Recently, Image Comics’ excellent horror series, Ice Cream Man, did a special issue consisting entirely of one-page horror stories. The regular creative team of W. Maxwell Prince, Martín Morazzo and Chris O’Halloran were joined by a number of guest writers, including Grant Morrison. Morrison’s “Hell Freezes Over” is a charming look at what happens when hell freezes over (and so all the things that would never happen suddenly happen).
I mention this both to salute the quality of Ice Cream Man is, but it’s also worth noting that when you’re as good a writer as Grant Morrison, in pretty much any format, you’re going to create a great comic book story, and that was the case for this metafictional look at, indeed, Morrison’s own history at DC and Marvel (plus a number of other cool metafictional concepts, of course) in a delightfully offbeat crossover story beautifully drawn by Dan Mora, who got his big break drawing. Klaus for Morrison ten years ago.
Batman/Deadpool from DC/Marvel Issue #1’s main story, “The Cosmic Kiss Caper,” comes from Morrison, Mora, colorist Alejandro Sánchez, and letterer Todd Klein, and deals with personifications of the Marvel and DC universes (Daniel Kibblesmith just did the same thing in Rick and Mortyso I hope Daniel appreciates coming up with the same concept as Grant Morrison), and briefly mixing universes, leading to Cassandra Nova (from Morrison’s New X-Men series) trying to steal the computer from Morrison himself (from Morrison’s Animal Man series) to help rewrite reality.
How does this quasi-tribute to Morrison’s impact on DC and Marvel come together?
There are few writers alive today who have had as much impact on Marvel and DC as Grant Morrison. Their runs on books like JLA, Batman, Man AnimalAnd New X-Men were some of the most influential works in the history of both companies, and while that was not the INTENTION of the story, a major side effect of the story is that we can celebrate all the GOOD work Morrison has done over the years and the impact they have had.
It’s just a wonderfully charming story, and for every outrageous idea Morrison comes up with, Mora and Sánchez are right there with them, and they execute those concepts wonderfully. And having Todd Klein in letters? Talk about a fucking TREAT! Deadpool is cleverly used to further the metafictional side, as Deadpool has a long history of breaking the fourth wall.
I don’t know if I’d say all the metafictional jokes land, but this is definitely one of those stories where there are so many jokes that fly fast and hard that you’re bound to find at least a few that you like. Most importantly, these are the sweetest homages to Morrison’s past work, like the classic Man Animal bit where Morrison, guilty of murdering Animal Man’s family, brings them back at the end of their title run. There’s a clever homage to that here.
This is one of the most entertaining crossover comics in many years, and Mora’s art is incredibly gorgeous. It’s a real delight.
The MCU Villain From This Billion-Dollar Blockbuster Just Returned To The Most Unexpected Place
One of the deadliest Marvel villains of all time is set to make his return to comics in the most anticipated crossover title of 2026.
What about other DC/Marvel crossovers?
The main story among the backup comics at the end of the book is a Doctor Strange/John Constantine team-up called “A Wizard Enters a Universe”, by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Joshua Williamson, Hayden Sherman, Mike Spicer and Frank Cvetkovic.
During JLA/AvengersKurt Busiek had a lot of fun playing with the idea of how the Marvel and DC universes are different (one of the changes is that DC’s Earth is slightly bigger, to accommodate all those big fake cities like Metropolis and Gotham City), and I thought about it when I saw how the writers handled Constantine in trying to explain how DC’s horror-themed characters are so much more serious than Marvel’s.
Hayden Sherman does an incredible job, especially the double page spread near the end. Spicer is a nice choice for coloring Sherman.
The next save features Nightwing and Laura Kinney, aka Wolverine, in “Sticks & Snikts” by Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Adriano Lucas and Wes Abbott. Laura’s younger clone (actually little sister), Gabby, is apparently kidnapped and Laura turns to Nightwing for help finding her.
Obviously, Taylor is famous for directing acclaimed runs on both characters, and he’s joined here by the art team from his time on Nightwingmaking it a great reunion comic story. Dick and Laura are both very accomplished superheroes who somehow serve in the shadows of even MORE remarkable superheroes, and their bonding over this shared situation was pretty clever. I loved Laura’s shock that Nightwing didn’t have superpowers. A nice tribute to Geoff Johns and Jim Lee which makes Green Lantern just as surprised when he finally meets Batman in the past when the Justice League formed (pre-retcon fixing this).
“Harley and Hulk’s Amazing Saturday!!!” by Mariko Tamaki, Amanda Conner, Tamra Bonvillain, and Dave Sharpe is a cute story, mostly notable for Conner and Bonvillain’s really cool illustrations (it’s a short story, so Tamaki doesn’t have much room to do much more than just have fun).
Finally, the issue ends with a cute encounter between Static and Ms. Marvel, with Static getting nervous around her. The story was from “New Friends in Old Places” by G. Willow Wilson, Denys Cowan, Klaus Janson, Francesco Segala and Steve Wands, so Wilson also got to return to his old character, as did Taylor with Wolverine AND Nightwing!
Denys Cowan’s stuff was amazing to see.
The backup stories were pretty nice, with no duds among them. I’m now excited about next year’s crossovers!
Source: DC