This is definitely a strange set to look back to, having come out in 1992…22 years ago! At the same time, it’s rather cool to look back this far, as this is the X-Men just shy of my discovering them originally, and it’s cool to revisit what these characters’ status quo was then, given everything that’s come about SINCE.
It’s also a bit odd to consider the publisher of these cards–Impel–as I am almost certain they aren’t even around anymore, and that they passed the torch (so to speak) for the next series of X-Men cards that was published in 1993.
Especially compared to the Marvel Universe Series IV set, this seems rather amateurish in a way…with some of the cards being landscape oriented, others portrait, and seemingly not organized within the set with an awareness of the standard 9-pocket card pages these would often be stored in.
All of these first 9 are oriented the same way, but as we’ll see next week, the next 9 switch to virtually all portrait orientation, where much of the set remains before a switch back. The coloring on some of the cards–as we’ll see in later posts–also does not all go together for single pages. And yet the final 9-card grouping does make a single larger image.
This first grouping introduces us to a mix of characters from several of the then-current teams: the X-Men themselves, as well as X-Factor, X-Force, and Excalibur.
I don’t much care for the power grid on the backs of the cards–I’ve never cared for this sort of stat with characters, as stories are constantly changing things and these never seem–to me–to remain accurate. All the more for comparing the characters.
The short snippets are nice as a bit of introduction to the characters, and I like the note of their first appearance…a rather handy piece of information to have, even these 20-odd years later. The “X-tra Fact” is also a neat piece of info to have…particularly to help set these cards within the time they came out, as I’m looking back on them now.
I actually hadn’t realized until going through these for this post that Siryn first appeared in Spider-Woman and not a “regular” X-book somewhere.
Nothing too spectacular about these, though I do rather like the Jim Lee art, as well as the use of DIFFERENT art on the backs of the cards rather than a re-use of the front…showing that there was a bit of thought put into these.
[Click below to see the individual cards…]
Filed under: 2014, The '90s Revisited, X-Men Series I Revisited | Tagged: 1992, Beast, Cannonball, Havok, Iceman, Impel, jim lee, MARVEL, Nightcrawler, Phoenix, Siryn, trading cards, Wolfsbane, Wolverine, x-men, X-Men Series 1, X-Men Series I | Leave a comment »
Comic Reviews by Walt 