Alright guys, you keep asking and asking and asking about a new Amalgam video so here it
is, I finally got one for you, but before we hop in, I have to make a small request.
Now, YouTube’s algorithm has been changing a whole lot and unfortunately, that means
that the channel is kind of dying off because of it.
Now the way you guys can help is that on this video, if you can give it a thumbs up and
a comment, that would be super duper helpful, but on top of that, if you guys could share
you know, not just this video, but also other videos that you like on my channel with your
friends, that’ll help kind of get the channel back growing and I really hate to ask y’all
to do this, but without y’all’s help and support, the channel has a really good chance
of dying off.
So enough of the sad stuff, let’s get into the actual video!
For those of you who aren’t in the loop, Amalgam Comics was a thing in the 90s where
Marvel and DC came together and fused many of their iconic characters for a series of
one offs.
Many of these were delightfully 90s, but today, we’re going to be looking at one of my favorite
underrated Amalgam characters, Speed Demon, a three way amalgam of The Flash, Ghost Rider,
and Etrigan the Demon.
This comic focuses on Blaze Allen, an amalgam of the second Flash, Barry Allen and the first
Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze.
Well… second if you count the original Ghost Rider, Carter Slade, who isn’t related to
the Ghost Riders and was retconned into Phantom Rider, but I digress.
Blaze Allen is a carnival stunt driver, but also an amature sorcerer on the side.
Though he wasn’t extremely powerful, Blaze still caught the attention of the lord of
the Nightmare Dimension, the deadly Night Spectre, an amalgam of Marvel’s Nightmare
and DC’s Spectre.
The Night Spectre wanted to use Allen as his pawn on Earth, but he refused, cast out the
spirit, and went along with his life.
However, the Night Spectre merely bided his time until he could get revenge on Blaze.
Opportunity finally knocked when Blaze Allen was set to marry his girlfriend, Iris Simpson,
and right in the middle of their wedding, the Night Spectre drained Iris’ life force
and stole her soul.
Besides being…
you know... revenge, this apparently was also because Iris had a pure soul.
See, the Spectre is collecting souls of pure good and pure evil because apparently harnessing
their power is the key to controlling Heaven, Hell, and Earth.
Because comics.
In anger, Blaze prayed for the power to save his short lived bride’s soul.
This request was answered by the wizard Merlin who bound Blaze’s soul to that of the demon
Etrigan.
So it’s also revealed that the Night Spectre also has Etrigan’s soul, that of Jay Garrick’s,
the original Flash.
However, it’s incredibly vague if Etrigan himself was Garrick or if they were just bound
together much like Etrigan currently is with Blaze.
Regardless, this unholy union allows Blaze and Etrigan to shoot fire and go fast as the
hero Speed Demon.
Now you’d think that the Night Spectre having both Iris and Jay Garrick’s souls would
be enough motivation for Speed Demon to go kick his butt, but according to these official
trading cards, they’re also competing in a race to capture 6,666 human souls.
So yeah.
That’s a thing.
For the one issue of Speed Demon that was printed, the Night Spectre takes the soul
of the villain, Green Goblin.
While Gobby might not seem like a hybrid character at first, he’s actually a mix of the Green
Goblin and Two Face.
This is really weird because in the Dark Claw comics (the amalgam of Batman and Wolverine)
there is a character named the Two Faced Goblin who I’m assuming is the exact same character.
Why they’re just calling him the Green Goblin here, I have no idea.
Anyway, after taking his soul, the Spectre takes over the Goblin’s body and lures Speed
Demon into his realm of nightmares.
It’s here that Merlin’s spell is temporarily broken, causing Blaze and Etrigan to separate.
The Night Spectre takes advantage of this to grab Blaze and almost take his soul!
However, Blaze was saved not by Etrigan, but by ANOTHER Ghost Rider.
Bam, this is an all new character named Kid Demon who is in all actuality Wally West,
Blaze’s nephew.
See, it turns out that he ALSO made a deal with Merlin to have his soul bound to a demon
as well in order to save his uncle from the Night Spectre.
But you might have noticed that Kid Demon looks a lot more like the traditional Ghost
Rider than Speed Demon with the motorcycle and everything, but according to yet another
trading card, apparently Speed Demon ALSO has a bike, but we just don’t see it in
the comic.
After all, if I could go as fast as Speed Demon, I probably wouldn’t ride a motorcycle
either.
With Kid Demon’s help, the day was saved and the Ghost Riders decide to work together
moving forward as superhero and sidekick.
There’s something odd though.
It’s implied in the comic and then confirmed on a trading card that the demon that Wally
is bound to is the Night Spectre himself, but that makes absolutely no sense considering
that’s literally who Wally saved Blaze from when he first appeared as Kid Demon.
Too bad that’s a cliffhanger that will never get resolved since much like many of the other
Amalgam characters, Speed Demon did not go on to appear in any other comics.
And there you go, literally everything that there is to know about Speed Demon, but I
really like this character and character design and that’s really weird because he doesn’t
just pull from two characters but three.
You would think that he’d be way too over-designed and way too 90s, but no.
I like this guy a lot!
Oh yeah, and since every time I make one of these Amalgam videos, there’s always like
ten people in the comments going “What, how does this exist?!
It’s Marvel and DC!”
Well then just click one of these annotations right here to learn more about Amalgam Comics
and what it really is, but again, it’d be really awesome if you guys could comment,
leave a like, and share the videos around.
Again, hate to ask you, but that’s what I gotta do because YouTube wants to kill the
channel.
Hooray!
I’m going to go!
Buh-bye!