May 12, 2016

METAMORPHO TRADING CARDS (PART 7)

After 2003, DC left aside the business of traditional trading cards to concentrate in the business of Customizable Card Games (CCG) also known as Trading Card Games (TCG). Another market that drained DC energies was the Heroclix figures so just a few sets were produced between 2003 and 2006 but only with high profile characters.  

In 2007 there was a revival in the interest for more varied trading card sets and the company Rittenhouse produced three sets between 2007 and 2009. This was the beginning of what I call "the age of sketches" since the concept of "chase cards" went a step forward with the incentive of unique pieces of art to be randomly inserted in one of the packs inside a box.


This changed totally the way how people approached to trading cards bringing a revival in the interest for these collectibles specially for the chance to find an original piece of art labeled as "1 of 1" meaning that no one else in the world had a card like yours. The odds favored you if you found a high profile character such as Batman or Superman, then your card would be really valuable, commanding even more than you paid for the whole box of cards.

None of the three basic sets or regular chase cards produced by Rittenhouse featured Metamorpho. However he has an appearance on the "Justice League of America Archives", a 72-card set covering the history of the team issue by issue starting from its first appearance on Brave and the Bold #28.

The cards are very simple and only provide a front with some art from the issue in question and a reproduction of the cover only telling the date of publication and no further text. Card #44 is for issue #42, the classic "Metamorpho says...no!" story, the first meeting between the league and Metamorpho and although Rex Mason's appearance is utterly circunstancial, still it is a trading card depicting the character and a must have for any Metamorpho completionist.

And finally I want to end this journey through time and history with the latest owner of the rights to create DC comics cards: Cryptozoic Entertainment. They have also dabble in the market of tabletop games using DC properties. All the sets they have produced date from 2012 hitherto so all their cards are set into the New 52 universe in which Metamorpho had not made an official appearance in any book until the moment Cryptozoic latest set was released.

Nevertheless, only in one of their sets Metamorpho appears partially but not for his own merits but as a founder member of The Outsiders, on card #36 of the set "DC Comics Batman: The Legend". 

The Outsiders were founded by Batman and have worked several times along him, they are considered allies and hence they won a spot on the relatively small set (only 63 cards).

Since this set features Metamorpho as one ally, there must be several Metamorpho sketch cards and although sketch cards are really random most of them are based on what we see on the basic set. Till today I have seen two Metamorpho sketch cards produced for this collection, a cartoonish one and another along other members of The Outsiders. I am pretty sure there are many other sketch cards lying on personal collections or still packed inside boxes that have not been sold. 

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