This final batch was published to promote the DC firepower cards, and a set of cards featuring depictions of Marvel Superheroes by the Hildebrandt brothers, grandly called “Marvel Masterpieces”.
In the mid-1990, when trading cards were a vital part of the comics retail business, promotional sheets for new card sets were quite common in magalogs like Previews. These sheets were typically printed on the same cardstock as the actual cards, and featured the same special features (foil printing, embossing, etc.)
The sheets presented here were for several Fleer Ultra sets, dating from 1994 and 1995. I’m presenting these sheets here because they are quite cool, in my opinion, even though I’ve moved beyond them. They are for sale, by the way.
In 1997 Marvel Comics was bankrupt, which prompted Highwater Books to release a benefit issue of their antology Goober Skeber, with alternative and small press cartoonists doing strips featuring Marvel heroes. A sort of Bizarro Comics avant la lettre. Even Wired wrote about it at the time.
Seth did the cover, which only makes you dream how an actual X-men comic by him would have looked…
