This year we celebrate 50 years since Marvel and DC first called a ceasefire and collaborated on a crossover featuring their own characters (though not the first time they worked together; that would be a year earlier, with an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz). As a result, we’re getting a series of new crossovers, with each company putting their own spin on pairings of characters. We’ve had Deadpool/Batman from Marvel, Batman/Deadpool from DC, and now Superman/Spider-Man from DC too (with Marvel’s spin on the latter coming shortly).

Each comic has been an anthology, with a main, longer story focusing on the title characters, followed by an eclectic selection of shorter comics starring a mixed bag of more oddball pairings, in most cases.

In Superman/Spider-Man, Mark Waid writes the main story. The title characters find themselves facing off against Doctor Octopus and Brainiac, who have teamed up to cause high tech chaos. It’s pretty fun, but there’s nothing revolutionary here; there’s none of the meta inventiveness found in Grant Morrison’s Batman/Deadpool story, for example.

There is plenty of meta twists to Priest’s Superboy Prime/Symbiote Spider-Man story though. It’s clever, but the dialogue is annoying and it ends in a way that makes you feel like it was planned to be longer.

Jumping back to the second story (if we must), we have a pairing of Lois Lane and Mary Jane. You can barely tell the characters apart, even when their dialogue is colour coded; it’s hugely underwhelming, but visually saved by Jim Lee’s art. Particularly the appearance of Gambit, who has a stunner of a splash page here. Still not a particularly enjoyable time overall though.

The Superboy/Spider-Man 2099 story was fine, but also felt too brief; plus, it feels more like a Batman Beyond tale than a Kryptonian crossover.

Though set up as a humourous story (with some great visual gags, including a fun wall of text near the beginning), Matt Fraction’s Jimmy Olsen/Carnage story ends up feeling a bit mean-spirited. The art, by Steve Lieber, was superb here, however.

The Bridge is ostensibly a Jonathan Kent/Uncle Ben Parker crossover, but the decision to have it narrated by Supes and Spidey is a weird one. It’s very schmaltzy too.

Greg Rucka’s debate between Lois Lane and J. Jonah Jameson is interesting, and Jameson’s reasoning for his Spidey hate is amusingly handled.

Finally, the odd pairing of Power Girl and The Punisher is pretty fun too, ending on a nice high note.

Overall, it’s not the strongest of anthologies, but I do always have to give props to the creators for their unique pairings of characters who’d never normally meet. Even when the stories aren’t that great, there’s still fun to be had from what feels like somewhat illicit team-ups and conflicts.

I’m a sucker for this kind of thing (even if I feel a bit cheated that Spider-Punk, on the variant cover of the comic I own, doesn’t appear!) so I’m definitely looking forward to seeing Marvel’s version of this particular pairing, and who else they smash together in the backup stories too!

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