Worlds collide!

Horror tee seller Fright-Rags has done the seemingly impossible: they’ve made me like a mashup shirt. Yesterday saw the debut of a trio of horror shirts done in the style of classic Lee/Kirby-era Marvel covers, featuring Freddy and Jason. And they’re actually quite clever!

It’s not too hard to see the inspiration for “The Incredible Jason,” bringing together the Jade Giant with the Crystal Lake killer. Of the three shirts, this one works the best in terms of design and not requiring a whole lot of mental contortions to get why the two concepts were paired.

“Dream Warriors,” though, might require a little explaining if you’re not super-familiar with Nightmare on Elm Street history. The shirt brings together the first X-Men cover with the super-powered dream forms of the kids from the second best film in the Nightmare series, The Dream Warriors.

A quick bit of background: this entry was notable for bringing back Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) and taking the series in a darkly comedic direction after the baffling Nightmare on Elm Street 2. The conceit – from screenwriter Frank “I Shawshanked Your Redemption” Darabont – saw a group of teens in a mental institution banding together and using the power of their dreams to fight and defeat Freddy (and would later for the basis for an NES game).

Finally, there’s “Versus,” which takes us into the late ’80s/early ’90s in an homage to Todd MacFarlane’s Amazing Spider-Man #316 cover. It’s a little busy for my tastes, also it exacerbates some of the then-minor issues with MacFarlane’s original cover (including that hideous pink background).

One last note directly to the folks at Fright-Rags: I love many of your shirts, but you would convert me to an almost instant sale if you offered more baseball-style tees.