not A-list and house hold names.
you also have to define if it's "current" pop culture, or all time.
like no one beats superman, his symbol is one of the most recognizable in the world, they say next to the Cross and star of david. You can go almost anywhere in the world and people recognize that symbol. But I'd wager Batman these days tends to be the more "popular" character and definitely more popular IP.
you also have to really decide if you're basing it on "current" or "All time" because that greatly changes fads and waves of popularity. in the 70s hulk was huge, in the 90s X-men was huge, and in the 10s Ironman and the avengers were huge... for examples. does current hype outweigh overall impact?
sooooo many factors and parameters when making a tier, its always important to define them.
i have a friend who made a massive point system on comic vine, with all these factors
- pop culture (movie/tv, etc)
- comic appearances
- comic story impact (there's characters who have low counts of appearing, but made a major splash or forever changed a heroes narrative) then there's others that went in hot and fizzled. (because a C list villain who appears all the time, may out rank a bigger well known villain who shows up only every few years, like The Shocker might have more comic appearances then lets say... Apocalypse)
- video games
- etc...
I showed my (into pop culture) girlfriend the BAF Apocalypse & asked her what his name was. She didn't know, so I pointed to the "A" on his belt. She said Aaron.
At least she didn’t say Albert.
I’m surprised I haven’t seen Spider-Slayers listed as a potential Haslab. There would be a lot of debate about which/how to make them but at least they could connect it to their most profitable character.
Tier Reward Idea:
Super Adaptoid Wings
That they neglected to include the first time around. It would pose nicely against Giant Man and if you got the wings, then super adaptoid would actually be worth buying now.
@h-bird Yes, I'm sure. It came out only a year after Hasbro took over, but was inherited from TB. Remember these were top-down sculpts from before Hasbro was full digital. They re-worked some of the articulation to save a few cents per unit (as they did with the first ML waves).
and b) Hasbro wasn't going to cut corners on manufacturing (TB was notorious for using re-grind, which didn't seem like big deal at the time, but some of those old figues are falling apart).
What is "re-grind"?
When you grind up old plastic, melt it and re-use it. That's one of the reasons TB figs sometimes had more bendable parts than was ideal - re-grind materials are less reliable / stable than using fresh material.
@h-bird Yes, I'm sure. It came out only a year after Hasbro took over, but was inherited from TB. Remember these were top-down sculpts from before Hasbro was full digital. They re-worked some of the articulation to save a few cents per unit (as they did with the first ML waves).
Interesting! I'm curious though, the Annihilus wave was released at least a year or more before Foom but you said it's the first wave Hasbro designed in-house. How does that timeline work?
Related, has anyone ever done an in-depth history of the development of ML over the years? Seems like it would be a really fun podcast or video project if you could interview some insiders and reconstruct a detailed timeline with behind the scenes info!
Giant-Man:
4,590 / 10,000 (+78) 45.90% of funding goal with 38d 18h left.
Looks like we are officially in the double digit daily gains period now. Let's see where that takes us, lots of time left.
How much is shipping for this? I jointed Pulse Premium during their last big sale since the sale discounts more than paid for buying Premium, so I can't just add him to a cart and see how much shipping costs.
@enigmaticclarity shipping for me was $15.99, and I live in Central Redneck Pennsylvania. And another $12.96 in taxes on top of that, bringing my total to $228.94.
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