Marvel Universe (Impel)

Marvel Universe
Impel
1990

I dabbled in cards here and there in the 80's, but never really focused or worried about compiling a full set. I would grab a pack for twenty-five cents when my mom would send us down to the local 7-11, which typically involved Garbage Pail Kids. However, when Impel's Marvel Universe hit comic shops in 1990, something changed. At this point in my life, I was big into comics. Reading, drawing, writing, comics, comics comics. I needed these cards, and I needed a full st.

Pack after pack I bought of these things, and yet for two years, card number ten, Wolverine, eluded me left and right. It wouldn't be until meeting a guy in high school that he would sell me the card I was looking for to complete my collection. Mind you, for me, a collection didn't consist of chase cards. I knew based on the packed ratios I would never get all of those. I didn't necessarily want them anyway.

A complete base set is a whopping one hundred sixty-two cards, including the checklist. That's a whole lot of comic goodness packed in each plastic card pack. Speaking of which, those packs came in three different styles; Captain America, Wolverine and Spider-Man! When picking my packs, I often favored the Spider-Man ones because he was my favorite character at the time

The set was broken down into several sub categories which included, Super Heroes, Super Villains, Rookies, Famous Battles, MVC (Most Valuable Cover), Team Pictures, Spider-Man Presents, the checklist and holofoils. My personal favorites were the basic heroes and villains, which were essentially the heart of the series anyway.

How many of these M.V.C. comics did (do) you have? I had Spider-Man 129 (first appearance of Punisher) and Incredible Hulk 181 (first appearance of Wolverine).

I went ahead and included both sides of the Spider-Man Presents cards in this post. The front of the card is on the top row, and the back on the bottom row.

These holofoil cards were near impossible for me to obtain as a kid because I never opened a full box. It was always a few random packs from this store, then another across town a few weeks later, then perhaps a couple out of state while visiting grandparents. That really cuts your odds down.

To date, this remains one of my all time favorite card sets. It represents a period for me when Marvel Comics was essentially every breath I took as a teenager. It snapshots that moment in time for me, and leaves me with so many great memories.

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