Earliest Comic Cross-Overs That You Recall...

A number of us were mulling this question over, and trying to define just what is a cross-over, as opposed to a "guest-star" or a "cameo".

One of the earliest cross-overs might have been the Avengers showing up in the Fantastic Four #25-26... but others disagree.  They think the Hulk appearing in FF #12 would qualify. Or the FF in Spider-Man #1.


What do you think are the best in the Marvel Comics universe?  What's the early silver age cross-over that floats your boat?  For me, the Iron Man-Submariner cross-over from Tales to Astonish #82  to Tales of Suspense #79  fits that bill nicely.  How about you?

Fantastic Four #25

Fantastic Four #26

Fantastic Four #12

Amazing Spider-Man #1

Daredevil #7

Tales to Astonish #82

Tales of Suspense #79

You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!

Join Captain Comics

Votes: 0
Email me when people reply –

Replies

  • I wasn't reading many Marvel comics (really, by the time I started reading comics, the Silver Age was pretty much over) during the Silver Age, so I can't comment on what crossover I remember first.

     

    Regarding favorite, I'd have to go FF/Avengers in FF #25-26 as you suggested, although the tail end wasn't as good as the beginning.

  • Wow ... I really don't know how to answer that question.

     

    I presume we should not consider team or team-up titles, of course ... and maybe I'm trying too hard to think of the first crossover I've read versus the earliest crossover I know about (which, I think, is what you're asking) ... 

     

     

  • 1936054846?profile=RESIZE_320x320As we noted in that thread, we have to define "crossover" to all be on the same wavelength. To me, a cross-over is when a *story* crosses over into another title, such that reading one title doesn't give you the entire story. Otherwise, it seems like it's just a guest-star.

    For instance, I'm not sure how you're defining "guest star" that the Avengers appearing in the FF doesn't qualify them for that status instead. If they qualify, then the FF appearing in ASM #1 and the Hulk appearing in FF #12, both in March 1963 issues, would be my first crossovers, not counting whatever issue I first read of World's Finest, as CK notes.

    However, by my definition, my first one was the Challs-Doom Patrol crossover in Doom Patrol #101 (Feb 66), Challs #48 (Feb-Mar 66) and Doom Patrol #102 (Mar 66). The title listing indicates that it qualifies, to my mind.

    -- MSA.

     

  • Oh, I'm easy, SA.  I'll let anybody define it anyway they want.

    What's the earliest (first one) you ever read?

     

    For me, In addition to seeing the first half of that FF/Avengers/Hulk slugfest...the first TRUE cross-over that I ever read was the Iron Man/Submariner fight that rolled from Tales of Suspense to Tales to Astonish (or vice versa) and back again.  I will always forever thank whoever it was that bought that inital run of Marvel Comics and then put them on the nickle a copy white elephant table at my grade school, allowing me to pick up vintage Jack Kirby artwork in any number of titles...including this incredible slug fest!

     

    For my money, the action crossing over from one title into the other, and then back again, REQUIRING THE FAN TO BUY BOTH TITLES, forms the cross-over for me. (But even having to buy two issues of the FF to follow the Hunt for the Hulk and the Avenger's role in that climactic battle would qualify for me too...)


    I recall also picking up the X-men # 9, when the Avengers cross over (guest appearance) into the X-men's adventure with Lucifer (IIRC) and being impressed that they really seem to get around!

    I also have the Submariner appearance in Daredevil #7 (though it was coverless) and felt that was a great all-in-one cross-over too!

     

    |But somehow, that initial FF guest-star appearance in Spidey #1, just doesn't do it for me. Perhaps because I wasn't around for it...

     

    In fact, now that i think about it, there's a whole run of FF from #25 to 33 that features another Marvel hero in virtually every issue. (OK, maybe not quite, but let's count them off together...

    #25-  Hulk (with Avengers appearing also)

    #26- The Avengers Take-Over vs. Hulk

    #27-  Dr. Strange and Submariner

    #28- X-men fight along side the FF...

    #29- Watcher shows up

    #30- Diablo subverts the Thing (alright...so no guest-star here)

    #31-Avengers show up again

    #32- (Death of a Hero-- Invincible Man) (OK, so no true guest-star)

    #33- Submariner returns again.

     

    That's at least a half year worth of guest-stars...and this sort of treatment was only used in later years to shore up sagging sales for silver age wanna be series.  I don't think the FF were in any danger of saging sales, do you?

    At least with the arrival of Chic Stone inking on #27... the whole next year of Fantastic Four adventures became more solid art-wise, for me, anyway.  And the continued story arc that starts about #35 and runs through the FF annual #3 (between #43-44) certainly helped to carry the title along. The next arc, #44-50 was one long continued story where you couldn't catch your breath, either.

    But I digress...

  • You know, Randy, I have always felt that way as well!

    I picked up the original printing of FF #25 at the school fund-raiser, as I mentioned elsewhere, and never got a chance to read the concluding chapter... but the build-up and cliff-hanger had me all psyched for it.

    Now, fair is fair...I saw the cover of FF #25 reprinted in, gee, I think it was FF Annual #4, with the fight between the original Human Torch and Johnny, and recognised the image from the cover, but as a young drooling fanboy who didn't have an income from anything but my allowance of a dime a week, I never bought it.  That would have been a great opportunity to have read the second half, but at that point, I didn't really understand how comics came out, and had assumed that they were ALL still on sale (like Hardy Boys books...always available at some store or another...) and so I missed FF Annual #4, and FF #54..but caught #55 when it came out, and bought each issue as it came out off the rack, ever since...until 1972 and high school caught up with me.

    But I always felt that #26 was somewhat of a let down, despite this incredible symbolic cover!  What a fight scene!

    Randy Jackson said:

    I wasn't reading many Marvel comics (really, by the time I started reading comics, the Silver Age was pretty much over) during the Silver Age, so I can't comment on what crossover I remember first.

     

    Regarding favorite, I'd have to go FF/Avengers in FF #25-26 as you suggested, although the tail end wasn't as good as the beginning.

  • I remember the "Lonely Place of Dying", which crossed over between Batman (or maybe Detective) and New Titans. I remember this specifically because at the time I was buying off a spinner rack in a teeny little book shop in my home town, and I could only read the Batman side of the story. I imagined awesome things happening on the Titans side of it.

    Since then, I bought the Titans issues that crossed over at some quarter bin somewhere, but I never got around to reading them. Guess the desire to read them kind of died off somewhere over the years.

  • Jeff, I don't recall the story leading into Teen Titans.
    I was buying Batman, but I didn't feel that I had missed anything.

    What do the rest of you say?

  • Yeah, I read Lonely place of Dying a while back and there didn't seem to be anything missing.  Jason wasn't a member of the Titans at that point, I presume?

     

    In my own post-Silver Age youthful reading, the first true crossover by Mr SA's definition was probably a Captain America comic, where I think Moondragon was a big pink savage with a big head wearing only rags, and with a club.  At the end of it, the reader was told to follow the next segment in Hulk #-whatever.  This would be 1977-81, something like that.  I never did read the rest of that story.  It was drawn by Sal Buscema, I have no doubt of that.  I can still see his Hulk hitching a lift with a stoner.  (Or maybe it was a Hulk comic that was continued in Captain America?)

     

    Some happy day, I'll find out how that story ended.

  • A Lonely Place For Dying focused on Tim Drake, not Jason Todd and The Titans issues spotlighted Dick Grayson. The conceit there was that Tim knew the real identities of Batman and Robin as a child, while others who sought that info found nothing! Also that Batman needs a Robin to give him balance plus to give the bad guys someone else to shoot at!

    I wasn't getting Tim until he finally got a new Robin outfit and co-starred in Young Justice.

    And that wasn't Moondragon in that Cap/Hulk story. It was the Vamp/Animus in a tale that also involved Marvel Man, the future Quasar!

  • I define a crossover as a story which is continued in another series; otherwise we're talking a guest or cameo appearance. The first one I read was Daredevil #77, but for years I read only the DD chapter of it. IIRC, the story continues into (or was it from?) Sub-Mariner, making it a crossover with Subby but a guest appearance for Spider-Man.(I'm open to correction if someone wants to fact-check me.) I also remember the Hulk and Subby going to the same theatre in an issue of Tales to Astonish (which I would have read in Marvel Super Heroes), but the line muddies there because they shared the same title. It was more of a cameo, anyway, but it was the first sense I got that these folks shared the same universe and could have bumped onto each other on a street corner.

This reply was deleted.