Monday, September 8, 2025

1996 SkyBox Amalgam card #19: “Mister X”

When DC vs. Marvel was released, I was so ignorant about Martian Manhunter that I thought Mr. X was a wholly invented character. I just figured that when the two universes briefly merged, combining characters/concepts/histories into a new reality, that Professor X / Martian Manhunter just happened to look like Tony Stark. Only later did I get educated on Marco Xavier, who is mentioned on another card, but sadly the Alien Atlas was otherwise absent from the set. This was not our first time seing Howard Porter draw J'Onn J'Onzz, but it was his first pairing with John Dell in the style that they would eventually employ on JLA. I suspect that the gorgeous job done on the JLX one-shot paved the way for the blockbuster pairing with Grant Morrison.
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3 comments:

Kevin from New Orleans said...

This is cool, for some reason I never got the Amalgam cards but I got the DC vs. Marvel cards. A few of the books I liked were JLX, Bat-Thing, & Challengers of the Fantastic. What were some of yours?

September 8, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Diabolu Frank said...

Oh, I have a large collection of The Fierce and Courageous, and I've put pretty good dents in runs of Astounding Comics, All-Spy, and of course, Sleuth Comics.

But seriously, I don't remember a single one of these stories doing anything for me. As you can see, I have the card set, and I picked up but mostly resold individual comics. For the Manhunter connection, I kept the two JLX comics. For the Wonder Woman connection, I kept the Amazon and Bullets & Bracelets. For the JRJR art, I kept Thorion of the New Asgods . There's a slim chance that I still have Super-Soldier and/or Doctor StrangeFate somewhere. The rest passed through my hands, or were only in them to stock shelves.

My sleep schedule got screwed up by podcasting, but I should have more on this Wednesday.

September 9, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Anonymous said...

I wouldn’t hold the Amalgam comics up as great works, but I have a huge soft spot for them. My favorites are Dr. Strangefate (JLGL pencils, Nowlan inks, good last page reveal), Dark Claw Adventures (Templeton/Burchett B:TAS-style fun), Spider-Boy (Kesel/Weiringo, entertaining), Spider-Boy Team-Up (LADRONN!), Thorion (Giffen, JR Jr inked by Mike Royer), Challengers of the Fantastic (Kesel/Grummet, also entertaining), and the Super-Soldier books (Gibbons & Waid). I’d love for Marvel & DC to revisit the Amalgam Universe someday.

I didn’t know about the Marco Xavier identity when JLX was published. When I learned about it years later, I thought it’s use in Amalgam was clever.

- Mike Loughlin

September 9, 2025 at 5:09 PM

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