Summer’s here! The season’s coming to a close, but there’s some fun highlights still ahead, including the highly anticipated X-Men ex-spotlights that have been a question mark the entire season. Below, you’ll see a glimpse at all of those, no shortage of bundles as per usual, and a really fun variant cover album that (spoilers) might be my favorite in a long while. So what are you waiting for? Let’s go!
05/27
The New X-Men Spotlights’ Triumphant Return
Artist: Creative House Pocket
Source: General Pool (Spotlight)
And after much clamor, we are, in fact, receiving all of the New X-Men Spotlight variants just in time for the season’s end! I know that many people were anxious to get their hands on Creative House Pocket’s anime treatments for all those rascally mutants running around, with special mention to Surge’s electrically lit (and perhaps Gojo-esque) variant— I’m genuinely unsure if there would be as much hubbub over these spotlights if it weren’t for hers. Elixir, Prodigy, and Xorn are all receiving similarly dynamic, dramatically lit variants to compete with Surge, though, which certainly helps elevate the whole set.
Overall, these are fine anime-style takes on these characters, and for Creative House Pocket they’re certainly in the upper echelon in their body of work. Now, importantly, there seems to be a return to the 2400 Gold price point in the General Shop for this bunch, though Second Dinner seems to be on record saying that this is a temporary situation. (They want Spotlights to return for some sort of Token price similar to previous values). I don’t know when the next time this particular batch will show, but keep it in mind!
Creative House Pocket’s Pixie Bundle
Artist: Creative House Pocket
Source: Bundle
It’s gonna be more from Creative House Pocket, though, with a Pixie bundle also arriving in the shop! A couple of variants have already picked up on the fact that a perky pink-haired fairy mutant is a perfect fit for an anime-style take, but this variant feels like the most overt one yet. It’s fitting that Creative House Pocket is the one to do it— perhaps the most overt of the overt anime style studios in the game. Is it a knock on every variant that forgets Pixie’s got full beady-black scleras like her namesake? Absolutely. But pink’s a nice color on an anime girl, which means most people probably won’t care. (But I do.)
ADIA’s Fantasy Storm Bundle
Artist: ADIA
Source: Bundle
ADIA is bringing another one of the Fantasy series of variants to a bundle this time, with a Storm decked out in… well, some sort of vaguely fantastical skirt-corset situation that feels a notch more Genshin Impact than it does high fantasy. But maybe that’s some folks’ preference! The Fantasy label continues to confuse me a bit, but I try not to let what’s intentionally a broad label get in the way too much.
I’m not much a fan of the lightened skin on Ororo; I can hear calls of lighting and all, but it still feels too much. Still, the effects are neat, and lots of the individual elements are competently done. If it’s up your alley, check the bundle out.
Junggeun Yoon’s Skaar
Artist: Junggeun Yoon
Source: General Pool (Super Rare)
Skaar’s got a variant from Junggeun Yoon, who continues to do (far as I can tell) commissioned work for Second Dinner, giving us an old-school Hulk-green Skaar brandishing his axe (as he does). There’s something nostalgic about that combination of high-gloss rendering and the deeper shade of green that reminds me of licensed Hulk art from the early 2000’s, so seeing it applied to Skaar is fun. There’s some flair added from that subtle underlighting below, too, adding some solid visual variety and elevating the drama of the attack pose.
05/28
Community Bounty Rewards: Wolverine and Gambit!
Artists (in order): Alexander Lozano, Peter Nguyen
Source: Promo (Community Bounty)
The Community Bounty challenge that we’ve all either banded together to complete or meandered our way through on accident has yielded dividends! A commissioned Peter Nguyen Gambit piece and the Alexander Lozano variant cover from Wolverine (2024) #2. Both are very straightforwardly stylish takes on these characters, with the Lozano variant doing a cool paint-splash effect to morph both Logan and Wolverine into one image, while Nguyen’s Gambit adds a particularly strong textured, painted flair to the character and the cards flowing from his hand.
Both are some of the better looking rewards we’ve gotten for free in the game, and it’s exciting that the community was able to earn their way to them in the time we were given. I’m a bit curious what would have happened had we not unlocked both— I’m skeptical that we wouldn’t have gotten them in some form or another. But that’s not a universe we live in, thankfully!
aruana sick’s Debut Squirrel Girl Bundle
Artist: aruana sick
Source: Bundle
The anime parade continues, with aruana sick being the latest awesome digital artist to be recruited into the SNAP variant roster— they seem to specialize in a more particularly stylized anime style that’s reminiscent of games like Final Fantasy, straddling that line between detail and simplification that those games so often do. We’re getting a Squirrel Girl with her red hair emphasized, fun and cute anime posing, and a side of Snow White-style squirrel princess energy. It’s a potent combination for any anime fans out there and for any Squirrel Girl fans, and it’s a interesting slightly stronger departure from other Squirrel Girl iterations we’ve seen.
Cover Alert: New X-Men (2001) #124!
Artist: Frank Quitely
Source: General Pool (Rare)
It’s a Frank Quitely classic cover for a Frank Quitely classic character! And it brings that classic off-kilter texture that he brings to the entire Morrison New X-Men run. And here he is, eating a bag of chips in that weird energy-flow way that only he knows how! It’s fun and strange, and the character of Xorn may be one of the most emblematic characters to represent Morrison and Quitely’s run in all it’s strangeness, so it’s a good fit.
I’ve especially appreciated the attention to the comics origins that all the General Pool covers for the new cards have paid, and it’s made these Cover Alerts that much more interesting to see (as much as I love the endless Derrick Chew variant covers we’d been getting).
05/29
Anzka Nguyen’s Marvel Boy Bundle
Artist: Anzka Nguyen
Source: Bundle
Anzka Nguyen is another new face, bringing us a cool painted Marvel Boy that’s got no shortage of personality. He’s a design that benefits from some of that liveliness to bring the more strange Morrison-trappings some grounding, and Nguyen’s painting brings the character to life. I appreciate the attention to Noh-Varr’s always-present heartthrob physicality, and the shine on the bracelets and effects on the gun add some great dynamism to the composition. We haven’t seen a piece for Marvel Boy in a bit, so this bundle might be of extra interest to any Zoo fans out there!
Nikola Čižmešija’s Iron Patriot!
Artist: Nikola Čižmešija
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Čižmešija, predictably, is back with one of the absolute banger highlights of the week, giving us the Iron Patriot draped in the American flag with some of the most menace any piece in SNAP has carried. I loved the way the downturned head and the grip on the flag takes the entire piece in a dangerous turn, and the powerful shadow off of the fiery backlighting fits the actual danger behind Norman Osborn’s patriotic mask. It’s a great read on the character that leans perfectly into Čižmešija’s talents for pushing dynamism and energy in his work, and it’s an absolute steal for only 700 gold!
05/30
Cover Alert: Marvel’s Disco Variant Covers!
Artists: Various
Source: General Pool (Rare)/Album Reward
Speaking of steals for 700 gold, an absolute massive album filled with them is coming up: Second Dinner has an entire collection of Disco Dazzler variant covers originally pushed last year in 2024, and they’re as fun seeing in game as they were to see on the stands. There are too many of these (14!) to dig into every single one, but all of them are Marvel variant covers at their absolute peak, with some serious artistic firepower behind them. Highlights include Jessica Fong’s gorgeous painted Scarlet Witch in disco pants and go-go heels, Jeremy Wilson’s incredibly stylish colors on Werewolf By Night on the dance floor, and Pablo Villalobos’ extra done-up Magik ‘do with those trademark headband spikes sticking out.
There’s not one, but two variants in the reward track for the album, so disco faithfuls will be rewarded with the bedazzled visage of Deadpool and the glitzy disco-ball-clad Spider-Man outfit— two especially striking variants with the oomph to deserve it. These are the highlight of the week for me, and my Gold wallet is crying for all of these great covers!
05/31
Cover Alert: Guardians of the Galaxy (2008) #12!
Artist: Paul Renaud
Source: General Pool (Rare)
This cover is cool because it’s older than you might expect, given how relatively obscure Phyla-Vell’s identity as Martyr is. It’s one of Second Dinner’s stranger decisions to use this identity instead of the more well known general name Phyla-Vell, but credit: it makes for some really striking variants when you can dig up these compositions with the her brandishing that sword. Paul Renaud extracts a lot of that edgy appeal with a surprising amount of bright whites in the piece— Martyr’s expression carries some real steel in it, and sells the personality that her anti-Captain Marvel text carries so well.
06/01
Mooncolony’s Victoria Hand
Artist: Mooncolony
Source: General Pool (Rare)
We’re wrapping up the season and starting up the month with a couple of quiet one-off variants like this one: Mooncolony’s got a Victoria Hand variant coming out, adding some cute-but-not-quite-chibi middle ground to the cartoonish style the studio adds to its work. Hand’s red hair, gun, and glasses are the main visual hook for a piece to draw on, and that for a character short on existing covers, they provide a fine base for studios like Mooncolony to create some alternate art in different styles for.
06/02
Zoltan Boros’ Debut Thaddeus Ross
Artist: Zoltan Boros
Source: General Pool (Rare)
Similarly, Thaddeus Ross (for being such an influential OG Marvel character) doesn’t really grace covers by himself that often, and so artists like Zoltan Boros (another debut artist commissioned by Second Dinner) will likely make up most of their catalogue in game as well. Boros feels like it brings Ross to a kind of 80’s action hero sort of spirit: likely what Ross sees in himself, more than anything! It’s got all the vim and vigor of a proper Hulk-hunting maniac, and the bright colors help sell all of it.
Wrapping Up
The end of a fun season like this one is always bittersweet—I’m such a big fan of the series theme, and so the extra attention to all of these characters has given these weeks some extra excitement for me. But how has it ended up for you? Variant-wise, game-wise, life-wise… I’m all ears! Let me know down below, and I’ll see you on the other side for the next exciting bout.