1994's Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading cards (SKYBOX)

In today's article, we'll be looking back at Skybox's first Batman trading card set -- Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight. Released in April 1994, this 100-card trading card set focused on all the major milestones in Batman's post-Crisis comic career: everything from Batman: Year One all the way up to KnightQuest.      

magazine ad for Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading cards

In 1994 non-sports trading cards had become BIG business. Don't believe me? Just check old issues of Wizard Magazine and Hero Illustrated from that era -- lots and lots of ad space devoted to new trading card sets being released. Nearly every comic book company (and then some) had a trading card set being hawked to the masses. Thanks to the success of the Tim Burton Batman films, the Batman animated series on FOX, and Batman getting his back broken by Bane, interest in Batman was at all-time high. The real question was why it took Skybox so long to launch a trading card set completely devoted to Batman? Well, it was because it took THIS long for Skybox to acquire the Batman license from Topps.

This trading card set took me a LOOOONG time to complete as I rarely saw packs being sold at comic shops. According to Wizard Magazine, 13,333 cases were produced (SkyBox upped production from 12,500 at the last minute) and were all snapped up quickly by retailers. They were easy to spot with their gold foil wrapping, but very scarce to find in the wild (at the time):  

image source: ebay.ca

History of Batman

As seen in the ad above, the Batman: Saga of the Dark Knight trading card set boasted highlights from Year One to KnightQuest. Did it deliver on it's promise? Yes, it did. Was it thorough? No, it wasn't. 

In 1994, KnightQuest was just concluding and leading into KnightsEnd -- the final chapter of the KnightSaga. Actually, at the time, everything Batman-related was centered around the KnightSaga and whether Bruce Wayne would reclaim the Batman mantle or if AzBats was here to stay (I was personally hoping for the latter). To this effect, this card set mainly was divided into sub-sets that focused on storylines relevant to KnightSaga cannon. So, no mention of Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year Two, Ten Nights of the Beast, or any cross-over Batman had with the rest of the DCU, but plenty of attention on A Death in the Family, A Lonely Place of Dying, Batman: Year Three, and...of course...anything related to Azrael or Bane. The Knightfall and KnightQuest story arcs received the most attention in the set. Card #99 ended on a cliffhanger, openly questioning if Batman would confront AzBats to take back the title of Batman. At the time this card set was released, it was looking like Jean-Paul Valley as Batman was going to be the new normal. KnightsEnd only started in mid-1994, just as this trading card set hit the shelves, so no mention of that chapter.

I adored this set. I really felt that they delivered on their promise of covering everything important leading up to what was going on in the Batman mythos at the time. The cards had very apt, well-written summaries on the back and some even showed the covers of important comic books (so you can spot them on sight in back issue bins). Even more importantly, the artists who illustrated the front-facing card art were listed on the back, which took the guesswork out of trying to figure out who drew what -- this goes a long way when writing one of these reviews [ha!]. The quality of the card stock was thick and UV coated, so you knew you weren't getting the cheap cards here.

back of card #31

Original art

So, what kind of original art was being featured in this set? If it was anything like Dave Dorman's painted Batman (as seen in the ad), we were in for a real treat. Probably even surpassing the Marvel Masterpieces trading card set, which had raised the bar on how impressive a non-sports trading card could look. Well, while it wasn't an all-Dorman set, we did get some really impressive artistic teams on these cards.  

Mike Mignola, who had drawn the fan-favorite Gotham By Gaslight 1989 one-shot, contributed three cards to the 'Nemesis' sub-set. Not all of the villains appearing in this sub-set appeared in the KnightSaga. Here was his Ra's Al Ghul:

Jim Aparo, Dick Giordano and P. Pigott collaborated on all of the cards in the A Death in the Family sub-section, which was was fitting since Aparo was the original penciller for the story arc that ran from Batman #426 to #429 (1988). Knightfall often referenced Batman's relationship with Jason Todd, so this storyline was pivotal to understanding why Batman was acting so crazy/protective of Tim Drake in the events leading up Knightfall.

 

Matt Wagner, who illustrated 1992's Faces story arc in Legends of the Dark Knight as well as a few Detective Comics covers, also provided painted art for a few Bat-villain cards. Here's his Mud Pack:

Rick Burchett, probably best known for inking 1992's Batman Adventures ongoing series (based on Batman The Animated Series), pencilled and inked the first eighteen cards dealing with Batman's early origins (Batman: Year One, Shaman, The Killing Joke, The Cult and Batman: Venom):

Tom Grummet, who was drawing the new Robin ongoing series that debuted in 1993, contributed card art for all nine cards in the 'Dynamic Duo' sub-set. This sub-set was all about Batman's history with his former sidekicks:

Brian Stelfreeze, who was producing some of the most stunning Shadow of the Bat painted covers at the time, graced this set with a few bat-villain cards:

I don't think John Bolton had done any work on Batman prior to 1995's Batman: Man-Bat, but I'm glad he contributed art to a few cards in this set: 

Jim Balent (penciller) and Scott Hanna (inker) provided art for all nine 'KnightQuest' cards. Balent was the primary penciller for 1993's Catwoman ongoing series and Hanna had a long stint inking over Graham Nolan's pencils in Detective Comics in 1992. KnightQuest immediately followed KnightFall and was divided into two storylines: one about Jean-Paul Valley's trials and tribulations taking over the role of Batman, and Bruce Wayne's (somewhat dull) search for Robin's missing father. Thankfully, the few KnightQuest cards in this set focused on the former rather than the latter because they knew what the fans wanted. 

Appropriately enough, Hanna also provided the inks for all of Nolan's pencils in the 18-card 'KnightFall' sub-set. Knightfall consisted of 19 chapters (and that's not including the prelude issues setting the event up), and this sub-set managed to capture all of the relevant story points. Nicely done:

Phil Jimenez, who was best known as the New Titans penciller at the time, pencilled all the cards from the 'A Lonely Place of Dying' sub-set (presumably because George Perez was unavailable). These cards were inked by Peter Gross (who was mainly an inker for Dr. Fate): 

..and yes, there were a few Dave Dorman cards in the set. One of which was his impressive painted rendition of Nightwing:

Other prolific DC artists who contributed original art to this set included Barry Kitson (Azrael ongoing series), Kyle Baker (inker for The Shadow), and Eduardo Barreto (inker for Vengeance of Bane one-shot). The different artistic styles from the wide array of contributors made for a great effect and kept the card set visually interesting. Everyone here was at the top of their game (and probably paid quite handsomely by Skybox, too). 

Insert Cards

The chase cards in this set consisted of 5 spectra-etch 'painted portrait' cards (1 in 18 packs), and the highly-coveted Batman SkyDisc hologram card that only appeared once in every 240 packs.

The spectra-etch chase cards were named, aptly enough, the 'Portraits of the Batman' sub-set. Original art for these cards were provided by John Bolton, Dave Dorman, Phil Winslade, Brian Stelfreeze and Mark Chiarello (Batman/Houdini: The Devil's Workshop). These cards had a reflective sheen on them not unlike the foil-covered "collector's edition" comic books of the time. While the entire five card sub-set was nice enough, the only card I really coveted was the Jean-Paul Valley as Batman card illustrated by Brain Stelfreeze, which I managed to eventually obtain in a trade that weighed heavily in favor of the person I was trading with. Ah well, I still own it today and occasionally take a few moments to admire it:

The Batman SkyDisc hologram card was something I had never actually seen in person, but always wanted to own since I love holograms. Apparently, if you lay the card down flat on a surface and shone a light on it, Batman appeared to rise from the card. By walking around the card you see a complete 360-degree figure. This was next level Star Trek stuff. It was explained that this effect was achieved by filming a Batman statue from every possible angle. 

Re-sellers sold these cards starting at $75 USD and upwards, which was quite out of range for my thirteen year-old self. Several years ago I had the chance to purchase this card for a decent price, but balked out at the last minute after I realized how much tracked shipping would cost me. Maybe someday.

Promo Cards

Since it was SkyBox's first Batman set EVER, one would assume that they'd be aggressively trying to market this -- and you'd be right. Various promo cards/products were distributed through various magazines and events.

Comics Buyer's Guide promo card:

 

As we went through the base set you might've realized something was noticeably absent: no trading cards featuring Kelley Jones original art. Jones, who had illustrated almost ALL of the Knightfall covers, seemed like a pretty obvious choice for original card art in this set. Sadly, this one lone promo card offered via Comic Buyer's Guide magazine was all that we got. As of this writing, I'm not sure if it was a mail-in or simply included in the magazine, but I'm assuming it was the latter. 

Dealers exclusive promo card:

This was just a re-hash of card #1, but with the card set's logo and byline on the front. Oh yeah, and it was sent to dealers. Like the aforementioned promo card above, the back of the card just listed all of the cool features about this new trading card set and made a passing mention about the first-ever Spectra-Etch display boxes that will be individually numbered.  

Georgia Dome promo card:

This was a Superbowl XXVIII giveaway at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta on January 30, 1994. These promo cards were limited to a print run of 50,000. No clue who the artist was.

Camden Yards promo card:

This was a promo card given away at Camden Yards in Baltimore, presumably during a Baltimore Orioles baseball game. Similar to the aforementioned promo card distributed at the Superbowl, I don't know why SkyBox decided to giveaway Batman promo cards at a baseball game. SkyBox was well-known for their sports cards, so this may have been an attempt at a cross-promotion? If I were to draw a Venn diagram, how many professional baseball fans were also Batman fans? Or sports card collectors also non-sports cards collectors, for that matter? Also limited to a print run of 50,000, I have no clue who the artist on this card is.

     

Oversized SkyDisc in CD case:

image sources: ebay.ca

This was a curious promo item, and they were limited to 10,000. It was the SkyDisc Batman hologram (the same from the ultra rare chase card), but it was the extra-large version and came in a CD case [remember those?]. I don't know who got them or how. Either way, color me impressed. I would've loved one of these.

In addition, there was a binder available for this trading card set, but I don't know if it was a mail-away exclusive or if it included any special promo items:

image source: ebay.com

  

Summary

I loved this trading card set. It was perfect and couldn't have been released at a better time. A few months after this set was released, comic readers would start getting burned out by the (seemingly) never-ending KnightSaga and then DC would launch it's big Zero Hour reboot event providing DC fans with something new to have a vested interest in. However, for about a year and some change, the fate of Batman's legacy was the main event and held our attention rapturously. Jean-Paul Valley as Batman was a new, violent Batman who took no prisoners and didn't care about collateral damage or killing villains. It was a total paradigm shift from Bruce Wayne's "save the innocent bystanders first, and never kill unless you have to" values. In a way, Jean-Paul Valley's attitude was reflective of the world around him: dealing with violent crime with the intent of eliminating the original cause rather than trying to rehabilitate it. Bane was also a different time of villain: he was ultra-strong and smart (typically Bat-villains were either strong and dumb or smart and weak), which was also reflective of the new types of villains the world was dealing with in the 90s. Great memories flipping through these cards -- makes me want to re-read my Knightfall omnibus.

To me, the main selling point was being able to catch up on my Batman lore -- the internet didn't really exist back then and my Batman comic book collection was sporadic with lots of missing story arcs. Rumor has it that SkyBox was planning on releasing ANOTHER Batman trading card set, The Archive Collection Series, but the company couldn't secure the rights to various Batman licenses in time for a September 1994 release. Apparently, it was going to be released in two 160-card sets and would've covered every single thing you probably would've liked to have known about Batman (this included the movies, the cartoons, toys, gadgets and comic books). Alas, it was not meant to be. SkyBox did, however, release a fully-painted Batman: Master Series trading card set in 1996, which I hope to review in a future article.

-Justin    

Interview with Gail Simone at 2022 Ottawa Comiccon

Ottawa was graced with Gail Simone's presence from September 9 to September 11, 2022, at the Ottawa Comiccon and, naturally, we just couldn't resist the opportunity to meet her in person and ask about our favorite DC books she'd co-created and/or written. 

The weekend saw a steady stream of Simone fans lining up to chat with her and get comics signed, and we felt incredibly lucky to get twenty minutes of her time. Rather than transcribe the entire 20 minute interview (a lot of it was talking about Ottawa in general), I'm just going to jump to the good bits. Since, as per usual, my interviews are all over the place, I re-structured this article so everything made chronological sense.

HOW SHE DISCOVERED COMICS:

Gail Simone: "I grew up in a really isolated area -- outside of a very small town -- so we just didn't have access to things. But we'd go to flea markets and garage sales when those things would happen, and I was getting frustrated with things I was reading as a young girl -- y'know, the fairy tales all had to have a prince come in so that you could live happily ever after, any adventures that happened were accidental because you couldn't go out and seek them on your own. Even though I love Alice in Wonderland, she still falls down a rabbit hole accidentally. Same with Wizard of Oz, she gets taken up in a twister and taken somewhere. And so, I was at a sale and I saw a cover of a Justice League comic and Wonder Woman was on it. I had never heard of her before, I didn't know anything about her, but I could see that she was a princess and seemed like she could make her own decisions and kick butt and didn't need to be in the kind of story that I was used to reading. I was between 8 to 10 years-old at this point. Then, when I was watching Batman '66 and Barbara Gordon came on screen, and this show left quite an impression on me. It was colorful, it was loud, and there was this really smart red-headed character -- and I thought "this is a world I could get involved in" and from that point on I just read everything I could." 

Yvonne Craig as Barbara Gordon/Batgirl in Batman 66

READING COMICS SINCE SHE WAS YOUNG:

Simone: "I didn't really have anybody that I read comics with at the time, and I don't even know if anyone knew I read comics because I was a huge theatre nerd and a huge English literature nerd, and I had skipped all but one year of English in high school...but I read all the time, that's what I did. I read everything but I would put the comic behind the Hemmingway or Steinbeck so that no one could really see it -- it was my 'dirty little secret', at the time." 

Simone: "When I was getting ready to graduate from high school at 16 and I had to talk to the heads of the departments and answer questions, and the head of the English department asked me "Don't you ever read any junk? Do you only just read this stuff?" (implying Hemmingway, Steinbeck, Orwell, Twain, etc...) and I replied with "Oh no! I just love this stuff, I don't read junk!" [laughs] I never did tell them I read comics which now I wish I would've, but that's kind of what the state of people's opinions were at the time -- it would've been something else for people to make fun of me for, and in my heart I didn't want to be made fun of that for that."

COMICS SHE READ IN THE 1980s: 

Simone: "Where I'm from in Oregon we had an amazing comic book store at the time. Right around when I was  in college, I was a really big fan of Love & Rockets, ElfQuest, Frank Miller's Daredevil, Claremont's X-Men,... all of those things. I read a little sampling of everything, as I could afford it. Anything I could get a hold of. Libraries weren't carrying this stuff at the time. My buying and collecting was really sporadic at that time due to funds, I really loved the more adult and darker things that were happening: Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Black Orchid, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman's Sandman... all of that."  

FIRST ACTUAL COMIC WRITING:

Simone: "The Simpsons for Bongo Comics was my first actual comic book writing. I was writing a column online for Comic Book Resources (CBR), and it was getting a lot of attention in the industry... including with editors. Scott Shaw, who I'd made friends with online... I am a big fan of his Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew work... he was working for The Simpsons at the time, and he told me they were really looking for humor writers and that I should talk to them. He just kept talking about and bringing it up, and finally he told me he just gave them my number and they'd contact me. So they called me and asked me to write for them, and I was in shock. I just decided to try it because... well... how many times does someone get an opportunity like this?"

panel from a Simpsons story Gail Simone wrote.
Lil' Goodfellas from Simpsons Comics #50 published by Bongo Comics (2000)

WOMEN IN REFRIGERATORS WEBSITE:

Simone: "This was before and around the same time as my CBR column started. A group of people helped get that website together. I coined the name and a lot of people came up with the list of examples, and then the rest is history... it's now used in Hollywood and has become a trope. This was a direct reference to Green Lantern v3 #54 (1994) where GL Kyle Rayner's girlfriend is killed by Major Force and shoved in a refrigerator for the hero to discover. In the 90s I was reading a bit of everything when I could get my hands on it -- I'm not a collector and, because of the lack of availability in my area, I didn't always have consistent runs. So, yeah, I definitely remember Knightfall and Death of Superman. The death of Superman event was HUGE. But I was definitely not reading as many comics in the 90s as I was when I was younger, and that's when I sat down to wonder why...  because comics had always been a part of my life upon first discovering them. And then I started to realize that a lot of things were happening to female characters just to forward the male character's story. For example: Barbara Gordon was shot in the spine, and for a long time Wonder Woman was de-powered,...y'know, there was just so much going on like that. So I started asking the question "Is that why more women are not reading comics?", because my favorite characters weren't being treated very well during that 90s era." 

The infamous issue the website is named after.

FIRST DC WORK: BIRDS OF PREY

Simone: "DC sought me out. I was at my first convention [San Diego Comicon] and signing at the Marvel Comics table (I had previously released a few Deadpool comics at the time), and Geoff Johns from DC came over and told me that he'd like me to meet the editor because they were going to be doing a Birds of Prey comic (because the television show was just about to come out). "I'd like you to meet the editor," he said, and I was like "Can you even go from a Marvel table at a convention to meet a DC editor?" Being from a small town, I didn't know the etiquette... so this was all very new to me. I ended up meeting Lysa Hawkins, who was the editor at the time, and got to know what they working looking for -- and the I pitched an idea. All from there, Birds of Prey happened."

VILLAINS UNITED AND SECRET SIX:

Justin for DC in the 80s: "I was legit impressed with the amount of obscure villains that appeared in the Villains United series you wrote. We're talking C-level villains I haven't seen since the 1980s. At first I thought, wow she must have a pretty deep memory of 80s DC books and read extensively, but now I'm learning that you only read sporadically. So was that your first side quest at DC? Poring through the history of DC and reading all the Who's Who?"

Simone: [laughs] "Well... I have a decent knowledge of comics, it's just that I'm not the person who could say "in issue #102 such-and-such a character appeared"..  my brain just doesn't work that way. But the truth of that is I had a Suicide Squad pitch in at DC -- which I think every writer does because we ALL love Suicide Squad -- and they came to me and said "we're going to do a book called Villains United and we'd like you to write it? We like the way you're writing villains". I was so excited. This was going to be a really amazing assignment, I couldn't believe they were asking me to write a Suicide Squad-like book. So I started asking if I could use the Joker, the Penguin, Mister Freeze, and all of these other bat-villains in the series and the answer was NO to all of it. I thought to myself "why are they asking me to write a villains book when I'm not allowed to use any of the villains?"... and the answer was that they were being used elsewhere in stories. So, the stubborn part of me that likes to cause trouble [laughs], started thinking "How can I make this book interesting and about villains?". So I started thinking about who I could use that they wouldn't say NO to... and one of the characters was Catman." 

Catman went from a D-list bat-villain to one of the bad boys of the DCU under Simone's writing.

Simone: "I really thought that Catman could have the potential to be the best tracker/hunter in the DC universe because we didn't really have one at that time. So I pitched that. He'd been in Africa for a period of time and he's remade himself, and I gave them the pitch and they were like "whatever, Gail. This is weird." But then when [artist] Dale [Eaglesham] sent in a one-page art piece of Catman standing on a cliff in Africa, in barely-a-loin cloth, with his hair in the breeze, lookin' pretty fine [laughs], DC said "okay, now we get it." So they allowed that. And then I created Scandal Savage, Ragdoll Jr and the Parademon. So it was basically me trying to find a team of villains DC would allow me to use -- that was how the Secret Six happened."       

Justin: "How did you end up with Bane and the Mad Hatter?"

Simone: "Mad Hatter I asked for and was allowed him. For Bane, DC asked me to put him in. The film [The Dark Knight Rises] was going to be coming out eventually, and he needed to be used and built back up again. I did NOT want Bane. All I knew of Bane, at that time, was that he was a big, hulking guy that was on some sort of drug and he broke Batman's back. I just didn't see a role for him in the Secret Six. But they asked me to do it, and I kind of liked the challenge, and I thought "How could I write this character so he fits into the Secret Six and doesn't undo anything from his past characterization, but kind of builds on it?" So that's when came up with him and Scandal having that father/daughter relationship. I just wanted to add some texture to it. Now I love Bane and I love writing him."

Catman and Bane
panel from Secret Six #9 (2009)

ALL-NEW ATOM

Justin: "You wrote the All-New Atom series featuring Ryan Choi as the Atom. Just had to ask, was the Atom one of the characters you grew up reading as a youth? Did you ask for that project?"

Simone: "I didn't ask for it. Originally, Grant Morrison had a pitch in for it, but Morrison couldn't do it, so he actually asked them if they could get me to do it. And, I LOVE science. When I was a kid, if I wasn't going to be a writer, I was going to be a science teacher. I just loved science, and still do. So to be able to do a story about a town with a lot of weird science going on just really excited me. I didn't end up using that much from Grant's pitch, but I used some of it and just ran with it. I had a blast. And working with Mike Norton was amazing."

ROSE & THORN

Simone: "This was something they asked me if I'd be interested in doing, and I love -- as you can tell by reading my work -- I love the psychology of characters, so I read the old issues and thought it was a pretty cool idea but wasn't real modern."

Justin: "Yeah, I remember her being a Lois Lane villain, and then later appearing in Booster Gold as a antagonist in the 80s..."

Simone: "I just felt that she needed a bit more texture and modernization. So, that's how we did that."

FAVORITE VILLAINS:

Simone: "Dr. Psycho [a Wonder Woman villain] has popped up in a lot of my stories. I like him because he causes a lot of problems and I like dealing with the psychology of his character so that he's not just straight-up villainous without a reason behind it." 

Simone: "Batman has great villains, and the best ones have a psychological component to them. I don't really have a favorite per se, but I was asked to write a Poison Ivy arc. I really didn't want to write Poison Ivy, either. It was just one of those characters that I didn't really have an affinity for. But then I thought "Well, what could I do to make me want to write her?" and then I started thinking about seasonal effective disorder and how it might affect Ivy with the plants and her powers and stuff, and then I was more interested in her. Now I love her. I'm writing her in other things and she's a great character to write. I just couldn't grab on to her until then." 

FIRESTORM (NEW 52)

Simone: "I like the Firestorm character a lot and I liked what they wanted to do with him in the beginning talks of New 52, but it just wasn't working out the way I thought it would, so..."

We can't thank Agence Pink and Ottawa Comiccon enough for allowing us this opportunity to interview Gail Simone. 

-Justin