I bought some opened boxes from Marvel Heroes and Villains. The card set was produced by Rittenhouse in 2010. The sealed box has 24 packs with 5 cards by pack. The base card set is composing of 72 cards. The card set has 5 types of inserts sets: 72 Parallel Cards (1:3 packs), 9 Marvels Most Wanted (1:8 packs), 18 Alliances (1:12 packs), 6 Lenticular Flip (1:48 packs), 6 Tri-Fold Poster Cards (1:48 packs), 1 Sketch Card in the sealed number boxes.
The base/common card set illustrations are based on artwork from some Marvel Comics covers. The front of the card has a nice design, but the back it just disappointing. It just has the same illustration of the front with some kind of pencil sketch effect (Figure 1). It only has the name of the card and the comic book cover of the artwork. Also the set miss a checklist card.
Figure 1- Card #1 War Machine vs. Iron Patriot (front and back).
The insert/chase cards illustration (except the Sketch Cards) are based also in Marvel Comics covers artwork. The Parallel cards difference is the silver Marvel logo and not black around the illustration (Figure 2). For my eyes was difficult to see these cards at first. I recommend recheck your cards and focus in the silver Marvel logo.
Figure 2- Common base card #2 Thor vs. Loki and its Parallel card version.
The Marvel Most Wanted Card Set (Figure 3) is printed in metallic foil. The set idea is to show the most dangerous villains, but it confuses to see Deathlok a Hero-Vigilante character surrounded with villains. Also it is making not sense that in this “Most Wanted” you forget somebody like Doctor Doom, Sabretooth, Green Goblin or a Loki for some not interesting villains like Sphinx or M.O.D.O.K. or Viper. The Alliances cards are print in metallic foil and just show some of the Marvel Universe Teams of Heroes or Villains (Figure 4). The Tri-fold poster card (Figure 5) is an interesting idea. The card has a 3 panel artwork that fold in a single card. The Lenticular cards (Figure 6) have a hero and a villain. The Sketch card I found was a Cyclops & White Queen by Arie Monroe (Figure 7).
Figure 3- The Marvel Most Wanted card set.
Figure 4- The Alliances cards A3 Mighty Avengers and A18 Masters of Evil.
Figure 5- The Tri-fold poster card PC4.
Figure 6- Lenticular card L2 Thor & Destroyer.
Figure 7- The Cyclops & White Queen Sketch card by Arie Monroe.
The condition of the cards is a mix. The most common defects are bends near the corners/edges and scratches. I was surprise to see card # (Figure 9) has a line role. At first I believe it was maybe a problem in the case of the first seller I bought the box, but I bought more from other sellers to found the same problem. For the base/common and parallel cards 1/5 of the cards in a box can be found in Very Good or Excellent condition. The Most Wanted and the Alliances cards can be found from Very Good to Near-Mint condition. The Tri-Fold and the Lenticular can be found in Excellent-Mint or Near-Mint condition.
My final thoughts
The cards in general has a good looking for little kids, but for old comic non-sport card fans it miss the feeling. We like to see interesting illustrations, but we like to read about it. The idea of has multiple types of insert/chase cards is good, but Rittenhouse isn’t really adding interest to collect the insert/chase cards with the bad card condition and no new or original artwork unless is a sketch card.
The Good
- Some of the comic cover artwork is amazing.
- Condition of the base/common cards.
The Bad
- Recycle artwork from other card sets.
- No checklist card.
- Condition of the insert/chase cards.
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