Cryptozoic Challenge of the Superfriends Card Game

Christmas came a bit early this year. Someone who knows me very well gifted me the Challenge of the Superfriends card game by Cryptozoic, knowing that I'm a pretty big fan of any game based on retro DC comic properties.  

Front of box

This is not a new game -- it was released in 2019 and I tried to convince Cryptozoic to send me a sample copy to review for this webzine [ha!] but had no luck. Them's the breaks. Anyone who tells you that blogging is a lucrative side hustle probably isn't referring to DC in the 80s. I like Cryptozoic and when I was experiencing an impulsive DC trading card collecting binge back in 2016 I picked up a few of their trading card sets which I reviewed here, here and here. They produce quality products, and I think they're based out of Montreal, and I know writer Martin Pasko was working with them in some capacity for a while before he passed away. Cryptozoic also created a few board games (i.e., Ghostbusters) and DC comics Deck-Building games that seemed to resonate with fans, so I was curious to see what Challenge of the Superfriends was going to be like. Truthfully, this was on my radar to pick up -- but life got in the way and I completely forgot about it. Better late than never.

Back of box

First up: this is NOT a Deck-Building game. It plays 2 to 4 players, and each player gets 10 power cards to play with throughout the game. In contrast, a Deck-Building game has players start with a small number of cards, but as the game progresses, you add cards to your deck thus altering your strategy. This just means that you only need to buy Challenge of the Superfriends to play it -- it's a complete game, and there are no expansions necessary/available. This is it.    

SET UP:

The game comes with 82 cards: four 10-card Player decks, one 10-card Challenge deck, and one 32-card Objective deck. The Challenge and Objective decks go in the middle. Each player picks a Player deck. You have four Player decks to choose from: Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Batman & Robin. Each Player deck has three Special cards unique to the character, while the other seven are cards that every other Player deck has as well. 

In this scenario, there are three players -- one picked the Superman Player deck, another picked the Aquaman Player deck and the third player picked the Wonder Woman Player deck.

Okay, now that each player picked a Player deck, give your 10 cards a shuffle, pick 3 for your hand and don't show anyone. Now you're ready to play.

GAME PLAY:

This game is based on an old playing card game we all played as kids because we didn't really have the patience or strategic thinking to play cribbage or gin or any other games that required more complexity and understanding of statistics. It was a game called 'war' and was usually played against another opponent who had a stack of cards equal to your cards, and you'd both just simultaneously flip playing cards and the highest-valued playing card would win the 'match'. Challenge of the Superfriends is 'war', but with more reading involved.

Okay, you're all sitting at the table and paying attention? Good. Flip a number of cards from the Objective cards face-side up on the table proportional to the amount of players playing. There's two of you playing? Flip two cards face-side up. There's three of you? Flip three cards face-side up. If there's a card with a negative value face-side up on your first round, put it to the side and flip another card until all cards face-side up have positive values. Shuffle those negative value cards back into your deck. You only do this for your first round. 

Three players = three Objective cards flipped up. Since Grundy is worth the most points, the dominant strategy is to win Grundy by playing the most powerful card. Second place would most likely grab Manta, and third place would end up with Cheetah. 

Okay, you've got x Objective cards face-side up? And they're all positive value? Great. Each player selects a card from their 3-cards in hand, puts in face down on the table, and then you'll all flip your cards at once. Just like 'war'. And, just like 'war', the highest value card wins, and that player gets first pick of which face-side up Objective card they want to add to their score pile. 

In this case, the Superman player flipped a Green Lantern card, the Aquaman player flipped the Flash card, and the Wonder Woman player flipped the Hawkman card. Green Lantern is worth '10', so he's the highest value in play. Ordinarily, he'd win the match and get first pick.

...but wait, there's more! As Player cards are flipped, there's text on the card that needs to be resolved -- sometimes the outcome will give you a bonus, screw over an opponent, or a bit of both. Some cards are only activated if you are the first player. Sometimes this will involve giving someone (even yourself) a Challenge card. Challenge cards typically aren't good things, so try to avoid receiving them. It's usually a negative modifier or something that will make your gameplay slightly more challenging. Objective cards with negative values will also have text on them, but that only starts to be an issue round two and beyond.

Hawkman's card says that he can swap for another player's card with an even value, so...

The Wonder Woman player now has the Green Lantern card, and Superman now has the Hawkman card. The Wonder Woman player also needs to pick up a Challenge card, as per Green Lantern's card text.

One last thing: If, while flipping your Power cards, two or more players play a card with the same value then it's a tie. The tie-breaker will be whoever has the highest secondary number following their primary number. 

If the Superman player and Wonder Woman player had both played their Green Lanterns, it would've been a tie since both are equal to 10...

...so they'd both need to compare the secondary number to determine the tie-breaker. Superman's Green Lantern has a higher secondary number than Wonder Woman's Green Lantern, so Superman would win this one. Note: both player still need to pick up a Challenge card, as per Green Lantern's text.

Okay, that's everything you need to know. Play for six rounds. and the player with the most points in their score pile at the end wins the game.

HOW DOES IT ACTUALLY PLAY?

The first time I played this game, out-of-the-box, was with one other player as we were 'test-driving it', so to speak. We read the rules, and did our best to follow the gameplay as outlined in the rulebook. Our first few rounds involved a lot of reading as we were trying to determine in what order the text on various Player, Objective and Challenge cards activated (hint: some are activated 'when revealed', some are conditional, and some last until next round) and what to do if a specific scenario came up where two or more text cards contradicted each other. Thankfully, the rulebook included in the game had all the answers -- and it was only 12 small pages. After a few rounds, we quickly got the hang of the game and then it was off to the races. 

After a few games a third player joined us. Of note: it's way easier to learn this game when someone shows you how to play. The game got a lot more interesting when there were three of us playing. We weren't able to recruit a fourth player, but played a few rounds and had a good time nonetheless. I'd describe the game as spontaneous and hard to strategize for. It's really a quick, chaotic little game. 

FROM A SUPERFRIEND FAN'S PERSPECTIVE

Alright, first of all, Cryptozoic wisely decided to go with the third season of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon: there was a larger cast of villains, more heroes, and Marvin & Wendy were noticeably absent (and replaced by the far more interesting Wonder Twins). Thankfully, the third season of the cartoon also saw more of the recently-introduced Apache Chief, Black Vulcan and Samurai featured in episodes. They're ALL accounted for in this game -- so, I'm very pleased with that.

The game's 4 starting Player decks (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Batman & Robin) make sense since these were the 'original' Superfriends. The three specials in each Power deck are aptly thematic to the characters, and the designers picked some of the most meme-worthy images. 

That Batman & Robin 'Batmobile' Special is easily one of the best specials in the game -- if you can pull it off. The key thing about this game is that you can select which card to put down AFTER seeing the flipped-up Objective cards you are 'warring' for.

At a quick glance, all villains are represented in the Objectives deck and net you points based on their notoriety -- with Lex Luthor yielding you 15 points for his capture and Toyman getting you the least (3 points).

The Objective cards that DON'T feature villains are ones based on episodes, cost you points and will do something to change gameplay. So, things like this card, based on an episode I don't remember, will cost you 10 points if you have to pick it up, but also subtracts 2 from the value of everyone's Special cards played this round when it's flipped over:

This is an Objective card with a negative modifier.

I did mention Challenge cards, and they do quirky little things to your detriment. The didn't get very creative with these -- it's just white text on a purple background:

OVERALL

I really liked this game and can't think of any way that it could've been improved. It wasn't terribly complex, it only took 30 seconds to set up, the cards and box were very good quality, the game didn't last very long, and the designers obviously had knowledge of the Superfriends cartoon and how the characters interacted.

While this game is probably best played with people who grew up watching the cartoon, the two other players I played with had little to knowledge of the Superfriends and enjoyed it regardless. This is one of those games you play when you're killing time -- either on a coffee break, waiting for a plane, or waiting for your dinner to get delivered.

I also think this game would also be great to play with an elementary school student who is learning about addition and subtraction and has moderate reading skills -- it definitely exercises your logical order/sequence thinking.

What could Cryptozoic possibly do to add to this? I don't know... maybe an expansion integrating characters and episodes from The Galactic Guardians? Maybe get Firestorm and Cyborg in there? Darkseid, Desaad, Kalibak and some Parademons? Maybe that scarier-looking T-800 Brainiac? Hard to say: the game seems to perfectly balanced that I'd be hesitant to add something to alter the dynamics. 

Anyways, highly recommended. I hope Cryptozoic does more with the Superfriends IP someday. 

-Justin

Cryptozoic's DC Comics EPIC BATTLES trading card set

Released in 2014, this was Cryptozoic's fifth DC Comics trading card set.

For posterity, I'm just going to repost a few things Cryptozoic announced on their website about this card set (before I dive into my inital reactions and overall review):

• Cryptozoic's DC Comics Epic Battles trading cards are printed on Cryptomium™ cardstock (whereas Cryptozoic trading cards are typically printed on 20pt C2S stock, Cryptomium cards are printed on a 30pt composite foil stock).

• The base cards (63) all feature original art, and form to create seven nine-card puzzles (depicting one of seven major DC Comics storylines). Hence, EPIC battles.

• Epic Battles is loaded with inserts, chase cards and variants: the BAM! chase set, the Make Believe chase set, Bombshell Bi-Fold chase cards, Totally Fabricated chase cards, Sketch cards, as well as copper, gold and metal variants of the base set cards.

• From the Cryptozoic site: "Hot boxes are great, but we're aiming for Epic! In addition to the random assortment of Epic Battles base and chase cards, there will be a handful of boxes that will each contain at least ten sketch cards! Many of these sketch cards will be buyback cards from our previous DC Comics trading card sets. We're calling these "Epic Boxes." " (!!!)

Epic Battles trading cards - base cards #21 and #24 (art by Pow Roderix and Overdrive Studios)

How did I first discover this set? About a year ago I was sitting at my computer wishing longingly that DC Comics had released a Zero Hour trading card set in 1994, and decided to google if any Zero Hour cards existed out there that I had somehow overlooked. Lo and behold, Cryptozoic didn't just release a few themed Zero Hour trading cards - you were actually able to assemble them to create a nine-card puzzle depicting a scene from a Zero Hour battle. That pretty much sold me.

Upon receiving these cards in the mail, I was delightfully surprised with the selection of DC battles they decided to showcase. Typically, when one asks me to name DC's most iconic battles, I'd name all of the DCU heroes vs the Anti-Monitor (Crisis on Infinite Earths), Superman vs Doomsday (Death of Superman), Batman vs Bane (Knightfall), Hal Jordan vs the Green Lantern Corps (Emerald Twilight), DCU heroes vs Parallax (Zero Hour) and the whole DCU vs Superboy-Prime (Infinite Crisis). I might even throw 1989's Invasion! or 1991's Armageddon 2001 in there. I wasn't even close...

Epic Battles featured in this set:

• Crisis on Infinite Earths,
• Panic in the Sky (a storyline that ran through most 1992 Superman books)
• Bloodlines (a storyline that ran through most of the 1993 annuals and introduced a few new characters),
• Zero Hour,
• Blackest Night (a 2009 storyline involving zombified versions of DC characters),
• Flashpoint (the precursor to the New 52 relaunch), and
• Trinity War.

So, my first big surprise was that Cryptozoic decided to spotlight a relatively unknown and often forgotten Superman-themed event (see: Panic in the Sky), as well as a DC cross-over that most fans would rather forget about (see: Bloodlines). To anyone else, this may appear to be a strike against the card set, but to this DC comics fan - it's a MAJOR plus. As far as I'm concerned, any card company that wants to dig up and showcase an obscure DC event from my youth is a winner in my books.

Speaking of obscure, does anybody else remember Triumph - a character introduced in 1994 who was retconned to have been a founder of the original JLA? He was prominently featured in the Justice League titles until about 1996... and then he was just dropped as quickly as he appeared. It would seem like he was quickly forgotten and nobody seems to remember him, except me and Cryptozoic, apparently, because he's featured on one of the trading cards. (It's the little details like this that make this card set one of my favorites of the past decade.)

Epic Battles trading cards - base cards #31 and #32 (art by Pat Boutin)

Alexander Luthor Jr., a character introduced in 1985's Crisis On Infinite Earths, finally gets his due and is featured on a trading card. No other trading card set has immortalized Alexander Luthor Jr before. Just one more reason I really enjoy this set:

Epic Battles trading cards - base card #3 (art by Vince Sunico)

Cryptozoic chose a strong roster of talented artists to illustrate these 9-card Epic Battles. As seen in Cryptozoic's DC Comics Super-Villains (2015) and DC Comics: Justice League (2016) trading card sets, Xermanico (aka Alejandro Germánico Benit) once again contributes another beautiful painted composition spanning multiple cards — this time depicting a key moment from the Panic in the Sky storyline. I believe this was Xermanico's first contribution to a Cryptozoic set. You can see more of Xermanico's work at his deviantart page.

Epic Battles trading cards - base cards #11, 12, 14 and #15 (art by Xermanico)

The base cards themselves feel thicker. To touch and hold, the 30pt composite foil stock of the Cryptomium™ cards feel sturdier and are heavier than your conventional trading card. They feel like chase cards. The scans on this webpage are not doing them justice, but the base cards look great. You'd imagine a trading card set that touts a composite foil stock to look obnoxiously shiny and somewhat 'cheap', but that's not the case with these cards. The reflective sheen is subtle, yet it compliments the art fantastically. To be fair, some cards make better use of the foil surface than others — as evidenced by Pow Roderix and Overdrive Studios' Bloodlines 9-card puzzle (see Hawkman and Deathstroke cards near the beginning of article) and Marat Mychaels' Flashpoint 9-card puzzle (not shown). Both aforementioned artists use heavy black inks to contrast the silver reflective whitespace of the cards and the final effect is something that jumps out at the eye and holds your attention. [If you'll notice, we've only posted a few trading cards at a time, if you want to see the whole picture you're going to need to but this base set. ;) ]

Epic Battles trading card - base card #40. Who are Guy and Hal shooting at? Collect the set to find out. (art by WAY$HAK)

The 9-card Epic Battle arrangements are action-packed, full of detail, and are pleasing to look at joined as a completed puzzle or as single cards. Unlike the 2012 Batman: The Legends trading card Batcave 9-card puzzle foil chase set, you're not going to get a card that leaves you scratching your head wondering what you're looking at (ex: "Is that Superman's foot?") — only one card out of this 63-card base set doesn't have a superhero or super-villain featured on it.

Once again, comics veteran Adam Beechen provides the copy text at the back of the card. Beechen did an excellent job with this text and it can be read as a single stand-alone card or as a running narrative describing the events during the featured cross-over. He manages to keep the text tight and compact, but descriptive — this is important to me since, often, when I need a refresher on a previous storyline, I like to look back over my trading cards and read the Coles Notes version. The back of the card also tells us which characters are featured on the front (just in case you were unfamiliar with them) and who illustrated the card.

Epic Battles trading card - reverse of base card #11

As a DC comics fan, this set appealed to me for two reasons: it featured some of my most cherished early nineties DC cross-over events, and it featured them in nine-card puzzles. The fact that they were foil stamped was a delightful surprise. As a whole, I was impressed with the artists chosen to immortalize these events. This whole base set, while being relatively small (63 cards), is a gem and makes me feel like I just attained 63 chase cards. As mentioned before, these cards REALLY stand out among other trading cards and you can sense that these are something special when you hold them. It's not often that I find a trading card set with base cards that are SO GOOD they eclipse the radiance of the chase cards (except for the artist sketch cards) — but that's exactly what happened in this instance.

BAM! chase cards (by THARP)

Prior to this trading card review I've never heard of THARP, but if you told me he/she was an animator for the Power Puff Girls or Teen Titans Go!, I wouldn't be surprised. This kind of art does not personally appeal to me — it's a bit too 'child-like' for my tastes. (Maybe this was something Cryptozoic threw in to occupy your young son or daughter as you opened your sealed box searching for the artist sketch card?) So I'll be passing on these. It's a personal prefence thing, really. If you're into this kind of art, don't let my opinions deter you... these chase cards are also printed on Cryptomium™ cardstock and come in a sticker variant. There's nine in total to collect.

Epic Battles trading card - T-03 Cyborg

Make Believe chase cards (by Patrick Ballesteros)

Another 'cute' nine card chase set. However, this one joins to form a larger image of children dressed as superheroes and super villains playing on a playground. If you're into that, you're really going to enjoy these. I'm not really into this, so I'll be skipping it. These chase cards were also printed on Cryptomium™ cardstock.

Epic Battles trading card - PB-08 Wonder Woman, Barbara Minerva

DC Comics Bombshells Bi-Fold chase cards

This is a new concept (to me) and I really like the idea. It's a card that unfolds to make a really LONG card — even longer than those WIDE VISION trading cards they were experimenting with in the early nineties. The idea is a good one (more card equals more art on the card), but the subject matter is not something I'm interested in collecting. DC Comics Bombshells is an idea that became relatively popular in the last five years: current DC heroines re-imagined as World War II pin-up girls (all fully-clothed) and sold as variant covers, sculptures, action figures,... you name it. I know there's a market out there for the DC Bombshell stuff (since the merch keeps selling), so I can see how they'd really appreciate this chase card set. I hope that Cryptozoic re-uses this idea again, but for subject matter I'd want to collect.

Epic Battles trading card - B4 Poison Ivy

Totally Fabricated Costume chase cards

I love gimmick cards, and a "piece of a costume" on a trading card is as gimmicky as it gets. Unfortunately, with a '1-in-160' chance of pulling one of these, I don't think I'll ever get a chance to touch one, let alone see one, in real life.

Epic Battles trading card - TF-05 Green Lantern

Artist Sketch chase cards

This is another area Cryptozoic truly excels at. Eighty (80) talented artists contributed to the Artist Sketch chase card set, and there's lots of different styles showcased in this chase set. You can see the entire collection at Non-Sports Update Card Talk. However, just in case this link is no longer available after posting this review, I'm going to post some of the sketch artists that really stood out to me, just for future reference: [click to enlarge]

Sketch artist Todd Aaron Smith, whether intentional or not, did a really great job of channeling José Luis García-López into his artwork. He's now on my 'to watch' list:

And last (but not least), I was extremely impressed with Sketch Artist Mitch Ballard's choice of characters/teams to illustrate: Batman and the Outsiders, Wolfman/Perez-era Teen Titans, the late eighties Green Lantern Corps,... I would love to see this collected in a regular trading card set. Ballard really takes advantage of the two-card puzzle option being featured in this set:

Other than the randomly inserted copper, gold and metal variants of the first 75 cards, I think we've covered everything about this set. Oh wait, one last point of interest... twelve Redemption Cards were included in this set. Redemption cards netted you a page of original art from one of the storylines featured in this card set. As of this writing (check date at top), one page of original art from 1994's Zero Hour #2 (1994) pencilled by Dan Jurgens (and I'm assuming inked by Jerry Ordway) remains unclaimed. Happy hunting. ;)


Distribution as follows:

Base set copper parallel (1:5)
Base set gold parallel (1:10)
Base set metal parallel (1:20)
BAM! chase cards (1:10)
BAM! sticker parallel (1:20)
BAM! copper parallel (1:5)
BAM! gold parallel (1:10)
BAM! metal parallel (1:20)
Make Believe chase cards (1:10)
Make Believe chase card copper parallel (1:5)
Make Believe chase card gold parallel (1:10)

Make Believe chase card metal parallel (1:20)

DC Bombshells Bi-Fold chase cards (1:10)

Artist Sketch chase cards (1:20)
Totally Fabricated cards (1:160)
Original Art Redemption cards (1:5000)


-Justin

Reviewing Cryptozoic's Batman: The Legend trading cards

Earlier this year I went on a "Batman binge" and feverishly visited every non-sports trading card vendor I could in order to pick up whatever Batman-related trading cards I could find. I purchased quite a few sets. It was only in the last few weeks that I actually sat down to take a look at what I'd purchased (I'm funny like that) and realized that the 2013 Batman: The Legend trading cards were, in fact, published by Cryptozoic. I reviewed a Cryptozoic trading card set back in August, and being somewhat impressed with it, decided to really sit down and scrutinize the Batman: The Legend trading cards I had purchased earlier this year. So now that you have some context, I'm just going to take the plunge...

Cryptographic's Batman: The Legend trading card set advertises 63 cards of all-new original art in the base set and three chase card sub-sets (9 Batmobile foil chase cards, 9 Batcave puzzle cards and 8 Circus of Villains poster chase cards), bringing the entire set to 89 cards. (This doesn't count the 49 different Oversized Art redemption cards, the parallel holofoil base card variants, nor the gazillion artist sketch card chases that are also included in this set. Also, there's an exclusive Printing Plate card and I'm not even sure what that means.)

I wouldn't say that Batman is my favorite DC character, but he is my favorite among DC's "Big Three" [Superman, Wonder Woman & Batman] and probably one of the company's most marketable characters (and thus attainable to collect). There is never a shortage of Batman products/publications on the market in this day and age targeted to all different demographics of collectors/fans. A lot has happened to Batman since I last stopped *really* reading the comic in the mid 1990s; new villains, new allies, new 52. I'd still check in from time-to-time to see what was going on, but it was more of a passive interest rather than a "oh boy, I can't wait to see what happens next issue".

Batman has an incredibly rich legacy spanning as far back as the 1940s, so I'd imagine it would be challenging for Cryptozoic to decide on what to focus on in an 89 card set. This set was released (I'm assuming) to coincide with the release of Christopher Nolan's 2012 The Dark Knight Rises film, when excitement about the film was at a fever pitch. A 63 base card set is pretty tight, so I'm kind of curious on what they decided "made the cut" for being set-worthy.

We've had a few notably good non-movie Batman trading card sets in the past two and a half decades [I'm looking at you Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight and Batman Master Series], so the bar will be set pretty high on this one. These aforementioned sets are also both twenty years (or more) old, so it was time for an update.

[I'm not going to through these card-by-card, just a general overview with some highlights.]

The first eleven cards are Batman Ally characters (including Batman himself), and then we dive right into the iconic Bat Villains. I'm partially scanning these for eighties references, and the first one that comes up is card #5 - Jason Todd.

According to the text on the back of the card, Jason Todd's 1988 death at the hands of the Joker is still being honored. Red Hood and the Outlaws is a book that debuted in 2011's New 52 relaunch, so it looks like Jason Todd's history remained intact. The same goes for Oracle (Barbara Gordon), since the text on the back of her card references her being shot by the Joker. Upon a second glance, Barbara Gordon actually has three cards in this set: one of her as Batgirl, one of her as a wheelchair confined Oracle and another of just her 'standing there looking all healthy' as Barbara Gordon. The cards quickly explain that she was paralyzed, but somehow got her legs restored.


The Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face/Harvey Dent, Poison Ivy and Catwoman/Selina Kyle are covered next. Here are a few samples of the card art:

Now that we've got the (arguably) most iconic Batman-associated characters out of the way, the rest of this base set spends it's remaining 42 cards spotlighting every other important character, item or location associated to the Batman mythos. From here until the end of set, it's all kind of random - but it's an interesting assortment of random.

As far as obscure goes, both Bat-Mite and Ace the Bat-Hound each get a card in this set. Bat-Mite was in the New 52. I really don't know if Ace appeared in the New 52, so I'm kind of guessing they included him as a legacy character. I'm always a fan of that stuff.

As mentioned, this base set has a nice assortment of allies and villains. Some of the characters I was (delightfully) surprised to see were The Outsiders, Manhunter (Kate Spencer) and Knightfall Batman:

I really dig that all the base card art is original art. I especially like that they list who drew the card art on the back of the card. This goes a long way, in my opinion, to acknowledging artists and may have me seeking out more of that artist's material. A card that really stood out for me was Jonathan Wayshak's Scarecrow, which had a nice 'mixed media' feel in contrast to all of the other 'clean' illustrations on the majority of the cards.

#30 - Scarecrow (illustrated by Jonathan Wayshak)

The card art is good and the card stock is firm with a glossy finish. There are plenty of full body shots (usually as the character strikes a pose) and the color is very clear. The only artist I was familiar with in the long roster of artists contributing to this base set was Tod Smith (who illustrated DC's Omega Men and Vigilante in the 80s, and you can view more of his art here).

Adam Beechen wrote the copy for the back of the base cards. At first I was going to say that Beechen's text is too short and leaves a lot of unused blank space at the back of the card. Upon further review, I will say that what Beechen does write is very short and concise, giving you the general gist of the character and piquing your interest for more. If you haven't figured it out by now, this set is heavily New 52-centric, so I'm sure one of Beechen's challenges was to keep the card text very broad yet comprehensive enough to not tie down the character to specific era. I would've liked to have seen some sort of 'First appearance:' or 'Significant story-arc:' mention so that I would at least know which comics I should be hunting for if I wanted to read more about this character.

Back of card for #45 - Talon

Overall, this is a very good base set. The original art goes a long way, and in 63 cards they managed to capture a large portion of the most important Batman characters. A few other Bat Allies I would've liked to have seen (in card form): the Creeper, Nemesis, Bat-Cow, Sasha Bordeaux and a few more Batman Inc. members. The Bat villains, who I've always felt were more interesting than Batman himself, were also very well-covered. A few more I would've liked to have seen were Calendar Man, Hugo Strange, Hush, Killer Moth, KGBeast, Mr Zsasz, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh and David Cain. There are so many interesting Bat villains that Cryptozoic could've made a trading card set based on them alone. As mentioned, 63 cards isn't a lot to work with, so I realize Cryptozoic had to tighten their selection criteria.  

I'd recommend this trading card set to a new Batman fan - someone who was just getting into the comics and needed a fairly modern Who's Who with visuals. For the most part, the art is clean and crisp and the text on the back gives a general overview of the character. A serious Batman collector may overlook this base set (unless they are a completionist like myself), because I feel that the real prizes in this collection are the Artist Sketch cards and the Oversized Art cards. We'll talk about those in a minute, but first let's look at the chases...

The Batmobile foil chase cards were an interesting choice for a chase card sub-set.  The Batmobile is one of Batman's most famous gadgets (moreso than his utility belt, I'd say) and definitely gave James Bond's tricked-out car a run for it's money. And we all know that Batman had a lot of different Batmobiles throughout the ages. You could probably make a trading card series simply based on vehicles Batman has driven throughout his career in crime-fighting - Eaglemoss basically did this with it's Batman Automobilia series.

Batmobile chase card BM-6

What's most interesting about the 9-card chase sub-set is that the first 6 cards are independent (as shown above) and the last 3 form to create a triptych of the Batmobile roaring down the street and slamming into Two-Face's rig (not shown). Not quite sure why Cryptozoic didn't decide to go with the full nine-panel splash page route like they took with the second sub-set.


The Batcave puzzle cards are also foil cards, but these 9 chase cards form to reveal a really nice bird's-eye view of the Batcave.

Batcave chase card TBC-02 

I like puzzles, and I like trading cards, and I like trading cards that join to form 9-piece puzzles (especially if they are shiny). So, I am intrigued with the 9-card Batcave sub-set, which does exactly this. I find it amusing that not all the cards in the sub-set are equally detailed/important and I pity the person who pulls a very nondescript part of the Batcave and has one of those "what the hell am I looking at?" moments. Thankfully, there's a bit of text on the back of the cards. You really need all nine cards to complete the entire picture.

The last chase sub-set in this trading card set are the Circus of Villains Posters chase cards. There are 8 of these, and I really can't figure out why Cryptozoic didn't decide to make it an even 9 cards and fill up an entire card sheet. All the 'classical' Batman villains are here: Joker, Mr. Freeze, Penguin, Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Posion Ivy, Two-Face, Man-Bat. (Well, looks like Catwoman wasn't included in this one.)

These are actually very nice chase cards and have a very nice look to them. The fact that they're aren't a 9 card set doesn't bother me so much since they don't join to form a puzzle or anything. It's just a set of really nice chase cards.

The parallel holofoil base card variants are a good idea, in theory. They are the holofoil variants of the base cards. At an allocation of 1 in every 3 sealed packs, you're bound to pull a few of these if you purchase a sealed box of these cards. The thing is, not everything looks better with a reflective coating, and I should know since I grew up in the 'gimmick era' of comics. I'm personally way happier with the 'regular' non-holofoil base set. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule - I'm keeping a keen eye open for the holofoil variants of my favorite characters from this set [e.g., #36 - The Outsiders, #39 - Bane], because..well... wow.


Of all the nice things I've outlined in this trading card set, the BIG DEAL are the Artist Sketch Cards. Miranda Charsky, Cryptozoic's Brand Manager, issued a press release when this set was released, stating that "We had the privilege of working with over 140 sketch cards artists for the new set, and in addition to being approved by the creative team at DC, I reviewed every single card with our Art Acquisition Manager George Nadeau to give them a final stamp of approval". You're going to want to buy packs and packs of these cards to pick up the Sketch Artist cards. If you happen to complete the base card set and a few chase sub-sets along the way.. well, what's the harm in that? On that note, if you're looking for the 63-card base set, you'll be able to find on relatively cheap, since I imagine collectors bought boxes and boxes of these cards hoping to pull the Artist Sketch and/or Oversized Art Redemption cards and probably have a few non-holofoil base sets sitting around collecting dust.

I took a quick glance at the Sketch Artist list and only one name popped out at me (Tom Nguyen), the rest of these are complete 'unknowns' to me. (That's not saying that they're good or bad, it's just telling you how "out of the loop" I am on rising sketch artist stars.) The one thing that IS obvious is that these Sketch Artists are Batman fans, and have chosen a large diversity of characters to sketch.

Sketch Artist cards are a big 'hit or miss' for me, personally. To quote Orson Welles: “I don’t know anything about art but I know what I like”, and while a lot of the sketch cards are really nice, some are a little too 'cartoony' or anime for my tastes. If I pulled one of those, I'd be trying to quickly trade it for another sketch I'd prefer to own. Of course, this is just my own personal opinion, and I obviously don't feel the way the majority of collectors feel, since sketch cards for this set go for an average of $50 USD for a card - some as high as $175 USD. That being said, the ones that look great do really really look great and the artist's cover a wide range of characters that the base set seemed to have overlooked:

Like... wow!

Other than a folded up $100 bill, the Oversized Art Redemption card tops my list for "Things I Hope I Am Lucky Enough to Find In a Pack of Trading Cards Someday". The Oversized Art Redemption card is a regular-sized card you can find in a pack of cards that you mail in for 1 of 49 pieces of Oversized Original Art. As of this writing, according to the Cryptozoic site, 12 of the 49 have yet to be claimed. I've had a chance to glance at some of these pieces (which sell for about $130 USD on e-bay) and these look impressive. These are pretty difficult to find on the secondary market. If I ever manage to snag one, it's going in a frame on the wall of my office for all to admire.

Here's that Solomon Grundy the base set was missing...

Classical pre-New 52 Harley Quinn - just the way I was first introduced to her

What a beauty

Cryptozoic was generous enough to let collectors see ALL of the Artist Sketch cards that are available on their Facebook page. It's worth taking a look at.

-Justin

Distribution as follows:

The Batmobile foil chase cards (1:12)
The Batcave chase cards (1:12)
Circus of Villains poster chase cards (1:24)
Artist Sketch cards (1:24)
Parallel holofoil base card (1:3)
Oversized Art Redemption cards (no clue, but there's only 49 of them)
Printing Plate card (1:576)


[Editor's note: Sometimes people around the web comment on these articles, but they only comment on the platform that linked to the article (e.g., Facebook, Google+). I will re-post the really insightful remarks in the comments section under 'Anonymous']