Product Review: 2013 Cryptozoic DC Comics Superman The Legend Trading Cards

Well if there will ever be a Non-Sport box we open this would be it. The story about how we came to bust this one open is simple, 1 Sketch card 1/1 per box. Excuse me? Yes you heard us right, and that was all what we needed to hear to pick up this box.

We jumped ahead to the goodies within the first two sentences of this review already so lets go back a bit and provide some insight into the product. Cryptozoic has been increasing their product brands from Film and TV shows to now DC Comics Superman. Good timing around the opening of the movie this year even though it's not tied together.
So the premise of this product is pretty straight forward with 24 packs per box with 5 cards per pack. A base set consists of only 62 cards so doing the math you will have a complete set in 1 box. Inserts are in this product with Foil Parallel Base cards, Alternate Reality Foil, Secret Origins, Women of Superman and X-Ray Vision cards. These range from 1:12 to 1:24 packs.
As we said above this Cryptozoic product has 1 Sketch card per box, but you can also find Printing Plates and Redemption's for a 4x6 Sketch card. Sketch cards are always hot in the secondary market, and with a product based on a comic of a well-known superhero this is a pretty good buy.

So with this all in mind and not being all in the know of Non-Sports cards we thought it would be kinda cool to step outside of the circle on this one. Here is how we did:

Base Cards: 104 (1 complete set with 41 doubles)
Foil Base Cards: 6
Secret Origins: 2
Alternate Worlds: 2
Women of Superman: 2
X-Ray Heat: 2
Sketch Cards: 2 - David Rabbitte, Unknown Artist

So overall this is a pretty good box to purchase. Base cards are nice and span across Superboy to Superman in different years of the comics life. The art on each card is pretty cool as well. You make a complete set plus only 22 from making 2 sets. Find this a little funny as to why the 24 packs then, you could shorten it up to 18 packs with 5 cards per pack and with the same odds. With 18 packs you would be looking at 10-12 doubles instead of the 41 you have with 24 packs.

The Foil Parallels are nice and on some of the designs they look amazing and bring out the base cards to another level. This is the same with the Secret Origins and Alternate Worlds. Each of them as also Foil technology and look great.

The Women of Superman has some nice looking cards but would have liked to have seen something else instead. Kind of a boring insert for us, but the designs of the pictures kept us entertained. X-Ray Heat is another one that we could do without. These come in die-cut form with a heat generated front that when you either hold them or put them close to heat an image is shown. They are hard to display and after a while of holding them you get tired of doing it and forget about it. We pulled 2 of these in our box and beat the odds by 1.

The Sketch card was where our main focus was. Surprisingly enough we managed to pull 2 of these in our box. We heard of it happening with someone else as well so this could be more common than the 1 per box. Ether way these are cool. There is not a stamped serial number on the back but a printed 1/1 is at the top of the back. Also the wording of "This original hand-drawn card was created exclusively for the DC Comics Superman The Legend Trading Card Set." You can never complain about pulling a 1/1 even if it is a guaranteed hit in a box. The ones we pulled were nice lots of detail in both but the Superwomen sketch is our preferred one even if we don't know the artist that drew it.

So if your looking for some entertaining fun in a Non-Sport product this would be it. Love the designs of the art on each card and with a Sketch card per box you can't go wrong. The secondary market was hot around the time of the release but the Sketch cards have cooled down a bit and you might be able to find a nice one for $16-18. We missed out on the Batman box earlier this January when it was released. If we knew about it then we would have picked up a box as well. We're hopeful that Cryptozoic continues with the comic theme and brings out a Green Lantern, The Flash and others within the DC Comics franchise.

Most cards we pull in our breaks end up in our COMC account (ThePackGambler), eBay account (thepackgambler) or within our sites storefront (www.packgambler.com). If you are interested in any of the cards we have mentioned please send us an e-mail at packgambler@gmail.com

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.67 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Sketch Cards: 5/5
Inserts: 4/5
Parallels: 4/5
Concept: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5