10 Insane Times Superheroes Teamed Up With Their Worst Enemies

Batman And Joker... partners?!

Batman Joker Team Up
DC Comics

The superhero genre loves a good trope. Whether it be a case of mistaken identity, powers misbehaving or something else entirely, there's always something the genre returns to time and again.

One of the most beloved tropes is that of the Hero-Villain team-up. All too often the superheroes of the Marvel and DC universes have had to put aside their differences with their greatest adversary, suit up, and take on a bigger threat with their foe at their side.

There's a reason why it's so successful though, and that's because the novelty never gets old; writers always find a way to make these onetime collaborations ludicrously entertaining, providing enough thrills, spills and occasionally chills, to warrant another return a few years further down the line.

Of course, with some rivalries outlasting others - both in terms of acclaim and notoriety - it makes sense that some occasions where heroes fought alongside their enemies were more successful than others. The bigger the rivalry, the bigger the impact, and with countless stories from both the House of Ideas and their West Coast rivals having utilised the trope in some way or another, there's quite a lot to unpack.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.