Team ups, especially the unlikely team up variety, are the bread and butter of shared comic universes, leading to such wonderful moments as Predators murdering Reggie Mantle, Batman and Captain America fighting Nazis and the heart-warming spectacle of Beanish saving multiple universes while the superheroes stood by and cheered… For my money, team-ups have one rule: The weirder, the better! Tarzan and Predator? Sure! Batman and Malcolm Reynolds? Hit me! Stripperella and Tarot, Witch Of The Black Rose? As long as you’re over 18, why not? Indeed, some of the best crossovers are the ones that are the most inexplicable, like the legendary-but-entertaining ‘Archie Vs. Punisher’ one-shot of years past, leading to today’s motley and mismatched query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) rather enjoyed Captain America and Batman, in the midst of the ‘Marvel Vs. DC’ madness, serving as spokespeople for their respective universes, asking: What’s the most successful unlikely team up of all (real or theoretical?)
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George Lucas and Leonard Maltin are stranded on a desert island with nothing but coconuts and a working laptop with a torrented copy of Phantom Menace.
Dr Doom teaming up with Squirrel girl. Comedy gold.
Comics – I don’t know if it was really successful in general, but I really enjoyed the Spider-Man/Batman team-up that came out shortly before the Marvel vs DC event, and was even referenced in the pages of the Marvel vs DC story.
TV and Film – While it wasn’t exactly unlikely, the “Super Hero Taisen” films that had Super Sentai, Kamen Rider and Metal Heroes fight and team up took way too long to finally happen. Once they did, though, I was absolutely ecstatic with the results.
Video Games – Kingdom Hearts. I never dreamed they would have Final Fantasy cross over with Disney franchises, but I was pleasantly surprised by the games. Before I played any of the games, I thought it was the single stupidest idea for a game, but once I tried them I found them to be very fun and to have a fun take on familiar characters and ideas from both properties.
Though I do think the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem may quickly give Kingdom Hearts a run for my money once it is released in the US.
Aunt May (as herald of Galactus) and Franklin Richards in the Assistant Editor’s month issue of Marvel Team Up.
Ah, yes… Golden Oldie!
Revival and Chew. One’s a horror book and the other is a comedy. Stylistically this was very unlikely.
Another unlikely one was Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes. Not because the characters don’t fit in with each other so much as I didn’t think DC would let anyone else touch the Legion at that point. So business-wise unlikely.