Cards & Toy

Along with all of the other characters who appeared during the 1992 Annual “Event” that introduced new heroes and villains, Adam-X got his own card that came with the bagged issue of X-Force Annual #2.

Back in the 1990’s the trading cards were a very popular thing; from sports trading cards, fantasy trading cards, and naturally comic book trading cards. So these annuals from 1992, cashed in on the idea(s) of introducing new characters (heroes/villains) as well as these “collectable cards.” Because the 1992 annuals were bagged (to hold the cards), many people (myself included) bought multiple copies. One to open and read (of course), and one to keep the bag sealed in case any of these characters “struck gold” and became worth something. Sadly, I don’t think any of the characters “struck gold” – some were mildly used after their debut appearances and had impact on larger stories (I believe X-Cutioner and Blood Wraith both had larger stories, but nothing that was of any true, great importance). Darkling, also created by Fabian in New Warriors, carried on to be a part of a larger story in the New Warriors title. Legacy was probably the one to do the best out of this, surfacing from the pages of Silver Surfer. He had his own series for a brief time, and appeared regularly. The next most successful, if counted by appearances, was Adam-X, who made quite a few appearances through the pages of X-Force and X-Men, because Fabian who had created him also had larger plans for him, rather than just make him a “one shot” character.

Adam would appear next in the X-Men 1994 Ultra cards set. The art in the drawing of the card bares a strong resemblance to the X-Treme toy that was released (more about that after the cards). In the X-Men 1994 Ultra card, you can see Adam is holding two solid looking axes. In his comic book appearances, the blades of the axes were thinner (almost like a pick axe). I actually love this piece of art that was done for this card. I am not sure what’s going on with the explosion behind Adam, but it helps bring out the dynamic color of it all (with it being bright red/orange) and Adam’s clothing being darker blue.

When Adam appeared next in the trading cards, it was the 1995 Marvel Fleer Annual cards. This card is essentially a complete copy of Adam’s stance from the cover of X-Force #29. The stance is copied exactly from that issue; the only true difference is how Adam’s face and hair are drawn, and naturally the background. With the previous card resembling the toy, and this one resembling the cover of X-Force #29, I am pretty sure this is because Adam’s not made a lot of appearances; so the first person probably used the X-Treme toy as a reference point for the art, and the person who did this card did almost an exact copy of X-Force #29 for their reference (to the point, where it’s almost insulting that they didn’t even try to put Adam in a unique pose). Don’t get me wrong, I love the art on this card, but if I were the artist, I would have personally taken the opportunity to customize my job, rather than do a complete copy of someone else’s art, almost exactly. (Ok, the background is obviously different too, I suppose).

When Adam appears next on the cards, it’s Marvel 1995 Fleer Ultra. On this card, I commend the artist for putting Adam in a unique position; however, we see Adam is holding a sword that looks like a Katana (which would explain why the artist who drew Adam during the “Dark X-Men” story line had him using a similar sword; probably used this card as a reference point). While I love this card, because it’s Adam in a new pose, I swear you could swap out that sword for a guitar and you’d think the artist used an 80’s hair metal band guitarist for the pose (because Adam’s upper fingers look like they’re ready to shred on a guitar; and make no mistake, 80’s metal is my preference of music!)

That would be the final time Adam appeared in any of the trading cards (or at least that I am aware of, as it seems like trading cards died out in 1996 or 1997). But one more thing I wanted to talk about was the Adam-X action figure.

There was a point that Marvel was producing more figures than you could hope to keep up with. In the same line that Adam-X was released on they also released four versions of Cable (Cable II, Cable III, Cable IV and Cable V). It’s hard to believe that Wolverine wasn’t their cash cow at the time (although they had released multiple versions of Wolverine, as well; just not on the same run of figures at the same time).

This run of figures included a lot of my favorites, such as several members of the Starjammers (Ch’od and Raza), Random, Omega Red, Warpath, Longshot, Sabretooth, and the Brood. What I thought was pretty cool is another 1993 Annual character was in this list; Kylun, who appeared in the 1993 Excalibur Annual. And a nice little throw back to the X-Men: The Animated Series was seeing them release Morph, as he was known and seen in the X-Men animated series.