5 Weirdest Comics Crossovers Ever

Comics offer endless possibilities when it comes to storytelling. It’s part of why we get some impressive and sometimes unbelievable superheroes and stories that defy explanation. It also means that we can sometimes get crossovers that might not work anywhere else but on the printed page. Crossovers tend to be very popular with comics readers. Marvel and DC crossovers in particular have been crowd pleasers even though they don’t happen too often, and even some of the bigger IP crossovers — think Godzilla showing up pretty much anywhere or Sonic the Hedgehog rolling with the Justice League — are a good time, too.

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But there are some crossovers in comics that are just weird. That doesn’t mean they don’t end up being good stories or good comics, just that the idea of these crossovers is strange. Everything from a beloved sci-fi franchise teaming up with the X-Men to a soap opera getting its own superhero can be found in some of these crossovers — and here are the five weirdest that actually happened.

5) Star Trek/X-Men, Star Trek: The Next Generation/X-Men: Second Contact, and Planet X

Yes, the X-Men have crossed over with Star Trek and it’s as odd as it sounds. For a brief period of time in the 1990s, Marvel had a comic book imprint called Paramount Comics that came from a deal between Marvel and Paramount to produce licensed content based on Paramount IP, which included Star Trek. So, of course, that meant a crossover with the X-Men not once, but twice plus a novel.

The stories in the comics and novel are actually not terrible, just unexpected. However, what makes this one kind of interesting in particular is that, with The Next Generation crossover, we get to see Jean-Luc Picard, who was played by Patrick Stewart in the television series, interact with Professor X, who Stewart would go on to play in the X-Men movies just a few years later.

4) Marvel/Guiding Light

So, this is a weird one. On November 1, 2006, Marvel Comics crossed over with the soap opera Guiding Light for an episode of television, specifically the 15,038th episode of Guiding Light, “She’s a Marvel”. In the episode, Harley Cooper (Beth Ehlers) gains superpowers after a freak Halloween accident and becomes the costumed superhero Guiding Light. She takes up a one-woman mission to rid Springfield of criminals and takes on villains Dash and Bash Carnage. However, when she realizes the personal cost of having powers, she gives them up by jumping in the lack. No, we are not kidding. This really happened.

If that wasn’t crazy enough, we actually end up seeing Guiding Light again, this time on the pages of Marvel Comics. She specifically appears in the story “A New Light” in Civil War: Choosing Sides #1. It’s roughly the same story from the television appearance, just with the direct inclusion of Marvel heroes (Iron Man even gives her an Avengers priority call card.) It’s all super weird.

3) KFC: Across the Universe

Green Lanterns meets Colonel Sanders? Sure, why not. So, Colonel Sanders seeks to expand by testing out new Chicken Zinger sandwiches in the universe. Unfortunately, the sandwiches are stolen before they can get to their destination. Enter Green Lantern Hal Jordan who teams up with the Colonel to hunt down the villain (who turns out to be Larfleeze). The story concludes with Colonel Sanders convincing Larfleeze to open his own KFC franchise so he can have all the sandwiches he wants and then the Guardians make the Colonel an honorary Green Lantern.

We’re not even sure what to say about this one. It was a promotional crossover and was given out for free at San Diego Comic-Con, but it’s still insane to think about Larfleeze owning a KFC or Colonel Sanders being a Green Lantern.

2) Archie Meets the Punisher

It sounds like a weird episode of Riverdale, but this actually happened long before The CW series on the pages of comics in 1994. The one-shot comic has a kind of insane premise: The Punisher is hunting a vicious criminal named Red who just so happens to look exactly like Archie Andrews, leading him to mistake the wholesome teen for the bad guy. However, Punisher realizes his mistake and has to team up with Archie to save Veronica, who has been kidnapped by the real Red.

While this is a weird concept for a crossover, the book is actually good. The strange pairing of very opposite characters works surprisingly well, the art — from Stan Goldberg and John Buscema — is solid, and the story ends up being pretty interesting. Of course, this crossover also leads to Archie having other weird crossovers later on including Kiss and the Predator.

1) Amalgam Comics

Amalgam is technically the first official Marvel/DC crossover, but instead of seeing the heroes of each universe face off with one another ore team up, we get mashups instead. That means Superman and Captain America become a new character called Super Soldier, Hal Jordan and Tony Stark mashup to become Iron Lantern, and we even see some unusual versions of characters, like a Bruce Wayne that becomes an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Not all of the stories of the Amalgam crossover are great, but they are certainly very interesting. It’s a universe that many comics fans still have a soft spot for and would like to see more of, but as crossovers go, it’s certainly very unusual.

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