It has been so long since I've posted in this blog, and I didn't want to let an entire year go by without posting something, and that's only 12 days away, so I better get cracking.A lot of my most recent posts (cough, pretending it hasn't been almost a year) have centered around superheros and comic books in one form or another so I thought that would be as good of a place to start back as any.
I believe I've mentioned that I'm a child of the 90's more than of the 80's, at least when it comes to popular media and such things, and this is true of comic books too. So I want to talk about comic book manufacturers for a second.
There are two main comic book companies, DC and Marvel, and while this isn't as true anymore, it was at least as true in the 90's as it is now, if not more so. There are differences between the way each company portrays it's superheroes. DC heroes were always more sensational and over the top in my opinion than were the Marvel heroes who were always a little more down to Earth. This means that Marvel had more relatible characters with flaws and foibles while DC characters always seemed a little shallow in comparison, even if they more powerful or "cooler". One other thing I always liked about Marvel was their recognition of religion in their characters while DC for the most part found this facet of humanity just easier to ignore. I know it's strange to speak of superheroes in terms of more or less real or believable, but this is how it is. While DC may have characters that fit the superhero trope better, the Marvel characters were always more believable and when I'm trying to suspend my disbelief, that makes a difference.
Just so you know, I'm not a DC basher really, some of my favorite characters are DC, not Marvel. I was just speaking as a whole because many times in the past there were crossovers between Marvel and DC, but for the most part they never worked. Some of the match ups, like Superman vs. Spiderman or Hulk vs. Batman are a little strange, while other comparisons are spot on, like Captain America vs. Batman and the Martian Manhunter vs. the Vision. Anyway, comparing Wonder Woman with Storm and not with She-Hulk is just plain dumb. But then, in the mid-90's both companies got it right in a majorly awesome way. Enter Amalgam comics.
Amalgam was Marvel and DC's version of a joint operating agreement, but they took it farther than that. Not only did they amalgamate the companies, they amalgamated the characters too. Add Superman to Captain America and you get Man of War. Add Batman and Wolverine and you get Dark Claw. Add Wonder Woman and Storm and you get Amazon. Some of these were good, some, not so much (cough, Lobo the Duck). Spider-boy, Insect Queen, Speed Demon, Thorion and the Challengers of the Fantastic were good, but I think my favorite was Iron Lantern. Why wouldn't it be, I'm both a big Iron Man fan and a Green Lantern fan, so this was a match made in heaven for me.
Like I said, some of these comics were great, some not so much, but overall this was special. It was the first (and second if I remember right) that Marvel and DC were actually able to play together without all the heroes fighting each other and being stupid. One day I think these comics will probably be very valuable, so if you can get ahold of one, I'd hang on to it.
