Sometimes you ask what seems like a simple question and discover that you really should have known better.
It started with actors who have appeared in both Marvel and DC movies.
That sounds easy enough.
Ryan Reynolds played Deadpool for Marvel and Green Lantern for DC. Ben Affleck was Daredevil before becoming Batman. Christian Bale went from Batman to Gorr the God Butcher. Michael Keaton went from Batman to the Vulture. Halle Berry was Storm and Catwoman.
Then I remembered Chris Evans.
Everybody knows Evans as Captain America, and before that he played Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four. But he also appeared in The Losers.
And The Losers is based on a DC/Vertigo comic.
There went the first definition.
Wait — What Counts as DC?
If The Losers counts, then you can’t restrict the discussion to Batman, Superman and the movies carrying a giant DC logo.
You have to include DC’s imprints and properties.
That pulls in movies such as V for Vendetta, Constantine, RED, Road to Perdition, A History of Violence and others.
Do the same thing on the Marvel side and suddenly we’re no longer talking only about the MCU.
We’re talking about X-Men, Blade, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Sony’s Spider-Man movies, Men in Black, Kingsman, Kick-Ass and other properties that came through Marvel or Marvel-associated publishing.
After going through that version of the question, we came up with a working total of 133 actors who have appeared in theatrically released movies derived from Marvel and DC properties.
That was already considerably higher than I expected.
Then I made the mistake of thinking we were finished.
And Then Dwayne Johnson Showed Up
The next thought was Dwayne Johnson.
Johnson obviously played Black Adam for DC.
But he also played Roadblock in G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
And here’s where the rabbit hole opened.
G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was published by Marvel Comics.
Not for a couple of promotional issues, either. Marvel’s original G.I. Joe series ran from 1982 through 1994 for 155 issues. (Comic Book Database)
Now, G.I. Joe isn’t a Marvel-owned property. It’s Hasbro’s.
Marvel licensed it.
So technically, under our original rule, Dwayne Johnson didn’t qualify.
But that led to the obvious question:
Why shouldn’t licensed comics count?
We’re talking about actors appearing in movies connected to things Marvel and DC have published. If Marvel spent more than a decade publishing G.I. Joe, pretending it never existed because Hasbro ultimately owned the characters seems like an arbitrary line.
So we changed the rule.
And that was a terrible idea if the objective was ever to finish this list.
The New Rule
The new rule became:
If Marvel or DC published a comic based on a franchise at some point, a theatrical movie from that franchise can qualify for that publisher’s side of the crossover.
There is one important limitation.
You need two different franchises.
If both Marvel and DC happened to publish the same licensed property at different times, one appearance in that franchise can’t magically count for both sides.
With that rule in place, Dwayne Johnson becomes a Marvel/DC crossover:
Marvel side: Roadblock in G.I. Joe: Retaliation
DC side: Black Adam in Black Adam
And Dwayne was only the beginning.
Transformers Is Marvel, Too
Marvel published The Transformers beginning in 1984.
What was originally intended as a four-issue limited series became an 80-issue American series, running until 1991. (Comic Book Database)
So now the Transformers movies enter the database.
That gives us people such as Shia LaBeouf, who appeared in Transformers and Constantine.
Megan Fox appeared in Transformers and Jonah Hex.
And every time you introduce another major movie franchise like that, dozens of actors have to be checked against everything on the other side.
But then came the really dangerous one.
Star Wars
Marvel published the original Star Wars comic beginning in 1977.
Lucasfilm itself notes that Marvel published Star Wars #1 before the film had even opened and continued publishing the series for nine years. (StarWars.com)
That means theatrical Star Wars performances now qualify for the Marvel side.
Suddenly:
Ewan McGregor — Star Wars and Birds of Prey.
Billy Dee Williams — Star Wars and Batman.
Domhnall Gleeson — Star Wars and Dredd.
Keri Russell — Star Wars and Planet of the Apes.
And it keeps going.
You might think that’s enough franchises to worry about.
Nope.
Because DC did the exact same thing.
DC Published Star Trek
From 1984 through 1996, DC Comics held the license to publish Star Trek comics. There were two substantial DC runs based around the original-series movie era, with the first running 56 issues and the second 80. (Wikipedia)
So now Star Trek becomes a DC qualifying property.
And that produces combinations that sound completely backwards if you’re thinking only in terms of superheroes.
Patrick Stewart — Marvel through X-Men, DC through Star Trek.
Benedict Cumberbatch — Doctor Strange and Star Trek Into Darkness.
Chris Hemsworth — Thor and Star Trek.
Now we’re finding actors who never played a DC superhero or villain at all but still legitimately crossed the Marvel/DC publishing divide.
And that’s when the number really started climbing.
This Wasn’t Just Superheroes Anymore
Once the licensed-property rule was applied consistently, we had to deal with decades of publishing history.
Marvel published comics connected to properties including:
G.I. Joe
Transformers
Star Wars
Conan
The Real Ghostbusters
and many more.
DC and its related publishing lines handled licenses and adaptations involving things such as:
Star Trek
Alien
Predator
Terminator
Planet of the Apes
Judge Dredd
The X-Files
and numerous other franchises.
At this point the original question had stopped being:
“Which actors have worked for Marvel and DC?”
It had become:
“Which actors have appeared in theatrical movies belonging to two different franchises that, at some point in their histories, were published in comic-book form by Marvel and DC?”
That’s a very different question.
And a much more entertaining one.
The Number Went From 133 to More Than 290
Under the conventional broad definition—Marvel and DC superhero properties, their imprints and closely associated comic properties—we reached a working count of about 133 crossover actors.
After including licensed franchises, the working count climbed to at least 292.
And I deliberately say at least.
I don’t believe 292 is the final number.
There probably isn’t a conveniently published master list because nobody normally asks the question this way.
To establish a true final count, you’d need to combine decades of Marvel, Marvel UK, Star Comics, DC, Vertigo, WildStorm and other publishing histories with theatrical-film casts, eliminate duplicates, determine which licenses actually had qualifying comics, and then check whether each actor has a separate qualifying franchise on the opposite side.
At that point you aren’t making a trivia list.
You’re building a database.
That’s the Rabbit Hole
The funny part is that none of this started with obscure comic history.
It started with:
“Hey, Chris Evans was in a DC movie too.”
Then it became:
“Well, The Losers was Vertigo.”
Then:
“What about Dwayne Johnson? He was in G.I. Joe.”
Then:
“Wait. Marvel published G.I. Joe.”
Then:
“Marvel published Transformers.”
“Marvel published Star Wars.”
“DC published Star Trek.”
And somewhere around there the original question packed its bags and disappeared.
That’s the danger of going down the rabbit hole.
Sometimes the answer isn’t sitting at the bottom waiting for you.
Sometimes you get down there, discover another tunnel, and realize somebody published an 80-issue Transformers comic forty years ago that just added another couple dozen actors to your spreadsheet.
And now, naturally, I want to know how deep the hole actually goes.