It’s the age of crazy comics crossovers.
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Sure, there’s always been the occasional Archie Meets The Punisher or something like that, but in recent years, bizarre and unexpected team-ups have become the rule rather than the exception. Whether it’s Legion of Super-Heroes/Star Trek or Booster Gold/The Flintstones or Archie Meets The Predator, it seems like every few months there’s a bizarre and amazing new miniseries or event one-shot happening that you nobody could have seen coming just a few years back.
With DC Comics just about to pit Batman against Elmer Fudd and Wonder Woman against the Tazmanian Devil, it seemed like as good a time as any to run down a list of dream crossovers that have still, inexplicably, not happened yet.
One rule: we’re avoiding DC/Marvel crossovers. Marvel has been more crossover-averse than almost any other publisher for a long time, but we’ll pretend for the sake of argument that some of them might happen…but not with DC, as both chief creative officer Joe Quesada and editorial honcho Tom Brevoort have made it clear in public statements that the company doesn’t see those crossovers happening anytime soon.
BIBBO and THE GANG AT CHEERS
Look, there’s no doubt that a writer could have a ton of fun with Bibbo; during a Showcase appearance years ago, he re-enacted the Dogs Playing Poker painting…and that’s not even paying attention to the stories where he hung out with Lobo or briefly tried to stand in for Superman after the death of the Man of Steel.
But he’s a mostly regular guy with a sporting past who owns a crappy neighborhood bar.
Can you imagine how much fun it would be to somehow justify putting Jerry Ordway’s beloved supporting character together with the gang from Cheers?
Hey, we said “insane” crossovers, not likely ones.
Anyway, moving on…!
SAVAGE DRAGON and CAPTAIN CANUCK
Okay, so this one just occurred to us today…but it probably should happen, right?
Last week, series creator Erik Larsen shared an image of the cover to Savage Dragon #223, in which it seems his lead characters move to Toronto.
Don’t get too excited, though; Larsen has expressed doubts about the idea on Facebook.
“I loved Captain Canuck as a kid but he was set in the far flung future of 1993, where ‘Canada had become the most powerful country in the world’ and that world never materialized,” Larsen said. “There’ve been a few other versions of the character with different identities and progressively less interesting costumes since that initial run but, in all honesty, I’m not very interested in those (and I’ve never read them) so I’m not sure how that could possibly work. In the abstract–it does sound fun but given where that character is now–it seems just as easy to make up my own Canadian Captain America.”
NAMOR THE SUB-MARINER and SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea and would drive a pompous would-be ocean monarch like Namor absolutely bonkers?
You guessed it.
This is the kind of book that would do best with a Silver Age take on Namor, who has been somewhat humanized in a lot of the more recent takes. Instead, lean into the comedy that comes from someone as chaotic and annoying as Spongebob interacting with an easily-excitable stick-in-the-mud like Namor.
iZOMBIE and SHAUN OF THE DEAD
In the world of Shaun of the Dead, the post-zombie world eventually settled into being reasonably comfortable with having the undead around…
…what would it be like if they were to add were-terriers and ’60s ghosts to the whole zombie thing?
Bringing the two self-aware, pop-culture-savvy, smart and funny zombie franchises (and — hey! — Shaun had a comic, too!) together could be a blast — and with iZombie on TV, this seems like the kind of thing that DC should make a serious run at.
KAMANDI and PLANET OF THE APES
Now that DC has already crossed over with Planet of the Apes, let’s make the next obvious step and bring some of those characters into the world of Kamandi (or Kamandi to theirs, whatever).
When Kamandi was first created, it was as a way for DC to have their “own” Planet of the Apes when it turned out the license for that comic wasn’t available…so years later, with each franchise having carved out very separate identities, why not bring the two together?
For Jack Kirby’s 100th birthday? Seems like a thing that’s just begging to be a winter one-shot!
