Will New Crossovers Keep It Fresh?
By Dan Brown Incoming! A new batch of DC/Marvel collaborations begins landing in comic stores this month. As old comic fans like me well know, crossovers are an age-old marketing tradition. The question is: Can the combined talent of comicdom’s two industry leaders make them feel fresh and exciting in 2025? The collabs, one published by each company, were announced in February. L.A. Mood’s Matt Finch alerted me they were in the pipeline because he knew I would remember the ones from the 1970s and onward. Those stories take place out of regular continuity. That allows the legal wall between DC and Marvel to be torn down, the result being Superman can team up with Spider-Man, the New Teen Titans with the X-Men, Batman with the Hulk, and so on. Crossovers were once rare, momentous events. When I cast my mind back to the 1970s, I still remember being stunned at the sight of the Man of Steel and Spidey squaring off on the cover of the same comic. Although I was just a dumb kid, I understood this was something special that didn’t happen every month. That’s probably why I grabbed every crossover – typically printed in a larger format – that came my way. Since these special issues sold so well, they quickly evolved into a cottage industry within the larger comics business, and as more independent publishers popped up, those new players tried to grab a piece of the action. Batman has co-starred with Judge Dredd. Archie met the Predator once. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have taken on Flaming Carrot. Flash-forward to this year, and Godzilla seems to be omnipresent in comics, breathing fire and stomping skyscrapers in every publisher’s imaginative universe. Crossovers represent an extension of the idea of continuity: If every Marvel superhero exists in the same metaverse together, why can’t they exist alongside DC’s stable of stars as well, at least temporarily? The first of the new books will see Deadpool face off against the Dark Knight, with backup stories combining Daredevil and Wonder Woman, and Krypto and Jeff the Land Shark, in the same volume. Along those lines, this summer I found an old Wizard magazine from 1994 in a second-hand bookstore. Among the then-current industry news was a brief touting an upcoming Batman/Punisher outing. That’s how ubiquitous they became. It was from those earlier crossovers that I was first introduced to such characters as the Jack Kirby-created baddie Darkseid. (Lord knows I love Walter Simonson’s art, but how did George Perez not get the assignment when the Titans met the X-Men in 1982?) So that particular volume was instrumental in introducing each company’s fans to the other’s lineup of characters. Crossovers became a way of cross-pollinating different fandoms. Those who loved both of this summer’s big-screen superhero outings – Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps – may be surprised to learn that Supes was, like the Silver Surfer, once a herald of Marvel planet-eater Galactus. Yep, it happened in 1999’s Superman/Fantastic Four: The Infinite Destruction, one of the best dual efforts from back in the day. Speaking of the movies, if it’s really true that audiences are finally tiring of superhero stories, how long will it be before one of the big brains in Hollywood suggests using the same strategy on the silver screen that has worked in comics? Isn’t that the logical next step – putting unlikely heroes beside each other to sell movie tickets? I’m betting it’s only a matter of time. If the Alien and the Predator can slug it out, why not put DC heroes and Marvel’s finest beside one another in a motion picture? Indeed, how long until a single mega-company – think Disney – assembles all the characters it owns from different media in the same movie adventure? Admit it: You love the idea of Luke Skywalker partnering with Tony Stark to fight the combined villainy of Darth Vader and Doctor Doom! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Supes Mag Sets Stage for Movie
By Dan Brown It’s all about Superman this week. The new James Gunn-directed Supes big-screen adaptation lands in theatres Friday and I have some thoughts. One of the things I’ve been reading in the run-up to July 11 is DC Comics Presents Superman, a magazine-size publication that presents “the official comic book stories that inspired the new movie.” Included in the larger format are All-Star Superman #1, Superman For All Seasons #1, and Lex Luthor: Man of Steel # 1. Each presents a different interpretation of the character from Krypton. All-Star Superman is a what-if scenario from 2005 in which Clark Kent reveals his secret identity to intrepid reporter Lois Lane as he faces his own mortality. “All-Star Superman is the thing that we borrow the most heavily from,” Gunn has said. In Superman For All Seasons (the “spring” instalment, which came out in 1998), a high-school-age Clark must confront the fact he’s not like other teens – the scissors break when Smallville’s barber tries to cut his hair; then, he is lifted off the ground by a tornado that hits the town, yet he doesn’t suffer any injuries. He knows something is up. Lex Luthor: Man of Steel, from 2005, explores the motivation of Superman’s nemesis. For a Superman story to really work, I think, Lex has to be relatable on some level, and tech billionaires aren’t exactly looked upon warmly these days. The promo magazine is a good introduction to the character’s many incarnations down through the decades. It also carries on a long tradition. When modern Superman movies started appearing in 1978, DC released all kinds of supplementary material to create buzz and give fans a look behind the scenes at the making of the motion picture that aimed to make moviegoers believe a man could fly. The internet serves the same purpose today. In recent months DC has also put out any number of versions of 1938’s Action Comics # 1, in which the Man of Tomorrow made his first appearance – he could only leap over tall buildings at that point, full-on flying wouldn’t come for a while. So there’s a large-format version of the debut issue, a version with a foil cover, et cetera. The one reboot of Superman’s origin that seems to get no love from Hollywood is the one I am most familiar with. In 1986, DC wooed sometime Canadian John Byrne away from Marvel, where he had established himself as the hottest comic creator in the industry with long runs on Uncanny X-Men and Fantastic Four. DC was in the process of restarting its continuity after the Crisis on Infinite Earths maxiseries. So Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli did the trick with Batman: Year One, while Byrne got the assignment for Superman. This led to my favourite Supes story of all time, 1987’s Superman No. 2, in which Lex Luthor invents a computer so powerful that it successfully identifies Clark Kent as Superman. But Luthor ignores the answer. This strikes me as the perfect interpretation of the villain: If there was a Lex Luthor, he would be able to create a machine capable of unmasking Superman. And if there was a Lex Luthor, he would be so egotistical he would not accept the truth that a milquetoast newspaper reporter secretly has the power of Superman. As for the new movie, I’m not sure what to expect. They’ve been marketing the heck out of it, but the fact they have focused in trailers on Krypto, Superman’s dog, makes me wonder. Also, much of the online chatter has been about Gunn’s brave decision to give the Superman costume trunks. Those might not be promising signs. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
