Even More Crossovers (Part 2 of 5)

All righty, so, picking right up from yesterday...

Where'd we leave off?
Oh, right, Vampirella/Painkiller Jane...

Vampirella fights Dracula.

Twice!

Tricky as to who's more powerful there...

Dracula is the long assumed "king of the vampires",....BUT....Vampirella has been rebooted so that her true origin, is she's the daughter of Lilith, the apocryphal first wife of Adam, and mother of all monsters, including vampires.

So, Dracula is the literary first, and most famous vampire, but Vampirella is the daughter of the true queen of vampires.

BUT, Dracula has more years on Vampirella, so, that could make him stronger.

I'm assuming Vampy won the fight, but Dracula always comes back, so....a draw.
I'm guessing...

Sword Of Dracula Vampirella: Extended and Dangerous.

So, the heroine of "Sword of Dracula", is Ronnie Van Helsing, and she runs a military unit that fights vampires.

Well, the surname sorta resolves that one.

Catwoman meets Vampirella.

So, bam, right into the Batman-verse.

Vampirella fights/meets Lady Death.

Well, that must have been something...

The Magdalena meets Vampirella.

Twice.

Clearly, the prequel to Witchblade, Magdalena, Vampirella.

The Magdalena meets Daredevil.

Well, that fits, Matt Murdock is Catholic....

Daredevil meets Shi.

Shi...I guess is supposed to be the best ninja ever.
Her name is Japanese for "death".

And, she's in the race with Witchblade, and Vampirella, for Crossover Queen.

Vampirella Shi.

...speaking of Vampy.

Wolverine Shi.

Well, this was kind of inevitable.

Why, as much as Vampirella Shi....

Razor Shi.

Shi actually premiered in Razor's book.

Razor seems in the Catwoman mold of female anti-hero, but more lethal, wearing strap-on Wolverine-style wrist knives.

The Crow meets Razor.

Well, that goes together like Punisher/Painkiller Jane....

Warrior Nun Areala meets Razor.

Twice!

So, Warrior Nun seems an awful lot like The Magdalena, but her specialty is fighting demons, and she has a bionic arm.

Avengelyne meets Warrior Nun Areala.

Damn, typing the filenames of these damned things a squillion times has finally got me nailing the spelling on the first try....

Avengelyne is a fallen angel who often parades around in a super-skimpy outfit, that's pretty much just a cross that covers her nips and snoosh.

Ah, that constant tightrope walk between "purity", and sex, you Christians, I tell ya....

We atheists don't worry about this shit, just look at porn for crying out loud.
It ain't gonna kill ya,
I promise.

Avengelyne meets Prophet.

Prophet is...okay, imagine Captain America, with a little bit of Hulk, a couple heaping tablespoons of Punisher, and then sprinkle on top of all of that that his handlers programmed him with God belief to keep him under a semblance of control.

Anyway, he's from the Image-verse.

Youngblood, Spawn, those guys.

Avengelyne meets Shi.

Aaaand, there she is in her nip/snoosh cross getup.

Toldja.

Cyblade Shi.

Actually, Witchblade premiered in this one.

Yep, we're tracing back the telescoping spinoffs here....

Cyblade, of course, being "white girl Ryoko", from the last one.

Grifter Shi.

Grifter is part of WildC.A.T.S. (we'll see them later), and...is sorta Punisher, Wolverine, and Deadpool mooshed all up in a blender.

Grifter and The Mask.

Whodathunkit?

Course, Mask has also hung out with Joker, and Lobo....

Mask meets Marshal Law

Marshal Law is a warped version of Captain America with a smidge of Judge Dredd who kills superheroes gone wrong with government sanction, and has an S&M thing going on....

Well, that's exactly the kinda guy Mask needs to mess with Bugs Bunny style!

Pinhead vs Marshal Law.

Ah, of course, bondage vs bondage....

Well, there, Pinhead is finally Bacon-ed into the multiverse.

Pinhead, Marshal Law, Mask, Joker, Batman, Danger Girl, Ash, Freddy/Jason.
Bam.
Michael Myers and Chucky to go...

The Savage Dragon meets Marshal Law.

So...Savage Dragon is...Hulk with a fin....

I rag on Peter David, but one of his inspired moments was goofing on Savage Dragon by having Professor Hulk (Hulk with Banner's intelligence) wanting to go incognito, and Betty giving him as a disguise...a fin hat.

To which Hulk rambled along the lines of "oh, brilliant, everyone's going to point right at this, and go "hey, look, it's Hulk with a fin on his head!".

Anyway, Savage Dragon had a cartoon show once.
Eh, s'alright

Superman fights/meets Savage Dragon.

Twice.
Once for Metropolis, once for Chicago.

Hmm...in the first one, Supes looks like he's saying something...

Savage Dragon meets Ninja Turtles.

..a couple times.

Savage Dragon meets Hellboy.

Tch, see, I never took Hellboy to be the crossover type....
Now, I've seen two of 'em, this, and the Painkiller Jane thing....

Savage Dragon meets Lovebunny and Mr. Hell.

...who the FUCK are they???

*Googles*

Oh, that actually looks pretty funny....she's a former bimbo sidekick (with no powers to speak of) who wants to be a hero, and he's a Cthulhu-esque tentacle monster underneath a robe, and a skull mask, and a hat.

Kinda thing you might see in Venture Brothers.
I dig it!

The Invincible War.

So, right there, you've got Invincible, Spawn, Witchblade, and Savage Dragon.
That's Pitt's arm there off to the side.

This thing also has Madman (we'll see him later), The Darkness,  Shadowhawk (ditto), Badrock (ditto), Cyblade, Cyberforce, Youngblood, and..a whole bunch of other Image people.

Invincible himself....think Peter Parker's brain in Superboy.

Mars Attacks Savage Dragon.

Alas, poor Topps Comics....

Mars Attacks Image.

Just by eyeballing, you got Savage Dragon again, you got key members of Gen 13, you got Witchblade (she's everywhere! Ahhh!!!), there's Spawn, and Grifter, so I'm assuming all of WildC.A.T.S, and, most importantly, there's The Maxx (on issue 3).

Maxx vs. Pitt.

Pitt I went into last time, Maxx...big purple guy with a magic mask that won't come off that gives him his strength, and...a complicated backstory it takes reading all of his books to get.

Oh yeah, and those knuckle claws.

Strength wise....I haven't seen Maxx do what couldn't be done by an accomplished bodybuilder.
Yeah, Cap range.

Gen 13 meets the Maxx.

Gen 13 were the 90's granola-y take on X-Men, as far as I can tell.

Except, they were engineered by an evil government project, instead of natural born mutants.

Eh, back then, I loathed 90's youth culture, so I wouldn't touch the thing with a ten foot pole, but...I've looked at some of it recently, and it's really not so bad.
I guess I'm just a young poop.
It's like an old poop, but I've gotten there prematurely.
Gotta combat that side of myself....

Anyway, the 90's stuff wasn't aging so well, so they've been rebooted (fairly) recently (2006).
Wait...Grunge (guy with green chest tat) owes his existence to the 90's, it's in his name, what did they do to him?
*Looks*...kept the name, slightly modified his look....all right...*shrug*

Gen 13 meets Monkeyman and O'Brien

Okay...Monkeyman and O'Brien....a super-intelligent gorilla, and...redheaded She-Hulk without the green.
I'm guessing the book was popular.

Gen 13 meets Generation X.

Generation-X, well, obvious, X-Men-junior.
Marvel's Gen 13.
A natural for a crossover.

My gut-hunch is that Image understood 90's kids better.

Gen 13 meets Fantastic Four.

Oh, that must have been good, granola kids meet the baby-boom's first heroes,  they must have played up the generation gap thing.

They're nuts if they didn't.

Spider-Man meets Gen 13.

Hmm, Spidey was the first teen hero, but...he's boomer age, so....they could go either way with that one....

Yeah, this is fun, I feel like I'm filling in all the stuff I missed in that big 90's gap where I gloomily tuned out of the scene.

Anyway, I'll stop there. Up next, Supes, Bats, and the JLA.

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Even More Crossovers (Part 1 of 5)

Okay, its bugged me at the back of my mind for awhile to really finish these up properly, so, here goes.
Picking up from where I left off....

The original batch, I just wanted enough crossovers to tie in the classic movie/comic/literature characters, and call it a day, so I could move on to the hero reviews.

But, as I did research for this new batch...holy shit, I can't believe I thought I was anywhere near "done".
Tch, well, fixing that now...

Here we go....

JLA meets Witchblade.

One thing I learned preparing for this batch of posts, Witchblade is the crossover-iest character I think I've ever seen.
She's the Kevin Bacon of the comic book universe.
I think she was even designed/created to be such.

Well....I dunno, Superman had a pretty good head start on her....

But, once I figured this out, I started with Witchblade, and my instinct was right, this particular batch for this post Kevin-Bacons pretty smoothly.

Vampirella meets Witchblade.

...on multiple occasions.

Hmm, tough call who's the more shameless crossover queen, Vampy, or Witchy....

I gotta go with my gut, and say Witchy edges out Vampy by an eyelash...

I'm probably wrong though...

Tomb Raider meets Witchblade.

...again, on multiple occasions.

Dark Crossings, featuring Tomb Raider, Witchblade, and The Darkness.

You know, Darkness, he has a vidya game, and met Batman and Hulk in prior entries.
Mighta seen his TV ad....
That guy.

You're gonna see a lot of him too.
Darkness and Witchblade are in a race I think.

Witchblade, Magdalena, and Vampirella.

Three great tastes that go great together.

...what the hell is a Magdalena?

*Googles*
Apparently, she's descended from Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and wields The Spear Of Destiny as her weapon.
She's the Ultimate Nun!
Well! No holding back there!
You're gonna go Catholic, go for broke!

An extra-crispy-bucket-of-Catholic teaming up with a vampire, and a witch?
Hmm...I'd almost pay to see that just for the petty bickering...

And...a "defender of the Catholic Church",... immediately begs the question, Magdalena, what are you doing to save molested children?

You've got a fuggin' Spear Of Destiny, skewer some fuggin' dirty bishops!

Fer Chrissakes!
Literally!

Witchblade, Vampirella, Magdalena, Tomb Raider.

Holy shit...cram 'em in there...

Witchblade meets Wolverine.

Well, natch...

Witchblade meets The Punisher.

(Heath Ledger Joker voice)
Now you're talkin!

Witchblade meets Red Sonja.

What, Witchy can hob-knob with Red-fucking-Sonja, and that weak-ass series pilot was what we got?
Here's your fucking movie, you clueless dolts!
*Rubs eyes, and grumbles*

Witchblade vs Aliens vs The Darkness vs Predator.

Yes, everyone in comics does have to fight Aliens and Predator, and yes, it is a law.

I think that wacky Bush-era Congress passed that one.

Predator vs Magnus Robot Fighter.

Yeah, it interrupts the nice flow of Witchblades I had going, but I couldn't stick it anywhere else....

But have no fear....

Witchy and Darkness fought AVP again, and we're back into the Baconing.

Witchblade meets Tomoe.

All right, Google time again....

Ah, a spinoff chick from Shi.
We'll get to her....

Witchblade meets...Weasel Guy?

So, basically, 50 bucks, and a handshake with Marc Silvestri will get you a Witchblade crossover, huh?

Witchblade meets Devi.

A couple times...

*Googles* Devi is a...Hindu? Sikh? One of those Indian ones...death goddess.

From Virgin comics.
...I didn't know they were in the biz...so, I learned something there...

Witchblade Darkminds.

So....Darkminds is some anime/manga future dystopia that looks like Ghost In The Shell meets the Borg.

Here, the Witchblade is host to a Japanese cyborg detective chick, since Sara Pazzini would be dead by then.

Oh, forgot to mention earlier, apparently, the Witchblade has played host to all the great women in history, including Cleopatra, and Joan Of Arc.

So, Witchy isn't just a superwoman, she's THE superwoman!

Tch, Wonder Woman just wasn't good enough, eh?
La de freakin' da!

Witchblade: Shades of Gray.

Dorian Gray that is.

*Blank stares, dry coughs*

...oh, you illiterate little shits....

Read up.

Witchblade meets Lady Death.

Multiple occasions, multiple generations.

Lady Death started as a hallucination of Evil Ernie's troubled psyche, but, apparently, fanboys dug her so much, she was made real.

They just retconned that she was real, and in psychic communication with Evil Ernie.

And her retcon origin is, she's the ghost of a burned witch who...get this...beat up the fucking DEVIL, and took over Hell.

So, wow, yeah, no fuckin' around there!

What I wouldn't give for a Lady Death vs. Magdalena fight...

Created by Brian Pullido, who, if your memory is as superhuman as mine, you'll recall as the writer of the Avatar era Freddy Krueger comics.

Witchblade meets Darkchylde

...Google time...

Wow, super-abuse-victim.
Discovers her powers when her dad tries to rape her, and roasts him to death with fire breath.
The comics ain't for little kiddies anymore....

So, she can shape-shift into a sorta dragon, and some other stuff, but...the other stuff seems dragon-y enough that it doesn't make a difference.

And, she can change a piece at a time just to have the claws, or the wings, as seen in the pic above.

So...let's just go with "Dragon Lady", and be done with it.

Monster War.
Witchy and pals vs. The Classic Monsters.

Magdalena vs Dracula, Tomb Raider vs. Wolf Men, Witchblade vs Frankenstein, and Darkness vs Mr. Hyde.

Dayum...

Hmm...okay, this will take some Baconing....Witchblade, JLA, Batman, Danger Girl, Ash, Classic Monsters again.

And since Classic Monsters Bacon over to Ash all in the same world, then, it's the same Classic Monsters, and "Frankenstein", is really "Michael".
Just had to re-inject that factoid.

Devil's Reign.
..holy shit...okay, it's Top Cow meets Marvel in a big fuckin' saga.

Silver Surfer meets Witchblade, Weapon Zero meets Silver Surfer, Cyblade meets Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider meets Ballistic, Ballistic meets Wolverine, Wolverine meets Witchblade (again!), Witchblade meets Elektra, Elektra meets Cyblade, and Silver Surfer meets Weapon Zero again (for a bookend, I presume).

...what's a Cyblade? A Ballistic? A Weapon Zero?

*Sigh* Google time...

Okay, Cyblade is a member of Cyber Force (we're gonna see them later) and can channel electromagnetic energy, and make pink lightsabers (and other shapes).

So....white girl Ryoko.

Ballistic, also from Cyber Force, a chick with a bionic arm and eye that make her a super marksman.
...okay, bionic Annie Oakley.

Weapon Zero...*skimming*...think X-Men meet cybernetic version of Witchblade, and they get their powers by being alien abductees who are experimented on.
They all can grow armor, but each one has a different X-power.
I'm sure it's called something else though...
And they've been in stasis, and come from different eras.
So...you got the whole Captain America thing going on.
So...alien-empowered X-Men.
Yeah, that covers it.

Unholy Union.

Witchblade and Darkness meet Hulk, Ghost Rider, and Doctor Strange.

Yeah, each time a character shows up for the first time, I'm dropping in a link to their movie.
Probably noticed by now.

Course, again, Darkness and Hulk have bumped into each other before.

Darkness meets Superman.

Well, bam, the big man.
There we go, no more Baconing back to Witchblade/JLA to get him in now.
That's handy.

Darkness meets Wolverine.

Well, who doesn't?

Darkness meets Pitt.

Pitt, of course, you may remember as having also run into Hulk.

So, he's like, a Hulk ripoff with claws, and is the solidified imaginary friend of some little kid, or something,.

Darkness meets Darkchylde.

Y'know, Dragon Lady.

Hmph, she's from "Darkchylde Entertaiment", she has her own comic company just for her, neat.

How ya liking these factoids, eh keeds?

Darkness meets Vampirella.

Well, of course he does.

Darkness and Tomb Raider.

A prequel to "Dark Crossings", I presume?

Painkiller Jane vs Darkness

Why? Why didn't I turn Harry into a female short haired redhead?
I'd'a been rolling in it now.

Maybe I'm not cut out for this business....

Painkiller Jane meets Darkchylde.

Man, that sounds like all kinds of fucked up.

Shyeet, given their fucked up powers and backgrounds, that had better be all kinds of fucked up, and not just a fanboyish tussle.

Punisher meets Painkiller Jane.

Well....that's just fucking perfect.
Match made in Heaven.

Painkiller Jane vs Terminator.

Indestructible chick vs nigh-indestructible robot.

...I'm betting on the chick.

Painkiller Jane meets Hellboy.

Okay, didn't see that coming.

Vampirella meets Painkiller Jane.

Of course she does.

And...we leave off there, and pick up with some more Vampirellas.

Yes, the Baconing is unbroken.
Promise.


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Merry Leprechaun!

Fire up SyFy channel, a sequel is playing right now, I'm sure of it!

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Superhero Flicks, Part 0.5: Gladiator (Part 2)

Okey-dokey, made some fresh discoveries since I put up the first Gladiator Entry.

All right, first, I've read the novel now, and it's great.
Here's the added comments I left if you missed them...

Finished the book.
Excellent.

Truly, this inspired every superhero you can think of.

The looks and powers of (early) Superman, the biography of Captain America, the misanthropy of Hulk, there's bits and pieces of everything.

This had to be on the desks of early comic writers.

No way it's a coincidence.

And...

Ha! Remembered another Gladiator inspiration-connection.

Venture Brothers!

Hugo kills a guy playing football, and Brock Samson kills a guy playing football.

Except, Hugo is torn up with guilt, and Brock is like "meh".

Second, the comics industry did indeed get around to acknowledging Hugo Danner.

This, I did actually know from my initial research for the first article, but I wanted to keep that entry strictly about plugging the novel.
I was going to get to this stuff "later", and then...well, you know me, I got off on a giant tangent with my other stuff.

So, "later", is today.

Here's what I knew then...

Marvel Comics adapted the first half of the novel in Marvel Preview #9 as "Man-God", in 1976.

...and the blurb on that makes it pretty clear that it's "Gladiator", and that they accept him as the first superhero.

Brava, Marvel.
Course, woulda been nice if they'd been able to finish it, and one wonders why they didn't.

Skip ahead, and in 2005, the whole novel was adapted as "Legend", by Wildstorm (a DC imprint).

And, again, the blurb on the first 2 issues credits "Gladiator".
They forget on the second two, but, whatever.

I actually checked this out for the "Gladiator", entry...and...the story is pretty much intact, all the key events are there...but, for some reason, they update it to more modern times, and change the war from World War I to Vietnam, and while there was some mild swearing in the novel, they have Hugo and everyone else swear like a parrot, and while Hugo does get busy with a few broads in the novel, here, they use it as an excuse to get a bit graphic with the bedroom scenes.

I dunno, I'm no prude, that stuff didn't make me flinch, but for my own tastes, I thought the novel was good enough to stand on its own without having to be tinkered with.

If they wanted to spice up the language, they still could have kept it in the 30's, I mean "fuck", and "shit", had been invented by then, you know.

And...I really didn't get the updating to Vietnam, why not Iraq?
Eh...

No, my beef was with how ham-handedly it was done writing wise.
But...at least the core story is out there for new audiences that can't track down the novel.

Ah, but hold on, the story literally doesn't end there.
Rewind to 1988.

A little title called "Young All-Stars", by DC, set in the 30's, featured a character called Arn "Iron", Munro, the illegitimate son of Hugo Danner, and his high school sweetheart.
In issue #10 and #11 Arn finds and reads his father's journal, and this is effectively a third adaptation of "Gladiator".

...and even though there's no mention of the novel (on the cover, there is a blurb inside), the story is intact, and you get a good look at Hugo and Arn there on the covers.

Arn then confronts his mother, and she reveals that on the night they conceived him, Hugo revealed he faked his death, and then disappeared the next day, so, Arn goes on a quest to find him.

And in YAS #28-#31, find him he does, as the progenitor of an army of eugenic supermen, with the villainous intent to conquer the world.

Of course, this actually isn't out of character for Hugo, at the end of the novel, he does toy with the idea, but has inner conflict about it before it's resolved by his apparent death by lightning bolt.

Which, YAS #11 poofed away.

So, Arn and The Young All-Stars eventually defeat Hugo's "Sons Of Dawn", and Hugo, shocked into guilt,  jumps down a factory smokestack and is apparently incinerated.
But, we don't see the body cook, so....they could bring him back again someday.

Anyway, here's Arn's "Who's Who?", entry.
Open that in a new tab/window to get it big enough to read...

Ah, but it doesn't end there, once you're a DC/Marvel character, you're in for life.

Arn has floated around the DCU as a sort of background character, and even bumped elbows with Superman from time to time.

I don't know what issue this is revealed in, but Supes says he read about Arn's adventures as a kid in Smallville, and this taught him "truth, justice, and the American way".

So, there you go, if that isn't comics warmly embracing Hugo's legacy into the canon, nothing is.

Ah, but it still doesn't end there.
Arn had a son he didn't know about, who in turn had a daughter.

This granddaughter, Kate Spencer, became Manhunter, and became one of the "Birds of Prey".

Her father, Walter Pratt, turned out to be a psychotic bastard who she defeats.
She has since met up with Arn, who has become her new father figure, and regularly features in her comic title.

So, anything with Iron Munro, or the Kate Spencer Manhunter, is a link back to Hugo Danner.

And...you writers of the cartoons, if you could see fit to squeeze them into an episode..*wink, wink*.

All right, so, on the first pass, I knew that Arn and Kate existed, but, I didn't know YAS 10-11 were another "Gladiator", adaptation, or that Arn had met Superman, or how prominent Kate had become in the DCU.

I didn't follow up on the finer details, because 1.) it led too far afield from the novel, which was what I was focusing on, and 2.) I was blindly accepting Wikipedia as the definitive source, and Comic Vine had a lot more to say, and fill in.

That's a great resource, by the way.
An IMDB of comics, and comic characters.
If you're a comic fan, you can easily lose yourself for hours.

Okay, so, that's all of that, remember this stuff, it's going to be important in future entries....


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Happy Spring!

Set your clocks ahead, if your country does that sort of thing...

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