In "Our Lives Together," I spotlight some of the more interesting examples of shared comic book universes. You know, crossovers that aren't exactly crossovers.

Longtime reader Andy N. wrote in about this one (he actually is responsible for the last entry in this feature, as well).

For readers of a certain generation, the Hostess ads that ran in comic books in the late 1970s were truly iconic. The concept was a simple one, comic book characters would have to defeat bad guys in such a way that the ad would talk about how awesome Hostess Brands snacks were. You know, like, "Oh man, I am totally going to kill this guy." "No, wait, wouldn't you prefer to have a Hostess Twinkie than to kill that guy?" "Oh man, you're totally right." Stuff like that.

The thing about these ads is that they were not controlled by the comic book companies in question, but by the ad company (just using the comic book companies to deliver them writers and artists). So these ads appeared in ALL of the major comic books of the era. This led to funny bits where ads featuring Marvel characters would appear in Gold Key comic books, because there were not enough Gold Key characters that got their own Hostess ads for it to be worth it.

Like most advertisement work, these ads paid better than normal rates, so all of Marvel's top artists did at least one ad during the late 1970s/early 1980s. Frank Miller had just recently become the artist on Daredevil when he did a Human Torch ad...

Amusingly, the ad company wanted the villain to be named "Iceman." Miller changed it to Icemaster on his own, as he obviously knew that Marvel, you know, had an Iceman already. That is how little the ad company was interested in these things. They weren't UNinterested, but they weren't exactly putting a ton of effort into them, either.

This Spider-Man ad appeared in Gold Key comics and might also be a Miller page...

In any event, the subject at hand is what appears to be a very subtle CROSSOVER between two ads that appeared in 1980. One of them looks to be have been drawn by Sal Buscema, but I really don't know. They are not credited to a creative team one way or the other.

Okay, Captain America vs. the Aliens opens with the aliens showing up on Earth and Cap going to fight them...

Note that Captain America specifically refers to them as being "From the Outer Galaxy." That's a very specific reference, and since they do not identify themselves that way, it sure does suggest that Cap is already familiar with them, right? Perhaps there is an untold adventure of the Avengers fighting against the Aliens of the Outer Galaxy.

Anyhow, the obvious reading on the page is that the alien whispers to his body that not all is lost because they got some Twinkies. That is PROBABLY what the ad is actually talking about. However, what if it is that they had a second wave ready to hit? Perhaps some sort of...Ricochet Monster?

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Okay, around the same time that the Cap ads came out, this Thor ad came out...

Right off the bat, we see that Thor notes that the Ricochet Monster was created by his masters...from the Outer Galaxy!

That's such a specific reference that it appears likely that the aliens that Cap fought in the first ad are the same guys who then created the Ricochet Monster and that was what the alien was referring to when he whispered how all was not lost.

So the Thor story is a subtle crossover with the Captain America one! Continuity within Hostess comic book ads! That is all kinds of bizarre awesomeness.

Thanks for the suggestion, Andy! If anyone has a suggestion for another piece of interesting shared continuity, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!