Some Cross-Overs Just Don’t Make Sense

These days cross-overs between characters from different milieu’s and “universes” are relatively common.

Most of us are aware of the inside joke being referenced when Homicide and Law & Order character Detective Munch shows up on Arrested Development, and we are all aware of even stupider cross-over’s such as Michael Jordan meeting the Looney Tunes in movies like Space Jam.

An early television cross-over with Lucy and Superman

In comics, Spider-Man will team-up with Superman, and Superman will team-up with Santa Claus, and no one bats an eyelash.

Cross-overs happen, and we are all pretty much use to that.

But that wasn’t always the case.

Journey with me to 1971, when Marvel Comics writer Roy Thomas pitched an idea to Stan Lee where Spider-Man would battle Dracula.

Stan felt that such a cross-over would be silly, and told Thomas that if Spider-Man fought a vampire, it would have to be a super-villain vampire, and Thomas eventually created Morbius, the so-called scientific vampire, to fight Spidey.

But three years later, apparently “because you demanded it,” Spider-Man did in fact meet Dracula.

But Len Wein, the writer of this comic, was well aware of Stan Lee’s earlier reticence to bring these two disparate characters together.

There was a sense, back in 1974 any way, that Spider-Man and Dracula inhabited two very different worlds, and that crossing them over would diminish them both. Len Wein’s solution to this dilemma was to split the difference, and have the two popular characters meet in neutral waters, literally. That way neither would be on familiar soil, and neither would be invading the other’s world in a way that would disturb the dynamics of that world.

Thus we are given a story in which Dracula is stalking a scientist aboard a boat in the mid-Atlantic, eager to stop this scientist from revealing a serum that would somehow thwart the vampire’s plans of conquest, while Peter Parker rockets to the same boat to see the same scientist about a serum that might save Aunt May’s life. Thus, on a boat in the middle of the ocean, Spider-Man and Dracula would be allowed to meet.

The cover, of course, promised us the world:

But don’t let the cover get you excited. Not only does Spidey not battle Dracula, they don’t even realize they’ve met!  You see, Len Wein was trying to be scrupulous to the spirit of Stan Lee’s idea that the two characters came from different universes, and that they didn’t really operate in the same world. So not only do they cross-over in the middle of the ocean, they also have entirely separate adventures!

So here’s the entire meeting. Peter Parker accidentally bumps into Dracula, and they exchange pleasantries. Dracula actually thinks Shakespearean thoughts at Parker, which is a bit weird, but certainly its his imperious personality. One wonders why Peter Parker’s spider-sense didn’t go off. It’s hard to imagine a more evil villain than Dracula, and even without spider-sense the guy has pointed ears and wears a cape! Not that I’m suggesting that he should be profiling those who look different  as super-villains, but given Spider-Man’s life, you’d think he’d be a little suspicious.

I should win a no-prize for this work, I really should. Peter’s spider-sense probably didn’t go off because he’s so worried about Aunt May, and besides Dracula’s not there for him. Still, what kind of super-hero runs towards a prostrate woman, witnesses a bat fleeing the scene, notes the bite marks on her neck and thinks, “Nah– That I refuse to believe.” This guy has fought Morbius, remember. He at least knows about scientific vampires.

The rest of the comic is pretty run of the mill for a mid-seventies Marvel, but what I’ll always remember about this is the idea that some cross-overs were once thought to be too stupid to work, and to make them work you really had to bend and warp the way in which the realities of both characters functioned. Every cross-over enlarges the scope of the characters that participate, but it also diminshes the characters, reducing them in many respects.

Dracula can’t be as evil as usual, the girl he fed upon isn’t killed, she’s brought to the sickbay by Peter Parker and presumably lives, while Spider-Man can’t be the hero he usually is, his powers are diminished and he behaves foolishly.

In the end, Stan Lee, a masterful storyteller, was right: some cross-overs are too stupid to work.