Hard to Finish Modern Monster Cards!
By Kurt Kuersteiner © 2025 Monsterwax
Trading Cards for The Wrapper Magazine
There has been a lot of navel gazing lately about the “state of the hobby”. The loss of NSU, the climbing retail prices, and the shrinking advertising budgets. Is the future of Non-sports in danger? My opinion isn’t any more valid than the next person’s, but I do know this: For collectors who want to complete a simple base set of some of these newer series, it’s starting to get increasingly difficult and pricey.
My favorite genre is horror and monster cards, so let’s take a look at three recent series that have made completing a basic set extra difficult or downright impossible. They are Mark Spears Halloween Edition 2026 Kickstarter, Upper Deck’s 2024 Masterpieces Monster Edition series, and Horror Legends Masterpieces by Hollywood Trading Cards, 2025.
Let’s start with Mark’s latest Halloween Edition 2026 series. Mark specializes in dramatic digital art with really fantastic colors. He modifies his monsters just enough so he can include all his favorite Universal Monsters without dealing with a Universal license. (The Creature, Wolfman, Dracula, etc., look similar to the film monsters, but not enough to convict them in a police line-up.) I collected his three earlier series and loved them, but the multiple parallel series make it impossible to get a complete base set out of a full box. His Kickstarters allowed patrons to get master sets for $250 to $350… not cheap but cheaper than piecing them together.
His newer 2026 series also offered a master set (plus a comic), but it was nearly five times the previous cost at $1,300. (I had to pass.) Piecing them together isn’t practical either. There are a whopping five parallel levels: the Red (orange) border base set (not numbered), a Retro Blue border set (299 made), a Black and White set (199 made), and a cool Foil set (199 made), as well a the mini-card (2 x 2.75”) set (199 made). Each non-base card is individually numbered.
The newer series also has an exclusive sticker set of 13 (using art from the base set) that only 199 were made, each serial numbered. The backs form a puzzle picture (The 13th sticker shows the complete puzzle image.) There are also “Secret Rare Foils”, like one called Dokuhebi, a pack pulled 1/1 foil, costing $400 on eBay. There were six different images, ten made of each—except the 6th one (of the Slayer, of which only one was made). Oddly enough, the Dokuherbi card was not one of those six Secret Rare Foils shown on the Kickstarter, so there maybe more than six. And there are 13 different “Ghostly Ghouls” cards randomly inserted (I got one in my box) but they are also available in the parallel varieties. I saw a full foil set (of which 69 master sets were sold on Kickstarter) on eBay for $300.
Yes, this is getting rather pricey. I bought a full box of 20 packs (10 cards per pack) and hoped for the best. What I got was about 115 different of the 170 base set, with the rest were duplicates (mostly different parallel varieties). I tried to trade my numerous dupes for the ones I needed, but only found one friend who was still collecting the series. (The other two ignored the Kickstarter when they saw a master set was $1,300.) I’ve been trying to buy the other cards I need on eBay and have made some progress. After spending another $150 dollars and the dozen I traded, I’m down to still needing eight. But again, this isn’t a true base set, it’s a mish-mash set, filling in holes with parallel cards. I gave up on finishing any of the chase card sets.
The artwork is as good as ever, but gets somewhat repetitive-- and I’m not talking about the parallels. Several of the images are repeated within each parallel series, but with slight variations (like a different background color). I’ve counted 13 duplicate images thus far, and there’re probably more. (I have 8 more to see.) One of the Dracula images (#16) is actually used three times (#18 & #27). All the images in this set are from comic book covers Mark has made, and the backs don’t offer any editorial other than which cover variant they represent. Although this may be disappointing to card collectors, the cross-over comic book crowd increased his sales of his cards by over 1,000%. His first three Kickstarters raised between $14K to $26K, but this Halloween 2026 edition made over $265K!
The king of the repetitive duplicates, however, is the 2024 Skybox release of Masterpieces, Monster Edition. This set profiles legendary monsters, like classic Greek monsters and modern urban myths. The base set is made up of 90 pieces of Daniel Horne art, but they get more scarce the higher the number. Cards 1-36 have 1,999 printed. Cards 37-63 have 1,099 printed. Cards 64-81 have just 499 printed, and 82-90 have only 99 made. Duplicate images, however, can be found and substituted from each parallel series, and there’s a dozenotherseries! Besides base, there are also Gold Daniel Horne Facsimile autograph parallels (inserted between 1 in every 2 ½ packs for cards 1-36, 1 in 5 packs for 37-63, 1 in 15 packs for 64-81, and only 1 in 144 packs for 82-90). There are also Purple parallels (199 ea.), Orange parallels (35 ea.), Silver Spectrum Autographed parallels (25 ea.), Red Spectrum Autographed parallels (1 ea.), Silver Framed parallels (49 ea.), Gold Framed parallels (25 ea.), Black Framed parallels (1 ea.), and also Metallurgy parallels (25 ea.). There are Movie Poster variants (1,499 for cards 1-36, 999 for 36-63, 299 for 64-81, and 50 for 82-90). There are also Movie Poster variants that are signed by Horne (10 each), and there are preliminary art drawings for all 90 (in 1 per 9 packs).
Insert card wise, there are 20 different Holofoils (1 per 12 packs), which are also available in Speckle Holofoil (99 ea.), and Kaleidoscope Holofoil (10 ea.). There are 9 different Lenticular cards (1 per 144 packs). There are 15 different Monster Matchups issued 1 per 12 packs, as well as Gem Parallels of the same art (99 each). There are also ten different UD Canvas cards issued 1 per 10 packs, with the same art issued as sliver spectrum autographed cards (25 each). There’s also 128 sketch artists drawing original cards inserted 1 per 48 packs, as well as ten uncut sheets given away for four different parallel sets of 90 (via 40 redemption cards randomly inserted).
I left the most audacious part for last: The cards are sold in boxes holding just 12 packs for $125 (that's over $10 per pack), and each pack has just 3 cards! On the bright side, they are super thick cards, but only 3 per pack? Wow…
Lastly and most expensively, there’s the 2025 series from Hollywood Trading Cards called Horror Legends Masterpieces. This is a sketch card series originally selling in small black boxes around $200, with only two sketches per box (one signed by the sketch artist, the other signed by the “Hollywood Legend” him or herself). The cards are already encapsulated (slabbed in plastic) to discourage fake autographs. There are no base cards, it’s all sketches by 39 different artists (making 1,240 sketches for series 1 alone, if I’m counting the website samples correctly).
There are other genres (series) as well, including big name action/adventure stars like Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Johnny Depp, Ian McKellen, Chris Pratt, Patrick Stewart, Natalie Portman, Laurence Fishburne, and… Dick Van Dyke? (For what? Shitty Shitty Bang Bang box?)
The Horror Legend stars included actors like Alec Baldwin, Sissy Spacek, Nick Castle, Tim Curry, Kane Hodder, Brett Wagner, Brad Loree, and Carmen Electra, but remember, that doesn’t limit the characters that are drawn. They can be living or dead, like Boris Karloff, Dracula, Poltergeist, The Shining, Hellraiser, etc. Whether new or old, any movie can be included. It’s like the Infinity Series, collect ‘em all, kids! (If you’re rich enough). Let’s see, at $200 a box with just two cards each, that’s $124,000.00… and that’s only for the first Horror series alone!
Yes, all three of these monster series really raked in the cash. That’s good news for artists, and its nice seeing them making some of the dough for once (instead of just the big stars and execs). But is it hurting the hobby with too many parallel sets or unique 1/1 cards, making it cost-prohibitive to complete a basic set? You decide that for yourself. Personally, having spent between $400 to $500 trying to piece any sort of mish-mash set just to get the base art of a modern set has me frustrated. I still have a long way to go and I’m tired of throwing money at this problem. Other collectors have complained loudly about it, too. I’m not saying manufactures need to offer master sets in each box, or even that they need to guarantee a base set in every box, but it would be helpful if collectors could at least finish a basic set with one or two boxes, rather than have each box watered down with so many parallels that they face impossible odds.
That being said, I like most the art in all three of these sets—even if I can’t afford it.