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Cards : 2002 Topps Movie

The 2002 movie was big business. It's no surprise that there would be a trading card tie-in. The set was created by Topps, in association with Marvel and Columbia Pictures, and predominantly features still photography from the movie. There are a number of chase sets, including a "sticker set"... which is rather unusual. It's a bit unlikely to think that people will collect the chase sets, and then actually use the stickers.

The chase cards are rather uninspiring - see below for the details. Once you get past all the hype and judge this set on its own merits, it really isn't quite as good as we deserved. Clearly it's been treated as just another movie tie-in, and completed with very little attention to detail. The photos are very sharp, but that can be predominantly attributed to the quality of the images taken by the original movie stills photographer. Apart from selecting high-quality card, the compiler/editor of this set deserves very little credit for this disappointing effort.

Summary

  • Year of Issue: 2002
  • Distributed By: Topps
  • Title of Series: Spider-Man Movie Cards
  • Number of Regular Cards: 100
  • Chase Set 1: 5 Web Tech Foil (foil background and glitter weblines)
  • Chase Set 2: 5 Holograms (not really holograms)
  • Chase Set 3: 5 Web Shooter Clear Cards
  • Chase Set 4: 10 Glow-In-The-Dark Stickers (peel-off cards)
  • Extra Stuff: Marketing fold-out pamphlet
  • Packet Cover: 7 cards/pack. Blue/black, two styles (Spidey, Green Goblin).
  • Boxed Sets: 24 packs/box. Blue/black box.

Basic Cards

The basic cards are high quality glossy stock. The card has edge-to-edge photos from movie stills, with a banner/title along one side. The back of the card contains a second, smaller, inset photo on a related theme which occupies about half the card. The other half has text related to the scene depicted on the front. The card number and logos are also present, and the title is repeated on the back.
The bulk of the cards relate to scenes from the film, and are in chronological sequence. The text gives a summary of the movie scene, so that reading all the cards in sequence and looking at the photos would give you a pretty complete idea of the movie plot. Of course, all the characterisations would be completely absent, so it's not like the cards are a substitute for the film in any sense at all.

Here is the complete set of basic cards, 1-100. There are subsets of a kind within the regular cards, although they aren't clearly named. The start of different subsets is indicated. By far the largest subset is the simple sequence of movie scenes.

  1. A Movie at Last! [Subset]
  2. Peter Parker [Subset]
  3. Spider-Man
  4. Mary Jane Watson
  5. Aunt May
  6. Uncle Ben
  7. Harry Osborn
  8. Norman Osborn
  9. The Green Goblin
  1. J. Jonah Jameson
  2. The Bugle Staff
  3. Flash Thompson
  4. The Birth of Spider-Man
  5. How Great is MJ?
  6. Along Came an Arachnid
  7. Norman's Grand Plans
  8. Secrets of OsCorp
  9. Safe at Home?
  1. New and Improved
  2. Fabulous Flight
  3. Smooth Move
  4. Flooring Flash at Last
  5. Swinging Workout
  6. The Girl Next Door
  7. A Worldwide Web
  8. OsCorp After Hours
  9. Osborn's Gamble
  1. Rude Awakening
  2. Uncle Ben's Final Words
  3. And In This Corner
  4. New Wrestling Sensation
  5. Spider-Guy Triumphant
  6. The Man That Got Away
  7. The Death of Uncle Ben
  8. After the Carjacker
  9. Fate of a Felon
  1. Graduation Day
  2. Born to be a Hero!
  3. Swinging Into Action
  4. Spidey and the City
  5. All in a Night's Work
  6. The Big Apple's New Guardian
  7. Chelsea Street BLues
  8. Exclusive Photos, Anyone?
  9. Norman Gets Canned
  1. The World Unity Festival
  2. The Girl of my Best Friend
  3. Enter... The Green Goblin
  4. Irradiated to Death
  5. The Devil at Four O'Clock
  6. NY's Finest to the Rescue
  7. Crashing the Party
  8. Taking on the Goblin
  9. Midtown Slugfest
  1. Greatest Threat
  2. Glider-Driven Fury
  3. MJ Survives the Assault
  4. The Two Norman Osborns
  5. The Daily Bugle Besieged
  6. Come Out to Play, Gobby!
  7. The Goblin's Dark Offer
  8. Spidey to the Rescue
  9. Kiss of the Spider-Man
  1. The Burning Building
  2. A New Spidey Fan!
  3. Another Rescue in Order
  4. Unhappy Thanksgiving
  5. Blood Relative
  6. The Attack on Aunt May
  7. The Truth Revealed
  8. Come Out to Play
  9. A Bridge Too Near
  1. All Fall Down
  2. I Got You Babe
  3. Fury Of The Goblin
  4. Twisted Adversary
  5. Death of a Webhead?
  6. Turning The Tables
  7. Death of the Goblin
  8. Remembering Loved Ones
  9. Spider-Man Forever
  1. From Comics to Screen [Subset]
  2. Directing a Super-Hero
  3. When Evil Meets Good
  4. Inside Osborn's Psyche
  5. Eight-Legged Movie Stars
  6. He's Spider-Man
  7. MJ in a Jam... Again
  8. A Moviemaking Challenge
  9. Making Metropolitan Mayhem
  1. Parker Pix [Subset]
  2. Parker Pix
  3. Parker Pix
  4. Parker Pix
  5. Parker Pix
  6. Parker Pix
  7. Parker Pix
  8. Parker Pix
  9. Parker Pix
  1. Checklist

Chase Cards

The chase sets are rather disappointing. First of all, there's five cards in a set, or ten for the sticker. Given that most collectors store their cards in a 9-card folder insert, that's a really unfriendly thing for Topps to do. Don't they ever think about how the cards will appear in a binder? Furthermore, the chase card quality is rather disappointing.

The web-tech foil cards have a green foil background, with weblines covered in sparckles, and CGI/airbrush art superimposed on that. They're all very dark, and rather same-ish. The "holograms" are a joke. Only the weblines are holo'd, and they're some of the lowest-quality holograms I've seen in a long time! Holograms have come a long way, and these cards are a major embarassment to the world of holos.

The "clear cards" are indeed clear, but that's about all you can say for them. The art is repetative and dull, and not particularly well combined with the background. Finally, the ten sticker cards look like cheap giveaways from a cereal box, and not like "premium collectors cards" at all. The back of the sticker subset cards combine to make a colored image of Spidey in full swing.

  1. Web Tech Foil F1
  2. Web Tech Foil F2
  3. Web Tech Foil F3
  4. Web Tech Foil F4
  5. Web Tech Foil F5
  1. Hologram H1
  2. Hologram H2
  3. Hologram H3
  4. Hologram H4
  5. Hologram H5
  1. Clear Card C1
  2. Clear Card C2
  3. Clear Card C3
  4. Clear Card C4
  5. Clear Card C5
  1. Sticker Card S1
  2. Sticker Card S2
  3. Sticker Card S3
  4. Sticker Card S4
  5. Sticker Card S5
  1. Sticker Card S6
  2. Sticker Card S7
  3. Sticker Card S8
  4. Sticker Card S9
  5. Sticker Card S10

Extra Stuff

Here's a promotional foldout sent to retails highlighting all the virtues of the set, and explaining why they should buy lots of stock. The promotional material claims "First-Ever Live-Action Spider-Man Movie!" Clearly, whoever wrote this stuff wasn't around in the 1970's.

Packaging

No info yet.

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