This July, Marvel will honor legendary X-Men artist Jim Lee with a new book The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series. This digest-sized book collects the entirety of 1992’s iconic card line, featuring art by Lee. Today, these cards are still fondly remembered by fans and to celebrate their 30th anniversary, Marvel collects them all in one place for the first time.

Jim Lee broke into the comics industry in the mid-1980s, illustrating Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal for Marvel. His big break came with 1989’s Uncanny X-Men #248; he would return for a legendary run with writer Chris Claremont, culminating in 1991’s X-Men #1, which to this day still holds the record for all-time best-selling comic. Jim Lee, along with Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, and others, would leave Marvel in 1992 to found Image Comics, with the goal of allowing creators more control over their works. At Image, Lee created the Wildstorm imprint, featuring titles such as WildCats, Gen 13, and The Authority; Lee would later sell Wildstorm to DC Comics, where he remains to this day. Lee’s contributions to the comics industry have been many, but his work on X-Men remains one of his most definitive, and at the height of his popularity, Marvel commissioned Lee to create art for a series of trading cards—cards that have since become legendary in their own right and now they are being collected in one book.

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An article on Marvel’s website revealed more details about The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards: The Complete Series. The book, on sale July 5, will collect all 105 cards from the original series and will come with bonus cards as well. The book will not only reprint the front of the card, featuring Lee’s artwork, but also the backs as well, which contain stats and other information about the character. The book will also feature some of Lee’s original art, digitally remastered for this edition. Finally, the book will also have interviews with behind-the-scenes personnel, conducted by Bob Budiansky, the series’ original editor.

As noted in the press release, Jim Lee’s run on the X-Men in the early 1990s helped reinvigorate the franchise. Lee’s art was unlike anything else in comics, full of dynamic action scenes and poses and this helped the X-Men achieve sales dominance during that time; this, in turn, helped propel the comics boom of that period as well. Lee’s work on The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards is just as iconic as his work on the comics, and this new book celebrates these legendary cards, providing annotations and digitally remastered artwork; the interviews will provide fascinating, behind-the-scenes information on the making of the cards as well.

Jim Lee remains a definitive X-Men artist, alongside Dave Cockrum and John Byrne. He helped redefine the franchise, and his designs for Cyclops, Jean Grey, Storm and the rest remain iconic in fans minds. Now, on the 30th anniversary of Jim Lee’s The Uncanny X-Men Trading Cards, Marvel collects them in one book for the first time.

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Source: Marvel

 

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Shaun Corley
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Shaun Corley is a pop culture enthusiast living in the Pacific Northwest. After stints in both customer service and academia, he’s turned his attention to writing about comic books–his lifelong passion. He is a graduate of Radford University, with a degree in English. When not reading comics, he enjoys spending time with his fiance and their dog.

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