Broken Frontier

Before the days of Wikipedia, comic cons and comic stores, where was the best place to find lots and lots of super-heroes? The answer is simple: crossovers. Even after, or perhaps especially after, the mid-90s comic books, crossovers were an ideal way of introducing characters to the various demographics who had latched onto one character but not yet another. And while the institution of crossovers has invariably lost its way in recent years, the point remains – it’s a really good way to meet new characters.

Now crossovers are not necessarily new in the way of webcomics. As the artistic-centered community grew and expanded, the creative forces behind individual webcomics have found ways of letting the rest of webcomicdom play in their sandbox, in ways ranging from guest filler art to full-on cooperative storytelling. But while it might not be the most original idea, the superhero webcomic Crossoverlord works just as well in execution as in premise.

Speaking the premise, the set-up of Crossoverlord is standard crossover fare – heroes from alternate dimensions are gathered together to save the multiverse (yes, that’s actually what it’s called). But once the characters start interacting, any sign of comic book cheese goes out the window as the real fun begins. The cast of creators include two profiled in this column – Al Schroeder’s Mindmistress and Ida Kirkegaard’s Mechagical Girl A.N.T., along with a couple of new faces, including the highly-recommended Daisen by Neil Purcell, the bizarrely original Indefensible Positions by Remus Shepherd and the seemingly traditional Lightbringer (hey, doesn’t that name mean something else in Latin?) by Lewis Lovahug.

Granted, the story is still in its infancy, with super-heroines Mind Mistress and Daisen just beginning to square off about super-hero attire but the results are so perfectly funny it’s hard not to want to see more and more from this paring. “Strength in diversity”, as the heroes’ mysterious inter-dimensional benefactor says, and that much is true in the latest pages of the strip. Unfortunately, it’s not completely true in the beginning, when so many diverse artistic styles leave us wondering how this story is ever going to fit together. And though the recent strips seem to have cleared this hurdle, it still leaves a potential problem for future crossovers to address.

Overall, Crossoverlord is a fun introduction to five very different webcomics and perfect mixing of their creative strips. It may only have a smattering of strips so far, but it’s already on its way to fully realizing its crossover potential in a way too many big budget crossovers are overlooking nowadays.