Wolverine #102.5

A special in-between issue by Fleer. Cover by Boris Vallejo. "Slay-Per-View" written by Dan Slott with art by Mark Buckingham. "Costume Re-Partee" written by Dan Slott with art by Mike Wieringo. Bonus pin-up by Julie Bell. Continuity-wise, the story in Wolverine #102.5 falls between Wolverine #102 and #103. Written by Mark Buckingham with art by Mike Wieringo, this was a mail-away comic for the Fleer trading cards produced for Marvel. The cover was used as art for the Fleer Ultra X-Men set and an interior pin-up was used for the Marvel Masterpiece 1996 set. Why is this such a strange read? Because each page is actually 9 trading cards with each sheet of 9 cards linking together to form a single comic book page--not a 9 panel comic book page--but rather a normal comic book page. Fleer had two requirements for the artist and writer doing the comic. Every card had to feature at least one character, and as many Marvel characters as possible had to appear in the 11 page story. Given these weird parameters, the final "comic" turned out pretty well. And, given the bizarre rules, Mark Buckingham did an excellent job!