Neal Adams talks Batman villains, Continuity Comics and Bucky O'Hare

Neal Adams is a fascinating speaker -- he's interesting, he knows how to control the flow of a discussion and he's humorous. Attendees of the 2018 Ottawa Comiccon were very lucky to be treated to a one-hour Q&A Panel with Adams on the first day of the convention. When Neal Adams speaks, comic fans can't help but gather to listen.

The first twenty minutes of his Q&A panel had Neal Adams delivering a monologue encouraging new artists/writers to self-publish since most publishers are hesitant to take a chance on any concepts that seem 'too new'. Examples he cited were Dave Sim (creator of Cerebus the Aardvark) and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (creators of Superman from back in the 1930s). It was essentially a 'Don't give up your dream' speech. The rest of the panel was opened up for fans in attendance to ask questions.

I often tend to forget that Neal Adams played a big part in building some of the more popular elements of the Batman mythos; Neal worked on Batman in the early 1970s for several years and  was integral in helping Batman lose his 'campy' Batman '66 image and bringing him back to being a grim and brooding dark knight. I was the first to ask about the inspiration behind the new Batman rogues Neal Adams introduced.


THE CREATION OF THE LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS

Neal Adams: "That [idea] came from Murder Incorporated. Murder Incorporated was a semi-International murder/assassination organization that existed in the world. You also have the Yakuza. So there already were organizations like that -- at least two -- in the world. To pick up an idea that was lying around the street available for anybody, the League of Assassins was a very very logical thing to do."

First appearance of the League of Assassins from Strange Adventures #215 (1968). Art by Neal Adams.

Members of Murder Inc. photo source: Mafia Wiki

RA'S AL GHUL

Neal Adams: "The idea of Ra's Al Ghul is a little bit different. I was doing Batman with Denny O'Neil for Julius Schwartz, and [we] were trying NOT to do clowns, because basically -- you see, you guys don't necessarily know this because you're not old enough to know this -- Batman and his villains come from Dick Tracy. Dick Tracy had all these [villains]... Prune Face, Flat Top, The Blank... so when Bob Kane and Bill Finger were doing Batman, basically they stole the ideas of these crazy-weird guys from Dick Tracy. So we get the Mad Hatter, the Joker, the Penguin and all these kinda off-beat characters. A little hard to believe that a real Batman would be fighting these guys -- but you believed it with Dick Tracy, so why not Batman?"

"So when Denny and I picked up doing Batman, the question was: do we bring in the clowns? Not to begin with. So we didn't at the beginning, but we knew that sooner or later we were going to HAVE to. I went to Julie [aka Julius Schwartz] and told him that Batman needs a Moriarty. Julie said "what do you mean?" and I explained that we were going to start doing the Joker and the Riddler and the Two-Face, and we NEED a Moriarty. We need a real villain that's AS GOOD as Batman, because Sherlock Holmes -- the greatest detective in the world -- had Moriarty. As we all know. And he did well by him, if it wasn't for Moriarty, who knows if we would've had a successful Sherlock Holmes? We NEEDED one. Julie said "let me think about that"."

First appearance of Ra's Al Ghul & Ubu from Batman v1 #232 (1971)
Illustrated by Neal Adams and inked by Dick Giordano 

Neal Adams: "Julie came in on Monday and said "Ra's Al Ghul!" My reaction: "What does that mean?" He replied "It means that's your new villain. It translates to 'Head of the Demon' in arabic. It's up to you to figure out what he looks like." So I did. That was my job. He looks sorta like Jack Palance if you shaved his head back a little bit. Do you know who Jack Palance is? Evil, evil actor. A wonderful evil actor -- for those of you who are old enough to know: when Jack Palance came on the screen you'd start to shudder. His eyes were close together and sunken in his head -- just a horrible-looking guy. He was the villain in 1953's Shane. So that was Ra's Al Ghul. It launched Batman with a NEW villain, and then we can bring in the clowns, because there was always Ra's Al Ghul lying in the background. You don't see much of Ra's Al Ghul if you think about it. He's sort of like that entity that's waiting back there to mess everything up. And sometimes you think that Ra's Al Ghul is trying to be a good guy -- and then he kills a few people and you go "well I guess he's not"."

actor Jack Palance circa 1954. source: wikipedia 

MAN-BAT

Neal Adams: "Batman NEEDED a Ra's Al Ghul, and I think he needed a Man-Bat. He needed a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde who is not exactly a clown -- so I created THAT. By the way -- Man-Bat -- when is he going to appear in a movie? He's in the cartoons, he's in the toys, but he's not in the movie. They keep on resurging Two-Face. What's the deal with that? I don't get it."

Man-Bat from Detective Comics v1 #407 (1971).
Illustrated by Neal Adams and inked by Dick Giordano.

CONTINUITY COMICS

Back in 1984, a very small and relatively unknown (unknown to me, anyways) publisher was sporadically releasing comic books. This publisher was called Continuity Comics. Early titles you may recognize included Captain Power and the Soldier of the Future, Zero Patrol, Revengers, Armor, Echo of FuturePast (first appearance of Bucky O'Hare), and Toy Boy. During the late eighties, Continuity Comics really began stepping up their game and started releasing a flurry of new titles: Megalith, Ms Mystic, Cyberrad, Hybrids, Samuree, Crazyman, a big cross-over called DeathWatch 2000, another cross-over called Rise of Magic, and then... nothing. I always wondered what happened to this publisher. It was only a few years ago that I discovered that it was Neal Adams' publishing company. I've always wondered what happened to Continuity Comics...

Neal Adams: "Remember we had that thing in comics when all these collectors jumped into comics and started to buy all these issues? And we were getting sales of upwards a million copies per issue? A lot of you guys don't know about it because it's fading into the precincts of history... a lot of guys thought that they could make so much money from comic books by buying boxes and boxes of comic books. SO suddenly, a comic that you wouldn't expect to sell that well... sold a million copies. The comic book stores are going 'This is great! This is fantastic!'."

house ad in Continuity Comics circa 1991

Neal Adams: "Until one day, all these crazy guys who thought they could make all this money on comic books called each other and said "If we all do this, and put boxes and boxes of comic books in the garage, we'll never make any money on this! To hell with this! I'm quitting!." Boom! The next day -- nobody's buying 'em -- they're in the stores. 1500 stores went out of business. 1500 stores! People were selling comics for 50 cents a piece in boxes at the front of the store. You can't stay in business that way... you just paid $1.50 for those books, and now you're selling them for 50 cents! So they went out of business. Diamond [Comic Distributors] had to finance a whole bunch of comic book stores. We almost lost the business with this crazy collector nuttiness... and nobody backed off from it... they all thought "Oh! Money to be made!". Well, it was stupid."

Neal Adams: "Unfortunately we got caught in the middle. We had done Deathwatch 2000 -- it was a cross-over within our comic books. We had gone from selling 15,000 copies to selling 100,000 copies per issue per title for 3 months... I put 3 million dollars in the bank... and then everything fell out. And so, instead of going bankrupt (which certain comic book publishers did), I just backed off and went into advertising. And so our studio has been doing advertising since then until I started to get back into comic book now. And now we're going to go back into publishing. Carefully. Very very carefully."


Editor's note: A few years ago, I manage to acquire a small collection of Continuity Comics from the early 90s and decided to binge-read them on a long weekend. Most of the titles I read were pretty interesting -- they all had that Neal Adams realistic-type art and the colors were very vibrant -- and you could feel the plot momentum picking up as the books progressed. Continuity Comics went defunct a little too soon before they could fully mature and gain a strong cult-like following. I am curious to see what the new Continuity Comics will be like.   



DEATHWATCH 2000 TRADING CARD SET

In 1993, Continuity Comics released a 100-card trading card set celebrating their BIG comic book cross-over event: DeathWatch 2000. I do remember seeing these in stores, but didn't know these characters well enough to actively want to collect these cards. It always did strike me as odd, however, that there was a chase subset within the card set featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Ken Griffy, Jr. and Manon Rheaume -- three professional athletes being featured in a very decidedly NON-sports trading card set.

DeathWatch 2000 Shaq and Ken Griffey Jr. insert cards. source: www.tradingcarddb.com

Neal Adams explained: "You have to remember that those cards were produced by another company, and that company is a sports card company. They worked with us and planted that stuff with us, with a plan in mind that we were going to continue to move on with it. And we ended up not continuing on with it."



THE ORIGIN OF BUCKY O'HARE

Bucky O'Hare will forever be remembered as a cartoon about a bunch of anthropomorphic animals (led by a green rabbit) who piloted a spaceship and had galaxy-spanning sci-fi adventures. The cartoon had a really catchy theme song, a Nintendo game, and a series of highly-articulate action figures. Like, seriously, this could've held up against Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And then... as quickly as it appeared... Bucky O'Hare vanished. Neal Adams told us all about the rise and fall of this rabbit.

Neal Adams: "It became a television show for one season, and then Hasbro ruined it. Now we're coming back with it."

screenshot from Bucky O' Hare and the Toad Wars episode 1 (1991)

Neal Adams: "I'll tell you how it all happened: understand that I'm a socialist in the worst way. I foment trouble. That's what I do. I look like a fireman or a cop, right? But I'm a fomentor, okay? I'm always going to be doing SOMETHING that's going to upset SOMEBODY... all the time."

"What was I going to do here? I was going to go to Europe with certain properties and go to the Frankfurt Book Fair and show the properties and sell them to one magazine or another (or a book publisher). They would buy it, and I would come back to America and I would take it to DC or Marvel comics and they would say "Oh! I like that! We'll do it as a comic book!" and I would have to say "Gee, I'd like to sell it to you as a comic book, but I can't -- I sold first-time rights in Germany... so you can buy second-time rights or third-time rights.. but you can't buy FIRST-time rights". They'd reply "What does this mean?" and I'd reply "What this means is that you DON'T own it! You can NEVER own it! But you can use it, and you can print it... but you can never own it." Like, let's say I brought Torpedo from overseas and brought it to America -- nobody in America could own it because it's owned in Europe (or the first-printing rights are owned in Europe -- which I can withdraw)."

"So this creates a problem for American publishers. American publishers WANT the first crack at it, but I'm taking Howard Chaykin, Michael Golden (and other different really good artists) to Europe, selling their properties, to the first-time licensor and then bringing them back to America. So I went to people in my studio who I thought were good, intelligent and creative. I went to Larry Hama and I said "Larry, do you have any characters you'd like to do?" and he said "yeah, I've got this bunny... this rabbit... an intergalactic rabbit." I asked "well, what's he named?" and Larry replied "Buck Bunny". I said "Buck Bunny? okay... So how about writing it? I will take it to Europe and try to sell it. I will license it. I will control it. But you will OWN it." I don't own Bucky O'Hare -- Larry Hama does. I control it, which is -- for me -- better, because then I can fight people. Which is good."

panel from Bucky O' Hare #3 (1991). Art by Michael Golden.

Neal Adams: "So, we had to find an artist. Who could we find to do this? Who was the most brilliant artist I could think of? Michael Golden. It took him about a year, and he did six pages. So, I took him to Frankfurt, along with with other stuff that we did, and I presented it to this guy named 'Bilar' from Germany -- and he [Bilar] looks at it and says "Ha! Bucks Bunny? Ve haff a Bucks Bunny! Ve get it from Varner's!". Oh crap. (It did sound a little like 'Bugs Bunny', didn't it?) So, I'm in Chicago and I'm designing a show called 'Warp'. (Some of you guys may have heard about it. And if you haven't -- too bad. It doesn't matter [for this story].) So we're heading for the airport and my wife, Marilyn, looks at the sign to the airport and she says "O'Hare! O'Hare is a rabbit, too, isn't it?". I said "yes, it is... Bucky O'Hare." So that's how 'Bucky O'Hare' got his name. So now it's 'Bucky O'Hare', now I can sell it."

House ad from a Continuity Comic promoting the new TV show & Hasbro action figures.

Neal Adams: "Now we started to peddle it: we did a television show (13 episodes), we did toys, we did licensing. Between Larry, Michael and myself, we made 3 million dollars... and then Hasbro pulled the plug on it because they screwed up the distribution."

Fun fact: Neal Adams co-wrote the Bucky O'Hare cartoon theme song.



To close, Neal Adams talked a bit about his plans for Deadman -- but we interviewed him BEFORE the panel about this, and he gave us a more in-depth interview -- which you can read here. He also explained the origins of the comic book Direct Market, but it's a pretty long and involved story, so we may post that at a later date. All in all, it was a very enlightening Q&A session and I learned many things I was previously unaware of.

Once again, we wanted to thank the 2018 Ottawa Comiccon and Leeja Murphy and the rest of the Agence Pink for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear Neal Adams speak about the characters we grew up reading about and watching on TV throughout our youths.

-Justin Francoeur

An informal history of Topps non-sports trading cards [mid '70s to early '90s]

Formerly the American Leaf Tobacco Company (a United States importer of tobacco who sold to other tobacco companies), the Topps Company was created in 1938 when World War I impeded the import of tobacco into the United States from Turkey. This required the American Leaf Tobacco Co. to find a new product to build their company around. The new product would be chewing gum. Remember Bazooka bubble gum? Yeah, that's them. "Topps" was chosen as the company name to imply that they were at 'the top of their game'.

variations of the Topps logos throughout the ages

I'm not too familiar with how lucratively chewing gum was selling throughout the late 30s and 1940s [I imagine the Wrigley Company and the Fleer Corporation presented fierce competition], but in the late '40s Topps started printing comics strips on the reverse side of its gum wrappers with the intent of getting an edge over the competition. (Coincidentally, these comic strips were reprints from DC and Fawcett Comics.) Do you like Bazooka Joe comics? You're in luck -- there's a book about them.

Pre-Bazooka Joe Bazooka bubble gum DC comic strip. Source: http://toppsarchives.blogspot.ca/2012/11/you-never-had-it-so-good.html

The late '40s also saw Topps package temporary tattoos with their gum, in an aptly named product called 'Tattoo Bubble Gum'. Other cool gimmicks from the late '40s included Flip-O-Vision (essentially a flip book that would show a scene from a film), Magic Photo (cards came out blank and you had to add a developing agent to see the image), Funny Foldees (a little booklet you can re-fold to make funny pictures) and X-Ray Roundups (an x-ray insert would reveal hidden image underneath original image). The first non-sports trading cards to be packaged with Topps gum would've been the 1949 Flags of All Nations & Soldiers of the World set. I'm presuming this was successful, because Topps released Hopalong Cassidy cards (packaged with gum) in 1950.

Since this is a site focused on eighties nostalgia, I'm not going to go into full detail about all of the non-sports trading card sets Topps produced from 1950 to 1970 (because there were quite a few) -- but some of the stand-outs you'd probably recognize include 1962's Mars Attacks, 1964's Beatles, 1967's Wacky Packages, and 1969's Planet of the Apes trading card sets. For a DC Comics fan, the collections you'd probably care about are 1966's Batman and Superman trading card sets, Superman in the Jungle trading card 'test' set, and Comic Book Foldees 'trading card' set. Topps also produced a Comic Covers sticker set (featuring covers of popular DC comics) in 1970.

Topps Comic Covers sticker card (1970). Source: http://www.trading-cards.org

The 1970s saw an explosion of TV, film and other pop culture properties covered by Topps. If Topps thought there was a market for it, they jumped all over it -- this is why we now have Bay City Rollers trading cards in circulation out there somewhere. Topps didn't just exclusively cover DC Comics characters, but Marvel Comics characters as well [i.e. 1975's Comic Book Heroes Stickers, 1976's Marvel Super Heroes Stickers, 1978 & 1979's Marvel Comics, 1979 Incredible Hulk trading card sets].

One of the most popular Topps non-sports trading card sets to come out of the '70s was the 1977 Star Wars Series 1 - 5 trading card sets, that -- when all cards were combined -- amounted to a whopping 330 trading cards and 55 stickers. This set is so sought after by collectors that Topps has released a reprint collection of the cards in a hardcover book (complete with behind-the-scenes info and completed puzzles).

1978 Topps Superman  The Movie trading card

The 1978 Superman movie was the first of several DC movies covered by Topps. The rest included:

• Superman II (1980)
• Superman III (1983)
• Supergirl (1984)
• Batman (1989)
• Batman Returns (1992)

Unfortunately, neither of the 1980s Swamp Thing films, 1987's fourth Superman film, the 1975 Wonder Woman or 1988 Superboy live-action TV shows received the trading card treatment from Topps. How cool would a Swamp Thing movie trading card set have been?

Most Topps non-sports trading cards shared common characteristics. Here's a run-down of the most quickly identifiable hallmarks of Topps cards from the 1980s:

• Low price point

As previously mentioned, Topps released tons of non-sports trading card sets throughout the seventies and eighties. They especially thrived during the eighties and it seemed like you couldn't go near a cash register in a convenience store without seeing a display box for Topps trading cards. (The convenience store candy counter was typically located near the cash register, and the cards were usuallyon display with the candy.) Prices varied, but a pack of Topps trading cards typically cost less than 50 cents and usually contained about 10 cards, a sticker and a piece of gum. This was quite a bargain and made for an easy impulse purchase when you had some spare change in your pocket.

• Wax Wrapper

The Topps wax wrapper with its bright primary colors and [often] poor color separations immediately stood out on the shelves and magnetically drew us in. Just looking at these wrappers gets you excited imagining the possibility of which cards you might pull. If you run your fingers along them, you can feel the waxy composition of the pack. Why were they wax and not some other sort of paper? I really have no clue. Possibly something to do with the stick of gum in the pack?  Maybe it was the cheapest wrapping paper they could get away with? At one point they used to be cello packs. In the grand scheme of things, it didn't really matter. 

The packages were truly pop art themselves, Branded in the 80s has a really nice gallery of wax paper packs (including a few fan-made ones) on its site.

• Stickers

Stickers were more or less the chase cards of the set. With a guarantee of 1 sticker per pack, you really couldn't go wrong here. The sticker came on a trading card and could be peeled off and stuck somewhere. The back of the trading card was usually a puzzle piece, so it still had some value once that precious sticker had been peeled off. Due to the fact that a lot of kids couldn't resist the temptation of sticking these stickers to things, finding a complete Topps set with sticker cards intact is going to be a bit more costly.

• Puzzles

The puzzle cards were truly the highlight of any set. Puzzle pieces were found on the reverse of the card and joined up to make a larger image. In some sets, the base set cards had puzzle pieces on the reverse, and in other sets, it was only the sticker cards that had the puzzle pieces on the reverse. It's a truly a case-by-case scenario. A single puzzle could consist of anywhere from six to twenty-eight cards depending on the set, and it wasn't unusual for a set to have more than one puzzle. I'm not sure if Topps can claim to be the first to use this gimmick -- and I can't even confirm that every Topps non-sports set had a puzzle -- but this was a major selling point that fueled your need to buy more cards. I don't think there has ever been a feeling more rewarding than collecting and completing a puzzle before the rest of your friends do. It's the closest thing I've ever attained to 'celebrity status' among my peers. I was the envy of the neighborhood for at least a whole two weeks when I managed to snag the last card and complete Warren Beatty here...

1990 O-Pee-Chee Dick Tracy completed puzzle

• Photography on trading cards

If it was a trading card set based on a film or TV property, it was about 99% guaranteed that the 'card art' would be direct photographs from the movie or show. This isn't as bad as it sounds -- back in the pre-internet days, screenshots of your favorite movies and TV shows weren't easily available. Unless you owned the film on VHS, you were probably relying on your memory or an official 'movie magazine' when recalling your favorite scenes. These cards immortalized some of your favorite moments. Some sets even included behind-the-scenes photos. 

Rare full glimpse of the Nostromo spacecraft from the 1979 Topps Alien set

• Flimsy card stock

Compared to the Impel/SkyBox trading cards we'd be treated to in the early nineties, the Topps non-sports trading cards from the eighties felt cheap. The front of the card was a little glossy/slick, but the reverse felt like it was printed on pure pulp paper. The exception to this, of course, would be the Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids card sets that were so popular in this era [see below]. Knowing what I know about Topps, this was probably the cheapest card stock they could afford to get away with. To note, a big issue with the Topps trading cards of the seventies and eighties is the poor quality control of the final product -- print defects, poor centering, smudges, corner defects and, in some cases, select cards will have gum stains on the back of them.

The stick of gum left a greasy stain on whatever trading card it was packed next to. Photo source: http://apacktobenamedlater.blogspot.ca/2011/05/1977-topps-star-wars-series-1-no-2.html

 

• Hot non-sports properties

Admittedly, there were a few duds (i.e. 1983's Menudo set, 1984's Baby set, 1987's Harry and the Hendersons set), but Topps covered just about everything worth covering and they still have retro collecting appeal to this day. Masters of the Universe, Nightmare on Elm Street, Rambo, Rocky, Robocop, A-Team, ALF, Back to the Future, Goonies, Indiana Jones, the Simpsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Nintendo, ... if it was big in the eighties or early nineties, Topps probably produced at least one card set about it.   

If you lived north of the border (like me) in Canada, you couldn't get your hands on any Topps trading cards at your local convenience store. Instead, we had O-Pee-Chee brand trading cards -- which were essentially Topps' Canadian counterpart. O-Pee-Chee gave a fairly good representation of the Topps card sets except for the fact that the sticker cards had been replaced with regular cards -- I had only discovered this several years ago and was pretty sour to learn that I had been cheated out of 1989 Batman movie stickers in my youth.

Wacky Packages trading cards had mass collectible appeal in the 1980s and were probably the catalyst that sparked my lifelong obsession (so far) with the acquisition of non-sports trading cards. Wacky Packages had that 'perfect storm' of enticement for the youth of America -- they parodied popular household products (which gave them a counter-cultural feel), they were bright and colorful, and every single card was also a sticker. My ENTIRE elementary school went into a frenzy collecting these, and, for at least a year, it was on par with the Pokemon card collecting craze of the early 2000s (minus the stabbings). Wacky Packages are arguably Topps' most successful non-sports product and are still being produced by the company to this day.

I still love everything about Wacky Packages.

Garbage Pail Kids, a trading card parody of the popular 1982 Cabbage Patch Doll toys, were also a pretty hot commodity among kids in the eighties. The grotesque artwork on the cards pretty much ensured that they were banned from every conservative household in America (especially mine), which probably drove up the desirability of the cards. I was a pretty squeamish kid and found them too appalling -- so I skipped on these. One thing I will comment on is that the adhesive on these stickers were pretty strong as a friend stuck one to his parents' wooden coffee table and they had the hardest time removing it afterwards. There's been a bit of a Garbage Pail Kids resurgence as of late, and Topps still produces new Garbage Pail Kids stickers.

Twenty five years later and I still find these to be in bad taste. Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Topps wasn't the only company selling non-sports trading cards for a low price point in North America during the eighties. Other non-sports trading card publishers included Fleer and Donruss, but I don't recall them being sold at convenience stores or publishing any DC comics material. (I'm under the impression that Topps was the sole license holder of Batman and Superman trading cards until the early '90s. Topps would produce trading card sets based on the DC movies in the 2000s.)

The day of 'cheap non-sports trading cards in a wax wrapper' quickly died in the early 1990s when other companies started getting in on the act with nicer, glossier cards. Impel -- with its 12-cards-per-pack Marvel Universe Series I set -- was a bit more expensive and did not include a sticker or gum, but you could immediately see the quality of the product. Impel was also distributing its cards anywhere comic books were sold (not just limiting themselves to comic books shops), so this would've been direct competition with Topps, as they didn't have the monopoly over the 'convenience store market' anymore. Comic Images was also selling non-sports trading cards (mainly based on Marvel Comics properties) in the late '80s and early '90s, but they seemed to be exclusively sold in comic book shops, so the average kid who bought his comics from 7-Eleven wouldn't have been aware of them.

It didn't take long for Topps to 'up their game' once the competition was out there. Topps stopped including gum with their cards sometime in the early '90s and switched over to high quality, glossier cards. (A few 'throwback sets' were produced to emulate the Topps non-sports cards of the '70s and '80s.) To Topps' credit, they've always retained the Star Wars license, and have been the sole producer of Star Wars trading cards (in North America, anyways).

There's a bit more to the Topps story that I won't delve into (namely the creation of Topps Comics in 1992 and a Topps company shareholder dispute in 2006/2007), but now you mostly know everything I know about the history of Topps non-sports trading cards.

What is the impetus for tracking down/purchasing/collecting these cards? Nostalgia, mainly. While they weren't the flashiest trading cards, they do bring back a lot of warm, happy memories of simpler times -- like before ultra-rare hologram chase cards were introduced or when a set was considered completed when you finished that puzzle or collected all of your favorite scenes from the film. I still remember when my generous (but misguided) uncle surprised me with a pack of Topps' Voltron Defender of the Universe tattoos and, try as we might, just couldn't get the damned things to stick to my skin. I'm not the only one who still has a fondness for '80s Topps cards, check out this fan-made creation of an imaginary Topps Superman IV trading card set.

Surprisingly, for trading card sets that are thirty or more years old, most of these sets can be purchased as a full set for a reasonable price (less than $30 USD) and some dealers will even throw in an original wax wrapper, too. One word of caution: some dealers will sell the sticker set separately from the full set -- so ask before purchasing if you care about that sort of thing. If you're a savvy shopper, you may even be able to find an unopened box of cards for less than $70 USD. For reasons I don't question, some collectors insist on only picking up a specific print edition of a card (either '*' or '**') for their collections. This is where it could get pricier to collect these cards. There isn't any real noticeable difference between the print editions, and I think the only people who really care are die-hard collectors.


-Justin

So, you're interested in learning more about Topps trading cards, eh? Here are a few links you can check out:

• The Topps Archives provides a really good resource on older Topps (sports AND non-sports) trading cards from 1939 to the present day. It's a well-curated site with lots of useful information. Check out their "Field Guide to Dating Topps Wrappers" article which gives a pretty thorough guide on what to look for.

• Ryan Cracknell (writer for Beckett Media) is probably the current leading authority on non-sports cards from the '80s and '90s. Whether you're reading one of his Beckett articles, an article he wrote for The Cardboard Connection or an article he wrote on his own site, Trader Crack's, you really can't go wrong with Ryan.


• The Pack a Day blog covers a random assortment of sports and non-sports trading cards. It's a nice assortment of retro trading card coverage.


• The A Pack To Be Named Later blog is a collective of trading card enthusiasts who collect and examine just about every trading card pack they can get their hands on. So far, all of the other trading card blogs I've viewed discuss a card set in detail, while A Pack To Be Named Later actually captures the rush of opening a pack for the first time and examining it's contents. This blog truly is a treasure to mankind.


• Shawn Robare of Branded in the Eighties is still keeping the dream of the 80s alive with his fan-made Topps non-sports trading card sets for films such as Adventures in Babysitting, Young Guns II and The Lost Boys.


• The Retro Trading Card twitter account posts images of retro Topps trading cards on an (almost) daily basis.


• As previously mentioned, The Topps Company has been publishing hardcover books reprinting images of their original flagship non-sports trading card sets. Other books in the series include Planet of the Apes, Star Trek, Mars Attacks, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages and Wacky Packages New New New. [I own both Wacky Packages books, and they are a visual treat to flip through.]

• The Trading Card Database has a really nice selection of Topps trading card checklists (sometimes including scans). Some of the completely scanned sets include:
• 1978 Topps Mork and Mindy trading cards
• 1979 Topps The Incredible Hulk trading cards
• 1979 Topps The Black Hole trading cards
• 1983 Topps The A-Team trading cards
• 1985 Topps Goonies trading cards
• 1985 Topps Rocky IV trading cards
• 1987 Topps ALF trading cards
• 1988 Topps Fright Flicks trading cards
• 1989 Topps Ghostbusters II trading cards
• 1992 Topps In Living Color trading cards

One of our favorite trading card sets — 1994's Superman: Man of Steel Platinum Series by SkyBox

Note: This review was directly influenced by a house ad Micheal Bailey posted in his very excellent Fortress of Baileytude website. If you're a Superman fan and are seeking a great example of a well-organized website that discusses Superman in great depth, I'd recommend checking out Bailey's site. These cards had been sitting on our desk for the last 4 months now, and we swore we'd do a write up on them sooner... but, better late than never. ;)

Following DC's 1992 Death of Superman event, and then the subsequent Reign of the Supermen event, public interest in Superman was at an all-time high during 1993. [Comichron.com lists that 1993's Top 5 highest-selling comics were all Superman comics.] DC comics — recognizing a good thing when they saw it — quickly released a flurry of licensed products to capitalize on the renewed interest in the comic book property, and collectors were soon treated to a Superman: Man of Steel Platinum Series trading card set (published by SkyBox) in 1994.

Promo card for lower-budget 'Collector's Edition'. Painted by Daniel Horne.

In the early 90s, DC comics had always been 2 years behind Marvel comics when it came to producing trading card sets. Case in point: it was only 2 years AFTER Marvel had released their Marvel Universe I trading cards that DC had released it's first non-movie trading card set [Doomsday: The Death of Superman, SkyBox 1992]. By the time DC had released it's 1992 DC Cosmic Cards trading card set (it's first all-encompassing DCU trading card set), Marvel was releasing it's first fully-painted Marvel Masterpieces trading card set.

I'm sure this had to do with the fact that Topps held the Batman license as far as trading cards were concerned. [I bet you noticed the absence of any Batman and Batman-related characters in any pre-1994 Impel/Skybox DC trading card sets, eh?] I don't know why DC didn't just stick with Topps for trading card publishing. Maybe Impel/Skybox was offering them a better licensing deal? Either way, I'll probably come back and re-write these last few sentences someday when I have some hard evidence as to why DC didn't want to do business with Topps anymore.

Thankfully, this all turned around come 1994 when DC released about half a dozen trading card sets within the span of a single year. When I sit down and calculate it, I'm pretty sure I spent more of my disposable income on trading cards about comic books that year than I did on actual comic books.

Don't get me wrong — as a DC comics fan, 1994 was a great year for non-sports trading cards: we got our first REAL Batman trading card set, our first fully-painted DC comics set, and the introduction of over-sized/widevision trading cards. I think a lot of us DC fans exhaled a collective sigh of 'finally' as DC had finally caught up to Marvel in terms of variety of product and quality. Besides, I was getting tired of having my Marvel friends flaunt their Marvel Masterpieces cards and me wishing out loud that DC would produce something just as good.

#32: "Behold, A Dark Knight!" — painted by Dave Dorman

The Superman: Man of Steel Platinum Series trading card set had all the elements of an 'instant win'. A few details that immediately caught my attention included:

• it was a 90-card series of over-sized, fully-painted trading cards,
• it recounted Superman's life from Superman #1 (1987) up until then-current 1994,
• it was released at two price points: a collector's edition and a premium edition,
• and it was 'a limited collection, with production less than that of the celebrated "Doomsday: Death of Superman" trading card series'.

A fully-painted trading card set was pretty exciting for fans. At this point, a fully-painted anything was pretty exciting for fans. Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek's Marvels [published by Marvel Comics] was released earlier that year, and within weeks Alex Ross became a household name [among comic book fans, anyways]. As previously mentioned, Marvel had already released a set of trading cards with the realistic and highly-detailed painted art of Joe Jusko two years prior, so this was DC playing 'catch-up'. The Superman: Man of Steel Platinum Series was not DC's first fully-painted trading card series of the nineties, that distinction went to the DC Master Series (which was released a few months prior).

The over-sized/widevision aspect was a nice selling point — but, at this point, I remember collectors still being kind of unsure about this new format. On the plus side, you were getting more card [a widevision card measured 2.5" x 4.5" vs the standard 2.5" x 3.5" trading card], but the unusual size of these trading cards meant that you either had to buy six-pocket plastic card protector sheets or you had to keep 'em stacked up in a pile somewhere safe. Since the six-card protector sheets were a little more expensive and were only meant for widevision cards, a lot of us opted for the pile 'em somewhere safe option. Upon further recollection, I seem to recall collectors dismissing this as a 'flash in the pan' as far as the gimmick era of trading cards were concerned, so they didn't think to invest much into it. Surprisingly, the 'widevision format' did survive, and was heavily utilized by Topps (of all companies) for it's Star Wars trading card sets.

#64: "Panic in the Sky!" — painted by Bill Sienkiewicz

To me, the biggest achievement of this card set was getting me interested in Superman again. I'll be the first to admit, Superman is NOT my favorite DC character. Yes, I did follow the Death of Superman and Reign of the Supermen! storylines, but only because I thought he was getting phased out and being replaced with someone more contemporary. Other than that, I had little to no interest in Superman or his history. To me, he was too powerful and lacked the frailties that made for an interesting protagonist.

#65: 'To Lead the Justice League' — painted by Nick Choles

This card set covered the first seven years of Superman's career since the John Byrne's 1987 reboot (most of the events spotlighted are from the Superman v2 ongoing series) and concluded somewhere shortly after Superman's return from the dead. I liked that not every card depicted 'the shot heard around the world' and sometimes revisited some of Superman's less-epic confrontations... like his first encounter with C-list villain Rampage (who later became a supporting character in Starman v1) or when Superman battled Massacre [a villain so forgettable I had to look up his name twice]. Many cards feature characters you already recognize, which piques your interest even more and makes you realize Superman's post-Crisis career may have been more entertaining than you originally gave it credit for. In short, it's really hard NOT to get interested in Superman after flipping through these cards.

#41: 'Rampage!' — painted by Hector Gomez

The two different price points (premium edition for the more serious collector, and collector's edition for the budget version) made this a very tempting impulse purchase for high school students who only had $10 to their name every week. My local hometown comic book shop sold the collector's edition for approximately 3 weeks before they were gone from the shelves and I never saw them again. I wasn't even aware a premium edition of this set existed until a few years ago.

The big difference between the two versions wasn't just the price, but the overall look & feel of the cards and the potential inserts/chase cards you could pull from a pack. While the collector's edition had a nice enough (if not plain) metallic ink border, the premium edition had a shiny reflective metal border with embossed rivets. The six chase cards in the collector's edition consisted of Spectra-Etch versions of cards found in the base set (1:7), and while they may have looked good, weren't exactly 'must haves'. Meanwhile, the premium edition contained the Kerry Gammill-designed SculptorCast insert cards (1:18) and the highly-coveted Man of Steel SkyDisc (1:240).

Forged-In-Steel SculptorCast FS3: "Showdown with Doomsday" by Kerry Gammill

The SkyDiscs were the holy grail of DC trading card collectors in 1994. I personally don't own any, but I've seen them before at trading card dealer's tables. They look like honest-to-God holograms — like you're peering down at a green 3D model of Superman through a little circular porthole (this was a big contrast to the early "holograms" Impel/SkyBox was using for it's DC Cosmic Cards and DC Cosmic Teams insert sets, which seemed more like several layers of foil enhanced 2D images than an actual 3D hologram).

SkyDiscs were pretty big in 1994, as SkyBox released 4 of them that year (usually as a cherry to top off a set). There was a Batman SkyDisc available in the Batman Saga of the Dark Knight trading card set, another Superman SkyDisc available in the DC Master Series trading card set, the aforementioned Superman SkyDisc from this set, and a Death SkyDisc in the widevision Vertigo trading card set. The widevision Sandman trading card set included a 3-D Stereo Hologram chase of Morpheus — but I've never seen it in person so I can't confirm if it looks like a SkyDisc or not. The DC Master Series contained 'SkyDisc redemption' cards (which you needed to send away for in order to receive your SkyDisc), and I'm not 100% sure if the Man of Steel Platinum Series had a redemption card system, as well. Nevertheless, as a lover of all things holographic, I'm seriously going to need to track these down someday.

A snazzy binder was also available to collect the trading card set:

I didn't know this binder even existed until I started researching this card set. I'm guessing this was something you needed to order directly from SkyBox? I have no clue if it came with the entire trading card set decked out in 6-pocket plastic card protector sheets, or if you were expected to buy the cards separately.

It's written right on the promo card [see Bailey's link] that this collection was 'limited' and had a 'production less than that of the celebrated "Doomsday: Death of Superman" trading card series'. So... how many Doomsday: Death of Superman trading cards were produced? Apparently, only 10,000 cases of the SkyBox Doomsday: Death of Superman trading cards were produced in 1993. That doesn't really feel that scarce — especially since I often stumble on dealers trying to sell the entire base set for $5 USD.

#49: 'Mongul!' — painted by Scott Hampton

I always have to laugh when the set boasts that 'Roger Stern wrote the text copy' as a selling point. I guess this was to add to consumer confidence? Stern was heavily involved in the Superman-titles from the late-80s to the mid-90s. I'm chuckling because I don't think anybody really cares who wrote the text copy, as long as it has some sort of coherent summary on the reverse of the card and isn't mistakenly confusing Superman with Spider-Man. If you're buying this card set, it's for the art and the novelty of it (and you might even be Superman fan), and probably not because Roger Stern added 50 words to the back of each card. Some of my favorite Roger Stern works include his 1980s Amazing Spider-Man run [co-created Hobgoblin] and his 1980s Avengers run for Marvel Comics. Check 'em out if you haven't already.

#47: reverse of "Enter Supergirl!" — text by Roger Stern

I'd be reluctant to call this is the first REAL Superman set from DC comics, considering both 1992's DC Cosmic Cards and 1993's DC Cosmic Teams gave a decent amount of attention to Superman, his allies and his villains, I'm just going to disregard the 1992 Doomsday: Death of Superman and the 1993 Return of Superman trading card sets (both produced by SkyBox), since I seem to remember them re-using a lot of art from the comics and not really bringing anything new or exciting to the table.

The art is the strongest selling point of this set. Illustrators included Bill Sienkiewicz, Joe Phillips, Joe DeVito, Les Dorscheid, Zina Saunders, Alexander Gregory, Hector Gomez, Donato Giancola, Eric Peterson, Dave Dorman, Scott Hampton, Denis Rodier, Dan Brereton, Steve Fastner / Rich Larson, Ray Lago, Nick Choles, Tom Fleming, Jon Bogdanove, Daniel Horne, Kieron Dwyer, and Nelson DeCastro — a lot of these same names contributed pieces to the 1994 DC Master Series (also by SkyBox). I believe a lot of this art was used exclusively for this trading card set, and sometimes, when searching original art auctions, you might see a painting of Superman by one of the above-mentioned artists and wonder "Where is that from? I don't recognize that from any comic I've read" and now you know why.

In a set with such amazing painted artwork, it's a little difficult to pick out my favorites. Bill Sienkiewicz's cards always stood out for their smoky, watercolor-esque effects:

#73:"Superboy!" and #74: "The Cyborg Superman" — both painted by Bill Sienkiewicz

Of course, anything with an entire shot of the Justice League was a card I cherished:

#40: "Living Legends!" — painted by Joe Phillips

[I never really understood why LEGENDS was the only DCU cross-over event that got a mention in this set. Nothing about Millennium, Invasion!, or Armageddon 2001. Probably because Byrne contributed quite a bit to LEGENDS?]


And who could forget the pivotal moment in which Cyborg Superman finally got what was coming to him?

#78: "The Man in Black!" — painted by Bill Sienkiewicz

A few of these cards do bring back fond memories of characters and/or storylines that were long forgotten. Like the introduction of the new villain Conduit (created by Dan Jurgens and Louise Simonson) who was being set up as a major NEW arch-nemesis in Superman's life [last seen in 1995]...

#88: "Conduit Means Power!" — painted by Joe DeVito

...or that time Supergirl/Matrix discovered Lex Luthor was just 'using her'? [as recounted in 1994's Supergirl v3 mini-series — written by Roger Stern]:

#82: "The Vengeance of Supergirl!" — painted by Nelson DeCastro

In summary, this trading card set was a card set done right — it was released at the right time (i.e., just as the non-sports trading card boom was picking up steam), featured the right talent and focused on something fans were excited for. Utilizing over-sized/widevision trading cards to give us more art was a brilliant use of the card, considering the talent working on these cards. Releasing these at two price points also made it accessible to both casual and die-hard trading card collectors. Prices on these trading card sets vary wildly (depending on the dealer), but a full base set of premium edition will almost always cost at least three times as much as the budget-friendly collector's edition. I found the base set cards nice enough on their own, and decided to skip out on collecting the SpectraEtch insert cards. If you ever do happen to chance upon a SkyDisc for a decent price (and you decide to buy it), send me a photo so I can envy you from a distance.

In the longview, I don't know if these cards succeeded in raising interest/readership for the Superman books being published by DC at the time. I do remember being very interested in Superman's history for a while after collecting these, but I also remember the landscape of the DCU had changed dramatically by this point and I suddenly didn't recognize many of the current characters running around anymore — so I'd mainly stick to collecting back issues from the late 80s. As far as raising awareness in John Byrne's post-Crisis work on Superman, this trading card set was successful.


-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