FW Team-Up: Batman and Captain America

FW Team-Up tackles its first DC-Marvel crossover duo with John Byrne's Elseworlds, Batman & Captain America! And to do so, Siskoid welcomes oHOTmu or NOT's Amelie Montour who is a huge fan of Captain America's buns. Among other attributes. Listen... or Else! (Get it? See what we did there?)

Listen to the Team-Up below, or subscribe to FW Team-Up on iTunes!

Relevant images and further credits at: FW Team-Up Supplemental

This podcast is a proud member of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK!

Subscribe via iTunes as part of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK.

And thanks for leaving a comment!

15 responses to “FW Team-Up: Batman and Captain America

  1. Fun episode! I love this book. My favorite DC and Marvel characters together in a great book homaging classic comics? Yes please!

    Byrne managed to milk this for all it was worth. Batman and Cap being evenly matched. Bucky and Robin being somewhat at odds. Joker and the Red Skull and their similar gases! Red Skull actually had the Dust of Death in the 40s as well…but after the Joker. And I love the Golden Age Bat-vehicles myself. Aerodynamics be damned!

    I love how this ties into Generations as well. The first mini-series was great, and the second a worthy sequel. The third was pushing it a bit, but overall, probably Byrne’s last great work (even though I like the Star Trek stuff he’s done at IDW). And of course Dick as Batman and Bruce, Jr. as Robin is a nod to classic Silver Age “Imaginary Stories” from Alfred’s fan-fic writings of the future of the Batman-Robin team, written by Bill Finger and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff.

    Amelie, you should definitely read the 2-part Cap vs. Baron Blood (British Nazi vampire!) story! One of my favorite comic stories of all time, with one of Cap’s most badass moments! Cindy and I covered it on Super Mates episode #41 as well! http://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/super-mates-episode-41-return-of-the-vampire-captain-america-battles-baron-blood/

    I hope to hear more from Amelie and the rest of the oHOTmu crew here Siskoid! Get on it!

    Chris

  2. At some point DC seemed to think that any Elseworlds was a good idea and deserved its own prestige format. I don’t think that was true but there are plenty that I love. I tended to gravitate towards the more historic based ones which makes this Batman/Captain America one an odd hole in my collection. (I admit, I didn’t get Generations either.) It’s cool to see Superman as a Civil War soldier, or Superman as Revolutionary War soldier, or Batman fighting in the foggy gaslit streets of 19th century Gotham.

    But I must say that the Batman/Houdini one you mentioned is one of my all time favorites. Written by Howard Chaykin with painted art by DC art director Mark Chiarello, it is a great read.

    As for Marvel/DC team-ups, hope Superman/Silver Surfer gets covered at some point!

    And great to hear Amelie and her thoughts!

    1. All team-ups that fit my original criteria are on the table, which based on my list, is over a 1000 stories. At one a month, it may seem like they’re ALL unlikely, but to my mind, the weirder the better, so…

  3. I’ve never read this book because in general I don’t care for cross-company crossovers or Amalgam titles, but I love both of these characters and I like Byrne’s take on them visually. The art you posted looks good and the story as broken down by the two of you sounds pretty fun. Good episode.

  4. What a charming episode! Nice to hear one of the OHOTMU girls outside the usual din of laughter and screaming.

    This book is enormously fun, and I’m glad you singled out the scene with the Joker being aghast at finding out he was in league with a Nazi. Even the Clown Prince of Crime knows there aren’t “very good people on both sides.”

    Broken record time: I wish this DC/Marvel team-up had been a treasury!

  5. Well, I think Cap should take on Scooby Doo as his dog sidekick – given that Scooby currently has a team-up title, it dovetails with this show perfectly…

    Anyway, I love the Batman & Capt. America book – it knocked X-men and New Teen Titans out of first place as my favorite crossover team-up. Byrne was really at the top of his game here: the story is engaging, he captures the ‘voices’ of every major character perfectly, and the art is gorgeous.
    I’m also a big fan of the Elseworlds line, and Byrne’s Generations (at least the first and second series) are among the best. And Amelie should definitely read the Cap vs. Baron Blood story, but really the entire all-too-brief Stern/Byrne/Rubinstein run, which is simply the best run of Captain America stories ever. It’s been reprinted several times, most recently as part of a larger Epic collection. However, I would recommend the War and Remembrance tpb, although it’s also collected in a Panini digest called Blood on the Moors – both are out of print, unfortunately, but I think they’re relatively easy to find online.

  6. Great episode! I enjoyed the fresh perspective that Amelie brought to the discussion. I wasn’t familiar with this particular story, but it appears to be a particularly well done DC/Marvel crossover. Definitely more enjoyable than the DC vs Marvel meeting of Cap and Bats that Siskoid referenced.

    In thinking of a Captain America team-up I’d like to see, I’m going to go all Elseworlds on this one and suggest a team-up between Captain America and the Founding Fathers of America. A young colonist by the name of Steve Rogers takes part in a secret experiment conducted by Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to create a super soldier. Serving under General Washington, the newly minted Captain America helps to turn the tide of the Revolutionary War. The story could even feature a special musical guest appearance by singing sensation Alexander Hamilton.

  7. Nice to see the “Team-up” theme of the hosts now including OHOTMU Squadders! Begs the question who’s next? Oh wait, that’s another show’s catchphrase. Never mind.

    I did enjoy this issue at the time, but maybe I was Byrne-ed out on his writing. Or maybe it felt like it tried too hard to cram every bit of Bat-Cap trivia it could into a single story. Not sure. Like I said, it’s good, but not my favorite DC/Marvel crossover.

    Now I could be wrong, but I also thought Byrne repurposed a Kingpin-Red Skull bit into this Joker-Red Skull interaction. “I may be a criminal, but I’m still a patriot!” I’m thinking I read that in Kingpin’s OHOTMU entry long before this story was done. Am I off base here?

  8. It was great to hear Amelie on her own with Siskoid! It was also to great to hear some non-biased views on these characters and this story. I have not read it, but it sounds to me more like a parody of adventure serials and old comics than an homage to them. Coincidences to drive the story, and the utter improbability of the atomic bomb, on any Earth, being developed in a major city, to say nothing of how one is/was detonated, is just too much for me.
    Tim Price, I don’t know about the Kingpin’s patriotism, but the “crook-with-an-American-heart” idea was used in the movie “The Rocketeer.”

Leave a Reply to Brian Linton Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *