Fusion Dance / Comic Books

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• In the Spider-Man storyline for Acts of Vengeance, Loki decides to merge three Shaw-type Sentinels into the mighty Tri-Sentinel after his initial plan fails. It ends up the reason why Spidey got his Cosmic powers. It should be noted that the Tri-Sentinel isn't a Combining Mecha, but was created by Loki's Asgardian magic.
• Adventure Time:
  • The second issue implies that Desert Princess is actually an amalgamation of various Candy citizens.
  • In the ghost arc, Finn, Jake, PB, and all the Candy Kingdom subjects combine into one huge ghost to beat up the Jerkass ghosts.
• The Amalgam Universe was created when the DC and Marvel universes were merged. The superheroes in this new reality were each a combination of two heroes from the two original worlds. For example there was Super-Soldier (Superman + Captain America), Darkclaw (Batman + Wolverine), and Lobo the Duck (Lobo + Howard the Duck).
• Astro City:
  • Jitterjack is a villainous composite example; he appears as two bisected men joined together lengthwise, with more than double the speed, reflexes, and agility of a normal person.
  • After Andy Merton steals an amulet once possessed by Stormhawk, it accidentally triggers a fusion of Andy with his corgi Hank, creating G-Dog. The dog's loyalty and herd instinct influence him, causing him to give up crime and become a hero.
  • The Ubersaurus, the finest weapon of the Ziri Empire, one thousand of their loyalest (and brainwashed) troops mushed into one. The First Family manage to figure out how to disrupt the link holding it together and it collapses.
• Batman and Superman once found themselves in a world where the villains were Composites of their respective enemies. Examples: Lex Luthor + The Joker, Doomsday + Deathstroke the Terminator, The Penguin + Metallo, etc. The heroes were Composites of Justice League and Teen Titans members, although Wally West was the same because he's on both teams at the same time as The Flash. Examples: Hal Jordan + Dick Grayson, Raven + Zatanna, Starfire + Black Canary. Even Gotham City and Metropolis were combined into Gothamopolis. It was a dream world created by Doctor Destiny.
• The various versions of Captain Marvel usually are Switchers; the one owned by DC Comics goes between his powered-form and Billy Batson by shouting SHAZAM!, and several of the ones owned by Marvel Comics switch between themselves and Rick Jones by hitting together the Nega-bands (as an homage to the Batson switch).
  • Likewise, Miracleman/Marvelman (and cohorts) do their transformations in the same way; the super-powered body is stored in a sort of nullspace until the transformation occurs, and the normal body is there until the superhero changes back.
  • Peter David's run on the Marvel series once lampshaded this by having Rick yell "SHAZAM!" when hitting the Nega-bands. When Cap asks him why he yelled that, Rick changes the subject.
  • In an issue of Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau do a variation of this after Monica transforms herself into an Energy Being. Once it's over, Monica makes sure to tell Carol to never mention to anyone that Monica was inside of her.
  • Monica repeated this by turning into gamma radiation and merging with She-Hulk in an issue of Mighty Avengers.
  • Before either of these fusions, Carol ended up caught in a Two Beings, One Body situation when Rogue ended up permanently absorbing her powers and memories, even as Carol's own body became comatose.
  • It should also be noted that DC's Captain Marvel and the other Marvels empowered by the wizard Shazam are more often depicted as Older Alter Ego versions of their youthful secret identities than the Switcher version of this trope.
    • This was played with in Kingdom Come with an apparently still-youthful Captain Marvel brainwashed and in service to Lex Luthor, with all of Luthor's villainous allies unnerved by such a powerful hero under Luthor's thrall; in fact, it was an adult Billy Batson, visually indistinguishable from his Older Alter Ego and so fearful of the consequences of superpowers that he hadn't transformed for years.
  • Mighty Man, the Captain Ersatz of DC's Captain Marvel in The Savage Dragon, is a fusion of a host body and an apparently ages-old heroic entity that was locked into the form of a caped superhero in the early 20th century. Moreover, Mighty Man is a young, handsome, male superbeing no matter the age, looks, or gender of the host body; for the first 100 or so issues of The Savage Dragon, Mighty Man was hosted by two different women. The host is also subject to the passage of time even while in Mighty Man's form, and can suffer dehydration, starvation, fatigue and muscle atrophy if they don't take time in their normal form to tend to their own physical needs.
• Deadpool and Madcap were once both reduce to piles of ash that ended up mingling together. They regenerated, but in the body of Deadpool with Madcap becoming another voice in his head. They unfused when Deadpool gets their body ripped in half, the two halves regenerating into their separate bodies.
• In the Disney Comics Crisis Crossover Dangerous Currency, main villain Negaduck had a swarm of atom-sized versions of himself created, which together form a black inky substance known as the Slime. When another villain merges with the Slime, it turns them into an eviler, superpowered version of their original self, although it is also becomes compelled to obey Negaduck. Several villains can also merge with a single pool of Slime at the same time, which causes results closer to what this trope is usually about. For instance, four Beagle Boys merge into a four-headed hulking giant at one point.
• In Dark Nights: Metal, the Red Death, one of the Dark Multiverse's villainous versions of Batman, forcibly did a Power Booster mix with his version of the Flash. After Flash refused to give him the power of the Speed Force, Batman knocked him out, chained him to the hood of a Batmobile modified with designs for the Cosmic Treadmill, and drove into the Speed Force, merging them into a being with Flash's powers but with Batman in full control. Flash eventually retakes control, only for them to both be destroyed shortly after.
• Doctor Fate over his long history has been several versions of this. In some tellings, he is the Lord of Order Nabu subsuming a human host who dons Fate's golden helmet. In others, he is a combination of different human hosts, with Nabu sometimes in the mix, sometimes not.
• DC Comics Occult Detective Battle Couple Doctor Occult and Rose Psychic had their souls bonded by a magical ritual in order to save the life of one of them.^note Accounts vary on which one it was whose life was being saved As a result, they must "time-share" with only one of them permitted physical existence at a time.
• Rebis in Doom Patrol (version by Grant Morrison) is a literal example of The Composite with three beings, i. e. Larry Trainor (male), Dr. Eleanor Poole (female) and the mysterious "negative spirit". The name Rebis denotes precisely the philosopher's stone, intended as fusion of complementars (Alchemical Marriage). The Composite Rebis is a divine hermaphrodite, usually concealed in bandages. Rebis has all of the memories of all three beings and a lot of powers. Finally, he/is/it is immortal, though this might involve some ritual involving a supermarket trolley and a tree that grows on the Moon and god Grant Morrison smoked a lot of things back in the 90s.
• In ElfQuest after Winnowill's body is killed Rayek absorbs her spirit to prevent it becoming a force of destruction. Since then the two have been vying for control of Rayek's body; on those rare occasions when Winnowill succeeds she can re-shape it into an exact replica of her own. They're not exactly a composite since their personalities remain separate, though it's implied that this may change if ever Winnowill ever renounces her evil ambitions.
• Firestorm (DC Comics):
  • The DC Comics character is a Power Booster example. While the nature of the fusion has varied considerably over the course of the character's history, the basic gist is that the host of the powerful Firestorm Matrix can merge with someone else to become the superpowered Firestorm. The other partner in the merge ends up as a voice in the host's mind, able to advise them if need be.
  • The post-Blackest Night incarnation of Firestorm is a fusion of Jason Rusch and its first host Ronnie Raymond. There are a couple of problems with this: 1) the Firestorm Matrix is messed up for some reason (possibly related to Ronnie coming back from the dead after Blackest Night) and 2) Jason hates Ronnie since the latter's Black Lantern incarnation murdered Jason's girlfriend Gehenna by turning her into salt. The third entity in the matrix is the Black Lantern persona created by the Black Power Ring.
  • In the New 52, the whole thing gets shaken up. Shortly after Ronnie and Jason meet for the first time, they get transformed into separate Firestorms, who can combine to form a nuclear monstrosity called Fury — who has a mind of his own.
• Galactus is the permanent fusion between the Power Cosmic and Galan, the last survivor of the universe preceding the present one. The Power Cosmic was drawn to Galan's refusal to surrender even as the universe died around him. It's no longer clear how much of Galactus is the Power Cosmic and how much is still Galan.
• The main versions of Ghost Rider are usually composites. Whether or not they're stronger together depends on the ingredients.
• Gold Digger: Scientist Gina creates a vat of bioplasm to transfer a curse off herself and her sister Britanny. Unexpectedly, the mixture animated into a third woman. After an initial fight, they accept her as a new sister, Brianna. She quickly becomes one of the series' best characters.
• The walking Continuity Snarl that is Hawkman. On a number of occasions, his various conflicting selves were fused just for the purpose of cleaning up his continuity.
• While nothing was done with it (in part because of The Crossing, Teen Tony, and Heroes Reborn being Audience-Alienating Eras), this is currently what Tony Stark is: a fusion of the classic Tony and Teen Tony created by Franklin Richards when he saved the Avengers and the Fantastic Four from the events of Onslaught.
• The Justice Society of America gets a Power Boost when they merge with the Norse gods to fight the Ragnarok in order to prevent Adolf Hitler from destroying the universe circa 1945 in Last Days of the Justice Society. Some of the members even get miraculous healings in the merging, such as with Sandman's heart problems and Wildcat being unable to use his legs.
• The Invaders (Marvel Comics): The first annual introduced three Axis agents: Italian Aldo Malvagio, German Berthard Volker, and Japanese Hiroyuki Kanegawa. The plane taking them to confer with Hitler and Mussolini crashed after it was struck by lightning, and it somehow merged the three into a single being, the villainous master saboteur known as Agent Axis.
• Legion Of Superheroes: The post-Zero Hour version of Wildfire is the fusion of two other heroes, Randall "Atom'X" Burroughs and Drake "Blast-Off" Ningle. The two were both blasted into atoms in a fight with the wizard Mordru and the resulting energies combined into a single entity with its own separate consciousness that took the name "Drake Burroughs".
• The Metal Men can merge into a composite form called Alloy. This ability first appeared in Kingdom Come, then migrated into the main continuity during the DC One Million event.
• Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: The 1990 comic book series Mickey Mouse Adventures had Professors Ecks and Doublex, two of the three monkey mad scientists that Mickey Mouse faced in the Floyd Gottfredson comic strip story Blaggard Castle, return as a recurring villain known as Dr. Doublecross, a two-headed being that was created when a mishap with a cloning ray fused Ecks and Doublex together.
• The Mighty Thor: Another Switcher example was the late 80's-early 90's comics. Thor had befriended a human named Eric Masterson, but when Eric was almost killed on the fringe of one of Thor's battles, Thor used Asgardian magic to merge their forms and save his buddy's life. Thus you had Eric living his everyday life, but running off at any sign of trouble to stamp his cane on the ground and ta-da! Thor.
• Cypher and Warlock of the New Mutants could merge into Two Beings, One Body, which usually looked like Cypher covered in circuitry. In fact, Warlock could do this with anyone, except that he risked transforming them permanently.
• At the end of the Avengers OGN Rage of Ultron, Ultron and his creator Hank Pym are merged into a single, half-organic, half-cybernetic being. However, because Ultron's personality was a copy of Pym's in the first place and he was acting on Pym's subconscious misanthropy, Pym makes no attempt to fight Ultron's control.
  • In fact, as Tony Stark: Iron Man #19 revealed, Pym had actually died during the merge, with Ultron creating a simulated persona of Pym, while believing the two had merged mentally as well as physically.
• Sleepwalker is an example of an accidental Switcher situation — he is an alien native to another dimension who became stuck in the mind of a guy named Rick Sheridan. Sleepwalker could freely enter the real world only when Sheridan was asleep. Except for a brief Freaky Friday situation or two, Rick's body remained alive, normal and in bed when Sleepwalker was loose, and they could only communicate through Rick's dreams.
  • The Sleepwalker series also had a villainous example late in its run when a demon from the Mindscape, Sleepwalker's home dimension, became trapped on Earth and ended up fusing with a human Serial Killer named Jeremy Roscoe. The result was a nightmarish creature that called itself Psyko, possessed of all of Sleepwalker's warping powers in addition to being able to brutally Mind Rape his victims and drive them insane. Psyko was somewhere between Two Beings, One Body and a Power Booster, as Roscoe was in full control of their body and the demon's powers, although apparently the demon could still communicate with him. In his first battle with Sleepwalker, Psyko claimed that the demon wanted to give Sleepwalker a message, and to write it in the alien hero's blood.
  • One issue centred around Rick and Sleepwalker being fused into Two Beings, One Body after Rick tried to release Sleepwalker while he was awake and it had Gone Horribly Wrong. Being directly fused with Rick drastically weakened Sleepwalker's powers, to the point where they weren't even half as strong as they normally were. Even then, they still managed to defeat the Chain Gang. Go figure.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics):
  • One issue had all versions of Tails from across the multiverse of team up and fuse to become Titan Tails, which was a gigantic, beefed-up Tails, to battle Master Mogul.
  • In Sonic Universe's "30 Years Later" storyline, we find that Tikal and Chaos have fused into one Composite, Tikhaos. It seems to have some semblance of Tikal's personality, but Chaos' hunger for chaos energy.
• Darkdevil from the Spider-Girl/MC2 'verse is the result of one of these between Daredevil and Ghost Rider. He appears to be a Composite but is really more of a Power Booster. With, possibly, some spider-powers he got from his dad.
• Spider-Man:
  • One of the most traumatic experiences in the career of the villain the Sandman is when he teams up with Hydro Man; an accident causes the two of them to merge into a barely sentient mud monster. When the two villains are eventually separated, the mental strain it had on the Sandman was the biggest reason for his Heel–Face Turn (which, sadly, didn't last forever).
  • This is the origin of the villain named Fusion. Hubert Fusser is a research scientist working at a private research lab. His twin brother Pinky works at the same lab as a janitor. A nuclear accident merges them together, giving them super strength and radiation emitting power. Hubert is the one with the standard issue supervillain megalomania, while Pinky mostly gets dragged along.
• Played for Laughs in SpongeBob Comics #50. In that issue, Spongebob and Patrick hug each other so hard that their friendship somehow causes them to fuse into one person, calling itself "Squidpat Starpants". It gets even crazier later on when they start fusing with everyone in Bikini Bottom.
• Superman:
  • The conclusion of Superman Reborn has this happen to the pre-Flashpoint Superman and his New 52 counterpart and also to the pre-flashpoint Lois Lane and her New 52 counterpart. The circumstances of this fusion actually cause a Cosmic Retcon, where history itself is altered so that the composite versions have always been the only ones present.
  • In Superman's Girl Friend, Lois Lane, during an adventure on another planet a sorceress's necklace caused Lois and Lana Lang to merge into one woman, whom called herself "Lana Lane"; which she has the Lana's red hair and lips, and Lois' eyes and nose. Superman, believing this change would be permanent, proposes to the merged woman, but the fusion was temporary; worse; one of the aliens informed Superman that one would soon die due to the side-effects of the merging. Thankfully, Superman prevented this from happening.
  • At the beginning of Supergirl's 90s' series, artificial lifeform Matrix merged with a dying girl named Linda Danvers. The resulting amalgamated being was an Earthborn angel with Flying Brick powers plus fire wings.
  • Brainiac merged with Lex Luthor in Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?, taking over Luthor's mind and body.
  • In the first Batman/Superman: World's Finest storyline, a combination of using Hal Jordan's Green Lantern ring and the magicks being used by the demon Nezha allow Superman and Batman to fuse into one being. They are able to turn the tables enough to take out Nezha's Brainwashed and Crazy heroes, but run out of power before they could take care of Nezha.
• A crossover comic from the late 90s, Superman/Madman Hullabaloo featured an odd variation; Due to the machinations of Mr. Mxyzptlk, Superman and Madman were transplanted into each other's universes, each one acquiring different traits of the other in a weird mix of this trope and "Freaky Friday" Flip.
• Transmetropolitan: One story arc features two "foglets," or swarms of nanomachines to which human consciousness have been downloaded, engaging in an elaborate melding which ultimately turns out to be equivalent to intercourse. The apparent beauty of this is marred, however, by the fact that one of the foglets only just converted from human form and already has a girlfriend...who is standing in the next room. She leaves in tears.
• Ultimate Marvel event Hunger has what appears to be Composite variety with Gah Lak Tus and Galactus, his counterpart from the mainstream Marvel Universe.
• The Ultimates (2015): After suffering a serious case of Sanity Slippage, Master Order and Lord Chaos hunt down their servant, the In-Between, and devour him so they can transform into a new being called Logos, a contorted fusion of faces, arms and wings.
• One What If? comic had Reed Richards, Bruce Banner (who never had a Hulk persona when transformed as that what-if's divergence), and Professor X being forced to fuse into a single 10' tall glowing golden being in order to battle Galactus when he arrived. It formed its own identity of the X-man, retaining only the desire to battle Galactus and after a fierce mental battle just barely drives off Galactus before reverting to its components, none of whom retain their super-powers as they were consumed by the transformation.
• Witchblade uses all 3 main variants at once: when it's time for a little shredding, the symbiont (Witchblade) transforms the body (and clothing, optionally) of its host ("wielder") into an absurdly powerful composite form (including a sort of Lingerie Armor and in the process provoking emotional and mental changes that emphasize destructive and Stripperiffic qualities). The Witchblade is at least semi-sentient, and in the anime it subjected its completely unaware host to the first transformations on its own initiative, which qualifies it as a switcher variant too. Mostly the host just carries it as an inert and innocuous ornament (power booster) (moreover, in the anime it's shown implanted but knocked out for years, inactive and near invisible).
• Wonder Woman:
  • In the closing arc of Volume One the seemingly unkillable shades of Hades attack Paradise Island and when their queen unmakes the puppet like zombies being formed out of the Amazon dead they merge together into a giant shade to continue their attack. This backfires when Diana figures out the purple healing ray disintegrates them, since she can take out all the shades forming each giant in one shot.
  • The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016): The world killing Titan is made up of the merged souls of a dead world and a Manhunter.
• X-Men:
  • Jean Grey / Phoenix alternates between being a case of Switcher and Touched by Vorlons, depending on the story.
  • One example occurred at the end of the Twelve storyline, when Cyclops pulled a Heroic Sacrifice to save his family and friends from Apocalypse. The result◊ was a gestalt being that was a Composite in appearance and a Power Booster underneath, as it was stated that Apocalypse was in complete control. This wasn't quite true, though, as Cyclops eventually managed to split away from Big Blue and reclaim his humanity.
  • Generation X features the St. Croix siblings: Gen-X member Monet proves to be a fusion of her little sisters, twins Claudette and Nicole, who had merged to replace the original Monet when she went missing (the twins being 8-years-old, their apparent age was doubled to 16 and convincingly passed as Monet in their merged form). Later on, they fuse with their older brother, Marius/Emplate, to become the androgynous M-Plate. The St. Croixs' fusion can be called Composites, but there's more to it than that. The fused forms are more than the sum of their parts, entirely different from the siblings they came from, and with powers that don't always involve those of the source individuals (but then again, the twins' powers have never been fully explored). This means M-Plate was composed of 3 people rather than two, on top of his/her own self, and considered the actions of all before deciding to go with his/her own plan (which is something neither the twins, nor Emplate would have approved). Confused yet? Thankfully M-Plate didn't have long to act before being shattered by Gen-X. It is unknown if the real Monet can fuse with her siblings the way Emplate and the twins can.
  • Monet did fuse with the twins once, when she was freed from the mute form of Penance. The twins merged to create a Monet copy once more, then they merged again with the Penance body, finally splitting again to leave the twins trapped in the Penance body, and Monet herself again (Or a new copy of herself created by the merged twin bodies, it's confusing.)
  • Nimrod, the ultimate Sentinel, and Master Mold, the Sentinel's progenitor, were pushed into the Siege Perilous and fused together into a new robot called Bastion.
• In Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, Waverider from Armageddon 2001 as well as Monarch fuse together to form Extant, while the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl fuse together with the modern age Hawkman and the Hawk-God to form the Post-Zero Hour version of Hawkman.

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