The 8 Greatest Superhero TV Crossovers Of All Time

Superhero crossovers in the movies might often get all of the attention, but television actually has a much longer history of teaming up costumed heroes than the silver screen does. We’ve got two big superhero TV crossovers coming in the near future which promise to be awesome. In Marvel’s corner, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage will join forces in 2017 mini-series The Defenders, which acts as a culmination of every Marvel/Netflix series up to that point. On the DC side of things, come this October and The CW will smush together all four of its superhero shows – Arrow, The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl – for what is sure to be the largest conglomeration of caped crusaders on the small screen to date. But what about the ones that we've seen already? Ranked in chronological order, we've picked the eight best superhero crossovers on television. Check them out on the next page and after you’re done, make sure to let us know what you think by commenting below. 8) Green Hornet Comes To Gotham - Batman The very first TV superhero crossover came courtesy of a show that still remains one of the most culturally-significant comic book series of all time – the 1960s high-camp extravaganza Batman. It is little remembered now, but the show’s popularity at the time was such that it spawned a short-lived spinoff. The Green Hornet starred Van Williams as the titular hero whose gimmick was that he pretended to be a criminal in order to clean up crime from the inside. When the character crossed over to Batman, this naturally made his relationship with Adam West’s goody two-shoes Caped Crusader very frosty. Nevertheless, the duo teamed up to stop an evil stamp collecting villain (yes, he really warranted two superheroes). 7) The Hulk Meets Daredevil And Thor – The Incredible Hulk Another of the most culturally-significant superhero shows is The Incredible Hulk, which brought the Green Goliath into the public consciousness. It is a little known fact, however, that two TV movie spinoffs from the series saw the Hulk rub shoulders with two other Marvel heroes. In 1989’s The Trial of The Incredible Hulk, David (not Bruce) Banner is wrongfully accused of a crime. Thankfully, his defence attorney is a certain Matt Murdock. Together, Hulk and Daredevil (in a bizarrely similar black outfit to the Netflix show) stop the Kingpin (yeah, he’s in it, too). The crossover fun doesn’t stop there, though. A year earlier, in The Incredible Hulk Returns, Banner met Donald Blake AKA the human alter ego of Thor. Though this more fantastical hero existing in the more grounded Incredible Hulk world was rather strange, it was still another welcome crossover. Even if Thor’s costume was pretty damn awful. 6) X-pert Advice – Spider-Man: The Animated Series The 1990s was a terrific time for animated superhero TV. While DC produced the likes of Batman: The Animated Series, there were a heap of Marvel ones, too – including the widely successful Spider-Man and X-Men animated series. Even better, both shows occasionally crossed over. For our money, the best of these was the two-part Spider-Man story "The Mutant Agenda/The Mutant’s Revenge," which saw Peter Parker seek out some experts in the form of the X-Men when his spider-powers start to accelerate. That said, it was also great when Spidey turned up in a couple of episodes of X-Men (that contributed to that show’s version of The Dark Phoenix Saga). The Spider-Man series, in particular, also featured various other Marvel heroes like Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man and Daredevil. Though these shows are still remembered, it’s often forgotten that they used to crossover. In fact, they were like a cartoon version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 5) World’s Finest – Superman: The Animated Series Produced nearly twenty years before Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, this two-parter – which was later repackaged as a straight-to-DVD movie – was the original Batman and Superman team-up movie. Notice the word ‘team-up’ rather than ‘punch-up.’ Yes, unlike Zack Snyder’s gloomy spectacular, this animated crossover sees the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel join forces pretty early on to stop a deadly union of their two greatest enemies – Lex Luthor and The Joker. Plus, what can poor old Clark do when Lois Lane falls head over heels for handsome billionaire Bruce Wayne? As part of the brilliant DC Animated Universe from the minds of Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett and others, World’s Finest still holds up very well today. As well as having the simple joy of featuring both two great heroes and two supervillains teaming up, there is also some great stuff about the differences in the characters’ approaches as heroes. 4) Young Justice League – Smallville Superman prequel Smallville was originally a very stripped-back superhero show, focussing on Clark Kent’s teenage romances and high school life rather than adapting the comics. By its later seasons, however, it changed tack and brought some major DC characters to the screen. The culmination of this was the formation of the show’s very own Justice League. While they were introduced in other episodes, the young superheroes came together as a group in season six, in an episode appropriately titled "Justice." Its roster contained such big-hitters as Green Arrow, The Flash, Cyborg, Aquaman and obviously Superman. The only hiccup was that two of the holy trinity of DC heroes – Batman and Wonder Woman – were off-limits to the show. While some might think it’s not truly the Justice League without those two, it's still a mighty impressive line-up. 3) Arrow’s Advice – The Flash Arrow has now got to be one of the most successful series in history in terms of starting a wide connected universe of shows. Before it got to that stage, though, it had to help its first spinoff The Flash stand on its own two feet. How could that be done? By having Stephen Amell’s Arrow appear in the show’s pilot episode. Having just received his speed powers, Barry Allen turns to his old friend Oliver Queen for help. Oliver inspires Barry to be something more than a vigilante; a hero who can save the helpless “in a flash.” The pair then admire each other’s “cool” ways of disappearing. It’s a low-key scene in the wider world of superhero crossovers, but this first meeting of the characters in their superhero identities meant a lot at the time. The Arrowverse had just begun – but it would soon expand very quickly. 2) Creating The Legends – Arrow/The Flash By the following season, Arrow and The Flash were both running smoothly, so it was time to use them both to launch another DC series, Legends of Tomorrow. The amount of screen time it took for both shows to introduce Legends’ ensemble cast was a bit excessive, but the crossover two-parter which basically acted as a backdoor pilot was thankfully terrific. With immortal villain Vandal Savage on the loose, Green Arrow and The Flash join forces once again – but this time Black Canary, Speedy, Spartan and Hawkgirl and Hawkman get in on the game, as well. Not to mention Malcolm Merlyn (though whose side is he really on?). As well as all these costumed sorts fighting together, the episodes "Legends of Today" and "Legends of Yesterday" have a very fluid narrative. Two-part crossovers like this can often feel disjointed, but the inclusiveness of the Arrowverse means that both episodes feel like part of the same show. 1) The Flash From Another World - Supergirl When Supergirl found a home on CBS rather than The CW, it seemed that any crossovers with the DC shows based on that network were off-limits. It was even more exciting than normal, then, when The Flash broke all the barriers – both cosmic and legal – to arrive in Supergirl for special crossover episode "Worlds Finest." The episode employed the old trope of the two heroes teaming up to defeat a duo of villains – in this case Silver Banshee and Livewire – but the rest of the episode was so fun that it didn’t matter. The exact opposite of a certain self-serious superhero movie that had just arrived in cinemas at the time, there was a refreshing lack of tension between Barry and Kara and their meeting was just a delight from start to finish. Let’s hope we see a lot more of these two teaming up now that Supergirl has moved to The CW for its second season onwards.