While Marvel Super Heroes has a fair few exciting cards, overall, it’s hard to say the set is perfect. Between potentially problematic powerhouses and even a day zero errata, there are definitely some concerning oddies. Even taking a step back to look at the bigger picture, however, many MTG players still aren’t happy.
Despite having access to the entire Marvel canon, Marvel Super Heroes has tons of repeated legends. While we are getting up to four more Marvel sets, so everyone gets a turn, this still feels ridiculous. Unsurprisingly, MTG players have been quick to complain about this; however, Head Designer Mark Rosewater has quickly rebuked player criticisms.
That’s a Lot of Iron, Man
In total, across the entire set, Iron Man is getting seven unique cards in Marvel Super Heroes. While this might seem like a lot, according to Mark Rosewater, it’s not nearly as bad as it seems. As he explained on Blogatog, each of these cards serves a purpose, and only two of them are Standard legal.
Outside of an uncommon and mythic in the main set, no Marvel Super Heroes product has more than one Iron Man. While this sounds positive, it can equally be seen that every Marvel Super Heroes product has an Iron Man. While he might be one of the most popular and iconic characters in Marvel, this is still definitely a lot.
Notably, while Universes Beyond sets are a different breed, this rarely happens with in-universe MTG sets. Occasionally, we do get two cards for the same legend, but typically, they serve a purpose. In Edge of Eternities, for instance, we got both Sami, Ship’s Engineer and Sami, Wildcap Captain, showing the character’s progression.
While these cards are also at different rarities, making them for limited and constructed formats, respectively, the storytelling is a huge point of difference. Since Universes Beyond sets don’t tell stories, characters appearing more than once feel like bloat, rather than any form of progression.
Technically, the silver lining to having so many Iron Men is that accessing them is trivial for fans. While this is true, however, it lessens the impact of each one, making no Iron Man feel that special. Curiously, Wizards had already solved this problem in the past, as The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth only really had one The One Ring.
A Simple Solution
Instead of having seven different copies of The One Ring, Tales of Middle-earth had cards that revolved around it instead. This allowed players to get a taste of that iconic card via cards like Fiery Inscription and In the Darkness Binds Them. Even the one repeat we got in Bilbo’s Ring was leaned on a story moment to keep things feeling fresh.
While Tales of Middle-earth could lean on a story, unlike Marvel Super Heroes, it could have easily gone in a different direction. As MTG Spider Man proved, you can technically have a set loaded with the same character when done right. By leaning into the multiverse, each card can be made to feel distinct and like its own notable character.
Even though there are tons of Iron Men throughout the multiverse, we seemingly just got the same one over and over. Presumably, this is to keep multiverse shenanigans for a future set, but it still feels like a misstep. If nothing else, it feels like Wizards deliberately didn’t make the best set possible here to keep some tricks up their sleeves.
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