Thanks to everyone’s enthusiastic support for the blog the past year. I developed the concept for this blog in April of 2010, after having half-finished my first comic book-related blog project, The Amazing Spider-Ads (about funny comic book ads), and being inspired by sites like The 40 Worst Rob Liefeld Drawings and Not Blog X, pointing a critical eye at the excesses of the 90′s mutant craze, but also with a self-deprecating eye as fans who liked this as youth.

At one point I wanted to do a one-a-day crappy Rob Liefeld post, but the concept had kinda been done, I wasn’t as encyclopedic with my Liefeld knowledge, and honestly I dunno if I could’ve put up with months of poring over crappy drawings. I wanted to do something I was closer to, something that I loved enough that I could feel perfectly secure tearing it apart. X-Cards was it.

Just two weeks before this site debuted in January, a bit of kismet gave me a personal boost. The launch of Spawn #200 set up an Image Comics reunion at Los Angeles’ Golden Apple Comics, with Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, and JIM LEE doing a signing (Stan Lee was apparently there in a private even earlier in the day). I had never met any of these guys before, having only ever attended two conventions before in my life, and somewhere in my childhood bedroom was a 5-page handwritten letter to Todd McFarlane that was far too gushing (I am not yet accomplished enough where uncovering it wouldn’t look totally pathetic).

I’m royally disappointed that I didn’t actually have any X-Cards at the time for Lee to sign; in full disclosure I never owned more than a handful of these cards, and I don’t know if I have them stored anywhere. They were rare and prohibitively expensive to a kid from the Philippines, both in the Philippines and as a recent US immigrant. Instead I had Lee sign one of several copies of the deluxe X-Men #1 I had found in a dollar bin in a Goodwill store. The first picture is myself and Lee, the second are of Liefeld, Lee, and McFarlane. 12-year-old-me would’ve had a heart attack.

I told him briefly about my blog project, and he seemed amused. He told me a bit about the process of drawing the cards. He said he drew them all in random order, more about whom he felt drawing at any given time. He also said that the first batches he drew only took something like half an hour but as fatigue and creative frustration crept in the cards started taking up to two hours each. He also said the original drawings were about the size of large postcards, about four times the size of the final products.

I wish I’d asked for a general idea which cards were done first, which ones he liked the best. I certainly have my theories. His A-List characters, Wolverine, Jean Grey, Professor X, Psylocke were tight, detailed renderings, whereas the more obscure characters, especially from Excalibur, like  Gatecrasher, were haphazard messes.

I continue to be fascinated by this era in comics, though I know a lot of this is a nostalgia bias. It’s just a part of comic history that both seemed inevitable and well-documented, but also frustrating in understanding how that perfect storm of egos and attitudes came together. It certainly changed the industry in ways still strongly felt today, for better or worse.

I actually haven’t spent too much time with present comics; I’m still fascinated with immersing myself in comic history, seeing what came before to understand how things came to be. There’s certainly so much of it there! But we’re at the end of this particular project; maybe I should see what’s out there now!

WOLVERINE

As I mentioned in the Danger Room collage, I always loved Lee’s rendering of Wolverine outside the costume… it was just the perfect depiction of a man wrestling with his animal side, and he always just looked badass. And Wolvie was always getting in the nastiest of scraps which gave ample opportunity to see him in tattered rags (I’ll switch topics now lest this get too homoerotic).

The hologram effect for this card especially is disappointing because Lee’s drawing has a lot of depth, and adding the 3d effect for a 2D drawing will inevitably neuter the 3d effect. You can’t tell in that screenshot, but while the 3d effect IS there, it seems more like tiny slivers of art stacked on top of each other no deeper than a few millimeters between them. Wolverine’s hand and claws as rendered on the same plane which actually RUINS the illusion of depth the original 2D drawing establishes.

Meanwhile, the bio on this card is almost exactly the same as bio in his individual card, except the original card refers to his savagery as that of a “wild beast” where his hologram refers to a “jungle beast.” Wonder where the distinction comes from. At least the Danger Room card makes an effort to convey unique information.

CABLE

This is a terrible drawing of Cable, which is to say it looks the most like Liefeld’s rendering. Cable’s aforementioned bulging thighs are in full effect here, and his crouching pose looks absolutely ridiculous in both 2D and 3D versions. Also the color aberrations of the hologram mean that Cable’s trademark white hair looks purple.

Unlike the Wolverine card, Cable’s Hologram card bio is word-for-word the same as his individual card. Minus the X-Tra fact, of course.

GAMBIT

Finally we get an action shot of Gambit throwing his cards. It’s a pretty good, standard pose, too, and if you were into Gambit you could imagine that frontmost card was ejected from his crotch. The strong negative space in the background also gives the hologram a more pronounced 3d effect, even if Gambit and the throwing cards themselves all look like they’re on the same plane.

Gambit’s hologram bio rephrases the last line of the bio in his individual card… The original says “he uses his phenomenal power to protect people in need– both mutant and nonmutant!” while the hologram says “he uses his phenomenal power to protect man- and mutantkind alike!”

MAGNETO

This image of Magneto plays almost like a more action-packed version of his individual card. This might seem cool, but as I’d mentioned in my review of the first card, I vastly preferred the regal, almost defensive Magneto poses to the action pose. I’m also not crazy about having his eyes shrouded in darkness; as my favorite villain of all time, his greatness comes from his humanity and dignity; he does not need to have a darkened face to seem badass, and doing so almost reduces him down to the level of the forgettable psycho killers of the 90s.

Like Cable’s Hologram card, Magneto’s bio is an exact copy of the bio in his individual card.

X-MEN

I apologize for the different look of this scan compared to the others; ComicCovers.com is missing this final card, and I could only find a scan of the front online, so I had to scan my own card from inside its sealed bag. Really I should just open the seal and scan them each myself. If I wasn’t ready to close the books on this blog with this entry (which has already taken up much of my free time ), I might still go about doing this.

The card actually depicts the Blue Strike Force, despite the card name not making such a distinction. This makes sense since Lee’s art duties focused on said team, but it would’ve been a fitting end to see both strike forces together in one card. The comics certainly had no problem mingling teammates even after the separation was made, and the separation didn’t last long anyway. Too bad, cause the art in this card is pretty decent, except for the weird business of Beast‘s legs.

OVERALL

It’s hard not to be mesmerized by holograms as a kid; hell, it’s 20 years later and we’re still immaturely obsessed with the 3D gimmick. The fact that 3D actually hasn’t evolved much from these 20 year old cards makes the cards themselves hold up better than they deserve to. Hell, I still don’t know how they make holograms.

That said, I vastly prefer the holograms that look more like actual 3d models, laser scans of sculpted versions of the cards. They’ve done this before on other card sets (and the hologram comics), and it would’ve kicked ass to see someone sculpt Lee’s drawings.

Anyway, that does it for all the cards. Stick around for one more entry that wraps up the entire experience one last time, and then we can all finally move on!

And now we get to the final standard card on the deck.

Instead we get the checklist, which, while not nearly as cool, was still a valuable asset for the obsessive collector.

Let’s take this moment to just take a look at the series in general, specifically who made the list, who didn’t, and what order.

One of the first things to notice is how integral this card series was to complement the X-Men universe relaunch, which at the time included Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force, Wolverine, and Excalibur. The cards try hard to include exclusives from each of the books, sometimes a little too hard. I’m hard on the Excalibur cards especially, since a few of them lean more on the non-mutant Claremont/Davis collaborations, but other cards don’t age well at all within the mutant continuity, like Shiva from Wolverine #50.

Overall there aren’t obvious omissions on this list. Ones off the top of my head would be Ex-X-Man Sunfire, who had been redesigned by Whilce Portacio at around this time; New Mutant castoff Rictor (who appears in Boom Boom‘s card). Sebastian Shaw appears in the Hellfire Club card but doesn’t get his own. Mysterious Aborigine mutant Gateway was also an integral supporting character in the late-80′s early 90′s X-Men stories.

I‘d already said much about the ordering of the cards, especially earlier in the series. I admired Beast as the leadoff hitter versus the cliche’d Wolverine or Cyclops, but then they hold off on Scott until #17. Jean Grey doesn’t appear until #24, preceded by Meggan, Kylun, and Lockheed, who manages to appear at #10, one spot ahead of Professor X! In fact four of the first 10 cards are Excalibur teammates, which just seems an odd choice.

Meanwhile there’s much controversy with regards to the Power Ratings, many of which seemed arbitrary in assignment. Most notorious is the 1/7 Strength rating for Havok, overpowered by bruisers like Wolfsbane, Siryn, Shadowcat, Boom Boom, and Jubilee (not to be sexist). Professor X, the most powerful mutant mind in the world, doesn’t rate 7/7 for Mental Powers (equal to Storm).

And there were the choices of Power criteria themselves. Whereas the original Marvel card criteria used Strength, Speed, Agility, Stamina, Durability, and Intelligence, the X-Men cards keep only Strength and Intelligence, adding Energy Projection, Mental Powers, and Fighting Ability, leaving characters like Quicksilver with near-flatline ratings. I’d previously advocated combining the Mental Powers and Energy Projection ratings in order to reinsert the Speed Rating.

What about you guys? What were your favorite entries? Which omissions annoy you the most?

1. Dazzler
2. X-Men Blue Strike Force
3. Dark Phoenix
4. X-Men Gold Strike Force
5. X-Factor
6. Magik
7. Excalibur
8. Beast
9. Wolverine

Meanwhile, as of the end of August 2011, here are the top-10 most viewed posts of all time. Relatively similar compared to last month, though Beast jumps Maverick for #3, Wolverine jumps from 8 to 5, Deadpool enters the list at #8, and Havok falls from #6 to #9.

1. Banshee
2. Psylocke
3. Beast
4. Maverick
5. Wolverine
6. Lockheed
7. Gambit
8. Deadpool
9. Havok
10. Professor X

Which post has been your favorite so far?

Here in its entirety, courtesy of Demon Geek, is the whole Danger Room Test Seqeuence composition that had been comprised of cards 91-99:

To read the capsule reviews of these cards, check out the previous 3 entries:

• 91,92,93 – DANGER ROOM: Nightcrawler, Archangel, Storm
• 94,95,96 – DANGER ROOM: Gambit, Wolverine, Shatterstar
• 97,98,99 – DANGER ROOM: Cyclops, Cable, Colossus

Looking at all 9 cards together actually looks much better, now that you can see how the various details spill over into each card, making them feel less like individual half-assed cards. For example I never noticed how Wolverine, Cyclops, and Gambit were all attacking the same robot (which Colossus may have thrown at them from the bottom right).

The top three cards are a little more disparate, with Nightcrawler and Archangel not doing much of anything at all. It would’ve been great if Nightcrawler had teleported into his current spot from a previous spot (between Wolverine and Cable, for example), and we saw the bamf explosion from where he disappeared; Meanwhile, Archangel could’ve been unleashing his feather blades, which would’ve nicely crossed over into several cards.

And finally, it’s hard to not notice Storm being the only woman of the nine characters, since Lee seemed to relish drawing women. I wouldn’t even necessarily count Storm as being the most popular female character at the time (Rogue, Jean Grey, and Psylocke could all be in the running), though she can definitely hold her own.

Trivia 1: there are 26 individual female character cards (counting Jean and Dark Phoenix as separate cards), compared to 50 male cards (counting the robots as anthropomorphically male, including Widget, but not counting the Brood), which means proportionally three of these nine cards should’ve been occupied by women.

Trivia 2: If someone were to ask you how many characters are in this composition, the correct answer is ten: Professor X can be seen in the window behind Gambit.

I’d kind of noticed it before but never really thought about it too much, but man what is with Lee and drawing Cyclops (and other similar characters) with such a huge crotch? I understand it’s kind of a foreshortening that makes the character look taller, but when the focal point is a huge yellow Speedo, it’s just a little too damn distracting.

Subject: Cable

Where Lee drew Cyclops with a huge groin, Cable suffers (chronically) from gigantic thighs. Liefeld did it, and unfortunately Lee does it in this instance, though a little more subdued. It’s a kind of messiness that was nicely absent from his individual card, which was tightly rendered and posed. And since when does Cable have a spiked gauntlet? Who is he, Spawn?

Subject: Colossus

And to round out the panorama, we get Colossus. Lee is always pretty good when it comes to Peter, and it’s not like this pose is bad, but it’s a little muddled and honestly he looks no bigger than any of the other characters, when clearly he should be the largest out there (especially Wolverine). The posing in his side-b portrait is a more stock Colossus pose, the stoic face with the outstretched hand reaching out, giving Lee opportunity to show off the contours of Colossus’ muscles. In hindsight, he looks more like a creepy stalker (or Frankenstein) reaching out to his victim.

We get another Gambit card where he’s only using martial arts, not his card-charging powers. Granted this is a much cooler pose than his original card’s, but it’s not until this card’s side-B do we see him handling cards at all (the side-B portrait is pretty badass, I admit; there’s something about how Lee draws side-views that’s alluring to me).

Interestingly, this card’s bio also downplays his kinetic energy powers and focuses on his athletic abilities. I guess since this is a card featuring the Danger Room such acrobatics would be showcased, but even with metallic boots, if I were Gambit I’d totally use my cards on that big robot instead of kicking it (but I guess he’s just that bad ass).

Subject: Wolverine

Lee handles this mid-air slashing pose of Wolvie‘s pretty well, it’s a pose he’s done before, and he probably does it better than anybody. Wolvie also gets the maskless treatment here, which again Lee does very well. Again, too bad the original art for this card probably wasn’t too much bigger than how it’s printed here; you can see how he just clearly can’t fit details where he would normally, and the drawing feels sketchy.

Logan’s side-b portrait is that cool side view again, but his eyes just look a a little TOO far away from the center of his face… Wolverine looks like a fish here.

The X-Tra fact on this card refers to the the customizability of the Danger Room to be tailored to the trainee’s abilities; Gambit’s card refers to the room’s holographic capabilities. Aren’t both of these facts already essentially established (indirectly) by the other cards that came before them? I’m concerned for the quality of trivia for the remaining four cards in this subset.

Subject: Shatterstar

Shatterstar is unique in this panorama for being the only non-mutant of the bunch, which is good because otherwise this blade-swinger gets to pose next to the X-Men’s most iconic slasher; he just doesn’t look as badass (and definitely looks fruity). But wait, what’s that? Is Shatterstar shooting energy beams from his sword’s handguard??? Was such an ability ever mentioned before???

Subject: Nightcrawler

Immediately with this image you can see that the entire 9-part drawing won’t be a masterful effort; When I met Lee at a signing early this year, before the blog premiered, he had said he’d drawn the cards on 6×8-ish postcards; with this 9-parter, I’d almost accuse him of also just drawing the one image on a 6×8 card… it looks action packed and not cramped, but I’m seeing little detail so far.

The side-B text alternates between talking about the character’s skills as well as the purpose and aspects of the Danger Room; funny cause at this point in time Nightcrawler’s across the ocean from the X-Mansion, so he can’t really do too much Danger Room practice, no?

Subject: Archangel

Archangel fares a little worse than Nightcrawler in the drawing detail portion here; given the perspective of the overall shot you just can’t let Archangel really spread out, so instead he looks like he’s cramped up (I mean, he IS in an enclosed room, I guess that’s normal to feel when you just wanna fly). His side-b portrait fares much better, finally giving us that stoic and brooding Archangel look that typified his tormented state at the time.

The X-Tra Fact talks about Shi’ar technology augmenting the original Danger Room capabilities, presumably its holodeck-abilities of projecting any environment or situation. Before that it just manifested obstacle courses and robots. Its actual capabilities and operations continue to baffle me (if the holograms are tangible, why do they fight robots at all? Seems like Wolverine would shred through a baker’s dozen of expensive robots every session).

Subject: Storm

Storm fares the best of the first three cards as far as art goes, with posing that’s both dynamic and regal. Even her side-B portrait is alluring. Her side-B bio however takes up a mere two sentences, just reiterating what her powers are, which everyone must know by now.

The X-Tra Fact refers to the Danger Room’s aforementioned holodeck abilities.

Subject:

Power Ratings:

• Energy Projection: 7/7
• Mental Powers: 7/7
• Strength: 7/7
• Fighting Ability: 7/7
• Intelligence: 7/7

Sorry again for having this card published before I actually finished writing it; 90 cards into the series, you’d think I’d know better.

And finally, we get to the one single character in the series with all 7′s in their Power Ratings, whom many had assumed would be Dark Phoenix (from whose Intelligence and Fighting Ability ratings they docked points).

Having been created by Chris Claremont in the UK version of Captain Britain (Roma’s first appearance, listed here as Uncanny X-Men #225, refers to her first appearance in the United States), she was designated the guardian of the Omniverse*, and commander of the Captain Britain corps. As mentioned before, while the concept of multiple universes was not unique at the time (any expanded fictional universe with incidentally-crossing continuity is basically wrestling with this concept), Claremont somehow managed to organize the Marvel version, creating the now famous concept of (arbitrarily) numbering the various universes. I have no clue whether Claremont had any idea the impact of his own seemingly arbitrary decision.

Anyway, within the X-Continuity Roma was also responsible for nudging the X-Men through the Siege Perilous, a portal of sorts through which the X-Men saved their lives but also separated them through various parts of the globe (as part of the palate cleanser that eventually led to the relaunching of the X-Men books). She was also responsible for the formation of Excalibur.

Not bad for a character I don’t recall much at all. Also another character I don’t think Lee ever actually drew himself, and while the plain green background seems uninspired, the posing is pretty good, and she’s got that wavy ponytail thing that Lee loves to draw (see Gideon, Omega Red, and Shatterstar).

*There seems to be conflict over the use of Omniverse versus the more ubiquitous Multiverse, with a flame war nearly erupting in the Comic Vine forums over the issue. The contention is definitely arguable, especially when considering the hierarchies of the various omnipotent Marvel characters (Living Tribunal, Eternity, Galactus, etc). In general I’d think that the two terms were used interchangeably, with multiverse being the more accepted term now, but with Roma’s position as Omniversal Majestrix one would think she was the leader above all within Marvel.

Subject:

We’re near the end here, I feel bad stiffing you on entries, but once again I can’t fake knowing more than very cursory things about the Weird Happenings Organization. They’re allies of Excalibur, one’s apparently a guy, one’s a girl, um…

So once again, let’s just transcribe the bio text:

Bewitched by the black arts? Annoyed by aliens? Disturbed by dimensional gateways? Whenever something unusual appears in the United Kingdom, it is the duty of W.H.O. to investigate. W.H.O. is a joint scientific and military research team headed by Dr. Alistaire Stuart and his twin sister Brigadier Alison Stuart. Together, they track down the most mystifying incidents ever to bedevil the British Isles!

X-Tra Fact: Oddly enough, W.H.O. spends most of its time investigating the British super hero group Excalibur!

So next time we can move past this Excalibur stuff, right? Oh wait, no? Dammit.