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There were actually two different X-Men machines. I played the one closer to the front of the arcade. We could probably email the MAGFest arcade department to figure out who brought them.

I was at MAGFest last month in National Harbor, MD. One area of the arcade has a bunch of pinball machines brought by collectors for the community to enjoy. Someone brought Stern’s newer Uncanny X-Men machine, and I really had a blast with it. If I had room in my house and a pile of money, I might buy one. At one point the ball got stuck, so I called a tech came over to fix it.

I stayed to watch them open the machine because I’m always fascinated by that sort of thing. I noticed that the underside of the table beneath all the electronics also had artwork on it. It was dark and swirly. There was also some blacklight reactive paint in there that was glowing in the dark arcade room.

When I asked the tech he said it was common for them to repurpose parts from unsold or unfinished machines for newer more popular ones to save on materials. He commented how the inside of his King Kong machine had artwork from a prototype for a machine based on the rock band Nickelback that never reached production.

Now that I found this discussion it makes perfect sense that it was a reused part from a Junji Ito machine. I just didn’t think of it at the time because although I am a fan of both Juni Ito and pinball, I would never have made the connection between the two.