Amalgam Comics: 20 Things Worth Remembering After 20 Years

[Fuzwadd]

I loved the Angelhawk combo and Captain Marvel (which was a no brainer). I remember the card set and how I really wanted to read the Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour.242518-158355-secret-crisis-of-the.jpg

[Vworp Vworp]

Amazon, Dark Claw and Super Soldier are not surprisingly the most iconic. Surprised there wasn't a Nova/Green Lantern merged character, though? Kyle Rider, anyone? Also think that Nightwing and Spider-Man would have made more sense.

I always figured they went with Spidey and Superboy cos of the clone link... Although at that time, Ben was supposedly the real deal I think.

[BigMike20X6]

How can you forget Lobo The Duck? The funniest comic of all Amalgam series

That was from 1997's Wave 2, and the article mentions it's only covering the 1996 run.

[Rod G]

How can you forget Lobo The Duck? The funniest comic of all Amalgam series

Quite a good point.

[BigMike20X6]

I loved the idea of Access, hopping from universe to universe. I actually enjoyed the follow up minis as well, it's a shame they haven't been collected (to my knowledge... and speaking of knowledge...

Which brother was which? Was Marvel Red and DC Blue? Some pages made it seem that was the case, then others made me question that...

[MatchesMalone]

I want to see a revise version of this. Considering the retcons that have been occurring in DC (New 52, Rebirth) and Marvel (All-New, All-New All-Different, Post-Secret Wars) books, I'd like to see the Amalgam universe after one such event

[Hank XTC]

the idea was good, but it was very poorly written.

[Garlador]

Good memories.

At my wedding last month, all my groomsmen wore cufflinks custom-made with their favorite heroes. My brother picked "Dark Claw" as his favorite. Not a bad pick.

[Astrozac]

Amazon, Dark Claw and Super Soldier are not surprisingly the most iconic. Surprised there wasn't a Nova/Green Lantern merged character, though? Kyle Rider, anyone? Also think that Nightwing and Spider-Man would have made more sense.

There was but not that Nova. Frankie Rayner aka Jade Nova was in Dr. Strangefate combining Jade, Frankie Raye and Kyle Rayner...

I loved the Amalgam books. It was the most out of left field idea ever and it worked. The creators were able to go all out with stories and characters. Some were obvious, some were amalgamated because of their names. But even Dark Claw worked coming from two distinct sources...The only real hang-up was usually a character more than once, Dark Claw and a Bruce Wayne, but it was,all in the fun.

Just on the fact that I was more interested in seeing the second issues of the Amalgam stories than most of the regular output of DC and Marvel showed where they were at at the time...

[Robotman]

This series was so much fun to read when I was a kid.

The Spider-Man of that time and Superboy worked because of the clone connection. But if it was regular Spidey I think a better combo would have been with Nightwing. Or maybe Blue Beetle because of the Steve Ditko connection.

[amrothery]

This series was so much fun to read when I was a kid.

The Spider-Man of that time and Superboy worked because of the clone connection. But if it was regular Spidey I think a better combo would have been with Nightwing. Or maybe Blue Beetle because of the Steve Ditko connection.

Dick was a SHIELD agent codenamed Moonwing, while Jason had been resurrected as a Deathlok.

There were a few other duplications besides the Huntress that was mentioned earlier. Cable was crossed with the post-Zero Hour Manhunter as Wired in Assassins and with the Doom Patrol's Chief to form Niles Cable of the X-Patrol. Jimmy Olsen came through relatively unscathed in Bucky's position in Super-Soldier's backstory to take Perry White's place at the Planet, while also getting smooshed together with Ben Urich in Assassins.

Meanwhile, number one on my list would have to be Genosha's undisputed dictator, Doctor Doomsday!

[Robotman]

Dick was a SHIELD agent codenamed Moonwing, while Jason had been resurrected as a Deathlok.

There were a few other duplications besides the Huntress that was mentioned earlier. Cable was crossed with the post-Zero Hour Manhunter as Wired in Assassins and with the Doom Patrol's Chief to form Niles Cable of the X-Patrol. Jimmy Olsen came through relatively unscathed in Bucky's position in Super-Soldier's backstory to take Perry White's place at the Planet, while also getting smooshed together with Ben Urich in Assassins.

Meanwhile, number one on my list would have to be Genosha's undisputed dictator, Doctor Doomsday!

I always thought that would be the most unstoppable character. The genius of Dr. Doom was the incredible power of Doomsday. I guess that would kind of make him similar to Darkseid.

I like Thorion too since Kirby's original plan for the New Gods was for them to replace the Asgardians after Ragnorak. So it was fitting to combine the mythologies.

[gmhl10]

Oh memories...
Funny thing is, I still got the 4 comic miniseries mint somewhere around the house in a shoebox. I think one of them isn't even opened. haha.

[Carabas]

For example, I think that SUPER-SOLDIER should be a Marvel exclusive trademark, but oh well.

It's just as easy to argue that Super-anything when used as a name should be a DC-exclusive trademark.

[Sam Robards, Comic Fan]

The only Amalgam issue I got was the first issue of X-Patrol (I wasn't able to do much comic buying at that time), but I would have gotten so many more if I could. I remember that they collected Marvel vs DC, but did they ever collect any of this stuff? I'd be all over it.

In fact, I may have to track some of these down here soon, if only for the sure novelty of them.

Needless to say, I'd love to see this concept revisited on an ongoing basis, with books rotating out every 12 issues to give lots of creators (and merged characters) a chance to thrive. Alas, Joe Q burned the bridge between DC and Marvel, and I'm not sure that it'll come back until after he leaves the company.