Why Doesn’t Lego Make a DC/Marvel Crossover?

There were a lot of surprising elements in Avengers: Infinity War, but probably the most surprising was that the movie worked.  With dozens of heroes scattered across multiple locations (and facing bizarre enemies), the movie somehow held it all together and worked as a collective whole.  I still argue that I’d rather spend more time with each of these characters individually than the more limited space each gets in the wider cast, but I can’t argue that Avengers didn’t work.  I’m sure the movie will inspire even more crossovers going forward and anyone’s game…except, of course, the DC universe.  Superheroes can cross time and space, enter other dimensions, change sexes, and return form the dead (ahem), but they can (almost) never cross over between the Marvel/DC barrier, at least not in comic books or movies.  But what about games?  Lego games have been breaking these barriers and mixing up heroes for years, but even Lego seems to observe the Marvel/DC barrier.  Does that make any sense?  Since we’re not going to see it in movies or see it (again) in comics, why doesn’t Lego make a DC/Marvel crossover?

I think we could take Thanos.

I kind of get why we haven’t seen it in movies, but I don’t think the reasons it wouldn’t happen in movies apply here.  For example, this article from Screenrant argues that we’ll never see a DC/Marvel movie crossover because one side would ultimately have to lose to another and no one wants their side to lose.  But that doesn’t hold true for a Lego adventure; you just swap between heroes on the fly.  I think there’s some argument to be made for the idea that the two universes have so many similarities that there might be some redundancies.  There may be a reason Thanos and Darkseid have never been photographed together, and other heroes like Iron Man and Batman or Captain Marvel and Superman or Quicksilver and Flash seem to occupy somewhat similar spaces as well.  But, again, that’s never been a problem in Lego worlds; Lego heroes are all pretty similar to each other and fairly interchangeable.  In fact, the games almost seem to make disparate heroes even more similar than they are in other representations (look at Venom and Hulk, for example).  So, again, why is it that we don’t have a Lego crossover game?

Er….are they supposed to look so similar?

Maybe the movies will have to go first, and – heck – the way studios are consolidating and combining, it’s not unlikely that we’ll see a Superman/Iron Man crossover movie in our lifetimes.  I never thought I’d see Spiderman in an Avengers movie and then we had Captain America: Civil War.  Sony apparently loaned out the hero to the Marvel universe which had the benefit of making Captain America even more interesting and rebooting the Spiderman series.  I don’t see any reason DC couldn’t do the same if they faltered with Superman or Batman going forward.  This hasn’t happened yet; while Batman v Superman was bad, The Amazing Spiderman 2 was such a terrible superhero movie that it necessitated the relaunch of the entire franchise, and Avengers: Civil War enabled Sony to do so.  But DC heroes have had their own terrible movies, particularly Batman (Batman and Robin) and Superman (Superman 3 & 4, despite the best efforts of the incredible Christopher Reeves).   So maybe our godawful Superman or Batman movie is coming, after which it’s possible that they’ll need to reboot the hero Spiderman-style.  Then we might see DC via WB loan out one of its flagship heroes to help the Avengers fight Dr. Doom or Galactus or Thanos.

He may be my favorite final boss in any Lego game.

But, until then, it seems striking that the franchise most committed to crazy crossovers has studiously avoided this one.  I’ve played with Batman partnering with Homer Simpson and Scooby Doo, but apparently Iron Man or even Rocket Raccoon is a bridge too far.  Which is a shame, because I’d love to see Rocket Raccoon interact with Duck Dodgers or Captain Carrot.  Heck, I’d love to see Deadpool meet up with Ambush Bug, or….well, really just anyone interact with Swamp Thing.  But, for now, I’ll settle with Ghostbusters and Adventure Time or Gandolf and Marty McFly.  Someday they’ll want to reboot Batman or Superman or Iron Man or Spiderman (again), and that’s when we may finally get to see a DC/Marvel teamup movie….followed by a Lego video game tie-in.