Spider-Boy Team-Up #1

The Legion Apocrypha enters a new phase: every entry from this point onwards will be its own kind of crazy. Starting off with an Amalgam title.
In the middle of the “Marvel vs DC” event, they two companies jointly published Amalgam Comics: a bunch of one-shots with fusions between Marvel and DC characters, treated as if they were part of a universe that had been going on since the start of superhero comics.

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Spider-Boy Team-Up #1 (1997)
written by Roger Stern & Karl Kesel
pencils and cover by Jose Ladronn

“Spider-Boy” is the fusion between Spider-Man and the Superboy of the 90s, and we’re covering this because of the inclusion of the Legion Of Galactic Guardians 2099.
Karl Kesel is in fact the creator of that Superboy, and he has some history with the Legion: one of his first jobs was inking “Tales of the Legion of Super-Heroes”.
We’ll see Roger Stern tackling the Legion again during the Reboot.

We first see Spider-Boy fighting the Scavulture, a truly awful fusion between Scavanger and Vulture.

Spider-Boy works way better as a character: both Spider-Man and Superboy are sort of heroic jokesters in different ways. Notice a staple of Amalgam Comics: random references to fused characters, most of which never show up.

We have a brief interlude with another Amalgam staple: creating tie-ins to stories that don’t even exist. Except THIS time it’s a legitimate tie-in, because there IS an issue of “Challengers Of The Fantastic” as part of the Amalgam event!

But of note for our review, Spider-Boy gets kidnapped by a Time-Square™…

…that take him to the future!
Where even the fictional swearing words are fused: “Grife!” is from the Legion’s future and “Shocking” is the F-word equivalent in Marvel 2099.

As you might have guessed, that’s because Spider-Boy has been summoned by the three founders of the Legion.

More on them soon, because we get a full roll call!

Specifically, a roll call with an entire splash page.

And you better believe we’re going through ALL OF THEM, in order to figure out who’s part of the fusion.

The problem with fusing the Legion with another team is that there aren’t a lot of teams of similar size. The basic idea is to fuse the Legion with the ORIGINAL Guardians Of The Galaxy, but since there weren’t that many Guardians we get a lot of extremely random fusions.
So let’s begin: going through this roll call is 90% of the reason why I wanted to review this.

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Psi-Girl = Saturn Girl + Psylocke.
Living Lightning Lad = Lightning Lad + Living Lightning

I’m not too surprised to see Saturn Girl fused with Psylocke; I’m guessing Jean Grey would’ve been too predictable.
But Living Lightning is a WILD choice; calling him a D-tier Avenger would be too generous!

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Universe Boy = Ultra Boy + Captain Universe
Molecule Lad = Element Lad + Molecule Man
Bouncing Ball = Bouncing Boy + Speedball

Speaking of wildcards: Captain Universe! That’s not even a specific guy, that’s a rotating superpower that switches between users basically every time!
Molecule Man makes sense power-wise, and he’s not even the only villain to be fused. Also, that is probably one of the heroes I’d be most scared of, considering how ridiculously powerful both sides of the fusion are.
Bouncing Ball is perhaps a bit obvious, but it fits.

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Growing Boy = Colossal Boy + Growing Man
Lady Bug = Shrinking Violet + Wasp
Dream Date = Dream Girl + Destiny

Yet another absurd wildcard: Colossal Boy gets a fusion with Growing Man, which is a robot employed by Kang. Why not fuse him with Giant-Man and call him Giant Boy?
Especially when you fuse Shrinking Violet with Wasp!!!
Fusing Dream Girl with the X-Men villain Destiny and calling her Dream Date is a stroke of genius.

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Invisible Girl = Invisible Kid II + Invisible Girl
Paste-Eater Pete = Matter-Eater Lad + Trapster

I get there aren’t a lot of invisible characters to choose from, and I appreciate that they fused her with the second Invisible Kid to distinguish her… but they couldn’t have been lazier with the name.
Plus the symbol on her costume looks less like an “i” and more like a… nevermind.
“Paste-Eater Kid” manages to be more ridiculous than Paste-Pot Pete, even if he’s been called Trapster for ages.

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Vance Cosmic = Cosmic Boy + Vance Astro
Martinex 5 = Brainiac 5 + Martinex
Living Lightning Lass = Lightning Lass + Living Lightning

Vance Astro and Martinex are from the ORIGINAL Guardians Of The Galaxy, so their presence makes some sense.
Living Lightning Lass means we have TWO fusions originating from Living Lightning!!!

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Sun Lord = Sun Boy + Firelord
Cannonfire = Wildfire + Cannonball
Multiple Maid = Triplicate Girl + Multiple Man

They couldn’t find a way to use the Human Torch for the Sun Boy fusion? Really?
Cannonfire looks more like a fusion with the Human Bomb than with Cannonball from the X-Men.
Because she’s a fusion with Multiple Man from the X-Men, Multiple Maid gets the ability to split into more than three bodies AGES before Triplicate Girl gets the chance!

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Fantastic Lad = Elastic Lad + Mister Fantastic
Chameleon = Chameleon Boy + Chameleon
Phantom Cat = Phantom Girl + Shadowcat

Jimmy Olsen, the dumbest DC character, gets a fusion with the smartest Marvel character.^{*citation needed}
Chameleon is another lame idea: couldn’t they find anyone but the Spider-Man villain with the same name for the fusion? Heck use Mystique, since you already used Destiny!
Phantom Cat is a neat idea, though.

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Shadowstar = Shadow Lass + Starhawk
Star Charlie = Star Boy + Charlie-27
Timberwolf By Night = Timber Wolf + Werewolf By Night

Starhawk is another of the original Guardians, and it actually DOES make sense to gender-bend Shadow Lass for the fusion because Starhawk was at some point an identity shared between a man and a woman.
Charlie-27 is also from the original Guardians. I guess they had to use Star Boy’s original costume to avoid confusion with Universe Boy.
“Timberwolf By Night” is just hilarious.

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In total the fusion includes, from the Marvel side:
5 villains
4 Guardians Of The Galaxy
4 X-Men
4 miscellaneous
2 Fantastic Four
2 Avengers (one used twice!)

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That was a lot, and the story BARELY started. But we first learn the Legions Of Galactic Guardians was inspired by Spider-Boy.

And then Spider-Boy has to be rushed back to the 20th century.

Or he WOULD rush back, if it wasn’t for the Frightful Five.

Frightful Five = Fatal Five + Frightful Four
Yep, we’re doing this again!!!!

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Valinus = Validus + Terminus
Manorb = Mano + Orb
Sparticus = Persuader + Gladiator
Agamotto Express = Emerald Empress + Agamotto
Tharlock = Tharok + Deathlok

Terminus is the only one that really fits, since he’s another giant monster.
Using the Orb for Mano is insane: at the time, Orb was just a VERY minor Ghost Rider villain with no powers!
Using Deathlok is weird, but I guess his face is already kind of half-cyborg anyway.
Gladiator is completely out of left field: that’s not the Shi’ar guy, that’s the Daredevil villain!
By far the most ridiculous is using Agamotto. As in, the deity that gives power to the Eye Of Agamotto of Doctor Strange.
Which makes sense to fuse with the Emerald Eye, but they couldn’t find someone to fuse with Emerald Empress?

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The Frightful Five are targeting the Time-Square™ under the direction of a mysterious figure who threatens to split him into his fused heroes.

And that’s when ANOTHER Time-Square™ shows up!!!

Which take him Five Years Later, in a spoof of the Legion’s actual Five Years Later era!!!

That’s because the Frightful Five manage to destroy the Time-Square™, killing everyone in the Legion (!!!) except four members.

Looks like Spider-Boy wants to spend time in the Five Years Later almost as much as I do.

This is a truly stunning spoof. It only lasts one page but it captures both the bleakness of the Five Years Later era and the other thing I detest from that period: The Grid.
I will talk about AT LENGTH about The Grid once I do cover that era: for the longest time it was an inescapable format in every. Single. Page.

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Sending Spider-Boy back in time reboots the entire Legion (!!!), so we get another introduction…

…and ANOTHER roll call!!!

Yes, we’re doing this again… AGAIN.

But first: remember how I mentioned that the Amalgam Comics sometimes references books that don’t exist? That includes company-wide crossovers!

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This rebooted version is clearly inspired by the Reboot Legion, including fusions from Legionnaires I have yet to cover in the retrospective.
It also makes fun of the fact that the Legion changed the codenames of various Legionnaires.

Psi-Girl remains unchanged, although it’s weird that the reboot version shows more skin than the original, since the Reboot Saturn Girl never had a swimsuit costume.
The Reboot version of Lightning Lad was renamed Live Wire, and Living Lightning Lad gets a much lamer rename as ‘Lectron. He’s also now fused with Electro, I guess.

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Sparks was the Reboot Lightning Lass, and the rebooted Living Lightning Lass is renamed Sparkler fusing her with Dazzler (that’s clearly her in her 90s look).
Which is kind weird: Sparks never had light-based powers.
Universe Boy stays the same, just drawn closer to the reboot Ultra Boy minus the jacket.

Martinex 5 stays the same.
Triad was the reboot Triplicate Girl, so it does make sense that the rebooted Multiple Maid is Myriad.

Chameleon unfortunately stays the same.
Colossal Boy (renamed Leviathan in the reboot) doesn’t have a lot of luck with fusions: first he was fused with a villain robot, now he’s fused with “It, the Living Colossus”, a pre-Silver Age monster.

I guess he’s luckier than the actual Leviathan, since he dies VERY early in the reboot.

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Lady Bug is still the same fusion, but the Wasp look used is the one for the remarkably lame “The Crossing” crossover in the 90s.
Invisible Girl is a surprising change: she’s CLEARLY based on the reboot Invisible Kid (the first one, since the reboot doesn’t have a second).

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Apparition (the reboot Phantom Girl) gets what I think is a fusion with Vision, since he’s the only other major Marvel character who can phase through matter.
Darkstar is a bit of a mystery. I think she’s a fusion between Dawnstar and Darkstar, the Russian superhero who was also in the champions?
That would be weird for multiply reasons: Dawnstar isn’t in the reboot, and Darkstar is a very minor hero… she actually looks more like a fusion with Storm, except that symbol on her costume really makes me think of the Russian heroine.
She’s also white on the cover, so there might be some miscommunication.

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Star Boy’s fusion with Charlie-27 is basically unchanged.
Molecule Lad gets renamed Nucleus, which is weird since Element Lad is one of the Legionnaires who gets to keep his original name in the reboot. And he’s wearing an almost exact replica of the reboot Element Lad’s costume.

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And finally a fusion with Legion characters exclusive to the reboot.
Xcel = XS + Quicksilver, I guess? The costume has her symbol, but nothing that makes me think of any other Marvel speedster.
Phoenetix = Kinetix + Phoenix, which is appropriate since Kinetix was apparently supposed to have something close to the Phoenix Saga but never went the distance.

The reboot has 5 fewer members, and the dynamic of who gets fused changes.

5 X-Men
4 villains
3 Guardians Of The Galaxy
2 Avengers (this time, both used once)
2 miscellaneous
1 Fantastic Four

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Back to the story: this time Spider-Boy was brought in for a different reason.

Besides the full-page roll call, the reboot lasts exactly 2 pages.

Once Spider-Boy is back in the 20th century, he can’t stop the Scavulture from harming a random kid.

But he has the help of the Legion Of Galactic Guardians. I’m assuming this is the reboot version, going by their looks.

Legion continuity shenanigans!

The kid has been wounded by the Scavulture’s blast, so the Legion is compelled to help.
Notice that the Flight Ring has a combination of the symbols of the Legion and of the original Guardians Of The Galaxy.

It’s so bad that the kid has to be put in stasis in the Phantom-Negative Zone.

Yep, that’s the origin of our Mon-El equivalent.

But not before the hooded figure from before shows up: it’s Kang The Time Conqueror!

He’s about to split Spider-Boy into separate heroes, when a new ally shows up.

Once the bad guy is defeated, we get to learn who Mon-El has been fused with.
That would be Miguel O’Hara, a.ka. Spider-Man 2099.
(in case you forgot, “Gand” comes from Mon-El’s real name of “Lar Gand”)

And that’s how we leave things, before the Legion has the time for another reboot.

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Does any of this show up in any regular continuity?
Well, not only the actual Legion does get three more reboots after this was published, but Triplicate Girl DOES gain the ability to make limitless copies of herself.

SHOULD any of this have happened in regular continuity?
I guess you’d have to be careful to avoid being mean-spirited, but I wish we had more stories poking fun at the endless Legion reboots.

Silver Age-ness: 20/10
This is peak Silver Age-ness for both Marvel AND DC, despite the Five Years Later bleakness.

Does it stand the test of time? 8/10
To fully appreciate the countless in-jokes, you’d have to be familiar with at least three incarnations of the Legion and of a lot of minor characters from both Marvel and DC.
But at the same time, when I first read this story I was familiar ONLY with the original Legion and have very limited knowledge of the Reboot, but I still found it great.
The weakest part, surprisingly enough, is Spider-Boy himself. While he’s great in the other Amalgam stories where he appears, he’s not even a character here… he’s just an excuse to make in-jokes and little else.
But this is a story featuring a character named “Paste-Eater Pete”, so it’s not like we’re supposed to take this seriously!

We are legion

Original continuity
Active Legionnaires: 4
Deceased members: 18
22 people have been members

Reboot continuity
Active Legionnaires: 18
Deceased members: 0
18 people have been members