Upper Deck’s DC path

[Marvel Card]

Do you believe they’ll follow a similar path as they did with marvel? Do we see DC retro come out at some point or do we automatically see them do PMGs only for the metal sets, medallions for the fleer ultra sets? Speculation will drive initial prices up, but when the dust settles, does the market see the initial PMGs DCs as the pinnacle of DC UD collecting?

[DynaEtch]

Since UD doesn’t do Retro for marvel anymore, my guess is there won’t be Retro for DC, and PMGs probably will be dispersed into Metal sets, maybe platinum sets (oh man DC Platinum that’ll be nice). Fleer Ultra probably continues the medallions. Seems like that’s their consistent practice now.

Could the first DC PMGs get a premium for value- perhaps due to the newness. It’s rather different than 2013 Marvel Retro PMGs- with those, they were past things by the time PMGs went haywire during Covid, and one of those things people scrambling back to see if they have any etc (in a word…organic demand). Now with PMGs, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak. So it may not be like a 2013 Marvel Retro kind of thing, but im sure it'll still be popular.

Id be interested in the general question of how will DC cards compare to Marvel cards in value. That I dont know. It largely depends how many marvel people stay around for things like epack, brands (Masterpieces, Ultra), and sketches. Sure there will be an influx of of DC fans, but let's be honest the large part of the audience will be marvel UD collectors staying around.

[jdandns]

DC sets have just never been as popular as Marvel sets, no matter who is making them. I'm not sure why, that's just how it's always been, despite both companies boasting a wealth of popular characters. I wouldn't expect the same breadth of new set issues with DC as we've had with Marvel.

Look for a "Universe" set or two, maybe a Batman set to start, with the sales numbers of those dictating what follows. In terms of helping move the needed quantity, the breakers could help with early set success, but that continues only if the singles market for what they pull is at least solid, if not strong like it was with Marvel. I'm hoping we'll see some sets related to the new DC movie universe starting with "Superman: Legacy" due July, 2025.

[DynaEtch]

I do think Marvel has some advantages in the character department. Villains in general goes to Marvel (take Batman’s slew of villains away and what’s left in DC). Marvel has more well-known mid tier characters- ones like Gambit, Psylocke, Cyclops, Thing, Spider Gwen, etc (DC is very top heavy…outside the main ones it’s a bigger drop off). Marvel also has more prominent teams, X-Men, FF, Avengers, now GoTG….particularly X-Men. Back in the 90s especially X-Men was huge. And if you look at comics, Marvel Silver Age has always been ahead of DC, known as the Marvel Age of comics. The DC heroes in that time period were more dated, being from the 40s, while Marvel was new and hip with fresh characters.

Don’t get me wrong I like DC and wish it would get more popular in cards, and maybe this will do it. But people have this thing marvel card thing engrained. It probably goes back to the 90s, which imo was hands down a better era for Marvel cards than DC. Classic marvel masterpieces sets, 1990 MU, better Fleer Ultra sets, etc. X-men being big at the time helped. When I was a kid, it was either baseball cards or marvel cards. DC cards were almost never in the discussion. People were marvel card collectors.

Joe Jusko in the recent FPG book made an interesting comment. During the lead up to his 92MM set being released in Oct, 1992, all the sudden news dropped Skybox was releasing a “Death of Superman Doomsday set”. Seeing how the death of Superman was all the rage at the time, he feared his 92MM set would be completely overshadowed. It turned out to be the exact opposite: everyone was talking about 92MM and the Death of Superman set was barely noticed. The power of marvel cards I guess…and also the superior quality of the 92MM set.

[mjohnatgt]

Agreed; DC suffers from a more limited pop culture interest, and had some UGLY card sets in the 90s. I will save tons of money not buying ePack in the next couple of years.

[jdandns]

The Death of Superman cards were actually massively popular, a real outlier for DC cards in the 90s, but the comic event hype was through the roof and everywhere which certainly helped sell the cards. Those are some of the only DC sealed hobby boxes that cost more than retail to purchase after their release, although eventually even the price of those came down. But virtually every other DC set of the 90's went on clearance, many on deep discounts for an extended period.

With that in mind, Joe had nothing to worry about. 92MM likewise sold for over retail right out of the gate. As I recall, it was the first non-sports card set where numerous singles were individually priced at something of a premium, like with stars and rookies in sports sets. The base Wolverine was $3 to start, and Spidey around $2, as I remember. Back then, base cards in a non-sport set were usually a dime, maybe a quarter for a better characters/images.

[Archangel1775]

Depends on how the DCU is utilized. Do they make the previous DCU iteration or move towards the new DCU. But bringing that balance like Upper Deck did was important. That MCU Black Diamond set is an All-Time Great.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by jdandns

The Death of Superman cards were actually massively popular, a real outlier for DC cards in the 90s, but the comic event hype was through the roof and everywhere which certainly helped sell the cards. Those are some of the only DC sealed hobby boxes that cost more than retail to purchase after their release, although eventually even the price of those came down. But virtually every other DC set of the 90's went on clearance, many on deep discounts for an extended period.

With that in mind, Joe had nothing to worry about. 92MM likewise sold for over retail right out of the gate. As I recall, it was the first non-sports card set where numerous singles were individually priced at something of a premium, like with stars and rookies in sports sets. The base Wolverine was $3 to start, and Spidey around $2, as I remember. Back then, base cards in a non-sport set were usually a dime, maybe a quarter for a better characters/images.

Jusko devoted a few paragraphs in the FPG to it, and his account was that he heard very little talk of the Skybox Death of Superman set which released right after his 92MM set. While 92MM was topping basically every nonsports card chart like in Diamond Previews etc. He attributed it to redundancy and overkill (death of Superman already played out….to death). I think it’s also because the difference in quality of the sets, plus the marvel/DC discrepancy.

My anecdotal collecting experience pretty much aligns with that, as I don’t think I was even aware of the Superman Doomsday set back in 1992 as a kid collecting, while I was blown away by the 92MM set at the time. But maybe I just wasn’t in tune with DC stuff, I dunno.

The current market price of these boxes pretty much says it all.

1992 Skybox DC Superman Doomsday box: $30.
1992 Skybox Marvel Masterpieces box: $400-450.

Now the print run of the former was likely larger, but still the discrepancy is huge.

[jdandns]

It's exciting times for DC card collectors, for sure.
Whatever their popularity, I've enjoyed collecting and keeping most of the DC sets (from late 70's Superman: The Movie through 2008's Batman Archives) in my collection.

There are plenty of excellent Superman and Batman movie sets, but the top 5 DC comics sets for me are (all 90's Skybox, no surprise):

DC Villains
DC Powerchrome
Batman Master Series
Batman Holoseries
Kingdom Come Xtra

[DynaEtch]

I too welcome the new DC era…particularly interested in the Masterpieces sets and my wish for the stars kinda thing is for an all-Jusko DC Masterpieces set. Unlikely but you never know.

I have a feeling many people already involved in marvel epack will stick around for DC, although as mentioned the collecting bases differ dramatically in size. I for one am very curious to see what Upper Deck can do, and more interested in this line than whatever Topps is going to do with Marvel, tbh.

[dd316]

If they come out swinging with a Masterpieces-style set I think it'll be big. If they do anything else, you bet there will be PMGs in it.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Jusko devoted a few paragraphs in the FPG to it, and his account was that he heard very little talk of the Skybox Death of Superman set which released right after his 92MM set. While 92MM was topping basically every nonsports card chart like in Diamond Previews etc. He attributed it to redundancy and overkill (death of Superman already played out….to death). I think it’s also because the difference in quality of the sets, plus the marvel/DC discrepancy.

My anecdotal collecting experience pretty much aligns with that, as I don’t think I was even aware of the Superman Doomsday set back in 1992 as a kid collecting, while I was blown away by the 92MM set at the time. But maybe I just wasn’t in tune with DC stuff, I dunno.

The current market price of these boxes pretty much says it all.

1992 Skybox DC Superman Doomsday box: $30.
1992 Skybox Marvel Masterpieces box: $400-450.

Now the print run of the former was likely larger, but still the discrepancy is huge.

I actually remember seeing Death of Superman cards several times as a kid in the 90s. I didn't read the complete story until years later, but I knew a lot of what happened from the cards. I remember seeing packs of them for sale at comic/card shops. Some kids at school had them in binders.

They of course don't hold a candle to MM 92 due to containing republished artwork.

[fabiani12333]

Batman's villains are more noteworthy than any other character's villains. The Joker trumps any other comic book villain, period.

The new Penguin show on HBO/MAX is popular. Catwoman has always been iconic. Who could forget Two Face? The Riddler? Come on -- no offense to the Green Goblin or Thanos, but Batman has historically had the best villains.

[Angus Con]

DC is far more dark/gritty as well, which is definitely a big influence on their comparative popularity imo. That's why I enjoy it more to be honest. I don't enjoy the watered down, PG stuff and never have. Disney has made it that much worse for me.

I'm ready for DC to get treated better. Cryptozoic is incapable of doing DC justice given their limited resources at this point. Having a reasonably large card manufacturer on DC will at least provide some new data points.

That said about Cryptozoic, I am very curious to see what the Dark Nights Metal set they have coming out looks like and how it does before UD does anything. That was a pretty strong storyline and the Batman Who Laughs is pretty interesting character.

And lastly, I think if you look at the more recent DCU stuff, there's a lot of awesomeness there. James Gunn's Suicide Squad, the Peacemaker series, Matt Reeves' Batman and now the Penguin series have all been very strong additions to the DCU (finally as I did not enjoy anything Zack Snyder did).

[glorbgorb]

I would be very surprised if we don't see the same families of DC sets that Marvel had. That means there will be Metal sets, Allure, Black Diamond, Ultra, Annual, and the rest. That is to say, they will continue to adapt tried-and-true hockey designs to DC.

If my interest in Marvel were a 10, my interest in DC is maybe 3 or 4. It will depend on how the cards look, but I think they will look just like every other Marvel/hockey set we have seen already.

The interesting question at this point is tv shows. Obviously we had several for Marvel, but will we eventually see Penguin? Or the classic Batman series? Will we see a revitalized/rebooted Smallville? Flash? Arrow? Watchmen? There are many shows that made it past 100 episodes, meaning there was a following.

Even cooler, what about the imprints? Will we see Preacher, Lucifer, Y: The Last Man, or even The Boys?

I realize some of these are probably blocked because of licensing rights (and let's be honest, there is no way we would see a UD The Boys set!). But there is a lot of potential.

EDIT: It all makes me see a point in the future where DC cards become more popular, and Fanatics nabs them, too...

[hermanotarjeta]

Realistically, who could upper deck get for actor autographs?

[glorbgorb]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Realistically, who could upper deck get for actor autographs?

Look at people who have signed in the past, regardless of the manufacturer. Gadot, Affleck, Cavill, even Arnold, Momoa, Pattinson, Cillian Murphy, Durance, Routh, Holmes, Basinger, Neeson. I mean, if they've signed once who says they won't sign again.

[dd316]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

Realistically, who could upper deck get for actor autographs?

If they can land the caliber they did for Marvel, the sky's the limit!

[Marvel Card]

My feeling is that the fact UD will continue on with inserts such as the jambalayas, PMGs, BSGs, Medallions, etc… means it’ll help retain the value on the marvel side. People need to be constantly exposed to certain inserts in order to appreciate/value them. If UD continued on the same path with marvel I think it would’ve been a recipe for an aftermarket disaster but because there’s a divide with marvel and dc, I do think this separation will held inserts hold their value.

[IndySportsCards]

I'm a bigger fan of DC than Marvel. Have always loved DC books better. I don't hate Marvel though, but prefer DC.

[Xiarmadillo]

They certainly have ALOT of opportunity for a metal set....no pun intended.....Make some dark heavy metal subsets, have characters from the dark night: metal events...etc etc
One set I would look forward to and hope UD make some effort in the card designs....

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by Marvel Card

Do you believe they’ll follow a similar path as they did with marvel? Do we see DC retro come out at some point or do we automatically see them do PMGs only for the metal sets, medallions for the fleer ultra sets? Speculation will drive initial prices up, but when the dust settles, does the market see the initial PMGs DCs as the pinnacle of DC UD collecting?

Someone linked to a Forbes article in the DC Blowout thread (https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1589996) when the news of UD getting the DC license was first announced earlier this year and it appears their initial focus will be comics related sets. Basically every iconic UD insert is mentioned so looks like UD won’t be missing out on utilizing their bread and butter to full effect.

Incidentally, the first “metal” DC cards will be achievements (believed to be 6 cards total) tied to the Weekly Batman set (Catwoman and Batman metal cards are shown in the ePack news article).

EDIT: here’s a link to the ePack news article with pics of cards from the Batman Weekly set dropping later Thursday (later today on East Coast as I type this)… https://www.upperdeckepack.com/News/...s_Coming_Soon_