Bat Family Crossover

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A lesser version of the Crisis Crossover, but bigger than a regular Crossover, is the Bat Family Crossover, which typically occurs around a group of titles that are related by the heroes appearing in them or the location in which they take place.

It's named for its repeated use by the group of superheroes around Gotham City, since so much happens in Gotham that affects everyone in the city, but has limited, if any effect on The DCU, with Batman usually ordering all of the other heroes to stay out. Maybe Superman will show up for a issue or two, but only because, well, he's Superman.

Examples include:


Anime And Manga

  • Rare Magical Girl example: The Pretty Cure All Stars DX movies. Three have been made, and a fourth coming up, uniting up to nine seasons/seven teams of magical girls!
    • In the 1980s, Studio Pierrot did a movie with the heroines of their magical girl shows teaming up.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh Tenth Anniversary Movie has the main characters of the first three series team up.

Comic Books

  • From the Batman titles themselves, and the Trope Namers, though not the Trope Codifiers:
    • Batman: Knightfall
    • Batman: Contagion
    • Batman: Legacy
    • Batman: Cataclysm
    • Batman: No Man's Land. Superman did make two appearances, but left both times after being shown that he was basically useless in a situation like the one Gotham was in at that point.
      • Never mind that they had just fixed Metropolis recently in his own series.
    • Batman: Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive. Again, Superman made an appearance, but....
    • Hush had the subversion of the usual "Superman makes one or two appearances in Gotham before being told to buzz off" variety of the trope in that Superman doesn't go to Gotham... Batman goes to Metropolis.
    • Batman: War Games
    • 2011 has a rather odd example. "Judgement on Gotham" is a crossover centered on Azrael partially written by the writer of the Azrael series but no issues of Azrael are part of the crossover and while part of the story is running in Batman the two other series involved are considered somewhat peripheral series: Red Robin and Gotham City Sirens.
    • The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul and Batman RIP are two examples from 2008. However, RIP's true conclusion, the "death" of Batman, occurs in Final Crisis.
    • Following RIP and Final Crisis in 2009 was Battle for the Cowl, which encompassed three miniseries and several one-shots.
    • One of the older examples was the multi-part arc that crossed over between Batman and Detective Comics in 1983 in which Killer Croc and Jason Todd were both introduced.
      • Actually, Batman and Detective were inter-connected for the last several years pre-Crisis. The Nocturna arc is probably the best example of this, as it lasted for almost a dozen issues right before COIE.
    • The Night Of The Owls crossover from May/June 2012. Building on the "Court of Owls" arc from Scott Snyder's Batman run, nearly every single Bat-Family book (save for Batwoman [already in a story arc] and Batman Incorporated [relaunched at the end of May and continuing Morrison's long running storylines]) had at least one issue dedicated to the protagonists of each book fighting Talons, the Elite Mooks of the story. Even "All-Star Western" (set in the past with Jonah Hex), "Birds Of Prey" (taking place in Gotham with Batgirl as an unofficial team-member but otherwise unrelated) and even a small cameo in an issue of the completely unrelated "Justice League" book.
  • Green Lantern:
    • The Death of Superman (see below) did have a minor in-universe ripple, which would be the Green Lantern crossover "Emerald Twilight," encompassing the main GL book, Guy Gardner: Warrior and Green Lantern Corps Quarterly. The event ended GLCQ and caused its own extremely minor ripple when Hal Jordan destroyed Guy Gardner's ring and set off his new search for powers (which crossed over with Green Lantern again and the anthology series Showcase).
    • Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War, which crossed over between Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps; the war's final battle took place on Earth, and was touched on in the otherwise unrelated title Blue Beetle. People like Superman and the Teen Titans did figure into some tie-ins as well, but only as background or extended cameos.
    • Blackest Night was originally envisioned as one of these before being expanded to full-blown Crisis Crossover status. This was partially because of some sentiment that the aforementioned Sinestro Corps War had been a missed opportunity for the wider DCU. This led directly into the Crisis Crossover Brightest Day.
    • War of the Green Lanterns is 2011's Green Lantern-focused crossover that is actually a proper Bat Family Crossover running through Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps and Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors and is supposed to lead up to yet another series focusing on the Red Lanterns.
  • Superman:
    • Panic in the Sky in 1992.
    • The Death and Return of Superman. Actually DID affect the rest of the Universe, most notably the destruction of Coast City. But did any of this occur outside of Superman's own books? Not really.
      • A chapter of the original Death storyline happened in Justice League, since Superman was a member at that point and it was written by Dan Jurgens, who also was more or less in charge of the Superman books at that point. And the first issue of Funeral was also in JL, which drew so much attention that rumour has it that when DC saw people's reaction to the scaled-down JL of that time, they began the first discussions that would eventually result in the new JLA. Part of the "Return" of Superman also had an issue of Green Lantern that basically ran concurrently with the final Superman issues, showing just how displeased Hal Jordan was with the destruction of his hometown.
    • Worlds Collide from 1994 bordered between this and Intercontinuity Crossover, featuring titles from the Superman family crossing over with several titles published by Milestone Comics.
    • The various New Krypton stories, from 2008-2010.
  • The vast majority of the various X-Men crossovers are Bat Family Crossovers, as they seldom have any effect on anyone but the various groups of mutants that appear in them. (For example, the majority of the stories involving the alien Phalanx.) The "X-Overs" are actually an every-year-or-so tradition, and tend to have lasting effects (such as Apocalypse's introduction and Angel's transformation into Archangel in "Fall of the Mutants," and Generation X's creation in "Phalanx Covenant.")
    • X-Men's "X-Overs" are really the Ur Examples/Trope Codifiers, with 1986's "Mutant Massacre" arc spread out in the three then-current X-Men comics at the time (Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, and The New Mutants, and even branched into an issue of The Mighty Thor).
    • The most famous and arguably successful of these crossovers is Age of Apocalypse.
    • 2011 has one, possibly two, of these with the AoA inspired Age of X storyline running through X-Men: Legacy and New Mutants. Another X-men even called "Schism" is being built to but its uncertain if this will be a self contained mini or a proper Bat Family Crossover running through a few of the books.
  • Any number of Golden Age Marvel Family (the Shazam! group) crossovers, who might be the originators of this.
  • Marvel's Annihilation wasn't a crossover, but a set of linked Miniseries where a tyrant from another universe broke into ours and started conquering and destroying alien empires; this had no effect on the heroes on Earth, who were, at about the same time, going through Civil War.
    • Lampshaded in Nova #2, where Nova, a native Earthling who was involved in Annihilation, comes back. He and Tony Stark compare notes, and realize that neither knew of the earth-shattering events the other had faced. Amusingly, Nova is put rather out of sorts to learn that while the rest of the universe has been fighting a desperate attempt to stave off the complete destruction of all that lives, Earth has been busy squabbling over a piece of legislation.
    • Further lampshaded in a "What If" story about the Annihilation villains arriving during the final battle of Civil War... and making everyone stop fighting and focus on the real menace. Oh, and Nova calls both Stark and Rogers complete idiots.
    • And again in an issue of Exiles set in a world where the Annihilation Wave had been directed at Earth; apparently Annihilus was defeated by the Incredible Hulk between Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, and he decided this would be an effective means of getting his vengence.
    • War of Kings is mostly about the Inhumans and the Shi'ar, but includes a Bat Family Crossover between the two titles that launched out of Annihilation; Guardians of the Galaxy and Nova.
    • Ditto its sequel, Annihilation: Conquest, which has exactly the same structure (only difference is that one mini was this time replaced with the Nova ongoing series as tie-in) and has no influence on any other comics.
  • The Janus Directive was a 1989 crossover between DC's secret-ops-themed titles: Suicide Squad, Checkmate, Captain Atom, Manhunter, and Firestorm.
  • The Children's Crusade was a crossover through the Vertigo Comics annuals in 1993-94. Although this was during the time Vertigo was part of The DCU (especially the titles involved: Black Orchid, Swamp Thing, Animal Man and Doom Patrol; characters from The Sandman and Hellblazer were featured, but didn't get titles), no non-Vertigo characters even noticed.
  • The DCU also had Trinity, in which their three Space Police organisations, the Green Lantern Corps, the Darkstars and L.E.G.I.O.N. had to work together against ancient Maltusian entities that predated the Guardians and Controllers.
  • Black Reign, a crossover between JSA and Hawkman, both written by Geoff Johns at the time.
  • Way of the Warrior, a crossover between Justice League America, Guy Gardner: Warrior and Hawkman.
    • The Justice League titles also had Breakdowns (Justice League America/Justice League Europe) and Judgement Day (Justice League America/Justice League International/Justice League Task Force).
  • "Convergence", a crossover between the four titles of The DCU's "Weirdoverse" (a late 90s group of titles that amounted to "Vertigo Lite"): Challengers Of The Unknown; Scare Tactics; The Book Of Fate; and Night Force.
  • Shadowland did this for Marvel's street-level heroes, such as Daredevil, Luke Cage and The Punisher.
  • Spider-Man's Clone Saga was essentially one of these, albeit one stretched out for OVER TWO YEARS, and requiring you to read all four Spider-Man titles to follow.
    • 2011 has a big Spider-Man centric story coming in the form of Spider Island which does include other Marvel characters but is contained to the main Spider-Man title, 2 tie-in minis, a one-shot and tie in through Venom's title.
  • Fall of the Hulks for Incredible Hulk and Hulk, plus a number of minis and one-shots.
  • The Avengers-related titles have had:
    • The Crossing, where Kang Immortus manipulates one of the Avengers into becoming a murderer.
    • First Sign, when a new Zodiac takes Manhattan by creating a general blackout.
    • Live Kree or Die, with the Kree Lunatic Legion trying to use Carol Danvers' half-Kree DNA and terrigen mists to make all humanity into Kree which, if it backfires, would end life on Earth.

Live-Action TV

Video Games


Web Original

Western Animation

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