The time honored tradition of the comic book crossover has a long and rich history of not making any damn sense whatsoever. Characters who are popular at the time will meet one another only to leave a bitter and bewildering taste in the reader’s mouth, while publishers usually skip to the bank. Here are ten examples of the phenomenon, which we have painstakingly analyzed to spare our faithful readers. 
 

Superman, the defender of truth, justice, and the American way, meets the Quik Bunny, defender of almost flavor, and team up to defeat the Weather Wizard, a villain so powerful that every single one of his plots can be thwarted by a disposable poncho or a fuzzy sweater.

Nothing could be more dignified than for Superman to have a pantsless bunny grind the back of his head.

 
When Supes gets thwarted by foul weather it’s up to the Quik Bunny to save the day which, oddly enough, means drinking an absurd amount of his chocolate milk. Yeah, it was just a promotional piece for Nestle but that doesn’t change the fact that Superman needed the help of a diabetic hare to save the day.

Still way better than “Batman vs. the Land Shark”. Less Chevy Chase in tights, too.

 
At the prospect of John Belushi getting diced like a drug-addicted onion at the hands of a samurai that’s “for real,” Spider-Man disrupts a live taping of Saturday Night Live. He’s later banned from any future taping by Loren Michaels, a ban that remains in place to this day.     
 

Frank Castle is contracted by the government to find the drug dealer “Red” hiding out in Riverdale. However, because Riverdale is perpetually stuck in the nineteen-fifties, he’s not permitted to actually kill Red. So it’s just like any other Punisher comic if the Punisher were written for your grandparents. 

Apparently avenging the death of his family involves reinforcing 50’s era sexual repression.

 
But where the ball-shattering violence is absent, wacky hijinks ensue. It just so happens that Red looks similar to Archie! Split your sides as Punisher dangles Archie out of a window by his wrists, or threatens his testicles with a table saw!     
 

Why do people keep wanting to meet Archie? Has anything even remotely interesting ever happened in Riverdale? 

Any indication why they’re celebrating? Or what’s going on with Archie’s torso?

 
Look, Ninja Turtles: you’re four totally rad turtles in a half-shell (whatever the hell that means). I have a hard time believing that you don’t have anything better to do than hit on Veronica and challenge Jughead to a hamburger eating contest.     
 

It might sound like hyperbole, but it’s close enough to the truth to say that every major comic book character of the nineties encountered the Predator in some form or another: 

Batman actually just hates dreadlocks.

This is a bit unfair because Batman actually had three solo run-ins with Predators in three different books. This marked a monumental occasion for the Gotham City Police Department because they were actually doing their job long enough to allow Batman enough vacation time to fight killer aliens. 

Since Superman can fly, is there any tension at all in this scene?

 
Here we have Superman fighting Predators. Naturally he has to be powered down because there really isn’t much of a fight to be had between the two; the Predator does that weird jaw thing and Superman promptly punches a hole through the back of his skull. Whole thing’s over in two pages, three if you want to throw in a variant cover.

And here we have Batman teaming up with Superman to fight Predators. At this point they’ve met more Predators than Chris Hansen. Zing! 

Here we see Judge Dredd struggling to remain relevant. 

And here’s Tarzan vs. Predator, which has got to be the most one-sided fight since Todd Brodges vs. Vanilla Ice.     
 

Ho-Ho-Homicide was also the name of a Santa Claus slasher flick.

Comedian Jerry Lewis once had his own comic book in a time when comic books weren’t taken very seriously. Lewis (who appears to have been struck in the skull with a shovel, judging by his portrait in the corner there) used his run to have his comic visage meet various celebrities of the time, which wasn’t an unusual practice of the day. However, from this cover we can learn three things: 

1. Jerry Lewis can’t tell the difference between a laser beam and a sun lamp (hint: one key difference is the scent of melting metal).
2. In case of emergencies, Batman and Robin always use the front door.
3. The Joker can really fill-out a sweatshirt. Me-ow.     
 

Not much of a stretch when you consider Spider-Man and Transformers were both Marvel properties in the mid-eighties. Still, Spider-Man’s total ineffectiveness against fighting giant robots should be readily apparent: he attempts to catch the Autobot Gears in his web only to watch him fall to his death, but only after trying to contain Megatron in his web with similar tragic results. 

This lasted for all of four seconds.

Has anything good ever come out of the X-Men coming to, returning from, or interacting with space in anyway? The short answer is “no,” while the long answer is “No, and people should really stop rewriting the Phoenix Saga.” 

But back to the subject at hand. The X-Men of 1996 are transported to the original USS Enterprise to combat Proteus, a reality shaping mutant, who is possessing the corpse of Gary Mitchell, who can also distort reality. The end result is Wolverine getting a Vulcan death-grip. 

“Pick an origin story, you!”

The Avengers are Marvel’s B-team, pulling up the rear behind the X-Men, X-Factor, Generation-X, X-Force and any other team that has an “X” in its name. The team’s roster constantly rotates and some line-ups have an easier go at it than others. For example, the line-up of Thor, Iron-Man, Yellow Jacket, Wasp, and Vision had to tackle Japan’s greatest export: a radiation-made monster. 

Having thwarted every giant moth and Japanese military man he could find, big G made his way across the Pacific and hauled ass across America, brutalizing every hero, space robot and unfortunately tall building in his way. It wasn’t until he made his way across the continent and landed in New York City that he was stopped by the Avengers. But here’s something to ponder: where were all the super heroes when he was tearing down Tokyo like a Lego set? Oh yeah, back in New York. 

“Hey, giant lizards aren't our prob- OH MY GOD”

Finally, we learn that Superman has an often forgotten yet deadly weakness: the pop stylings of one Pat Boone. 

“And if I have time, I’ll tackle that green-yellow monstrosity Lois calls ‘fashion’!”

I’m not really sure how a top forty hit and radio play somehow undermine a man who is invincible by nearly every stretch of the imagination, but the fact the he feels the need to use every one of his super-powers to stop this jam session can only mean that poor Pat Boone will be leaving that studio in a body cast. Or maybe Superman is just sick of people ripping off black artists. 

What other crossover-cash ins have filled you with nerd rage? Post them below!

Written by Ben Dennison – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com