Top 5: Amalgam Comics Characters

 

After looking through the Amalgam Age of Comics blog I thought it might be appropriate to look through some of the real (fake?) Amalgam characters for some of my favorites. Some of the combinations were inspired, others baffling and finally some just whacky. Here are five:

His personality is pretty magnetic too.

5. Magneto

Status: Lazy

So they combined Erik Lensher and Will Magnus to create: Magneto? Doesn’t seem like they put all that much thought into it, but Magneto is awesome so can you really complain?

 

4. Nightcreeper

Status: WTF

Part of me loves this. It’s the Creeper and Nightcrawler together as one. It’s so out there but I feel like I can already imagine how the comic would work. Instead of struggling as a TV pundit, Kurt Ryder or Jack Wagner, struggles as a Catholic with a wild streak. It could make for some pretty cool stories, even if completely absurd.

 

3. Lobo the Duck

Status: Whacky

Is this really any worse than Lobo or Howard already were? Worse may be the wrong word, I don’t want to disparage anyone’s personal tastes, but it is silliness at its finest. I just wonder if they kept him powerful enough to tangle with Super Soldier.

 

Faster than hell.

2. Speed Demon

Status: 90’s

It was the 90’s so I guess Ghost Rider had to be crammed in there somehow, although without the bike he loses some of his charm. I just hope they had a tagline at one point that said, “Faster than hell.” At least now Ghost Rider is a legacy character too so they can legitimately include the whole Flash family. They also may have tossed in a bit of Entrigan too cause y’know… demons.

1. Generation Hex

Status: Not to be fucked with.

Generation Hex was a team but I’m specifically referring to their leader, Jono Hex, half Jonah Hex half Chamber. It’s actually kind of a cool combo because of the mutual facial disfigurations. If Jonah Hex is as deadly as he is with a gun just imagine if he had some honest-to-goodness superpowers. The rest of the team seems redundant, just get out of the man’s way.

 


Ryan Haupt just wants everyone to get along.

Comments

  1. I don’t know who Chamber is, but that image makes me want to go find out.

  2. Chamber is a mutant character I actually like. Couldn’t explain him to save my life though. Some weird mouth thing.

  3. Wow I forgot that Hex was in the Amalgam universe. I’ll have to dig in my long boxes and find this.

    @stuclach: Chamber is a mutant in Generation X. When he developed his powers, ther energy blast from his mouth blew his jaw off. He has to speak telepathically.

  4. @Josh and @JesTr – Thanks for the info.

    Now I just need to find out what Generation X is and I’ll be set. 

  5. I suggest starting out with the Generation X made-for-tv movie FOX? did in the mid 90’s, Matt Frewer as the villain?! Solid Gold! Hahahaha… I have that taped on VHS somewhere…

  6. @RoiVampire – Now I just need to convince my library to order that for me.

  7. I’m really glad Generation Hex is on here. Jono’s posse don’t get enough recognition when it comes to people talking about how freaking crazy Amalgam was. I mean, of all the possible combinations of characters, who thought Generation X + DC’s Western heroes was a good idea? I maintain that that matchup is sillier than Speed Demon, which is saying quite a bit.

  8. My favorite Amalgam character was Dr.Strangefate. The combination of Dr.Strange, Prof.Xavier and Dr. Fate led to a very interesting character.

  9. I really missed out on something in the nineties.

  10. I always thought it was Doc Magneto, not just Magneto.

  11. @Jimski: It’s 90s-tastic! I need to look and see who published what books. I think Marvel and DC split the publishing.

  12. i love those 5th week events. My favorites were the aforementioned Speed Demon, Iron Lantern & Thorion. I think I’m going to go dig those issues out. they were such fun! the Tangent books were cool, too.

  13. Whatever became of Oscar Jimenez?! i thought he was a talented penciler. hmm

  14. I thought that Dark Claw’s sidekick Sparrow (Robin and Jubilee) was pretty cool, and his villain (Sabretooth and Joker) was awesome. I think they called him Jackal or Hyena or something.

  15. I really loved the Amalgam comics, and didn’t realize until last year that this was paired up with Marvel vs. DC.  It’s much better on its own. It was such an inspired take on the cross-over idea.  Looking at the archetypes or simply the themes which run through the characters to build new characters was just too cool. Plus the fact that we’re dropped in the middle of the stories was also truly wonderful. It gave you a small glimps of a vastly larger world. (Man, I’m gushing like a school girl over a teenage heart throb here.)

    Super Soldier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Soldier) was possibly my favorite. I love how they recognized that Captain America and Superman were the moral fiber of each other’s universes, even though power-wise they’re vastly different.  

    I also like how Batman was broken down into Dark Claw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Claw) and Bruce Wayne Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Wayne_%28Amalgam_Comics%29).
     
    Doctor Strangefate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Strangefate), Speed Demon  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Demon_(Amalgam_Comics)), and Spider-Boy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Boy) were also inspired and fun.

    Oh and so was Bat-Thing, and I liked the idea that Wonder Woman and Ororo were combined as well into Amazon.

    As you can see, I really loved these characters. 🙂

  16. I’m sure the majority of those comics are bad, but I think I would love Analgam if I was a kid. Batman mixing Wolverine? How can I lose!?

    Lobo the Duck though….sounds like my kind of character.

  17. Another vote for Dr.Strangefate. Doc Strange, Doc Fate and Charles Xavier. And frankie rayner (fire and nova and guy gardener), sulk (Solomon Grundy and hulk) and the White witch (White queen, scarlet witch and zatanna) and drawn by Kevin Nolan. Glorious!

  18. Just think how much better the Ghostrider movie would have been if it had been about Speed Demon instead

  19. Is that Generation Hex stuff available in collected edition?

  20. was Jono Hex British?  because that would only help make him more awesome.

  21. lol, Generation Hex. I’m having flashbacks of collecting those issues. God there were some awful stories in there, and even looking back now New Warriors vol 4 wasn’t all that special either. It’s wierd how the Gen X team always gets stuck with the B- and C level stories.