They would rectify that the 48-page one-shot Spider-Man and Batman #1 and, if you're wondering why Marvel's webslinger gets top-billing, just wait; they will re-team two years later in another one-shot, this one titled Batman & Spider-Man #1.
These two make for a much more drastic contrast than did Superman and Spider-Man, who teamed-up in the publishers' first two crossovers, both aesthetically and as characters. Additionally, although Spidey obviously out-powers Batman by a great deal, the pair tend to be engaged in adventures of a similar scale in their solo adventures, tackling villains from a wide and recurring rogues gallery in defense of their home cities, rather than being regularly involved in globe-trotting, space travel or world-saving.
Doing the honors for this particular outing was writer J.M DeMatteis and pencil artist Mark Bagley, the latter inked by Scott Hana and Mark Farmer.
DeMatteis was no stranger to either character. He had written runs on both The Spectacular Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man and, while he had less experience with Batman, he did write the 1995 "Going Sane" arc of Legends of the Dark Knight and had of course written the Caped Crusader during his five-year run with Keith Giffen on DC's Justice League titles.
Bagley, meanwhile, was and is primarily known as a Spider-Man artist. By 1995 he had drawn The Amazing Spider-Man, Venom: Lethal Protector, contributed to the "Maximum Carnage" and "Clone Saga" stories and co-created popular symbiote-derived villain Carnage. He had never drawn Batman before this particular assignment, though.
Their story "Disordered Minds", which gets a "Stan Lee Presents" atop it on the title pages, zeroes in on two commonalities between the two heroes.
First, both were victims of gun violence.
First, both were victims of gun violence.
Young Bruce Wayne's parents were, of course, shot to death before his eyes when he was still a child, the inciting incident that led him to devote himself to crime-fighting and ultimately become Batman. Meanwhile, shortly after a teenage Peter Parker gained his miraculous spider-powers, his beloved Uncle Ben was gunned down by a burglar. The event was made more tragic still when Parker realized the gunman was someone he had seen committing a crime earlier and could have stopped, but he had decided not to intervene. This too led to Spider-Man becoming a superhero.
DeMatteis replays both events as nightmares awakening first Peter Parker and then Bruce Wayne in the first pages of the book, in four-page sequences that repeat beat for beat for each hero, with each of them talking briefly to the loved one who shares their secret upon awakening (Mary Jane Watson for Peter, Alfred Pennyworth for Bruce), and then suiting up and going into action in their city, their superheroic figures revealed in a splash page by Bagley and company.
I should here perhaps pause to note how weird it was for me seeing Bagley's adult versions of Peter Parker and MJ. Of course, I wasn't reading Spider-Man comics in the '90s; I'm sure they looked perfectly natural to Spider-Man fans in 1995.
Me, my first exposure to Bagley's Spider-Man characters was from 2000's Ultimate Spider-Man, and I became quite familiar with his teenage version of the characters over the course of his long seven-year, 111-issue run with writer Brian Michael Bendis. So it was pretty jarring to see a tall, well-muscled (maybe over-muscled?) Peter Parker, with his John Romita Sr. hairstyle growing out into an almost-mullet, and an equally big, big-haired MJ.
Even Bagley's Spidey looked a bit off to me, with more pronounced musculature and a head that, well, fit his body, rather than having the slightly-too big, extremely round, almost bug-like head of Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man.
As for Bagley's Batman, it's fine. As mentioned previously, the character was by this time wearing his all-black, briefless costume, the one he'd wear from roughly the end of "KnightsEnd" and the beginning of "No Man's Land."
He's bigger, blockier and more imposing a figure than Spider-Man, although they are rarely standing side by side. Usually they are in action, and, even when they're talking to one another, Spider-Man might be clinging to a wall in a crouched position or jumping around. Bagley gives his Batman the big, pointy ears and the billowing black cape that were popular at the time.
The other commonality between the two heroes that DeMatteis organizes his story around is the fact that they both have totally insane, unrepentant mass murderers in their respective rogues' galleries. Batman, of course, has The Joker (making his fourth appearance in the Omnibus), while Spider-Man has Carnage.
The latter is, in this story, being held in some sort of high-tech cage in the Ravencroft Institute, while psychotherapist Ashley Kafka tries to get through to him, with Spider-Man on hand in case anything goes wrong. Something does, of course, but a new player thinks she has a permanent solution to Carnage's bloodthirstiness.
That player is Cassandra Briar, who has developed a "bio-technic cure for insanity", which involves implanting a computer chip in the subject's brain, a sort of high-tech lobotomy. It seems to work on Carnage, the symbiote seemingly withdrawing and going dormant within human host Cletus Kasady.
The next killer on her list is, obviously, The Joker. (Oddly, The Joker being temporarily cured of his insanity was also the premise of DeMatteis' LDK arc). It works just as well on the Clown Prince of Crime.
After Briar holds a Gotham City press conference showing off the now docile serial killers, Kasady suddenly reverts to his Carnage form, attacks her and kidnaps The Joker. Apparently his symbiote counteracted the implant right away, and he was just playing possum the whole time in a bid to get to meet and team-up with The Joker, whose body count he has long admired.
Batman and Spider-Man are both there when Carnage strikes, the former rather amusingly revealing himself by shedding a disguise he wore over his full costume, cape, pointy-eared cowl and all. Still, Carnage gets away, The Joker in tow. He'll soon use his symbiote powers to remove The Joker's chip, restoring him to his normal self as well.
Batman and Spider-Man don't get along at first, of course, with Batman rebuffing Spidey's offer to help with his usual lines about not wanting another hero operating in his city or getting in his way. (They don't come to blows though, so there's no answer as to who would win in a fight, Batman or Spider-Man...but it would probably be the super-powered Spider-Man, huh?).
After some time apart, Batman realizes his own rigorous research of Kasady is no substitute for Spider-Man's first-hand experience with the killer, and he relents and decides to team-up with the wallcrawler, even ferrying him about in the passenger seat of the Batmobile (Spidey makes a joke about how all the big heroes turn to him for help, saying "I keep waiting for Superman to call," which is perhaps funny given their team-ups in earlier crossovers, although those pre-Crisis comics likely weren't considered canonical in 1995.)
Meanwhile, Carnage and The Joker's relationship has the opposite trajectory. Carnage is eager to, as he says, "hook up with" The Joker, shaking his hand and enthusing, "You get the joke!...That life is utterly meaningless...totally absurd -- and madness is the only sane response!" But the two quickly realize they have different approaches to killing; The Joker suggests an elaborate mass-poisoning plot, while Carnage prefers violent, gory and immediate killing.
The Joker tells him, "I always thought of myself as the Orson Welles of crime and chaos" while dismissing Carnage as a David Hasselhoff, later revising his assessment to sub-Dolph Lundgren (These aren't the only celebrity names DeMatteis drops in the dialogue; earlier, he has Spider-Man say, "Kasady's more in love with the sound of his voice than Rush Limbaugh!"). They quickly turn on one another.
The Joker tells him, "I always thought of myself as the Orson Welles of crime and chaos" while dismissing Carnage as a David Hasselhoff, later revising his assessment to sub-Dolph Lundgren (These aren't the only celebrity names DeMatteis drops in the dialogue; earlier, he has Spider-Man say, "Kasady's more in love with the sound of his voice than Rush Limbaugh!"). They quickly turn on one another.
Their conflict doesn't last long, however, as Batman and Spider-Man arrive almost immediately—at just 48-pages, there's not a lot of time for the story to do anything other than rush forward—to take them down, with each trading archenemies. Batman (somewhat improbably, perhaps) defeats Carnage, simply beating him into unconsciousness, never having to resort to a gadget or gimmick. And Spider-Man corners The Joker and contemplates killing him as Batman has seemed to do in their every encounter since "A Death in the Family," but he ultimately just punches him out.
And that is that.
Fast-paced, straightforward, and with little in the way of an agenda aside from getting the two heroes and their two villains in the same story, it's an effective, if not terribly ambitious, entry in the now steadily humming ongoing DC/Marvel collaboration.
During a two-page denouement, the two characters shake hands and then pose for a last-page splash, while DeMatteis' melodramatic narration tells us that, "Under the light of the Gotham moon, a friendship is born -- and even if these men never meet again... ...it is a friendship that will survive... And thrive... ...as long as the legends of Spider-Man and The Batman... endure."
During a two-page denouement, the two characters shake hands and then pose for a last-page splash, while DeMatteis' melodramatic narration tells us that, "Under the light of the Gotham moon, a friendship is born -- and even if these men never meet again... ...it is a friendship that will survive... And thrive... ...as long as the legends of Spider-Man and The Batman... endure."
They will, of course, meet again, as was previously mentioned. That wouldn't be for a couple more years though and, in the meantime, DC and Marvel would produce two more crossover specials—oddly, both featuring the Silver Surfer—as well as their big crossover event series, 1996's DC Versus Marvel.
Next: 1996's Green Lantern/Silver Surfer: Unholy Alliances #1
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