Has DC and Marvel ever talked about merging? Anybody think it might happen in the future?
DC and Marvel have done some notable crossovers in the past (somebody will be along with links in a moment, I know it ;)) but DCU and Marvel Earth are just way too different to ever be effectively merged.
They may merge into some overhead company for business reasons, but the comics themselves will probably stay apart.
In the far, far distant future when character copyrights expire… the characters from Marvel and DC might be used in an ongoing “team” or revived “universe” – similar to what Moore did with the late 19th century fictional characters in League of Extraordinaryy Gentlemen.
Now? No way.
No need to link to the crossovers, there’s been other threads about that.
My guess is that if the companies ever merged, their respective worlds would stay mostly separate for while, with more frequent crossovers than before though. But eventually, there’ll be a “Crisis On Infinite Earths” type thing to merge and maybe retcon them together.
See, I’m wondering if it can be done. Take the X-Men, for instance–how would you explain their superpowers in the DCU? Likewise, how would you insert the Justice League onto Marvel Earth?
DC has mutants. And a “metagene.” The X-Men would be no problem.
Both the Amalgam series and recent JLA Avengers crossovers gave us tantalizing glimpses how the two world could be combined. Here’s another.
I had an idea, years and years ago, for a mini-series called “Switch!” It begins with Superman and Spider-Man ending their respective patrols and going to bed with their wives and suddenly… waking up trapped in the other’s universe. It would be a summerlong, crossover in-continuity event as Spider-Man and Superman spent the summer in each other’s universe interacting with the different superheroes and fighting villains before the heroes discover and repair the universal anamoly that allows them to return “home.”
I got a lot of positive feedback from that and I have the scripts around here somewhere.
Post them somewhere, or email them–I’d love to read them!
That sounds kinda like what they did with Majestic, a Wildstorm character, ending up in the DCU and interacting with Superman for a while. To return the favor, DCU hero Captain Atom will be going to the Wildstorm Universe and making things happen over there! I’m also reminded of Mike Allred’s fun Superman/Madman Hullaballoo miniseries. Fun stuff!
DC Comics is owned by Time Warner. I imagine it would come down to whether or not they needed another business in the comic book world. It sounds like a strange combination, but I remember reading that when Comcast attempted to purchase Disney last year, there were a number of other possible suitors, Time Warner one of them. Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny under the same roof- that would be strange! But Superman and Spider-Man? Who knows?
I can give you guys the plot highlights of the first two issues because I never got around to finishing the whole thing. This was supposed to be a plot pitch for a major crossover so a left I lot of things in the middle deliberately vague for writers to springboard ideas.
I’d have to change a few plot details because of the JLAvengers, thing, but:
– Superman wakes up, scares the crap out of Mary Jane, (who cracks a baseball bat over his head and screams for Peter.) Superman flies out of the Parker’s apartment, inviting ridicule from New Yorkers because of his outfit and learns he’s in another reality. He learns about the Marvel Universe using telescopic and X-ray vision and secretly flying around and eventually seeks out the Avengers for help. Meets with Captain America and Iron Man who promise to help him find a way home. They are mightily skeptical of Superman’s claims to have class one thousand strength and treat him like the new kid on the block. Meanwhile an alarm comes out from the Daily Bugle: it’s receieved a bomb threat. Superman, eager to show what he can do, flies off at super-speed, crashes through a window at the Bugle, scares the crap out of the Bugle staff, ignores a bellowing J Jonah Jameson, uses his X-ray vision to search the building, locates the bomb in the parking garage in the basement of the Bugle in a newspaper delivery van, flies THROUGH the floors of the Bugle to get the van, flies it out over the Hudson, where it explodes. All before the Avengers can get there…
… Superman flies back to the Bugle expecting praise and no one is having it. The Avengers are pissed because of Superman’s actions effectively sidestepped the whole team, J Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson are furious because of the property destruction and Ben Urich is upset because Superman’s xrays damaged equipment and files. Superman explains he does this kind of thing all the time back in Metropolis and offers to fix things up in a jiffy at super-speed, but when he tries, Cap slaps him down and sends him back to the mansion literally to the showers. Superman is finally contrite when he leaves. When Iron Man asks what Cap thinks of him, Cap says, 'I’m not sure if he’s half the hero he thinks is. I know he has a lot to learn."
The issue ends with J. Jonah Jameson writing an expose on Superman. For the rest of this summer crossover, Superman’s on Jonah’s official shit list and that of many New Yorkers. He’s even less popular and less trusted than Spider-Man. Superman finds himself decidedly ill at ease.
– Spider-Man wakes up with his Spider-senses buzzing to find that Lois Lane calmly has a futuristic gun of some sort pressed against his head. Slowly, paitiently, she gets the story out him that he’s a superhero and from another world. She belives him, puts the gun away and takes it all in stride, unfazed. She’s Superman’s wife. She’s seen crazier things. He’s only mildly miffed that Superman is apparently off somewhere having another fun adventure.
She contacts J’onn J’onzz and she and Spider-Man head out to the nearest JLA teleporter somewhere in Metropolis with the intent on visiting the moon, where the JLA will be waiting. Spider-Man thinks this is all nuts until they get there. He’s astonished, marvelling and the sheer majesty and grandness of it all, swearing there’s nothing like this on his world… he’s excited and nervous to be about to meet the Justice League… when suddenly his Spider-sense make him move. He grabs Lois and jumps, just as part of the Watchtower explodes under him.
Enter a new DC supervillain group called The Brain Quintet: The Construct, the ultimate machine intelligence; Prometheus, who can duplicate the way anyone thinks and moves; Deathstroke, who can use 90% of his brainpower tactically; and Hector Hammond, who’s essentially a mass of psi-powers; and the Ultra-Humanite, whose evolved human/animal brain gives him the advantage of fully using his animal cunning and senses. They assault the Watchtower, handily defeating the Justice Leaguers minus Superman. Even the Batman falls as Prometheus sneers: “Batman? I’m prepared.”
The Ultra-Humanite is furious. “This victory means nothing without the defeat of Superman. I bet Luthor his Nobel Prize we’d have him in seconds! I even agreed to broadcast our assault!”
Deathstroke says: “…but we know the teleporter from Metropolis was activated so he should be here…”
Prometheus is cocky. “Something’s moving in the shadows… I’ll bet it’s him. I’ll bet he thinks he can surprise us.”
Construct: “Nothing about Superman can surprise us. I’m enfused with kryptonite metallurgical composition as well as red solar radiation.”
Hector Hammond: “Kryptonian! Prior to our coming here, I’ve memorized your thought patterns and most your public fights. I know your tactics and I’m sharing them telepathically with my whole team! We’re ready for anything you can think of… and we’ve thought of everything.”
Spider-Man: “Did you think of a switch?”
Leaping out of the shadows, Spider-Man puts an exciting beat down on The Brain Quintet while throwing out awesome quips and horrendous jokes left and right, utilizing dumb luck, scientific trivia and his awesome powers to defeat the assembled criminals. Moreover the fight is being televised live, so millions of people on Earth are watching these five super-villains get their asses handed to them by Spider-Man.
When the JLA are freed they make Spider-Man an honorary member immediately, offering him his own room in the Watchtower until they can figure out how to get him home. Moreover Lois Lane prints her eyewitess account of Spider-Man’s debut as well as Superman’s disappearance, endorsing Spider-Man to take over patrol of Metropolis until Superman returns! The public is excited and intrigued by the change of heroes and Spider-Man faces the unsettling prospect of being immensley popular, instantly respected and having good press and celebrity gossip written about him all the time. This too, goes on all summer.
Meanwhile, in Metropolis, deep within his corporate suite, Lex Luthor looks at at a large screen TV, watching the unfolding shift in the power balance and wonders how to turn Spider-Man to his advantage…
Yeah, my guess is that, if they ever merged, all you’d get is a different logo on the comic cover (maybe), and more frequent crossovers. At most, maybe you’d get a setup something like the “alternate history” shown in JLA/Avengers, where the two universes seemed to have semi-formalized relations.
One interesting spinoff I can imagine, though: “‘Ultimate’ Justice League.” Y’know, give it a brooding, violent, cynical reboot. Have an aging General (nee Sargeant) Rock (now modeled after Brock Peters) founding the UJL as a branch of the Human Defence Corps, or something. Eh?
Sounds cool, though a little close to some of the details from the 1981 Superman/Spider-Man crossover, in which Superman briefly moves to New York and Spider-Man to Metropolis.
Bryan Ekers. I made sure there are key differences. In that Jim Shooter story, Superman/Clark Kent went to New York and was the same bigshot he was in Metropolis and Spider-Man/Peter Parker was the same maligned outlaw and the two “universes” were obstinsively the same. In my pitch it continues the recently established fact that they are separate realities, Superman suddenly deals with being an unpopular underdog in the Marvel Universe and Spider-Man gets all the hero-worship and expectations for saving the day in the DCU, there are many, many more team-ups, the secret ID thing is waaaay played down and the look at Superman as an Avenger rookie and Spider-Man as a major player in the JLA is often played for awe and laughs. Also, as an ironic thing, even though they switch and taste each other’s lives, neither Spider-Man or Superman actually meet or directly interact.
There’ve been various rumors over the years of a DC/Marvel merger. It wouldn’t be too tough to integrate the universes if they wanted to – DC’s done that more than once before when it bought up Charlton (and Fawcett and Quality with it) and, more recently, Wildstorm, which as Lou noted has crossed over with DC on a few occasions.
Most recently, I seem to remember rumors floating around during Marvel’s bankruptcy that DC was thinking of buying them out.
–Cliffy
That’s some pretty good stuff Askia. You should consider a complete the story thread.
Agreed. I thoroughly enjoyed reading that but then, I’m biased. Anything that humbles Superman (or Batman) while glorifying one of my favorite Marvel superheroes is going to be good in my book.
I’m irrationally partisan in regards to my superheroes.
At the moment, a merger is unlikely. Marvel is doing well on both the comic and licensing front, but certainly doesn’t have the money to buy DC from Warner Brothers (who are unlikely to part with it).
Warner Brothers generally leaves DC alone. They want it to profitable, but they also want it as a producer of properties that they can turn into movies, books, and licensing. Adding Marvel – even when Marvel was nearly bankrupt – isn’t really necessary to them.
Chuck’s onto something, though. The money these days isn’t in the comics themselves. DC and Marvel have both had periods where they barely broke even or lost money. Their real assets are their stables of copyrighted characters that can be licensed for toys, films, TV shows and video games. Merging wouldn’t improve the situation and it might make it worse, so what’s the point?
That sounds like fun, and a much more fun diversion than all the Katrina stuff and Pitting threads I’ve been sucked into the last week. If we can get maybe six or seven other people to commit to it by, say, Monday evening, and we spend maybe the next five or six days posting our chapters I’m definitely in. I wouldn’t want to do this all by myself, but I’d love to work with you guys and see what stuff you come up with. Absolutely.
But…
I personally, desperately need writing guidelines or I’ll write all over the place. I’d want us as a group of collaborators to FIRMLY decide at the start exactly how many parts or “chapters” our multipart story will be, which parts we’ll be responsible for, which characters we want to use in our chapters, write a rough idea of the plot for each chapter, and give Chapter Titles. No. Major. Plot. Secrets. I’ve done a few of these before, and it can really mess what everyone else is planning if you suddenly decide to have Spider-Man secretly revealed as Ben Reilly. But if you can startle us with witty banter, dialogue and fight scene descriptions, cameos, unique settings and geeky comics references and in-jokes all you want.
Ideally, these stories should be as self-contained as possible. Beginning, middle, end and no cliffhangers. Maybe it’s okay to reference something in a chapter before yours or help another writer set up something that will need to happen in the theirs.
Another rule is that we all stick to plots in the conventional Marvel Universe and DCU, since that’s what most of us know. No MAX line, no Ultimate titles or no Vertigo. Maybe not even stuff like the recent and unfinished Seven Soldiers of Victory or House of M or The Infinite Crisis. (I think allusions would be okay, especially humorous ones, since that falls under “geeky comics references and in-jokes”.)
That’s not too unreasonable, is it?
Anyway… if y’all can agree to that – or have guideline suggestions of your own - I’m in.
Hmf. I kind of thought there’d be a few volunteers by now! I must have scared people off with my rules. 
And I see someone’s started another thread, one that looks pretty free-wheeling, so maybe that would appeal to some of you writers out there.
I’ll slightly re-write the set up I shared above so that it has better mood and setting, and contrasts the two heroes a little better, and has a better springboard.
I’ll also commit to two chapters, one for each superhero.
My Superman chapter is called: "Superman versus the Mole Man"
Guest-starring the Avengers in a brief cameo, the Fantastic Four, the Mole Man and lots of Kirby monsters from Monster Isle. The plot: Superman is suffering a slump, and his confidence is badly shaken as his stay in Marvel’s NYC has him bumping heads with the experienced Avengers and aggravating the local police. At Captain America’s urging Reed Richards invites Superman to join the FF to explore a subterranean dimensional gateway below central Europe that he believes may be a portal to the DCU; unknown to them it’s also a spawning ground for the Mole Man’s monsters. A fight with the Monsters ensues, but Superman brokers a truce that impresses the FF.
My Spider-Man chapter is called: “The Last Temptation of Spider-Man” Starring Lois Lane in a guest-starring role, Lex Luthor and Spider-Man, Luthor’s bodyguard Mercy, assorted Lexcorps flunkies. The plot: Spider-Man is on patrol in Metropolis when he gets invited to lunch by Lex Luthor. Having been warned by Lois Lane that despite his public persona Luthor is absolutely not to be trusted, but not sensing anything warning with his spider-sense, Spider-Man warily goes along. They warm up to each other over lunch and Luthor takes Spider-Man into his confidence and they bond to an extent, prompting Luthor to make Spider-Man an offer he can’t refuse. Spider-Man refuses anyway. This decision has repercussions. Essentially a lot of character talk and dialogue, but hopefully interesting.