This file created by Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com. Amalgam Annotations: Bullets and Bracelets #1 (corrections/additions to my errors/omissions are welcome) Castle and Diana - "together again." That's Trevor Castle - a combination of the long-time love interest of DC's Wonder Woman, Steve Trevor (a member of Military Intelligence, pre-Crisis) and Frank Castle, Marvel's Punisher, who became the Punisher in Marvel Continuity when the Mafia gunned down his wife and child. And that's Diana Prince - in DC Continuity, Wonder Woman. Here, something a little different. p 1 "Hand" - in Marvel Continuity the Hand are the elite ninja clan, most often seen opposing Daredevil and Elektra. p 3 Diana's "collapsible recursive bow" is reminiscent of Marvel Continuity Daredevil's collapsible club; there may be more influences on it than that, though. p 4 As Doug Limmer points out, the Amalgam Hand ninja dissolve when defeated, just like their Marvel counterparts. p 5 Origins A-Go-Go. We get a more detailed version of the origin we saw in _Amazon_ #1 - Diana and Ororo growing up together on Paradise Island. Here we see Diana leaving the Amazon world to explore the world of humanity. She goes into service with the "Wakandan king" and gets "bracelets of adamantium." Adamantium is, in Marvel Continuity, the hardest metal known to humans. That Wakandan king we see in panel 5 is Marvel's Black Panther, the ruler of a mythical African kingdom called Wakanda, which is where most Adamantium comes from. Jim MoC points out that Wakanda is historically where Vibranium comes from, but my admittedly-fading memory tells me that it's part of Marvel Continuity that there was a motherlode of Adamantium to be found there as well. Scaramanga questions whether Adamantium was a Vibranium alloy; this is true of what Marvel calls Secondary Adamantium, which is slightly weaker than True Adamantium. Obviously Diana's bracelets here are made of Secondary Adamantium. Diana Prince, Freelance is also a tip of the hat by Ostrander to Mike Grell's comic _Jon Sable, Freelance_; thanks to Jim MoC, who caught this. Trevor Castle's origin here as the Amalgam Punisher is essentially unchanged from the Marvel Continuity origin. p 8 That being phasing in is "Monarch." In DC Continuity Monarch is the hero Captain Atom - oh, excuse, me, Hawk; Monarch ruled the future and came back to stop one of his subjects from time-travelling and stopping him; Monarch came back and warped the hero Hawk into becoming him, Monarch (trust me, it's even more confusing than I've just made it sound). Here he is something different. p 9 The man behind Monarch's mask is Jim Rhodes. In Marvel Continuity Jim Rhodes flew choppers in Vietnam and knew Frank Castle, Marvel's Punisher, there; later on he became an assistant to Tony Stark, Marvel's Iron Man, and became Iron Man himself when Tony couldn't or wouldn't. Here, obviously something happened to change Rhodes, and not for the better. His armor might also be seen as a combination of the Monarch armor and the Iron Man armor. Matt Richardson also notes that the colors of the Monarch armor are those of Rhodes' War Machine armor, which he wore after Tony Stark became Iron Man again. That thing teleporting Trevor Castle and Diana Prince out is, as Castle calls it, a "boom tube." I mentioned Jack Kirby's Fourth World mythos (which he did for DC) back in my Spider-Boy review; the evil gods of the Fourth World were led by Darkseid and his main method of transportation was via a warpgate called the "boom tube." p 10 "Apokolips" - the planet on which Darkseid and the evil Fourth World gods live. "Armaghetto" - the main ghetto/city of Apokolips. The text caption makes reference to a "great battle against what seemed to be consummate evil. Friends as well as foes died here..." Unfortunately, we'll only get to hear a little bit about that battle. "Granny Harkness" - Darkseid's - for lack of a better phrase, let's call her his right-hand thug - is Granny Goodness, a very, very, _very_ warped version of the Bad Mother. The other half of Granny Harkness - the Marvel half - is from Agatha Harkness, a witch who Reed Richards of Marvel's Fantastic Four asked to babysit his infant child and who later on became a friend to them. Agatha, like Granny, is a tough white haired old woman; but Agatha is good, while Granny is just twisted. p 11 "Granny Harkness Orphanage" - Granny Goodness runs orphanages on Apokolips, cruel orphanages places which produce mean and twisted children. One of them produced - ah, but that would be telling... "Big Titania" - a combination of "Titania," a superstrong Marvel criminal, and Big Barda, who, in DC Continuity, was a product of Granny Goodness' orphanages and led the Female Furies (Darkseid's elite strike force) until she met Scott Free, aka Mr. Miracle; they became lovers, and Big Barda joined the Good Guys. Apparently something went wrong here, though. Sure enough, Big Titania mentions that "Scott Free died during the Secret Crisis." The Secret Crisis - a combination of Marvel's completely-wasted-potential-and-naked- marketing-move miniseries The Secret Wars, and of DC's great-concept-mediocrely-executed Crisis on Infinite Earths - with the Secret Wars' villain, the Beyonder, perhaps combined with the Crisis' villain, the Anti-Monitor? That would explain the big, deadly battle mentioned in passing on page 10. Scott Free, though, wasn't that involved in the Crisis, so obviously there was some big divergence in the Amalgam universe. p 13 Speak of the devil...it's the Female Furies! From left to right, that's Bernadeth, Stompa - oh, I see, Mad Harriet introduces them. They are essentially unchanged from DC Continuity here - same costumes, same names, same attitudes. Why mess with a good thing? p 14 As will become clear soon enough, the Tomb that Castle is casing is significant. "Parademons" - the grunts of Darkseid's armies. p 15 "Kanto" - Darkseid's chief assassin. That's Granny Harkness next to Kanto; she looks basically like she does in DC Continuity, as does Kanto. p 16 "Thanoseid" - this is a combination of Darkseid, absolute ruler of Apokolips, and Marvel's Thanos, the mad god from Titan. His story here about his mother having killed his first and most beloved wife is a change from both DC and Marvel Continuity; Thanos never married, and killed his own mother when he bombarded his home planet from space, while Darkseid had his own mother killed and had a loveless marriage.. However, in DC Continuity Darkseid's marriage produced Orion, so obviously Darkseid married again; but his having a wife he cared about is a change from DC Continuity. I originally found this name unbearably hokey, but if it's pronounced "Thano-side" rather than "Thano-seed" it is reminiscent of "genocide," an act entirely in keeping with both characters. Thanoseid's reference here to the Infinity Links is a reference to both the Anti-Life Formula, the psionic means by which he could control every being in the universe, and the Marvel's Infinity Gauntlet, which Thanos sought to acquire - and actually got - and became, in essence, God. It appears that the heroes, in Amalgam Universe, stopped Thanoseid from getting the Infinity links - good for them - and then destroyed them. That might have been the battle that so many died for. p 17 That tomb that Trevor Castle was desecrating - that was the tomb of Orion. In DC Continuity Orion was Darkseid's son, and wielder of the Astro Force; he was destined by ancient prophecy to kill Darkseid. Here, though, he's already died - apparently Thanoseid found a way around that prophecy. But in life Orion was, as Trevor Castle said back on page 15, the greatest warrior. Trevor Castle here is wearing Orion's outfit - helmet, astro cycle and all. Thanoseid's line about "my mistress death" is in reference to Thanos' infatuation with Death; no, really - he's in love with the personification of Death. I don't get it either, but that's love for ya.... p 21 Kanto never had an origin like this in DC Continuity; as far as I know, he never had a special origin at all. But. One of the mainstay villains of DC's Legion of Superheroes was Validus, the giant, nearly-mindless brute who killed one Legionnaire and nearly killed many more. Darkseid, in the future, stole the son of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl, warped him, and sent him back into the past, so he would grow up as their enemy - in the exact same way that Thanoseid treated Kanto here. p 22 Thanoseid not killing Kanto and Big Titania, but merely sending them away, is entirely in keeping with Darkseid's code of honor in DC Continuity. "All Highfather Odin" - a combination of the Izaya Highfather, from the Fourth World - the good opposite of Darkseid, and ruler of New Genesis, Apokolips' heavenly opposite - and of Marvel's Allfather Odin, the leader of the Norse gods and father to Thor; All Highfather Odin is dressed like Izaya but, like Odin, has only one eye. All Highfather Odin rules over "New Asgard." "The Uni-friend wrote in flaming words of your arrival" - in the Fourth World mythos the Source (the fount of all creation) communicated with Izaya by flaming words; in Marvel Continuity the Uni-Mind is a life form created by the merging of the minds of a superhuman race called the Eternals. Since Jack Kirby created the Eternals as well as the Fourth World, it's quite possible that Zuras, the leader of the Eternals, is also a part of All Highfather Odin. Thanks for additional comments, criticism and notations to Doug Limmer, Jim MoC, Matt Richardson, "Scaramanga," and everyone else whose name I didn't get. jess This file created by Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com.