Why Collectors and Fans should be Excited about Topps Finest X-men 97
In late 2024 Disney and Topps announced a licensing deal involving all properties including Marvel and Pixar. Of note, Upper Deck had a successful period as license holder for Marvel. Recently during the same announcement regarding Topps Genesis (which will include all Disney owned characters including Marvel) Disney also announced its first state-side Marvel exclusive Topps product based on the extremely popular X-Men 97. SI's Suzy Lulgjuraj wrote an excellent article on the Genesis release which I recommend you check out as well. As for the X -Men 97 set it was announced that it would be released as a Topps Finest product that would drop after Genesis release on New Year's Day.
For those unfamiliar X-Men 97 is an animated show that is a revival of the X Men the animated series cartoon that had a five season run from 1992-1997. The original series was beloved by fans both new to the X Men such as myself and others who enjoyed the comics that preceded the series. It was the first time many fans saw their favorite storylines on TV or in movies including the popular Days of Future Past, Phoenix Saga and Dark Phoenix Saga (which was by far the best iteration).
After years of speculation Disney announced that there would be a revival of X-Men the Animated Series which debuted in early 2024. Fans were excited to learn that the original production team was involved in the project as well as the majority of the surviving cast members including Cal Dodd (Wolverine), George Buza (Beast) and Alison Sealey Smith (Storm) would be reprising their original voice roles with involvement from other original cast members voicing different characters. After its release X-Men 97 received strong reviews from fans and critics alike. I suspect that Disney/Marvel wanted to capitalize on the popularity of the show which led to the development of the Topps Finest X-Men 97 card set.
At the time of this writing Topps had yet to release a checklist for the Finest set although they did release images of some of the cards. So far the released images include both numbered parallels and die cuts that collectors would expect to find in Topps products. Also included in the set are autographs from the voice actors on the show as well as original sketch variants.
After seeing early release photos I can say the cards look very cool. It can be challenging to convert comic book and cartoon characters into trading cards however based on the images released so far Topps seems to have done a great job. I’m particularly excited about the possibility of autograph chases of the previously mentioned voice actors (Dodd, Buza, Sealy-Smith, and others) and I expect collectors and fans will be too. It also appears that the set will include popular villains such as Mr Sinister.
Overall based on the limited information provided by Topps, I am confident in my excitement about this product. One important thing to note is that at the time of this writing Topps hasn’t released the cost of boxes or cases but I would expect it would be similarly priced to other Topps Finest sports products. I would also expect the cost to be lower than what the Genesis product is currently selling for. According to Disney, collectors and fans can expect to see Topps Finest X Men 97 in both hobby shops and comic books stores in late January 2025.
