X-MEN TEEN TITANS (1982)

After several “fun but clunky” crossovers, the big two are ready to do this thing.

With a storyline that features two truly “big bads,” strong connective tissue to each team’s own comic (including the long-awaited return of Dark Phoenix), good character work, and two of the finest creators in the business, this comic is often hailed as the best publisher crossover ever.

And the people who say that are right.

DC New God Metron infiltrates the X-Mansion and pulls out memories of Jean Grey, thus enabling the X-Men’s greatest “villain” to be effectively reborn.

Her return is jarring to the X-Men.

I love that sequence. The art is amazing.

Meanwhile, each member of the Teen Titans gets a few panels and we learn that, for the sake of this story, both sets of heroes live in the same universe. I like that there’s no convoluted way to join the universes or anything–we just as readers accept that this is the way things are for this comic.

It saves a lot of stupid dimension hopping/explanations.

As the villains assemble, Terminator–the inspiration for Deadpool–is sunbathing with his uniform on. And speaking of assembling…

Cool. Also cool:

Since Chris Claremont is writing it, there is no shortage of character work.

Kitty and Changeling bond. Peter gets jealous.

The Teen Titans were created as a direct response to Marvel’s hit comic about teen heroes, The X-Men. That means Chris Claremont was kind of responsible for them.

He shows nothing but love for the Distinguished Competition’s characters.

No, it’s not canon–but it is truly amazing.

For some reason, DC let Marvel get prime real estate (inside front cover) for a full page ad in the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover.  Marvel got the inside back…

marvel comics is power

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