Last year’s Topps Chrome Update Baseball set is the most recent must-get card set for collectors and baseball fans, and the comic book-themed Alter Ego Super Hero insert set has become the hottest of them all. This super short run 10-card set features artwork by Michael Blaskewicz, portraying past and present players as superhuman versions of themselves, has become a much sought after collectible.
As sual Shohei is the biggest star of them all. A Shohei “Sho Time” Ohtani 1/1 SuperFractor card, just sold for $10,000 through Fanatics Collect.
2025 Topps Chrome Update Alter Ego Superheroes SuperFractor Shohei Ohtani 1/1 #AE-9 CGC AUTH
This card features the 4-time MVP and 2-time World Series champion Shohei Ohtani as a top hat magician conjuring two samurai swords. Ohtani has been a juggernaut on the field and in the collector market, as one of the most in-demand athletes in rookie cards, inserts, and rare parallels selling on the second market.
Check out a clip of Blaskewicz explaining the Mandrake the Magician reference in the “Sho Time” card to Five Card Guys below:
According to Topps, the base versions of the 10 Alter Ego cards were inserted at an average rate of one in every 4,074 hobby packs (1:203.7 boxes), and the one-of-one Superfractor gold border variations of each card are listed as one in every 389,424 hobby packs.
A PSA 9 base version of the Shohei “Sho Time” Ohtani Alter Ego card is currently selling for $25,000 on Ebay.
Blaskewicz, a long-time Oakland Athletics fan, drew inspiration from the biggest artists of the 90s, such as George Pérez, Jim Starlin, Mike Mignola, and Image founder Erik Larsen, and created some of the most sought-after cards in recent memory.
“Every card in this series had a different backstory in terms of the character. The position I took from the beginning was … I don’t want these to be caricatures. I want to imagine these are existing heroes, characters, in a lived in comic book universe already. That was sort of the must-have, growing up as a life-long comic book fan,” Blaskewicz said when talking to the Athletic.
Fans and collectors will have to wait and see if these Alter Ego inserts will make their way to other sports following the announcement of Topps taking over the NBA exclusive card license last October and fully licensed NFL cards starting April 2026.
The remaining past and current players in the Topps Chrome Update Baseball Alter Ego set are:
Rickey “Man of Steal” Henderson
Frank “Big Hurt” Thomas
Pete “Polar Bear” Alonso
Cal “The Iron Man” Ripken
Ozzie “Wizard” Smith
Aaron “All Rise” Judge
Jasson “The Martian” Dominguez
Ronald “La Bestia” Acuna
Francisco “Mr Smile” Lindor
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