|
A fictional crossover (or simply crossover) is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, unauthorized efforts by fans or common corporate ownership. ==Official crossovers== Crossovers often occur in an official capacity in order for the intellectual property rights holders to reap the financial reward of combining two or more popular, established properties. In other cases, the crossover can serve to introduce a new concept derivative of an older one. Crossovers generally occur between properties owned by a single holder, but they can, more rarely, involve properties from different holders, provided that the inherent legal obstacles can be overcome. They may also involve using characters that have passed into the public domain with those concurrently under copyright protection. A crossover story may try to explain its own reason for the crossover, such as characters being neighbors (notable examples being the casts from ''Golden Girls'' and ''Empty Nest'') or meeting via dimensional rift or similar phenomenon (a common explanation for science fiction properties that have different owners). Some crossovers are not explained at all. Others are absurd or simply impossible within the fictional setting, and have to be ignored by the series' respective continuities. Still others intentionally make the relations between two or more fictional universes confusing, as with ''The Simpsons'' and ''Futurama'', where each show is fiction in the other. ===Comics=== Crossovers of multiple characters owned by one company or published by one publisher, have been used to set an established continuity, where characters can frequently meet within one setting. This is especially true of comic book publishers, as different characters in various Marvel, DC or Valiant comic books frequently interact with one another since they live in a "shared universe". For example, in the Marvel Comics universe, Spider-Man has frequent dealings with another Marvel hero, Daredevil, just as in the DC Comics Universe, Batman and Superman often collaborate. In comic book terminology, these "guest star" roles are common enough that they are not considered crossovers; rather, this short-term collaboration to fight crime is called a team-up. A crossover in comic book terms only occurs when a story spans more than one title. This has led to "crossover events", in which major occurrences are shown as affecting most or all of the stories in the shared universe. The earliest such crossover event was Gardner Fox's ''Zatanna's Search'', which took place in ''Hawkman'' #4 (October/November 1964), ''Detective Comics'' #336 (February 1965), ''The Atom'' #19 (June/July 1965), ''Green Lantern'' #42 (January 1966), ''Detective Comics'' #355 (September 1966), and ''Justice League of America'' #51 (February 1967). This story dealt with Zatanna attempting to reconnect with her father, Zatara, and seeking the aid of Hawkman, Batman, Robin, The Atom, Green Lantern, and Elongated Man along the way. The first major crossover event was spearheaded by the Marvel Editor-in-Chief at the time, Jim Shooter. As a way to further toy sales he devised the ''Secret Wars'' crossover which brought all the major Marvel heroes into a twelve issue mini-series to battle a common threat. After the threat was dealt with they all returned to their regular titles. This ''Secret Wars'' was hailed as both a critical and commercial success largely because the events of the crossover had lasting effects on the characters (such as the introduction of Spider-Man's black suit which would later become the villain Venom). Jim Shooter later perfected his crossover at Valiant Comics with the Unity event. Unity brought all the Valiant characters together to defeat Mothergod but was told within the existing Valiant Comics titles (and two bookend special issues). Readers were not obliged to buy all 18 chapters as the story was coherent when reading just one title, but far more layered when all were read. Like ''Secret Wars'', the Unity crossover had lasting effects on the Valiant universe most notably the introduction of Turok, the birth of Magnus Robot Fighter and the death of a major Valiant hero. Dark Horse Comics's ''Aliens Versus Predator'' franchise was a success that continued into many games and two movies and even an ''Aliens Versus Predator Versus The Terminator'' comic. The comic crossovers from Raj Comics are very famous in India, in which the super heroes meet to fight a common enemy. Many of these crossovers have occurred between Nagraj and Super Commando Dhruva. In ''Kohram'', all the heroes in Raj Universe meet to finish ''Haru'', an extremely powerful enemy. Webcomics creators sometimes produce crossovers; one of the first was a two-week sequence between Christopher Baldwin's Bruno and Peter Zale's Helen, Sweetheart of the Internet in 1998. In 2013, Archie Comics released a 12-part crossover of Capcom's character Mega Man, and Sega's character Sonic the Hedgehog called "Worlds Collide". Taking place in issues of the ''Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic Universe'' and ''Mega Man'' comic series from Archie, the crossover involved Dr. Eggman and Dr. Wily forming an alliance to take over both their universes and destroy their respective nemeses. Sonic and Mega Man were briefly tricked into fighting each other, but later joined forces and teamed up with other heroes to battle the doctors' forces, which included virtually every Robot Master introduced in the ''Mega Man'' games. The popularity of this crossover and the books involved led to a second crossover in 2015 entitled "Worlds Unite", which not only reunited Sonic and Mega Man but also featured comics-exclusive characters from both of their books, the ''Mega Man X'' and ''Sonic Boom'' spinoff franchises, and various other SEGA and Capcom franchises. This crossover was enabled by the conclusion of the first crossover, which saw a reboot to the Sonic books as their universe was drastically rewritten. Aftereffects of this included the Genesis Portals, gateways connecting worlds that would be exploited by ''Mega Man X'' villain Sigma and his minions, forcing a reunion between Sonic and Mega Man and an alliance between heroes of the various franchises involved. "Worlds Unite" spans not only the three series featured in the first crossover but also includes the ''Sonic Boom'' comic series, which entered publication between the two crossovers. There are also intercompany crossovers, where characters owned by two different companies meet, such as those from DC and Marvel such as the Amalgam comics. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「fictional crossover」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|