With the release of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, the movie world now has two superhero-centric “shared universe” mega franchises to keep track of. And while the party line from both the DC Extended Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe tends to be that there’s plenty of room for both, both fans and industry analysts can’t help but compare them: Civil War looks good, but will it “beat” Dawn of Justice? Aquaman sounds interesting, but will he hit like Thor did? Which team will pull down the bigger box-office - and will either of them outgun Deadpool?
Now, video maker Shawn Nider has created a hypothetical mash-up trailer where the Justice League and The Avengers handle things in their preferred way: Lots and lots of punching.
It’s clear that the editor is mostly having fun matching the various clips to one another: Iron Man dogfights with The Batwing, War Machine opens fire on Superman, Wonder Woman battles The Hulk, Quicksilver races The Flash, etc. Sadly, fans seeking this sort of match-up to become the real thing will have to content themselves with fan trailer for the time being: There’s no love lost between Warner Bros and Disney as international megacorporations, and neither has much incentive to spend money making and promoting a feature that will always be partially the property of the other. Even the much-hyped appearance of Spider-Man, a Marvel character, in Captain America: Civil War only became possible after years of negotiation - and, of course, Sony Pictures’ second Amazing Spider-Man reboot movie proving to be a bit of a franchise-killer.
On the other hand, meetings between these two universes of characters do have plenty of precedent for occurring in the original comics, where several high-profile events have been built around this very premise. While Marvel and DC had first teamed up in 1975 to jointly publish the official comic adaptation of MGM’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz movie (as “MGM’s Marvelous Wizard of Oz;”) they first teamed their own characters one year later with Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man - a non-canonical story set in an alternate universe where Spider-Man and Superman already co-exist and are aware of eachother.
There have also been two crossovers that are (loosely) considered canon in both Universe’s continuities: The DC Vs. Marvel limited series in 1996 imagined that two all-powerful cosmic gods each rule over one of the two realities, but had only recently become aware of one another and stage a series of character duels to determine superiority. This resulted in subsequent event, “Amalgam,” wherein a new universe was briefly established containing “combined” versions of various characters (i.e. Batman + Wolverine = Dark Claw, Superman + Captain America = Super Soldier, etc.) An even bigger event was 2003’s JLA/Avengers, where every character who had ever been a member of either team met, fought and eventually teamed up to save both of their worlds - a story that featured both Superman using Mjolnir and Captain America’s shield, and Hawkeye becoming the only hero ever to hold official membership in both The Avengers and The Justice League.
Source: Shawn Nider
