Marvel Universe Consequences Compound In: Spider-Man: Homecoming

The Good: Sense of realism surrounding the protagonist, Sense of consequence for prior films
The Bad: Unremarkable protagonist, Light on great or even interesting performance moments, Familiar character arc
The Basics: A painfully mediocre Marvel Cinematic Universe work, Spider-Man: Homecoming smartly explores the enduring consequences of the Chituari invasion by blandly blending that with the story of a teenager figuring out a super-suit he was given.


As a genre fan and a reviewer, Marvel films are pretty much a staple. So, it is a testament to how little enthusiasm I had going into Spider-Man: Homecoming that it took me until today (almost a week after its initial release) to actually make time to watch the movie. I have never really been a fan of the character and source material for Spider-Man, though I did like Andrew Garfield and thought he did fine in The Amazing Spider-Man (reviewed here!). Despite not feeling compelled to rush right out and see Spider-Man: Homecoming, when I sat down to the film today, I did so with an open mind and a general excitement to take the movie in.

Spider-Man: Homecoming slowly became a difficult film to review because it actually did much of what it set out to do well, but I quickly discovered how little interest I had in that story. Spider-Man: Homecoming is very much the story of what would happen if a teenage boy suddenly got into the super hero business and had to figure out his own way through developing his abilities using unfamiliar technology and no training. And Spider-Man: Homecoming did that well, but with so many other works - The Flash Season 1 (reviewed here!) and Daredevil Season 1 (reviewed here!) - where long arcs have been done showing protagonists slowly developing their skills, Spider-Man: Homecoming feels very much like it is coming late to the party.

That said, from almost the first frames of the film, Spider-Man: Homecoming is obsessed with fleshing out the consequences of prior Marvel Cinematic Universe works. In the process, Spider-Man: Homecoming further undermines Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and retcons S.H.I.E.L.D. to have been even more incompetant than it was overwhelmed. Like almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe work that followed it, Spider-Man: Homecoming explores the devastating consequences of the Battle Of New York from the climax of The Avengers (reviewed here!). When Peter Parker and Spider-Man were introduced in Captain America: Civil War (reviewed here!), there was a distracting quality to the boy's introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it set Spider-Man: Homecoming to leap over the traditional super-hero origin story. Unfortunately, while bypassing the origin, Spider-Man: Homecoming gets mired in the training phase of the super hero arc and mixes that with a banal teen drama story.

Following the Battle Of New York, Adrian Toomes and his business are poised to grow from salvaging Chitauri technology when the salvage operations are taken over by a Stark subsidiary. Facing ruin, Toomes steals an artifact and - with his employees - quietly refuses to turn over technology they already recovered. Eight years later, Toomes and his crew have developed weapons based upon Chitauri technology and have begun to dominate the black market in New York selling their hybridized weaponry to criminals. Around that time, Peter Parker meets Tony Stark and is recruited for the Berlin mission. Following that, Parker is put under the guidance and observation of Happy Hogan and generally abandoned by Stark.

Peter starts cutting out his activities so he can be ready for Tony Stark's call, but it never comes. Parker takes up the mantle of Spider-Man to help people and fight street-level crime. When he encounters criminals robbing an ATM using Toomes's technology, Spider-Man inadvertently creates collateral damage in the form of a bodega Parker loves getting destroyed. Parker begins to track Toomes's crew, but quickly discovers that Tony Stark has put safeguards and tracking devices into his suit. With the help of his friend Ned, Parker deactivates the suit's safeguards and tracks Toomes's supplies to Washington, D.C. There, he is put in a position where his classmates are in danger and he has to save them.

Facing a loss of his supplies and his business, Toomes sets out to eliminate Spider-Man by finishing the development of his advanced flight suit. Toomes and his newly-promoted associate are about to be taken down by the FBI when Toomes reveals his flight suit and manages to elude Spider-Man's capture. But while Spider-Man is able to save the nearly-destroyed Staten Island Ferry that the Vulture sliced in half to escape, that draws the attention and active involvement of Tony Stark in his attempt to stop the criminal enterprise.

Spider-Man: Homecoming gets some things very right, primarily not relying excessively on special effects to make the movie work. Instead of being a fairly gross explosion of CG-effects, Spider-Man: Homecoming manages to be comparatively grounded, focusing more on the characters and the plot than big special effects sequences. And Toomes is a villain who manages to stay just on the right side of being over-the-top when he finally suits up to become Vulture.

The thing is, the pacing and tone of Spider-Man: Homecoming, having Peter Parker fumble through his early training while desperately waiting for Tony Stark's call and getting fobbed off on Happy Hogan makes the first hour and twenty minutes of the film feel like a particularly lame Iron Man spin-off. But right around the point where I was bored enough to not care, Spider-Man: Homecoming actually presents an effective reversal in the plot. When Peter Parker picks up his date for the school dance, he gets a decent surprise and Spider-Man: Homecoming finally presents a villain who is not outwitted by a fifteen year-old boy.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man: Homecoming rapidly develops a decent climax - which essentially puts Spider-Man and Vulture in a fight for a plane full of Stark Technologies crates that Happy was moving from Stark Tower to the Avengers facility in upstate New York - and then attempts a second "surprise" reversal that falls flat and feels desperate (much in the way putting "Robin" into The Dark Knight Rises felt forced).

Spider-Man: Homecoming is dominated on the acting front by Michael Keaton. Keaton plays Toomes and right off the bat, Toomes fits into the very pragmatic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The grounding aspect of the MCU has been that characters are often limited by real-world aspects - Tony Stark making a clunky prototype suit with discarded missile pieces in a cave, the weak Steve Rogers not having any chance to join the traditional military, Scott Lang getting fired from Baskin-Robbins when they learn he is an ex-con, etc. - and Toomes starts right there. Toomes is looking to provide for his family and is willing to do anything he has to to take care of their needs. Toomes makes sense and his leap from trying to play by the rules to black market arms merchant needs no drawn-out transition. Toomes is a pragmatist whose sense of identity is maintained throughout Spider-Man: Homecoming and Michael Keaton does a good job at playing the villain, especially in a key moment when the character's sense of understanding is played entirely through Keaton's facial expressions.

For as good as Keaton is and as sensible as Toomes is as an adversary, he is not enough to save Spider-Man: Homecoming. Tom Holland plays Peter Parker as bland and Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Zendaya and Tony Revolori all outshine Holland in the school scenes they share.

The biggest issues with Spider-Man: Homecoming come from its continuity in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. How did Toomes and his crew avoid falling victim to the microbes that were on Chitauri technology in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "FZZT" (reviewed here!)? While the "Department Of Damage Control" seems like a pretty thin veil for S.H.I.E.L.D. teams recovering Chitauri technology in New York City, how is it that S.H.I.E.L.D. - before and after its fall from grace - never detected Toomes and his crew using Chitauri technology. While it is reasonable that a city as large as New York City would have multiple groups - Hammer Technologies, Toomes's salvage business, the New York Fire Department, and at least one privateer - that might end up with Chitauri technology, the more that new groups are retconned into having that technology, the more incompetant S.H.I.E.L.D. is made. In past Marvel Cinematic Universe works, S.H.I.E.L.D. had shit locked down - it took one man, Coulson, to investigate Thor's hammer falling to Earth and getting that (and Thor!) completely contained. Obviously, New York City is much larger and the Chituari invasion was much more massive, but the dependence within the Marvel Cinematic Universe of that invasion turning so many new-to-the-narrative characters bad reduces the effectiveness of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the magnitude of other attacks, like the Dark Elf attack on London.

Ultimately, Spider-Man: Homecoming is more forgettable than it is bad. Spider-Man: Homecoming does a decent job of exploring how big events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have had consequences that resonate for years, but the teenager stumbling through using technology he was handed progresses with minimal flare and a comparatively low "wow" factor, making for a less-impressive cinematic outing.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Transformers: The Last Knight
Rough Night
The Mummy
Wonder Woman
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

4/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Wait . . . Marvel Fans Don't Love The Marvel Vibranium Card Set?!

The Good: Excellent artwork, Good writing, Decent quality/look, Cool bonus cards, Nice balance between source material and fodder for card collectors
The Bad: Terrible sketch cards, Strangely low collectible value
The Basics: The Marvel Vibranium trading card set from Upper Deck is a neat set that might be near-impossible to collect, but it is surprisingly cool for the majority of the set.


Every now and then, I run into a set of trading cards that I consider collecting, is of interest to me and I look into for the purposes of review and find myself fairly baffled by it. The Marvel Vibranium set from Upper Deck is one such set. The Marvel Vibranium set is surprisingly cool and what left me surprised about the set was that for some reason, it did not resonate with collectors. For sure, the set has problems - all of the sketch cards I could find were pretty much garbage (even though they fit the concept of the set surprisingly well!) and the collectibility is in the set is in the "damn near impossible" range. But, Upper Deck (to the best of my knowledge) did not pioneer the unrealistic collectibility level that made it so only four people could create a true master set of cards for a set.

The Marvel Vibranium trading cards is a mostly solid set that provides a surprisingly similar format to Marvel trading card collectors following Rittenhouse Archives giving up the license to Marvel Comics cards. As such, the foil-based Marvel Vibranium set is chock full of parallel cards and rich with creative chase cards like patch and sketch cards. Unlike most trading card sets, the Marvel Vibranium set actually goes out of its way to pay homage to the creators of the comic book source material by including autographed trading cards of the artists for key issues of various Marvel Comics!

Basics/Set Composition

The Marvel Vibranium trading card set was a fairly inventive set of cards, though it bore a lot of similarities in structure to the Rittenhouse Archives 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards (reviewed here!), though the differences in the parallel cards were a bit more dramatic and the volume of basic bonus cards was a bit more hefty. Properly assembled, the set is a collection of 1014 trading cards from Upper Deck. All of the cards are available in boxes or cases of Marvel Vibranium cards, which is a nice touch! The cards were originally released in boxes that contained twenty packs of five cards each. Boxes tended to run in the $75 - $90 range and generally had only one major "hit" card per box.

Collation in the Marvel Vibranium set was all right, but given how massive the set is, it took multiple cases to complete even the most basic set and the idea of having to buy 257 cases in order to make a true master set would be absolutely ludicrous to all but the most die-hard fans. The Marvel Vibranium set is pretty massive and it is a decent representation of where Marvel Comics went in 2015 with the massive Axis crossover and does a decent job of integrating various Marvel Comics universes into a single set.

Common Cards

The common card set consists of 90 trading cards, which are printed on beautiful foil cardstock and have a glossy UV resistant coating. The Marvel Vibranium cards do not seem to warp or curl the way most foil cards do, which gives one the impression that these will be more durable for collectors in perpetuity. The Marvel Vibranium set features cards that are character-centered and feature writing based mostly on the Axis storyline from Marvel Comics.

The common cards look wonderful, featuring as they do a solid character image on a silver background that represents Vibranium. The cards are universally in portrait format, though most of the cards feature knee and above artwork of the character they depict.

The backs of the Marvel Vibranium cards are well written, detailing character depicted's role in the major crossover event. The cards are revelatory for the plot of the event, but most fans who are likely to be entranced by the Marvel Vibranium cards will already know the salient details of the crossover event.

Collation on this set was fair, but it generally took more than one box to complete a complete ninety-card set.

Chase Cards

There are 924 chase cards in the Marvel Vibranium set, with all of them found in the boxes and packs of cards. The bonus cards that can be found within the boxes were the Raw, Molten, Refined, Radiance and Bar parallel cards, Rookie Pow-Ore cards, Rookie Heroes, Universal Heroes, When Worlds Collide, In Memoriam, Patch and Double patch cards, Dual comic autograph cards and their variants and Metal Engraving sketch cards. Most of the chase cards are limited to only one of the style per box and some of the parallels were found only one per case, which enhances the value of the boxes and cases and makes it very tough to complete a whole set. The final level of chase "card" are the printing plates and the 257 printing plates would require a collector to purchase as many cases with absolutely ideal collation in order to complete a true master set!

The most basic bonus card in the set are the 90 raw parallel cards. The parallel cards are a strange standard in recent releases from Upper Deck and other card companies. The raw parallel cards are somewhat cool; the straight silver background of the common cards is replaced with a cracked, sparkle background that looks like semi-crystalline rock! The Raw Parallels are found about six per box, so collectors would take at least two cases to complete a single set of these cards!

The parallel cards did not stop there, though, with the Marvel Vibranium set. Three per box there is a Molten parallel card (individually numbered to 299), one per box were the Refined parallel cards (individually numbered to 99), one in every other box was a Radiance parallel (limited to 50 of each card) and one per case there was a Bar parallel card (individually numbered to 5). The Molten parallel cards are arguably the most distinctive of the parallel cards as they feature a distinctive red background. Refined Parallel cards replace the smooth, clean foil background with a a silver and black crystalline fractal background, while the Radiance background is a blockish background pattern. The Bar Parallels have a fine metallic checkerboard pattern to them and they are printed on a dramatically thicker cardstock. My experiences with the Marvel Vibranium cards led to a disturbing disappointment with the Bar Parallels; at only one per case, there is the risk one will pull a lame character's card, but even the awesome characters come with some liabilities. The Bar card we pulled was 1/5, which should have been incredible (especially considering it featured an awesome character!), but the back of the card featured a noticeable flaw in the card's UV coating, which prevents the ultra rare card from being considered truly mint!

Usually in these reviews, I spend a lot of time and space evaluating the individual chase sets, but with the Marvel Vibranium cards that is somewhat pointless. The five major chase cards: Rookie Heroes, In Memoriam, Universal Heroes, When Worlds Collide, and Heroes Pow-ore cards are remarkably similar, down to the fact that all but the Universal Heroes cards are in portrait orientation. The Universal Heroes cards are the only cards in the basic bonus set that are in landscape orientation, which is weird, but makes sense that each of the cards in that chase set feature three different versions of the character on the front of the card. All five of the chase sets are simple foil cards, that feature large images of characters (and with When Worlds Collide, scenes) and the backs with fairly basic text on the characters and scenes. The bonus cards have minimal differentiation, down to the fact that their rarities are so similar that none of the five subsets can be completed with an entire CASE of cards! The Rookies are, obviously, new characters in the Axis and Secret Wars crossovers, while the In Memoriam cards are tributes to the characters (or versions of characters) who were killed off in 2015. Heroes Pow-ore cards are like game cards with stats for major super heroes, detailing power ratings for the characters as if they were playable characters in a game. All of the basic chase cards - 20 Heroes Pow-ore, 20 In Memoriam, 10 Rookie Heroes, 20 Universal Heroes, and 20 When Worlds Collide cards - are fairly rare, foil, and brightly colored, which maintains the format of the common sets. They look decent and fit the set very well.

One of the best-executed concepts in the Marvel Vibranium card set are the Patch cards. Landscape oriented and triple-thick, the patch cards are like costume cards in other sets. Unlike costume cards, the twenty-five patch and twenty-five double patch cards feature cutaway windows that reveal 1" square puffy patches of the character heads of the characters depicted on the patch cards. Well-colored and matching the foil cards surprisingly well, the patch cards are cool ways to immortalize beloved characters like Iron Man, Ghost Rider and cool pairs of characters like Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen! Whether or not the patch cards are resonating with the fans, they are one of the best-executed, coolest, chase cards that Upper Deck produced for the Marvel Vibranium set!

What does not appear to have resonated with fans, absolutely inexplicably, are the dual autograph cards. Upper Deck created twenty-two dual autograph cards of popular covers giving the artists (usually penciller and inker) the chance to sign each foil card. Upper Deck also made ten variant dual-autograph cards featuring some of the coolest variant covers from the crossover events and got them signed (as near as I can tell, always in blue). The autograph cards are an awesome tribute to the artists who create the comic books that are the source material for the set and that is inherently cool . . . but, for some reason, collectors do not seem willing to shell out for the dual autograph cards at the prices that similar one-per-case trading cards! Despite that, all of the autographs I have found have been crisp, clear and awesome looking for the dual autograph and variant dual autograph cards.

At the other end of the rating spectrum are the Metal Engraving Sketch Cards. The Marvel Vibranium cards, like so many trading card sets these days, feature sketch cards, in this case on a semi-foil card. The 45 artists who produced cards for the Marvel Vibranium set seemed almost universally unable to make great art on these cards. While Sharon Gauthier seemed to produce some cool cards, she was the exception to the rule. When truly amazing artists who have produced incredible works for other sets, like Melike Acar, Mitch Ballard and Jeffrey Benitz were unable to produce sketches of similar quality levels to their works on other sets suggests that the medium was not an ideal one. As such, the Bar parallels and some of the printing plates easily eclipse the value of the sketch cards.

As with many sets of cards, Upper Deck released the printing plates - magenta, cyan, yellow and black - as trading cards. All 90 common cards, the dual autograph and variant dual autograph cards, and all five chase cards have printing plate cards included in the set, for 257 printing plates limited to four of each. As such, there can only truly be four complete sets of Marvel Vibranium trading cards.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

Unlike most "modern" trading card releases, there are no cards for the Marvel Vibranium trading card set that are not found in boxes of the cards!

Overall

The Marvel Vibranium trading card set is objectively cool, despite the sheer rarity of some of the parallels and the low quality of the sketch cards, which makes it surprising to me that they have not resonated with collectors in a way that they has maintained their value in the marketplace.

This is a set of trading cards I proudly sell in my online store! Please feel free to shop by checking out my current Marvel Vibranium Trading Cards Inventory!

For reviews of other Marvel trading cards, please check out my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards
Dangerous Divas Series 2 trading cards

6.5/10

For other trading card reviews, be sure to check out my Trading Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Unfortunately Average, The 2016 Team Iron Man Ornament Is Not The Best!

The Good: Not overly expensive, Generally good sculpt, Good balance
The Bad: Sloppy paint job, Overproduced, No sound or light effects
The Basics: The 2016 Team Iron Man ornament features Iron Man from Captain America: Civil War, but is by no means the best Iron Man ornament Hallmark has ever produced.


Hallmark has produced many awesome Iron Man ornaments over the years. In fact, some of the best collectibles produced since Iron Man was cinematically released came from Hallmark. As with so many things, when items are produced in quantity over the years in bulk, they often become pale impressions of the earliest works. So it is with Iron Man ornaments from Hallmark. The Team Iron Man ornament from 2016's Hallmark Keepsake line is all right, but there are vastly superior Iron Man ornaments that have been produced. Unfortunately, because this ornament has been mass produced and rushed to market in order to capitalize on the popularity of the character for this year's feature film, the Team Iron Man ornament fell dramatically short of expectations, especially on the paint front of various copies of the ornament that I found.

The Team Iron Man ornament is a common-release, mass-produced Hallmark ornament that is one of two Captain America: Civil War ornaments and one of four Marvel comics ornaments produced by Hallmark this year. The Team Iron Man ornament is one of two ornaments from Captain America: Civil War (reviewed here!). Unfortunately, the Team Iron Man ornament is hardly an impressive collectible from Captain America: Civil War.

Basics

The Team Iron Man ornament recreates the industrialist and super hero in solid plastic. The ornament, released in 2016, is a mediocre recreation of the armored character as he appears in the cinematic rendition of Iron Man from Captain America: Civil War. The Team Iron Man ornament features a fully-armored version of Tony Stark, so there are no aspects distinctive to Robert Downey, Jr. evident. The Team Iron Man ornament features Iron Man without any facial details or skin, just as one would expect of Tony Stark when he is in his Iron Man guise.

Team Iron Man is the armored hero in a leaping pose, with one arm back, as if in mid-swing, one arm foward as if punching down. The sculpted detailing on the ornament is all right and includes ribbing and plating that give the character an appropriately assembled look.

The coloring, however, undermines the value of the Team Iron Man ornament. Two of the five Team Iron Man ornaments I found featured very sloppy paint jobs, where the paint is not within the boundaries of each specific armor piece. Those painted defects are enough to make it unworth the $15.95 original issue price, at least for fans of the cinematic Iron Man, who have a lot of collectibles they could hunt.

The Hallmark Team Iron Man ornament is made of a durable plastic and has Iron Man in an action pose, painted in monotones without any depth and shading, though the metallic red paint looks good in general. The Team Iron Man ornament measures out at 4" tall, 3" wide and 1" deep.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the Team Iron Man could have a function like a sound chip or light effect, but does not. This is just an ornament, a low-cost (comparatively) option for those who might not want to shell out for the more expensive ornaments. This Iron Man simply hangs on a tree. Given that many other Iron Man ornaments feature lights and/or sound, this is disappointing.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake Iron Man ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate Marvel Universe Christmas Tree, Iron Man is essential, but not this version. The ornament has a brass hook loop embedded in the top center of the character's back. From that hook, the Team Iron Man ornament hangs fairly well-balanced. Iron Man in this iteration looks like he is launching an attack, which is accurate and cool.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (reviewed here!). Since then, Hallmark has gotten into every major franchise from Disney to Twilight to the Marvel Comics universe. The Team Iron Man ornament was not at all limited. I would not bet, given how the other Marvel ornaments have met demand without leaving a lot of people wanting, and how poor the paint job is on this ornament, that the Team Iron Man ornament will not be a good investment piece at all.

Overview

The Team Iron Man ornament is a Marvel ornament that is easy to pass on and is not one that is likely to excite any of the fans who love the character.

For other Iron Man Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2015 Iron Man The Avengers: Age Of Ultron
2012 Iron Man The Avengers ornament
2010 Defender Of Justice Iron Man 2 ornament

5/10

For other ornament reviews, please check out my Ornament Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Avengers Apart: Captain America: Civil War Lives Up To The Hype!

The Good: Morality, Character moments, Good special effects
The Bad: Very basic plot, Repetitive fights to replace some substantive philosophy moments.
The Basics: The film adaptation of Marvel's Civil War storyline is crowded, but cool, with Captain America: Civil War.


As Summer Blockbuster Season hits, Marvel Comics is in a surprisingly solid position. While I was not overly impressed by Deadpool (reviewed here!), the third season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. actually appears to be building something legitimate and the release of Captain America: Civil War comes only a few weeks before X-Men: Apocalypse. In the unlikely event that Captain America: Civil War underperforms to its stellar-high expectations, the licenser is insured by the virtual guarantee that X-Men: Apocalypse will satisfy Marvel Comics fans and those who just love a big film full of spectacle. Fortunately, Captain America: Civil War manages to clear the bar on its high expectations and deliver a generally solid story, while setting up the next two big Marvel Cinematic Universe spin-offs (films for Black Panther and Spider-Man set within the MCU).

The irony of Captain America: Civil War is two-fold. First, despite the essential American quality of the film, it - like Star Trek Into Darkness before it - was released internationally before being released in the United States. Hollywood, truly, is dead. Second, Captain America remains a favorite of many Marvel Comics fans who would associate more with rednecks than Bernie Sanders and yet Captain America: Civil War makes an argument very firmly on the side of personal liberty. Captain America: Civil War is also one of the few Marvel films based, albeit loosely, on source material I have actually read! Captain America: Civil War adapts many of the concepts, issues, and conflicts from Civil War (reviewed here!) for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the result is generally good, though there are moments the emotional journey of Steve Rogers is sacrificed to devote time to establishing Peter Parker and T'Challa and fleshing out more of a relationship between the Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Opening with a flashback to how Bucky Barnes was programmed to be the Winter Soldier, the present proves to be equally dangerous as Captain America's Avengers attempt to stop Crossbones from stealing a biological weapon in Lagos, Nigeria. Before he kills himself, Crossbones reveals that Bucky Barnes's programming had slipped and he recalled Steve Rogers. At M.I.T., Tony Stark gives a massive grant to the students, before he confronted by a mother whose son died in Sokovia. Shortly thereafter, Tony Stark and Secretary Of State Ross visit the Avengers training facility, where he proposes the Avengers abide by the United Nation's plan known as the Sokovia Accords. The Sokovia Accords would put the Avengers under UN control. Steve Rogers leaves the meeting when Peggy Carter dies and he heads to London for her funeral. While there, after learning that Agent 33 is Peggy Carter's niece, the United Nation's conference in Vienna where the Sokovia Accords are being ratified, is bombed. Among the dead is King T'Chaka of Wakanda. When the Winter Soldier is identified as the bomber, T'Chaka's son, T'Challa, vows revenge and Captain America has to track down Bucky Barnes before T'Challa does.

After finding and confronting Barnes - who denies that he was the bomber - Captain America and the Falcon attempt to rescue Barnes from Black Panther (T'Challa) and the international manhunt going on the Winter Soldier. War Machine is dispatched to apprehend them and in Berlin, they are captured. In Berlin, Tony Stark visits where he pressures Rogers to sign the Sokovia Accords. Rogers refuses, moments before he and his allies realize that the UN bombing was an elaborate plot to get the international community to find and imprison Barnes. The HYDRA leader, Zemo, activates the Winter Soldier's programming and that allows Barnes to escape. Recovering Barnes, Rogers and Wilson learn that Zemo was after the Siberian facility where Barnes was kept because there is more than one Winter Soldier and Zemo wants them for his own private army. While Captain America and Falcon assemble a team to stop Zemo, Tony Stark is given a 36 hour deadline to bring in Captain America, Barnes and Wilson before the military will get involved. Preparing to take down the rest of the Winter Soldiers, both sides square off on an air field leading to an intense conflict between the heroes.

Right off the bat, Captain America: Civil War starts at an odd place. The post-credits scene of Ant-Man (reviewed here!) had Bucky Barnes in custody. How he made it out of Captain America's custody is a bit of a mystery, until almost the middle of Captain America: Civil War. It seems strange that a scene viewers have already seen comes in the middle of the film, right around the time of a wierd recruitment scene that finally adds Peter Parker to the MCU.

One of the aspects of Captain America: Civil War that works surprisingly well is the burgeoning Vision and Scarlet Witch relationship. At the climax of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Vision and Scarlet Witch became part of the same team of Avengers - essentially The Avengers 2.0. The idea that the members of the new team of Avengers, who now live at a facility together, have relationships is a smart and strong concept and it is best-executed by the way Scarlet Witch and Vision interact. Sadly, Captain America: Civil War, illustrates no similar sense of connection between Brody and Wilson, who would be part of the same team.

The introduction of Peter Parker as Spider-Man is handled about as well as one might expect when bringing a character of such magnitude into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Peter Parker gets almost five full minutes in the middle of Captain America: Civil War for a scene with Tony Stark that kills the narrative flow of the film. Chadwick Boseman gets a better, smoother, introduction into the MCU as T'Challa. T'Challa's story in Captain America: Civil War blends much, much better with the overall stories of vengeance that preoccupy the main characters.

Captain America: Civil War alludes heavily to The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!), while neglecting Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and not alluding to either Jessica Jones (reviewed here!) or the second season of Daredevil (reviewed here!) - both of which paid fealty to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is odd because so much of Captain America: Civil War is spent with wrapping up loose plot threads in the MCU and establishing new launching points for various Phase 3 and Phase 4 Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

The parts of Captain America: Civil War which are focused on Steve Rogers are the highlights of the film. Rogers has an ethical code and he stands by it. Tony Stark's character arc in Captain America: Civil War is a bit complicated. Stark develops from having an ethical position - albeit one that differs from Rogers's vision of how things should be done - to a kneejerk reaction of vengeance to the Winter Soldier. The transition is exceptionally effective and it almost makes Captain America: Civil War more Tony Stark's movie than Captain America's.

Captain America: Civil War features a more opaque villain than prior Captain America films and his motivations fit the film's motif remarkably well. Captain America: Civil War continues the trend in the Marvel Cinematic Universe of leaving everyone alive to use in subsequent endeavors, which is utterly unsurprising to anyone who loves the Marvel Studios films.

The performances in Captain America: Civil War are good, with there being surprisingly few standout moments of acting. The principle characters are all played by actors who have been playing their roles for several films and are familiar with their parts. The newer actors to the film manage to play opposite the established ones well enough to be seamless with the way they integrate with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The special effects in Captain America: Civil War are wonderful and the moments of reversal are very effective and suggest that they will replay well. Ultimately, that makes Captain America: Civil War worth watching.

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Celebration For Ten Marvel Trading Card Fans: The Marvel 75th Anniversary Trading Cards Still Impress!

The Good: Good artwork, Neat writing, Archive Cuts are very cool, Some cool sketches
The Bad: Preponderance of parallel sets, Odd chase set numbers, Some mediocre sketches
The Basics: The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card set continues to innovate with comic book trading cards, surprisingly well . . . despite some eccentricities!


Over the last year, I've become a pretty big fan of trading cards outside the Star Trek trading cards that initially got me into trading card collecting. Most of the ones I have encountered over the last year have had sketch cards as the neatest premium. But the set that first got me intrigued by just what comic book based trading cards could do was the Rittenhouse Archives Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card set.

The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards are cool, despite being plagued by the usual complaint I have with comic book-based trading cards (parallel sets . . . so many parallel sets! In this case five versions of the common card set!) and several of the chase sets not being generated in 9-card increments (the standard for card sets because trading card pages generally hold nine cards each). The creation of the new Archive Cuts trading cards is a neat one and between them and some incredible sketch cards, the Marvel 75th Anniversary cards are bound to keep drawing interest from comic book trading card enthusiasts for years to come!

Basics/Set Composition

The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card set is a character-centered trading card set. The common cards provide vital statistics on the ninety characters Rittenhouse Archives chose as their essential characters for the anniversary and the bonus cards do not waste text on repeating information on those characters. Properly assembled, the set is a collection of 720 trading cards and the official binder from Rittenhouse Archives. All but one hundred three of the cards are available in boxes or cases of 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary cards and ninety-three of those cards are available in an archive box from the set. The cards were originally released in boxes that contained twenty-four packs of five cards each. Boxes tended to run in the $75 - $90 range and guaranteed one common set and one sketch card per box.

Collation in the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set was remarkably good, but the set is oppressive to attempt to collect. In order to get the multicase incentives, one has to buy eighteen cases to get an Archive Box, but to assemble a true master set, it would take 90 CASES of the trading cards with absolutely ideal collation to complete the Diamond Parallel set and thus make a true master set. The Diamond Parallel set weeds out the casual and die-hard collectors of the Marvel 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards.

Common Cards

The common card set consists of 90 trading cards, which are printed with great color contrast and a hefty cardstock which has a glossy UV resistant coating. The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set features ninety cards featuring the biggest characters from the Marvel Comic Book Universe, both heroes and villains. The sweeping nature of the set allows it to include members of the disparate franchises - Avengers, X-Men, street level heroes like Daredevil, and their various enemies.

The common cards look good with a background image featuring the character in a classic appearance and a foreground image in the corner with a recent or more refined drawing of the character. The cards are universally in portrait format and have an extensive border, the character's name and background lines that change for the parallel sets. Rittenhouse Archives chose characters generally make sense for collectors and fans to love, though a couple of them are odd selections - like Magik, Ka-zar and Speedball.

The backs of the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary cards are well written, though the backs are more like blurbs like sports cards, with various vital statistics included. These cards give the character, their mundane name, their first appearance, notable powers and the like. These make the cards a cool reference tool for those who don't want to have to pick up a Marvel Encyclopedia or trudge through the Marvel Wiki.

Collation on this set was excellent, so the common sets averaged one and almost a half per box, which was good for collectors (I consistently managed to assemble four sets from every three boxes I opened).

Chase Cards

There are 630 chase cards in the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set, with 527 found in the boxes of cards and the remaining one hundred three available outside the boxes and packs. The bonus cards that can be found within the boxes were the sapphire, emerald, and diamond parallel cards, X-Men Evolution, X-Men Evolution Gold Parallel, Die-Cut Panel bursts, Sticker cards, Archive Cuts (from three different eras), Marvel 75th Anniversary and sketch cards. Most of the chase cards are limited to only one of the style per box and some of the parallels were found only one or two per case, which enhances the value of the boxes and cases.

The most basic bonus card in the set are the 90 sapphire parallel cards. The parallel cards are a strange standard in recent releases from Rittenhouse Archives and other card companies. The sapphire parallel cards are rather unimaginative. The parallel cards are essentially the common cards reprinted as foil cards with blue bars on the sides of the front. The sapphire parallel cards pop well for most of the cards for the color contrast relative to the common cards. The basic parallel cards are found about four per box, so collectors would take almost two complete cases to assemble a single set of these cards!

As has become the trend, there are more parallel cards than that in the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set. One per box there is an emerald parallel card (individually numbered to 100) and one per case there is a diamond parallel card (individually numbered to 10). The emerald parallel cards feature the side bars in green and the "diamond" is essentially a foil version of the common card with gold borders on the front of the card in foil. While the one-per-box emerald parallel cards are not oppressive to collect (especially given that more boxes are required to complete the sketch card set), the one-per-case Diamond parallel cards are virtually impossible to collect and are predictably pricey.

One per box are cards from the thirteen-card X-Men Evolution card set. These simple cards feature several images on the front of each landscape-oriented card of each of the X-Men (heroes and villains) as they have appeared through different comic book ages. The cards show how drastically different characters like Beast, Magneto, and Wolverine have appeared through the years. This set is odd in that Rittenhouse Archives made 13 cards (which is more than a single case to complete!) instead of either nine or eighteen cards, which would better fit the standard trading card pages.

The X-Men Evolution cards are replicated as "Gold" Parallel cards found two per case. The "Gold" Parallel cards have the same artwork, but the blue bars on the front of the standard chase cards are replaced with a sickly brownish color. The backs of these cards have an individual collector's number with each copy being numbered to 100. This is a mediocre parallel card.

Like the X-Men Evolution cards, one per box of Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards are one of nine Die-Cut Panel Burst cards and one of 18 sticker cards! The Die-Cut Panel Burst cards are a neat concept with an execution that is a little harder to enjoy. The die-cut cards do not have the standard trading card shape and one each one has a single large image of the character on it. The nine die-cut panel burst cards are nine of the most popular Marvel characters (all men, though. . .) and given how they are atypically cut, the corners are hard to keep mint. They look pretty cool, though.

The 18 card sticker set is a retro-looking sticker set and it continues the sticker card set from the 70th Anniversary set Rittenhouse Archives produced, with far greater rarity than the cards in that release. These are neat-enough and the character choices are more diverse than the Die-Cut Panel Burst set.

The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set is the second of three Marvel Comics trading card sets from Rittenhouse Archives released in 2014 to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Marvel Comics. In the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards, there are twenty-five Marvel 75th Anniversary cards. These cards are reminiscent of the Marvel Comics trading cards from the 1990s with big, full-bleed artwork featuring character "paintings" of major Marvel Comics characters. Each of these cards is limited to 75 (and individually numbered on the back) and they were found two per case in the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set. They look amazing!

The Marvel 75th Anniversary trading cards include three different sets of Archive Cuts trading cards. The Archive Cuts trading cards are a cool new concept that are like costume cards for comic book enthusiasts! The Archive Cuts cards are trading cards with embedded panels from comic books in them. Rittenhouse Archives cut up several prime issues of Marvel Comics comic books from the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Age of comic books. Comic book collectors might never be able to get a pristine copy of Captain America #34 or Iron Man #13, but now collectors can get single panels (one of 51 or one of 37, respectively) from books like that! Each Archive Cuts card is unique and Rittenhouse Archives did an amazing job of finding intriguing issues and images for all of the Archive Cuts cards I've yet seen. There are 16 Bronze Age, 17 Silver Age, and 8 Golden Age cards found in the boxes - one per era per case.

The grail of comic book based trading cards these days are the sketch cards and the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary cards are no exception. 138 artists contributed unique, hand-drawn sketch cards for the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card set and they are, as one might expect, a truly mixed bag, based on the artist and their choice of subject. Fan favorite artists like Rhiannon Owens, Peejay Catacultan, Jomar Bulda, Erik Maell, Francois Chartier, and MJ San Juan contributed and these have quickly become some of the most popular, best-selling sketches Rittenhouse Archives has released featuring Marvel Comics characters! There are always duds, but the Marvel 75th Anniversary set seems to have fewer than usual!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

As with most "modern" trading card releases - certainly the ones from Rittenhouse Archives - not all of the cards needed to make a true master set are available in the boxes of these trading cards. In this set, there are ninety-three cards exclusive to the archive box and an additional ten cards that cannot be found in the boxes. The archive boxes possess a ninety-card Ruby parallel set that yet again recreates the common set, this time with a red foil borders (and seem to be more susceptible to foil card curling than the other three parallel card styles in this set). Each card in this set is numbered to 50, though archive boxes do not contain matching number sets. Also in the archive box are three Archive Cuts cards - one per era unique to the archive boxes.

There is the usual promo card which foreshadowed the series release which is common enough to find (P1). There is also a card exclusive to the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card binder. Both promotional cards remain fairly well-available in the secondary market.

The remaining eight cards are the casetoppers, the multicase incentive cards and the Rittenhouse Rewards card. The casetoppers are very basic art deco cards of five popular Marvel Comics characters. These cards are not even foil cards. This is a particularly boring casetopper and they have not held any sort of value in the secondary market since the card's release.

The multicase incentive sketch cards, however, are highly coveted and very cool, having generally high value even now. Artist Warren Martinek contributed a sketch card that was given to dealers with every 6-case purchase. These sketch cards expertly recreated the covers of significant Marvel Comics issues and given the smaller scale, that is a pretty incredible feat in most cases. The nine-case incentive card was a painted art card from Mick or Matt Glebe and these painted cards live up to the reputation that the Glebe brothers have built in the trading card community. The characters and artwork are incredible!

The final card for the 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary set is a Rittenhouse Rewards card. Available only by redeeming wrappers with Rittenhouse Archives, there is a Spiderwoman Die-Cut Panel Burst card. It adds a tenth card to the nine-card set (which is irksome from a collector's perspective as trading card pages are nine-card pages) and follows the format to the Die-Cut Panel Burst set. It is not a terribly exciting card, but the wrapper "cost" is not very high, so it tends to leave collectors generally pleased with it.

Overall

The 2014 Marvel 75th Anniversary trading card set is a true celebration of the characters who made Marvel Comics an enduring institution. The set is enough to excite collectors and despite the irksome nature of the parallel cards, the Archive Cuts cards are enough to reinvigorate interest in the Marvel-based cards.

For reviews of other Marvel trading cards, please check out my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
2014 Marvel Universe trading cards
Spider-Man Archives SD09 Promotional Card

7/10

For other trading card reviews, be sure to check out my Trading Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Good Concept Over And Over And Over And Over Again: 2014 Marvel Universe Trading Cards!

The Good: Excellent artwork, Good writing, Some awesome sketches
The Bad: Unremarkable parallel sets, Some lesser sketch cards, Collectible value
The Basics: The 2014 Marvel Universe trading card set is an interesting blend of incredible and mundane, making for a set that ends up as average as opposed to exceptional.


Like many people, I wear many (metaphorical) hats. And, like many people, I sometimes find the different roles I take on in conflict with one another. I try to balance them, but sometimes the different roles I have fall dramatically out of balance. Three roles I have that come into conflict with each other are my job as a reviewer of many things I encounter, my love of collectible trading cards, and my business selling the same. I seldom feel a sense of conflict, even when the aspects of my life do contradict. I started my business selling trading cards because I had my own collection and it grew out of hand; I started reviewing trading cards because I love reviewing and I wanted to try reviewing things outside movies, music, toys, and food. But, sometimes, I encounter a trading card set that using my own objective standards, I cannot rate very highly. Such reviews, naturally, have the potential to hurt my business selling the trading cards and they have the potential to harm the relationships I have with the manufacturers of the trading cards (which could both hurt my business and my own collecting!). Fortunately, the manufacturers of trading cards either don't know me, don't care about my reviews or, in the case of the wonderful Rittenhouse Archives, are very patient with me (and have pretty thick skins!). The reason I keep reviewing trading cards is because Non-Sport Update (reviewed here!) has "reviews" which are completely non-discriminatory and read more like sell sheets for the various manufacturers. Objective reviewers can help guide collectors far better than their reviews.

In the case of the 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards, an objective review reveals that the set is a weird contradiction of excellent and dull. The set has a very cool common set and some truly amazing sketch cards, as well as fairly decent bonus cards. But the set is fleshed out by parallel sets that repeat over and over the basic common and chase sets . . . in fairly unremarkable ways.

Basics/Set Composition

The 2014 Marvel Universe trading card set followed a content format similar to Rittenhouse Archives impressive Marvel Universe set from 2011, in that it focused on big story arcs within the Marvel Comics Universe. The format was such a winning one that Cryptozoic aped it with their Epic Battles trading card set (reviewed here!) for the DC Comic Universe. Properly assembled, the set is a collection of 703 trading cards and the official binder from Rittenhouse Archives. All but ninety-seven of the cards are available in boxes or cases of 2014 Marvel Universe cards and ninety-one of those cards are available in an archive box from thje set. The cards were originally released in boxes that contained twenty-four packs of five cards each. Boxes tended to run in the $75 - $90 range and guaranteed one common set and one sketch card per box.

Collation in the 2014 Marvel Universe set was remarkably good, but the set is oppressive to attempt to collect. In order to get the multicase incentives, one has to buy eighteen cases to get an Archive Box, but to assemble a true master set, it would take 90 CASES of the trading cards with absolutely ideal collation to complete the Diamond Parallel set and, presumable, the whole set. Given how unremarkable the Diamond Parallel set is, it seems far too high a price to be a genuine collector of the Marvel 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards.

Common Cards

The common card set consists of 90 trading cards, which are printed on beautiful foil cardstock and have a glossy UV resistant coating. The 2014 Marvel Universe cards do not seem to warp or curl the way most foil cards do, which gives one the impression that these will be more durable for collectors in perpetuity. The 2014 Marvel Universe set features nine cards per major Marvel Comics crossover event, detailing the plot of each storyline.

The common cards look wonderful, featuring as they do a solid character image with a gold background depicting the cover of an issue of the book from the storyline the card represents. The cards are universally in portrait format, though most of the cards feature full-body artwork of the character they depict.

The backs of the 2014 Marvel Universe cards are well written, detailing the plot of each major crossover story. In fact, these trading cards were so compellingly written that they inspired me to read the crossover story The House Of M (reviewed here!). This set of trading cards includes cards focused on the Avengers/Defenders War, Mutant Masscre, Evolutionary War, Operation: Galactic Storm, the Onslaught Saga, House Of M, Annihilation Conquest, Dark Reign, Chaos War and Age Of Ultron. These stories are massive crossovers and the card set does a decent job of including characters from many of the disparate books they represent, like including cards for the Age Of Ultron storyline that feature Wolverine, Spider-Man and Invisible Woman. Those only familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be pleasantly surprised by the variations in the book versions of the stories included on the 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards!

Collation on this set was excellent, so the common sets averaged one and almost a half per box, which was good for collectors (I consistently managed to assemble four sets from every three boxes I opened).

Chase Cards

There are 613 chase cards in the 2014 Marvel Universe set, with 516 found in the boxes of cards and the remaining ninety-seven available outside the boxes and packs. The bonus cards that can be found within the boxes were the sapphire, emerald, and diamond parallel cards, Marvel Greatest Battles Thor Expansion (and the two parallel sets of these cards), Marvel Greatest Battles Captain America Expansion (and the two parallel sets of these cards), Artist Drafts, Shadowbox, Avengers Origins, Heroes and Villains Expansion, Marvel 75th Anniversary and sketch cards. Most of the chase cards are limited to only one of the style per box and some of the parallels were found only one per case, which enhances the value of the boxes and cases.

The most basic bonus card in the set are the 90 sapphire parallel cards. The parallel cards are a strange standard in recent releases from Rittenhouse Archives and other card companies. The sapphire parallel cards are rather unimaginative. The parallel cards are essentially the common cards reprinted with a blue background to replace the gold rendition of the comic book covers on each card. The sapphire parallel cards play well for some of the covers, offering greater contrast with the foreground subjects and they are found about four per box, so collectors would take almost two cases to complete a single set of these cards!

The parallel cards did not stop there, though, with the 2014 Marvel Universe set. One per box there is an emerald parallel card (individually numbered to 100) and one per case there is a diamond parallel card (individually numbered to 10). The emerald parallel cards feature the background comic book covers rendered in green and the "diamond" is a washed-out silver background. None of the parallel cards render the background comic book covers with all of the original colors they possessed, which is a little disappointing (though it would have been worse had the common cards been rendered with the "pure" comic book covers and then the parallels had diluted, single-color versions of them!). While the one-per-box emerald parallel cards are not oppressive to collect (especially given that more boxes are required to complete the sketch card set), the one-per-case Diamond parallel cards are harder to find and very expensive. As a collector, the Diamond parallels represent an interesting collector's conundrum: to collect a complete set of 2014 Marvel Universe cards makes one an elite collector in the industry. As a dealer, the Diamond parallel cards represent a problematic toss-up: the Diamond Parallels represent a potential high-value card to help justify the investment in a case of these cards, but the parallel cards of less popular characters or less well-rendered characters fail to yield the same enthusiasm in the marketplace as main characters. So, for example, a case that has a parallel card of 24 featuring one of the New Mutants (a character line that did not survive very long with readers!) is inherently worth less than a case with a diamond parallel card of card 82, which features the very popular Captain America. Regardless, in the many boxes and cases, collectors are asked to shell out a lot of money to just keep assembling the common set over and over again.

Two per box are cards from the nine-card Artist Draft set. The Artist Draft cards are replicas of the original, uncolored, artwork for important covers from various storylines, like House Of M, Dark Avengers and Nova. The backs, not wasting more text on the crossover events, illustrate the finished version of each cover. These are pretty neat, albeit very basic, trading cards. There is nothing inherently special about them - they are not foil or printed on acetate, etc. - but they look very cool and afford card collectors and comic book fans a wonderful, uncommon, view of their favorite books!

There are two expansion sets for the popular Marvel Greatest Battles trading cards - one nine-card set that focuses on Thor, another that focuses on Captain America. These cards nicely expand the prior set's common cards with new artwork and fans of James Bond cards are very familiar with the concept. Both nine-card expansions take nine boxes (with ideal collation) to assemble the sets. The expansion cards are replicated with parallels (red and gold, found two and one per case, respectively) and they are very average parallel cards. The parallels are individually numbered, which is nice, but it does not make them "pop" any more than the original cards.

There are three bonus card sets where the components are found one in every other box: 6 Shadowbox cards, 5 Avengers Origins cards, and 9 Heroes & Villains Expansion cards. While the Shadowbox cards are incredible, overthick trading cards with a beautiful three-dimensional quality to them, the other two chase sets are somewhat unextraordinary. Here, however, is an excellent place to stop and take note of one of the wonderful aspects of the 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards. Virtually every box of the 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards has exceptional inherent value to it. While Rittenhouse Archives only guarantees a common set and a sketch card in each box, every box I opened also included two of the chase cards that were found one in every other box or a chase card with higher rarity (like the parallels to the chase cards or the Diamond parallel).

The 2014 Marvel Universe set is the first of three Marvel Comics trading card sets from Rittenhouse Archives released in 2014 to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of Marvel Comics. In the 2014 Marvel Universe trading cards, there are twenty-five Marvel 75th Anniversary cards. These cards are reminiscent of the Marvel Comics trading cards from the 1990s with big, full-bleed artwork featuring character "paintings" of major Marvel Comics characters. Each of these cards is limited to 75 (and individually numbered on the back) and they were found two per case in the 2014 Marvel Universe set. They look amazing!

The grail of comic book based trading cards these days are the sketch cards and the 2014 Marvel Universe cards are no exception. 138 artists contributed unique, hand-drawn sketch cards for the 2014 Marvel Universe trading card set and they are, as one might expect, a truly mixed bag, based on the artist and their choice of subject. While fan favorite artists like Rhiannon Owens, Mick Glebe, Jomar Bulda, Jofel B. Cube, and Elvin A. Hernandez contributed, there has been a surprising lack of interest in the collector's market for sketch cards from this set. After opening a couple of cases, I was surprised by how few exciting, high-quality sketch cards were in the set. It was as if the artists who contributed were experiencing sketch card fatigue and the market responded with indifference. To be fair, Out of three cases, I pulled sketched from none of the "a-list" sketch card artists who contributed to the set. That said, in researching the set, there were no sketch cards I saw that made me actually say "wow." I was most impressed by a Marcio Cabreira sketch I pulled featuring Ultron's army; the level of detail was exceptional. Rittenhouse Archives has not provided any data on the rarity of each artist's sketch cards, so fans who are trying to complete the set would seem to have a fairly good chance at completing their sets even now.

Non-Box/Pack Cards

As with most "modern" trading card releases - certainly the ones from Rittenhouse Archives - not all of the cards needed to make a true master set are available in the boxes of these trading cards. In this set, there are ninety-one cards exclusive to the archive box and an additional six cards that cannot be found in the boxes. The archive boxes possess a ninety-card Ruby parallel set that yet again recreates the common set, this time with a red background for the comic book card. Each card in this set is numbered to 50, though archive boxes do not contain matching number sets. Also in the archive box is an exclusive oversized sketch card by popular sketch card artist Meghan Hetrick.

There is the usual promo card which foreshadowed the series release which is common enough to find (P1). There is also a card exclusive to the 2014 Marvel Universe trading card binder. Both promotional cards remain fairly well-available in the secondary market.

The remaining four cards are the casetopper, the multicase incentive cards and the Rittenhouse Rewards card. The casetopper is a simple lenticular card of Bishop and Apocalypse. This is a surprisingly lackluster casetopper, which might explain why it has depreciated significantly in the secondary market.

The multicase incentive sketch cards, however, are highly coveted and very cool, having generally high value even now. Artist Anthony Tan contributed a sketch card that was given to dealers with every 6-case purchase and comic book artist Melike Acar had the nine-case incentive card. Every one of the incentive cards I've seen has featured incredible artwork, though some of the subjects of the sketch cards are more obscure than popular.

The final card for the 2014 Marvel Universe set is a Rittenhouse Rewards card. Available only by redeeming wrappers with Rittenhouse Archives, there is the AD19 Artist Draft card. It adds a tenth card to the nine-card set (which is irksome from a collector's perspective as trading card pages are nine-card pages) and follows the format to the Artist Draft set perfectly with the cover of Dark Avengers #1. It is not a terribly exciting card, but the wrapper "cost" is not very high, so it tends to leave collectors generally pleased with it.

Overall

The 2014 Marvel Universe trading card set is nice, but repetitive. It's a tough sell as it relies upon so many other sets for understanding and appreciating its full value - whatwith so many of the bonus cards simply continuing or expanding prior sets. The set is oppressive to try to collect, but it looks beautiful when it is collected. In other words, it is an out-of-balance set that, rather miraculously, balances out . . . at least for the ten collectors who can make an absolute master set of them!

For reviews of other Marvel or comic book-themed trading cards, please check out my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
DC Comics Super-Villains trading cards
Spider-Man Archives SD09 Promotional Card

5/10

For other trading card reviews, be sure to check out my Trading Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Blasting Into The Holidays! The 2015 Iron Man Ornament Excites!

The Good: Great sculpt, Coloring, Competitively priced, Collectibility, Decent balance
The Bad: No light effect.
The Basics: A good Marvel and Hallmark ornament, the “Iron Man” ornament is a decent inexpensive Iron Man for those who do not want one with a light effect!


One of the most reliable corners of the Marvel Universe for Hallmark seems to be Iron Man. Since Iron Man effectively launched the viability of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (people seem to forget that Hulk preceded Iron Man by a good five years!), Hallmark has glommed onto the popularity of the character by releasing an Iron Man or Iron Man-related ornament each year since. The only Marvel character to get more ornaments in recent years is Spider-Man. This year is no exception and in honor of the release of Ant Man theatrically, I am prioritizing my review of the new Age Of Ultron Iron Man ornament!

For those unfamiliar with the concept, “Iron Man” is a holiday ornament that features Tony Stark in the Iron Man suit from The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!). The latest Iron Man ornament has the armored billionaire in an action pose, looking like he is about to let loose both of his hand cannons while floating. This Iron Man ornament is made entirely of plastic and looks awesome!

Basics

“Iron Man” recreates Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit from The Avengers Age Of Ultron as he prepares to fire his weapons. The ornament, released in 2015, is a pretty remarkable ornament that is perfect in the detailing and coloring. Iron Man in this incarnation looks just like the cinematic version of Iron Man with the Iron Man armor clean, shiny and made with very sleek lines that make it look both armored and functional. This does not look like a comic book character, but rather the virtual Iron Man suit seen flying about in The Avengers Age Of Ultron! Measuring three and one-half inches tall, two and a quarter inches wide and two and three-quarter inches deep, this “Iron Man” seems to be selling well (we're only into the second weekend of them being available!) at the original issue price of $14.95.

The Hallmark “Iron Man” ornament is made of a durable plastic and has Tony Stark in the Iron Man suit. He is cast in a pearlescent maroon and gold plastic that has a metallic quality to it that looks entirely realistic for the character. The proportions are all wonderful and this Iron Man sculpt looks like it may have come from a digital model of the character it is so precise. The “Iron Man” truly is an immaculate work for fans of Iron Man, with no seams visible (in other words, it does not look like the ornament was manufactured).

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, “Iron Man” could have a function like a sound chip or light effect, but it does not. That is a little disappointing, but not a dealbreaker.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake “Iron Man” ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate superhero Christmas Tree, the “Iron Man” ornament is a great addition and would have been indispensable for a Marvel Comics themed tree, if the other ornaments with light functions did not exist.

The ornament has a brass hook loop that comes out of the top center of Iron Man’s helmet. From that position, Iron Man hangs perfectly level. The angle Iron Man is molded at makes him look like he is flying and he is very well balanced to maintain that illusion!

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (reviewed here!). Since then, they have delved into virtually every other collectible franchise in an attempt to cash in on every major license. The Iron Man series is part of the Marvel Comics ornament collection that has been growing since the buyout of Marvel by Disney. Hallmark seems happy to produce both DC and Marvel Comics-related ornaments and currently fans seem to be responding well to the “Iron Man” ornament. If past indicators hold, the Iron Man ornament should at least hold its value, even if it doesn't appreciate significantly for a few years.

Overview

With its amazing detailing, but lack of a light function, the Iron Man ornament from The Avengers Age Of Ultron might well be the second-best Iron Man ornament Hallmark has yet produced!

For other Iron Man Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2014 War Machine Iron Man 3 ornament
2013 Iron Patriot Iron Man 3 ornament
2012 Iron Man The Avengers ornament
2010 Defender Of Justice Iron Man 2 ornament

9/10

For other ornament reviews, please check out my Ornament Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Complicated Than Fun: Lego Marvel Super Heroes Disappoints!

The Good: Fun, Challenging, Moments of coolness
The Bad: Very glitchy, Camera perspective issues, Overly complicated
The Basics: Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a tougher game to play and win than most of the Lego based video games, especially because the game freezes up periodically!


My wonderful wife has been working hard the last few years to get me to relax. Over the last year, she had gotten me a handful of video games and some of them have truly tickled me. Based on her success with keeping me engaged with LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (reviewed here!), she recently picked me up the Playstation 3 version of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes. Unfortunately, unlike the other Lego video games she has gotten me, the LEGO Marvel Super Heroes did not land. In addition to being surprisingly glitchy - the game freezes up at some key moments - the game is much more complicated than it is fun, mostly because of characters the player is forced to play with on the various levels.

Basics

Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a video game that encompasses most of the Marvel universe, uninhibited by the various companies that have rights to different Marvel properties. As a result, the players are able to play Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man and memvers of the Fantastic Four, as well as the full array of Marvel villains from Dr. Doom to Loki! The entire Marvel universe is recreated in LEGO form, though it occurs mostly in and above New York City. Animated with the joint structure of Lego mini-figures, one or two players team up and run around New York City, as seen through the lens of the Marvel Universe.

Almost exclusively focused on the characters of Marvel Universe, players run around shooting, jumping, using telekinesis, slinging webs and using magnetic powers to achieve goals and kill minions being used by the major villains. With the destruction of each minion, Lego pieces explode and change to coins. Players collect coins to purchase new characters as they are unlocked as the game progresses. By using the left and right keys, one may toggle between the characters they have available and as one becomes more adept in the game, it helps to assemble a team that allows the player to toggle between mutants, shooters, telekinetics, and diggers. The first time through each level, players are forced to use between one and four specific characters, without the ability to create a team of one's choice.

After the successful completion of a level, the player may replay levels to find minikit pieces and rescue Stan Lee (who is on each level needing rescue, but is often behind an obstacle for which a different character is required). In the free play mode, the character may wander more and find things at their own pace, as well as enjoy levels outside of a time limit or imminent threat.

Story

Set in the Marvel universe, the essential plot of LEGO Marvel Super Heroes focuses on the heroes trying to stop a cadre of super-villains in advance of an attack by Galactus. The Silver Surfer arrives on Earth where his board is fragmented and the cosmic bricks becomes objects that the super-villains are obsessed with collecting. The various X-Men, Marvel geniuses, Avengers and vigilantes work to try to stop the villains and collect all the Cosmic Bricks before the villains can harness their power!

Game Progression

Lego Marvel Super Heroes is a pretty straightforward video game with a view that is usually slightly back from the character the player is playing. The net effect is that the view is like being followed around by a camera, as opposed to a first-person shooter style game. The perspective issue actually becomes problematic at times when the “camera” does not follow the view of the player. Sometimes, that means that players cannot actually take advantage of the bonuses that come up on screen because the line of sight is blocked by other characters (usually, this happens when one is jumping off the helicarrier).

Lego Marvel Super Heroes also have levels where the perspective is back away from the various characters. That causes problems when characters have to move into the background, but there are objects that block the view. On several levels, there are points where one has to try the bomb or throwing object highlights just to see what is on the level!

Effects

The Lego Marvel Super Heroes game was designed for high definition systems, like the Playstation 3 (reviewed here!). We played it on the Playstation 3 connected to our Sony Bravia HD TV (reviewed here!) and it looked and sounded good. Directions from Agent Coulson are essential to hear and throughout the game, they are clear and audible. The figures have an unsurprisingly blockish form to them, which makes sense because they are Lego renditions of the characters. The backgrounds and buildings, however, are more impressive in the way they are represented.

The sound effects are accurate to the sound effects from the Marvel Cinematic Universe's films. When things are destroyed, though they sound like Lego blocks rattling around.

Replayability

Because Lego Marvel Super Heroes has the linear narrative and the free play available for each level, but given how frustrating most of the levels are because of the characters one is forced to play with, it is hard to want to go back to replay the levels with the ideal character combinations. Moreover, if one wanders around New York City between levels, the holographic Agent Coulson that guides a player to the next obstacle has a tendency to disappear. It is easy to get lost between levels and waste a lot of time trying to remember where one is supposed to be headed. Unfortunately, to unlock more bonus levels and earn all of the gold bricks, one must go back and do better, find quest objects hidden throughout, and earn more money.

Overall

The Lego Marvel Super Heroes is frequently problematic with the perspective and the game freezes up on multiple levels. Between that and the sheer volume of tasks to complete after one has already won the main plot of the game, this is a Lego-based game that is not as accessible or enjoyable as the others I have tried.

For other Marvel products, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Marvel Universe She-Hulk Action Figure
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. Season 1 trading cards
2014 Hulk Smash! Hallmark Ornament

4/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my Software Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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