The 2023 Marvel and Star Wars Glut Thread

[finfangfan]

What a difference a year (or two) makes!

We’ve gone from the meteoric rise of our humble nonsports hobby during COVID to what seems to be an endless glut of uninspired Marvel and Star Wars releases that largely seem to tank (with a few exceptions).

I am largely a Marvel collector but so far the 2023 sets seem to be either overpriced (MM) or just plain “what were they thinking” (Marvel Allegiance and What If).

On the Star Wars side, Fanatics is pumping SW sets out almost weekly (check out the general negative collector vibe in the 2023 Star Wars Finest thread) and the big name autos seem to be harder and harder to pull.

Where does the nonsports hobby go from here? Is the goal of UD and Fanatics to smother out the traditional hobby stores and move everything direct to consumer and direct to breaker sales?

As others have said, we might be getting some pretty cool Black Friday deals in a year or two, but for now the 2023 glut seems to be putting off a lot of collectors from the nonsports hobby.

[Brobocop]

It's tapped me out of opening wax. Even thinking of going to the LCS makes me ill. Only wax I've opened this year has been Magic The Gathering because some of those sets have had some amazing art. Just horrible.

Only companies I'd buy from would probably be Rittenhouse and Cryptozoic. They get on-card autographs and have some simple yet eye catching designs.

[oldgoldy97]

I’m actually waiting for What If? to bottom out for a cheap rip.

[DynaEtch]

Yea it's pretty ridiculous in Marvel. Sell sheets for 2023 Marvel Flair just popped up recently, dont think there is a thread for it yet. So we have what, 2 Fleer Ultras (Midnight Suns, Wolverine), Platinum, Flair, Avengers Metal, and that Fleer Throwback set on the horizon, at least. Of course *maybe* UD just delays and takes forever to release them and it'll be well into 2024 before they do, so there's that.

I dont think the market can keep up with it, it's spread too thin. Probably should have kept it to like FUA, Beginnings, MM, and like Premier for this year. I dont think the Avengers vs X-men Allegiance set was necessary at all, it's a cheaper looking rehashed art set.

For character collectors, this is great. You dont need to pick up much from each set, just cherry pick your character and their parallels, and you have big ol variety from all the glut of sets out there now. For set collectors, this is not great, since people are spread too thin between the various sets (and each set alone is basically impossible to master set collect due to the huge size of insert and parallel sets). Hard to put so much money into all these sets at once.

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I dont think the Avengers vs X-men Allegiance set was necessary at all, it's a cheaper looking rehashed art set.

I agree… Marvel Allegiance X-Men/Avengers is probably the dumbest of all the sets UD has pooped out during the 2023 Marvel Card Glut.

And what’s even more ridiculous is that UD is even already advertising ANOTHER Marvel Allegiance set for the Infinity Saga….

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/...ding-cards/amp

I can’t see the market being too strong for the Allegiance sets until boxes drop to old Kree/Skrull War levels (wishful thinking, I know).

There has to be something else going on to explain UD pumping out so many random Marvel sets. Are they losing the Marvel license soon and this is their way to “cash out” before Fanatics starts pumping out Marvel sets? Or do they keep the Marvel license for years to come and they feel this is their only way to compete now that Fanatics has so many of the card market licensing deals locked up?

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

And what’s even more ridiculous is that UD is even already advertising ANOTHER Marvel Allegiance set for the Infinity Saga….

https://www.cardboardconnection.com/...ding-cards/amp

Man it never ends. I guess Allegiance is another *brand* now, next to stuff like Fleer Ultra, Masterpieces, Metal, Flair, and Premier, where they can keep releasing sets for.

There has to be something else going on to explain UD pumping out so many random Marvel sets. Are they losing the Marvel license soon and this is their way to “cash out” before Fanatics starts pumping out Marvel sets? Or do they keep the Marvel license for years to come and they feel this is their only way to compete now that Fanatics has so many of the card market licensing deals locked up?

Some interesting questions. Part of me still thinks maybe it's just because UD noticed the huge interest in Marvel cards during the pandemic, and this ramping up of sets is just a lagged response to that. I also think having a bunch of Marvel sets out keeps epack busy and going (let's be honest, how much of epack is just Hockey and Marvel- probably a huge percent).

But I wont count out any of the stuff you are you saying....nothing would surprise me at this point, and it could possibly be related to Fanatics. All I have to say is, wherever the Marvel license ends up being, I sure hope the Fleer/Skybox rights stays with it, so we can continue seeing Marvel Masterpieces sets.

[PurplesaurusRex]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

There has to be something else going on to explain UD pumping out so many random Marvel sets. Are they losing the Marvel license soon and this is their way to “cash out” before Fanatics starts pumping out Marvel sets? Or do they keep the Marvel license for years to come and they feel this is their only way to compete now that Fanatics has so many of the card market licensing deals locked up?

Funny you mentioned that. I was having some similar thoughts about them losing the license.

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

All I have to say is, wherever the Marvel license ends up being, I sure hope the Fleer/Skybox rights stays with it, so we can continue seeing Marvel Masterpieces sets.

Would those stay with UD or are they owned by Marvel?

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by PurplesaurusRex

Would those stay with UD or are they owned by Marvel?

UD owns the Fleer rights, so would stay with them Im pretty sure. They produce things like PMGs and other Fleer/skybox inserts for their other genres like Hockey, and that has nothing to do with Marvel.

Masterpieces is an interesting thing in that I dont know exactly how much of it falls under the brand. Like could another company with the marvel rights release a premium painted art type set....sure. Could it be called Masterpieces? I guess not, but Im not sure how exactly that works, the term Masterpieces is sort of a generic word. Edit: I guess it’s possible the term ‘Marvel Masterpieces’ could be a copyright under that Fleer/Skybox brand umbrella. Could a company with marvel rights release an all painted set called something like ‘Marvel Masterful’ or something…I would think. Someone who knows copyright law well could give a better answer.

[DynaEtch]

Perhaps it would be wise to take some lessons from history- specifically talking about the mid 90s collapse of marvel cards.

In 1995, it was not a dissimilar situation to this. The year was flooded with marvel sets including Fleer Ultra X-men, Flair Annual, Marvel Metal, Fleer Ultra Spider-man, Fleer Ultra X-men Chromium, and Marvel Masterpieces. Maybe....just maybe that hastened the fall of marvel cards because it just became too much (as awesome as every one of those sets was, looking back at it now). Shortly after this, in 1996 there was a huge drop off, and then after 1997/1998, nothing at all.

Of course there were some major other factors at play, including the bankruptcy of Marvel and decline of trading cards generally in the mid to late 90s after the strike in baseball. But something to think about, surely the large number of sets made it hard for all the set collectors to keep up with, so they lost interest.

UD seems to be very much catering to the character collectors these days, rather than set collectors. If you are a set collector, god-forbid a master set collector, and go all out on one of the 8+ sets UD puts out in a year.....it's not likely you'll have much effort/money left over for much of the others. That is the situation I find myself in....devoting everything to MM is giving me little chance to really get into a set like FUA or Beginnings even if I wanted to. It certainly seems like they are trying to turn off set collectors these days, just with those 30-50 card insert sets alone. I miss the 90s era.

[PurplesaurusRex]

I haven't picked up any hobby boxes since last year. If I would've waited, I could have gotten my boxes cheaper. I purchased some blasters for Fleer Ultra Avengers and Marvel Beginnings this year but that's about it.

[finfangfan]

Originally Posted by PurplesaurusRex

Would those stay with UD or are they owned by Marvel?

I was also wondering if the “Marvel Masterpieces” label is portable if another company ever gets the Marvel card license. Marvel did own the card companies back in the 90’s so I would lean toward Marvel kept the trademark to “Marvel Masterpieces” after it sold the card companies.

I guess we will find out when the Hildebrandt Marvel Masterpieces comic covers hit soon. Will be interesting to see if 1) the Marvel Masterpieces logo is on the cover and 2) Upper Deck is mentioned anywhere in the legalese.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by finfangfan

I was also wondering if the “Marvel Masterpieces” label is portable if another company ever gets the Marvel card license. Marvel did own the card companies back in the 90’s so I would lean toward Marvel kept the trademark to “Marvel Masterpieces” after it sold the card companies.

I guess we will find out when the Hildebrandt Marvel Masterpieces comic covers hit soon. Will be interesting to see if 1) the Marvel Masterpieces logo is on the cover and 2) Upper Deck is mentioned anywhere in the legalese.

Yea it's an interesting question. We do have the Jusko Masterpieces variant comics from 2 years ago to go off of. They do list the text 'Marvel Masterpieces Variant Edition' on the cover. No MM logo or anything, just those words. No mention of UD that I see. Maybe they can get away with it since it's just using the text. Surprisingly, someone posted a recent canvas wall art of Jusko's 92MM Spidey vs Venom from Hobby Lobby, that actually did have the MM logo on it.....so that's an interesting data point. (Im still looking for that canvas wall art, couldnt find one at my Hobby Lobby, d'oh).

But yea as to whether a different company upon acquiring the Marvel License and how far they could go towards a MM-like set, I dunno.

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Man it never ends. I guess Allegiance is another *brand* now, next to stuff like Fleer Ultra, Masterpieces, Metal, Flair, and Premier, where they can keep releasing sets for.



Some interesting questions. Part of me still thinks maybe it's just because UD noticed the huge interest in Marvel cards during the pandemic, and this ramping up of sets is just a lagged response to that. I also think having a bunch of Marvel sets out keeps epack busy and going (let's be honest, how much of epack is just Hockey and Marvel- probably a huge percent).

But I wont count out any of the stuff you are you saying....nothing would surprise me at this point, and it could possibly be related to Fanatics. All I have to say is, wherever the Marvel license ends up being, I sure hope the Fleer/Skybox rights stays with it, so we can continue seeing Marvel Masterpieces sets.

Star Wars sets are being released at a higher rate as well. It seems like both UD and Topps are trying to meet 2023 Disney quotas.

[glorbgorb]

As a character collector only these days, I've been able to sit by and watch others lose their money. It's bittersweet to say the least. I assume one of both of my characters will be in one of the other Beginnings releases, but time will tell. (I've seen sketchcard blanks for Series 2 already, so I assume that will at least come out).

And yes, with all the releases in the last, what, 18-months, it's a lot of watching.

For the MCU side, most of those sets are uninspired. I don't care about manufactured "hits." Maybe Owen Wilson from Loki 2 is something I may pick up eventually, but nothing about any of the recent movie- or tv-themed releases has excited me in the least.

I'm glad we have a PMG break. Some may think it will bring people back. I think those pumpers have moved on. Or at least I hope they have. Will they come back for PMGs again? Who knows. I'm also not a fan of reusing designs across sets. Would What If... have been appealing without the Jambalaya and Black Diamond designs? UD sees it as creating recognition across brands, I see it as lazy.

And a lack of checklist for the Finding Unicorn sets--Infinity War and GotG so far-- is quite off-putting.

For Star Wars, I (used to) collect Billy Dee autos. After all the Chrome sets being released, I just lost interest altogether in SW. It started with the 1977 Shiny Sapphire Reprint Set (whatever the official name was). Ever since, I just don't care about SW cards. And that hurts after a pretty decent Lando collection! The fact that people think a /50 card from one set is so much higher in value than the same card from the next set that is also /50 is just too much now. I think it all started going downhill with the "sale" of the Kurosawa 1/1.

[glorbgorb]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

Yea it's pretty ridiculous in Marvel. Sell sheets for 2023 Marvel Flair just popped up recently, dont think there is a thread for it yet. So we have what, 2 Fleer Ultras (Midnight Suns, Wolverine), Platinum, Flair, Avengers Metal, and that Fleer Throwback set on the horizon, at least.

...

I dont think the Avengers vs X-men Allegiance set was necessary at all, it's a cheaper looking rehashed art set.

And Anime 2 just came out.

Then there are two Finding Unicorn sets released overseas. And I have seen blanks or mention of:

2022 Women of Marvel
2022-23 Marvel Annual
2021 Marvel Beginnings Vol 2 Series 2
2023 Marvel Avengers (not sure if this is the Metal set or another altogether)
Spider-Man No Way Home
Moon Knight
2023 Marvel Allegiance: The Infinity Trilogy
2022 Marvel Spider-Man

EDIT: Geez, who could forget about 2023 Marvel Hawkeye! Did this come out a couple of days ago like scheduled? No clue.

[Marvel Card]

Any word or info on the 2022 marvel Spider-Man set? I saw sketch cards go up and the branding confuses me because it’s literally just marvel Spiderman. Cant tell if it’s a card set for the animated series, a standalone, or what.

[glorbgorb]

No idea.

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by glorbgorb

And Anime 2 just came out.

Then there are two Finding Unicorn sets released overseas. And I have seen blanks or mention of:

2022 Women of Marvel
2022-23 Marvel Annual
2021 Marvel Beginnings Vol 2 Series 2
2023 Marvel Avengers (not sure if this is the Metal set or another altogether)
Spider-Man No Way Home
Moon Knight
2023 Marvel Allegiance: The Infinity Trilogy
2022 Marvel Spider-Man

EDIT: Geez, who could forget about 2023 Marvel Hawkeye! Did this come out a couple of days ago like scheduled? No clue.

This absolutely looks like a glut to me. A lot of these seem like they’d be reprinted art sets, and just not that appealing to me as a marvel collector. Maybe Women of Marvel might be interesting depending on the route they go with it (commissioned art hopefully)

Also 2022 Spiderman in what will probably be 2024 is just kinda silly. I wonder if that will be a lower end spiderman set more like the old 1994 Fleer Spiderman than the more high end spidey metal.

[Raymond23]

I’ve never collected Marvel, but I’m a long term Star Wars collector. That said, my last major investment in Star Wars was 40th Anniversary…in 2017. My last mini-master was ROTJ B&W in 2018.

The “glut” in SW cards (and Marvel) aligns with the “glut” in SW/Marvel releases. Both have replaced quality with quantity. With 40th, there were only two Disney era releases at the time: TFA (which I didn’t love at the time, but saw some potential) and Rogue One (which I really enjoyed). Almost everything else has been garbage (no plan or plot, bad writing/directing/acting) and just not enjoyable. I dabble with the SWCT app and I barely recognize anyone featured in the base set. The card companies, having overproduction of product for the first six films for decades, is now focused on churning garbage product from second tier material.

For me, Star Wars ended when Lucas sold the franchise. Similarly, Marvel ended with Tony’s death. Everything after is painful…and so are the endless new releases inspired by them.

Making it easy to save my money in the card market (and streaming services).

[Joshi City]

Its going to be interesting to me to see what happens next year with Star Wars. Fanatics is pumping out products as if they are losing the license and are milking it for all they can, I couldn't find any details for how long they have it. But at this point, they must have pallets and pallets of unsold boxes, are they going to keep up this pace and just keep adding to the pallets, will we see them put up for clearance prices, what is their plan? In no specific order, I think these are all the releases they did in 2023:

Star Wars Chrome
Star Wars Chrome Black
Star Wars High Tek
Star Wars Signature Series
Star Wars Finest
Star Wars ROJ Sapphire
Star Wars Flagship
Star Wars Obi-Wan Kenobi
Star Wars Chrome Galaxy

Fanatics isn't going to be having cash problems anytime soon but they still want to make a profit, and they can't make a profit if no one is buying the product. Breakers aren't really into Star Wars, based on the lack of singles in eBay no one is buying the boxes, it just isn't a viable long term strategy. There is negative buzz about their Star Wars releases, and even Sapphire was a dud after it was big last year. 2023 Topps Star Wars Chrome Black boxes are already below retail on eBay, Finest will be the same. Its just not a good product right now and Star Wars collectors have figured it out.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Raymond23

I’ve never collected Marvel, but I’m a long term Star Wars collector. That said, my last major investment in Star Wars was 40th Anniversary…in 2017. My last mini-master was ROTJ B&W in 2018.

The “glut” in SW cards (and Marvel) aligns with the “glut” in SW/Marvel releases. Both have replaced quality with quantity. With 40th, there were only two Disney era releases at the time: TFA (which I didn’t love at the time, but saw some potential) and Rogue One (which I really enjoyed). Almost everything else has been garbage (no plan or plot, bad writing/directing/acting) and just not enjoyable. I dabble with the SWCT app and I barely recognize anyone featured in the base set. The card companies, having overproduction of product for the first six films for decades, is now focused on churning garbage product from second tier material.

For me, Star Wars ended when Lucas sold the franchise. Similarly, Marvel ended with Tony’s death. Everything after is painful…and so are the endless new releases inspired by them.

Making it easy to save my money in the card market (and streaming services).

This post is spot on, especially the bold. I will add that there was one terrific SW release since 2018, the first SW Galaxy Chrome; that one was fantastic.

[BobCollects]

Originally Posted by Joshi City

Its going to be interesting to me to see what happens next year with Star Wars. Fanatics is pumping out products as if they are losing the license and are milking it for all they can, I couldn't find any details for how long they have it. But at this point, they must have pallets and pallets of unsold boxes, are they going to keep up this pace and just keep adding to the pallets, will we see them put up for clearance prices, what is their plan?

Does Fanatics have a ton of unsold product? Or are they able to sell everything to distributors or directly to retailers? Certainly Fanatics should worry if pallets of product are sitting in warehouses regardless of who owns the warehouses. But it may be a case of Fanatics getting paid and letting distributors and retailers worry about product not selling.

I've wondered in the past if Upper Deck is contractually required to produce a trading card set for every MCU movie and TV series. How else do you explain sets for Eternals or What If or Moon Knight?

[PrinceVegeta]

Originally Posted by Tim

This post is spot on, especially the bold. I will add that there was one terrific SW release since 2018, the first SW Galaxy Chrome; that one was fantastic.

For me stellar 2021 was the greatest Star Wars set ever made right next to the first masterwork. But I'm more of an auto seller and collector

[fabiani12333]

Originally Posted by BobCollects

Does Fanatics have a ton of unsold product? Or are they able to sell everything to distributors or directly to retailers? Certainly Fanatics should worry if pallets of product are sitting in warehouses regardless of who owns the warehouses. But it may be a case of Fanatics getting paid and letting distributors and retailers worry about product not selling.

I've wondered in the past if Upper Deck is contractually required to produce a trading card set for every MCU movie and TV series. How else do you explain sets for Eternals or What If or Moon Knight?

This is what I assume as well. Upper Deck and Topps are required to produce a certain number of releases and the distributors and retailers are forced to buy it all if they want to maintain access to good products.

Regarding Marvel, Disney and Marvel have been going through restructuring. Marvel Entertainment, the division responsible for Marvel licensing of consumer products, was disbanded earlier this year and absorbed into different Disney units. This could help explain the sharp increase in Marvel trading card products.

[VinnyH]

I just wish the crew at Rittenhouse could find an investor and get some of these franchises. They do a great job of steady quality, on card auto, sets.
I agree how Fanatics and UD have screwed up everything they touch.
Vinny