Hello and welcome to Comic Drake where I talk about comic books and my name is Drake.
The 90s were a really weird time for comic books and if you’ve been on this channel
before, then you probably know that I am a major fan of when DC and Marvel Comics came
together to create Amalgam Comics which is this really interesting thing where they took
their characters and mish-mashed them together and you got these really interesting hybrids.
And in our attempt to take a look at every single one of the series that were published
under the Amalgam banner, let’s take a look at the Wonder Woman and Punisher crossover
called Bullets and Bracelets.
Bullets and Bracelets follows Steve Castle A.K.A.
The Punisher who is an amalgam of Steve Trevor and well…
The Punisher as well as Diana Prince who is an amalgam of Wonder Woman and as confirmed
in an interview by writer John Ostrander, a bit of Elektra from Marvel Comics.
Castle is a former special forces operative who served in Vietnam, but became the brutal
vigilante, The Punisher, after his family was killed in the crossfire of a mafia shootout.
According to Castle’s official trading card, he was even once joined by Spider-Boy who
is an amalgam of Spider-Man and Superboy who appointed himself as Punisher’s sidekick
for a time.
On the other hand, Princess Diana is an Amazon from the hidden island of Themyscira.
She never actually never got the title of Wonder Woman since it was taken by her adoptive
sister, Ororo, who is an amalgam of STORM and Wonder Woman.
Though the two fought over the title of Wonder Woman, Diana took her collapsible bow and
left on her own to explore “Man’s World” outside of Themyscira.
This is where Diana went on several adventures as a freelance vigilante.
In fact, she even helped out the king of Wakanda, Bronze Tiger who is an amalgam of Bronze Tiger
and Black Panther who rewarded Diana with a pair of indestructible Adamantium bracelets.
Also on her journey, Diana was apparently close friends with and maybe even the possible
the lover of War Monarch, an amalgam of War Machine and Monarch.
Anyway, during one of The Punisher’s missions, he was badly hurt and was bleeding out from
several wounds.
Diana was investigating the very same criminals, but stumbled across the quickly fading Castle.
Diana nursed him back to health and the two quickly fell in love and even became partners.
Their first team-up was against the vicious Pelt Man, an amalgam of Jigsaw and Cheetah,
but they got involved in several universe wide events such as the Secret Crisis of the
Infinity Hour!
Diana tamed Trevor’s more murderous tendencies, going so far as to get him to start using
rubber bullets against his targets, but nothing was more impactful than when Castle was finally
able to move past the death of his family and start over again with Diana.
The two were wed in Themyscira and they even had a child, but despite their synergy, enough
personal differences came up and they fell apart.
This was put on hold though when the two of them were roped into another team up upon
discovering that their child was kidnapped.
Now if you had a hard time following all of that stuff, then this is where it’s going
to get even crazier and WAY more convoluted so please try to bear with me.
So Punisher and Diana’s child was kidnapped by a ridiculous chain of bad guys that were
all working together so let’s break it down.
The child itself was stolen by a group of ninjas called The Hand who were being led
by War Monarch.
It turns out though that War Monarch was being instructed by Granny Harkness, an amalgam
of Granny Goodness and Agatha Harkness.
This prompts Punisher and Diana to be transported to the realm of Apokolips where it turns out
that this was ALL the plan of Granny Harkness’ master, Thanoseid, an amalgam of Thanos and
Darkseid.
He was after the Infinity Links which Diana had hidden away after the events of the Secret
Crisis and he was trying to use their child as leverage to get the information out of
her.
When Diana refused to give up the location of the Links though, Thanoseid unleashed his
assassin’s on the pair and seemingly killed their child.
However, Diana quickly figured out the truth when she looked into the eyes of her assailant.
It turns Thanoseid did not kill the child and all that he did was send the child back
in time to where Thanoseid would raise him as his most trusted assassin, Kanto, and he
was hoping to eventually have either Kanto kill his parents or vice-versa in some sort
of twisted revenge thing.
With this revelation, Kanto turned against Thanoseid, the family prevailed against the
bad guys, Diana and Trevor’s relationship was rekindled, and… that’s pretty much
it because Amalgam Comics has never been seen since and the story is just kind of there.
Amalgam Comics is one of my favorite things to have happened in all of comic book history
and I have a lot of fun making these videos, but of course, these videos would not be possible
without all of our amazing supporters over on Patreon.
Badasses like Jared Ryker, Yosh Flores, Bonnie Davies, Ashley Donson, Sebastian Walker, and
Taylor Adams.
Thank you guys very much and you can see even more names of our supporters down there in
the description below.
But if you liked this video then why not consider subscriber or even watching another one?
I personally want to recommend the very first video that we did on Amalgam in general and
it goes into what this whole Amalgam thing is and the history behind it.
Anyway, I hope you learned a little something new in this video and hopefully I’ll see
you next time!