Static Thoughts - DCAU Crossovers

So, this past Wednesday CW’s Arrow featured a one-off crossover with the cancelled Matt Ryan Constantine show in an episode called Haunted.  The episode was decent enough with most of the fun coming from just how gung-ho Matt Ryan was to both play John Constantine again and get to do all kinds of wizard shenanigans that he never got to sink his teeth into enough on his own show.  However, the episode got me thinking about the idea of crossovers in general, with a specific lens for the superhero genre.  Crossovers in superhero stories are as old as the genre itself mainly because “superhero” as a genre is so vague and open that it tends to absorb a ton of broader genres such as fantasy, adventure, sci-fi, and horror into it.  At the same time, crossovers have always been a great way for superhero TV to expand its world and test more obscure and bizarre characters who might not have found an audience otherwise.  The best example of this is from the DC Animated Universe that started with Batman: The Animated Series and concluded with the massive Justice League Unlimited, which included almost every DC hero imaginable (even Aztek got in there.)  I’m ranking the individual crossovers from the Batman and Superman shows. 

BATMAN – ZATANNA

‘Zatanna’ is one of the stranger crossovers to ever pop up in the DC animated universe, mainly owing to how underutilized Zatanna is.  In the comics the backwards speaking sorceress has always had a relationship with Batman and it’s cool that translates over to the TV show but in this episode, for some reason, she doesn’t seem to have her mystic powers.  She’s still a stage magician, which I like, and basically just having an adventure with her and Batman roped into a world of stage magic heists in the vein of Now You See Me is a pretty fun pitch, it’s just a little weird the show would go through all the effort of bringing in both Zatanna and her father Zatara without giving them the mystic powers that make them genuinely interesting.  At the time Batman TAS was starting to hit its middle years and was caught between episodes like this where the emphasis is on weird crime without a strict super villain and more fanciful super villain episodes like ‘Off Balance’ or ‘Fire From Olympus.’  As a result the episode is a bit of a disappointment as the main selling point ends up the flashbacks to Bruce’s training while the central action of the story is pretty lackluster. 

BATMAN – SHOWDOWN

Here’s another early oddity that I’m not even sure counts as a full on crossover as Batman never actually teams up with the guest star hero.  Said hero is Jonah Hex, hands down DC’s most successful western hero.  One of the strange things about DC compared to Marvel is that because they persisted through most of the ‘40s and ‘50s they collected a greater collection of classically popular ideals of masculinity.  Marvel may have embodied the trends of the ‘60s with teen heroes and super spies but DC was old school complete with heroic G.I.s, cowboys, and spacemen.  Jonah Hex is the most amoral of that bunch as you might remember from his disastrous film a few years back.  He was a confederate soldier turned bounty hunter in the old west after suffering a horrific disfigurement in a story that was never told.  All of that still holds in ‘Showdown,’ which is the story of an aging Jonah Hex coming out of retirement for one last job to stop Ras Al Ghul, who was trying to put together a more steampunk version of Columbia from Bioshock Infinite.  Even though this episode doesn’t feature a full on crossover between Jonah Hex and Batman it’s still pretty great and is one of the few steampunk old west stories to actually work, mainly because the sci-fi elements are kept to a relative minimum.  Also it features voice work by David Warner and Malcolm McDowell so there’s plenty of talent here. 

SUPERMAN – THE MAIN MAN

Again, this may not technically count as a crossover as Lobo has been a villain in plenty of adaptations but by the same token he ultimately ends up a hero by the end of the episode so I’m fine with counting this one.  Lobo, in case you don’t know, is an alien bounty hunter who was created as an amazingly obnoxious parody of ‘80s machismo and Wolverine especially.  He’s actually a lot like the character Deadpool only his wallow in immature pleasures (that’s not a slam just the truth) is more self aware and there are less fourth wall breaking jokes though there are a few, like how he can smoke a cigar in the vacuum of space because he’s just that manly.  For a character as faux-mature as Lobo, all about blood and boobs and swearing, he actually translates to kid’s animation incredibly well, mainly because he was already super cartoonish to begin with.  The episode, a two-parter, is also kind of noteworthy for featuring what would become a reoccurring trend in the DC animated universe: a Marvel rip-off.  The plot revolves around “the Preserver” an alien who collects rare and endangered species and has set his sights on both Superman, the last Kryptonian, and Lobo, the last Czarnian.  The Preserver is a pretty transparent rip-off of the Marvel character the Collector, who appeared briefly in Guardians of the Galaxy.  Still, this is a fun episode and having Superman take ownership of the Preserver’s animals after defeating him as a way to fill up the fortress of solitude with cool shit was a smart idea.   

SUPERMAN – SPEED DEMONS

Alright, here we go, THIS is a crossover.  In this episode Superman and the Flash get together to race around the globe for charity, a plot ripped directly from the comics.  Of course things in the race go inevitably wrong when Weather Wizard, played by Miguel Ferrer reprising the role from the failed live action Justice League, shows up to cause trouble.  It’s sort of strange how the show just sort of drops the Flash into the proceedings with almost no explanation, the best we get is Lois mentioning that “this guy from Central City is pretty fast” with exactly no information beyond that.  Still, it’s great seeing him and Superman interact, especially with how humorless Superman is in the show compared to Flash’s incredibly jokey persona.  This was right at the height of the Wally West era in the comics when Flash was one of the most comedic heroes on the beat and that really shows in the translation.  As far as direct translations of comic to screen this is one of the best adaptations you can find and Ferrer’s voice work on Weather Wizard is a great addition to the fun. 

BATMAN/SUPERMAN – WORLD’S FINEST

As soon as DC started producing new Batman adventures in conjunction with their hit Superman animated show a crossover was pretty much inevitable but damn if World’s Finest isn’t one of the best Superman/Batman stories out there.  Like most Batman/Superman initial crossovers the writers hit upon the immediate connection between the two being Wayne Enterprises and Lex Corp, with Bruce Wayne rolling into Metropolis to negotiate his joint Lex Corp venture while also searching for the Joker.  Throwing the Joker into the story was also a pretty good call sense it affords Clancy Brown’s Lex Luthor and Mark Hamill’s Joker plenty of opportunities to spar with each other.  The basic plot is actually shockingly similar to Dark Knight, with Joker hiring himself out to Luthor to kill Superman with a bunch of stolen Kryptonite only to inevitably turn on Luthor because he’s a murderous lunatic who has never once successfully not turned on an employer.  The whole thing is basically an excuse to throw Batman and Superman together against their most recognizable foes and it works like gangbusters, especially because they don’t end up showing too much favoritism one or another.  They don’t even resort to any tired “misunderstanding and fight” nonsense between the two, they just meet up, verbally spar a little bit then get down to the business of justice, though there is an incredibly amusing running gag about Batman going through dozens of flying machines while trying to keep up with Superman. 

SUPERMAN – HAND OF FATE

Of the many Superman: TAS crossovers ‘The Hand of Fate’ is probably the least.  The basic pitch is pretty awesome; some freaky mystic doodad has popped up at a Metropolis museum and summoned Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the veil of time and space so Superman goes to ask Dr. Fate, DC’s most powerful sorcerer, for help.  Things fall apart with Dr. Fate himself, who has never really been used right in the animated shows.  Dr. Fate is an awesome character, a remnant of DC’s Golden Age in the ‘40s and one of the best visual designs out there but he generally seems to have difficulty translating outside the comics, mainly due to how powerful he is.  In canon he’s one of the most powerful DC heroes, able to stand against cosmic level beings like Darkseid or the Spectre, so whenever he’s included in TV shows his abilities have to be downgraded or else he’d just solve everything in two seconds.  In the case of The Hand of Fate not only are his abilities diminished he also has the Spawn-esc wrinkle of not wanting to get involved in the struggles of good and evil.  Seriously, for most of the episode he just sits in his tower because he’s sick of this whole “superhero” thing and just wants to quietly read at home.  It’s a pretty disappointing use of the character and how easily he gets beaten up when he does come out of retirement is a major disappointment. 

SUPERMAN – HEAVY METAL

Talk about a seriously ‘90s crossover episode, Heavy Metal’s co-star is Steel, the comic book world’s answer to the question “what if War Machine was also Superman?”  In all seriousness Steel is a pretty great character, a scientist who developed an Iron Man style armor and modeled it after Superman after being saved by him and carries a hammer because his name is John Henry Irons.  In the show Michael Dorn of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame voices Steel, though he’s an incredibly prolific voice actor in his own right.  Actually the Star Trek connection is kind of funny because the villain this episode, Metallo, is voiced by Malcolm McDowell who was also featured as the villain in Star Trek Generations.  It’s a fun episode that mainly revolves around Steel fighting off Metallo while Superman recovers from kryptonite poisoning and the fact that John Henry Irons had appeared previously on the show gave things a nice sense of continuity. 

SUPERMAN – APOKOLIPS…NOW

‘Apokolips…Now’ is one of the greatest episodes of the Superman: TAS and one of the best stories ever told with the DC roster of characters.  The 2-part story introduced the Fourth World of Jack Kirby’s New Gods into the DC animated universe in spectacular style, bringing the majesty and splendor of the mythos to life in a dizzying way.  The story is your fairly basic alien invasion tale with the added wrinkle being that the good and bad alien invaders happen to be sentient platonic forms of base ideas of good and evil.  The good side, represented by the New Gods of New Genesis and the cosmic soldier God Orion, contact Superman that Earth has been targeted by their mortal enemies, the dark gods of Apokolips and their leader Darkseid.  Darkseid lives to conquer and bend life to his will and now he’s targeted the Earth.  It’s a gripping tale of courage, humanity, alien invasion and sacrifice that features some of the most emotional storytelling of the entire DC pantheon, a true testament to what can be accomplished through animation and content.  It also featured the incredible Michael Ironside as the voice of Darkseid who is just incredible, lending the role a terrifying gravitas that has never been matched.  If you’re going to watch any of these crossovers make it this one. 

BATMAN – THE DEMON WITHIN

Of all the crossovers on this list Demon Within has the most in common with the Arrow/Constantine crossover as they both revolve around a fairly base level vigilante hero teaming up with their wizard friend.  In the case of The Demon Within the story features another Jack Kirby creation: Etrigan, the demon.  Etrigan is a powerful demon of Hell that was called into the world and bound to the Arthurian knight Jason Blood by the sorcerer Merlin in the last days of Camelot.  This story features him going toe-to-toe with his central antagonist from the classic Kirby comics the Witch Boy, a child-like male witch whose origins stretch back to the Salem Witch Trials.  This is a fun episode even if it does revolve around Etrigan being split from Blood and forced to do the Witch Boy’s bidding so there’s not much “teaming up” involved.  Still, Blood’s wizardry is pretty cool and seeing the Demon in action is very fun, especially since it was rare to see the Batman show broach the subject of magic. 

SUPERMAN – KNIGHT TIME

This one is technically another Superman/Batman team-up but really it’s more of a Superman/Robin story.  Robin on The New Batman Adventures was always a strange part of the story, mainly because Dick Grayson had been swapped out between seasons and Tim Drake was now in the driver’s seat.  What’s more, even though Tim Drake was the name behind the mask his origin and demeanor was more of an amalgam of all three Robins.  He’s named Tim Drake but his diminutive size and rambunctious nature makes him seem more like Silver Age Dick Grayson while his origins as an orphan of crime and the mean streets of Gotham is straight out of Jason Todd’s history. 

Despite all the weird combinations at hand animated Tim Drake ended up a good addition and really found his feet, especially with this episode.  The story is that Batman has mysteriously gone missing so while Batgirl and Nightwing search for him overseas Superman shows up in Gotham and ends up taking on the cape and cowl to try and restore a little order.  It’s a blast seeing the Man of Steel play at being Batman, especially when he has to take down Bane in a very fun mid-episode action scene.  It’s eventually revealed that the computer menace Brainiac was behind Bruce’s disappearance and together with Robin the two manage to defeat him and rescue Bruce. 

SUPERMAN – NEW KIDS IN TOWN

Another Brainiac episode though this one involves time travel.  A big part of the Superman mythos that rarely gets much discussion in the mainstream is the Legion of Superheroes, a future group of super humans and powerful aliens who banded together in the 31^st century to embody the principals Superman stood for in the present.  They were introduced as part of the Superboy era that ended up predominately excised from canon after the 1978 movie, with Superboy often going to the future to have adventures with the Legion though the team enjoyed a ton of success in their own right.  They were sort of like the X-Men of their day, to the point that the X-Men foes The Shiar Imperial Guard were directly modeled on the Legion.

In this story a trio of legionnaires must go back in time to Clark Kent’s adolescence to save the future Superman from annihilation at the hands of a time traveling Brainiac.  For a story that’s essentially Terminator but if Kyle Reese was 3 super powered teens this episode is pretty damn excellent and a good intro the Legion.  The heroes on hand are Cosmic Boy, the teams magneticly powered stoic leader, Saturn Girl, a strong willed psychic, and Chameleon Boy, a shape shifting goof ball, who all together make for a fun foil to young Clark Kent.  Incidentally young Clark is voiced by Will Friedle, who does a good job, but would go on to even greater acclaim as the voice of Batman Beyond. 

BATMAN – GIRL’S NIGHT OUT

As far as crossovers go I’m surprised this format hasn’t come up more often.  Both Batman and Superman are actually absent from this episode, leaving the team-up work to Batgirl and Supergirl, a couple characters that were enjoying a ton of popularity on the animated shows at the time though not quite as much in the comics.  The villain line-up is also pretty interesting, featuring a team-up between Superman’s electric foe Livewire and the Batman villain duo of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.  This actually means that of the 5 characters involved in this adventure only Supergirl and Poison Ivy were adapted from the comics, the rest all originated in television before emigrating to the comic mythos. 

Even without the strange collection of adaptation and crossover elements Girl’s Night Out is a fun episode, helped by how much Batgirl and Supergirl actually like each other.  It’s become sort of a standard approach lately to throw Superman and Batman at odds, with the two framed as ideological opposites if not outright enemies so it’s nice to have a Super/Bat crossover that isn’t marred by tedious one-upping and feuding.  This was right around the time DC was realizing female heroes had an audience as well, a trend that would go on to spawn the Birds of Prey live action show and the Gotham Girls web series and eventually result in recent comics like the Huntress/Powergirl team-up book or the incredibly funny DC Nation shorts Super Best Friends Forever. 

BATMAN – BEWARE THE CREEPER

The Creeper is one of those exceedingly strange characters that sticks around mainly because they’re just super weird.  Created by Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko, who himself was just a super weirdo that was majorly obsessed with bizarre Halloween visuals and other nonsense, Creeper is sort of like if the Joker and Spider-Man combined with a big dash of the Question in their as well.  In real life he’s Jack Ryder, an obnoxious reporter/talk show host who has the ability, for one reason or another, to transform into a giggling lemon yellow maniac with increased acrobatic skill and fighting prowess.  The hows and the whys of the Creeper’s powers have been never really been that important as he’s passed through about 3 different origins and really it’s the least interesting thing about him.  Creeper is a fun character more because he’s super weird looking, sporting yellow skin with a giant green fur boa, and his laugh can actually hurt people, also he’s just full on crazy.

Most of that plot makes its way into the Beware the Creeper episode.  They change a few things up with the Creeper’s origin now being tied into the Joker with Creeper’s powers coming from being dunked in the backwash of the same chemicals that created the Joker.  They don’t really explain why the chemicals give Creeper super agility and such but he’s fun and whacky and the episode is a good exercise in just how comedic the Batman: TAS could be when it put its mind to it. 

SUPERMAN – IN BRIGHTEST DAY…

Nowadays I have to assume most non-comic readers view the character of Green Lantern with at best an exasperated sigh and an eye roll, mainly owing to how weird and nonsensical his mythos really is.  It certainly doesn’t help that there’s never been a hard and firm adaptation of the character to resonate through the minds of popular culture.  The Justice League show gave us John Stewart Green Lantern, Batman: The Brave and the Bold was all about Guy Gardener, and the movie focused on Hal Jordan.  However, before all of those Green Lanterns there was Kyle Rayner on Superman: TAS, because there really needed to be 4 various adaptations. 

In all fairness ‘In Brightest Day…’ is honestly the best Green Lantern adaptation this side of the CGI show from a few years ago.  Kyle is a likable hero and the episode actually thinks of interesting things to do with Green Lantern archenemy Sinestro.  This is one of the few crossovers where it really feels like the spotlight is extended to Green Lantern as Superman spends most of the runtime around the margins of the story, taking us, the audience, through the world of the Green Lantern mythos while Kyle is allowed to figure out his ring and its power in his own time.  Also, since this is a one-off episode the animators are allowed to really cut loose with all the crazy constructs Kyle builds with his rings.  This is also the only Superman crossover episode that features the origin of a fellow hero instead of just having them appear, as if conjured from the ether. 

SUPERMAN – A FISH STORY

In one of the strangest crossover cases to appear the featured hero in this Superman episode is actually Aquaman and is played by Miguell Ferrer.  The Aquaman on hand is a very different take on the character than what most people might be familiar with, a harsher, stranger, more alien Aquaman.  He’s still wearing the standard orange and green costume but his physicality, his sallow skin and white hair, along with Ferrer’s flat affect make him an odd beast.  The premise is a pretty neat take on the character as well, with the idea being that “Aquaman” in this universe is sort of an urban legend among fishermen, a mysterious denizen of the deep whose true motives remain mysterious.  It’s eventually revealed Aquaman is the king of Atlantis and was actually kidnapped by Lex Luthor while on a diplomatic mission to the surface world to seek a solution to growing environmental devastation on the ocean floor.  Eventually Superman rescues him but things get tense as Luthor refuses to curtail is polluting ways.

The plot may sounds a shade short of Captain Planet fair but it works.  The animated universe always excelled at defining Luthor as an ideological opposite of Superman, someone who worked to corrupt and despoil rather than to protect and aspire so his plundering of the ocean depths manages to avoid feeling too comical.  What’s more the fact that Aquaman is a legitimate world leader with a deadly army at his disposal makes the stakes a lot higher, especially when the marvelously designed Atlantean fleet shows up at the end.  They later brought Aquaman and Atlantis into the Justice League show but for my money this was the best version of the character in the DCAU. 

SUPERMAN – THE DEMON REBORN

And so we come to the last and honestly best crossover of the early years of the DCAU.  It featured a major team-up of Batman and Superman for the second time ever and even gave us Ras Al Ghul and the League of Shadows as the villains.  Ras makes for a great foil to both heroes as he’s got history with Batman but his operations are global, making him a legitimate threat for Superman, a threat that’s compounded by his use and knowledge of eldritch magic.  The story is that Ras’ life sustaining Lazarus Pits have stopped repairing his body like they once did and now he’s searching for other means to prolong his life and has settled on a mystic shaman staff that will allow him to drain Superman’s raw life energy and vitality.  It’s a smart story that allows the writing to play on both heroes strengths, featuring them as a team as well as individual forces to be reckoned with without having to resort to more kryptonite to keep things interesting.  It’s also great to get Tim Dally Superman and David Warner Ras Al Ghul in a scene together as both men are easily the best actors in their respective roles. 

I do wish we could’ve gotten a little more of Ras’ opinions on Superman, given that an opening line between the two suggests he actually knows and almost respects Superman more than he’s letting on.  Ras has always been a multi-faceted character in the Bat mythos, flittering between greedy immortal mad men desperate for more life and crusading eco-terrorist out to save the planet from humanity so it’d be nice if he was afforded a firmer definition in this episode.  Still this is a great crossover, mainly because Batman and Superman had finally started finding common ground beyond their feud and really started complementing each other as characters.  This was also the penultimate episode of Superman the animated series so it makes sense it’d ultimately lead into the Justice League TV show a couple years later. 


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