Since the very beginning, the comic book industry has thrived on weird and creative ideas, and none are better than the wackiest team-ups and crossovers. The best of these combine completely unrelated or seemingly-mismatched universes, fromAliens to Avengers, forcing heroes to join characters who couldn’t be more different, and sending them on equally bizarre adventures.
These stories can answer classic comic fan questions like who would win in a grudge match, which character is more powerful or whether some heroes would actually work better in another world. With creators turning in some excellent and strange scripts to make these team-ups great, these stories stand out asthe weirdest comic book crossovers in history.
10Black Hammer/Justice League
Jeff Lemire and Michael Walsh
In 2016,Black Hammeremerged as one of the best – and strangest – superhero franchises in indie comics, paying homage to the Golden Age, science fiction and adventure through a modern lens. The series tells the story of its titular team of aged heroes, who are trapped in a small town. In their Justice League crossover, Lemire’s team switches places with the JLA. With DC’s foremost team confined to the town and the Black Hammer team reliving the JLA’s adventures, heroes from both worlds seek answers.
Black Hammer/Justice Leaguestands out as a fantastic combination of Golden Age heroes, Silver Age adventure and mystery, as the characters' pursuit of truth leads them to a classic Superman foe.The crossover is weird in the best way possible, with Lemire’s signature style of storytelling reimagining classic DC history, while exploring how the League react to their captivity.
9Batman vs the Incredible Hulk (DC Special Series #27)
Len Wein, Jose Luiz Garcia Lopez and Dick Giordano
During the 1970s, DC and Marvel Comics began their crossovers in spectacular fashion, with Batman’sbattle with the Hulkstanding out as the most peculiar. The story follows the Caped Crusader as he’s forced to contend with Marvel’s Green Behemoth when he’s manipulated by Joker into attacking him. After besting his rival in combat, Batman manages to bring Hulk back to reason, and the pair take on an alliance between the Clown Prince of Crime and Shaper-of-Worlds.
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Batman’s battle with the Incredible Hulk is particularly strange considering his defeat of the Green Behemoth, a feat even some of Marvel’s toughest heroes fail to accomplish.Of all the 616’s heroes to have Bruce Wayne team up with, choosing Hulk made for a strange and bold choice – and it completely paid off.
8Planet of the Apes/Green Lantern
Robbie Thompson and Barnaby Bagenda
Since the 1970s, thePlanet of the Apesfranchise has been one of the best-written in comics, with Boom! Studios having published most of their recent stories. In 2018, the world of the apes clashed with the Green Lantern Corps, as the various factions of the emotional spectrum hunted for a Universal Ring, which gives the wearer power over the different energies. When Cornelius discovers this ring, he attracts the unwanted attention of fellow apes and lantern corps alike.
Planet of the Apes/Green Lanternis a great example of merging two unrelated properties into an epic adventure, and giving Cornelius the Universal Ring gave both worlds a challenge.The story blends two staples of ’60s science fiction and, despite their different styles, actually makes for one of the best tales from either world.
7Amalgam
Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett, Larry Hama, Jim Balent, Ray McCarthy, Ron Marz, Jose Luiz Garcia-Lopez, Kevin Nowlan, John Byrne, Terry Austin, Dan Chichester, Scott McDaniel, Gerard Jones, Mark Waid, Howard Porter, Dave Gibbons, Chuck Dixon, Cary Nord, Mark Pennington, John Ostrander, Gary Frank, Jeff Matsuda, Howard Mackie, Salvador Larroca, Al Milgrom, Rodolfo DiMaggio, Bill Sienkiewicz and more
After Marvel and DC’s various crossovers, they formed the Amalgam imprint, which merged the formulas of different characters. In each story, two characters from either publisher were blended into a new design, with examples including Batman and Wolverine creating Dark Claw and Doctors Strange and Fate creating Doctor StrangeFate.
The Amalgam imprint is a triumph of creativity, with its best stories turning heroes and villains alike into surprisingly original versions of themselves.The appeal of the series is getting to see how an all-star roster of creative teams would blend their respective worlds and formulas, delivering bizarre creations like Lobo the Duck.Despite the oddity of the idea, many of these redesigns actually work as their own story, some even eclipsing their originals.
6Star Trek/X-Men
Dan Abnett, Ian Edginton, Cary Nord, Scott Koblish, Scott Lobdell, Marc Silvestri, Billy Tan, David Finch and Anthony Winn
Marvel’s X-Men and Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek may not seem similar on the surface, but both franchises actually share many of the same themes. These include forwarding social progress, countering prejudice and, of course, defending the lives of innocents from evildoers and oppression. The two teams met twice, with Marvel’s Mutants meeting both main generations of the Enterprise’s crew: Captain Kirk’s crew in the first story and Picard’s in the second.
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Star Trek/X-Menis a great exploration of the universes' shared themes, focusing on two franchises that have long represented forward-thinking progressive values and questions of ethics and morality.While the crossover does make for a great comic, on paper it sounds strange – and something about Wolverine interacting with Data and Picard just comes across as completely bizarre for fans of either franchise. The sequel comic stands out as the best, seeing the two teams take on an alliance between their most dangerous foes: the Borg and the Sentinels.
5Eminem/Punisher
Fred Van Lente and Salvador Larroca
Eminem has been an outspoken comic book fan since the start of his career as a rapper, almost guaranteeing his collaboration with a publisher – as so many celebrities have. This came full circle inEminem/Punisher, which follows a team-up between one of the greatest rappers of all time and Marvel’s hard-boiled vigilante. The story follows the unlikely alliance as Frank Castle rescues Slim Shady from Barracuda, who has been hired by the Parents Music Council to murder the musician.
Story aside, the comic’s fixation with giving Eminem a photo-realistic likeness, as compared with a more comic book feel to other characters can make for a strange contrast one some pages. The story ends with Castle leaving Eminem adrift on ice, with the rapper ending the story by telling Frank to let the PMC know “tell ‘em Shady sent you!“Of all of the celebrity collaborations in comics, it doesn’t get stranger than Marvel’s grittiest killer rescuing a real-world rapper from an assassin sent by a parents’ group.
4The Oz-Wonderland War
E. Nelson Bridwell, Joey Cavalieri and Carol Lay
The Oz-Wonderland Warunited two beloved worlds of children’s literature with DC’s Zoo Crew, bringing together Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland and L. Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz. The story focuses on Captain Carrot and his friends as they are guided by Cheshire Cat into Wonderland, where they learn of an evil villain, the Nome King, who has imprisoned the heroes of Oz. Like MacGuffins, the characters are hidden around the two worlds in elaborate disguises, with the Zoo Crew charged with finding them.
The Oz-Wonderland Warhas gone down as something of a missed opportunity in comics, taking two thoughtful stories and reducing them down to the level of Saturday-morning cartoons. That said, it does excel at delivering a child-friendly adventure story, one sure to excite younger fans of either story.The somewhat psychedelic descent into two of fiction’s most bizarre universes is actually completely on-brand for both.
3My Little Pony/Transformers
James Asmus, Ian Flynn, Tony Fleecs and Jack Lawrence
The comic book industry has a long history of honoring classic toy-based properties, often combining similar franchises likeTransformersandGI Joe. Perhaps the most unexpected of these isMy Little Pony/Transformers, which follows the Cybertronian machines arriving in the Pony world after Queen Chrysalis accidentally messes with a spacebridge. With the evil Decepticons attempting to establish dominance, Optimus and his friends join forces with the kindhearted Ponies.
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The crossover between Transformers and My Little Pony represents something of a clash of cultures, bringing together what were considered the peak of boys and girls' toys from the ’80s.Not only did the series capitalize on the unexpected surge in popularity of the Pony franchise during the 2010s, it also succeeds in threading the needle between two almost perfect opposite universes.
2Archie vs Predator
Alex DeCampi and Fernando Ruiz
Archie vs Predatorfollows Archie and the gang on vacation in Costa Rica. While there, Betty and Veronica inadvertently trigger the attention of a Predator. After slashing his way through other bystanders, the Yautja pursues Archie and friends back to Riverdale. With the aid of the military, the gang get roped into an attempt to bait their enemy, with Jughead being used as bait. However, when the alien hunter overpowers his would-be captors, he begins killing off the Riverdale gang – all fueled by a crush on Betty.
Archie vs Predatoris one of the best cases of two completely mismatched franchises actually working in a crossover, despite all common sense suggesting otherwise.With a bizarre ending, the series suspends all disbelief for fans of either universe, giving readers the strangest story of its decade.
1Superman Meets the Quik Bunny
Mike Carlin, Carmine Infantino and Dick Giordano
Comic book crossovers as a means of advertising is nothing new in comics, and few stories are as great an example of this as the Man of Steel’s crossover with the Quik Bunny. Designed to improve brand awareness of Nesquik, while capitalizing on the love young readers had for cereal mascots, the story is one of Superman’s strangest to date.
