Darth_Primus

Now I wish there was a pic where Wolverine held on of the baddies in the air. Something like this...

Congrats @ShootingtheGalaxy! You do such great work and deserve the top prize!

I like the promo pics. Hopefully the final product looks as good or better.

Would Superman be as popular if Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster didn't sell the rights to the character to DC? Probably not, as DC was able to exploit the character beyond what Siegel and Shuster could have dreamed. But that's not issue. Does exploiting a comic book character in different mediums (i.e. movies, TV, cartoons video games) and for merchandising (i.e. toys, t-shirts, mugs, costumes, etc.) make the comic book industry better? I don't think so. The MCU hasn't translated into another boom for Marvel comic book sales. I believe the issue is, were Siegel and Shuster properly compensated? The answer was no. As WB/DC rightfully paid Siegal and Shuster for their creation after Neal Adams went to bat for them. This also happened to Jack Kirby, and thus he left Marvel and went to DC. Yes, McFarlane, Liefeld, Lee and others wanted a bigger piece of the pie. I can't honestly say that equates to being greedy. I don't know what they were actually being paid by Marvel. That, if Marvel was still paying artists by the page, like Jack Kirby, rather than the value they add to the company, than I'd tend to think McFarlane and company were actually being under paid. McFarlane, Liefeld and Lee and the others didn't like what they were getting paid nor having any ownership rights in the characters they created (i.e. Venom, Deadpool, etc.) and quit. I don't believe them quitting Marvel made the industry worse in anyway. McFarlane, Liefeld, Lee and the others were just pandering to the current market trends, where art and the artist sold books. Is it their fault for the consumers' appetite? The purchasing motivations of comic book collectors? As Todd notes, it made these 20 something year olds very rich very quickly. But did these 20 something year olds hurt the comic book industry with their superficial comic books? Did they make the comic book industry worse by starting IMAGE? I say no. Marvel brought back Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld for "Heroes Reborn" but that was a failure. So, even though two of the IMAGE founders returned to Marvel, it still suffered from low comic book sales. While IMAGE comics still continued onwards, allowing for new and undiscovered talent like a Robert Kirkman create something that's not in the wheel house of Marvel's or DC's tights and capes characters. It allows a creator like Brian K. Vaughan to absolutely own 100% of his creations like Saga. Over the years, IMAGE pivoted from being an artist driven comic book publisher, to more of a writers driven publisher. From Wiki: Starting in 2009, Image began to greatly expand both the types of comics it publishes and the types of creators drawn to the publisher, beginning a period of critical acclaim. Among its award-winning series, are Chew, Morning Glories, Fatale, The Manhattan Projects, and Saga. Image's sales grew significantly during this period to a market share of around 10% in 2015, and an influx of Marvel- and DC-associated creators began publishing creator-owned work with them. As a result, Image was voted Diamond Comic Distributors' Publisher of the Year Over 4% three years in a row between 2013 and 2015. By this time, a clear majority of titles Image published in a given month were non-studio productions. Image Comics titles boast multiple award nominations and wins across all categories in the Eisner Awards, Hugo Awards, Russ Manning Awards, The Edgar Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, Young Adult Library Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and more. Image Comics’ title list includes domestic and international bestsellers with regular appearances on The New York Times bestseller list, The Washington Post’s bestseller list, USA Today’s bestseller list, the Amazon.com bestseller list, and more. In July 2018, Marjorie Liu won the Eisner Award for Best Writer for her work on Monstress, making her the first woman in history to win in the category. In April 2019, Image Comics titles received a total 30 Eisner Award nominations—more than any other nominated publisher—and made history as the first publisher to sweep the Best New Series category, with all six titles nominated published by Image. McFarlane and IMAGE has made the comic book industry better, by allowing creators and artists to owner their creations and hard work. It also allow more freedom to create that what Marvel or DC would be able to offer as both Marvel and DC are owned by huge corporations like Disney and Time Warner, which like to side on family friendly content. So IMAGE creates more alternative stories and ideas to be published and an alternative to the big two. IMAGE may have arguably started off as an upstart/revolutionist type of company, but it has become a haven for creators. I can clearly see how IMAGE made the comic book industry better.

That's statement right there is the biggest reason why the comic book industry nearly imploded in the 90s. I don't feel Todd McFarlane or IMAGE played any major role on the near collapse of the comic book industry. There are so many other factors that impacted the industry before with get to McFarlane and IMAGE comics. I've been a comic book collector since the 1980s and I remember the industry before the boom and the bubble bursting. I started collecting comics when they were still be sold on spinner racks at convenience stores; before boards and plastic bags were sold to protect comic books. Of course there was the mass production of comic book titles and variant covers as Jay C mentions was the biggest cause of the boom and the subsequent bubble burst. In 1991, Jim Lee's artwork for X-Men #1 sold an estimated 8,186,500 copies, which is the best-selling comic book of all time, according to Guinness World Records. That numbered is skewed because there were so many variant covers and collectors were buying more than one copy, much like toy collectors buying three figures of the same character (1 to keep and take out of package; 1 to keep MOC; 1 to trade or sell). And because of those sales, the news and financial media looked into the comic industry and put out articles saying comic books are better investment than the stock market, which further fuel the boom in the purchasing of comic books, especially number 1 issues or the first appearance of a new character, or in one particular case, the death of the first super hero that was ever created. The boom and bubble burst were created by would be "investors." Thinking they could send their kids to college or retire on appreciated value of a comic book. The comic book industry thought their sales numbers could be sustainable and the would be "investors" would turn into regular costumers and thought they tapped into the mainstream market, but that didn't happen. When those would be "investors" stopped buying comic books, that's when the bubble burst. Marvel did lose it market share when the seven IMAGE founders left the company, but that didn't cause Marvel to file for bankruptcy and sell off the movie rights to Spider-Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, etc. Marvel filed for bankruptcy 1996 because they helped inflate sustainable sales and based a lot of their financial forecasts and plans on those faulty numbers. Todd McFarlane and IMAGE did not influence the boom in comic book industry the way the news and financial media did, as it got non-comic book collectors into buying comic books. McFarlane and IMAGE were a flash in the pan during the boom. I did a quick search and the only IMAGE title that's is mentioned as being one of the best selling comic book of all time is SPAWN No.1 at around 1.7 million copies. I bought like three or four copies of that issue. As shown in the link/graph below, Marvel sales started spiraling downward before IMAGE got off the ground; after the lofty sales of X-Men No.1. https://www.comichron.com/vitalstatistics/marketsharesyearly.html The founders of IMAGE were primarily 20 year something kids that thought they should get more compensation for their creations. And when they didn't, they left the company. I think Todd, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld and the others IMAGE founders revolutionized the artwork in comic books and that's why they were so successful and rockstars of the industry. As Todd points out in the video above, Marvel was stagnant in their artwork. Spider-Man was still being drawn pretty much the same way in the 60's. Todd's editor at Marvel didn't like Spider-Man having the big eyes and the spaghetti webbing. Because of Todd, we got the very dynamic web-swinging poses by Spider-Man. As Todd said in the interview, he brought Spider-Man into the 1990s. Obviously, Jim Lee did the same thing with the X-Men. Overall, I think McFarlance and IMAGE actually helped the industry over the years. As Todd points out in the video above, IMAGE comics doesn't actually own any of the characters, stories or content is publishes. Everything is own by the creators and artists. IMAGE changed the industry for creators and artists. The creators of Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, were pretty much broke when Superman: The Movie debuted. Thankfully, Neal Adams stepped in and got Siegel and Shuster much overdue royalties. Bill Finger was also screwed out of credit and monetary compensation for his part in creating Batman. IMAGE makes sure that doesn't happen with their content creators. IMAGE has become an amazing alternative to the capes and tights. In many ways, Todd McFarlane and IMAGE changed the industry for the better.

I'm looking forward to the second wave. Although, I am surprised that Clementine is getting a figure before Thandie Netwon's Maeve. I hope Teddy comes with a Cowboy hat. A cowboy without a hat is like Wolverine without his claws.

I agree this took a very long while. So long in fact, that I prefer they would have just made the current version of the CW Flash for Hot Toys, as the color of the costume is much brighter.

Yeah, the bundle was too much for my wallet to take too. So I hunted down one set every pay check. Thankfully, the hunt wasn't difficult at all as any of the GameStops I went into had the sets on the shelf. So, I'm caught up on these figures, including Mikey dressed as Batman. Now, I'm waiting for the Alfred and Mikey set.

I must say, Hiya promo photos always look great. The final product is a different story.

Yeah, much better than just the usual repaint.

Yeah, I'm not sure if there's going to be a market for these scale of figures/minimal articulation at that price point. Moreover, I think the market is nearly over saturated in TMNT figures. But, I'll never underestimate the passion of collectors and their spending power.

Man, that's a good looking figure.

I got all the original Kenner alien figures, including this rhino one because they were like 3 for $10 at Kay Bees. I ended up selling them as a lot on eBay years ago. I don't regret doing that because I don't have any space to display or store them.

$23.99 is not too bad, considering most figures are running at the price. But, it's not something I desire, at least at that price. If I were to buy this figure, it would just an army building type of addition to my collection. A random soldier to add in my toy photography.

Thanks for putting up this video, as I heard other Toy Reviewers on YouTube reference the situation but never really talked about it or went into detail like you did. I watched the video this morning and gave it a like. I've seen some of the Toy Reviewers reference their subject of the video as adult collectibles rather than toys or action figures. It will be interesting to see what steps Google/YouTube take in implementing their new rules in connection with the FCC demands regarding child privacy. Hopefully, by clicking the box stating your video (and others in the like) are not targeted towards children prevents ads geared towards children to be attached to your videos and thus, everything else could run as normal. Moreover, hopefully sets up a separate "Kid's YouTube" platform to ensure that there is a "safe space" for children and distinctly separate for the current YouTube platform. I believe Netflix has a created such as safe space for children programming. Additionally, if YouTube provided definite guidelines on how to make videos safe for children to content creators that would be great. I mean, most of the Toy Reviewers like you, Pixel Dan, Toy Galaxy, etc., create G or PG rated content, that to me, is safe for mostly all ages. I did find it odd that YouTube said they would turnoff notifications and comment options for certain videos. It might be up to content creators to tell their viewers not to leave any personal information in the comments to protect the privacy of everyone. Thanks for only swearing as an example, not for reasons to make your video not safe for children. LOL It was funny to hear you swear though.