X-Cards the Spot

Now that we’ve checked out all 99 normal cards (there’s just the checklist and the holograms left!), it’s time once again to look back at the most popular cards of the past month.

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?

(I’ve been using the term panorama for this piece, but I have a nagging feeling that’s the wrong term… collage maybe?)

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.

Subject: Cyclops

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.