I miss that She-Hulk book, my first real exposure to that character and it was so good I had to track down her ML figure.

Since Black Panther is a topic.. Are he and Storm still married? I know she is in the X-books but will she be crossing over to his new book?

Their marriage was annulled according to the wikis. She seemed to be in a relationship with Wolverine during her recent solo comic (also sadly ended).

Add in a bit of Miles Morales as well. A series like that would be so awesome, and give the black superheroes some much needed exposure.

Amazon just shipped my Demolition Man.

I know several of you have mentioned it already but holy crap how could they not get an updated Falcon in this wave. HUGE MISS Hasbro. I feel like that figure would have really made this a great wave. I understand the need for Cap and IM since it's basically the theme of the movie but I think an updated Falcon is one figure we all want the most.

Especially since they included several other characters nobody was asking for.

I agree it really seems weird we don't have a new Falcon with this wave. While I'm intending to get a few of these figures there are not any in the wave I'm totally excited about either. Unless one of the mystery battlers or some such ends up being something I'm really wanting. But I don't expect it to be...I cant imagine what it would be.

Coates has shared insights on American culture that position him extremely well to scribe a story for the Blue Marvel. He’s an exceedingly thoughtful individual who possesses scholarly levels of historical knowledge and unique perspectives on American culture. All of which make him a great candidate for Adam Brashear’s backstory of being cajoled into removing himself from the field because the country wasn’t ready (circa the civil rights era) for a black super-hero with the power of a god. I think he’ll do a great job on the Black Panther (or any book for that matter), but I’d love to see him make the Blue Marvel into a flagship character….and yes, I’m bias to BM.

I think Blue Marvel is a great character. I didn't know anything about him until Mighty Avengers but he may be the only "forced retcon history" character that I've actually liked. I would love for a Legends figure to be made of him.

If i were still reading the comics I would be interested in reading this BP series, but alas....Marvel comics ended for me last year.

You raise some excellent points BM, and I agree that Coates has the capacity to write a tremendous Blue Marvel run! However, there is an interesting debate at play within the current comic climate regarding demographics writing characters of their own demographic, and after careful deliberation I reckon Coates will craft some superb Black Panther stories due to the fact that he is not African. He possess a vast amount of knowledge on race relations and selfhood within contemporary America, but I'd love to see him take that knowledge and attempt to tackle a fictional African nation like Wakanda.
As for my earlier mention of demographics, it's a thin line between writing characters that only reflect yourself (a female writing a female-lead comic, a Muslim person writing a Muslim character, etc), and writers using those characters because there's a reason to write about them. Are writers merely cherry picked to write characters that resemble them, or is it due to the writer/character fitting? To me, I don't think some work out (G. Willow Wilson didn't have anything at all to add to the all-female X-Men title, IMO), and there are characters written by writers which work wonderfully (the white, English Al Ewing weaving a wonderful black, American Adam Brashear), and perhaps Coates would write a defining run of Captain Marvel, a white woman, if given the chance?

Then again, at times you need a writer who relates exactly to the character at hand in order to birth a truly personal, stimulating story, but is it a prerequisite?

I believe I'm partaking in this discussion as the devil's advocate, for healthy debate's sake, so do indeed take this with a large bag of salt. :p

Beautiful display! A very nice assortment of figures and dynamic poses are always welcome.

@Von

Thanks for engaging me in a topic that most would leave alone given the potential landmines embedded within the subject matter. I was actually unaware of the current debate considering that I’ve only dipped a toe back in; collecting Strange and Herc (will be adding Black Panther…and maybe Power Man and Iron Fist). I’m not suggesting that writers must line-up ethnically (or gender-wise) with the characters they write, but I am definitely advocating that selecting writers who are personally familiar with the particular nuance of a character could potentially generate more organic stories that might in-turn appeal to a larger market of readers.

Marvel’s recent moves toward diversity have been both lauded and lamented. Lauded because more voices will create greater interest and readership. Lamented because canon has been changed to suit the initiative (i.e. Miles Morales, Nick Fury Jr, lady Thor etc). My personal opinion, as an African American who loves comic canon, is that I don’t need you to change a character who was white into a black hero. I’d rather you develop existing heroes of color and add new ones. All of this could be accomplished by increasing the diversity within your creative staff, allowing this transition to feel more natural and less forced (not to mention, this would be ‘true’ empowerment). Let me use an indirect example in the form of the Cleveland Show. I used to love Family Guy, and I feel that Seth MacFarlane is a hilarious and creative mind. However, as a black dude, I found the Cleveland show to be obnoxious and sloppy in presentation. It left me wondering if Seth knew anything about my culture outside of stereotypes and generalizations. I kept thinking to myself, “Does this dude even know anyone black in his personal life?” I’m not sure what Seth was thinking when he created the spin-off; whether he was trying to branch out or the venture was just a lark. The end result, however, demonstrated him as being outside of his depth (IMO) and the show was panned.

I’m sure Al Ewing is doing a wonderful job with Blue Marvel based on all of the praise I hear for the Ultimates book (I just can’t do ‘Ultimate’ anything). This doesn’t surprise me because Priest had a good run on Panther, years back. I actually preferred Priest’s run to Hudlin’s, due to some of Reginald’s stereotypical takes on African culture that I found to be personally offensive as a ‘Pan-African.’ Some of the dialogue made me wonder whether Hudlin knew that there are industrialized African nations outside of fictionalized Wakanda. He was heavy on tropes and it reminded me of how little (some black and white) Americans know about Africa. I don’t see this happening with Coates. My thing with Coates and Adam is that Coates is very nearly an activist in the consideration of a growing number of people. That fact, combined with the lens of his unabashedly ‘African American’ experience make him nearly a perfect candidate to write a stand-alone book about Blue Marvel. A book that in my opinion could expand exponentially on the civil rights origins that Kevin Grevioux initially wove into the character.

I hope you can appreciate this long and meandering exploration of how my mind works lol I’m not saying no one white can ever write for black characters. Rather, what I’m saying is that I’d like to see black writers (or writers of other non-status quo ethnicities and genders) get an opportunity to write their nuance into characters they share qualities with…especially when they seem so perfectly paired as Coates and Blue Marvel appear to be.

Some REALLY good posing here. Definitely going to steal a couple of those poses for my display :^)

Thanks for the inspiration.

I'm "white" but this is identical to my perspective on this issue. Not only that, but it will help if the "non-minority" writers continue to learn more about social justice issues of all kinds. Way too much institutionalized prejudice on all fronts in media (as it is in all of society) and comic book companies are just another microcosm of this.

Thankfully in our displays we can have classic teams with white Hasbro Fury alongside Hasbro Black Panther alongside Toy Biz Cage and Falcon (and Misty, etc.) next to a team with movie Fury alongside movie Panther and hopefully soon, movie Falcon and maybe even MCU Cage. And maybe someday we can add a comic Blue Marvel with both helmeted and unhelmeted heads to that display :^)

I agree with you 100%.... when they try and alter characters that have been around for ages and decide to make a male into a female, or a white guy into a black or vice versa it just really leaves a bad taste in mouth......

As i said a page or so back instead of altering characters why not bring back heroes of other ethnicites that have been placed on the shelf so to speak? i'm glad that Black Panther is returning in a ongoing series, im also happy to see a new Power man and Iron fist comic. now if they only get back on board with Blade and and maybe make a Prowler series that would be great as well.

I guess you can call me a comic purist or possibly someone is wants things the way they were first originally made. i've also had quite a few gripes about these movie producers changing existing characters sex or ethnicity because they feel it will be "diverse" and appeal to more then just the fans....

@TBM, A wonderful reply! For starters, sorry folks for the huge U-turn in topic, but, you lot can carry on posting pictures/talking about figures if you'd like. We'll only be a minute.

With race, gender, sexual orientation, etc, the difficulty in this current stage we live in is determining where the penny drops: are we existing in a "post" time-frame (postracial, postfeminist) where a Chinese/trans/bisexual/overweight/Latino/a character should, nay must, be written as a complex creation without regarding/acknowledging their social difference, or do these 'Otherisms' still stand as core components to these demographics? I'm 100% siding with you on this one and saying that, yes, they do matter! An African American individual may be written as just another character, but they will most certainly face different challenges to a Caucasian individual, and it stands to write about this not only to depict a spherical (aka well-rounded) fictional hero, but also to discuss severely relevant socio-political issues in this day and age.

As you say, Coates melds perfectly with the history and meaning of Blue Marvel, and would write him thus accordingly, yet I also believe that creators not of those certain demographics can very much write similar stories (and thus make themselves more capable and socially-aware as writers). Case in point: Jason Aaron on Thor. Aaron has, really, not changed his motive from writing Thor: God of Thunder (Odinson) to The Mighty Thor (Jane Foster). Instead, it is the voice that has changed. While Odinson battled with the pressures of retaining his worth, specifically his self-worth, Jane Foster's own struggles, equal to her predecessor, contain another, deeper layer of social depth and empowerment behind it. Sure, Aaron is still ironing out the kinks, and has ham-handed some obvious notes in, but the story is beautifully written and absolutely not of the "post" mind-view. Jane Foster as Thor is currently facing arguably the most patriarchal institution in the Marvel Universe, otherwise known as Asgard. Aaron is reaching this height of nuance rather wonderfully in the new book, flitting beyond classic components of the comic while bravely forging a new path. Jane Foster finally has a sense of agency as a character, rather than submitting to existence as a minor string in Thor's bow, and I cannot wait to see where her adventures take her.

Although I just realised that I completely missed your point about behind-the-scenes diversity and, yes, this would fix a lot! More viewpoints from different sectors of society always encourages healthy characterisation.

This is going way off topic.... Time for some Storm!

"LIGHTNING! DELIVER THIS PLACE FROM DARKNESS!"

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Great pictures again Van! (sorry I didn't get into the actual discussion.) Urrrr I really need that White OUtfit Storm. I've got a place I could buy it- does $45 seem like a fair price for it, or do you think I could find it for less? I am desperately wanting a more 90sish looking white outfit Storm and that would be perfect.

Cheers Nash! I would wait until Toy Fair, because who knows what could happen with Hasbro, but $45 seems fine to me, especially for a figure that old. If she's loose I'd have a close look to see if her white paint is stained at all, but other than that I'd say go for it!

Thanks! I really don't think they're going to release a white outfit storm any time soon, so I'm going to go ahead and buy it...I was wrong too it was $39 even better (or the price decreased.) she's not loose so I think she'll be fine. Imma do it, so I can mark off another Jim Lee looking figure off my list, which pretty much just leaves a Jim lee Cyclops. I know she's not dead on Jim Lee version but she's really close.

Asking filmmakers to not change stuff is a losing battle. Even the most accurate comic book movies like Iron Man 1 still took pretty big liberties.

What about making the ghostbusters an all female cast ?? And or making will smith deadshot same as making the guy from the creed movie johnny storm in the last fantastic four movie ??? That's not an accurate depiction of either of these characters...Both these characters have been since their creation Caucasian. Deadshot might be latino not 100% on that.... but that's my thought. So why alter them? Now that i think about it, i believe jimmy olsen on the new supergirl show is also not how he's been depicted the past 60 years.

Gold n yellow...



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To me, I don't really care how the character looks so long as they're able to retain the core of the character (with certain exceptions, of course). I've always seen the movies as more of an alternate universe than a straight up adaptation, where the writers and whoever else is involved are allowed to take the concepts presented in their story and rework them to fit a movie.

With Michael B. Jordan as Human Torch, I've been a fan of him since Chronicle and even back then I thought, race aside, he would be a perfect Human Torch (unfortunately, Fan4stic was so bad that they pretty much wasted all of the actors' talents). So I didn't mind him being Human Torch. At the same time, like you and BlueMarvel said, I don't think the characters should deliberately have their races changed for the sake of diversity. At that point, it feels more like you're using "diversity" as a gimmick, and not like you actually believe in it. As a black guy, I agree with the sentiment that we should simply have more black original characters that we can call our own and not try to ride the coattails of a popular superhero.

Don't forget Kingpin in the DD movie.

Time to throw in my 2 cents because this is exactly where I stand. For the most part it would not matter to me if characters in film translations were black, white, male, female, straight gay, etc, so long as those changes did not change the core of who that character was. Example: I would have an issue with Storm or Black Panther being white. I do also feel there are a few characters that are SO iconic that you shouldn't change their looks, but that's a much more limited number: Captain America, Superman, Wolverine and the like.

Maybe part of this is also because I do see the films as a different universe than the comics, so what ever changes make to either character or story is simply an adaptation to that universe. It doesn't bother me when the storylines do not match up with what's in the comics and it doesn't bother me when the character profiles don't either.

Now on the comics, when they randomly decide to change out a portrayal of a character it's a bigger deal. Same universe...though sometimes it makes sense and sometimes it doesn't. I don't like the Captain America change because to me, nobody should be Cap except Steve Rogers, he's just THAT iconic. The She-Thor thing is just ridiculously contrived (given that Thor is a name not a mantel and the still unspecified reason that Thor Thor was "unworthy" of the name, they can't even explain it they just want us to accept it). But when they had Rhodey fill in for Iron Man, it worked well and I think it could with others.

It would be better of course to create new characters of minorities of all types rather than putting them in someone's else shoes, codename wise, but I realize it's a lot harder to sell a brand new character or takes a longer time , and the business side of Marvel likely wants more instant results than what could take years or decades of a new character's appeal to pay off.

To add on the Fantastic Four thing...I haven't seen it, don't intend to, I think it looked absolultely horrific, and the fact they've changed the race of Human Torch has absolutely nothing to do with feeling that way. I did not get the huge uproar over it. I was more concerned with Doom being some blogger hack.

exactly !!!! and im actually quite shocked i got this type of agreement with alot of you. some people on CV were at war with me stating oh it's because of their color and blah blah blah. it is not of course it's because the character that these actors are portraying JUST DON'T FIT THE LOOK AT ALL to their comicbook counter part that they are portraying....



I did actually thank you for reminding me. he made a shitty kingpin anyway RIP Micheal duncan clark, just that wasn't a good role for him.





precisely, some are just too iconic and have been a certain look or image for a years that it's just blasphemous to change them in my mind...

I over heard somewhere that there was talks of edris Elba POSSIBLY being James Bond the next movie, while i like him and think he's a pretty good actor, james bond has for decades always been an englishman white male. i was actually in a uproar when Daniel Craig first took over due the fact he has blonde hair and blue eyes....

Once again im a purist i guess and don't like certain changes to be made to characters whom im fond with in movies,comics etc.