It’s been a long time coming, but the DC/Marvel crossovers are back… and may just be hanging around a while!
As first reported here at MajorSpoilers.com, come September this year, we’ll get to read the Deadpool/Batman one-shot (from Marvel) followed by the Batman/Deadpool one-shot (from DC) arriving in November.
Here’s the description provided:
>>It’s the crossover you never expected but always wanted! Deadpool and Batman cross swords and batarangs as Marvel and DC unite for the first time in decades! Wade Wilson has been hired for a job in Gotham City, but will the World’s Greatest Detective help him or destroy him?<<
Zeb Wells will be scripting the Marvel one (with Greg Capullo art), and Grant Morrison is writing the DC book. Here’s what each had to say:
>>“After writing Amazing Spider-Man for 60 issues, I told Marvel I needed a break. Marvel told me I could do that, or I could write a comic starring Deadpool and Batman with the best Batman artist of our generation. I no longer needed a break,” Wells shared in an interview with Entertainment Weekly. “In Batman we’ve found someone who has even less time for Deadpool’s antics than Wolverine, but a city-wide threat from the Joker makes strange bedfellows (literally, if Deadpool had his way). It’s been a blast letting Deadpool loose in Gotham City and watching what happens.”<<
>>“I don’t do many comics these days, but there was no way I could turn down the chance to work with Dan Mora again, one of my all-time favourite artistic collaborators—and definitely no way I could turn down Batman and Deadpool!” said Grant Morrison. “Expect 4th wall busting mayhem, owls, blood, blades, and at least one giant typewriter!”<<
This is quite the big deal, but before I give my take on it all, Major Spoilers has more thoughts on this announcement on this week’s Major Spoilers Podcast Pre-Show, a Patreon exclusive! Be sure to check out what they had to say before proceeding with my thoughts below!
Honestly, the comics industry needs this kind of thing to happen, and to take place for a while, at least! Whenever DC and Marvel work together, it gets everyone’s attention, so I hope this is only the first of many events like it!
It’s a no-brainer for DC to lead with Batman, their most popular (or at least, most used) hero. We’ve seen him used several times in these Marvel/DC crossovers, from Batman/Hulk to two Batman/Spider-Man events, followed by the Dark Knight’s interactions with Captain America in the JLA/Avengers crossover. (I’m still hoping to see Batman work with Daredevil more at some point, but we’ll see.)
Batman is known for his strategic thinking and his ability to outmaneuver the bad guys both when he has time to prepare and when he has to figure things out on the fly. He’s the good guy that, if we really worked hard to make it happen, we could possibly reach the level he’s been at for a long time. I mean, none of us was born on Krypton or are part of the royal lineage of an underseas kingdom, so being a hero like that is not possible–except in the comics.
Batman was my entryway into comics, and I identified with him because his last name was my first name. I was introduced to comics when I opened an annual that showed him gliding around a castle in England to protect it. As Frank Miller once described it, I opened the book and “fell in,” and thus my interest in comics began.
Granted, my exposure to Deadpool isn’t on the same level as it has been for Batman, so teaming him up with the Dark Knight isn’t quite as attention-grabbing as the Spidey team-ups were. Still, Deadpool has been an accomplished name when it comes to movies. That’s also an area Batman has been busy in for a long time, so I can see them meeting up along those lines—at least perhaps appealing to more than comics fans.
I’m concerned about how these two will interact. Yes, Batman is much quieter and more focused than the guy known for saying lines like “hankerin’ for a spankerin’” and the like. When it comes to how they approach crimefighting, in my mind, Deadpool is more like Dick Grayson/Robin/Nightwing or Spider-Man than he is like Batman. That will make their interactions a challenge for both creative teams to do something new and different.
Then, too, I will be disappointed if the storylines in both one-shots follow a very “expected” plot, including the Joker hiring Deadpool to take out Batman, something the Clown Prince of Crime has often said he would not do, saying over and over that he prefers to take down Batman himself. I hope they will take a more unique angle on how they meet up.
Also, they can’t do what happened with Batman and Cap met. They spent several minutes sizing each other up before they realized that they were not the real enemies, so they should work together. I do have to give credit to Kurt Busiek for highlighting the similarities those two heroes have gone through, from Cap’s experience with Bucky and Batman’s loss of partners in the past. That touched me!
But they really can’t be too silly, either! When the Joker and Batman ended up laughing together at the end of the Killing Joke event, that didn’t work for me. These two books will have to walk a tightrope in order to make these books as classic as, say, the Superman/Spidey ones have been! They have to really hit a home run, to use a baseball analogy!
Grant Morrison’s time on the Dark Knight has been good at that, and his mention of including a “giant typewriter” gives me hope he will make Batman’s history be something strong to draw on instead of something to be ignored!
The worst thing that could happen would be these one-shots being released to very little interest among the fans. If sales numbers aren’t very good, we can be sure that this will be the very LAST Marvel/DC crossover we’ll see, at least for quite some time.
I’m optimistic that this will indeed be something that will help bolster the comics industry. Even the brief quotes from just a couple of the creators listed above makes me sure they won’t just “phone in” a story, but instead they will turn out stories that the artists will enjoy rendering and fans will want to buy and read much more of!
What do you think? Is this the first of several crossover events? Was this a wise choice when it comes to fan interest? What would you like to see take place moving forward? Whatever your opinion, be sure to share it in the space below!
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Wayne Hall creates the Wayne's Comics Podcast. He’s interviewed Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, John Layman, Kyle Higgins, Phil Hester, Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, David Petersen, Christos Gage, Mike Grell, and Matt Kindt. On this site each week, he writes his "Comics Portal" column (general comics comments and previews) and reviews comics.
6 Comments
I do think the comic book industry needs to at least try this. After everything going on with Diamond and beyond, it’s been a rough year for comics. Comics need a win. And this does feel like it could be a slam dunk.
This particular pairing is fine. It’s arguably two of their biggest, most recognizable characters. It’s got appeal to comics fans and the more casual movie-goers. It’s not the most inspired pairing ever, but it makes sense to start with your headliners.
Although, I will say, I’m not entirely convinced that the casual movie-goers will actually realize that this is something “special”. Even with the huge success of comic book movies over the past few decades, I feel like most casual fans still see these guys as “comic book characters. Not “DC” or “Marvel” characters. I feel like there’s still some confusion among the casual audience that these are even two separate worlds. So, as popular as both Batman and Deadpool are, I’m not sure if casual audiences will necessarily come running when they cross over. If only because they might assume this is something that happens all the time.
But, I do think the hardcore comic fans will likely show up for this. It’s been over 20 years since the last DC/Marvel crossover. I don’t think we’ve gotten one since JLA/Avengers. I think comic fans are hungry for this.
But, I do worry about the second one selling less than the first one. I could see there being a bit of a drop off. If only because, I think these are kind of confusingly titled. I get what they were going for. It’s cute. But, I really wish they would have either numbered these one-shots, or given them different subtitles. Because, I could even see some comic fans thinking “Oh, I already picked up that one” when the second one comes out. One being Deadpool/Batman and the other one being Batman/Deadpool feels like it’s unnecessarily confusing. It’s probably a good thing they’re waiting a month or so between the one-shots coming out to release another one, but I could still see some confusion happening.
But, I do think the stories here could actually be good. More “fun-good” than “deep-good”, but it’s a crossover, and that’s fine. With Deadpool involved, I am expecting these one-shots to lean more into the comedy than the drama or pathos. Deadpool can bring the feels, but he works better as a comic foil. And this is the first crossover for DC and Marvel in 20 years, having it be more of a fun celebration, rather than a deep character study makes sense. Deadpool is kind of a “heroic Joker”. So, there’s stuff they could play around with that. I could see Deadpool giving Batman “fake” thought-captions to mock him. They’ve gotten good creative teams for these books, Grant Morrison’s involvement alone has me a believer that these stories could be a little more interesting than we might think.
But, that’s another thing. How long are these stories actually going to be? Because we’ve actually gotten a few different creative teams for these books. I’m thinking we’re going to get one main 20 page story, and then other creative teams will get to do 1 to 10 page backup stories. That’s going to give these books more of a anthology feel. And anthologies historically don’t sell all that well. And one or two “duds” can kind of drag the whole book down. But, I get the feeling a lot of creative teams wanted to play with these characters. So, they wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to play. I can’t blame them too much for that.
But, I think regardless of how this sells, we’re almost guaranteed to get two or three more sets of these crossovers. Negotiating the contracts to make this happen behind the scenes was probably a huge, complicated process. So, they probably approved a handful of them before they even announced it. So, even if this sells poorly, I would think we’re almost guaranteed to get a few more of these. It’s probably easier to let them come out, rather than to try to stop them. They’re probably already being written and drawn as we speak. We’re almost guaranteed to get ones for Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, the X-Men, and maybe even a few others.
But, one thing that I think of that could hurt the sales of the comic is the price tag. These are likely going to be $10 comics. If not more. I could see some people being interested in these, but being put off by the high price tag. Especially in these times. I really wish they could have found a way to make them closer to $5, at least. At least in order to get more people into the shops. I feel like the comic publishers and shops want this to sell “Death of Superman” levels of comics. And I could see the price tag kind of being a hindrance to that.
I also feel like there’s a bit of a “fatigue” problem, in a few ways. One, the superhero movie fatigue seems to be real. And superhero movies just aren’t the draw they used to be. At least not at the 1 Billion dollar level they used to be. So, I’m not sure if the casual audience is even all that “hungry” for a crossover between characters, even if they like both of them.
And for the comic fans, I wonder if there’s actually a bit of a “crossover fatigue”. Because, while DC and Marvel haven’t crossed over with each other in years, that doesn’t mean crossovers ever stopped coming out. Crossovers never went away, they just got more random, and crazier, and more obscure. We’ve gotten Green Lantern/Star Trek, Tarzan/Planet of the Apes, Power Rangers/TMNT, He-Man/Thundercats. There’s Avengers/Aliens, TMNT/Naruto, Thundercats/Powerpuff GIrls, and Justice League/Godzilla/Kong all happening RIGHT NOW! Crossover fans have been eating GOOD, since DC and Marvel took a break from each other. So, DC and Marvel crossing over again is nice but….I can’t help feeling like it’s a little “vanilla”. It’s two superheroes crossing over with each other. They don’t really bring anything new or different to each other’s tables, the way some of these other franchises do. We’ve kind of been spoiled with crossovers, really. So, I do wonder if comic fans are really as hungry for crossover stories as some people think they are.
And another problem is that these crossovers just won’t “count”. Because they can’t really. And comics set in other universes or ones that don’t build up to a bigger story just don’t tend to sell as well as those that do. Comic fans like stories in-continuity so that they can be used to build things. And, just due to the nature of these things, these crossovers can’t really do that. So, that means, even some comic fans just won’t be all that interested.
So, I’m obviously a little split. I might seem like I’m leaning negative, but I’m really not. I am actually looking forward to checking at least a few of these out. But, I can’t say I’m down to buy ALL of them, depending on how many there actually are. I do hope this is a success for comic shops. Because after all the Diamond stuff, I do feel the shops need a win. I’m just not totally convinced that this is the silver bullet some people think it could be.
There is a lot of potential for cross-company team-ups. Off the top of my head, Spiderman/Nightwing, Captain Marvel/Wonderwoman, and Green Lantern/Nova.