Behold the 1990 Impel Marvel Universe trading cards. Behold and admire.

It’s been a while since we had a Trading Card Set of the Week feature here on the site, as it hasn’t yet been resuscitated after the blog-wide hiatus the first couple months of this year. I couldn’t even remember the last set cards that we looked at, and had to dig back in the archives to find out. (It was the European Kojak set by Monty Gum, if you’re curious. Of all things.)

But this two-page spread of Marvel cards — oof, what a feast. Just look at that. Couldn’t you almost dive right into them, like Scrooge McDuck into his horde of money? This first set of Marvel cards has been discussed at length before in these confines, but it deserves to be said again: it was a magnificent product. Even in advertisement form they positively scream gimmegimmegimme — and “zap, vanquish, liquefy and vaporize every other trading card on Earth” isn’t just empty puffery. It’s almost enough to make a guy revive a dormant blog feature. Excelsior.