Can you image something like this happening these days? I certainly can’t. With the corporate grip on both of the big two and the desperate need for both of them to milk their own intellectual properties for as much money as they can without giving the competition any help, I’m pretty certain the only way we’ll see a DC/Marvel crossover any time soon is if Disney buy DC.

This was a big deal in 1996, though, as comic fans got to see some of the biggest names from both companies facing off against each other.

Across both Earths, heroes and villains are disappearing from one and appearing on another, and it’s a safe bet it’s got something to do with a glowing box held together with tape being guarded by some random bloke in a baseball cap. I mean, this is just a sample of the characters involved:

And while some of the characters ended up landing straight into a fight, one or two had a potentially different outcome:

There’s no real indication of the timescale but I’m guessing we’re talking days at a minimum as very quickly we find that J Jonah Jameson has replaced Perry White as editor of the Daily Planet and Ben Reilly aka Peter Parker aka Spider-Man has just been employed as a new photographer there.

Clark Kent writes a piece for the Planet that namechecks a bunch of heroes and wonders what’s going on – this clearly isn’t some Secret War, but rather an even that the public of the DC world know about.

It all finishes with two enormous beings, mirrors of each other, becoming aware of one another, before it’s to be continued.

DC VS MARVEL was fun – the editors/writers decided who would win a number of bouts before the main events were voted for by the public and the results shown in issue #3. And the best thing to come out of this whole event (at least in my opinion) was the Amalgam Universe and the one-shots that appeared in the weeks between issues #3 and #4 of this title.

Ah, simpler times . . .