One of the oddest developments in comics history was the Marvel-DC crossover event published under the "Amalgam" comics label. I was not reading any comics at the time, but I have never been a "civilian," so I saw them and flipped through them. It was like the Apocalypse had occurred.

(For the uninitiated, Marvel and DC worked together in 1996 on a crossover universe that "combined" a lot of characters, like Superman and Captain America became Super Soldier -- there was a whole universe with a combined back story).

For you knowledgeable collectors, what was the deal there? Was that the desperate move of a post-collapse comics industry? Was it the brainchild of a certain few?

Did people hate it or like it? Was it relatively successful or a big joke?

The mini-series itself was a big disappointment due to the sub-par battles (Wolverine vs. Lobo happens off-panel, Aquaman drops a whale on Namor) and the fact that it was mid-90's and most of the characters were unrecognizeable (Super-mullet, Ben Reilly, Aquahook, Awful costumes for Thor & Daredevil, etc.)... but I got a kick out of a lot of the Amalgam Books - Spider-Boy, Iron Lantern, Dr. Strangefate, Legends of the Dark Claw, Super-Soldier... this is where the artists and writers seemed to really have fun.

Amalgam was a lot of fun.


I think it was so successful there was a second wave of oneshots, but I could be misremembering that.

Initial plans were also that the two companies would share a character specifically created from that, I can't remember his name, 'Access' maybe?

He kinda sucked, and the plans for derailed anyway.


Spider-Boy was my favourite, Darkclaw was okay, Challengers of The Fantastic very neat.


And I love that they were labelled 'Amalgam' in the corner box and everything.


It seemed like everyone had a lot of fun creating the books, it really showed in the final product.


DC vs Marvel wasn't very good, mainly due to bad fan votes, but Amalgam was fun overall. Not all were great, but certainly enough to warrant a look at them, IMO.

They did indeed have a second round of Amalgam one-shots a year later.

Also, Access appeared in two crossover minis - Marvel/DC All Access and Marvel/DC Ultimate Acess - I actually enjoyed the stories in these better than the first Marvel Vs. DC mini, but the art looked rushed by Guice ond Oliffe.

It was fun but unimportant.

Getting attention to something to boost sales was a motivating factor.

I thought it was really clever.
There were all kinds of little nods and tidbits mixed among the various stories. A true comic book geekfest.
The minis were a LOT better than the Marvel vs DC main mini.

It was a big success. hence they repeated it.

It was considered fun but not great.

There was a big debate over whether it was good that fans were allowed to vote on how they wanted outcomes to end. "OMG, Wolverine beat Lobo. the horror"

It seemd that in certain cases, the writers, thinking the outcome was wrong, didn't really play ball. hence the "Well i can't figur eout how Wovlerine can beat Lobo so i will have it happen off screen to show the fans how dumb they were for actually voting for their favorite characters to win"

Personally, i liked it. It was fun. Silly. cool. a childhood dream come true.

Thorian was really cool, combining Thor with Orion, and all of their respective supporting characters and concepts. Great art by JRJR. I also liked Byrne's Amazon, mixing Wonder Woman and Storm. I believe that issue was inked by Terry Austin.

The character Access gets referenced in the Superman/Fantastic Four book [shameless plug]which I worked on[/shameless plug] but I don't think he gets any actual screen time.

The Batman/Wolverine amalgam Dark Claw was neat because they did the comic (and this was maybe the second one they did with that character) as if it was based on a Dini/Timm "Dark Claw" cartoon. So it was sort of two steps removed from continuity.

There was a Punisher/Wonder Woman one called "Bullets and Bracelets," which was a fun title, I thought. Never read that one, but I would like to ... some day.

I wasn't reading comics at the time, but this event almost drew me back in. I did splurge on the first TPB. When I got back into reading comics, the Amalgam floppies were some of my first back-issue buys.

The Dr. Strangefate book was awesome. Beautiful art, great characters, fun twist.

The Spider-Boy/Legion book was fun.

Byrne's Storm/Wondie amalgam was nice, if only because he used actual reference photos of Baton Rouge for the backgrounds.


My first knowledge of the event was to find the Superman/Cap Amalgam book on a gas station spinner-rack. The shock almost triggered a nervous breakdown. I know that I uttered some unearthly sound when I saw the book. The cashier was staring at me like I was a mumbling homeless person.

Yes, it was helmed by Mark Gruenwald and his former assistant, Mike Carlin. The editor of the Amalgam books was listed as "M.M. Carwald."

It was a lot of fun. Some of the books were just plain weird, but you could tell the creators were having a lot of fun. My favorites from the first run were Spider-Boy, Super Soldier, JLX, and Dark Claw. Second batch, I really enjoyed Iron Lantern, Challengers of the Fantastic and Spider-Boy Team-Up. Most of the others were fun, but those are the ones that I remember fondly and wish we could see more of!

I've just been reading these - and they're a ton of fun. Challengers of The Fantastic is great stuff, and so is Super Soldier.

Bat-Thing is really good, as well.

Batman and the Thing? Sounds awesome.

If I recall it was Man-Bat and Man-Thing.

I remember liking Thorion of the New Asgods, Dark Claw, Speed Demon and Assassins amongst others

That's still pretty cool. My mother has a few of the floppies around, but I have never read any.

I was kidding.

The Spider-Boy drawn by Ladronn was a favorite, as was Thorion... I sorta felt it was a waste of an opportunity. Many of the Amalgamated combinations looked lame.

I'd love them to do the crossover again and try the Amalgam experiment one more time.

My favourite 'elseworlds' version of the MU was in Exiles - the version of Earth with the 'Science Squad', who were fighting giant monsters all the time.