SmashBoards Creates: A NEW Amalgam Comics

[AlRex]

Another creation thread, and like one of the other two I’ve had so far, it is NOT a fake game. Rather, it’s a fake line of comics. First, I should explain the premise, naturally.

What’s Amalgam Comics?
Back around 1996, Marvel and DC had a mini-series called Marvel VS DC. Their characters fought each other after several of them were randomly transported between universes for certain conflicts. That’s the short of it. One barely won the scorecard, so the other was going to get destroyed, but through a compromise, we ended up with the universes being combined briefly instead. Multiple one-shots were released with multiple combos.

You had characters like Super Soldier (Captain America + Superman), Dark Claw (Wolverine + Batman), Amazon (Storm + Wonder Woman), Lobo the Duck (Howard the Duck + Lobo), Doctor Doomsday (Doctor Doom + Doomsday), etc., teams like the X-Patrol (X-Force + Doom Patrol), the Legion of Galactic Guardians (Guardians of the Galaxy + Legion of Superheroes), Magneto & the Magnetic Men (The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants + the Metal Men), even conceptual ones got mentions like the Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour (Secret Wars/Infinity Gauntlet + Crisis on Infinite Earths/Zero Hour) and Elsewhat-If (What If? + Elseworlds). The comics even went so far as to have fake letters pages and mention past fake issues of their comics. It was popular enough to even get a second run of one shots the following year, as well as two follow-up mini-series involving the character who was caught up in all of this, Axel Asher, AKA Access, who basically had the ability to freely travel between the two universes, as well as combine two beings together.

It was an interesting experiment, with some mixed reception, but the concept itself is still fascinating, and there are multiple forms of fan art/fiction iterating on said concept. It’s been a while since Marvel and DC have done any sort of crossover, most likely due to a combination of corporate bad blood and an increasing competition between the two in other media landscapes, as well as being owned by two other big corporate rivals themselves now. But, like I said, fan works can still happen.

For now, here is where everything will be placed, along with the first few jobs underneath it.

Titles

Spoiler: WAVE 0

Intro Crossover

Spoiler: WAVE 1

TITLE 1
Combines: Marvel character and DC character
Also introduces: ??? (Marvel + DC), ??? (Marvel + DC), etc.

Job #1: What event gets these universes back together?
Would there be a big event that gets these two universes combined back together? Most likely. What is the general plot? You don’t have to be long, just give a title and a paragraph or so explaining it, and how it eventually comes to be that a new version of the Amalgam Universe comes about.

Job #2: Who combines with Superman?
Superman is an important, foundational character not only for the DC universe, but the superhero genre and comics medium as a whole. If we want to have a big basis for this universe to start with, it makes sense to start with what we’d do with the “big blue boyscout” himself. Do we stick with Super Soldier, or do we do something else entirely?

Job #3: How many comics should this line have?
We can go in waves if we want, or just go with a big swath of ones, it really depends. Do we want to do 12, like the two waves of Amalgam each did? 24? 25? 52? It all could seem pretty daunting, but we have our collaborative spirits about us.

 

[AlRex]

Here are my submissions...
Job #1: Marvel VS DC: Anniversary Edition
In the year 2026…God only knows what’s certain then. But if things are still around, Marvel VS DC and Amalgam will be 30 years old. Time really does fly. In the last events of one of the Access mini-series, we see that a version of the Amalgam universe still exists, locked away by Doctor Strange. The Amalgam character Doctor Strangefate tried to invade the other universes and replace them with his home universe, but through a team up, they eventually sealed him away, while still satisfying him. And yet…Doctor Strangefate is still Doctor Strange, at least partially. As long as some part of him connects with that, perhaps something will still be itching in his brain. Eventually, after so long of trying to keep it away, he may relent, Doctor Strangefate may be reborn through him, and he will try and orchestrate a large-scale conflict between the two universes, the winner getting to stay intact. But ultimately, he will declare it a draw, and combine them together again in a new form, and then he will have to be driven away again.

The match-ups would probably be different, given shifts in popularity of various characters over the years. I feel like Captain America VS Batman, being their ultimate “badass normals” should be kept, as well as some other natural ones like Thor VS Shazam, the Hulk VS Superman, etc. Maybe you can throw in twists on certain old ones, for instance, while Spider-Man [Ben Reilly] VS Superboy [Connor Kent] was between cloned successors who came about due to big shake-up events for their flagship characters, a similar match now could be between Miles Morales and Jonathan Kent, the younger successors who show that anyone can aspire to be a hero, even at the highest levels. Other natural match-ups could be Deadpool VS Deathstroke, Mr. Fantastic VS Plastic Man, Iron Man VS Cyborg, Captain Marvel VS Wonder Woman, so on and so forth. Honestly, the matches can vary, it’s more so about the general concept.

Job #2: Team Tomorrow
My combination idea for Superman is unconventional, and involves the use of several other characters. I said Superman was foundational, and there are a few characters I would say are about as foundational or signature to the Marvel universe. Captain America was a decent choice for the original, and Spider-Man is just as well-known as Superman, for certain. But if I’m thinking of characters who are foundational to their comics universe, as well as instrumental to changing the comics landscape in general, it isn’t one name that comes to mind, it’s four.

Clark Richards is a scientist and journalist who came from humble beginnings before working at the organization known as Freedom Planet, aiming to make and share new scientific discoveries with the rest of the world. Alongside star reporter and investigator Luanne Storm, her younger brother, Jimmy Storm, a hot-headed, budding photographer, and John Henry Grimm, a mechanic and old friend of Clark’s, the four were set out to make a trip into space to investigate a massive amount of radiation from a distant planet. Unfortunately, when they got near the source, their trip was cut off by a huge, explosive meteor shower that sent their ship rocketing back to Earth. When they all came to, they found that they had undergone strange transformations. They could all fly, in different ways, but there were more individual changes. Clark could alter the shape, mass, and density of his body, stretching out far and even becoming strong enough that rocks, trees, and, as he later found out, bullets would bounce off of him without harm. Susan became invisible, intangible, and able to pass through objects. Jimmy caught on fire, but was still alive, being able to control solar energy and produce it from his body. John was missing, at first, before he eventually dug himself out of the scrapheap of the rocket ship and he was found to resemble a scrapheap shaped like a man himself. From this day forward, Clark and the others vowed, like their own scientific discoveries, that they would share their powers with the world, helping protect and aid them towards a brighter tomorrow.

Team Tomorrow is, indeed, the Fantastic Four being Amalgamated with the Superman Family. Mr. Fantastic + Superman = Clark Richards, Mr. Tomorrow
The Invisible Woman + Lois Lane = Luanne Storm [later Luanne Richards], the Spirit Woman
The Human Torch + Jimmy Olsen = Jimmy Storm, Flamebird
The Thing + Steel [AKA John Henry Irons] = John Henry Grimm, Scrapheap
Freedom Planet is not the game, it’s the Four Freedoms Plaza that the FF operates out of combined with the Daily Planet. I pick the Fantastic Four to combine with Superman and his supporting cast mostly because of the foundational aspects of both informing how heroes are approached in both universes, as well as their extended supporting casts, villains, and even certain locations, concepts, etc. fitting together really well and being big, important things to their extended universes. Both cosmologies sort of start with these two titles, to an extent.

Job #3
A much shorter answer than my other two, I think 24 is a good number. Allows us room for about as many as the two original waves of Amalgam, while not being quite as daunting as doing 52 of these titles. I’d like to explore a lot of different facets of both universes in some way, but I don’t want to have this carry on for longer than people might be interested.

 

[KneeOfJustice99]

This looks incredibly interesting! Here's my takes:

Job #1: Whilst this might sound a little cliche, I think a good choice might well be a Crisis event of some description. Having lead to previous situations where we've looked at alternative universes on the DC side of things, it'd be a very interesting way to really delve into the implications of not just Earth-616 and Earth Prime crossing over, but an amalgamation between "infinite Earths." Imagine, for a moment, seeing some more unusual and weird characters from alternative universes crossing over? A point that springs to mind for myself, at least, would be a crossover between various Golden Age heroes in the form of a mix between the Justice Society and the Invaders, or perhaps even taking the opportunity to bring in all-new worlds from now-defunct publishers (in a similar vein to DC's modern use of Charlton titles such as Captain Marvel/Shazam and the Blue Beetle!) I mean, any opportunity to bring the 1940s Hydroman into a situation where he has to fight Marvel's Hydro-Man just seems too fun not to somehow include, right?

Job #2: Personally, whilst the obvious answer might be that Superman needs to be a symbol... I think we can all agree that he's the poster child of DC. However, I'd argue that there's a more unusual answer to "Marvel's poster child" in the modern era - Tony Stark. Hear me out here:

Clark Stark (Yes, really,) is an alien from a distant planet, cast through space and gifted with little more than the ship he found himself in - a cluster of nanomachines powered by solar energy, allowing the suit to do incredible things whilst limited only by sunlight. Possessing incredible abilities such as immense strength and even flight, the caveat is that Clark finds the air of Earth immensely toxic - his Fortress of Solitude, on the other hand, is filled with air that would be toxic to humans. To exit his home, he must stay inside his suit at all times - despite being the Man of Tomorrow, a symbol for all of humanity, he is endlessly kept apart from the people he protects by the membrane that keeps him alive. Despite being an alien who so desperately wants to be human, he can never experience the things humans experience. Will this drive him to possess a god complex - would it drive him to madness? Only time will tell.

Job #3: 24 sounds really solid to me. I think it'd give enough space for some of the "big leagues," as well as a few more obscure picks and even perhaps a team book or two. It seems like a really nice middle ground that prevents us from overfacing ourselves!