Tuesday, September 23, 2008

And they say we live in a geek's paradise...

I have a renewed interest in those crazy crossover comics of the 1990s - Batman vs. Predator, Green Lantern vs. Aliens, Batman/Hellboy/Starman, Superman vs. Aliens, etc.

I think comics fans might take for granted how unique and wonderful this particular sub-genre is. Though there are some video games (Capcom vs. Marvel), a few movies (AVP, Freddy vs. Jason), and a few prose novels (The Seven Percent Solution, The D. Case) that give us these kinds of crossovers, they really found their home in comics. The idea of facing Batman off against the Predator is, IMO, pure genius.

I really wish the trend hadn't died out. Here are some crossover comics I'd love to see:

  • Batman vs. The Sopranos
  • Hellboy: Trapped on the Lost Island
  • Predator vs. Deadwood
  • CSI vs. The Sopranos
  • CSI: NY vs. Batman
  • CSI: Miami vs. Predator
  • Green Lantern vs. Firefly
  • Jennifer Jones from the Alias comic vs. Sydney Bristow from the Alias TV show
  • Jennifer Jones from the Alias comic vs. Buffy
  • Jennifer Jones from the Alias comic vs. Buffy vs. Sydney Bristow from the Alias TV show
  • Jennifer Jones, Buffy, and Sydney Bristow vs. Aliens
  • Heroes vs. the X-Men
  • Dr. Steve Brule vs. Lobo
  • Battlestar Galactica vs. Firefly
  • Torchwood vs. BRPD
If only we truly lived in a geek paradise...

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Torchwood shouldn't be in a crossover with my television set. Ideally, all Torchwood media would be in Linear B.

But I'm totally with you in a Brule vs. Lobo crossover. He's got some mad fighting skills.

I wouldn't mind seeing Green Lantern vs. Star-Blazers. And one of my very first pieces of writing was G.I. Joe vs. Star Wars fan-fic.

You know what else I miss, associated with this period? Annuals. In an age where it seems no one can tell a story in 22 pages (which, admittedly, was true in the late 1980's as well), the self-contained 64 page or 80 page issue often produced some pretty memorable stuff. It got pretty annoying later on, when even the Annuals got turned into elaborate multi-part crossovers.

But a list of really good Annuals is probably off-topic, so never mind.

Jon Hastings said...

I miss good Annuals, too.

I was going to make my list nerdier by adding in suggested creative teams (like Greg Rucka and Tony Harris for the Batman vs. Sopranos series), but didn't want to spend that much time on it.

Jon Hastings said...

The annuals topic might make for a good nerdnyc thread...

T. Hodler said...

I don't disagree with this except for the part where you say how unique this sub-genre is to comics.

In fact, there's tons of books that do this kind of thing. Philip José Farmer made a whole career out of crossover stuff! Kim Newman, John Myers Myers, blah blah blah. You could probably even include The Iliad, if you wanted to be pedantic. For some reason, I feel like being pedantic. Please ignore me.

Jon Hastings said...

You're right!

How could I forget PJF?

Someone must have already done Tarzan vs. Predator...

How about: Tarzan: Trapped on the Lost Island?

Anonymous said...

Tarzan vs. Ka-Zar vs. Turok

also: Iron Man vs. Tron

Mark said...

Those New Mutants and X-Men annuals from the mid to late eighties were smoking hot - the ones with the Art Adams or Brett Blevins art.

Anonymous said...

I wanna see Lassie vs. Benji.