I’m back on a roll about the comic books I’ve been reading lately. I guess I’ll just have to accept that the time, inspiration and energy will happen at irregular intervals.
A while back I plugged a weird, obscure crossover involving Judge Dredd fighting the Martians from the awful Mars Attacks! franchise and Star Trek teaming up with the Legion of Superheroes. Today, I want to share with you these three which are all pretty clever in their own ways, well, the last one fizzles out quickly as you’ll see.
First up, the one which is always greeted by funny looks and incredulous responses…
Archie Comics has new leadership. Their primary goals, get Archie and the gang out of its “safe” zone, make them interesting again, not just some default book you buy when you need to give something inoffensive to children. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed them growing up in the Seventies and watching them on TV. The characters just seemed unrealistic and nothing like the teenagers I encountered in real life. Even a little kid like me knew Archie appeared to be trapped in the past.
While the two mainstay titles Archie and Jughead (more about them another day) are undergoing an update to match the times and Sabrina is being retold as a scarier version of Rosemary’s Baby, Dark Horse assisted Archie with this darkly funny crossover. It may be drawn in the trademarked house style associated with Archie since the Fifties (maybe later) but the execution follows the Predator films. Yes, residents of Riverdale are killed by the alien game-hunter in its usual fashion, pulling the skulls out with the spine attached. Dan DeCarlo would be proud.
It all begins when the gang decides to celebrate their Spring Break in Costa Rica. As always, Betty and Veronica get into a fight over Archie. Betty storms off and stumbles upon an old pre-Columbian temple. She steals a dagger from the ruins, piquing the Predator’s curiosity. After the squabble, everyone agrees to return to Riverdale early, not knowing the hunter has decided to follow them back.
How do they defeat the Predator? You’ll have to read this and see. I think you’ll be surprised with the ending alongside who doesn’t survive.
Aliens (v.) Vampirella is a more esoteric mix. Most people in the West know what the Aliens (aka the Xenomorphs) are, how they operate and whenever they show up count on a high body count. Even Superman had trouble fighting them in the Nineties. Vampirella’s fame is limited to comic-book and Horror fans, even then, a subset of these people. I recall seeing the character in the Seventies in magazines similar to Heavy Metal. She didn’t interest me though, I didn’t like Horror much.
In this crossover, Vampirella is a “good” vampire, an expert who helps us mortals against the evil ones. She still needs to feed on blood, she just has more self-control than Dracula’s lesser spawn. Anyway, Vampirella has been sent to the Mars colony to help the residents investigate some really weird corpses. They appear to be nosferatu (the equivalent of vampire cavemen) yet they died thousands of years ago and by circumstances no one can figure out. You’ll see in a flashback how the nosferatu kissed it. Seems molecular acid for blood is hard on a vampire’s digestive system…and face.
Hidden away in another chamber are Alien eggs. It’s only a matter of time before they awaken (they do keep almost indefinitely) and infect the colonists. If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a story. The bigger question I ask is, will Vampirella be a staunch ally in the upcoming battle or a new variable like Predators are when you mix those two enemies up and humans are caught in the middle?
DC and IDW reunite to have a superhero franchise fight alongside the USS Enterprise. Too bad they both chose the worst incarnations of both. For Green Lantern it’s the beloved Hal Jordan not lame-ass Kyle Rayner (once voiced by one-trick pony Kevin Smith, how fitting!). My complaint is the whole rainbow of rings, ugh! Some years ago, before the last two reboots of the DC Universe, the Green Lantern Corps discovered there were rings that used the other six colors in the spectrum along with black. They all represented other emotions and black covers the dead coming back for revenge. Other than explaining Hal’s nemesis Sinestro’s yellow ring, the whole story arc made my eyes roll and grateful I was never a GL fan.
Now take this flaccid idea and team it up with the JJ Abrams version of Star Trek. I’d say all they need to complete such a craptacular plot is a Brown Lantern ring worn by Ryan Reynolds!
It hasn’t been utterly disastrous. The Federation’s enemies have gotten their hands (or should I say fingers) on the other colors. The Klingons have yellow so Sinestro is tutoring General Chang; Romulans have orange thus Larfleeze shows up and the Gorn acquired red which has Atrocitus, a villain I don’t know. McCoy, Chekhov and Uhuru received the benevolent colors.
Given the only limits to the rings being the bearer’s will, I’d guess all the starships in the galaxy will have little effect in who wins this fight.