Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Marvel Universe Trading Cards - Series 2 (1991) Revisited

Much like my post last week, today we're revisiting my collection of Marvel Universe Trading Cards Series 2! Here's the video from the old post. I'll say again, this is a long vid of me going through each and every card, so make sure you've got your popcorn ready.


Series 2 has always been one of my favourites. I loved the vibrant colours of the borders, which were a big level up from Series 1 and their white borders around the cards artwork. It has a very 80s vibe to it, which make sense since the hangover of the 80s lasted well into the 90s.


The biggest improvement in this series were the Power Ratings, which picked six different attributes and ranked all of the character cards accordingly. There was Strength, Speed, Agility, Stamina, Durability, and Intelligence. This rating system would continue after Series 2 and became my favourite thing about collecting these cards.


Ever argue with your buddy about who would win in a fight: Spider-Man versus Daredevil? Well just compare the Power Ratings! My friends and I would pore over these cards and ratings and practically memorize all of them, so we could throw them out on the fly whenever one of these arguments reared its ugly head.

We also used to often "play Marvel", which meant we'd each pick a character and we'd act out our own scenes. So if we were playing and Ultron was facing up against Wolverine, knowing these Power Ratings and special abilities could mean life or death to an 8 year old.


As I mentioned with Series 1, there were different subsets in each series. In Series 2 we had Weapons, Legends, and Arch-Enemies. Arch-Enemies is really just a re-brand of Famous Battles,  Legends would essentially feature old and (at the time) dead characters within the Marvel U, and Weapons would give you the low-down on the different "tools of the trade", like Wolverine's claws or the Infinity Gauntlet.


There were five holograms in this set, as well. I managed to snag two this time: Doctor Doom and Fanastic Four vs. Mole Man. The foil on these cards actually went all the way to the border, as well, which makes them look even more impressive when you manage to snag one.

I hope these old trading cards are getting you amped up for the upcoming release of Avengers: Endgame. I know they're having that affect on me! Stay tuned for more! Next up we'll finally get caught up with Series 3, which I affectionately call "the cosmic set".


Excelsior!
R

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Marvel Universe Trading Cards - Series 1 (1990) Revisited

Waaaaay back in 2014, around when I first launched Retro-Def, I figured a great feature for the site would be a look back at my Marvel Universe trading card collection. I ended up making two videos fairly quickly and then getting busy and forgetting to continue on with the series.

That's a real shame, because not only were these cards incredibly important to 7-year old me, but I think they're a really cool slice of the Marvel Universe in the 90s. With the recent passing of Stan Lee I've found myself flipping through my old card binders and I felt the need to share!

Let's start by revisiting Marvel Universe Trading Cards Series 1. The video I made in 2014 still stands, and some of the reminiscing you'll find here is in the video, but I'd say only the most hardcore fan would be interested in watching the whole thing. It clocks in at around 25 minutes and I go through each and every card.

Excuse the old website branding!

The Marvel Universe Trading Card series was launched by Impel in 1990. You might not remember the name Impel, especially if you weren't into trading cards in the 90s, but you may recall SkyBox, which was a re-brand of Impel in 1992.

The base set was 162 cards. The subsets included Super Heroes, Super Villains, Rookies, Famous Battles, Team Pictures, Most Valuable Comics, and Spider-Man Presents.

Wolverine as "Patch"

Most of these are self-explanatory, except for Spider-Man Presents. This particular subset featured Spider-Man attempting to interview some of the heavy-hitters in the Marvel U. They were like little mini-comics and I thought they were hysterical. I remember thinking the Spider-Man Presents: Wolverine card was one of the funniest things I'd ever read.

Each of the super hero and villain cards would feature a drawing of the character on the front with a unique backdrop like it had been pulled right from the pages of a comic. On the back you'd find all kinds of cool information about the character, like their aliases, how many battles they'd had, their win/loss ratio, some information about the character, and finally some trivia.

I have no idea who "Roughhouse" is...

One neat thing that was only featured in this particular set was that certain characters could appear multiple times, like Wolverine, who appeared in the super hero subset three times; once in his brown and tan costume, again in his blue and gold costume, and finally as "Patch", his secret alter-ego.

Features of this set that didn't carry forward are the Spider-Man Presents cards and the Most Valuable Comics. Each set would feature something unique from the others, but you could always expect to see super heroes, super villains, special teams, and cards that somehow featured big events and battles from Marvel's storied history.


See, it's hilarious!

This was my first foray into trading card collecting and I was only 7, so some of the cards in my set are a little roughed up on the corners, but they hold so much nostalgia and importance to me, it's hard to state. This was my gateway vehicle into comic books and super heroes. Growing up on an island, it wasn't difficult to get comics, but it certainly wasn't easy to get them all in order each and every month. Also, without any sort of archive of Marvel Comics, this was the only way to really dig into the historical events in the Universe and learn all the backstory for the characters.

I started buying these cards in a corner store in the summer of 1990, but eventually had to start going to a hobby store as I worked at getting the whole set. Every red cent of my allowance went into these cards. Each pack would contain 12 cards, so over time you'd amass a stack of what we called "traders". The hobby store would keep a box of their own traders so you could swap out your extra cards for a card you still hadn't found in a pack. They'd usually do a 2:1 trade to keep their stock high and some cards, which were harder to come by, would require more traders or you'd just have to buy them outright.

Danny Ketch Ghost Rider's rookie card - one of the rougher cards in my set

As I mentioned, there were 162 cards in the base set, but there were also five hologram cards, which were the holy grails. There was only one hologram per box, as far as I know, so they were hard to come by. I never did collect all the holograms for each set. I managed to get a few here and there, but buying them at the card store was usually highway robbery and not something my parents were interested in funding, so I would shoot for the base set and hope to get a few holograms along the way.

It was a crazy summer when I first found these cards and little did I know that I would spend at least the next four or five years collecting the different sets of Marvel Universe Trading Cards. I have some of my fondest memories buying, trading, and most importantly, poring over these cards and gleaning as much information as I could about the amazing characters and stories they represented. My friends and I would commit so much of the information on the cards to memory and have classic conversations about who would defeat who in a fight or who the most powerful bad guy was.

My lone hologram from Series 1: Cosmic Spider-Man

Well, that's it for Series 1. Next time we'll revisit Series 2 and then hopefully I won't forget and we can finally take a look back at Series 3 and onward!

I hope you enjoy this trek down memory lane as much as I did.

Make Mine Marvel,
R

Friday, March 15, 2019

Theatrical Cut - Captain Marvel

Have you had enough of all the controversy surrounding the release of Marvel's latest film, Captain Marvel? Well, Cole and I took in a viewing and here we are talking about the film without any of the BS!


I feel a little remiss not saying anything regarding the controversy surrounding the film, so what I'll say is that this is a really fun action, comic book film. If you've been reading Marvel Comics as long as I have, you might even find Captain Marvel to be the most "comic-y" (I'll call Encyclopedia Britannica and have the word added, post-haste) of the MCU films to date.

There's all sorts of anti-feminist vitriol and conspiracy regarding Rotten Tomatoes review scores and the belief that Disney has been pushing this film a little bit extra, because it's bad and they secretly want to trick you into seeing it.

This is an MCU film; they sell on name alone. They make bonkers money, no matter what. The Disney Stonecutters don't need some wild agenda to get you into the theatre to see Captain Marvel. It's a good movie that stands on its own two legs just fine and it is worth your time to see it, especially if you're going to see Avengers: Endgame in a few weeks.

Disney has been brokering deals with theatres for a long time when they are releasing their films. They have the hot movies and they know it, so they can "ask" certain things of theatres that want to screen them, like early "VIP" showings the night before release or a certain proportion of screens dedicated to their films, and get away with it. They did the same thing with Star Wars: The Last Jedi in 2017, which caused a big media buzz, as well. This isn't something special they've cooked up for Captain Marvel out of some crazy feminist conspiracy.

If you're looking for a fun two hours, turn your brain off, log off of social media, and settle into Captain Marvel. Cole and I found it really enjoyable and there's setup there for Avengers: Endgame hitting the silver screen on April 26th!

Make Mine Marvel,
R

Friday, August 15, 2014

Marvel Comics Trading Cards - Series 2 (1991)

Hey everyone,

I'm continuing on my journey to go through all of my old Marvel Cards, and today we're stopping off in 1991 with Series 2. I love this series for many reasons, but most importantly for the introduction of Power Ratings.

Make sure to check my video on Series 1 first!



Hope you enjoy,
R

Friday, August 8, 2014

Marvel Comics Trading Cards - Series 1 (1990)

This is the first video in a new series where I'm going to take a look at my Marvel Comics trading card collection. We begin with Marvel Universe - Series 1!

I made this video for my buddy Dean at Round2Gaming (@Round_2_Gaming). I saw a video of his card collection and I thought I'd show off my own!



I hope you enjoy!
R