On the left we have Captain America and Superman Fusion Dance, Super-Soldier created in 1996. On the right we have a Cap/Superman Expy, Homelander, created 10 years later
In the 90s, DC and Marvel characters doing a Fusion Dance obviously placed these characters in different situations usually alien to one of the halves and sometimes both. This along with the amount of Expy and Composite Character showing up in later decades caused a lot of these things to unexpectedly resonate.
Examples:
- In a previous DC/Marvel crossover, Robin and Jubilee ended up having a short romance. Here, they’ve been combined into Sparrow.
- Doctor Octopus being a good guy in the Spider-Boy titles. It happened way before the mainstream Otto made his foray into heroism.
- The Spider-Boy title is, according to the letters page, replacing the existing Spider-Boy titles that were being published by Amalgam, just like how Marvel themselves combined the four Spider-Man titles they were publishing into the single Amazing Spider-Man comic during the Brand New Day era decades later.
- Speaking of Spider-Boy, Marvel created its own version
in 2023. Despite being a full Marvel property, this version has some visual similarity with a DC character, athough it's Blue Beetle (Ted Kord) instead of Superboy (Conner Kent). - In Bruce Wayne: Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Jason Todd, who was believed dead in-story, returns to life as a cyborg. This is amusing knowing that he would one day indeed be revived, but back then, it seemed impossible. For extra points, Jason has a major chip on his shoulder against Bruce, not unlike mainstream DCU Jason Todd.
- JLX Unleashed has a brief appearance by a "Lord Maxwell", a villainous Amalgam of Maxwell Lord and Cameron Hodge, the reasoning being that both were financial backers for their respective hero teams (the Justice League International and X-Factor) before becoming evil cyborgs, though Lord was much more simplistic in his motivations and becoming a villain didn't erase his established past as a genuine ally, while Hodge was a xenophobic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who hated his team all along and tried to discredit and hunt them down. Anyway, eventually people forgot about Maxwell Lord's time as an evil cyborg and he went back to the side of the angels... and then Infinite Crisis revealed that Lord was actually a xenophobic Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who hated his team all along, and he then tried to discredit and hunt them down. That was several years after he was amalgamated with Hodge.note
- The JLAvengers and the JLX started out as a single integrated metamutant-metamutate team according to the backstory. Marvel would explore this idea later on with Uncanny Avengers. And speaking of the JLX, reading the first issue gives one definite Avengers vs. X-Men vibes. It also brings Civil War (2006) to mind as they started out as one team, then split up and became enemies.
- Aqua-Mariner being part of JLX is this after Namor the Sub-Mariner officially joined the X-Men in 2009.
- Captain America and Superman being Amalgamated together. Years later, The Boys had Homelander who is an Expy of both heroes, but nothing like either of them in terms of morality.
- In 2012, an official Green Skull appeared in Captain America.
- X-Patrol being the Amalgamation of the Doom Patrol and X-Force that had characters who were never on their halves respective team. Husk, Beast, and Colossus had never been on that X-team at that time. Flash forward to X-Force (2019) when Colossus is a former member, Beast is its leader, and Marvel Girl is also on the team which is ironic because, at one point, Dial H.U.S.K. turns into Mary Marvel Girl (a combo of Mary Marvel and Marvel Girl.)
- In Exciting X-Patrol, X-Man is brought in but not as an alternate version of Cable's counterpart Niles Cable, but as a younger version of Niles Cable who came back in time to save him. In Extermination, a younger Cable comes back in time not to save his older self but to kill him.
- A minor one, but the fact that Iron Man and Green Lantern were merged together to create Iron Lantern, considering how successful Iron Man was while being the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, while Green Lantern is largely considered a terrible film despite being meant to be the start of the DC Extended Universe.
- Cheetah and Kraven were combined into Lethal, who's essentially a male Cheetah dressed in Kraven's outfit. In 2001, DC brought Sebastian Ballesteros, the first male character to wear the mantle of the Cheetah. Lethal's design being rather androgynous can also bring to mind Ana Kravinoff, Kraven's female successor, so both identities have been assumed by both genders.
- Both Marvel and DC would later merge their characters, except without each other's help. DC with Earth 32 in The Multiversity and Marvel with Infinity Wars.
- The New Asgods reside in New Asgard, a combination of Asgard and New Genesis. Come Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Asgardians, having lost their home in Thor: Ragnarok, have now settled on Earth and established a new place called New Asgard.
- Big Question, the combination of The Riddler and The Kingpin, is Mayor of Gotham City. In 2020, Kingpin would become mayor of New York City.
- Quicksilver and Impulse were merged into Mercury. When Young Avengers came out, there was the debut of Speed, a young speedster who was the nephew of Quicksilver who was also very much patterned after Impulse in personality.
