THE STORY BEHIND THE MARVEL ARTWORK

Ciccarelli was first commissioned to create a single card in the 1994 Fleer Ultra Marvel card set. The 1994 Fleer Ultra cards, along with other mid-90s sets, are considered by many to be the some of the best Marvel card collections ever created. His assignment was the super-villain, Arcade.

The following year he was asked to increase his efforts by 20-fold. The ask came in the form of two limited edition sets of 10 for the ‘95 Fleer cards. The first set was the Suspended Animation X-Men cards, the second was the Color Chrome Spiderman set. Both of the card sets were unique in form: the X-Men cards were clear, some with illustrations of both the front and back of the character. And the Spiderman set was semi-clear chrome-like finish. They were released in regular trading card sets but eventually were also reprinted and sold along with action figures.

X-Men Danger Room Series

Ciccarelli would go on to do several more illustrations for Marvel during the 90’s, including cover art for a series of X-men and Spiderman toy sets, a short-lived Spiderman cereal, the push-talk Marvel action figures which included Hulk, Punisher, Spiderman and Venom, and the 1998 8-Inch Famous Covers action figures that included Dare Devil, Black Widow, Falcon and Mr. Sinister.