Even More Crossovers (Part 3 of 5)

All righty, so, last we'd left off, Witchblade, The Darkness, Tomb Raider, Painkiller Jane, Vampirella, Shi, Savage Dragon, and Gen 13 were shaking hands with every comic universe in sight.

Like that over-eager guy at a party who you grimly suspect may have poo on his hands.

Anyhoo, the new kids on the block didn't start this, they learned it from watching papa Superman.

Picking up from Spider-Man/Gen 13....

Superman Gen 13!

So, hey, yeah, Gen 13/FF was granolas meet boomers, then it's granolas meet a golden-ager.

Dig it, would've liked to have seen it.

Superman meets Thundercats.

Dayum!

So, from Supes meets X-ers, to Supes meets toys-of-X-ers.

Course, Superman also met He-Man, and, he met Spidey, who met Transformers.

So...that's 3 of the big gen-X boys toys Baconed in there...

Thundercats meet Battle Of The Planets.

Twice.

And, BOTP is called "Gatchaman", in Japan, and under that name, they met Street Fighter in "Tatsunoko vs Capcom".

See? I knew that one was going somewhere!

Witchblade meets Battle Of The Planets.

Of course you do, snookums.

 And, of course, Witchy met JLA....which gets us back to Supes....

And...

Superman met Bugs Bunny.

Mxyzptlk magic was responsible.

Really, it ought to be Loony Tunes/JLA, cuz they're all in attendance...

Superman meets The Quik Bunny.

Selling out was responsible.

And to complete the bunny trilogy...

Superman met Captain Carrot, and his Amazing Zoo Crew.

Pretty sure The Crisis wiped them out.

But no, that wasn't the lowest point, this was...

Superman meets Jerry Lewis.

Can you just imagine?
Ugh.
Jerry Lewis, if you don't know, kids, was the WWII generation's Pauly Shore.

And if you're too young to even remember Pauly Shore...count yourself lucky.

Superman meets Madman

Another Mxyzptlk mashup.

Madman's origin is, he was brought back from the dead by a machine that also gave him super agility, and precognition powers.
He uses things like a lead weighted yo-yo, and a slingshot for weapons.

He also seems to have "knows he's in a comic book", reality bending powers like Ambush Bug.

He popped up in The Invincible War, and has also hung out with Savage Dragon, Hellboy, and Nexus.

Superman: Grounded

By J. Michael Straczynski.
Creator of Captain Power, and Babylon 5.

The "crossover", element, is this is where he meets Iron Munro, son of Hugo Danner, and cites him as his inspiration.

Here's a shot of them meeting face to face.
Linky.

So, ba-blam, connection all the way back to the first superhero.

This book is pretty good.
The plot is, Superman gets depressed, and doubts his values, and pulls a Forrest Gump by taking a walk across the country to see the sights, and re-connect to things.
He CAN fly, and stop to save lives, and fight bad guys, but he has to pick right up where he left off on the walk.
Along the way, he talks to ordinary people, and meets and talks to other heroes, and in the end, he believes in himself again.
And, he creates a "Superman Squad", a group of other Supermen he can call on for help at all times, and makes Iron Munro a charter member.

This resonated for me, I think me writing all these reviews has kinda been my "Superman taking a walk".

And, I'm just about out the other end of it, and feeling fine. :)

Superman meets Tarzan!

Yeah, it's an Elseword, but remember, Elseworlds count now.

Tarzan meets John Carter Of Mars.

But of course!

He met Predator, too....

But who doesn't at some point?
And...

Batman met Tarzan.

Hmmm, don't see an Elseworld logo on that one....

Batman meets Deathblow

Deathblow...*skimming now*...is from Wildstorm, part of the group "Team 7", which is allies with Gen 13, and seems like yet another Punisher archetype, except he has the superpower of being utterly unable to die, and can regenerate from one little sliver of DNA if need be.

Anyhoo, I remember when this book came out, they hyped the shit out of it, like, you got the vibe it was supposed to be the next great Batman graphic novel, up there with Dark Knight Returns, and Year One, and Killing Joke, and Year Two, and Arkham Asylum, and The Long Halloween, they were that proud of this thing.

I remain cautiously skeptical.

The art looks good though.

Spawn meets Batman.

No, not the other two times, a new third time, from the 00's.

I wonder if it didn't suck this time...

Batman meets Grendel

A buncha times, this is the graphic novel.

Grendel is another "legacy", character, like The Phantom, or Witchblade.

Pretty much a really good ninja.

Batman meets The Shadow.

A couple times.
Back in the 70's.

The 70's were pretty fucking cool, I regret missing half of them.

Batman meets Doc Savage.

Doc Savage is to Batman what Hugo Danner is to Superman, so, that's perfect.

Batman meets The Spirit.

So, that's almost all of the 30's golden age guys...

Batman met Scooby-Doo

For a couple episodes, and that's out on DVD as "a movie", now.

Yes, this is where Batman invites Shaggy and Scoob back to the batcave for "Bat cookies", and "Bat milk".

*Mental image of the bats being milked*

...ugh...

So, yeah, this was still the post-West pre-Crisis Batman we were dealing with....

And, this Bacons in all the other Scooby crossovers...

Those being...The Three Stooges, The Addams Family, Jonathan Winters, Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Sandy Duncan, Sonny & Cher, Laurel and Hardy, Harlem Globetrotters, Jerry Reed, Josie and the Pussycats, Tim Conway, Don Adams, Speed Buggy, Cass Elliot, and Dick Van Dyke.

..and in more recent times, Harlan Ellison.
Yup.

Batman, Hellboy, Starman.

No, not this Starman, the one from the 40's.

He built this "cosmic rod", that could channel the energy of the sun and stars, and project it back out as various heat and gravity effects.

Sort of a primitive Green Lantern, but without a Green Lantern Corps to back him up, self-made, like Iron Man.

Ghost meets Hellboy.

Ghost's powers are teleporting to places she has knowledge of, and phasing through walls, given to her via an alien nanovirus.
For awhile, she had false memories that led her to think she was a real ghost.

So...another white girl Ryoko.

Basically, moosh Cyblade, Ghost, and Supergirl together, you got Ryoko.

Man, that anime was good times...

Ghost meets The Shadow

Well, that's a natural.

Hunting The Heroes.

Motorhead, X, Agents Of Law, and Ghost vs. Predator.

Shit...now I gotta look up these Dark Horse guys...

Motorhead- An alien artifact called "the motor", merged with his brain, and now he has telekinetic/flame powers.

X- A Batman clone, but with a Wolverine style healing factor, but his blood "learns", and heals faster from a  type of wound he's already received.
Kinda like how the Borg adapt.

Agents of Law- A "hero", called Law becomes dictator of a city promising to make it a utopia.
Well, this has all been done before by Miracleman, The Authority, Watchmen, etc, etc...

Ghost- See Ghost/Hellboy.

Yeah, I'd like to see those characters up against Predators.
That'd be good.
Shame there's no trade collection...

Ghost meets Batgirl.

And there's Oracle, the paralyzed former Batgirl (see Killing Joke).

Birds Of Prey.

...any BOP, really, I just like that cover.

 See the one in red with the blue glowy staff thingy?

That's Manhunter, great-granddaughter of Hugo Danner.

And that's Oracle leading the charge.

So, there, double link to Hugo Danner.

What can I say...I like to be thorough...

And that's Bat-verse, which takes us to...

Planetary/Batman.

Um...Planetary, think X-Files, but instead of hunting after Saucer-Men, they study superheroes, but written from a meta-perspective...kinda like these reviews...

Planetary/JLA.....

Planetary/The Authority

The Authority...the gist I get...is..the last couple issues of Alan Moore's Miracleman, where he turns the world into a utopia as a benevolent but still totalitarian dictator, but it's a whole Justice League style team that does it, and dragged out, and given a creepy violent edge of...well, the Bush Administration.

If I'm right on that....yuck.

Could be interesting though...

Anyway, The Authority inspired a retaliatory salvo in the form of Action Comics #775 "What's So Funny About Truth, Justice, And The American Way?", which has been adapted into the animated film "Superman vs. The Elite", coming this July.

So..that'll be interesting.

The Authority vs. Lobo.

Haha! Yeah!

Lobo/ Judge Dredd.

Hmm, wonder who Dredd liked hangin' with better, Lobo, or Batman...

Judge Dredd vs. Aliens.

Bound to happen....

WildC.A.T.S vs. Aliens.

WildC.A.T.S being the team Grifter comes from.

Um..*reading*...an Avengers-y X-Men-y kinda team....

The backstory makes my eyes glaze over, no wonder kids stopped reading comics.
Keep it simple, assholes.

Kherubim...Daemonites... thousands of years ago...this team merged with that team, this organization merged with that organization, and this other organization splintered off....this character I've never heard of has a grudge against another character I've never heard of...

They're a team of fucking superheroes, okay?

Whether they have government approval, I can't suss out...

Fuck it.
Fuck them.

WildC.A.T.S meet X-Men

I can just picture Wolverine dozing off being introduced to these people, and their long-ass backstory.

Yeah, this reminds me of what pissed me off about the industry in the 90's....


Up next, a potpurri of characters.