Batman is one of the faces of DC, and is currently the most published superhero in existence. Over the decades, Batman has been DC’s cash cow more consistently than anybody else, and so, with that in mind, it only makes sense that the Dark Knight stars in more comics than anybody else. Companies aim to sell comics, after all, and the numbers show that people always want more of the Caped Crusader. More often than not, Batman and Batman-adjacent comics make up the largest portion of DC’s ongoing catalogues, and that naturally extends to crossovers with other big names as well.
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Just recently, Batman was DC’s chosen lead to break the over two-decade-long pause on crossovers with Marvel Comics, and he shattered that wall to rousing success. However, for every beloved crossover Batman headlines, there are just as many that are less than great, and occasionally, downright strange ones. Today, we’re going to focus on the last category and take a look at the five weirdest Batman and Batman-related crossover comics. There are certainly some doozies here, so without further ado, let’s dive right into it.
5) Harley & Ivy Meet Betty & Veronica
While Batman is one of the faces of superhero comics, Archie is the de facto face of the romance and slice-of-life genres. While there isn’t much overlap between the Dark Knight and Archie, his various side characters are more than suited for a short comedic adventure in Riverdale. That’s exactly what happened in this series, where Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy traveled to Archie’s hometown to stop Hiram Lodge from turning Sweetwater Swamp into a tuition-free university. They inevitably run into frenemies extraordinaire, Betty and Veronica, and wind up on a whole wacky adventure.
The two groups wind up switching bodies, leaving Harley and Ivy caught in the insanity of Riverdale, while Betty and Veronica find themselves way out of their depth in Gotham City. There are explosions, insane villain reveals, and concussions that convince Reggie Mantle that he’s the Joker. In the end, the four gals work together to save the swamp. This adventure is exactly the type of story you’d expect from its premise, and while it’s not groundbreakingly strange, it is a zany ride, at the very least.
4) Batman/Judge Dredd
Judge Dredd is a hard-boiled super cop in the dystopian future’s Mega-City One. He’s the judge, jury, and executioner for the over-the-top criminals he faces, and works as a satirization of American and British pop culture and police enforcement. Given how superheroes, and Batman specifically, often work so closely with and against law enforcement, it seems natural that the two would cross over. While the crossovers themselves can be strange enough on their own, what is really insane is the sheer number of times they’ve joined up.
Batman and Judge Dredd have had four separate crossover comics, and while that might not sound like a lot, that’s more times than Batman has crossovered with any other character, sans the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This is twice as many times as Spider-Man and Batman have worked together, for context. Batman and Dredd are two characters that will never really see eye to eye, and most definitely disagree on just about every way possible to do their jobs, so the fact that these two nearly have the Dark Knight’s record for most crossovers is utterly insane.
3) Superman and Batman Vs. Aliens and Predator
The Alien and Predator franchises have interacted with more comic book characters than any other media by a mile and a half, and that’s no contest. The Dark Knight and Man of Steel have each battled Xenomorphs and the Yautja more than their fair share of times on their own, but this crossover brought them all together in an insane plot that needs to be read to be believed. The World’s Finest found that a colony of Predators sealed deep within the Andes, alongside a whole host of Xenomorphs, all underneath a now active volcano. Apparently, this Yautja ship was carrying a host of Xenomorph eggs, but crashed on Earth over fourteen thousand years ago, and had been there ever since.
The Yautja’s culture having not changed at all in fourteen thousand years is the least insane part of this story. The Predators immediately assume Superman is a sun spirit and begin to worship him, while Batman is instantly capable of deciphering their language to a basic degree, but what’s really bonkers is the Terrestrial Defense Initiative. The TDI was a military branch dedicated to stopping alien threats, and while Batman and Superman were repeatedly trying to escort the aliens off-planet peacefully, the TDI continuously kept trying to blow them up.
They literally ended the comic by dropping a nuclear bomb on the Predator’s site after they were evacuated. Yes, the TDI nuked the Andes, and Superman spent the entire comic saying that while he didn’t agree with their deadly message, the TDI was objectively in the right for nuking the site and trying to murder hundreds of aliens because they were scared. That’s about the least Superman thing of all time, and earns this comic third place on its own.
2) Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Cat-Woman
Set in the early 20th Century, this story follows Batman and Tarzan as they are brought together by Bruce Wayne opening a museum that is robbed by Catwoman. Except this Catwoman isn’t a thief, she’s the princess of the hidden African city of Memnon, and the artifacts that Finnegan Dent stocked the exhibit with were stolen from her home. This comic combines the mythos of Tarzan and Batman, two characters who you really think shouldn’t blend together like they do. Not only is Catwoman now an African princess, but Dent becomes Two-Face after being mauled by a lion.
Batman and Tarzan are a strange duo, being a man who embraces his animalistic instincts to enforce order and one who has always tried to rise above his base instincts. The two fight an awful lot of animals, from gorillas to alligators, all while comparing their homelands to jungles. Gotham gets called its own jungle a lot in these four issues, despite being in Africa a majority of the time. The two titular heroes end this adventure accepting that they are very similar, although they don’t appear it on the surface, and swing off towards their own destiny. This is a weird crossover, but not a bad one, either. Seeing Batman get raggdolled by a gorilla will always be hilarious, though.
1) Batman/Elmer Fudd Special
This one-shot is, without a doubt, the strangest and greatest Batman crossover of all time. This came out when DC released several crossover comics between Looney Tunes characters and DC superheroes, but this one easily rose above the rest. It reimagined the famous wabbit-hunter Elmer Fudd as a gritty, hard-boiled hitman on a revenge bender after the love of his life, Silver St. Cloud, was murdered by the infamous hitman Bugs “The Bunny.” After tracking Bugs to Porky’s bar, full of equally gritty reimaginations of other famous Tunes, Bugs sent him after the supposed man who hired him, Bruce Wayne.
Hitman Elmer Fudd hunting and eventually working with Batman to solve the murder of a woman they both love is legitimately the greatest plot description I’ve ever heard. This comic knows exactly what it is and what makes its premise funny, and masterfully takes itself just seriously enough to be perfect. Batman and Elmer Fudd deserve to go on a hundred more adventures together, and I can confidently say that this is the most insane Batman crossover of all time.
There we have five of Batman’s craziest crossover comics of all time. Which one do you think deserves the crazy crown, and which one is your favorite? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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