Marvel And DC's Latest Crossover Is The Result Of A Cosmic Tinder Hookup (Seriously)

Batman and Deadpool may not have met on the big screen (yet), but this year, DC and Marvel Comics collaborated to bring the Dark Knight and Merc with a Mouth together in two crossover issues. What excited comic fans wasn't just these two characters meeting. It was also that Grant Morrison was writing DC's half of the crossover, "Batman/Deadpool" #1 (drawn by Dan Mora).

Morrison is one of the most acclaimed writers in English-language comics, especially superhero comics. From 2006 to 2013, they wrote an ambitious run on "Batman" that introduced Batman's son Damian Wayne before killing off Bruce Wayne, letting Robin I (Dick Grayson) step up as Batman, and then of course bringing Bruce back after a journey through time. However, Morrison has taken something of a sabbatical from superhero comics in recent years, so their return for "Batman/Deadpool" #1 was a big deal. Readers can now see they weren't phoning it in, because the issue is packed with some classical Morrison goodness.

Morrison is an admitted user of psychedelics. Combined with an encyclopedic knowledge of Silver Age superheroes (when the only constraint on storytelling was the limits of writers' and artists' imaginations), their comics are weird, to be simplistic about it, and sometimes abstract. Take the origin of Morrison's X-Men villain Cassandra Nova, who isn't just Professor X's evil twin but a malevolent psychic entity manifesting as his evil twin.

"Batman/Deadpool" #1 gives a spectacular reason for why the Marvel and DC universes are converging: cosmic entities Eternity (from Marvel) and Kismet (from DC) hooked up! As they become one, so do the universes they represent.

Eternity, created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko in 1965, first appeared during the "Eternity Saga" starring Doctor Strange, printed in the pages of "Strange Tales." Eternity is the living embodiment of the universe, and so manifests as a caped humanoid figure whose outline contains a cosmos within it.

Kismet, also called Ahti, debuted in "Adventures of Superman" #494 in 1992, created by writer Jerry Ordway and artist Tom Grummett. She is a Lord of Order, universal entities that battle against malevolent Lords of Chaos. Kismet, who manifests before Superman as an enormous abstract face, explains that she "exists between light and dark, illuminating pathways to both."

DC Comics

According to "Batman/Deadpool" #1, Eternity and Kismet met in the "Big Bang-Bang Singularities Bar," run by Anthropomorpho, an establishment for lonely universes looking to find some company. Yet they actually have some history before this. In a previous DC/Marvel crossover "JLA/Avengers" by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez (where Batman fought Captain America), Eternity and Kismet met and fell for each other, but were pulled apart when the universes again split. Presumably, Morrison reusing that idea for this crossover is their homage to "JLA/Avengers."

If love is meant to be, you can't keep it apart, especially when two lovers have the strength of two universes at their back.

"Batman/Deadpool" #1 is available for purchase.