At Cool Stuff Inc, they have a picture of the Superman starter and the Superman 7 drop (Most likely.)

It also confirms that it will be Team Superman vs Injustice Gang.

This has already been posted.

Oops, I tried to search to make sure it hadn't couldn't find it.

Where at?

I know I had posted it in the Infinite Crisis Rumor thread.
But at the time, I hadn't seen the picture and it only said Superman and his friends vs Injustice Gang.

Ahhh, Revenge Squad gets shafted yet again!!

Could you provide more specific directions to this picture/information from the Cool Stuff Inc. website mainsite?

Because all I can find is the same old box pick we've had for months, and it doesn't confirm anything.

The picture and description I saw was at;

http://www.coolstuffinc.com/main_fro...pe=VS%20System

Right you are.

I've got to admit, the shafting of Revenge Squad but not shafting of Team Superman seems... completely random and stupid.

You'd think if Upper Deck were going to shaft old teams in these starters, they could at least do it consistently.

Agreed. Only their brothers the New Gods and the Teen Titans seem to have less support of the primary teams (as far as number of commons, variety of cards, total team stamped cards, etc) then Revenge Squad. And the Titans get their revamp with the Legion set.

Here's hoping for some Revenge Squad love in the Spring of 2007!

Not at all. I can see the reasoning quite clearly: UDE markets these starter decks as both an entry-level product to new players and as additional new cards to veteran players.

The first group doesn't care at all what teams are in the starter deck, so long as they get to have Superman fight Lex Luthor. The second group wants a few new, flavorful cards that they can perhaps use in constructed play, like the 4-drop Ra's Al Ghul from the Batman starter, the 5-drop Namor from the Fantastic Four starter, or the 5-drop Colossus from the X-Men starter.

But here's the kicker - veteran players aren't, for the most part, going to say "whoo hoo, new Revenge Squad cards." This is because the Revenge Squad is arguably the worst full-sized team in the game's history, having never been competitive in so much as a single format - not golden, not DC Modern, not strict-DC, not anything. Hell, they were even fourth-choice in Man of Steel draft. The team simply needs a complete rework to be competitive, and you don't start doing that with a starter deck.

So you pick some other team Luthor could be a member of - either Injustice Gang or Secret Society - and there you go.

Even if that is Upper Deck's reasoning, again, why not be consistent about it? If including Injustice Gang over Revenge Squad is a good idea because Revenge Squad is an underpowered team from an underpowered set, than surely including JLA over Team Superman is also the better way to go for the same reason.

And for the record, I would've liked to see some new Revenge Squad cards, and I've been playing this game since the beginning. I think they're a fun team to play with lots of great characters and stories represented by their cards, as well as the potential for lots more in the future. I really don't care how well they do in tournaments.

I suspect a good portion of the problem, from a development standpoint, is that Team Superman can be improved with relatively simple characters and support cards. The entire nature of the Revenge Squad's design is such that any card which would be relevant in any substantial way will need to be more complex than what you're going to find in Starter Deck fare. Something noticible with the RS is that much of the support they get is in cards which have no obvious relation to them.

How long it will be until other MoS teams are revisited remains to be seen; unless support cards are made with added frequency, the New Gods are likely entirely dead. Of course, there's some room to make JLX/NG cards for Big Barda and possibly Oberon (admittedly a stretch) as well. The next Superman-based set could easily cover RS, even if the New Gods could be scrapped for other supporting teams. A "World's Finest" set, maybe?

Well, if I might hijack the thread for a little speculation...

If they continue to follow the pattern they seem to be working with for these legacy sets, than the only prerequisite for the Quarter 2 2007 set is Gotham Knights. I can't really think of any reason why they would revisit Arkham while they're returning to Gotham, because there are still plenty of fan favorite inmates that haven't been seen in card form yet. The League of Assassins, on the other hand, had close to their entire membership (including friends and supporting characters) made in DOR, and since so little has been done with the characters since then (pretty much just Nyssa), it's probably too early to refeature them.

So yeah, G. Nights, A. Inmates, and two other teams. A worlds' finest set with Team Superman and Revenge Squad seems like an obvious way to go from a pure comics standpoint, but there are a few strikes against it. The first is that it puts two of DC's most marketable teams together in a single set, meaning Upper Deck would loose out on the opportunity to have each of them carry a set of their own. The second is that it would be an all legacy set, which is unprecedented and therefor bad. However, since DC did get an extra "all new" set in 2006, one could consider an all legacy set to merely be catching up on their part.

If they don't go with the World's Finest angle, the next most obvious choice would probably be a Batman and the Outsiders set, as they were known in the 80's, though I'm at a loss as to what the fourth team could be in that case. Perhaps the People's Heroes? What could be more villainous than those filthy reds? Then again, 2007 will be a year into the OYL DCU, so who can say who Batman'll have been fighting with (and against) by that time.

Just got an email back from Matt Hyra of UDE R&D on the topic of teams...




It will be JLA vs Injustice Gang.

We call it the Superman game on the box so it could be placed with other
products related to the upcoming Superman movie.

Thanks,
Matt




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From: citizen
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 3:30 PM
To: Hyra, Matt
Subject: Superman Starter

Mr. Hyra,
Since you were the lead designer of the JLA set, I would assume that you know the answer to the following...

Which two teams are going to be featured in the upcoming Superman Starter?

Sorry to bother you,
citizen

In general, after the first 'few' sets [first four really, and even then there were some ties] UDE has been following a patern that is sort of dictated by what is 'happening' around them.

After Superman, we had:

MK which was around the time that Blade, Daredevil, Elektra and Punisher were all in the mainstream thanks to the glut of movies being put out there ...

GLC coincided with Rebirth.

Avengers [while it didn't tie into it] came out around the same time as the New Avengers, Young Avengers, Avengers Dissassembled, etc ... Avengers were getting a bit bigger in the spotlight.

JLA were being featured on the Cartoon network and thus a bit more press and name recognition than a 'random set'.

X-Men comes out near the House of M/Decimation time when Mutants have been a 'big' thing at Marvel.

Infinite Crisis is a no brainer ...

Heralds of Galactus seems timed to come out near the Annihilation event.

Legion of Superheroes are going to be the new heroes on the toon tube as it's one of the cartoons scheduled to replace the JLU and Titans which are both near the end of their run [or already finished]

So I would expect that any 'plans' will likely be partially dependent on what is going on ... and 52/OYL could spark something which would help define a future set ...

I would love another Revenge Squad set though ...

[Oh, and wouldn't it be cool to get Cosmic King, Saturn Queen and Lightning Lord with Revenge Squad team affiliations, even if it's part of a dual team affiliation, for the Legion set?]