The Walking Dead's Crossover Stars: 10 Actors Who Have Done Other Comic Book Roles

Recently, it occurred to me that Robin Lord Taylor, who plays Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin) on Gotham, appeared as Sam last year on AMC's The Walking Dead.

It wasn't the first time I'd been surprised to notice a castmember of The Walking Dead appearing in another comics movie or TV show. One notable example was when Lyla Michaels made her first Season Two appearance on Arrow the same week that the woman who plays her -- Audrey Marie Anderson -- was a key player in an episode of The Walking Dead, where she played Lilly Chambler.

It occurred to us that there were some other obvious ones as well, so we decided to jot them all down...

(And, yes, we know that Norman Reedus's character from The Boondock Saints appears regularly in comic books. That doesn't count.)

Ed. note: As is wont to happen when you get into weird trivia, our fans remembered some that we had forgotten...so this list is now upgraded from 7 to 10, with thanks to a number of our Facebook commenters! Thanks in particular are due to Chad Herlache who had a laundry list of these.

Robin Lord Taylor

We'll start here, since it's what led me to think of the piece.

Sure, Robin Taylor's role as Sam was a small one and ultimately he was killed off-camera -- we assume. Some fans think they've seen him in the Comic Con trailer (due to a black tank top and pointed nose on one of the prisoners at Terminus), although from my vantage point it doesn't appear to be the same person (and having him return to The Walking Dead when he's recurring on Gotham seems unlikely).

Audrey Marie Anderson

The woman who killed The Governor? Yeah, she's a kickass A.R.G.U.S. Agent (and now apparently the organization's director in Season Three) on Arrow.

Lyla Michaels is one of those characters who really came into her own after feeling a little bit cast aside at first, and the sudden realization that she was kicking ass on both shows was pretty cool. Look for her in a much bigger role on Arrow this season, since she's in charge of A.R.G.U.S. and pregnant with Diggle's child.

Steven Yeun

Tony Chu in the upcoming, animated Chew movie will actually be Steven Yeun, best known to fans of The Walking Dead as Glenn Rhee. He'll co-star in the film with geek favorite Felicia Day.

Yeun, the only series regular on The Walking Dead to make this list (Merle was always recurring at best and the rest of these were guest stars), is also the only one whose other comics role is as the lead of the other project!

Michael Rooker

Merle Dixon, Daryl's brother and terrible father figure dating back to even before the world fell apart, is the bizarre father figure in the life of Peter "Star-Lord" Quill in Guardians of the Galaxy, out Friday.

As an added bonus, his character from Mallrats has appeared in comic book form as well, in Jay & Silent Bob: Chasing Dogma.

Kyle Gallner

Smallville's Impulse had a small but memorable role in the Season Four premiere as Beth's boyfriend Zach, who died during the roof collapse and subsequent walker attack on the Big Spot discount store.

It might have been pretty useful to be the fastest man alive in that scenario, huh?

Vincent Martella

Jason Todd from Batman: Under the Red Hood also made an appearance on The Walking Dead in Season Four. He's also a key member of the Phineas & Ferb cast, meaning that he has crossed over with the Marvel Universe at one point.

While he only appeared briefly, Martella was Patient Zero in the plague that hit the prison in Season Four.

"Patrick kind of sets in motion this chain reaction of a lot of craziness within the group right now," Martella told ComicBook.com at the time. "So it was really great for me to be able to play a part that's going to be a catalyst for quite a lot of trouble in a variety of ways. It was definitely very interesting."

Norman Reedus

Yeah, yeah, we did say above that he didn't count for Boondock Saints.

He does count, though, for Scud, the role he played in Blade II and that a number of our Facebook commenters including Mach Sator and Julie Pena remembered when we didn't include it on our first pass!

Extra bonus points here because his character appears (in the photo above) to have been wearing a B.P.R.D. t-shirt from Hellboy in the film.

Laurie Holden

Here's another one we forgot mostly because we were so busy discounting her X-Files experience as "not QUITE comics" that it slipped our mind she appeared in the Tim Story Fantastic Four movie as Ben Grimm's estranged fiancee, Debbie.

Thanks to Gabriel Arredondo for remembering that one!

Sam Witwer

This actor, who had an uncredited role as the tank walker in the pilot, was also Davis Bloome, who would become the villain Doomsday in Smallville. He's a voice acting veteran, too, with a number of Star Wars projects under his belt -- and he'll be Ocean Master, the principal antagonist in Justice League: Throne of Atlantis, coming soon to Blu-ray.

Pruitt Taylor Vince

Vince, who played Otis on The Walking Dead, had a small but memorable role in the Constantine movie. He's also flirted with the edges of comics a bunch, appearing in things like True Blood and The Mentalist. On the latter, he was a recurring character, which might suggest Bruno Heller likes him enough to bring him back in Gotham.

BONUS: Hines Ward

So this one is kind of the opposite of Steven Yeun and his "important to everything" presence. Hines Ward had an uncredited cameo as a zombie on an episode of The Walking Dead, right around the same time that he played...well, Hines Ward...in The Dark Knight Rises.

Yeah, remember the guy who didn't notice the stadium collapsing around him while he ran with the ball? That guy.

Celebrity zombie cameos are fairly few and far between. While Greg Nicotero loves to load The Walking Dead up with Easter eggs that reward close viewing, series creator Robert Kirkman doesn't love the way Easter eggs and cameos pull the viewer out of the world of the show, and so there aren't a ton of them.

Kirkman himself has said that he'll never make a cameo on the series, in spite of having made one (and been consumed by zombies) on Robot Chicken.