Amalgam Comics was a collaborative publishing imprint shared by DC Comics and Marvel Comics, in which the two comic book publishers merged their characters into new ones. These characters first appeared in a series of 12 one-shots which were published in April 1996 between Marvel Comics versus DC #3 and DC versus Marvel Comics #4, the last two issues of the DC vs. Marvel crossover event. A second set of 12 one-shots followed one year later in June 1997, but without the crossover event as a background. All 24 of these one-shots took place between the aforementioned issues of DC vs. Marvel Comics.