DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus Pt. 3: Unlimited Access

In 1997 and early 1998, DC and Marvel published their second and final sequel to DC Versus Marvel, which was also the second and final miniseries starring the new character Axel Asher, aka Access, the jointly owned superhero with the power to create portals between the DC Universe and the Marvel Universe settings. 

This time, the script was the product of Karl Kesel, replacing DC/Marvel: All Access and DC Versus Marvel's Ron Marz. While this was Kesel's first time in the driver's seat for the Access character, he had been in the orbit of the publishers' crossover series before, having penned Amalgam one-shots Spider-Boy and Challengers of the Fantastic and co-written X-Patrol and Spider-Boy Team-Up. (I do wonder what Access co-creator Marz might have thought of Kesel's series, given the dramatic changes the latter made to Access' powers and origins; Marz doesn't say in his introduction included in the volume, only that he did have a pitch for a third Access series, in which the character visited the Amalgam Universe, but by then DC and Marvel cooperation was winding down.)

Kesel's partners on the book were pencil artist Patrick Olliffe and inker Al Williamson. Their art wasn't quite as stylistically distinct as that of Butch Guice in the previous series, although it did keep the general realistic-ish style, and the artists were capable of making the various characters all seem to fit in with one another, as if they belonged in the same story, despite how various their home comics were.

And, in this series, those home comics were more various than ever. Kesel has Access discover a few new powers, one of which is that not only can he travel between the two universes, he can also slide up and down their timelines, which gave the creators the opportunity to give us crossovers that the present-set DC Versus Marvel and All Access could not. 

And so we get to see the Two-Gun Kid draw on Jonah Hex, the/a Legion of Super-Heroes visit the world of "Days of Future Past" and, most excitingly, the original Avengers battling the original JLoA line-up (as it existed at the time, with Black Canary as a founder). 

Even more weird and fun crossovers are suggested in a pair of sequences, one involving Access ping-ponging through time and another in which he battles a future version of himself. In the first we see one-panel crossovers involving Devil Dinosaur and Anthro, The Phantom Eagle and Enemy Ace and The JSoA and The Invaders. In the second, we get particularly crazy amalgams in the background, like Spider-Man clones as Bizarros and a shiny Streaky the Supercat on the Silver Surfer's board.

Each issue is fairly stuffed with crossovers, as Access again finds characters in the wrong universes but, when attempting to fix things this time, he finds himself bouncing around the timestream/s. 

In the first, over-sized, 38-page issue Spider-Man and Wonder Woman take on evil New God Mantis and The Juggernaut (a particularly odd pair of villains to team-up and for those heroes to fight, but the why of this scene will be explained before the end of the series), and then Access finds a previous, "savage" version of The Hulk fighting a still alive (but gray at the temples) Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

From there the time-lost crossovers start, culminating in the Marvel Universe's New York City, about ten years or so ago. Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips have formed an uneasy alliance with Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with the goal of conquering the world and subjugating humanity below homo superior, with Darkseid ruling over all.

Standing in their way are the early Avengers (sans Hulk, but plus Captain America) and the original five teenage X-Men in their matching black-and-yellow costumes, plus all the allies from the DC Universe Access can summon: The original Justice League line-up, the then electric, present-day Superman and the current crop of teenage superheroes (Robin, Superboy, Impulse, Wonder Girl and Captain Marvel, Jr...banded together here three months before the release of Young Justice: The Secret #1!).

While there were a lot of heroes therefore in the mix, Kesel kept the focus on Access, especially at the climax, with the character facing down god of evil Darkseid, the bad guy above all the other bad guys. Kesel even draws parallels between the two, with Darkseid noting both of them move other characters around like pawns on a chessboard to fight their battles for them, and ultimately framing this entire conflict as a struggle between himself and Access.

The final battle is fought using amalgamated heroes, with Access discovering that he has the ability to create amalgams himself, leading to a whole new crop of amalgams (most of 'em seen on the cover of the fourth issue) out of the raw material of the heroes present. Most of these amount to little more than fun names, like Green Goliath (Green Lantern + Giant Man) or Thor-El (Thor + Superman), although it's pretty fun and charming how each of them come with their own "continuity" that only really exists in their own minds, like Redwing (Robin + Angel), who insists he was trained by "Bat-X". 

By far the best of the bunch is Captain America Junior (Captain Marvel Jr. + Captain America) who, when he calls the name "Uncle Sam!" is gifted with such powers as the wisdom of Lincoln, the strategy of Eisenhower and the trickery of Nixon. 

Unlike the climax of All Access, this round of amalgamizing doesn't lead to a new suite of Amalgam Comics...perhaps because Access' new amalgams all exist within the Marvel Universe, rather than their own.

Or perhaps the publishers and the fans had by then begun to tire of the Amalgam Universe. Or sales on that second round of comics accompanying All Access weren't what the publishers had hoped for. 

Whatever the reason, without them, this particular crossover felt a little smaller in scale and importance than All Access and, obviously, DC Versus Marvel. And it would be the final appearance of the Access character, as well as the last series in which the universes crossed over at such a large scale, although there would still be a handful of one-shot crossovers left before the publishers ended their second era of collaboration: 1999's Superman/Fantastic Four (which namedrops Access) and Incredible Hulk vs. Superman, 2000's Batman/Daredevil: King of New York and, finally, a few years later, 2003's JLA/Avengers.

It doesn't seem like we can necessarily blame this particular series with the cessation of crossovers, though. Like All Access, it proved a lot of fun, giving much more room to the characters to interact that the original DC Versus Marvel series, and, with its focus on characters from different points in DC and Marvel history, it proved to be a fairly ambitious and imaginative work.