***THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE NERD BLITZ PATREON***
Ahhh, Amalgam Comics, the mashed up fall out from the titans of the comic industry colliding.
What a goofy and fun idea that I legitimately wish would have had a much longer life span.
But I have a shocking confession, though I have at least 4 copies of Legends Of The Darkclaw and 2 copies of Super Soldier, I don’t think I’d ever read any of the books.
The main reason being I was always afraid the execution could never live up to the concept, because I’m not kidding at all when I say that this idea has always sounded incredible to me.
Lobo The Duck, Judgement League Avengers, Darkclaw, Amazon, Super Soldier, Challengers Of The Fantastic, these are all brilliant and perfectly blended characters and teams…in theory!
In practice though?
That could be rough.
But the time has come to sack up and take the plunge, to take this from a great idea and learn about the cold harsh reality.
Prepare yourself, this is your official ***SUPER SPOILER ALERT***
Cover By Dave Gibbons: Flashy, colorful, action packed, dynamic, this is the type of thing I see in my head when somebody says eye catching cover.
Art By Dave Gibbons: While there are a few shots that feel maybe a bit underdrawn, the overall look is beautiful and has a great mid-90s feel that brings to mind some of the great comic book arcs of the era like Death & Return of Superman & Batman: No Man’s Land.
The design on the costume is a perfect blend of Cap and Superman, with a great variety of color that leads to incredibly dynamic action that I found myself staring it instead of just taking in the story as I normally do.
It’s all bright and poppy, I love it!
Story By Mark Waid: In 1938 an alien ship crashed on earth and, while there were no survivors, the government extracted DNA from the being on board and added that to their Super Soldier Serum.
As World War II struck, they injected that serum into a young soldier named Clark Kent, bombarded him with solar radiation, and Super Soldier was born!
Soon after a nazi super weapon called Ultra-Metallo was unleashed on the world and Super Soldier faced the giant robot.
As their battled raged, they plunged into the icy depths of the north Atlantic and were lost to the ages…until recently!
Now, Super Soldier must face off against Ultra-Metallo & The Green Skull, Lex Luthor, leader of Hydra, to save his old pal James Olsen, himself, and all of Washington D.C.
Mark Waid is a dude that clearly understands not just the task at hand here, but the individual characters and universes that make up the sum of this stories parts.
He has an incredibly and fundamentally astute grasp and depth of knowledge where these characters are concerned that makes the blending of them near perfect.
And with that said, the choices of what pieces from which to include must have been difficult as hell!
Why chose Clark’s name over Steve’s?
Why pick out those specific parts of the origins to mesh?
Given the route he went this is the only flaw I can find, and I will fully admit this is the most stretching of reaches.
Logically, given the fact that the being of Kal-El died in the crash, the Kent’s didn’t adopt him, so it seems nonsensical that a Clark Kent would exist.
So by that measure, Super Soilder’s real name should have been Steve Rogers.
Unless you wanna get cutesy and call him Clark Rogers or Steve Kent.
That’s it, that’s my complaint, a nitpicky, super nerd debate over the dude’s fuckin’ name.
That’s all I’ve got.
Because Waid takes the idea that sounds fun on paper and does it without trying to reinvent the wheel, take it too overly seriously, or be arrogantly clever.
He hits a homerun without showing off.
And damn it, I want a 12 issue mini series, AT LEAST, exploring this character alone!
By this point, I think my point of view has been made clearer than crystal: I loved this book entirely.
This is the fun that is often times missing from modern superhero comics that are still trying too hard to chase the dark and gritty trend that has been invasively permeating the genre since the 80s.
This makes me so excited to dive deeper into the Amalgam books, I can only hope they are at this same level of fun and quality.
Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 for her continued editorial assistance.
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