Marvel Set Reviews: X-Men Series II (1993)
X-Men Series II, released in 1993, had the unenviable task of improving on perfection: Jim Lee had split off from Marvel to found Image Comics the year before, meaning that he was no longer drawing X-Men, and he certainly wasn't about to draw another set of trading cards. And yet, after the enormous success of Series I, combined with the rampant popularity of the X-Men line, something had to be done. Marvel tapped its fleet of X-Book artists to fill the void. Did the results live up to Series I? Let's find out.
The Gentlemen of Leisure have already been down this road, and their selection of notable cards differs a bit from mine, so consider checking out their review as well.
Background
- Set Name: X-Men Series II
- Publisher: SkyBox
- Year: 1993
- Size: 100 base cards (including checklist) + 9 Gold Foil inserts + 3 "holithograms" + 1 hologram
Art: 8/10
We've already seen some of the best that premium painted sets have to offer (MM 1992 and 1993 immediately set a high bar), as well as proof that hand-drawn sets can hold their own (X-Men Series I, in particular). And this set landed at a time when the X-Books were phenomenally popular: one of my personal favorite arcs of all time, X-Cutioner's Song, straddled the 1992-93 release window, and the characters are featured heavily in this set. To top it off, in Jim Lee's absence, Marvel mostly tapped the ongoing series artists (e.g., for X-Men, Excalibur, X-Force, and so on), and had them draw the same characters they were already drawing every day. They also gave a bit of stylistic latitude to juice up some of the poses beyond, say, the static framing of the Marvel Universe sets.
Some of these artists--notably Alan Davis, Joe Quesada, Joe Madureira--are extremely skilled, they do great work here, and they would go on to have huge careers. But unlike Series I, not every card is a winner, and in my view, it's gotta be one or two points lower than Lee's work in Series I.
Some favorites:
Joe Quesada was drawing X-Factor at the time, so naturally, his Polaris is fantastic.
Due to technical caps on the number of images in one post, I'm going to group together some of my favorite villain cards, all of which pop, even in the case of new or third-tier characters like Gideon, Siena Blaze, Shinobi Shaw, and Tolliver. These cards look great, even if Shibobi stole his shoulder pads from an NFL linebacker.
Cardbacks: 8/10
The Series II cardbacks are portrayed as a bunch of stuff ripped from "Xavier's Files," which appears to be a manilla folder with some basic biographical info, a profile shot, an action shot, and a first-person "profile" in which Xavier typically speaks in superlatives or concedes he doesn't know much about the character. I enjoy that the notes are typed, but signed - he apparently didn't want any doubts as to authenticity. I also appreciate that although the images on the reverse are generally pretty low quality, they do serve to round out the character more than, say, a vapid quote or empty space.
The Mutant Liberation Front card is notable mainly for one reason: they've got sixteen (!!!) team members! I can't think of another "team," at least documented on a single card, that has even remotely this many members. A few -- Zero, Rusty, Skids, Tempo, Forearm -- get their own card in a few other sets, or pop up in a book independently of Stryfe once in a while, but most of these guys are melee fodder.
Curation: 9/10
This set offer 36 heroes (perfectly alphabetical, which you know I love); 18 cards grouped into 2-panel or 3-panel team battles called "Arch Enemies" sets, which nicely bisect the heroes and villains sets; 27 villain cards (all alphabetical except, weirdly, Hazard, who spoils the party between Shinobi and Siena Blaze); 9 team cards, and 9 stills from the X-Men animated series.
Other than the animated series excerpts, which are wildly unnecessary and capture none of the show's charm, these choices are solid. The heroes, battles, villains, teams framework shows some nice parallelism, and they're grouped into sets of 9, so they all sort perfectly in a binder. Major props for the set design on that point.
Inserts/Parallels: 7/10
The inserts in this set are just okay, in my opinion. First, we have a 9-card set of "All-Time Greats" cards with a gold foil treatment on the "30 years" sign in the lower right, that are otherwise indistinguishable from the base set (with the exception of Magneto, who doesn't get his own card in the base set, and here they simply zoom on his Arch-Enemies art). These were fairly rare (somewhere between 1:36 and 1:72 packs), but given the volume at which this set was printed, they're not hard to find. And that's fine, because they're also not that exciting.
Second, we have three "holithograms" -- a hand-drawn character image appearing over a shiny holographic background -- that were significantly more rare, at 1:180 packs. The Magneto is great; the Cable and Storm are only so-so. Overall, I'm not sure if the effect is quite as good as a full hologram. Probably not, but I don't blame them for trying something new.
Last up is the notorious "H-X" Wolverine hologram, depicting him clawing through a metal bulkhead of some sort, claws pointed at the viewer. This is reported to be roughly one per hobby box, and as with certain other holograms, there are reports of different colors, including a standard "green" version and a rarer "red" version. Speaking only as to the card I own, it looks green from some angles and orange/red from others. And on its own merits, it's not even that great of a hologram. The awkward head-on angle makes it somewhat difficult to appreciate the 3-D effect, and Wolverine's features are difficult to make out. I understand that some people love this card as the rarest relic of a cool set, but it's not going in my display case any time soon.
I did my best to get a picture of this card, but it's basically impossible.
Affordability/Availability: 9/10
As we continue onward in our review of early 1990s sets, one thing remains the same: they were all printed in huge quantities and remain readily available. You can get every card here for about a hundred bucks, which by current standards is a total bargain for collectors.
Overall Score: 41/50
We're eight sets into the 1990s, and we have quite a few left to go. But X-Men Series II is currently on the podium, and it's almost certain to stay in our top ten by the time all is said and done. I
