Firestorm Fan » Trading Cards

DC Cosmic Cards – Views from the Longbox Guest Appearance

Shag — Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:30:05 +0000

Over on VIEWS FROM THE LONGBOX, Michael Bailey and I recently covered one of our favorite trading card series: DC Cosmic Cards released by Impel in 1991! This was DC’s first foray into the 1990s trading card fad!

During the episode, Mike and I cover each of the cards briefly, discuss Batman (or the lack thereof), sneaky tricks to find the holograms, the binder, and much more! We had a blast recording, so we hope you enjoy listening!

If you wish to follow along, visit the Trading Card Database by clicking this shortlink: http://firestormfan.com/dccosmiccards.

For you match-heads, here are a couple Firestorm-centric cards from the set!

Be sure to check out our coverage over at, VIEWS FROM THE LONGBOX!

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1987 Great Heroes Backing Board Trading Cards

Shag — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 10:30:35 +0000

Today’s item is a really neat nostalgic piece. I’d never even heard of these until a few months ago when our buddy Aaron Bias presented these cards to me.

Back in 1987 (and again in 1989), DC Comics printed a very unique set of trading cards. These cards were printed on comic backing boards sold with three-packs of DC comics at large retailers. The 1987 series had six different sheets of 8 cards, making for a set of 48 different cards. The cards were printed directly on the backing boards with dotted lines for kids to cut out. Cards featured “Great Heroes”, “Great Villains”, and “Great Moments in Comics.” Firestorm was included on card #6, appearing on a board along with Cyborg, Flash, Tyr, Man of Steel #1, Detective Comics #38, Captain Atom #1, and The Key. Below is the front and back of Firestorm’s card. The art is typical stock art from that era. We’ve never definitely identified the artists, but our long-held belief is this was most likely pencilled by Denys Cowan and inked by Dick Giordano.

Below is an example of an uncut sheet of cards.

There was a second series of backing board trading cards produced in 1989. This set consisted of 72 different cards, including one of my favorites, Blue Devil! Just for fun, I’m including the Blue Devil card with art by Paris Cullins!

For more information and a complete list of these cards, check out these sites:

Given all the Firestorm memorabilia I’ve seen over the years, it’s very exciting to find something entirely new to me! Thanks, Aaron!

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Dark Firestorm in Legion of Super-Heroes

Shag — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 09:30:56 +0000

It’s a shame, but Firestorm hasn’t rubbed elbows with the Legion of Super-Heroes very often. They bump into each other during crossovers (i.e. Legends, Crisis on Infinite Earths, and such), but not on a regular basis. Clever writers Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning figured a way for Firestorm to interact with the Legion! During the “Foundations” story line (The Legion #25-30, Dec 2003-Apr 2004), Darkseid creates dark mirror versions of 20th century heroes, including Firestorm! Click the image below from The Legion #26 to enlarge.

This “Dark” Firestorm even merited a “VS System” collectible trading card from Upper Deck featuring art by Phil Noto!

If you dig the Legion, Darkseid, or the Conner Kent version of Superboy, you should definitely check out the “Foundations” story line!

Since we’re on the subject of the Legion, I recently sat down with Michael Bailey to chat about the Legion of Super-Heroes on VIEWS FROM THE LONGBOX! We spent about two hours going over our respective histories with the Legion, a basic history of the property itself, our favorite runs, some of the sillier aspects of the team’s history, and generally celebrated our love for this team. Please head over to VIEWS FROM THE LONGBOX and check out this episode! My thanks to Mike for having me on the show!

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Firestorm in New 52 Trading Card Set

Shag — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:30:46 +0000

Back in September, Cryptozoic Entertainment released a set of trading cards for DC Comics The New 52. This set features all-new, original art, with a base set of 71 cards that cover some of the best-known characters from DC Comics. The text is written by Adam Beechen with art by numerous different artists. If you’re a collector there are also several chase card opportunities, such as: foil, die-cut Lanterns cards; lenticular Work-In-Progress cards; and rare artist sketch cards.

Firestorm (Ronnie Raymond Firestorm Protocol incarnation) was included in the set! Check out the gorgeous Todd Nauck Firestorm card below! By the way, just in case I’ve never said it here… I LOVE TODD NAUCK’S ART! I’ve been a fan for years and follow his blog regularly. Todd’s done some Firestorm commissions previously, but I believe this is the first time he’s drawn the character officially for DC Comics!

As mentioned, the set also contains rare artist sketch cards. These inserts feature original artwork from over 100 sketch card artists. To give you an idea how rare these sketch cards are, the distribution is 1 artist sketch card per 24 packs of cards. Check out this artist sketch card by Dan Borgonos featuring the brand-new, post Fury of Firestorm #0 incarnation!

Pretty cool that Firestorm was included in the set twice! For a checklist of the entire trading card set, click here!

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1992 Impel DC Comics Firestorm Trading Card

Shag — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:30:33 +0000

DC Comics first universe-spanning trading card series was produced by Impel Marketing in 1991. Some date confusion was created because the cards themselves were identified as the 1992 series. Firestorm received his own card, highlighting his then-current status as an Elemental lost in space. The pencils and inks on the card were done by the fantastic Tom Mandrake. Below you’ll find the front and reverse of this card.

Click here to check out the 1992 Impel DC Comics Firehawk trading card that we covered a while back!

Remember a few years ago when the Booster Gold comic did an official Zero Hour tie-in issue, over ten years after Zero Hour was over? Today’s post is a little like that. Last year several superhero blogs teamed-up to cover the 1992 Impel DC Comics trading card series. Frank Lee Delano invited me to join in the fun, but my own personal schedule got in the way. So consider this my late addition to the crossover!

Idol-Head of Diabolu (A Martian Manhunter Blog)

DC Bloodlines

Justice League Detroit

Diana Prince as the New Wonder Woman

Power of the Atom

Comics Make Me Happy

Adam Strange

Better late than never!

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Firestorm, El Hombre Nuclear

Shag — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 10:30:02 +0000

¡Firestorm, el hombre nuclear, de los Super Amigos!

Our good friend Jon over at the Fizzit Firestorm-themed blog sent scans of these unique Firestorm collectibles. He received the following cards from Argentina. The majority of these come from the Spanish-language version of Kenner’s Super Powers line, Super Amigos.

This first one is a trading card from the Super Amigos game. To see all the cards in the Super Amigos card set, please visit the Aquaman Shrine by clicking here.

The next five are stickers associated with the Super Amigos line. It appears these were produced from 1985 through 1987.

This last sticker uses specialized ink that really is intended to be viewed under blacklight.

These next ones come from some Superman-related set. This set was released in 1994. Nice to see the Elemental Firestorm getting some merchandise action!

Here are some Firestorm stickers from that same 1994 Superman series.

These next two come from a set entitled “Cartas de Poder – DC Super Heroes”. I really don’t know anything about these sets, but I love that they called Firestorm “el hombre nuclear”. Also, he’s got an attack of 2,700 and a defense of 2,300! I have no idea what the scale is, but that sounds impressive!

Once again, our thanks to Jon from the Fizzit Firestorm-themed blog for supplying these images.

Apoyo Firestorm! Avivar la llama!

Firehawk Heroclix and Trading Cards

Shag — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:45:53 +0000

Welcome back for FIREHAWK WEEK! On Monday we looked at Firehawk’s various Who’s Who appearances. Today we’ll be looking at a few other items featuring Firehawk. Don’t forget, come back on Friday for the unveiling of a newly-commissioned Firehawk sketch done for the FIRESTORM FAN site!

Here is a Firehawk HeroClix game piece from WizKids. HeroClix is a collectible miniatures game in which players construct teams of heroes and villains to play out a battle turn-by-turn on a grid map. Firehawk is #004 from the “Justice League” set produced in 2007, and is considered to be a “common” piece (meaning easy for collectors to obtain). Her rank is “experienced” and the point value for the figure is 63. If all that is meaningless to you, don’t worry. The cool thing is they made a Firehawk game piece and used her current costume (the one she wore when fused with Jason). She looks friggin’ cool!

Here is the front and back of the card that came with the Firehawk Heroclix game piece. It provides a brief background on the character, as well as details on the powers her figure has in the game. It’s interesting to see how they classified her powers in order to fit their game structure.

Next up is the Firehawk card from the “VS System” collectible card game produced by Upper Deck. In the system, players build and play a deck of VS System cards in an attempt to win a game against their opponent. This card is named “Firehawk, Flaming Justice” and is #DCL-012 from the “DC Comic Legends” set produced in 2007. Her attack rating is 5, while her defensive rating is 4. She has a casting cost of 3, and when activated the target player loses 1 endurance for each character he controls. Again, if all that is meaningless, don’t sweat it. Just be happy we got a cool game card featuring Firehawk! I don’t know who the artist was, but they sure did a nice job!

This final Firehawk piece comes from the 1991/1992 DC Comics trading card set produced by Impel Marketing. Firehawk is #49 in the series and the art was done by Firestorm (volume II) artist, Tom Mandrake. Man, I love his artwork! He always does such a great job. It’s impressive that Firehawk got her own card in this series, especially since the monthly Firestorm book had been canceled a year earlier.

That wraps up our coverage today. Come back on Friday when we close out FIREHAWK WEEK!

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