Because publishers want you to buy their product every month, comics are typically serial in nature. However, occasionally (and more often nowadays than ever before) publishers launch a comic title that is only meant to last for one issue. While ongoing series often have multiple chances to hook in new readers, the comics highlighted in this ongoing investigations only had One-Shot At Greatness!
Publisher: Amalgam Comics
Cover Date: April 1996
Cover Price: $1.95
Writer: Howard Mackie with James Felder
Artist: Salvador Larroca
When the DC and Marvel Universes merged in Marvel vs DC, a new one was created: the Amalgam Universe. This one-shot combined Ghost Rider with Etrigan the Demon.
Night Spectre‘s nefarious goal of collecting the Souls of Power is nearing its fruition. His plan to gather humans of great purity or corruption have stolen Blaze Allen’s girl, Iris, from him in the past. This led Blaze to bond with the demon, Etrigan, to become the Speed Demon. Now, he’s out to stop Night Spectre from collecting the last Soul of Power from Harvey Osborne, the Green Goblin! To make matters a bit more interesting, to help Blaze, Merlin has created a new Speed Demon in Blaze’s nephew, Wally. But, who’s the demon bonded with Wally?
This is a pretty fun supernatural super-hero storyline although it’s a bit heavy on the exposition at times. The artwork is superb but Speed Demon’s rhyming dialogue gets annoying quickly. The addition of a second Speed Demon was a nice tribute to the “legacy hero” nature of both Ghost Rider and the Flash (who’s mythos is also heavily involved in this amalgamation). Two things have me intrigued here: (1) Etrigan’s past is hinted at having some neat importance (2) The question of which demon is bonded with Wally is also interesting. Especially since it’s suggested that it might even be the Night Spectre, himself.
On Ebay: Amalgam | Howard Mackie | Salvador Larroca
On AtomicAvenue: Amalgam Comics