Crossovers and tie in stories have long been a part of the comic book industry, and have
provided an intriguing way of telling an overarching story.
Usually, crossover events are big, with readers seeing some of their most beloved characters
get in on the action, or get affected by it.
So today, we’re taking a look at some of the most extreme cases, the ones that are
absurd and wild and a real good time, with our list of the top 10 craziest DC crossovers.
We’re going to be primarily looking at crossover events that occurred amongst DC characters,
but we do have a few odd crossovers including other comic properties (DC is known for having
a good time with others in their panels).
So with that in mind, let’s get to it!
10 Flash of Two Worlds By normal day standards, Flash of Two Worlds
is by no means crazy.
But back at the time, when it first came out, it blew readers minds.
It is, after all, the start of the DC multiverse, and arguably the concept of Multiverses in
mainstream comics in general.
It’s considered to be a landmark comic book, in which we first see Earth Two, and the concept
of a multiverse is introduced.
As the story goes, Carmine Infantino drew the cover to the famous issue, and Julius
Schwartz, the editor at the time, came up with the concept of introducing Earth two
as the home of all of DC’s golden age heroes.
The story sees the Silver Age Flash, Barry Allen, teaming up with golden age flash, Jay
Garrick.
It would spawn annual crossovers between the two words in Justice League of America comics,
which eventually led up to the major event Crisis on Infinite Earths.
9 Amalgam Universe Those of you familiar with our channel and
any of our alternate lists will recognize this crossover.
In 1996, DC versus Marvel was released; a cross over between the two industry giants
that featured various characters from each universe duking it out with one another.
Aquaman fought Namor.
The Flash fought Quicksilver.
Superman versus the Hulk.
Batman versus Captain America.
Wonder Woman versus Storm.
You get the idea.
The whole crossover led to a twelve issue crossover universe, referred to as the Amalgam
universe, in which we got to see Marvel and DC characters amalgamated together, like Dark
Claw, who was the combination of Batman and Wolverine.
Eventually, the universes are returned to normal by the end of the 12 issues.
8 Wonder Woman & the Bionic Woman This one definitely falls into the absurd
category.
So back in the late 70s, there used to be a television series called the Bionic Woman,
which was a spin off of another series from that era called the Six Million Dollar Man,
all about a man who had been turned into a cyborg thanks to an experimental surgery.
The Bionic Woman had a revival series back in 2007, but it didn’t do well, which makes
this crossover even more curious.
In 2012, a comic series came out from Dynamite Entertainment in which the Bionic Woman teamed
up with Linda Carter’s Wonder Woman of the 70s tv series.
It was called Wonder Woman 77 meets the Bionic Woman.
For those who grew up watching those two shows, there’s definitely novelty there, but the
strangest thing of all is the fact that this came out decades and decades after both those
characters had fallen out of the public eye significantly (the 70s tv series Wonder Woman
we mean, not the modern day Wonder Woman of the comics or the DCEU).
7 The Death of Superman Despite being my own personal most disliked
story event ever, the Death of superman contains a whole lot of crazy crap in it aside from
Superman dying, being resurrected, and DC ruining death in comics forever.
From 1992, this crossover event saw the man of steel going head to head with Doomsday
in Metropolis.
The two punch each other to death, literally, and everyone thinks Superman is dead.
We got to see a whole lot of issues from other comics in the DC universe featuring the reactions
of other character’s to Superman’s death.
In the aftermath, a bunch of false Superman imposters come out of the wood work, some
of which stir up a whole lot of trouble, including destroying Coast city, home of Green Lantern
Hal Jordan.
That then spawns a whole nightmare of a plot in which Hal Jordan uses his power ring to
try to reconstruct and resurrect the city, only for the Green Lantern corp to call him
out on misusing it, which leads to him going on a rampage and murdering them all.
Meanwhile, turns out Superman wasn’t dead, he was just in a Kryptonian coma which made
it look like he was dead.
The whole thing was very stupid and all over the place.
6 Batman Knigthfall In 1993, one of Batman’s most iconic moments
occurred in a crossover story event called Knightfall.
In it, Batman is struggling with burning out, and ends up losing badly to Bane, who manages
to break the hero’s back.
Batman has to sit out for a while, and because of this, an apprentice named Jean Paul Vallery
ends up taking up the mantle for him, but becomes really troublesome, abusing his power
and becoming increasingly violent.
It gets to the point where Valley is clearly unstable, and has trashed Batman’s reputation.
Eventually Batman is healed thanks to some paranormal fun times, but in the aftermath
of Knightfall, Bruce briefly passes the cowl down to Dick Grayson.
5 Harley & Ivy meet Betty and Veronica Sounds like a wacky concept, doesn’t it?
In this crossover, we see Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy swapping bodies with Archie Comic’s
Betty and Veronica.
The whole story is filled with shenanigans as the four characters pretend to carry on
as if everything is normal, all while trying to figure out how to reverse the body swap.
This goes down after Harley and Ivy try to stop Veronica Lodge’s father from destroying
a swamp located in Riverdale.
There’s a lot of other weird stuff that goes down in it, like Catwoman low key being
a mega fan of Josie and the Pussycats, Reggie Mantle believing that he is in fact the Joker
after suffering a head injury, and even some magic meddling from Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
4 Blackest Night Blackest Night occurred between 2009 and 2010,
written by Geoff Johns and penciled by Ivan Reis.
The story consists of a character named Nekron, who is death personified, going around and
reanimating dead superheroes as a means of eliminating all life and emotion in the universe.
The whole theme behind it was emotion, but what it’s most remembered for is it’s
zombified versions of various heroes and how utterly terrifying they looked.
Hal Jordan and the rest of the Green Lanterns end up battling the Black Lantern corps, who
are made up of all those that Nekron has resurrected.
There’s also a part in it in which Black Hand digs up Bruce Wayne’s skeleton as part
of a ritual, and he licks his skull.
It’s a fun time.
3 Milk Wars Milk Wars is a strange one.
It’s a crossover between DC’s prime timeline and their Young animal imprint, and came out
in 2018.
According to the creative team behind it, which includes My chemical Romance frontman
and Umbrella Academy creator Gerard Way, the inspiration for the series was how milk’s
wholesomeness could sometimes be a bad thing.
In this series, we see an omnipotent corporation called Retconn stealing stories and reconfiguring
them for new markets, who twists some of the most iconic DC characters into different versions
of themselves.
This includes Superman as a murderous milk man, Batman as a vigilante priest, and Wonder
Woman into Wonder Wife.
It’s revealed that Retconn’s plan is to take all of the DC universe heroes and make
them into their puppets, but when they don’t manage to secure a sale to a buyer, Retconn
attempts to refresh the DC universe entirely, wiping out the continuity.
Talk about meta.
2 Dark Nights Metal Another recent crossover event, Dark Nights
Metal, which was spearheaded by creative dream team Scott Synder and Greg Capullo, introduced
a crazy concept to the DC multiverse.
The Dark Multiverse – a place that was home to a bunch of negative earths in which terrible
things had happened, including the creation of a slew of corrupt Batman alternates.
From the Red Death, an amalgamated version of the Flash and Bruce Wayne, to the drowned,
a female version of Bruce Wayne who had bio-engineered herself to have Aquaman’s abilities and
rule Atlantis, there were a lot of scary possibilities that the Dark multiverse showed us.
The whole story line was that a demonic entity named Barbatos wanted to consume the regular
multiverse and destroy it, and it’s mission was led by a Batman alternate that’s arguably
one of the scariest DC creations to date.
We’re talking the Batman who laughs; the result of Batman killing the Joker and inhaling
the toxin released from his body.
That Batman goes insane, inheriting all of the Joker’s craziness and desire for chaos,
and ends up going on a massive killing spree, killing all of his allies, turning his robins
into rapid dogs on leshs, and murdering the Justice League before he heads on over to
pay Batman and the Justice League a visit.
His character was so popular that he’s even returned in his own solo series, tormenting
the Dark Knight some more.
1 Doomsday Clock Another recent crossover event (one that’s
actually still going at the time of this recording), Doomsday Clock is a DC crossover in which
the characters from the Watchmen Universe have been integrated into the prime continuity,
and it’s revealed that the creation of the New 52 reboot (or reset of the universe, rather)
was all thanks to Doctor Manhattan’s involvement.
The crossover is meant to be a sequel to the original Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons,
with the whole story beginning with Batman discovering the smiley face button in his
Batcave.
The Comedian has been brought back to life, there’s a new Rorschach working with Nite
Owl, and it’s all leading up to an assumed confrontation between Doctor Manhattan and
Superman.
Despite how absurd this all sounds, especially to Watchmen fans, the series has been getting
decent reviews so far.
There we have it friends!
Which of these do you think is the craziest crossover?
What other crossover events should we have included on this list?
Share your thoughts with us in those comments below!
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