Happy Dark Claw Day!

Today is officially Dark Claw Day. Go out and have a few drinks to celebrate.

(Yeah yeah, I know. It's Batman Day, but not on this page it isn't.)

Charting the Marvel vs. DC/DC vs. Marvel 1995 [Fleer- Skybox] Card Set #1

Back in the 90s, Fleer-Skybox made card sets for pretty much EVERYTHING! So it should come as no surprise that they had a card set for the Marvel vs. DC/DC vs. Marvel event series. The set came out sometime in 1995 and I used to own every single card (and the '96 Amalgam set, too!)

In this series of blog posts, I will be posting all the front and back images for each and every card in the set, probably in chunks of three or four cards per post. Once I get through the entire series, I will more than likely do the Amalagam cards. If people are interested.

So let's begin.

Hulk vs Superman

Captain America

Elektra

So there's the first three cards in the set. Be back next time with three or four more.

New 52 Super Soldier? What the...???

Apparently, in the alternate reality where Amalgam comics are a real thing, the company went the DC route and did the New 52 thing. Don't believe me? Well, here's a cover from one of their flagship titles.

I would read the hell out of this book.

This image was taken from a cool site known as The Amalgam Age of Comics that is run by Paul Cornish. He has done a bunch of new mash-ups that we've never seen before, so head on over and check it out.

My apologies to those of you who clicked on this thinking Super Soldier was actually appearing in the New 52 (which would be great). I had to get you to the visit the page somehow!

Amalgam's Spider-Boy in SPIDER-VERSE #2

Hey, everybody. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been super busy, so if you don't hear from me much for the next little while, just know I haven't forgotten about this or any of the other other blogs I'm involved with.

As luck would have it, my recent absence works out, because this is the absolute perfect first post for the New Year.

On one of the other blogs I'm (loosely at the moment) involved with, The Ultraverse Network, Shag Matthews posted an image from Spider-verse #2 showing a panel containing a cameo of Spider-Prime. See the blog post below this one if you don't know who Spider-Prime is. I got all excited, as I had pestered Dan Slott before Spider-verse even started to include Spider-Prime and Spider-Boy in the event series, even as small cameos in a group shot. For those who don't know, Marvel is not allowed to use either of those characters anymore for legal reasons. Dan said pretty much there was no chance in hell of that happening, but I figured I'd keep my eyes open anyway, as we all know comic creators are a sneaky lot.

As I was looking at the Spider-Prime pic (over on the far left of the pic posted below, right below where Spidey's webbing hits the edge of the panel), I thought to myself that while this was awesome, it was too bad that they didn't sneak Spider-Boy into the picture as well. Then I saw it! Spider-Boy WAS is the picture. Don't believe me? Check for yourself.

See him? No? Click the picture, silly, and make it bigger. Ah, THERE he is! He's squashed in between the main Spider-Man on the left's buttock and the Spider-Man with the webbing for a mask. I showed the picture to Shag before I posted this just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, and he agrees with me that it is indeed Spider-Boy!

Sometimes, bitching works. It really does.

Random Panel of the Day #4

Wait! What? That's not a Marvel/DC amalgamation! What's going on here? Wouldn't you like to know!

Keep your eyes open for an announcement of a new blog/podcast coming in October from Shag Matthews, David Ace Gutiérrez and the gang! (Shhh, part of the gang is me! Don't tell anybody!)

And there is also a second podcast coming from Ben Avery, which is tied in to the aforementioned blog/podcast. Stay tuned, people. It's gonna be a fun ride!

Legion of Galactic Guardians 2099

For those of you that were unaware, on a recent episode of the Who's Who podcast, Rob and Shag kind of dropped a hint that somebody should start a blog dedicated to the Legion of Super-Heroes because there hadn't been one in a loooong time, if ever. Well, the listeners did it. All bloggers and/or Legion fans in their own right, people like Little Russell Burbage, Kyle Benning the Metropolis Kid, Tim "Kord Industries" Wallace, David Weter, Firestorm Fan's Irredeemable Shag, David Sopko, Supergirl expert Anj, and Siskoid from Siskoid's Blog of Geekery all ganged together to start...

...The Legion of Super-Bloggers!

The blog went live September 1, 2014, and it is great! I've been...preoccupied lately, and hadn't had a chance to really look it over until today, and I have to say, the guys are doing a great job so far. So great, in fact that I was inspired to do up this blog entry dealing with the Legion teams that showed up in Amalgam Comics June 1997 comic, Spider-Boy Team-Up #1. This isn't going to be an actual review of the issue, as I will eventually be reviewing all the Amalgam stuff somewhere down the road. It's just a quick glance at the two different teams that show up in the comic.

The issue starts off with Spider-Boy fighting the Scavulture (an amalgamation of Scavenger and the Vulture). Some stuff happens and Spider-Boy finds himself in the year 2099. There he meets up with the Legion of Galactic Guardians 2099 (Legion of Super-Heroes/Guardians of the Galaxy/2099). This is the first group he meets up with before the Chronal Crisis happens:

And here's the breakdown of who the heck all those characters are amalgamations of:

Pre-Chronal Crisis LOGG 2099 Members

Bouncing Ball - Bouncing Boy/Speedball
Cannonfire - Wildfire/ Cannonball
Chameleon - Chameleon Boy/ Chameleon
Dream Date - Dream Girl/ Destiny
Fantastic Lad - Elastic Lad/ Mr. Fantastic
Growing Boy - Colossal Boy/ Growing Man
Invisible Girl - Invisible Kid/ Invisible Woman
Lady Bug - Shrinking Violet/ The Wasp
Living Lightning Lad - Lightning Lad/ Living Lightning
Living Lightning Lass - Lightning Lass/ Living Lightning
Martinex 5 - Brainiac 5/ Martinex
Molecule Lad - Element Lad/ Molecule Man
Multiple Maid - Triplicate Girl/ Multiple Man
Paste-Eater Pete - Matter-Eater Lad/ Paste Pot Pete
Phantom Cat - Phantom Girl/ Shadowcat
Psi-Girl - Saturn Girl/ Psylocke
Shadowstar - Shadow Lass/ Starhawk
Star Charlie - Star Boy/ Charlie-27
Sun Lord - Sun Boy/ Firelord
Timberwolf By Night - Timber Wolf/ Werewolf by Night
Universe Boy - Ultra Boy/ Captain Universe
Vance Cosmic - Cosmic Boy/ Vance Astro

After that, more stuff happens (told you this wasn't going to be a review of the issue) and Spider-Boy ends up encountering a different version of the Legion, along with Spider-Boy 2099. This is the team he meets up with after the Chronal Crisis:

(Oh, the Chronal Crisis, if you were wondering, is a kind of Zero Hour type event.)

Post-Chronal Crisis LOGG 2099 Members

Chameleon - Chameleon/ Chameleon
Darkstar - Umbra/ Darkstar
Invisible Girl - Invisible Kid/ Invisible Woman
Lady Bug - Violet/ Wasp
' Lectron - Livewire/ Electro
Living Colossus - Leviathan/ It, the Living Colossus
Martinex 5 - Brainiac 5/ Martinex.
Mass - Star Boy/ Charlie 27
Myriad - Triad/ Madrox
Nucleus - Element Lad/ Molecule Man
Phoenetix - Kinetix/ Rachel Summers
Phantom Cat - Apparition/ Shadowcat
Psi-Girl - Saturn Girl/ Psylocke
Sparkler - Light Lass/ Dazzler
Spider-Boy 2099 - Mon-El/ Spider-Man 2099
Universe Boy - Ultra Boy/ Captain Universe
Vance Cosmic - Cosmic Boy/ Vance Astro
Xcel - XS/ Quicksilver

So that's my quick little look at the Amalgam version of the Legion, mostly done in honor of the grand opening (8 days late. My post, I mean) of The Legion of Super-Bloggers, a blog so good I felt the need to link to it TWICE in the same blog entry. So check it out, even if you're not a huge fan of the Legion in its many incarnations. You'll love it. Of course, you'll love it more if you are a fan.

To end, here's a picture of Spider-Boy 2099. Why?

Because I felt like it. That's why.

Cameo Crossovers #2: JLA #1 - Jan. 1997

This spectacular Cameo Crossover comes to us from DC Comics. The series that has the honor of being spotlit this go around is JLA.

This is another one that stands out in my memory. Some time around 1996 or 1997, I had decided to give DC another go, and JLA was the title I chose to start off with. That way, you know, I was getting a bit of all the DC bigwigs. Superman was in there, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern and some dude named Martian Manhunter (pretty sure I had almost no idea who J'onn was back then, aside from knowing him to see him). How could I go wrong? So I eagerly grabbed the first issue.
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And the second.

And the third.

Then I missed the fourth issue. And the fifth. Got issue seven, then missed a whole slew of issues up until around #14. My plan to successfully collect a DC title was dashed, largely in part to the crappy, no comic-store town I was living in. So I dropped DC again. Until recently.

JLA, along with other titles such as Firestorm, Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Captain America, amongst others, are all on my "Try to get a Complete Run Of" LIST at the moment, and as of right now, I need around 40 more issues of JLA to have the complete set. I just moved (again) recently, and while unpacking, came across my JLA issues. (I still have that same #1 I bought waaaay back in '97.)

Flipping through JLA #1 (January 1997), I stumbled across this entry into Cameo Crossovers:

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For those of you who haven't read the comic, this is the issue where Grant Morrison, the writer for this series at its start, kills off Wolverine and Doctor Doom.

Wait? WHAT?

Okay, okay. The actual storyline has it that a group of White Martians, masquerading as superheroes, begin executing super-villains without any regard for the law. Among those disintegrated are Marvel characters Wolverine and Doctor Doom. You can see Wolverine to the left of the picture, smoldering away, and Doctor Doom is to the far right of the pic, looking on in horror as he awaits his turn. Doom actually looks afraid in the pic, but you can't really tell from my cruddy scan of the page. Sorry.

That is a completely half-assed rundown of the story, which continues through the first four issues, if I remember correctly. If you want more info, head on out and grab a copy for yourselves. You won't regret it. Morrison's run is some of the best Justice League of America stuff I've ever read.

That's it for this time.

Random Panel of the Day #3

Random Panel of the Day #2

Cameo Crossovers #1: Quasar #14 - Sept. 1990

Well, since I have the worst case of writer's block I've ever had at the moment, I'm skipping the Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man review for now, and will instead post this wonderful piece of useless information.

Cameo Crossovers will be an ongoing thing, featuring the many cameo appearances of Marvel/DC characters popping up in each others books. Heck, from time to time, I may post some that appear in other companies books, like Image, Dark Horse etc etc, as well. So if you see any of these 'Cameo Crossovers' anywhere, be sure and let me know.

And don't worry. As soon as this writer's block goes away, I'll get that review up.

So for the inaugural edition of Cameo Crossovers, we have a little scene from Quasar #14.

The cameo in question is from Part Two of a of a 4-part story line that ran though issues 13-16 of Quasar that was titled "Journey into Mystery". The events leading into this issue have led Quasar, along with the Squadron Supreme's Hyperion, and Makkari of the Eternals, to the lab-world of the Stranger in search of the rest of the Squadron Supreme (it's been a looooong time since I read this issue, but I'm assuming that the Stranger, who collects creatures from around the Multiverse, has 'collected' the members of the Squadron).

Anyway, as you read through the issue, you will eventually come across this page, which shows a bunch of different inhabitants of the Stanger's lab-world:

Take a good look. I mean, look really hard. Do you see him? I didn't at first, but when I did, I laughed out loud. This was one of the only comics from DC that I read during the late 80s/early 90s, so I remember being super happy with this cameo.

Yup, there he is. Up in the upper right-hand corner of the page. DC's Will Payton, otherwise known as STARMAN! Will had his own series that ran for 45 issues, starting in Oct. 1988 and running until April 1992. It was a fun series, not as good as the more popular Jack Knight Starman series that started a couple of years later in '94, but still a pretty damn good comic book.

So I guess the Stranger has visited the DC universe at some point. Who would have guessed?

That's all for this time. Feel free to contact me through here, or on the facebook page if you have any other Cameo Crossovers you'd like to see featured.