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Saturday, November 05, 2011

DC vs. Marvel #1 - 1996

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Comics Weekend "Round One" by Ron Marz, Dan Jurgens, Claudio Castellini, and more.

Since we don't have either Aquaman or Justice League to talk about this week, I thought we'd dip into the Shrine's vault and talk about a series we have yet the cover, the universe-spanning donnybrook known as DC vs. Marvel!

The first issue opens with Spider-Man, and for a few pages this seems a universe we're familiar with. That is until the wall-crawler finds himself face to face with:
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The Joker?!? What's going on here?

We see that some magical force is plucking the inhabitants of two worlds and putting them together. At first we see Superman squaring off against the Juggernaut, followed by even more heroes suddenly disappearing, including both Kings of the Seven Seas:
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With heroes and villains from two worlds suddenly together, we're treated to pair-ups never seen before: Batman vs. Venom, Captain America vs. Bane, Daredevil vs. The Riddler. Some heroes choose to work together, others engage in the classic "let's fight" series of misunderstandings.

A clue to what's going on comes from The Spectre, who senses forces at work even he can not control. Could they involve another master of the space and time, The Living Tribunal? We'll see--to be continued!


I've been wanting to get to this series for a long while, having missed it when it was first published in 1996. Since Aquaman plays such a small role in this issue, we're going to move right onto issue #2, so come back later today!

5 comments:

cリnical said...

What an odd, odd pairing of heroes on the cover.

Diabolu Frank said...

I read and reviewed this series back in the day for my old site. The material as written is no longer suitable for the blog, my scans are inadequate, and I no longer own this series (likely sold issue by issue shortly after being read.) I never forgave the Wonder Woman loss, but I figure J'Onn beat Thing off-panel, unless Johnny stepped in.

Russell said...

I'm with Frank. I remember this series being really, really bad.

Caffeinated Joe said...

I remember reading, but not being overly thrilled.

Anthony said...

I read it back when it first came out (borrowed copies from my roommate at the time)... and yeah, it was pretty mediocre, given the victories were mostly dependent on some reader poll they did (resulting in head-scratchers like Wolverine beating Lobo).