It’s hard to believe, but 2006 (April, to be exact) marks the 10-year anniversary of the creation of the AMALGAM UNIVERSE. AMALGAM was, to me, a very exciting event. Some people absolutely loved it, others outright hated it… but it didn’t seem like anyone was indifferent to it. It was an honor for me at that time to be asked to get involved in this project on the ground floor (so to speak). And unless I’m mistaken, It was the first time I’d ever had any contact with editor Tom Brevoort, who called me to offer me the penciling job for the SPIDER-BOY book that was a part of the crossover. This was a true inter-company crossover between Marvel and DC comics where characters from each company would be mixed/blended (AMALGAMated) using elements from each to form a brand new character. SPIDER-BOY, for instance, was the amalgam of SUPERBOY and SPIDER-MAN. There were many other fun characters like DARKCLAW (BATMAN and WOLVERINE) DR. STRANGEFATE (DR. STRANGE and DR. FATE), JLX (JUSTICE LEAGUE and THE X-MEN)… and on and on. The event got huge press and for a while, it was the biggest thing to happen to comics in some time after several dark years of the market decline that began around 1993 or so.

As I said, Tom Brevoort was the editor, I was the penciler, and Karl Kesel was the writer and inker (with assists on inks from Gary Martin). It’s funny that years later, we were reunited (with Mark Waid) on FANTASTIC FOUR–there were elements of the FF mythos weaved into the SPIDER-BOY book as well. I remember reading an article that Tom wrote on SILVERBULLETCOMICS.COM quite a few years later in which he cited SPIDER-BOY as one of his favorite comics to have worked on in his career. It wasn’t too long after that he was calling me about FF. And I’ve worked with Tom as my editor longer than any other editor in my career. The same goes for working with Karl– he’s inked me longer and on more pages than any other inker I’ve ever been associated with. It’s been an honor working with both of them. And SPIDER-BOY was just my first taste of that fun.

Now a decade past. Wow.

Have a great weekend.

This is Entry 190.

Mike