A lot of the Amalgam books were better in concept than in execution, the first “Dark Claw” and “Amazon” books being prime examples (“Amazon” was decidedly dull and not even very well told, even if it WAS John Byrne, and “Dark Claw” got too caught up in how cool a Batman/Wolverine amalgam was to have enough time to craft a decent story — though the “animated” style Dark Claw from the second wave was much better).

The real highlight for me, though, were the fake letters fom the letter columns; particularly the “Dark Claw” letters were hilarious and easily more entertaining than the issue itself, poking fun of fans, pros and the comic industry alike. I especially liked the first letter:

“Dear bodacious clawed one,
Congratulations on getting your own book, and about time if I don’t say so myself! I am thoroughly blown away by your savage in-your-face-ness and all that cool stuff you say when you’re ripping the guts out of nasty bad guys and tearing their faces off with your admantium claws! One thing, though: You ought to dump that wussy little whiner Jubilee and get yourself a REAL sidekick! I mean, what kind of cheap power is that she has anyway? You could replace her with a midget and a bag of firecrackers! Get somebody as bad and gnarly as the HYENA! Either that or some totally awesome BABE! Yeah! Some totally babed-out ultratwist like some of those nice ladies they have on BAYWATCH! So that’s the ticket, dudes — more ripping and stomping and punching claws through brains and tearing out spinal cords through left nostrils and more outrageous totally mind-boggling, to-sell-your-soul-for, never-dream-of-getting-near-one-in-the-real-world FURIOUSLY ENDOWED BABES!!!! Get the picture?”

The answer was simply “We shall take your comments into consideration.”

That letter alone made the book totally worth getting for me. ^_^

Spider-boy Team-Up was the best of the bunch. Besides Karl Kesel’s exceedingly clever writing (why isn’t he the Fantastic Four regular writer?!?), it revealed to me Ladronn’s magnificent artwork. A great book!

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

I think that Jubilee has aged faster because she had moved on so far from when she was basically Wolverine’s sidekick. I think the new Robin has only begun to go through his trials as a hero, even though he’s been through a ton of tragedy, triumph, etc. I’d say that Jubes is in her mid -20s while Robin’s near his late teens.

Or it’s merely artistic license. Has either character’s actual age ever been given? (and M v DC isn’t in continuity for either company anymore anyway.)

If you’re behind the scenes, you can be aged.

Ben Turner became a dude in his late 40s/early 50s in Richard Dragon!!

Do comic book characters age more rapidly, in proportion to how unpopular they become? Grant Morrison needs to do a story about this.

Weird thing: In DC vs. Marvel, I recall Jubilee having a crush on Robin as something of a plot point. I’m pretty sure she’s gotten much older than he has in the interim, though…

Some of those covers look like Image parodies… as if such a thing was possible, other than Morrison’s Doom Force.

http://members.tripod.com/doompatrolreview/covers/doomforce1.jpg

As I said, I was new to comics, and the letters page and editor’s notes had me fooled–I thought Dark Claw Adventures was an ongoing comic, and kept looking for more issues for the next month or two.

Thousands of dollars later, I’m still here because of that one issue (most likely).

Forgot about that, thanks for the post!