Presents the Marvel Universe·1961–1993
Inaugural Edition
The premium painted set that raised the bar: thick glossy card stock, full-bleed art, and gold-foil stamping. Click any card to mark it as yours. Your progress saves automatically in this browser.
Presents the Marvel Universe·1961–1993
Inaugural Edition
Flip it over: a Flairprint back carries the UPC, while a binder insert back is completely blank. On the front, both reuse Powerblast art, but a Flairprint keeps the Flair '94 logo and character name while a binder insert has neither and drops the metallic finish.
Oversized Flairprint-style promos sent out through comic distributors ahead of the release.
Double-sided 5″ × 7″ panels. Released versions: front has the Flair logo, Bone Claws, Phoenix, Maximum Carnage. Back has Bodyslide, Spider-Man 2099, Thunderstrike, New Ghost Rider. Title-card text differs across the three released fronts ("Ships June 1994" sticker, foil-etched, and "The Ultimate Collectable"). They came bundled with comic magazines (see Ads & Magazines). The gold-foil etched version is reported as the Wizard #35 insert. The other magazine and variant pairings are unknown.
These came in Fleer's 1994 media press kit: a Wolverine folder holding the uncut sheets, a couple of single cards (Blade and Terrax), and press documents on Marvel letterhead with a history of Marvel and a character timeline. They were preview material, never sold in packs. Which sheets came in which kit isn't documented.
Comic ad appears in Fantastic Four #388. Glossy magazine ad also shows up in Tuff Stuff's Collect! (May).
Comic ad in Fantastic Four Unlimited #6, Amazing Spider-Man #390, and The Punisher #91.
A 4-card sheet comes with Tuff Stuff's Collect!. Released fronts: "Ships June 1994" (sticker or foil) and "The Ultimate Collectable".
Diamond's Omega Red vs. Wolverine Flairprint is handed out at the Annual Retailer Seminar in Baltimore. A second Omega Red Flairprint has no distributor named.
Heroes World's Deadpool Flairprint (Special Sales Conference seal) is handed out at Heroes World Con (nslists). A second Deadpool Flairprint has no distributor seal. 6½″ × 10″, blank back except for a barcode.
Glossy Inaugural Edition ad and the FlairPrints ad run in Tuff Stuff's Collect!; FlairPrints also in Hero Illustrated #13. Magazine ad also in Cards Illustrated #7.
4-card sheets bundled with Wizard #35, Advance Comics #67, and Marvel Age #138.
Comic ad continues in titles like Spectacular Spider-Man #214, X-Men #33, X-Factor #103, Blackwulf #2, Northstar #3, and Excalibur #78.
Glossy Inaugural Edition ad in Collector's Sportslook and Tuff Stuff's Collect! Star Trek.
The ad pages themselves, for collectors who keep the page or the whole issue. Fleer ran a newsprint version in Marvel comics, a glossy magazine version with Powerblast art, and a separate ad for the Flairprints.
Each came with a 4-card uncut promo sheet, which is on the checklist under Promos. Look for copies still sealed with the sheet inside.
Jerry A. Novick’s July 1994 feature, pages 26–28. The scans and a digital transcription open in the viewer.
Issues confirmed from the Grand Comics Database and from period copies with the newsprint "Inaugural Edition" comic ad. Fleer ran it in Marvel's ad pages next to its other 1994 card lines, so more titles from the same months likely carried it too.
Hobby and comics magazines confirmed to run the glossy "Inaugural Edition" magazine ad and/or the "Introducing FlairPrints" ad. These did not necessarily include a 4-card sheet.
Missing #6: numbering error — no card #6 exists. Two #8s instead: Iron Man (the real #6) and Vulture vs. Spider-Man.
Three released fronts share the same card lineup: "Ships June 1994" in white letters etched in gold foil, the same text in black on a gold paste-on sticker, and a third title card that reads "The Ultimate Collectable" instead. Bundled with Wizard #35, Advance Comics #67, Marvel Age #138 (all Jul 1994), and Tuff Stuff's Collect! (Jun 1994).
A separate unreleased sheet (Gambit & Rogue, Infinity Crusade, Maximum Carnage, Bone Claws) turned up on eBay — no text on the front; back fourth bullet says "presents" instead of "present." Its back is also headed "The Ultimate Collectable," which is why that title sometimes gets confused with the released title-card variant.
Two Deadpool Flairprints: one with the Heroes World / Special Sales Conference seal (Heroes World Con 1994, nslists; no published day range), and one without distributor branding. Two Omega Red vs. Wolverine Flairprints: a general promo with no distributor named, and Diamond's Annual Retailer Seminar piece (Baltimore, June 11–14, 1994).
Binder inserts are oversized like Flairprints: Powerblast art without metallic finish, no Flair '94 logo/title, blank backs. Spider-Man binder verified in sealed '95 Fleer Ultra X-Men binders (2–3 per binder); some may also have been issued promotionally. Exact release timing isn't locked down.
Each hobby box held 24 packs of 10 cards. Packs shipped as thick cardboard mini-boxes with character foil art on the front — four cover variants (Venom, Magneto, Cyclops, Wolverine), shrink-wrapped, not a conventional wax wrapper. Powerblast chase landed about 1:2 packs; Flairprints were a case bonus, not in the packs.
Most Flair cards reuse existing comic art, repainted for the set. Each card lists its front title, source, and artist. Only one card still has an unaccounted credit — everything else has a source. Card art and credit research by @exotechktx.
Still unaccounted: #37 Black Cat. In-house sketch sources: #10 Xavier (Ron Lim), #42 Elektra (Frank Miller).
Comic book creativity and computer technology collide to vivid effect in Marvel and Fleer’s latest trading card outing, Flair Marvel 1994. This set, scheduled to hit stores in mid-June, will mark a number of “firsts” for comic book trading cards, not the least of which is the use of a new computer coloring technique that will enhance each piece of artwork provided by Marvel. Furthermore, every card in the 150-card Flair Marvel 1994 set will portray a major milestone in Marvel’s hallowed history.
In the past, comic trading card art has been either fully painted by such noted artists as The Brothers Hildebrandt (like the popular Fleer Ultra X-Men set), or produced as black line art for “blue-line” coloring (like the Spider-Man set), most notably colored by artist Paul Mounts. The Flair cards, however, will be a beast of a wholly different color. Every Flair card will represent a piece of black line art that has been treated via a special computer coloring process by the innovative color studio McGrew Color Graphics.
How Flair came into existence represents a departure from the norm. For previous card sets, the subject matter came first, after which it was determined how the cards would be manufactured and presented. For Flair, however, it was the manufacturing process that drove the subject matter. Bill Jemas, Fleer’s Vice President of Entertainment and Business Development, explained why they started out to make Flair so different from previous Marvel card sets.
“Fleer is about bringing buyers the kind of products they want to collect. It sounds kind of marketing-oriented, but it’s actually a creative process,” he noted. “Each trading card set appeals to a person for different reason: subject matter, artwork, collectibility. The Flair set was designed to appeal to a different, large segment of today’s consumers. A good many people out there are into the crisp, high-tech look of television, especially animated works like X-Men Adventures. Flair is television-like in its artistic approach. The set portrays the richness of the Marvel Universe with a sort of graphic, well flair, that the buyer at large will be excited about.”
Each card in the set will consist of a previously published piece of artwork, be it a cover or an especially dramatic piece of interior art, freshly colored on computer, Jemas noted. This process will thus intertwine creations by artists who work primarily in pencil, pen and ink with the work of a new type of high-tech artist — those who use a computer keyboard to bring color to their creative vision.
This synergistic process was explained by Marvel’s Executive Editor of Special Projects, Bob Budiansky. “We, meaning Marvel Editorial’s Special Projects division, chose previously existing artwork that would present vivid images as uncolored black line art. We then provided these black line pieces — along with color guides to ensure accuracy — to McGrew Color Graphics who then “painted” each piece on computer, adding context-sensitive special effects to the art along the way.”
Richard Quinlan, Vice President of Manufacturing and Production at McGrew, explained McGrew’s end of the process. “Without giving away any trade secrets, I can tell you the short version of how we take Marvel’s black lines and turn them into Fleer’s Flair cards,” Quinlan said. “Primarily, we’ve designed a way to integrate three separate graphics programs and utilize them to color each card to stunning effect. The three programs — Kai Power Tools, Fractal Painter, and Adobe Photoshop — each manipulate the piece of art in their own way, but the key to the process is the care we take to get the most out of each program and have them do their magic on one piece of art. Kai, for instance, specializes in geometrical manipulation. We use it to
give us some of the special effects that will be present on the cards, from the cosmic feel of space scenes to the watery feel of ocean scenes. But how this all fits in with our use of the other programs and techniques, well. . .”
How McGrew treats each individual card and its subject matter is a major concern, he added. “With the special effects we can get from our process, the only limit to what we can achieve artistically is our imagination. We brought together nine top computer artists working in the field today and turned them loose. But everyone in this group not only needed to be a great computer artist, they also needed to have that “comic book” mentality that makes Marvel books so unique. They really needed to be in tune with the material they were working on. Marvel made that easy with the way they presented the artwork and color guides to us. Not only were we coloring art, we were learning the nuances of the characters and action as well.”
Marvel Editor Mariano Nicieza, who is one of the persons overseeing the project for Marvel, was impressed by McGrew’s results. “First of all, we’re witnessing the birth of an art technique we’ve never seen before,” he stated. “With the computers, McGrew’s able to create some visual effects impossible for the human hand to reproduce. They’ve been able to create enhancements that add dimension and depth that hand painting can’t produce, just like painted art achieves certain effects that computers can’t reproduce.”
As mentioned earlier, Flair Marvel 1994 showcases previously published art. This is not to say, however, that this is merely a set of 150 reprints — the new technological enhancements make every illustration “new” again. Still, the question arose of why new art was not created specifically for the set.
Each card set needs a theme, be it “X-Men,” “Masterpieces” or “Spider-Man.” But with all the sets Marvel has done over the years, a dedicated depiction of their illustrious history was still missing, Budiansky noted. Flair Marvel 1994 was designed to fill that void.
“Fleer and Marvel got together and decided to base this particular set on historical events from Marvel’s beginnings straight up to the present day,” Budiansky explained. “The art was chosen specifically because it best portrays key events in the Marvel Universe: classic battles, monumental first meetings, character origins, deaths. . . When you think about it, a lot of significant things have occurred since the first Marvel comic ever appeared, events that impact on the comics we create today.
“We feel that by using this particular coloring process, we’re bringing a fresh look to these events, as if they were happening
now,” Budiansky continued. “We think people will cultivate a new appreciation for this artwork, as well as the importance of each event in the Marvel Universe. The theme of the set is the history of the Marvel Universe, but the emphasis is on the things that can be done with art today.”
When Fleer decided to give special treatment to the Marvel 1994 trading card set, their decision to break new ground didn’t end with McGrew’s coloring process. Instead, they knew that a special manufacturing and packaging process was needed to complete the package. Hence the “Flair” treatment. Savvy card collectors may recall that there was one other Flair set thus far produced by Fleer — the wildly popular Flair Baseball set released last year.
“The term ‘Flair’ doesn’t only apply to the coloring process used on these cards,” John Taddeo, Fleer’s Entertainment Cards marketing manager, pointed out. “‘Flair’ specifically refers to how the cards are manufactured, the paper stock used, the packaging. We pioneered Flair for a special set of baseball cards, and the response to those cards has been absolutely incredible. We expect that the Marvel Flair cards will enjoy similar success.”
What is the “Flair treatment?” Well, it starts with the paper stock, which is much thicker and sturdier than normal trading card stock. This cardboard stock is double UV (ultra-violet) coated with a special plastic on both sides, and the card has foil stamped elements on both sides. Finally, instead of packing the cards in standard foil or wax wrapping, they are packed in re-closable card stock boxes. Each pack will contain ten Flair Marvel 1994 cards and carry a suggested retail price of $4.00 per pack. For persons who buy whole display boxes of the cards, there will be 36-packs per box.
Taddeo was quick to point out, however, that Fleer has added one more bit of value to the Flair Marvel 1994 card set: “For cards this special, we’ve decided to do a limited press run. I expect that, due to its limited nature, and the popularity and demand for our previous Flair set, that this set will disappear quickly.”
Last month, the Marvel Age “Up Front” news section reported that the Fleer Ultra X-Men set shipped to retail outlets via no less than three separate distribution methods, with a multitude of different special card subsets known as “chase cards.” Chase cards are limited edition cards printed in numbers much lower than the main body of the card set and produced with a variety of special effects (such as holograms or metallic foil). For the Flair Marvel 1994, Fleer plans to produce just one 20-card chase set which will be available through all chains of distribution. The nature of the chase set had not yet been finalized at press time.