In the mid 1990s, comic books were on the verge of collapse. Speculators had seen the insane prices that the first appearances of Superman and Spider-Man were selling for and they wanted a piece of the pie. However these speculators were new to comics and didn't realize that every first issue wasn't going to become the next Action Comics #1.
While these newbies were snatching up dozens of first issues at a time, two disastrous things were happening in the industry. 1) Comic book stores were raising the prices of new comics to levels that devoted fans could not afford on a regular basis. 2) Meanwhile publishers were thrilled at how well the first issues of their new titles we're selling; so they began publishing large volumes of the second and third issues. But since the speculators weren't interested in anything but first issues and collectors weren't buying second issues because they couldn't afford issue #1 an economic bubble was forming.
By 1994-95, many independent publishers went out of business. Local comic book shops did too! Marvel had to restructure several times, even going so far as to outsource some of their most popular heroes to other companies. It was deeply feared that Marvel was going to go out of business.
If not for having Warner Bros as their parent company, DC would have folded as well. But successful animated TV shows and the Batman franchise of films kept DC afloat. The powers that be at DC knew that it was vital to the industry to keep Marvel from folding even if they were a direct competitor. So they threw out a life preserver to the House of Ideas- they proposed a crossover!
It had been nearly two decades that the two publishers had last had characters of their two universes meet. A new generation of fans had long begged DC and Marvel for such a pairing. And established fans really only got to see a small handful of characters meet in the three crossovers published from 1976-1981.
Once the contracts were signed, it was decided that Ron Marz and Peter David would script a epic battle between the heroes of the two universes with art by Dan Jurgens and Claudio Castellini. But it would be the fans who would get to decide the outcomes!
After the first issue, fans were given a number of match-ups and encouraged to vote for the winner. Could Superman defeat the Hulk? Whose mightier: The Silver Surfer or Green Lantern? Could Namor out-swim Aquaman? You might not agree with all of the outcomes but it was the people who had spoken!
For the most part, the events of this 4-issue mini series have been retconned and erased. But the most lasting impact of this story was the creation of the Amalgam Universe. There we got awesome miss-mashes of our favorite characters like Bruce Wayne: Agent of SHIELD and Doctor Strangefate.
A great story that helped saved Marvel if not the comic book industry as a whole. Marvel would continue to flounder for a couple of years afterwards, eventually filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1996. But the sales were positive enough to help Marvel in it's restructuring until Toy Biz could make a deal to buy the company.
This book is maybe not a required reading but it's definitely something of historical importance!
Worth Consuming!
Rating: 8 out of 10 stars
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