It was the Battle of the Century. Not 1976’s Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, as the 96-page blockbuster was billed, but the competition between rival publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics. The Golden Age of comics, which began with the Man of Steel’s first appearance in the pages of Action Comics, saw the rise of such costumed characters as Batman, Namor the Sub-Mariner, Captain Marvel, the Human Torch, Wonder Woman, and Captain America. But it was during the Silver Age, in 1961, that Marvel Comics ushered in the Marvel age of comics with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, and Spider-Man, challenging the “Distinguished Competition” for top spot of the comic book industry.
“The two (extremely competitive!) rival giants in comic books had agreed to join forces and publish the first-ever company crossover superhero team book of all time,” inker Dick Giordano wrote in a foreword to 1991’s Crossover Classics: The Marvel/DC Collection. “It would be the fans’ ultimate wish fulfillment.”
The tabloid-sized publication presented by DC and Marvel was touted as “the greatest superhero team-up of all time,” featuring the two publishers’ “centerpiece” characters: Superman and Spider-Man. “It took the better part of seven months to finish the project, having to get approvals from both companies, each determined to protect the integrity of its own characters,” Giordano recalled.
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DC and Marvel’s collaboration was written by Gerry Conway and penciled by Ross Andru, who each worked on Superman for DC and The Amazing Spider-Man for Marvel, with inks by Giordano, lettering by the legendary Gaspar Saladino, and coloring by the prolific Jerry Serpe. Roy Thomas (who edited 1975’s MGM’s Marvelous Wizard of Oz #1, the first joint publication between DC and Marvel) served as a creative consultant, as did Marv Wolfman (co-creator of DC’s New Teen Titans and Marvel’s Blade). Finally, the issue was presented by DC’s Carmine Infantino and Marvel’s Stan Lee, who remarked of his relationship with Infantino: “Talk would turn to the one thing we both knew would someday have to happen; the one thing that all fandom was clamoring for. We knew we couldn’t keep our top heroes apart much longer.”
“Readers everywhere were demanding a team-up of the best of the old and the best of the new,” Lee wrote. “Superman, the first, most powerful, most famous caped crusader of all, and Spider-Man, the newest, most realistic, most popular wall-crawler on the scene today — both together, in one titanic, unforgettable adventure.”
The issue, priced at $2, was a major success. It would spawn a sequel, 1981’s Superman and Spider-Man, and future DC/Marvel crossovers: Batman battled the Hulk in a story by Len Wein and JosĂ© Luis GarcĂa-LĂłpez. Super-teams the X-Men and the New Teen Titans crossed paths courtesy of Chris Claremont and Walt Simonson. Eventually, in the 1990s, DC and Marvel would bring together characters like Batman and the Punisher, Darkseid and Galactus, Green Lantern and the Silver Surfer, and Batman and the likes of Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Captain America.
For the first time in over 20 years, these stories and more are collected in the DC versus Marvel Omnibus, out now from DC Comics. The 1,096-page omnibus, which features a standard cover by artists George PĂ©rez and John Kalisz (left) and a direct market variant full-wrap cover by Jim Lee, Scott Williams, and Alex Sinclair (right), contains the following stories:
Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1, Marvel Treasury Edition #28, DC Special Series #27, Marvel and DC Present: Featuring the Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans #1, Batman/Punisher: Lake of Fire #1, Punisher/Batman: Deadly Knights #1, Darkseid Vs. Galactus: The Hunger #1, Spider-Man and Batman #1, Green Lantern/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances #1, Silver Surfer/Superman #1, Batman/Captain America #1, Daredevil/Batman #1, Batman/Spider-Man #1, Superman/Fantastic Four #1, Incredible Hulk Vs. Superman #1, and Batman/Daredevil #1.
However, the omnibus does not collect the 1996 crossover event series DC vs. Marvel / Marvel vs. DC, the four-issue series that pit the heroes of the DC and Marvel Universes against each other in the showdown of the century. That series, which culminated in a merger between the two universes under the short-lived Amalgam Comics imprint co-owned by DC and Marvel, will be collected in the companion omnibus DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus. That book has been delayed and currently has a placeholder date of Dec. 31, 2024.
