Crossovers are some of the bestselling aspects of the comic industry. Marvel and DC Comics have been doing crossovers for decades; the first superteams like the Justice Society and the Allies were basically just crossovers of Marvel and DC’s biggest heroes. In the Silver Age, we’d get more crossovers, both as superteams and in various solo titles, but the Bronze Age would change crossovers forever with stories like Marvel Super Heroes Contest of Champions, Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, and Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since then, we’ve gotten more and more crossovers in the form of event books and team-up comics of all kinds.
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Crossovers are loved and hated by fans. It’s great to see our favorite heroes hang out together and battle the biggest threats in comics, but we’ve gotten to the point where crossovers feel more like a way to part money from their readers than good stories. Over the years, we’ve had plenty of crossovers that didn’t work at all, and it’s hurt the appeal of crossovers. However, we’ve also had some crossovers that never should have worked but did. These seven crossovers should have been bad, but they turned out to be brilliant, giving readers a reason to keep reading these kinds of stories.
7) JLA/Avengers
A crossover between the Avengers and the Justice League was planned for the 1980s. Gerry Conway was writing it and George Perez was drawing it. Pages were already done, but the plug got pulled on the project. The images would be circulated for years, and then in the early ’00s, Perez and Kurt Busiek, who had teamed with Perez on Avengers (Vol. 3), getting the green light for JLA/Avengers. This four issue series pit the two teams against each other, as DC villain Krona and Marvel villain Grandmaster pit the universes against each other in a wager with both universes as the prize. The story worked perfectly. The fights were great, the art was gorgeous (there’s a reason a lot of us think that Perez is the GOAT and this story is example #1), and everything made sense. It’s a shame that this book isn’t always in print, so readers can see just how amazing it truly is.
6) DC One Million
Picture this — the heroes of the 853rd century come to the present to take the Justice League to the future to go meet Superman, but an evil solar super computer and Vandal Savage make a plan to destroy them all. Also, every DC book gets a 1,000,000th issue set in the 853rd century. That’s a story that can very easily not work, especially the crossover issues, however, DC One Million is one of the best DC comics of the ’90s, and better than nearly every Marvel crossover of that decade. Writer Grant Morrison is able to make everything about the story work, and the rest of DC’s creators ran with the idea of the #1,000,000 comics (I especially like the ones that are the last issue of their book, like Chase #1,000,000). The omnibus collects all of them, with the chapters from Starman and Resurrection Man being completely fantastic. DC One Million easily could have crashed and burned, but it soared.
5) Civil War
Civil War is one of Marvel’s most contentious stories. There are some who probably think that it doesn’t belong on this list, because technically, the story should have never worked, and a lot of fans don’t think it does. Civil War‘s central conflict going the way it does wouldn’t be possible if everyone was in character. However, the story does work because writer Mark Millar and Marvel editorial decided to ignore the characterization of every major character in the book. Add to that Millar’s idea that Iron Man’s side — you know, the fascists — were correct, and there are so many problems with this story. However, if you turn off your brain and ignore the way it mischaracterizes everything and misses the point of nearly every character, the story does work.
4) Infinity Gauntlet
Infinity Gauntlet is a legendary Marvel event. I was there as it was coming out and it was amazing to read monthly. However, the fact that story worked at all is a huge surprise. Nowadays, Thanos as an all-powerful villain is a pretty normal thought, but in 1991, no one had thought of Thanos in years, since he died in Avengers trying to use the Cosmic Cube. Likewise, Adam Warlock, Pip the Troll, and Gamora weren’t names that new fans knew, and were pretty deep cuts. Everything was working against this story, and yet thanks to the skill of the creators involved, legends like Jim Starlin and George Perez as well as Ron Lim, a young artist making his name for himself at the time, we got a story that most fans believe is the best Marvel event of all time.
3) Infinity War
Speaking of Infinity Gauntlet, as great as it is, its sequel Infinity War is actually better, and definitely shouldn’t have worked either. On the one hand, Infinity Gauntlet was a success, so a sequel would have a built-in audience. However, the story serves up Thanos as a hero, an even more obscure character as the main villain — the Magus, and has the heroes fighting edgy (literally — there were a lot of spikes, sharp teeth, and claws) doppelgangers. The first two issues are long issues full of set-up and lore to catch you up on all of the characters. Even as a sequel to Infinity Gauntlet, it should have never worked. And yet, Infinity War is amazing. Everything about the story works, and it gives readers way more twists and turns than Infinity Gauntlet. It’s not nearly as popular as its predecessor, but reading it reveals just how great it really is.
2) Infinite Crisis
In the early ’00s, DC decided that it wanted to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The publisher started planning, sprinkling clues and plots that would come to fruition as the years went, building more and more ideas, all leading up to the blockbuster known as Infinite Crisis. Infinite Crisis was the result of several years of build-up, and if any of it failed or didn’t land with readers, the story wouldn’t work at all. However, it did, creating an event comic that is basically perfect.
1) Crisis on Infinite Earths
Crisis on Infinite Earths is the greatest event ever, with a scope that no crossover has had since. It was a crossover between every major alternate Earth in the DC Multiverse, and was created in order to destroy the DC Multiverse and create a singular universe from the whole. Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Jerry Ordway, and Dick Giordano planned the story for years in advance (with a researcher hired to read every DC comic in the company’s archive), and there was no guarantee that fans would enjoy it. However, everything about it works perfectly. DC was able to stick the landing, taking crossovers to an entirely new level. Crisis on Infinite Earths wasn’t the first major crossover event of its kind, but it set the blueprint for every single one that came after it.
What crossovers do you think shouldn’t have worked but did? Sound off in comments below.
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