Superman: 10 Mindblowing Comic Crossovers We'll Never See On Screen
The greatest superhero of them all, Superman, is finally set to return in on-screen adventures this year, with the Superman & Lois TV series beginning this month and Zack Snyder's Justice League Director's Cut due in March. At last, fans will see Superman in action once again, and it seems likely that the show at least will cover some popular Superman stories from the comics.
However, Superman has had many adventures and met many surprising names, and some are guaranteed not to appear on-screen anytime soon. Whether it's rights issues, being inappropriate for a modern audience, or just being too crazy to consider, most of these crazy crossovers will have to stay in the comic books.
10 Aliens
Ridley Scott's Alien is one of the all-time great movie monsters, and, in 1995, Dark Horse and DC collaborated to have several heroes fighting the xenomorphs, including Superman.
The setup sees Superman discovering a long-lost Kryptonian outpost, but, upon making it there, he finds it infested with xenomorphs. Worse still, with no yellow sun, Superman's powers slowly diminish, making the Aliens real threats. Dark Horse made this crossover work so well there are several sequels, including the epically-titled Superman & Batman Vs. Aliens & Predator.
9 Muhammad Ali
Superman has fought many enemies over the years, and, if those enemies attempt to physically attack him, they need to be superhumanly strong or have some powers. Therefore, a regular human boxer would surely struggle, even a great such as Muhammad Ali, but, in 1978, the two legends met and fought in the ring.
"Superman vs. Muhammad Ali" was made by the legendary Batman team of Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams and involves an alien war-fleet forcing the two men to a fight to decide the fate of Earth, with the twist that Superman is depowered by red solar radiation.
8 Spider-Man
Back in the 70s, after many years of rivalry which continues to this day, DC and Marvel finally agreed to collaborate on crossovers between their universes, and the first of which featured a team-up between Superman and Spider-Man.
It also featured a team-up between Lex Luthor and Dr. Otto Octavius/Doc Ock, who actually manage to trick the two heroes into fighting, which doesn't go well for Spider-Man after the red sun radiation Luthor uses on Superman wears off. Nowadays, there is less chance than ever of Spider-Man swinging back to Metropolis unless Disney buys Warner Bros.
7 Top Cat
Back in 2016, DC announced that it would be teaming up with Hanna Barbera to create a series of comics with more modern takes on various classic characters. It included some surprising crossovers, including Suicide Squad/Banana Splits and Deathstroke/Yogi Bear, but Superman's team-up with the king of the alley Top Cat was as compelling as it was odd.
According to the comic, it turns out that the vegetable kale is actually a sentient alien that doesn't take kindly to being eaten, and it's up to Superman and Wholesome Goods' worst employee Top Cat to stop the Kalien.
6 Nesquik Bunny
Superman has proven an apt character to mix with all types of bizarre characters, but perhaps no crossover was so weird as the time he met the Quik Bunny, the mascot of Nesquik milkshake.
The comic was a promotional made by DC and Nestle, and written by Mike Carlin, who helped push the first Marvel/DC crossovers and co-created the "Death of Superman" series. "Superman Meets The Quik Bunny" is a little more light-hearted, with the bunny and his Quik Qlub kids helping Superman to catch the Weather Wizard. It ends with a Quik drinking contest, of course.
5 Tarzan
Normally in a crossover story, the characters act the same they would in their own stories, so, ordinarily, Superman has his traditional outfit and his regular outfit. The story where he meets Tarzan changes reader expectations dramatically, as, in this Dark Horse comic series, it is actually Kal-El who is Lord of the Jungle.
The story sees Superman's pod crash in the jungle where he is raised by apes and becomes "Argozan." Tarzan, meanwhile, was raised by his real parents to be Lord Greystoke, and this is the circumstances in which they meet. By the end, their situations are reversed, except this time it is by choice, not chance.
4 The Terminator
The four-part story "Superman Versus Terminator: Death To The Future" from 2000 is one of the most epic crossover comics ever made. It starts with Sarah and John Connor barely escaping several Terminators with the aid of Superman.
While Superman is initially more powerful than the T-800s, the Cyborg Superman—who is already basically a Terminator himself—sends a message to the future to inform Skynet about Superman, and how to counter him. Skynet pulls Superman to the future, leaving the past undefended. The story builds to include Steel, Lex Luthor, Supergirl, Superboy, and even Terminator 3's T-X Terminatrix three years before the movie eventually came out.
3 Brady Bunch Kids
The Brady Kids was an animated spin-off of The Brady Bunch in the 70s made by Filmation, who also had the rights to produce DC Comics cartoons with the Superfriends show. The Brady Kids is probably most remembered for its notable crossovers, including Superman in the episode "Cindy's Super Friend."
Cindy Brady invites Clark Kent and Lois Lane to help paint their local bank only to find that the villain Wily Toulouse La Trick has replaced their paint with special invisible paint that allows him to rob it. The cartoon also featured the first-ever animated appearance of Wonder Woman.
2 He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe
He-Man has super-strength and a boy scout-like desire to help everyone, just like Superman, so it's not surprising that Masters of the Universe has crossed over to the DC universe several times, within several different continuities. The first was back in 1982 in a free comic that tied into the cartoon, which just featured Superman.
Later stories brought in other characters too, starting with 2013's "DC Universe vs Masters of the Universe," which tied directly into the comic continuity of both franchises at the time. 2019 brought the most recent crossover, where He-Man was brought to Earth to help deal with the evil Superman of the Injustice videogames, following on directly from the bad ending of Injustice 2.
1 The Fantastic Four
It took twenty years for Marvel and DC to start having comic crossovers again, and one of the most exciting was Superman meeting Marvel's first family The Fantastic Four in 1999. It begins with Superman discovering a message from his father Jor-El, who tells him that Krypton's destruction was actually the work of the world devourer Galactus.
After meeting with the Fantastic Four, they are attacked by the Cyborg Superman, who wants to become the new herald of Galactus. Cyborg Superman's inclusion is thematically perfect since the villain's origin as Hank Henshaw involved him and his astronaut crewmates being bathed in cosmic radiation, which was a direct reference to the Fantastic Four's comic book origin.
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