This file created by Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com. Amalgam Annotations: Bruce Wayne, Agent of SHIELD #1 (corrections/additions to my errors/omissions are welcome) Most everybody in the world knows that Bruce Wayne is the civilian identity of the Batman. SHIELD is Marvel's international police force - it's short for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage Law Enforcement Division. It's been a part of the Marvel Universe since early in the Silver Age; its early stories were done by Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko and were among the best of that era. p 1 "Mission: Destroy HYDRA" - a classic SHIELD-esque title. HYDRA is a criminal organization, founded by Nazis and Japanese subversives during World War Two, which is SHIELD's opposite; HYDRA doesn't stand for anything, but is rather named after the unkillable monster of Greek mythology. Their coolest attribute is their motto: "Hail HYDRA! Cut off a limb and two shall take its place!" I tell ya, when I was a kid, reading that sent _chills_ up my spine! Anyhow...) "Green Skull." Again we run into trouble because of a seeming lack of communication between Amalgam writers or editors. In _Super-Soldier_ the Green Skull is obviously meant to be a merging of the Red Skull - for my money the second-best villain of all time, and Captain America's Nazi nemesis since the early 1940s - and Lex Luthor, Superman's archenemy. But in _Super-Soldier the Green Skull is almost completely Lex Luthor, visually and in personality, while here he's far more skull-like (and Skull-like) than in _Super- Soldier_. The costumes, by the way, are authentic SA HYDRA costumes. p 2 The Helicarrier here is straight out of Marvel Continuity; SHIELD's hq has always been the Helicarrier - that is, until it got destroyed, as Pete (sorry I missed your last name) points out, in the She-Hulk graphic novel, and then rebuilt. p 3 "Selina Luthor" - again we have duplication of characters. In _Assassins_ we saw what became of DC's Catwoman, aka Selina Kyle, in the Amalgam Universe. Yet Selina Luthor is obviously meant to be influenced by Catwoman, both with her first name and the Catwoman-trademark whip that she uses. Her last name also implies that the Green Skull here _is_ Lex Luthor. The Marvel component of Selina Luthor is this the Viper, one of the leaders of HYDRA in Marvel Continuity; Selina Luthor's costume is almost an exact double of Viper's even down to the Veronica-Lake-hair-over-one-side-of-her-face look (no face mask, though). Additionally, in HYDRA's first appearance, the daughter of the Imperial HYDRA ended up turning against her father and joining SHIELD - this, clearly, is a twist on that situation. As someone whose name I didn't get pointed out, Viper was originally Madame Hydra, in her early Captain America appearances; she assumed the identity of the Viper later on in her career. Yes, those three gentlemen behind Selina Luthor look familiar, but I'll get to them when the time comes. p 4 The "corpse" of the Green Skull - its fleshless skull, I mean - is a signature of the Red Skull - his "dust of death," which could also be a gas, always left his enemies dead & stripped of their flesh. Lower right panel: that's Nick Fury, the Marvel character who was originally recruited by Tony Stark (Marvel's Iron Man) to lead SHIELD after HYDRA killed SHIELD's first Public Director. It's only fitting he is in it now, albeit as an assistant to Bruce Wayne. p 5 In DC Continuity Bruce Wayne travelled the world and learned from many masters; in Amalgam Universe, apparently, Nick Fury was his mentor. Those two figures in the lower right - we'll see them again, too. I'll explain about them at that point. p 6 In pre-Zero Hour DC Continuity Thomas and Martha Wayne were a rich couple who were killed by a common thief named Joe Chill (as Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni points out, this is untrue post-Zero Hour; no one knows who or why Batman's parents were killed now). In Amalgam, they were spies, killed by the Skull's agents. Bruce Wayne is said to have joined SHIELD "right out of law school." DC's Bruce Wayne never attended law school; as both Donald MacPherson and Ronald Salas point out, the pre- and post-Crisis Bruce Wayne did attend college, though he did not get a formal degree; Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni qualifies this by saying that post-Zero Hour Bruce Wayne took individual courses in various subjects from the best teachers at the best universities. The men that Bruce and Nick Fury are fighting in the flashback look like the agents of Kobra - a DC supervillain whose world-conquering aims are quite similar to HYDRA's. p 7 The "Joe" that Nick Fury is speaking to here is, of course, Sergeant Rock, Nick Fury's DC analogue. It is entirely fitting that Sgt. Rock and Col. Fury are pals and are or were working for SHIELD. As Pete pointed out, however, Sgt Rock's DC Continuity name is Frank, not Joe. There may be another influence on the Amalgam Joe Rock, however; the comic _Grimjack_ once heavily implied that John Gaunt, aka Grimjack, was brothers with Nick Fury, Jacob Fury (aka the Zodiac), and Judge Dredd, who Grimjack called "Joe." It's possible that Chuck Dixon is hearkening to this in calling Sgt Rock "Joe." (well, it's possible) More likely, though, someone made a stupid error. According to Chuck Dixon in the _CBG_ - and this is never really brought up in the comic - the Infinity Formula - the immortality serum which kept Nick Fury so perpetually young in Marvel Continuity - never existed, and Fury "got a little long in the tooth to be director, so he tapped Bruce for the job." p 8 The "Tony" in the floating wheelchair is Tony Stark. In Marvel Continuity he's Iron Man, and was also the man who helped organize SHIELD and persuaded Nick Fury to become its first leader. Here something happened to cripple him and prevent him from becoming Iron Man. To compensate he must have spent a lot more time with SHIELD. The impact this had on James Rhodes (seen as the supervillain Monarch in _Bullets and Bracelets_ #1), Tony Stark's friend in Marvel Continuity, is not explained here. The woman wearing a DC-Continuity-Batman-like outfit is Barbara, who we saw back on page 5. The civilian identity of DC Continuity's Batgirl is Barbara Gordon. But her relationship here with Bruce Wayne makes me think they've also made her into the Vanessa figure - Vanessa being Nick Fury's lover at SHIELD. Chuck Dixon in the _CBG_ points out that the chair Stark is confined to is an awful lot like the mobile unit that the Marvel Continuity character Modok (a massive-headed human- psionic-living-computer villain) used. p 10 I only just noticed this - the symbol for SHIELD on everyone's uniforms is a little bat. Which explains why Barbara's costume has one. We finally get "supernames" for those two figures seen back on page 8. The first, Barbara, is called "Huntress." In DC Continuity the Huntress was (pre-Crisis, when everything changed) the daughter of Bruce Wayne on an alternate Earth, and a Batman-like heroine in her own right. We've already seen Amalgam's Huntress in _Legends of the Dark Claw_ #1, however; this is more duplication that could have been avoided. The second figure is "Moonwing" - a combination of Marvel's Moon Knight (a second-rate Batman knockoff until Bill Sienkiewicz started working on him) and DC's Nightwing, which is what Dick Grayson, the original Robin, became after he stopped being Robin. Moonwing's costume is kind of a neat merging of the costumes of Nightwing and Moon Knight. p 12 The HYDRA agent throwing Moonwing around is at least partially Marvel's Deathlok, a cyborg soldier come back from the future for various plot reasons too complex to go into here. (It should be noted that the Marvel Continuity Deathlok was a tragic figure and deserved better than this...). The same person (whose name I didn't get) who explained Viper's origin also noted that the original Deathlok came from the future, was eventually sent back into the future, and a new Deathlok robot was created in the Marvel Continuity present. The DC half of Amalgam Universe Deathlok will become clear in a few pages. p 13 The Terra Cannon/Doomsday Gun is very Kirby/Silver-Age-SHIELD- esque, and might well be an hommage to the Marvel Continuity Overkill Horn, a weapon designed to set off every nuclear weapon on Earth. The man in the cold suit is given a name here: Baron Zero. Which is a combination of two Marvel Nazi supervillains - Baron Strucker (who contributes Baron Zero's bald head and monocle, and was responsible in Marvel Continuity for helping to found HYDRA) and Baron Zemo - and the DC Golden Age Batman villain Mr. Zero, the early incarnation of the modern Mr. Freeze. Baron Zero's mention of the "Arctic mission" which imprisoned him in his "nitrogen stasis" suit is a combination of Mr. Zero's origin - an accident covered him in an freezing solution which required him to live in a "refrigerated uniform" - and Baron Zemo, who ended up, during a mission against Captain America, doused by a super-strong adhesive which permanently stuck his mask to his face. p 14 "Nuke" - an entirely logical merging. Nuke appeared, for the first and only time, in Frank Miller's *wonderful* _Born Again_ Daredevil mini-series - Nuke was a failed supersoldier who was addicted to pills - reds, blues and whites. DC's contribution to Amalgam's Nuke is Bane - the man who snapped Batman's spine; Bane is addicted to an adrenaline-like drug called Venom which gives him greatly enhanced strength - just like Amalgam's Nuke. p 16 Good to see Sgt. Rock and Col. Fury getting a piece of the action. The other half of Deathlok - the DC half - is revealed here to be Jason Todd. In the execrable "Death in the Family" miniseries the new Robin - Jason Todd - was beaten to death by the Joker. Jason was Dick Grayson's successor as Robin, while Robin went off to college. In Amalgam the "Jackal" didn't quite do the job, apparently; this "Jackal" might be one version of the Amalgam Joker (who we've already seen as "Hyena" in the _Legends of the Dark Claw_ book), or it might be a reference to the Marvel Continuity character Jackal, who was responsible for cloning Peter Parker and who set a bomb trap to kill Spider-Man, apparently similar to the trap that almost killed Amalgam Jason Todd. (The bomb, of course, killed the Jackal instead, as well as the Spider-Man clone) (whoops, scratch that last part) John Polojac notes that the Amalgam Deathlok's DC half might also be the DC Continuity New Teen Titans character Cyborg. Gregg T. "Dave" Allinson points out that another inspiration for the Jason Todd Cyborg could be the Marvel Continuity character Midnight, who was a sidekick for the hero Moon Knight (who was himself a copy of Batman). Midnight was transformed into a villainous cyborg in a Spiderman story, so the fit makes sense. p 23 In true Red Skull/Dr. Doom fashion, the Green Skull here makes a miraculous, and unexplained, recovery from seemingly-sure death, and lives to gloat again. Thanks to Pete (sorry I didn't get your last name), Gregg T. "Dave" Allinson, John Jakala, Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, Donald MacPherson, John Polojac, Ronald Salas, and everyone else who sent me corrections and additions. jess This file created by Jess Nevins, jjnevins@ix.netcom.com.