The Boys co-creator Darick Robertson shared a hilarious and unfortunate edit that Fleer made to a drawing he created of Thor for a trading card, which turned the God of Thunder into an absolute mess. Robertson shared his original sketch side-by-side with the final card edit on his personal Twitter account, showing the significant differences and edit that the trading card company made to his drawing, which completely changed the character.
When it came to trading cards, Fleer was a major player in the industry, especially during the junk wax era and beyond. The company was founded in 1885 and eventually became a popular manufacturer of sports cards. However, the now-defunct company did more than just sports cards, producing collectible trading cards from movies such as Dune, TV series such as Gong Show, and several products for Marvel. Marvel actually briefly owned Fleer before declaring bankruptcy in the mid-'90s, before the company was sold multiple times, ultimately ending up with Upper Deck before the brand was shelved for good.
Robertson, who co-created The Boys alongside Garth Ennis, shared his original sketch on Twitter of the Thor he submitted to Fleer. The image features a strapping Thor in his mid-'90s costume, as his suit only covers the middle of his chest. Thor's muscles are massive, as he wields Mjolnir with a stark grimace on his face. It's a pretty badass take on Thor. However, when Fleer got the image, they decided to print it with a considerable edit.
For those who don't notice the difference (and I'm not sure how that's possible), take a look at Thor's teeth. As Robertson notes, Fleer edited the image to change his teeth. The result? A horrifying-looking Thor whose teeth don't match the rest of the image. Now, Fleer had the right to change whatever they wanted, but the fact someone saw Robertson's pencils and thought, "you know what? this needs sem-realistic teeth that don't quite fit in his mouth," is pretty baffling. Although, it makes for a hilarious mangled trading card.
While some Marvel Comics trading cards have exploded in value due to collectors snapping them up believing they're the next money-maker in the graded collectibles industry (which is severely inflated by bad actors), the edited Thor trading card from Fleer doesn't have much value. Still, while editing Robertson's artwork is bad and still questionable more than 15 years after it was printed, it makes for a pretty good story.