Amalgam Universe Part 11

[glprime]

For my final this installment, I'm coincidentally presenting the Amalgam one-shot I just recently purchased.

Mix the tragic background of Bruce Wayne with the experiences of Nick Fury and you get...




This character is basically Batman without all the Gotham City limitations. His training all over the world was as an espionage agent, and his parents were spies (not unlike Peter Parker) killed by terrorists, so his theatre of operations is much grander than usual.

So, at the end of my first post, Lex Luthor (traitor industrialist and arch-enemy of Super-Soldier) was last seen escaping the castle headquarters of Baron Zemo via submarine. Whatever happened to him?

Well, for more than 50 years he continued his fight against the forces of democracy as the Green Skull, head of HYDRA.

Yeah.

Unfortunately, Colonel Bruce Wayne has finally brought an entire helicarrier of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best to HYDRA's doorstep, prepared to finish the mad-man and his cronies off once and for all, while also administering sweet, sweet revenge. DOUBLY UNFORTUNATELY, Luthor's daughter has decided to stage a coup at this very moment.



I don't know why she isn't named Talia Luthor, but whatever.

Aboard the helicarrier, semi-retired head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Nick Fury (yeah, they still have him as a separate character; apparently he's just too badass to be put down by something so trivial as the complete merging of the universes) is warning Bruce to play this offensive safe. Bruce blows him off, telling him not to worry.





Bruce preps his field agents, which includes his girlfriend Black Bat and protege, Moonwing. In true super-secret-agent fashion, they all strap on jetpacks and go in guns a-blazin'.



What Green Skull neglected to tell the minions of HYDRA was that he replaced their regular tropical secret base with one housing an unstoppable weapon of ultimate DOOM. Let's see if they notice the difference.



Yeah, the HYDRA lieutenants are awesome combinations: Nuke is Bane and the Daredevil/Wolverine villain, Deathlok is Jason Todd and the zombified soldier, Baron Zero is Freeze and Zemo). Almost like classic COBRA villains.





Their aircraft flies over a gigantic explosion, and neither believes anything could have survived.

The final panel shows a darkened, smoke-filled room, where the REAL Green Skull watches his plans come to fruition. That dastardly crook! He's even using a theatre-length cigarette holder... Damn his cultured evil!

I hope you've enjoyed these selections from one of the most talked about inter-company crossovers of all time. I also hope my respected colleagues will continue to post their collected issues to fill in the entire collection. We may even back-track into covering the Access and Marvel vs. DC limited series.

Until then, I say thank you, and good night.

And remember: A-Make, A-Mine, Amalgam!

Comments

[arbre_rieur]

Around the time this one-shot came out, Dixon said one of the biggest secrets of the Bat-comics was hidden in it. Nobody knows what he meant.

[okkult3000]

Bruce Wayne's parents were spies?

[stig]

Let's take a guess at some.

Catwoman is Luthor's daughter?

[koschei]

I'd sort of buy that possibility

[zordboy]

But Luthor's age has always been a bit variable.

If the current retcon stands, then he and Clark grew up together in Smallville, which means Lex would at best only be a few years older than Clark. Catwoman is roughly in the same age bracket as Clark and Bruce, so Lex would've had to impregnate a girl when he was 12 or so to make that happen.

[cainofdreaming]

Jason Todd is a cyborg zombie?

Hmm, has anyone actually checked him for a pulse?

[jlbarnett]

maybe he planned on bringing Jason Todd back too.

Has anyone ever asked him?

[zordboy]

That is actually really interesting.

[halloweenjack]

Dixon said one of the biggest secretsretcons of the Bat-comics was hidden in it.

Unless he's got a secret letter from Bob Kane hidden away somewhere.

[okkult3000]

I think you mean Bill Finger.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I thought Amalgam came from some force putting together "two universes which had split apart," or some such, reassembling them as they were "supposed to be."

If that's the case, then why is Batman torn in two directions (Dark Claw and the above)? Does that just make DC Batman a different sort of hybrid along the same lines as all these others?

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

[glprime]

Two celestial brothers who personify the DC and Marvel universes become aware of the other's existence, and challenge each other to a series of duels involving each universe's respective superheroes. The losing universe will cease to exist [...] The "brothers" resolve the situation by temporarily creating a new universe, called the Amalgam universe, which is occupied by merged versions of many of the heroes

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Oh, my bad. Still weird, though.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

[falseaesop]

You think that's nutty, there was a guy "Access" who's superpower was he was aware of all this, could travel back and forth from DC to Marvel at will, sense when people were in the wrong universe, and if he touched people from each respective universe at the same time could make an o the spot amalgamation.

He had two mini-series (in addition to being in DC vs Marvel) then was promptly forgotten about for all time.

Secretly everytime there's a new Marvel/DC crossover I secretly hope Access makes a random appearence.

[jlbarnett]

actually in the Superman/FF crossover he was mentioned.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Aye, that guy I've heard of. I guess I understood the story wrong or something, though.

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

[zordboy]

What's weird is that, during the JLAvengers crossover, one of the universes is now a female, and there's a huge page of the two Universes sharing a deep and rather passionate kiss.

Which all makes the "two celestial brothers" thing just a little bit creepy, actually. Anyway.

[uadlika]

...scans?

[thatnickguy]

Well, in that scenario, Busiek used two already pre-existing characters from each universe (ones that've lasted longer than the Brothers). In fact, the female in that case appeared in Adventures of Superman #500 (only reason I remember that number is because I was still early into collecting comics at the time), which was the big "Superman in Heaven" issue.

[kamino_neko]

That's Kismet (whose first appearance was a few issues previous, AoS 494). The Marvel/male of the pair is Eternity, who's been around since 1965.

[blake_reitz]

Was Kismet ever suppose to be the embodiment of the DC universe, or did they just use her because she shares Eternity's starry-cosmic look?

[kamino_neko]

I don't think either of them is supposed to actually be an incarnation of their universes, though I'm not really intimately familiar with either.

But, no, so far as I know, she's not meant to represent even so much of the cosmos as Eternity.

[arilou_skiff]

Eternity is the universe. He refers to it as "The Universe-That-Is-I" numerous times.

His tendency to remain innefective is usually put due to the fact that most things that act in the universe are in fact aspects of Him. He requires special dispensation from the Living Tribunal in order to "act as a being".

[kamino_neko]

Then what was Infinity?

[arilou_skiff]

She is Eternity. Sort of. They're two sides of the same being.

[icon_uk]

Eternity's "sister. Eternity embodies the concept of the totality of time, Infinity the totality of space.

From marvel.com:

Eternity came into existence when the universe was formed (along with Death, Oblivion, and Infinity) and spontaneously assumed the collective consciousness of all living things in the Universe. He is every living thing and every living thing is him; thus he controls everything in all plains of existence with the exception of the Living Tribunal, who maintains the cosmic balance of power. Eternity is the physical incarnation of time, whereas his sister Infinity represents space.

Infinity is the cosmic entity that defines the entirety of space and its occupants. Together with Eternity it encompasses all of creation, representing both time and space.

[kamino_neko]

Yeah, that's what I thought.

[kamino_neko]

I thought Amalgam came from some force putting together "two universes which had split apart," or some such, reassembling them as they were "supposed to be."

That's one of the descriptions given of the origin of the DC Multiverse.

Amalgam was fictionally just what it was in reality - randomly mashing together the two universes. (Although the reasons were different - fictionally to save existence, really, because someone at the two companies thought it'd be cool.)

[tacobob]

BRUCE WAYNE just doesn't shout awesome like NICK FURY. It's like STANLEY TROBOSKI JR: MAN AT ARMS.

[sarno001]

NICK FURY can wear shorts to the office and still be awesome. BRUCE WAYNE, alas, can not.

[icon_uk]

Though he should try more often...

[seriousfic]

I'm surprised they didn't amalgam Nick Fury and Jim Gordon. Just swap out the cigar for a pipe and you're gold.