When I was a young teen I read a lot of comics. There was Marvel and Atlas and DC and Harvey…and there was Archie Comics. Old stories, new stories, stories that focused on one or two of the main characters etc., and a bizarre offshoot of Archie which were Christian-based books from Spire Comics. There were 19 Spire Comics featuring the Archie characters in all, and in all they were very simplistic. Almost every one of them featured an ignorant person doing A Bad Thing, a good person telling them about Jesus, and the ignorant person responding with some variation of “Who is this “Jesus” person you are talking about? You say he can save me? How can I meet this “Jesus” person?”, acting like the stupendously ignorant Unsaved from the Jack Chick Comics. Then they bow their head and pray, everyone forgives them immediately, and all is well.
Until the next comic comes along, everything is forgotten, and they start all over again, because if there was any continuity by the 10th issue the books from then on would consist of every Archie character saying “I love Jesus!!” while grinning maniacally. These books were so clean-cut they made standard Archie comics look like “The Punisher”.
So, what weird team-ups/offshoots comic book-wise do you remember.
I read both versions. The one done “Archie” style, and the one done “Punisher” style.
Wasn’t it just the covers that were different, but same artwork inside?
I think Archie & Punisher is the only one I really remember being stranger. For in-house crossovers, there are three from Marvel that stand out.
Secret Wars: A powerful being from beyond the known universe, a guy they call Beyonder, transports a bunch of heroes and villains off planet, pitting them against one another to figure out which is stronger, good or evil. We got to see a lot of Marvel heroes and villains who didn’t typically interact with one another have to interact with one another.
Acts of Vengeance: In disguise, Loki convinces some super villains (and the Kingpin) to join forces to destroy the Fantastic Four and the Avengers (and why not Spider-Man while we’re at it?). They arrange to have a bunch of villains fight heroes they normally wouldn’t fight. Spider-Man fights Magneto, Grey Hulk, The Brothers Grimm, Graviton, and a few others he wouldn’t normally fight.
Infinity Gauntlet: Everyone’s familiar with this thank to the Marvel movies. In 1991 this was a big Marvel event as Thanos killed half the universe on behalf of Death. I don’t read comics these days, but this storyline continues to have a strong influence on Marvel to this day not even counting the movies.
For external crossovers I remember Judge Dredd/Batman from around 1991. Batman is transported to Mega City 1 where hilarity ensues, including a “Gaze into the fist of Batman” moment. If you know, you know. In other issues Batman also teamed up with Spider-Man, Punisher, and Spawn.
Oh, and in the 90s everyone was fighting a Predator. Batman, Magnus Robot Fighter, Judge Dredd, Superman, Wolverine, and I’m sure I’m missing others.
Star Trek and The Legion of Super-Heroes. Wild.
Jerry Lewis on Paradise Island is accidentally injected with powerful painkillers, and thus can do somewhat superhuman things (since he’s feeling no pain) - he’s known as “Jerkules”
(I did run across one “Spire” comic once - the story of a Vietnam POW, called “In the Presence of Mine Enemies”)
We had a few of the christian Archie comics when we were kids. (“Did you know that the song Turn, Turn, Turn is from the bible?” “Wow, that’s groovy!”)
One odd superhero comic we had was Justice League of America #199, where the JLA gets amnesia and is sent back in time to the Old West to team up with DC’s cowboy heroes like Bat Lash, Jonah Hex and Scalphunter.
In the category of “weird team-ups,” Superman and Orson Welles:
Ahem.
Still have my copy of that one.
The recent Archie vs. The Terminator was written with some love for the Terminator franchise. I was surprised how decent it was.
There was also a Jay and Silent Bob comic where they were in the Marvel Universe. That was an interesting one.
There is a really obscure set of Spider-Man comics that I had a single issue of back in the day. Spider-Man had a crossover with the RCMP. He came to Canada and had web-slinging adventures here. Apparently there were several issues but I could only ever find one.
If you want a walk down memory lane:
Do the newspaper funny pages count? I have seen strips where an artist drew someone else’s comic in their own style, and the most memorable one was where Scott Adams (yeah, that guy; he’s dead now) drew a “Family Circus” cartoon where Mommy was the pointy-haired boss.
Comic books only, please.
OK. I’ll step aside.
Or maybe start a thread on comic strip cross-overs?
The X-Men and Star Trek crossed over in a special X-Men comic annual and a sequel Star Trek/X-Men novel that were both rereleased at the same time.
Also. It’s a little bit of a stretch but I still remember the April Fool’s Day where most of the comics in the Newspaper swapped artists. It was completely unannounced and was a cool surprise.