I Actually Thought This Was Kind of Cool
Earlier today on the Board, paladine posted a link to a three-part series of articles on 4th Letter! about the mid-to-late-'90s Justice League spin-off book, Extreme Justice (check it out here: www.4thletter.net/2007/01/darling-i-dont-know-why-i-go-to-extremes-part-1/). In part 3, the author mentions a seemingly-bizarre non sequitor that occurs during the climax of the last story arc, when Blue Beetle - still Ted Kord at this point, because Dan DiDio and his policy of "Let's kill off established white characters and replace them with ethnic minorities, because the best that a minority can aspire to is to stand in the shadow of a white man" hadn't come along yet - is fighting a pair of Madmen (who, unfortunately, look nothing like Don Draper or Pete Campbell). Beetle throws a "fibrous-polymer grenade" at them, and the two Madmen become entangled in a sticky substance that resembles brown spider-webs, leaving them unable to fight. Upon defeating them, Beetle stands over the two villains in a heroic pose, fists on his hips, and comments that "It'll dissolve in an hour or so," and he "Got the recipe from this guy who just drifted through from some alternative universe recently."
Obviously, this is a reference to Spider-Man and his web fluid. (As to why it's brown...well, maybe one of the chemicals reacts slightly differently with the others in the DC Universe than it does in the Marvel Universe; not so much that it messes up the solution, but just enough to change the color of the final product.) At first glance, this does indeed seem to be exactly the kind of "What the fuck was that?" moment of random weirdness that the article's author takes it to be. So, what, Spider-Man just showed up at the Kord Industries offices out of the blue and told Ted how to make web fluid? To quote John Turturro in O Brother, Where Are Thou?, that don't make no sense!
But then I remembered that DC and Marvel Comics had done a much-ballyhooed crossover mini-series at the time (two issues of which were called Marvel Comics vs. DC, and another two DC vs. Marvel Comics) that featured fights between some of the major characters from each universe - Wolverine vs. Lobo, Captain America vs. Batman, Superman vs. the Hulk, etc. The problem is, some of these bouts were voted on by the fans, and so wound up being simple popularity contests; for instance, Wolverine beat Lobo (who can regenerate from a single drop of blood) not because he would actually beat Lobo, but because he's motherfucking Wolverine. Similarly, in spite of the fact that Captain America would tie Batman up in a corner with a ballgag in his mouth and make him his bitch in a serious fight, Batman wound up beating Captain America because he's motherfucking Batman. Fortunately, there were other bouts not determined by the fans, such as the one between Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner at that time) and the Silver Surfer, which went a bit better; probably because the most powerful weapon in the DC Universe, restricted only by the user's imagination - of which Kyle has plenty - and willpower squaring off against the Power Cosmic is a fight that could really go either way. (The Surfer, incidentally, wound up winning, although I'm guessing if he'd been up against Hal Jordan, or maybe even Guy Gardner, it would've gone differently.)
I never actually read the whole series - I have the first issue, and skimmed the other three in the grocery store as they came out - but what I remember being more fun and interesting than the main bouts that were being hyped were the team-ups that were happening on the side. Among others, we got to see the Marvel and DC versions of the Scarecrow team up with each other, we got Gambit teaming up with Nightwing to fight Killer Croc (why they didn't use Dick's more obvious Marvel counterpart, Daredevil, I don't know), and we got then-Spider-Man Ben Reilly being hired as a photographer for the Daily Planet; later on, when some supervillain shows up, he and Clark Kent both try to figure out excuses to get away from each other so that they can change into their respective superhero identities.
What's most relevant to this discussion, however, is the fact that this crossover, for the first time in the history of the two companies, was to be in-continuity. In other words, in comic book terms, this actually happened. Which is probably why they didn't use the "ideal" - i.e., more immediately recognizable - versions of certain characters; if it was just some Elseworlds/What If...? "imaginary story," they could have had Hal Jordan fighting the Silver Surfer instead of Kyle. It could've been the Savage Hulk taking on a mullet-free Superman, rather than "the Professor" fighting Hockey Hair Kal. It could've been Peter Parker trying to make up an excuse to get away from Clark Kent. Captain Marvel could've been fighting a Thor who didn't have giant shoulder pads, leather straps, and hair that hung down to his ass. Instead, we got the then-current catalog of heroes from each company, which speaks to the intention of having this event be canon. Which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately, there were still obvious legal issues preventing any actual, direct mention of it from taking place in any of the individual books. Superman never got to refer to a monster he was fighting as being "as strong as that Hulk I fought a couple months back," and Robin never got to acknowledge his almost hooking up with Generation X member Jubilee. The most we could get were oblique references, like Blue Beetle using a spider-web grenade (which, incidentally, works in a pretty similar manner to the impact webbing that Ben Reilly was using at the time) and mentioning "this guy who just drifted through from some alternative universe." When one considers that the writer of Extreme Justice apparently didn't feel that anything from outside the book needed to be explained, as evidence by the Star Sapphire story, this reference actually being to the then-recent crossover mini-series seems pretty damn likely. And in fact, as far as I know, that's the only reference to the DC vs. Marvel Comics mini-series that's ever taken place in a book published by either company. Regardless, however, it was mentioned in a canonical DC Comics series, thus cementing the events of the story as canon, at least pre-Infinite Crisis.
On a similar note, Kurt Busiek and George Perez later did a 2003/2004 JLA/Avengers crossover that was originally supposed to occur within the pages of the actual JLA and Avengers titles (how cool would that have been?), but wound up being published as a separate four-part mini-series instead (awwww). During the course of the series, the Green Lantern villain Krona ends up imploding and becoming a "cosmic egg," which later re-appears in a 2004/2005 JLA story arc, being watched over by the League. It's been a long time since I read it, and I don't feel like digging out my issues to check, but I remember a cosmic egg also being involved in Grant Morrison's last story arc on New X-Men - although that story took place in the future, and I think the egg had something to do with the Phoenix Force, so it's unlikely that's a direct reference. Still, though, the crossover is at least canon for one universe, and that's pretty sweet regardless.
Obviously, this is a reference to Spider-Man and his web fluid. (As to why it's brown...well, maybe one of the chemicals reacts slightly differently with the others in the DC Universe than it does in the Marvel Universe; not so much that it messes up the solution, but just enough to change the color of the final product.) At first glance, this does indeed seem to be exactly the kind of "What the fuck was that?" moment of random weirdness that the article's author takes it to be. So, what, Spider-Man just showed up at the Kord Industries offices out of the blue and told Ted how to make web fluid? To quote John Turturro in O Brother, Where Are Thou?, that don't make no sense!
But then I remembered that DC and Marvel Comics had done a much-ballyhooed crossover mini-series at the time (two issues of which were called Marvel Comics vs. DC, and another two DC vs. Marvel Comics) that featured fights between some of the major characters from each universe - Wolverine vs. Lobo, Captain America vs. Batman, Superman vs. the Hulk, etc. The problem is, some of these bouts were voted on by the fans, and so wound up being simple popularity contests; for instance, Wolverine beat Lobo (who can regenerate from a single drop of blood) not because he would actually beat Lobo, but because he's motherfucking Wolverine. Similarly, in spite of the fact that Captain America would tie Batman up in a corner with a ballgag in his mouth and make him his bitch in a serious fight, Batman wound up beating Captain America because he's motherfucking Batman. Fortunately, there were other bouts not determined by the fans, such as the one between Green Lantern (Kyle Rayner at that time) and the Silver Surfer, which went a bit better; probably because the most powerful weapon in the DC Universe, restricted only by the user's imagination - of which Kyle has plenty - and willpower squaring off against the Power Cosmic is a fight that could really go either way. (The Surfer, incidentally, wound up winning, although I'm guessing if he'd been up against Hal Jordan, or maybe even Guy Gardner, it would've gone differently.)
I never actually read the whole series - I have the first issue, and skimmed the other three in the grocery store as they came out - but what I remember being more fun and interesting than the main bouts that were being hyped were the team-ups that were happening on the side. Among others, we got to see the Marvel and DC versions of the Scarecrow team up with each other, we got Gambit teaming up with Nightwing to fight Killer Croc (why they didn't use Dick's more obvious Marvel counterpart, Daredevil, I don't know), and we got then-Spider-Man Ben Reilly being hired as a photographer for the Daily Planet; later on, when some supervillain shows up, he and Clark Kent both try to figure out excuses to get away from each other so that they can change into their respective superhero identities.
What's most relevant to this discussion, however, is the fact that this crossover, for the first time in the history of the two companies, was to be in-continuity. In other words, in comic book terms, this actually happened. Which is probably why they didn't use the "ideal" - i.e., more immediately recognizable - versions of certain characters; if it was just some Elseworlds/What If...? "imaginary story," they could have had Hal Jordan fighting the Silver Surfer instead of Kyle. It could've been the Savage Hulk taking on a mullet-free Superman, rather than "the Professor" fighting Hockey Hair Kal. It could've been Peter Parker trying to make up an excuse to get away from Clark Kent. Captain Marvel could've been fighting a Thor who didn't have giant shoulder pads, leather straps, and hair that hung down to his ass. Instead, we got the then-current catalog of heroes from each company, which speaks to the intention of having this event be canon. Which is pretty cool.
Unfortunately, there were still obvious legal issues preventing any actual, direct mention of it from taking place in any of the individual books. Superman never got to refer to a monster he was fighting as being "as strong as that Hulk I fought a couple months back," and Robin never got to acknowledge his almost hooking up with Generation X member Jubilee. The most we could get were oblique references, like Blue Beetle using a spider-web grenade (which, incidentally, works in a pretty similar manner to the impact webbing that Ben Reilly was using at the time) and mentioning "this guy who just drifted through from some alternative universe." When one considers that the writer of Extreme Justice apparently didn't feel that anything from outside the book needed to be explained, as evidence by the Star Sapphire story, this reference actually being to the then-recent crossover mini-series seems pretty damn likely. And in fact, as far as I know, that's the only reference to the DC vs. Marvel Comics mini-series that's ever taken place in a book published by either company. Regardless, however, it was mentioned in a canonical DC Comics series, thus cementing the events of the story as canon, at least pre-Infinite Crisis.
On a similar note, Kurt Busiek and George Perez later did a 2003/2004 JLA/Avengers crossover that was originally supposed to occur within the pages of the actual JLA and Avengers titles (how cool would that have been?), but wound up being published as a separate four-part mini-series instead (awwww). During the course of the series, the Green Lantern villain Krona ends up imploding and becoming a "cosmic egg," which later re-appears in a 2004/2005 JLA story arc, being watched over by the League. It's been a long time since I read it, and I don't feel like digging out my issues to check, but I remember a cosmic egg also being involved in Grant Morrison's last story arc on New X-Men - although that story took place in the future, and I think the egg had something to do with the Phoenix Force, so it's unlikely that's a direct reference. Still, though, the crossover is at least canon for one universe, and that's pretty sweet regardless.