72 – X-MEN (Blue Strike Force)

Subject: X-Men (Blue Strike Force)
Roster: Cyclops (Team Leader), Wolverine, Beast, Rogue, Psylocke, Gambit
First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #1, September 1963

This is more like it. The Blue Strike Force was the force to be in (and that includes X-Force). People with mysterious pasts, have claws, shifty allegiances, and even one Chinese-American mallrat. But seriously, it had Gambit and Wolverine, which really is just stacking the deck in the early 90′s. Plus they battled Omega Red.

This is the team that Lee spent the most time drawing, so it’s no surprise that I have nostalgia for them. Too bad the card’s art is a little too cramped, with otherwise uninspired poses (Cyclops looks way more badass in Side-B than in Side-A, where he just looks plump).

The card’s biography and X-Tra Fact is almost exactly the same as the Gold Team’s copy, and what’s different in the biographies is just paraphrasing the same general “Professor X needed good mutants to protect humans from evil mutants” shpiel that anybody who would care to buy these cards already know. While I would’ve much rather preferred something highlighting the differences between the two Strike Forces, I don’t think Marvel’s editors were organized at the time to have such a clear distinction themselves.