Alien 3 (trading cards)

Alien 3 Cards 53 — Card 53 - *Alien³* title card.

Alien³ is a 1992 80-card trading card (or "Collectible CardArt", per the packaging) set based on the film of the same name, published by Star Pics.

Overview[]

The cards are arranged into five main subsets:

38 "Datalog" cards, which essentially form a narrative of the film from Ripley's perspective.
3 "Outtake" cards, which detail scenes deleted from the theatrical cut of the film.
16 "Behind the Scenes" cards, which feature behind the scenes images and information from the production.
12 "Weyland-Yutani File" cards, which contain details on the characters in the film.
9 Dark Horse Comics cards, which present newly-commissioned Alien artwork and also form a short comic titled Alien³: Alone.

The set also features a title card and a special text-only "Checklist" card.

With the exception of the Dark Horse subset, each standard card features an image on the front (either a shot from the film or a promotional or behind the scenes image), while the rear carries a small block of text. The Dark Horse cards, meanwhile, feature new Alien-themed artwork on the front, and carry the short comic Alien³: Alone, with art by Hoang Nguyen, on the rear.

Artists who contributed original artwork for the Dark Horse Comics cards were Tim Bradstreet, Paul Guinan, Paul Gulacy, Hoang Nguyen, Ron Randall, Tim Sale and Chris Warner.^[1]

Cards were sold in 10-card "StarPaks".

Trivia[]

There are several curious idiosyncrasies with the Alien³ trading cards. Most obviously, the set's title card is actually card 53, and falls in the middle of the Behind the Scenes cards. There are also character cards for several fairly minor background prisoners, such as Jude, but no such card for Ripley, the star of the movie. Furthermore, the adaptation of the film on the rear of the Datalog cards actually skips over how the Dragon is killed — the summary builds up to Ripley climbing out of the mold, then suddenly jumps to the Weyland-Yutani team arriving. As a result the fates of neither the Dragon nor Dillon are revealed.