Thursday, October 12, 2017

ANTI-MASHUPS (-1)

Here are some examples of works in which more than one monster is present in the narrative, but there's no "mashup" as such.

In the previous mashup post, I said that an issue of SWAMP THING, guest-starring DC's "THE DEMON," qualified as a mashup because both the main hero and his antagonist had once enjoyed their own features.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #8, though, is not such an example, because the formula is "good hero and good monster" team up against "monster who hasn't had his own feature," that is, Superman and Swamp Thing vs. Solomon Grundy (despite what the cover depicts)



Another example is this issue of the short-lived monster-comic IT THE LIVING COLOSSUS. The cover shows the good monster fighting bad monster "Granitor:" This too is NOT a real mashup.



Granitor is linked to another monster who did have his own one-shot story: another "living gargoyle" named "Gorgolla," from STRANGE TALES #74 (1960).



Granitor is supposed to be the father of Gorgolla, but that doesn't give Granitor any special status. Had the writer of the COLOSSUS story decided to return Gorgolla to life after the gargoyle's death in STRANGE TALES, then THAT would have been a mashup, according to my logic.

ADDENDUM: In terms of my revised position on crossovers and mashups, I would now consider the DC Comics Presents episode to be a "charisma-crossover," given that Solomon Grundy was not a regular foe of either Swamp Thing or Superman. Also, these days I don't think I would consider Grundy's lack of a series to keep him from being in a mashup with another monster.


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