You got chocolate in my peanut butter!

I like the character profiles I do here, but they get really long. I'm going to try to keep this one short, but I make no promises.

Joseph Meach was a loser and he blamed it on the world. When Superman saves his life and gets him a job, he's some how bitter about even that. Unfortunately for Superman, no good deed goes unpunished. While Meach was working as a janitor for the Superman Museum, lightning strikes a set of statues of the Legion of Super Heroes and him. These aren't just statues though, they possess elements of the Legion themselves, so when Meach is bathed in their energy he gains the powers of the entire Legion.

What's the first thing he decides to do with these powers? He turns himself into a green half-Superman/half-Batman and swears revenge! He's nothing if not creative. That'll teach you to employ some one, Kryptonian!

He starts his revenge with good old fashioned extortion. Using his telepathy, he learns Superman and Batman's secret identities and forces them to let him join their team. From there he goes on to be one of the most awesome villains ever. Why? Because he becomes a complete ass.

I have a thing for villains who aren't just evil, but flat out jerks. I think they're hilarious. Something about the pettiness of fraying Batman's ropes before he swoops in so he falls on his ass just strikes me as grade A villainy. Composite Superman blackmails, humiliates and eventually just beats the snot out of Superman and Batman. They're whupped. How do they defeat this guy?

THEY DON'T. How cool is that? The only reason Composite Supes didn't kill them both was because his powers faded before he had a chance to do it. Superman and Batman even flat out say it, he kicked our butts-

Batman is correct. Poor Meach lost all memory of his time as a super villain when his powers faded. But that's not the end of his career. After working in the Superman museum for a while, Meach has let go of his anger and now admires the two heroes. That doesn't last.

In a prison some where out in space, a criminal captured by the pair has his son swear to destroy them for incarcerating him. Composite Superman being the only villain to beat Superman and Batman, the alien, Xan, finds Meach and recreates the incident that gave him his powers.

Powers (and bitterness) restored, Meach sets out to kill the World's Finest, and again, they only thing that saves them is the fact his powers start to fade. With the powers fading, his mind returns to normal, and just before the alien can strike Superman and Batman down, Meach goes out like a hero-

And that's it. That's the end of the Composite Superman. Two appearances and we never saw him again. A later two issue story in World's Finest would feature Xan posing as the Composite Superman. Proving he wouldn't know awesome if you beat him in the face with it, he declares the Composite look 'ridiculous,' adopts a new look and continues his villainy with the name "Amalgamax."

One cool thing did come of this story, this cover, which I LOVE-


I guess Composite Supes was still considered ridiculous in the 90s, but a character clearly inspired by him called Composite Man would menace the Legion with all their powers. His origin was entirely different; he was an alien shapeshifter created as a weapon to use against the Legion.

Also worth mentioning is Composite Superboy.

A programmable goop that takes on the characteristics of living things gets into Young Justice's computer. It gets as far as Superboy and Robin's files before the team takes him on. He's eventually tricked into taking a weaker form and defeated. This is great just for the complete and unapologetic silliness of it. (By the way, Ethan Van Sciver drew that. Seriously.)

Composite Superman's design would show up in the current Superman/Batman series a few times. Once as a giant robot built by a kid genius (and I don't care what any one says, that rocks) and another time as Superman and Batman literally combined by magic. There was also a quick gag on Justice League Unlimited that featured the same idea.

So what makes this minor villain with only two little stories under his belt so enduring that he's been revisited so often? A couple of things, I think. First, he got clear victories over the World's Finest not once, but twice, and he only encountered them twice. He's gone 2 & 0. Undefeated world champeen, he is.

Secondly, and more importantly, well, he's a really fun visual. He's the kind of thing a fifth grader would draw on his notebook. Superman and Batman smooshed together is just neat. Here, have a poorly done doodle of the fellow just because he's so fun to draw-

Bad drawing (and this post, really) inspired by It Never Stops Raining.