Ten Craziest Superman Comic Team-Up’s Ever

 

I talked a few weeks ago about all of the times Superman has teamed up with Batman. But of course, Superman has teamed up with many other heroes. In fact one of the first books I loved was DC Comics Presents which was exclusively Superman team-ups. And that was followed up by a brief time when Action Comics became a team-up book. From Green Lantern to Hawkman to Wonder Woman, these team-ups were great!

But then you got the odd one’s, that make no  sense whatsoever. You know, The Metal Men, the Legion of Substitute Heroes, The Joker…Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew????  These team-up’s that make no sense but they exist anyway. Sometimes they’re pretty good….and sometimes not so much.



Here are ten superman team-up’s which make you say “Huh??”



10.Superman meets Jerry Lewis

I love the silver age. No I don’t, it was stupid. But one of the many real life Superman met in comics was Jerry Lewis. Yeah he has his own comic book back in the day..and no I don’t get it either. He also met Pat Boone and Orson Wells in these very strange times.




9.Supeman vs Spider-Man

The thing that always struck me as funny with this one is that Superman has like thrifty years on Spider-Man. But I guess he was the most popular at the time so this crossover made sense. And to be honest, it’s a damn good one. They both feel in character, the interactions work, and the scope of the book is very big. My one complaint is the plot is rehash, you can find the same exact plot done in better in DC Comics Presents Annual #1, but to see these two heroes who should never be together actually be together…it’s worth it. I mean c’mon, Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson kidnapped in the same story? How can that possibly fail!

Oh and yes there was a second team-up but while the first was big, epic, and exciting the second was bloated, slow, and really boring.





8.Superman and Muhammad Ali

For years I saw ads for this and was dying to read it. In my days getting one-shot’s were harder than it is in today’s age of Ebay and stuff. But a few years ago I did find it in a comic store. I read it and…..it was ok. I admire the work put into it but  the story is kind of a mess and could be nitpicked to death. The plot involves an alien invasion and it isn’t even worth getting into it.




7.He-Man and the Masters of the Universe

Here’s a fun one. Before the cartoon became huge DC had the license for a comic based on MOTU. The fun thing about this story is that since it is before the cartoon, the characters aren’t quite the way I’m used to them. They feel like something out of King Arthur’s Camelot. The story is weak, Superman appears on Eternia, for reasons, and after fighting against and with He-Man he leaves. But it’s not a bad issue and seeing Skeletor control Superman to attack He-Man…cool! This isn’t what I would imagine for a this kind of story but it’ll do. And yes I know there is a more modern crossover between He-Man and the DCU.



6.Superman and Santa Claus

Oh DC Comics Presents, you’re so silly! I could have done a whole list from this book Superman also teamed with The Joker, Ambush Bug, and even Bizarro. But this one is real special. This sounds like it should be the dumbest idea ever. Maybe in the slver age, but this was the 80’s! Honestly though this is one of my favorite Christmas comic book stories. It knows it’s absurd and jisy has fun with it. Yeah it pulls out all the cliche’s, right up to a fake out in the end where we wonder if what a dream or not, but it’s still a lot of fun. And at least they actually do team-up.




5.Superman Meets the Quick Bunny

I hadn’t heard of this until I saw the AT4W episode, which is one of my favorites. It’s such a crazy idea. The funny thing is how straight they try to make this story, but when you have an anthropomorphic rabbit and a kids club house that can literally transform into anything…it’s just going to be silly. This comic doesn’t even pretend it’s only for kids, adding in games and puzzles for no good reason.





4.Superman vs Superboy

With all my talk about DC Comics Presents I needed to have something from the Action Comics era I mentioned. And this one is a little…bizarre. After Crisis on Infinite Earth there was never a Superboy. Except that in the Legion of Superheroes book, Superboy had been a very important member of the team. So how do you correct for this? You create a complicated plot involving the Time Trapper and a pocked universe where Superboy did exist with no ties to the current run of Superman…..of course. And yes this is way before the clone Superboy and all that stuff. And yes they did stories like this before this issue but I’m not getting into those.





3.Superman and The Incredible Hulk

I mentioned Spider-Man but Superman also teamed up with Silver Surfer, Fantastic Four, and met the Avengers along with the rest of the JLA. The Fantastic Four issues was disappointing, Superman hardly even does anything in the issue. But the Hulk crossover was actually pretty good. This is a flashback tale told in the early days of both the heroes careers, and I liked it. These two characters actually worked well with each other, and it was almost as good as teh Batman/Hulk crossover which I will talk about on another day.




2.Superman and Bugs Bunny

WTF? Ok this is almost more of an honorable mention because I never read it, and because to be fair it’s more of a DCU meets Bugs Bunny than just Superman. But..really???? From the little I saw online it looks like they knew it was a crazy concept and just had fun with it.


And finally, just when I thought I had hit the peak of the crazy team-up’s I discover this existed.



1.Superman and Thundercats

Really????
At least the Masters of the Universe one came out in the early 80’s, before the cartoon, what’s yhe excuse for this one comong out a few short years ago? I really don’t have anything to say about this one. Since I was never a Thundercats fan I’ll probably never check it out. From I could see it was done seriously, so maybe it’s not as stupid as it sounds.



For those wondering why Terminator, Aliens and Predator didn’t get a mention, it’s because those weren’t team-ups per se. More of a crossover since there was no teaming up (yes the title for some of these books have a VS in the titles but all of them are really team-ups). Besides I discussed Superman/Aliens on Halloween. And I decided the Superman/Tarzan book didn’t count because it was elseworld’s. There was a Milestone company crossover that I simply don’t know enough about. And I did something about a Scooby-Doo team up but that seemed to be based more on the cartoon series and decided it didn’t count here.





Now to be fair, Batman has had more team-up’s. He was doing that in Brave and The Bold LOOONNG before DC Comics Presents rolled around. So it’s only fair to take a look at his too, even if I haven’t read  a lot of those. We’ll tackle that next time. He had some crazy team-up’s too, though it’s not as if he met The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles….







really? What’s next, Green Lantern and Star Trek?










 

 

 

 

 

 

Ughhhhhhh. I think I’ll quit while I’m ahead