Now that Lucasfilm is owned by Disney, some have speculated Star Wars might merge with the Marvel Universe. While this sounds unlikely, to be honest, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise either. Comic book publishers have a long history of creating outrageous crossovers – some of which were treated canonically at the time. Here are eight strange but real crossovers you’ll probably never see on the big screen.
Any ridiculous crossovers you think we missed? Share them in the comments!
Godzilla/Avengers
In the 1970s, Marvel Comics gained the license for Godzilla – and dropped him right into the heart of the Marvel Universe. The infamous Kaiju ended up wreaking havoc for two years and 24 issues, facing Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the full might of SHIELD. While the Avengers don’t discuss this era anymore, Godzilla’s presence certainly left its mark – not to mention the Red Ronin mech which is still a part of Marvel lore today.
Transformers/Spider-Man
Before the Autobots and Decepticons battled in the 1980s cartoons series, Transformers was a licensed Marvel Comics series. Optimus Prime, Megatron, Cybertron itself were established within the Marvel universe – including a brief meeting with Spider-Man himself. Hasbro eventually took Transformers in a non-Marvel direction, but seeing a team-up between the cinematic Avengers might not be so strange after all.
Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness
How did the Marvel Zombies plague nearly manage to destroy a world with so many superheroes? Marvel Zombies vs. Army of Darkness offered one answer: Ash Williams himself stumbled into the universe and botched almost every rescue attempt. Beyond the simply hilarious premise, its creators actually treated this as a canonical event in the Marvel Zombies timeline – even going so far as to cite it in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.
WildC.A.T.S: Aliens
When Warren Ellis needed to bring his Stormwatch series to a close and pave a path to The Authority, he cleaned house in the most dramatic way possible: Killing established characters using the Aliens Xenomorphs. When the dust settled, four superheroes had been murdered (two via chest-bursting larva) and the entire Stormwatch base was destroyed in the heart of the Sun. It even gave us a chance to see Xenomorphs displaying new superpowers of their own. Now let’s just hope Marvel doesn’t decide to drop the Aliens into Asgard for a repeat performance.
Archie Meets The Punisher
I don’t know what’s more impressive about Archie Meets The Punisher – that it brought two wildly different characters together, or remained authentic to their personas. The one-shot depicted Marvel’s infamous vigilante tracking a notorious criminal mastermind to Riverdale – one who bears an uncanny resemblance to Archie Andrews. Throw in gangsters infiltrating a Sock Hop dance and some “Betty or Veronica” drama, and somehow Archie Meets The Punisher authentically portrayed both characters without compromising their values. It’s too bad Archie Meets Predator couldn’t quite hit the same note.
Doctor Who/Star Trek: The Next Generation
Doctor Who and Star Trek have quite a bit of thematic overlap when it comes to optimism and human nature. So it was surprisingly fitting to see Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor bring his Tardis to The Next Generation‘s Enterprise and defeat a Borg/Cyberman alliance. The series even prominently featured the Battle of Wolf 359, along with a great “flashback” sequence where Tom Baker’s Doctor met the classic Enterprise crew. Sadly the Doctor returned to his own universe when the series ended, which explains why all that timeline damage went unchecked in the Abramsverse.
Infestation
Some comic book fans love coming up with outrageous fantasy team-ups. Infestation actually put them to print. This IDW event depicted characters from Star Trek, GI Joe, Transformers, and Ghostbusters trying to halt a zombie apocalypse breaking across dimensional boundaries. While the characters never interacted with each other, it’s still the standard for how many bizarre franchises can fit into a single crossover.
JLA/Avengers
The Justice League and Avengers are the greatest superhero teams of DC and Marvel Comics. How would they get along if they met? Kurt Busiek not only answered that question, he went a step farther by merging each universe into a single timeline. Of all the great moments that inspired, perhaps the best was Superman wielding Thor’s hammer and Captain America’s shield in a final cosmic battle to restore reality. If superhero cinematic universes ever get this convoluted, that moment alone would still be worth watching.
