Marvel/DC Deadpool/Batman #1
“Enter: Logo”
Writer: Ryan North
Artist: Ryan Stegman
Color Artist: Frank Martin
Letterer: VC's Joe Caramagna
Released: Sept. 17, 2025
It took me a few days to acquire and read my copy of “Deadpool/Batman” #1, the first Marvel-DC crossover in many a year. My main content goal was tying in last week's Missing Links installment, but once I read the unannounced seventh story in this over-sized issue, I knew I had to write about it.
Earlier this year, I finished reading and writing about all 24 Amalgam comics – DC-Marvel mash-ups that spun out of the companies-wide crossover 30 years ago.* There was some additional Amalgam content in the crossover and its sequel, but beyond that, I felt like I'd covered it all pretty thoroughly.
But then my favorite current writer in comics, Ryan North, teamed with Ryan Stegman to deliver three pages that weren't specifically labeled as an Amalgam story but seemed like a tip of the hat... until the last page.
As you can probably glean from the cover at the start of this post – drawn by Stegman for the issue's second printing – Logo is a combination of Wolverine, aka Patch, aka James Howlett, aka Logan, and Lobo, combatants in the most or second-most frustrating main event of the original Marvel vs. DC limited series. We meet him as he's puncturing the skull of a mechanical villain soon revealed to be Kultron, a mixture of Ultron and … some DC character whose name starts with a K? I am picking up right where I left off with my imbalanced knowledge of the Big Two.
Logo drops a plethora of mashed-up Wolverine and Lobo buzzwords, like “Canucklezian,” “the Main Mutie” and “bubstich,” which should seem forced but work because they were written by North. How much can be attributed to his immense talent and how much to the fact that I'm predisposed to like almost anything he writes because of said immense talent, I really can't say.
When a space bartender makes like the text after a set of Marvel Cinematic Universe credits and reminds him Kultron will return, Logo says that's OK because it means he can collect the bounty again. After destroying a rather nervous-looking Thanoseid's Thanoseidcopter, Logo rides off into space announcing that he's coming for Super Soldier next.
Up until that point, I thought this was just a humorous updating of the Amalgam concept. Sure, I'd seen bits here and there about Logo online since the issue dropped, but I hadn't really paid attention to them. Logo is a new creation. Wolverine had been amalgamated with Batman as Dark Claw in multiple issues, while Lobo was merged with Howard the Duck for a story that didn't live up to its ambitions.
But Super Soldier was the mixture of Captain America and Superman that starred in multiple original Amalgam books.
Thanoseid was in the originals too. And, as my associate Chris Armstrong pointed out, so was Kultron, a mix of Ultron and Kobra who appeared in “The Magnetic Men Featuring Magneto.” But I didn't remember that because a) I'm old** and b) I Googled his name with two L's.
There's plenty of precedent in the previous stories of elements from one Marvel or DC character making it into multiple amalgams – Dark Claw and Bruce Wayne, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Amazon and Diana from Bullets and Bracelets, etc. So perhaps Logo is just a previously unrevealed character or the result of reality-altering shenanigans. Did an amalgam of Superboy Prime and Deadpool punch the fourth wall?
When I wrapped up my Amalgam writings, I said I wasn't sure I wanted more. But this reminds me that the whole point of the experience is crazy fun, and it would be amusing to see a new generation of creators take a stab at it, as well as Mark Waid, who is still churning out awesome comics just like he was in the '90s.
As long as we're revisiting Amalgam, we may as well go for a...
Best Amalgam: Not that there's a lot of competition, but it's got to be Logo. Whereas Wolverine and Batman was an interesting but unexpected choice and Lobo the Duck was appropriately insane, Wolverine and Lobo just make sense sharing space. As I understand it, Lobo was a parody of extreme 90s characters, and while Wolverine is far more than just an extreme 90s character, he surely inspired a lot of them.
Most Confusing Amalgam: Clearly it was Kultron and not just because he's almost the only other option. He looks like a cross between Iron Man and Ultron, and my misreading of his name called to mind Kull the Conqueror, whose comics I haven't read and were published, at least part of the time, by Marvel.
As far as the rest of the issue, it was about what I expected, and I mean that in a good way. There was no overarching theme. While the Batman and Deadpool meeting made it clear they exist in separate worlds/dimensions, many of the others had the heroes existing in a shared universe. If you get hung up on details like I occasionally do, they could be explained as worlds created in Marvel vs. DC or “JLA/Avengers” – which was canon, for DC anyway.
I look forward to DC's contribution in a couple of months.
* - I'm old, as my children – and now my co-workers – remind me every day, intentionally or not.
** - See the first asterisk.
Comments
Post a Comment
No profanity, no bullying, no harassment. Feel free to disagree, but do it respectfully and politely.