Comic events are pretty much a staple of reading comic books lately. If there isn’t an event going on it feels sort of weird. Event fatigue is real — so we went looking for something fun to take our minds off of it. We stumbled onto a veritable jackpot of weird and wonderful crossover comics. What makes a crossover comic so special is watching two very different universes forced to reconcile with the other’s existence. It also forces you to imagine a world where Colonel Sanders is a Green Lantern or where Sonic and Spawn both exist and interact. To help you recover from your own event fatigue, we are going to recommend you read something weirder and even more unlikely. These are our top 10 favorite crossover comics. All of these made us at least giggle, and some of them are actually pretty good. But we aren’t going to be talking about why these ridiculous comics are good — just why we think you should read them.
Eminem has been a long-time comic book fan. He has talked about it in several interviews and doesn’t try to hide his love of superheroes. So when he was offered a crossover in one of his favorite comics, The Punisher (of course it would be The Punisher), he jumped at the chance. Now, this exists in the real world. If we have to know about its existence so do you. Should you read it? Well, if you want to own a piece of weird pop-culture history, or you collect all things punisher. Sure! If you love Eminem, also sure! But otherwise? It’s wacky, and that’s enough for us.
David Letterman was on the air for so long that most people’s grandparents watched him. He was the talk show favorite by pretty much everyone. When he retired a few years back and passed his torch on to Colbert — who has done a pretty good job taking on his legacy. Now he’s interviewing people on Netflix and growing an incredible beard. This comic harkens back to a simpler time and allows him to star in a comic alongside the Avengers — well some of them. More like B-list heroes (though Black Panther, Hawkeye, and Black Widow have all been upgraded thanks to the movies).
The plot is convoluted and includes a villain whose motivation is that he is mad his application to join the Avengers was rejected. It ends with Letterman foiling the guy with a giant prop doorknob. Honestly, it’s hilarious and if you can find a copy, definitely read it.
Hm. Where do we even start with this one? The premise alone is so out there it’s hard to put your finger on precisely what makes you want to read it. And yet we felt compelled. First off the fact it makes us imagine a universe in which Colonel Sanders has the qualities that would make him a Green Lantern. Secondly, in this universe, Colonel Sanders isn’t just a fictional mascot but a real person — which has some weird implications. They make good use of catchphrases and have so much KFC product placement you will never want to see a chicken again — but it’s a wild ride all the way through. It’s worth it if you can find it for the cover price.
If we had to list two franchises as far apart as possible, Spawn and Sonic would probably be on that list. Spawn is known for adult themes, gore, and extreme violence. Sonic is known for coins, robots, and talking animals. The two have nothing in common. Nothing. And yet, someone had the idea to jam the two together and convinced other people it was a good enough idea to get it printed. Somewhere along the line, there was a lot of bad decisions, and we assume a lot of alcohol.
Honestly, it’s more than we could have expected from this weird mishmash of properties. It sticks more to the Sonic tropes, making Spawn and his crew feel slapstick compared to their usually grim demeanors. It’s worth a read just to scratch your head at the backflips they do to justify these characters existing in the same world.
Archie and his friends are many things, but master hunters are not one of them. So going toe to toe with The Predator, if you ask us, should have ended in every single one of those kids dead in a heap. That’s not very family-friendly though — so Archie Comics went a decidedly different route. It does make for more exciting reading than slaughter in the first three pages, and it’s amusing from start to finish. It feels more like Hijinks than a Predator comic should, but it’s a good time and a quick read. If you’re a Predator fan, get it for posterity’s sake, and also pick up Batman vs. The Predator for a darker take on the Yautja.
A lot of people became aware of the Alien vs. Predator comics thanks to the movies. Sure they weren’t anything groundbreaking, but if you wanted a wild ride full of nonstop action — they were perfect. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for some people. So they amped it up and added the Terminator. Seemingly, two Alien races hell-bent on destroying each other wasn’t enough for some people. Some people wanted to add robots into the mix.
Which, I mean, Arnold Schwarzenegger does bind Terminator and Predator together like a shredded Austrian glue, but that doesn’t mean their universes touch. Well, it does now. We’re wondering what the max number of Franchises can touch before they create a black hole anti-logic. For now, read this. It’s a guns blazing, acid dripping, cloaked out good time. Please. Just. Do it.
So, we’re going to tame it down a bit with this one. If you thought it would just be more and more universes combined until the #1 entry on our list — you were wrong. However, there is something so uncomfortably jarring about Batman wandering around with giant sentient turtles who happen to be ninjas. It’s gritty and dark in all the usual Batman ways, but the Turtles just happen to be there. Lines like the one above make the whole thing feel like a surrealist art piece and honestly we couldn’t be happier about it. This isn’t as weird as some of the crossovers on our list, but the commitment to the bit is what makes it worth the read. Cowabunga Batsy.
Is it weirder that this comic happened, or weirder that they made more than one for different series of Trek? Whichever it might be. This is real, and it’s completely batshit. The plot makes more sense than a lot of these crossover comics do. It feels less cobbled together given mutant abilities. The X-Men follow a rogue mutant with the ability to travel through universes through a portal and end up meeting Kirk and the crew. Much like Batman and TMNT, it all feels a little surrealist. But, it works in its own quirky way and is a delightfully strange romp through space to apprehend the dimension-hopping jerk so the X-Men can get home.
So this is it, the most ridiculous crossover we could find. IDW has a lot of franchises, and sometimes they like to jam them together in as many team-ups as possible. Other times they just dump them in a pit and wait to see what happens. That is the case with Infestation. It stars G.I.Joe, Star Trek, Transformers, and the Ghostbusters. It takes a lot of suspended disbelief to imagine these four very different groups of people… er… bots and people, ending up together and especially working together. If you can wrap your head around the premise, it really is worth it to see Spock and Optimus prime hold a conversation. It’s bizarre, it’s confusing, frankly, it’s art. Read it, try to digest it, because it doesn’t get more franchise busy than this.
Where do we even start with this? When we first discovered this comic we had so many questions. So many questions. Who knew Kaiju enjoyed Basketball? Why does Godzilla respect the rules of the sport? Who thought this was a good idea? Honestly, the premise was so far fetched we didn’t even for a moment wonder why Charles Barkley was as big as our favorite Kaiju. We just sort of accepted giant Charles Barkley as a fact of the universe. But upon reading this perfectly awesome comic, we realized that wasn’t the case.
Please. Please. Please read this comic. We need other people to experience it so we can talk about it to someone other than each other. It’s honestly one of the weirdest things we’ve ever laid eyes on, and if you can’t enjoy that, then you probably don’t know how to have fun. Also, you get lines like this…
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