Mr. Hakujin

On 9/16/2019 at 8:24 PM, The Vagrant said:

I read Superman Red Son this weekend after buying a copy at the comic shop (I looked for Kabuki too, but I didn't see it there). I loved it.

 

I haven't really been reading too many comics for a while now. I mostly read novels, a lot of non-fiction, and occult books. I would like to hear what your guys top ten comics of all time would be.

 

Personally, I really enjoyed Neil Gaiman's Sandman. I didn't like Watchmen or the first Preacher (please don't throw eggs at me!) anthology. It's perfectly okay if you put those two in your lists, as they are your lists.

Coincidentally, I just ordered the last two volumes of Absolute Sandman along with Overture. I'm looking forward to re-reading this series in "chronological order" in this beautiful, over-sized format.

I'll need to think on it some as well for my "Top 10." Off the top of my head, it's a DC heavy list with Kingdom Come, Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke,  The Long Halloween, & Death in the Family coming immediately to mind. Strong contenders for my top 10 also include the first two Sin City books, X-Men: Age of Apocalypse, Millar's first Old Man Logan arc, BK Vaughn & Fiona Staples' Saga, The Walking Dead, and MARVELS.

It pains me to say this, but I found the series a slog to get through. @Axels is 100% correct in the cast and production value being outstanding.  The whole thing just looks gorgeous. However, the plot and pacing were damn disappointing. It took me the entire Labor Day weekend to get through it in multiple sittings, and if I didn't have such a love or the film I would not have even attempted to finish the series. Even though I didn't care for the show, I see it's getting love online, and I'm glad. I'm sure this is some 10-year-old kid's favorite show . I hope the show continues with another season if for nothing else than to keep the Henson method of using puppetry alive. 

^Or Namor!

I've said it before and I'll say it again--Jeff Goldblum is a national treasure.

Looking forward tot his more than any MCU show.

Yeah, not sure I want this either. It had one of the more perfect endings for a series. For them to go back to the well better be a damn good story.

Also, where the fuck is BCS S5? Bob Odenkirk gives non-answers here for the most part.

Damn, when the news first dropped this weekend I totally missed that this was going to be a series and not a film. 

Huh. Not sure how they're gonna do a whole damn series on Tatooine. I'd be down for live-action Clone Wars era adventures with Hayden & Ewan though.

^And that's just the old shit.

9 hours ago, Axels said:

I'm predicting alt timeline Widow and that it isnt revealed until an end credits scene. Someone snatches her and bringa her back to the present timeline.

I think Newt is right, but if it makes enough money then this could happen. But I'm doubting it. I think they're already gonna play the alt-timeline card heavy in GotG vol3 with Gammora. 

^Yeah, WandaVision was a definite skip for me until D23 revealed the cast and this artwork. Imma hafta check it out now.

On 8/19/2019 at 7:58 PM, Newtype said:

 

I have no idea.

I only started collecting marvel legends about a year ago.

I'll correct myself then! I forgot to mention the MCU 10 year Ultron released last year was a repackaged Ultron BAF.

Oh damn, son! You went done gone an done it! $13 a piece is a steal! Now what's really gonna cook your bacon is how to get a SECOND figure so you can use the Shadow King head that came with Prof. Xavier in the "deluxe" packaging.

3 hours ago, The NZA said:

best buy sells legends?  damn, ive been checking all the walgreens/gamestops out here, didn't even think of them.  or do they mostly do it online?

so i'd been meaning to ask: does this happen often? like, a BAF gets repackaged down the road?  cause the recent Juggernaut one is the only one i think i've seen, and i wish it'd happen more honestly. . .

Yup, BB sells toys in store, which is where you need to check regularly if you want to catch any discounted figs. They usually don't go down more then $3-5 off initial retail though.

They started in 2018 repackaging BAF figs in special two-packs. And I don't see that trend stopping in 2020. BAFs I know of thus far that've been repackeged are Age of Ultron Hulkbuster, Thanos, an Juggernaut. Giant-Man from Civil War is coming sometime this year--maybe October? Amazon has an exclusive Days of Future Past comic book version of a Sentinel along w/ a Wolverine, but it's about $100 with tax. @Newtype can correct me if I missed any, but that's it for now on the repackaged BAFs that are out.

I have the Lizard & Apocalypse BAFs. Lizard is damn near perfect. Such a great fig. Apocalypse is flawed though--he definitely needed to be bigger and have an alternate head sculpt. So frustratingly close to being what you'd want. But he's a must have for the X-Men display. I feel the same way about Mr. Sinister in the current line. He's not a BAF, but an iconic 90s villain that just misses the mark from the comics. Apocalypse I found pretty easily at retail, but that Lizard BAF was a bitch to complete. I ended up finding that Mysterio figure in a Disney Store. The package was beat to fucking hell, but I didn't mind as I definitely wanted him displayed next to my Doc Ock. 

That Rhino is a sweet figure, but he was out before I really got in to collecting Legends. I hoped he'd be reissued in 2020, but it doesn't look like it.

20 hours ago, the division of joy said:

I feel like Taystee ended the show as the star/MVP/GOAT character. The final season also did something peculiar and made Piper kinda likeable again.

 

  Hide contents

Agree with Haku on lots of parts, especially that 1 particularly bullshitty part. The last episode or 2 was rushed as fuck and they could have done with having potentially 2 feature length episodes to help tie things off better rather than rushed fan service.

 

Yeah, very good point on how they actually made Piper a likeable "main" character for this final season. I honestly thought she could've been done on the series after the S6 finale, but I'm glad they gave her S7 as she was a highlight.

8 hours ago, The Vagrant said:

I am on episode 8 of the last season and I hate it so far. I think it is one the worst seasons of the show.

Let me know what you think of the spoiler comments once you finish it out. I can probably guess what you're not liking about S7, but I'm curious what you felt the "good parts" about the season were.

On 7/9/2019 at 8:55 AM, alive she cried said:

I'd recommend torrenting it to avoid spoilers.

 

p.s. Shit all our hats

 

 

Luckily I managed to avoid spoilers and torrenting. A friend of mine came through a few weeks back and I got a first print of #193--and a second print that I actually put my greasy fingers on to read. Now I just gotta get that SDCC 2019 variant, right? Seriously though, that SDCC cover just pops so much better. Anyway, as for  issue #193...

Here is my non-spoiler take on OITNB S7 as a whole.

Overall S7 veered way too much towards issues rather than characters, which is nothing new for the show—looking at you S5. This final season had some really, really great character moments and character development, but then it just kinda shat all over them in the last two episodes—even the new ICE characters. If you take someone on a journey with characters through seven years, you owe ALL of those characters a fair ending. S7 focused on ICE so much that the writers had to rush in the final two episodes to try and give the series regular cast an attempt at endings. And a surprising number of characters were either ignored or given very vague final scenes. Oh, and what about all the characters that were jettisoned from the show back in S5 after the riot? Well, they get basically cameos in the series finale. A few even get lines of dialogue. But honestly, not one character gets even remotely close to the great finale Poussey Washington got back in S5. And that’s disappointing—knowing a show is capable of melding emotion and social commentary so brilliantly in a single character yet failing to do that again after 26 more tries over two seasons.

One of the things that impressed me about the show early on is how the guards and prison admins were also main characters that were real people and not just caricatures. We don’t get that so much in S7. Fig & Caputo get a great deal of screen time and have pretty good seasons until the last few episodes. Also the new Warden Ward gets a good number of scenes, but she is unevenly used mainly to show how the prison system eats up and disposes any “good” people. The remainder of the guards and Polycon reps remain one dimensional, self-serving characters.

If you look at OITNB S7, and the entire show itself, its sum total is greater than the parts that make it up. The show had more potential than it ever truly achieved in the end. Instead of continually reaching across lines to bring new understanding to social issues through characters and their lives, it unwaveringly always leaned to the far left and pandered to the base. But it did try. And it was funny. And there were characters I cared about, and I did see life from some different points of view a few times. So good on ya, OITNB.

OITNB S7 Grade = B

OITNB Series Grade = A-

Here are some SPOILER comments on the good/great things I liked about S7 broken down by characters.

On 8/6/2019 at 6:21 PM, The NZA said:

so they just announced it'll be $13/month (to start) with disney+, ESPN+ and an ad-bundled hulu package...really going after netflix's throat here 

But just the Disney+ will still be $7/month, yeah? I've already got Hulu(no ads), so not looking to pay the extra $6/mo. for that package above.

I liked this film a lot more than I thought I would. I feel like this is the third film in Tarantino's Western Trilogy. But knowing Tarantino's track record he'll prove me wrong and end up doing another three Westerns.

On 7/28/2019 at 8:13 PM, The NZA said:

so i grabbed the hulk/wovly combo (can't turn down that hulk) and juggy/colossus, as well as a few x-men...don't think ill get the complete jim lee #1 cover going, but i'll be close!  prolly gonna grab another line of rogue cause that legends one is up there.  i was this close to getting the cyk/jean/wolvy combo but if that jacket doesn't come off, ill pass.

 

the retro line storm (white outfit) is impossible to find out here, so i went with the 80s mohawk.

also lucked out today - target had nightcrawler & sinister! now i'm back on trying to find ones i used to see everywhere, like bishop and jubilee 

 

also @Mr. Hakujin & others - what do you do when you want a BAF but not most of the figures in the line?  is there a cheaper way for parts than ebay?  cause with shipping, most current kingpin ones are about as much as the figures would be, but i really dont need a puma 

also since x-factor came up, id love a maddox from the peter david run

1. I'm passing on the Hulk/Wolvie 2-pack for now. I'm not in love with that sculpt and I've already got three hulks on display: Hulkbuster 2-pack from 2018, Ragnarok BAF, and my current favorite--the Marvel Select WWH. But there's no way I'm passing on the Scott/Jean/Logan threeway three-pack. I am dead set on completing the 90s X-Men & X-Factor teams. I already have the Rogue & Cyclops from the Warlock BAF wave, so I don't mind the bomber jacket. And the Warlock BAF Cyclops is so crazy expensive on eBay now that you can literally get these three figs for the price of one Cyc off eBay.

2. I haven't seen any of the Wendigo BAF wave figs hit my area yet. Ditto for the retro-carded Storm wave. I'm gonna need that Storm for sure. I want the Cyc for the visor effects head sculpts. I'm on the fence with Iceman. I want Boomer, Nightcrawler, Sinister, and Cannonball. This is two great X-Men waves in a row with BAFs I just couldn't give two shits about. 

3. And that is the rub with the Marvel Legends lines, isn't it--the BAF. That Kingpin BAF is pretty much a must have for any Daredevil display you're gonna do, right? Yet the line it comes with are all, with the exception of one figure (Silver Sable, who I got just to use w/ the Lilandra headsculpt from the Walgreens exclusive Mystique.), a very easy pass for me. At this point on eBay the BAF parts for Kingpin are stupid high; like you mentioned, most BAF parts for Fisky are going for as much as the entire figures do at retail, which are $18-22 in my part of the world once you factor in tax. So with that particular BAF it's gonna be cheapest to just buy the whole line, and try to re-sell the unwanted figs for $5 to $10 each. Walgreens and Best Buy put Legends on sale regularly to make room for new waves--so I'd check there for $3-5 off retail for each figure. Gamestop if you've got their rewards card may also be worth it. I usually only shop from their clearance section, and I rarely find Legends there on sale. Five Below also get Legends in, but those or mostly the pegwarmers. You could always go to one of the big online stores, EE, BBTS, Megalopolis, and Dorkside. Megalopolis has  really good "daily deals" on cases of waves sometimes. Usually the older waves start to go on sale online by now when you buy a complete set, but that Kingpin is so hot the sets are still $150-$160 online.

3. tl;dr = suck it up, buttercup, and buy the wave. Orrrrrr....just wait for the inevitable DD/Kingpin two-pack to be released in a year or so.

@Newtype let us know if you've any Legends buying tips for finding sales and deals. Target used to put Legends on sale regularly, however, with these 2019 Legends waves there have been zero discounts in my area. Wal-Mart in my area rarely put Legends on sale. There are literally two pegs filled with Gwenpools from the Sauron BAF line that have been sitting on a local WallyWorld shelf since December 2018. I shit you not. They still want $18.88 a piece for them. I'm guessing it's an oversight on the manager's part, but it's weird since the Solo Black Series figs have been on sale for months yet they haven't come down at all on Legends.

On 7/23/2019 at 10:32 AM, The NZA said:

#openallthefigureseverywhere

#ButThatPackagingBeLookinGoodTho

#KeepTheBoxesForRepackagingAfterOpening

Finished up S2.

Deleted scene gold from SDCC'19

I'm living vicariously through you @Donatella since mine are still in the box. Ditto on the Kraven two-pack.

As for SDCC reveals, Hasbro should just start taking withdrawals from my paycheck. I'm gonna have a completed 90s X-Men set once I get that Love Triangle three-pack. Ditto on 90s X-Factor once Guido, Polaris, and Havoc are in my hands. And I'm still working on X-Force, but I'll hopefully have Boomer & Cannonball soon. I recently picked up the Colossus/Juggs, Hela/Skurg, and Korg/Space Goldblum sets as well. I'm eating ramen for every meal, but it's worth it.

The doc is absolutley fantastic, @Donatella! I can't recommend it enough. In fact, it's so good, I really don't know how I feel about this film because the doc was so damn emotional. I mean, perfect casting. But it's just odd to see someone else pretend to be Fred Rogers. It's like seeing someone play one of your close relatives on screen, know what I mean? I'm not sure I want this film.

On 7/21/2019 at 3:09 AM, Newtype said:

Shuma-Gorath or bust.

I was hoping Mephisto, but this would be my #2 choice. However, the Interwebs seems to think that Nightmare will be the big bad.