Marvel Universe Cards were collectible trading cards based on the characters and events of the Marvel Universe. A collectible (or collectable) is typically a manufactured item designed for people to collect. ... A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card which is intended for trading and collecting. ... This article is about the shared universe setting used by many Marvel Comics titles. ...

The first series was published by Impel in 1990. The cards featured categories such as Super Heroes, Super Villains, Rookies, Famous Battles, and Team Pictures. The concept spawned several more series and imitations such as DC Cosmic Cards. DC Cosmic cards is a card set made by Skybox in the year 1992-93. ...

Series I - 1990

Each card in the 1990 series features a character or event on the front of the card, and a number of statistics (such as Real Name, Battles Fought, First Appearance, etc) and a short biography on the back.

This series offered several things that future series would not include. Such features were the "Spider-Man Presents:" cards. In these cards, Spider-Man would conduct a humorous interview with other characters in the Marvel Universe such as Doctor Doom, Doctor Octopus, The Hulk, Silver Surfer, Thor, the Punisher, Magneto, Captain America, Dr. Strange, Iron Man, Wolverine and of course himself.

This is also the only of the mainstreams series that offered nicknames, win/loss records and a trading card of Stan Lee.

Other categories in the series included Super Heroes, Super Villains, Rookies, Famous Battle, Most Valuable Comics and Team Pictures.

In Series I, unique to the following series, Characters could have multiple cards in the same category. For example, Spider-man has three cards under the Super Hero category. Once card for each the Cosmic Spider-Man, Symbiote Costume and the Classic Spider-Man.

Series II - 1991

The following year, Marvel followed up with Series II. Once again there were 167 cards in total of this set, including five Holograms. This year's Holograms were: Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, the Punisher, Fantastic Four vs. Mole Man and The Hulk.

In this series, win/loss records were removed in favor of having Power Ratings. Each attribute, such as Speed, Stamina, Intelligence, Strength, Agility and Durability was rated for each character on a scale of 1 through 7. Series II also included three trading cards explaining what each rating meant. Later, these explanation were simply printed on the inside of the wrapper that the cards came in.

The Famous Battle category was now renamed Arch-Enemies, to highlight particular rivalries as opposed to single confrontations. Spider-Man Presents was also removed. Instead, two new categories were introduced, but would not appear again in the future. These one time only categories were Legends and Weapons. Legends paid tribute to characters that have died such as Kraven the Hunter or Bucky. Weapons gave a statistical look at weaponry such as Spider-Man's Web Shooters, Wolverine's Claws, Daredevils Billy Club and the Ultimate Nullifier.

Series III - 1992

This year, there would be 205 trading cards including the traditional five Holograms. This year those most desirable cards would include The Hulk, Thing, Wolverine, Venom and Ghost Rider. All of which were now tinted a different color, like Wolverine in blue or Hulk in green.

This series changed things up a bit by several departures from the norm. Instead of having the "Did You Know?" fun fact on the back of each card, like series I and II both did, Series III had a quote from each character.

Several new Categories were also introduced. Team-ups (cards displaying interesting pairings of two particular characters), Cosmic Being ( Cards showcasing characters that hail from outer space.), the Origins card category that focused on specific character origins, and Milestones, which emphasized events in the Marvel Universe.

Series IV - 1993

This set featured 179 base cards plus the checklist. It also had a 9 card red foil chase set featuring characters from the Marvel 2099 comics. It also had one very rare hologram featuring a Spider-Man vs Venom battle. This set was noteworthy because 135 of the 180 base set cards were portions of larger 9 card pictures. Thus, when the cards were put into standard 9 card sheets, the cards formed a large, contiguous, image. There were also 9 cards of "Unsolved Mysteries" such as Wolverine's origin or the identity of the 6th member of the Infinity Watch. The remaining cards featured famous battles of heroes vs villians and also heroes vs heroes. Marvel 2099 is a Marvel Comics imprint, begun in 1993, that explores one possible future of the Marvel Universe. ...

Series V - 1994

This set continued the tradition set by Series IV in that it had some larger 9 card artwork panels. However, these focused on specific comic book crossovers such as Fatal Attractions and Maximum Carnage. The backs of the cards summarized the progression of the plot of the crossover, sometimes relative to the character on the front of the card, sometimes not. However, only 81 of the base set cards were of this style. The majority of the cards were simply an alphabetic organization of heroes and villians (including Marvel 2099 cards, who played a more prominent role here). Xavier mindwipes Magneto. ... Maximum Carnage is a fourteen-part crossover storyline printed in Marvels Spider-Man family of titles in 1993, featuring Spider-Man and Venom again teaming up to face Venoms murderous child. This arc was collected as a trade paperback in September 1994 (ISBN 0-7851-0038-5), and...

For chase cards, this set had 4 holograms, 10 "suspended animation" cards (characters printed on clear plastic cards), and 9 "power blast" cards (foil/holofoil). The power blast cards came in 3 variants, having gold, silver, or bronze backgrounds, depending on where the cards were purchased.

External Links

Complete scans of Marvel Universe Series 1 at Marvel.com
Complete scans of Marvel Universe Series 2 at Marvel.com
Complete scans of Marvel Universe Series 3 at Marvel.com