Unlimited Access #4

Combined Forces!

The dynamic conclusion to this marvelous modern-day myth as told by ...
Karl Kesel Words
Pat Olliffe Pencils
Al Williamson Inks
Greg Wright Colors
Jim Novak Letters
Tom Brevoort Editor
Mike Carlin Consulting Editor
Bob Harras Chief
Mark Gruenwald Guiding Spirit

Our cover shows Access, the young man with the ability to travel between the universes of Marvel and DC, surrounded by several amalgam characters specifically created for this series. In the upper right corner is the combined Robin-Angel character, who was created at the end of last issue.

Our story begins right where the last issue left off. Darkseid has combined forces with Magneto and the two supervillains have issued a statement of world domination across the globe. The Justice League and Avengers finally get organized and group together, while the X-Men and DC's young heroes fly over to meet with them (Impulse caught a ride on Wonder Girl, who was also carrying Cyclops).

All the heroes agree the best plan of action is to send a small strike force of their most powerful heroes, while the rest stay back to continue battling the parademons. Access introduces his accidental creation, Redwing, the Avenging Wonder, and suggests he makes a few more amalgam heroes to give them the greatest edge against Darkseid and Magneto. So everybody agrees to it, and a strike force of strange, new heroes infiltrates Magneto's base.

Impulse has been combined with Iceman to form Quick Freeze. With him is Wonder Wasp (Wonder Girl and Wasp), Captain America Jr. (Captain Marvel Jr. and Captain America), Green Goliath (Green Lantern and Goliath), Thor-El (Superman and Thor), Jean Black (Black Canary and Jean Grey) and the aforementioned Redwing. However, our heroes arrive to find an empty room. This gives them more time to talk about and demonstrate their powers. Quick Freeze, for example, builds an ice sculpture of himself in the Thinker pose.

Suddenly, the villains attack! But somehow, Magneto and Darkseid were also able to create amalgam version of their minions. So everybody fights and fights, talking a whole lot while they do it. Quick Freeze takes on Silver-Lance, and distracts him with a ice decoy of himself. After the villain slices through the decoy, Quick Freeze says, "Oooh — I'm shaking, Lance! When it comes to ice statues, you are one cold customer! But against the real, living Quick Freeze? Okay — you've got a chance ... a snowball's chance!" Quick Freeze then pummels the villain with hundreds of snowballs, and does absolutely nothing for the rest of the issue.

Sadly, Darkseid did not combine with Magneto, which I think would have been pretty cool. Instead, Darkseid uses the chaos of the battle to approach Access and introduce him to his secret ally, a future, evil version of Access. The two version of Access fight each other and go sliding through a bunch of odd alternate realities. Finally, Access defeats his future self by merging with him. And for some reason, the good side won out and decided not to join Darkseid.

In his anger, Darkseid insults the mutants, and he and Magneto start to fight. As expected, Magneto is no match for Darkseid, who decides to slowly choke the Master of Magnetism to death. So Access hastily splits apart all the combined villains so the mutants will be able to rush to their leader's aid. When Darkseid sees everything has fallen apart, he says he's grown tired of the game and basically gives up. He tells Access that he'll be back for his power at a later date, and he takes off along with his cronies. So Access splits everybody up and sends them back home and everybody (thankfully) forgets about this whole ordeal.


This story sucked. It was a chore to read with every single character constantly referring to themselves by name and explaining their power set. And the ending was awful! Darkseid just decided to quit because ... it was time to end the issue. Although I will admit that combining Impulse with Iceman is a lot more creative than combining him with Quicksilver. Sadly, there was very little room for this Quick Freeze character, and what little we did see of him was hampered down by cheesy dialogue. And I'm also sad that Impulse didn't get to spend any time with his grandpa, Barry Allen. Apparently the Flash wasn't deemed powerful (or popular) enough to join the "A team" and was left below to fight the parademons. Well, let's move on from this subpar story and take a look at the new ads this issue brought us.

The feel-good comedy of the year. Half-Baked.

Twix. Think about it. Can a friend who asks you to share really be called a friend?

Final Fantasy Tactics for PlayStation.

Bullpen Bulletins includes Stan's Soapbox, in which Stan Lee explains that he made the Hulk green because he wanted to give him a colorful costume but instead chose colorful skin, and that Spider-Man cannot lift Thor's hammer.

East Coast Comics. It offered Flash #100 for $3, but didn't list any Impulse issues.

Next time, we'll return to the main series with Impulse #35.