The curious case of the 1992 Marvel Universe Jusko card

[DynaEtch]

I always wondered why the 1992 Marvel Universe #197 card “Death of Gwen Stacy” has what is obviously a Joe Jusko signature at the bottom




The actual artwork appears to be John Romita Sr, and has the sig by him. You can also find signed examples by Romita on eBay

https://www.ebay.com/itm/15499628756...oAAOSwj75igcNz

I don’t see other examples of 1992 Marvel Universe cards with an artist sig on the outer border like that, the artist sigs are within the artwork. I understand that 1992 Universe cards have a background that is connected on an uncut sheet, so thought maybe it’s something to do with the card below….but it’s on the very bottom row of the sheet, which I saw from an earlier (and very cool) post by jdandns.

Originally Posted by jdandns

That was a master class in creating a larger image but having each card work on its own. Mark Bagley's compositions for the '94 Ultra Spidey are legendary. No less than Sergio Aragones and Jim Lee also did this for cards around the same time, and it's a great effect, taking full advantage of the 9 pocket album page design. 1990 to 1996 was an incredible era for original trading card art.

Oddly, MU Series 3 (1992) had a specially commissioned painted background for the character cards. To display the full effect without having to physically line the cards up in rows, Marvel issued them as a pair of 22x34 posters in their ongoing monthly line of Marvel Press Posters (available at comic stores or through subscription service by mail in those days).

So what is going on here, why is Jusko’s signature on this card?

[jdandns]

Great catch! I've never noticed that before. I may be mistaken, but I think the checklist card credits Jusko for the background interstellar painting, and it just so happens the Death of Gwen card ended up situated near Joe's signature on the larger work.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by jdandns

Great catch! I've never noticed that before. I may be mistaken, but I think the checklist card credits Jusko for the background interstellar painting, and it just so happens the Death of Gwen card ended up situated near Joe's signature on the larger work.

Ahhhh….curious no longer! You are right, just checked it.



It’s funny, I never in 30 years bothered to look closely at this checklist to notice. It never would have occurred to me Jusko painted the space background. Interesting!

[jdandns]

The set's value has just quadrupled, haha...

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by jdandns

The set's value has just quadrupled, haha...

Haha, if only there werent 10,000,000,000 sets made...

[fabiani12333]

I had this set as a kid. The Jusko background art was a big plus -- gave the set a colorful look.

Side note: Carnage's rookie card in this set, but did you notice that his colors are inverted? His black coloring is where his red coloring should be.

[mjohnatgt]

Not sure how well known it is, but COMC shows an error and corrected for that card #. Last word in the text is usually missing.

[humpdz]

Amazes me that even the hardest of collectors in this hobby are still learning about it. Love it!

[DynaEtch]

Absolutely. This forum really is a fountain of information, always learning new things!

Originally Posted by mjohnatgt

Not sure how well known it is, but COMC shows an error and corrected for that card #. Last word in the text is usually missing.

Very interesting. I was aware of the white border checklist #200 variant, but had no clue #197 had a variant. From the looks of it "later" is the rare one with only 2 on comc vs 24 with "hours". Similar on ebay. I checked the one that's in my set and its actually the "later" one, never would have known.

I wonder if it was in the same round of production (same boxes) as the white border checklist, since they both seem to be rarer variants- total speculation here though! I noticed that if you are lucky enough to get a white border checklist in a box (rare), then all the checklists in that box will be white border. If I ever have that happen again I'll try to pay attention to the #197s pulled.

Originally Posted by fabiani12333

I had this set as a kid. The Jusko background art was a big plus -- gave the set a colorful look.

Side note: Carnage's rookie card in this set, but did you notice that his colors are inverted? His black coloring is where his red coloring should be.

Agreed, cool space background and the colorful holos too, up there in the most classic 90s Marvel sets for me.

The Carnage is odd, he does look a bit off-color. Looking at it more closely, he kind of looks like he's in shadow? Maybe that's where the dark is coming from. Hard to tell. Edit: I think Im wrong here, it's just a strange color scheme of his head/chest/hands dark for some reason.






The Venom original art was auctioned on comiclink last summer, but unfortunately went for a lot more than I was looking to pay.


https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?id=1502570


It's a pretty cool looking card by Erik Larsen (of Venom tongue fame), and this kind of shows how these 1992 Marvel Universe cards were made, with the drawing and coloration vs painting. The cards have original art on the front as well as a portrait on the back (well most do), which is different than many releases that either just rehash the front art on the back, or use a comic cover on the back. This is probably one of the nicer ones in the set imo.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

The Venom original art was auctioned on comiclink last summer, but unfortunately went for a lot more than I was looking to pay.


https://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?id=1502570


It's a pretty cool looking card by Erik Larsen (of Venom tongue fame), and this kind of shows how these 1992 Marvel Universe cards were made, with the drawing and coloration vs painting. The cards have original art on the front as well as a portrait on the back (well most do), which is different than many releases that either just rehash the front art on the back, or use a comic cover on the back. This is probably one of the nicer ones in the set imo.

I loved that card as a kid -- I own a PSA 10 of it.

I might have bid on that auction if I had know about it at the time. The comments in the auction are informative and interesting. Larsen basically took Venom and exaggerated his physical features and made him more monsterish -- bigger muscles, a bigger mouth, a long reptilian tongue, added slime etc.

[Rictor]

I bet that artwork would go for 3-4 times that price now, just a year later. Of course, who knows how long these inflated prices for everything Marvel trading card-related will last?