Omniverse Map

The map below is a very rough guide to links between different comic book realities (with a few novels and TV shows tied in too). It's a touch messy, unsurprisingly so, and it doesn't cover every link by any means - War of the Independents is only partially represented, as adding in every link that creates would make this virtually unreadable, and it's already pretty convoluted - instead I've mostly used it to cover links to realities otherwise unconnected, and I've left out newer and smaller realities. See the War of the Independents scorecard for a fuller list. Likewise, Image's Savage Dragon has met several heroes (or their counterparts) in his own series - I've left out some of those links, especially the Golden Age ones from Savage Dragon #141, so long as other links exist to those characters. Also please note that I am not using either Aliens or Predators as viable links, even though that would tie in some otherwise disconnected realities - those are species rather than individuals, and I'm not letting matching species validate a counterpart link, because if I did, the human race would count too, making virtually every fictional reality automatically part of the map. Apologies for the numbers below jumping around a bit and being out of sequence, as I added some new connections late in the day - I'll probably re-do it eventually.

The links: Solid lines are strong links, where characters crossed realities to meet one another. Dotted lines are weaker links, usually where one of those involved may be a counterpart of the "real" version - e.g. it's not the "real" Hellboy meeting the Savage Dragon, but probably the version of Hellboy native to Dragon's reality. Where I can, I've included specific issue details of when crossovers took place.

1. As well as having his own multiverse of related realities and sharing his world's timeline with a selection of other 2000A.D. strips, Judge Dredd has encountered both Friday (Rogue Trooper, in 2000 A.D. Prog 900's Judge Dredd strip, Casualties of War) and Johnny Alpha (Strontium Dog, initially in 2000 A.D. Annual 1991's Judge Dredd strip, Top Dog) when they time-travelled to his city (n.b. Dredd's world is Alpha's past, but Alpha's world may only be one of many possible futures for Dredd).

During Dredd's Helter Skelter story (2000 A.D. Prog 1250-1261), dimensional barriers were breached, leading to cameos from other 2000 A.D. strips, including the VCs, Colony Earth, Halo Jones, MACH 1, Robo-Hunter, Sláine, DR and Quinch, and Ace Trucking. In the final Timequake story, the villain of the piece is arrested by a Mega-City judge, providing a tenuous commonality link to Dredd. In Prog 2012, and a crossover not yet reflected on the map above, Sinister and Dexter pursue a target across the multiverse, visiting Mega City One and narrowly dodging Judge Dredd, stop briefly in the world of Flesh, visit the Quartz Zone massacre site (Rogue Trooper), drop in on Nikolai Dante, and encounter Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer while their target skips ahead and runs into Gene the Hackman (Kingdom); for three of these realities (Sinister/Dexter, Nikolai Dante and Kingdom), this is the first solid confirmation of being part of 2000 A.D.'s multiverse. Finally, and importantly for linking 2000 A.D. to the rest of the Omniverse, Dredd has met DC's Batman multiple times thanks to interdimensional travel, starting with the story Judgement on Gotham.

2. Returning to Ace Trucking, we link to another set of 2000 A.D. strips via Armoured Gideon. The titular robot defends parallel worlds, and during his travels encounters the heroes of Ace Trucking, as well as Shako, Agent Rat, Meltdown Man, Wolfie Smith, Rick Random, Harry Twenty, Harry Angel and the ants from Ant Wars. Given the context and tone of Gideon's treatment of them, they are likely to be counterparts, hence the weaker connections on the map.

3. Batman has met Judge Dredd, Sherlock Holmes, the Shadow and Grendel, while Superman's cross-dimensional encounters include Lion-O of the Thundercats, Snap City's Madman and He-Man of Eternia. Wildstorm is one of DC's 52 universes in their current multiverse, while the Quality, Charlton and Fawcett universes all turned up as part of DC's original multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths. DC's new First Wave reality includes a Batman counterpart, while Red Circle (aka MLJ) and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents now have counterparts in the DC main universe. Milestone heroes likewise are now integrated into DC's main universe, but also met the DC heroes in the Worlds Collide crossover. DC has met Marvel several times (see below). In cartoons a counterpart of Captain Marvel exists in Hero High (not shown), Captain Marvel's live-action TV version teamed up with Isis, and in turn her cartoon version is part of Freedom Force, which ties in Space Sentinels through Hercules, a member of both teams. Batman's cartoon counterpart has met Hanna Barbera's Scooby Doo, while the Green Lantern's cartoon incarnations have met Warner Bros' Duck Dodgers, and the TV live action Batman counterpart met Green Hornet's TV counterpart.

In Wonder Woman #201-202, Wonder Woman and Catwoman travelled to Fritz Leiber's Nehwon to team with his barbarian heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser against the multidimensional threat of Gawron. The 2001 Electra Woman and Dyna Girl pilot featured guest appearances by DC's Aquaman and Flash, and Electra Woman name-dropped Flash, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (in the context of being genuine heroes in her world). Kingdom Come has interacted with the current DC universe via dimensional travel; it is the current Earth-22. And in Kingdom Come #2, Rorschach from Watchmen appears; presumably it's a counterpart, but it still ties Watchmen to the rest of the multiverse. Meanwhile the Superman vs. Terminator miniseries features Superman encountering John and Sarah Connor from the Terminator mileau, providing counterpart links to that franchise.

4. The Thundercats met G-Force, who are Gatchaman counterparts, in a miniseries. And G-Force have also encountered the Witchblade, providing another link from them to the wider multiverse.

5. Over the decades Marvel has tied in to several other realities. It has an extensive multiverse, has had several characters temporarily migrate to the Ultraverse (such as Black Knight and Juggernaut); the X-Men have travelled across realities to meet the crew of Kirk's Enterprise; the Avengers have met the Transformers; Wildstorm tied in via Heroes Reborn (link not shown); Elric travelled interdimensionally to meet Marvel's version of Conan, tying in Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champions multiverse; Captain England and Captain Albion cameoed in Top Ten; Shreck from Shadowline travelled to 616 and began using the name Terror; Tarzan shares a foe with Wolverine, confirming the jungle lord has a counterpart in 616, as does Doc Savage, whose Marvel incarnation met the Fantastic Four's Thing, Godzilla, who fought SHIELD, and Fu Manchu, the father of Marvel hero Shang-Chi; Harvey Comics' Human Meteor has a Marvel universe counterpart who turned up in Invaders. Two members of Planeta's Iberia Inc appeared among the assembled alternate reality Avengers in Avengers Forever. Marvel and DC have met several times, notably in DC vs Marvel, and India's Raj Comics had an unlicensed (but legitimate for our purposes) meeting between Spider-Man and Nagraj.

Daredevil and Wolverine have both met Shi, who in turn has met Wildstorm's Grifter, Warren's Vampirella and Top Cow's Cyblade; this last crossover also saw the two heroines interacting with dozens of other characters from independent comics, including but not limited to Cerebus, Omaha the Cat Dancer, Eudaemon, Milk and Cheese, Wolff and Byrd, Hellboy, Kabuki, Samaritan from Astro City (the only confirmed link to the rest of the Omniverse for Astro City that I know of), Usagi Yojimbo, Scud the Disposable Assassin, Megaton Man, the Tick, Mr. Spook from Beanworld, Cascade from Sovereign Seven, and Fone Bone from Bone. Importantly as it provides a link to an otherwised orphaned reality, Shi has also met Peter David's Fallen Angel. And through the Fallen Angel the Omniverse gets a solid link to Joss Whedon's Buffyverse, as the Fallen Angel has met Illyria in what is presumably a merger crossover.

6. The Doctor encountered Death's Head just after the cyborg had left the Transformers universe, and later dropped him off in the Marvel universe. Additionally, the Special Executive, who once worked for the Doctor's race, the Gallifreyans, have met Marvel's Captain Britain. Slightly more tenuous, when the Doctor attended Bonjaxx's birthday party on an interdimensional spaceport, we had cameos of Sapphire & Steel, Worf from Star Trek, Axel Pressbutton and the Timespirits - even if we assume they are only considered counterparts to the "real" versions, it still ties each of them into the overall Omniverse. The Doctor who novel Corpse Marker and spin-off audios Kaldor City confirm the Blake's 7 TV show to be part of the Doctor's reality through the shared character of psycho-strategist Carnell.

7. The television version of the Ultraverse's Nightman met Manimal in an episode of the former's series.

8. The Squadron Supreme (Earth-712) have met their Supreme Power counterparts and the Ultimate universe heroes during the Ultimate Power miniseries. Meanwhile the Ultimate universe has also crossed over with the Marvel Zombies, who in turn have visited the regular 616 Marvel universe. And, finally making it undeniable to all the nay-sayers who still insisted it couldn't happen, the Earth-616 "mainstream" Spider-Man has now travelled to the Ultimate universe and met the new Spider-Man (Miles Morales) of that reality.

9. Via the Time Force, many of Warren's heroes have met one another. Vampirella meanwhile has crossed over with numerous characters, including DC's Catwoman (link not shown), Chaos' Lady Death (link not shown), Image's Wetworks, Shadowhawk and Savage Dragon, and Top Cow's Witchblade. Darklon the Mystic travelled to the Marvel universe, turning up as Darklore in Warlock Chronicles. And Vampirella has met Barnabus Collins, bringing Dark Shadows into the mix.

10. Sherlock Holmes has counterparts who have trained Elijah Snow and worked with Dracula (Wildstorm's Planetary), been imprisoned by Britain's Crown Prince Dracula (Kim Newman's Anno Dracula), learned he was Dracula's nephew and fought him (Saberhagen's Holmes-Dracula File), trained both the Shadow and Doc Savage (DC, links not shown), encountered the Doctor (the novel All Consuming Fire), met Mina Harker of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and even corresponded indirectly with reporter Carl Kolchak in Moonstone Comics. It's worth noting that both LoEG and Anno Dracula link in several other iconic Victorian era characters not listed on the map (mainly due to lack of space on this draft).

11. DC's new First Wave line involves counterparts of the Spirit, Doc Savage, and the Avenger co-existing alongside DC's Batman, Blackhawk and Black Canary.

12. DC's version of Doc Savage met DC's version of the Shadow (as did the Dark Horse versions of both heroes), while a counterpart Doc Savage built the Rocketeer's jetpack. Meanwhile the Shadow has encountered the Avenger when both were at DC, Dynamite have teamed up the Green Hornet, Zorro, Black Bat, Shadow, Spider, Miss Fury, Black Terror and Green Lama, and Moonstone have published encounters between Phantom Detective, the Black Bat (again), Domino Lady, G-8 and Secret Agent X, plus a different crossover between Domino Lady and the Spider. All of which works to solidly tie together many of the major Pulp heroes.

13. MLJ's heroes have counterparts in DC's Impact imprint, and have reality hopped to meet Archie's superhero incarnations.

14. Nexus met Valiant's Magnus, Robot Fighter in a miniseries named after the two of them. He's also crossed over with Snap City's Madman, and met Dreadstar and Cynosure's Grimjack (see below).

15. Grimjack's Cynosure is, by its very nature, a convergence of realities, allowing various heroes from other realities to visit. Dynamo Joe dropped in for Grimjack #30, Warp's Chaos in the Grimjack back-up in Starslayer, and Zero Tolerance and Meta-4 in The Gift one-shot. Roachmill's Zoo-Lou, Beanworld's Mr. Spook, Cyclone's Southern Squadron and Jackaroo, Girl Genius' Heterodyne Boys, and the TMNT (link not shown) have all visited Munden's Bar. Grimjack turns up in Roger Zelazny's Blood of Amber, and is namechecked in the Amber short story "The Shroudling and the Guisel" (which also mentions Remo Williams, linking the Destroyer novels). Grimjack also encountered Dreadstar and Nexus in Crossroads #5.

16. Warp's Chaos met E-Man in E-Man #13. E-Man is also in War of the Independents (links not shown), tying him with many others.

17. Badger provides the bridges to the main First Comics' shared universe, having dimension travelled to meet Nexus (first in Nexus #7) and American Flagg's Luther Ironheart (Crossroads #3), adventured with Coyote (no apparent dimension travel involved), and visited Australia's Dugga Dugga when he raced the Wombat (Badger #58); Dugga Dugga is the home town of Cyclone Comics' Jackaroo, and both he and his supporting cast appeared in cameo during the issue. The Crossroads miniseries established that Badger shares a universe with fellow First Comics characters Whisper and Sable.

18. Valiant's Magnus, Turok and Solar are counterparts to Gold Key's characters of similar name, while Acclaim in turn is filled with counterparts to the Valiant heroes; the two latter realities met in Unity 2000.

19. Image has had a ton of crossovers, a fair few thanks to the Savage Dragon. Wildstorm and Top Cow both used to be part of the Image universe until the Shattered Image miniseries. In his own title Dragon has met Hellboy, the TMNT, the villains of Wanted (Savage Dragon #128), the Big Bang universe heroes (Big Bang Comics #12), and encountered Megaton (in whose universe he has a counterpart), Vampirella, Cerebus, Destroyer Duck, Madman, DNAgents, Flaming Carrot, Zot, E-Man, the DNAgents and namedropped the Next Men in Savage Dragon #41. Invincible has dimension hopped to Marvel's 616 universe, while Shadowhawk time-travelled to meet 1963's Tomorrow Syndicate in Shadowhawk #14. The Image and Valiant universes had a major crossover with one another in Deathmate, and Shadowhawk's involvement in War of the Independents ties him to First Comics main universe (Badger), Cerebus, Heroic, Flaming Carrot, and many others.

20. Hellboy met the Goon in Goon #7, in a story that was either dimension travel or a dream.

21. Monkeyman and O'Brien dimension travelled to meet Image's Gen 13, while their foe, the Shrewmanoid, has fought Hellboy's Abe Sapien and Babe, who is part of John Byrne's Danger Unlimited reality.

22. In crossover miniseries (each named after the characters involved) Army of Darkness' Ash has run across Xena and the Marvel Zombies, both of which involved Ash dimension travelling, and has fought the Re-Animator Herbert West and alongside Darkman. Ash has also fought both Halloween's Jason Voorhees and Friday the 13th's Freddie Krueger.

23. Coyote and others in his supporting cast (Djinn, Scorpio Rose) guest starred in Claypool's Phantom of Fear City #4.

24. Boris the Bear encountered the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in #11 of his own title, and the Cyclone Comics' Southern Squadron in #25.

25. The Justice Machine have met the Hero Alliance via reality travel in the Identity Crisis one-shot, the Elementals in Justice Machine featuring the Elementals miniseries, and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents in Noble's Justice Machine Annual #1.

26. As well as visiting Cynosure, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have reality travelled to meet with Miyamoto Usagi of Usagi Yojimbo (Turtle Soup #1) and Cerebus (TMNT #8), and met the Savage Dragon, Flaming Carrot and Hellboy (last two links not shown) without any apparent reality jumping. The movie Turtles Forever confirms that all the different versions of the Turtles, from the original comic through the various cartoons, movies (live action and CGI), computer games, manga, etc, all share a Turtle multiverse, or "Turtleverse," which brings in the Power Rangers, who met the live action TV version of the Turtles.

27. Heroic Comics' Liberty Girl is taking part in War of the Independents, tying them in with several other realities (not all the links shown on the map). Additionally, the League of Champions crossed over with Comics Interview's Southern Knights; no reality travel was seen to be involved, so which type of link this establishes is uncertain.

29. During the World Tour storyline of his own comic, Dark Horse's Mask reality-jumped to Comics' Greatest World, which also has its own version of Godzilla.

30. Not only is Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash taking part in War of the Independents, tying her to numerous other points on this map (not all displayed), but she's also had encounters with Chaos Comics' Evil Ernie (explicitly involving dimension travel for him), Child's Play's Chucky and Herbert West, Re-Animator (presumably counterparts to the "real" versions). She's crossed over with Halloween Man in an explicit dimension travel story, Hackoween, which also features zombie Marvel character homages.

31. AC (aka Americomics) has utilised many public domain Golden Age characters (creating more links than I have space to show). In addition, Ms. Victory's participation in War of the Independents forges several new links, including the ones displayed on the map.

32. Flaming Carrot has crossed over with the likes of the TMNT before (link not displayed), but most of the links displayed here are due to his joining in the mega-crossover War of the Independents.

33. Again thanks to War of the Independents, Captain Canuck is crossing over with numerous characters - the links displayed are only a tiny proportion.

34. Eclipse Comics' Airboy, Heap, Valkyrie, etc, can be considered either continuations or counterparts to Hillman's Golden Age characters. In addition, the dimension-spanning crossover Total Eclipse linked in various realities outside the main Eclipse one, including Aztec Ace, Black Terror, Miracleman, Destroyer Duck, Mr. Monster, Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters and the Beanworld. The Liberty Project, who took part in Total Eclipse and apparently were natives to the main Eclipse reality, later turned up in TeenAgents, part of the Topps' Kirbyverse.

35. In the normalman/Megaton Man special, not only did the title characters meet, tying normalman to Megaton's Fiascoverse, but as they traversed Alternity (the bridging realm between different realities) with Beanworld's Mr. Spook in tow, several other heroes made cameos, including (but not limited to) Groo, Bone, Zot, Concrete, Bongo Comic's Radioactive Man and ACG's Herbie.

36. Dynamite's Project Superpowers uses a multitude of public domain Golden Age comic heroes and villains, providing numerous counterpart links between defunct Golden Age companies.

37. Nedor's public domain characters have also turned up in Hero Comic's Alter Ego and America's Best Comics' Tom Strong (which in turn shares a reality with most of the rest of the ABC line), providing counterpart links between the realities.

38. Malibu's Protectors are based on the public domain Centaur characters, and thus there are multiple counterpart links to tie them together.

39. Malibu's Genesis Merge crossover story brought together three of their disparate universe: The Protectors, Dinosaurs for Hire and Ex-Mutants.

40. Orphaned universes. At the bottom of the map I have one set of realities with some links, but none that tie them to the overall map. The Twilight Avenger has encountered the characters of Antarctic Press' Ninja High School, but neither one, to the best of my knowledge, has met anyone from elsewhere in the Omniverse. Additionally, there are numerous realities I have not found any links to yet, such as the DC Thomson universe or the Mars Ravelo universe; there may not be any, or I might simply not have identified them yet.

41. Though a fictional character in the Simpsons, his frequent appearances still serve to tie Radioactive Man's Bongo Comics reality to the Simpson's one. Additionally, the X-Files' two lead characters turned up in the Simpsons. Though done for humour, the characters were named identically to their live-action versions, drawn to resemble the actors who played them, and voice by those same actors, moving the appearance (for the purposes of this map) from homage/parody/analogues to counterparts, which means they get a link.

42. The movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? provides counterpart ties between several major Golden Age cartoon characters, including Fleischer studios' Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, MGM's Droopy, King Features' Felix the Cat, Universal's Woody the Woodpecker, and umpteen Disney and Warner characters. Since most cartoon studios included cameos of their stars in each others' cartoons, this effectively ties all their universes together. And Donald Duck has met Asterix in Asterix et ses Amis, linking the Gaul and his friends to the rest of the multiverse.

43. Tarzan has also met Carson of Venus, John Carter of Mars, and DC's Batman and Superman (link to last not shown) during the period he was being published by Dark Horse Comics.

44. Miracleman, aka Marvelman is connected to the Big Ben reality via Big Ben's counterpart in Marvelman's reality. Quality's American reprinting of IPC's Steel Claw included new material establishing that the Claw and Amadeus Wolf were also part of Big Ben's reality. The IPC characters infrequently met one another back in their heyday, and more recently were confirmed to share the Albion universe, now published by Wildstorm; IPC's Steel Claw and Cursitor Doom are counterparts to Quality's Claw and Wolf respectively. Additionally, the Claw, Android Archie and many others have counterparts in the multiverse seen in 2000 A.D.'s Zenith. There are also analogues to DC Thomson's characters in Zenith, but they, like the IPC analogues that turn up both in Marvel's Captain Britain and Wildstorm's Authority, aren't considered sufficient evidence to confirm a link between realities.

45. Not yet on the map. Jim Starlin's characters Breed, Kid Cosmos, Oedi, Wyrd, Darklon and Vanth Dreadstar all met one another in Breed III #6 in the "Elsewhere" interdimensional realm. Since Vanth has crossed over with some of the other characters who appeared in First, and Darklon with the Marvel universe, this ties all of the above well and truly into the overall Omniverse.

46. Not yet on the map. One Planet of the Apes reality is linked to the Marvel multiverse via Apeslayer, a counterpart to Killraven. Meanwhile in another Apes-verse reality, the Apes coexist with the Newcomers from Alien Nation.

47. The Anno Dracula novel series contain many "dimensional counterpart" links to other realities, bringing in Adam Adamant, Kurt Barlow from 'Salem's Lot, Dr Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, Dr. Moreau, Herbert West (Re-Animator), the Sherlock Holmes mileau, Oliver Twist, Varney the Vampire, Barnabus Collins from Dark Shadows, the Picture of Dorian Grey, H.G. Wells' Invisible Man, Mr. Vampire (the Chinese movie character), Carmilla Karnstein, Carnacki the Ghost Finder, Lestat de Lioncourt from Interview with the Vampire and its sequels, the Prisoner of Zenda, the Shadow, Bulldog Drummond, Biggles, Nosferatu's Count Orlok, Lord Ruthven, the Lone Ranger, Fu Manchu, Professor Moriarty and Sebastian Moran, Tarzan, Dr. No, Tintin, Joshua York from Fevre Dream, Count Von Krolock from Fearless Vampire Killers, Inspector Clouseau, A.J. Raffles, Godfather Michael Corleone, Severin from Near Dark, the Heap, Robur the Conqueror, Dr. Mabuse, Dr. Caligari, Jerry Dandridge from Fright Night, the Addams Family, Captain Eliot Spencer (Pinhead's original identity), the Man Who Would Be King's Sgt. Dravot, Godfrey from Dad's Army, Fantomas, Judex, Nick Knight, Monk Mayfair, the Saint and Lord Peter Wimsey.

48. Not yet on the map. There is a Sergio Bonelli universe where Zagor, Nathan Never, Mister No, Dylan Dog and Martin Mystere all hail from. Dylan Dog and Martin Mystere have teamed up several times, while the cartoon version of Martin Mystere has appeared in Totally Spies episode "Totally Mystery Much?" Unfortunately, I am as yet unaware of a crossover to any of the above from elsewhere in the multiverse.

Final word: The above is an exercise in what if, rather than serious debate. I sometimes see posters on internet forums stridently insisting "Character X and character Y can't possibly meet or share a world together. There's no such thing as an Omniverse where all these worlds exist." These posters are wrong, and they need to lighten up. The truth is, all these characters do share a common world - ours. All these fictional characters sprang from the imagination of the storytellers who created them, and as such any or all of them can traverse the boundaries that separate one fictional reality from another any time a storyteller wants them to. Our imagination is the Omniverse, and we can go anywhere we want to and meet whoever we like on the way.

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