Just why are hero vs hero crossover fights so popular??

[Jay R]

This goes all the way back to the Greek trope of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Two approaches start off as opposite, but are brought together to produce something greater than either.

And don't think it's super-hero focused.

The first known heroic saga is Gilgamesh, and he and Enkidu fight before they become friends. Enkidu represents wildness, Gilgamesh is the cultured warrior-king, and they come together to combine both.

D'Artagnan is challenged by the three musketeers, and is about to duel them when the come together to fight the Cardinal's Guard.

Many romances start with the two eventual lovers disliking each other.

Robin Hood and Little John meet by fighting with quarterstaffs over a bridge.

Legolas and Gimli were rivals, personifying the elf/dwarf dislike, until they grew to be the closest of friends.

Edmund and Susan Pevensie had competitions with Trumpkin before they all started working together.

Richard Sharpe and Pat Harper have a big fist fight before Harper became Sharpe's most loyal supporter.

Buzz and Woody start off as rivals.

Spock and McCoy were on opposites sides through about half of the first season, and always represented opposite sides of many issues.

To show the story of two worthy characters coming together, learning to respect each other, and becoming friends, they have to start off apart, disrespectful, and not friends.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Which is probably why I liked the first Batman vs. Superman thing I ever saw, the "World's Finest" crossover episode of Batman the Animated Series/New Adventures of Superman back in the 90's. It never exactly develops into a fight, but they start off antagonistic and competitive until they figure out how to work together and are consistently friends in that continuity thereafter (barring Red Kryptonite or whatever). The goal isn't "who would win in a fight", as hilarious as Batman judo-flipping a careless Supes is. It's showing two very different heroes having a gradual process of becoming friends and allies.

I consider that very different to just having a crossover fight for melodrama, myself.

[Psyren]

The problem with that analysis is that hero vs. hero has now also been done to actual death. I think the shark jumped on that one some time during Marvel's first Civil War (the fact that they made two and a movie that made DC compete by simultaneously developing a film based on their own, better-received, throwdown between Batman and Superman from the 80's is really telling). I don't read comics but I can tell you for a fact that they get enough press that I know there's been at least one major "heroes fight each other" event from one of the two main brands every year this decade, either in a comic or an adaptation. It's old, it's predictable (either no one wins or whoever the author personally likes more wins only for the event to get swept under the rug and ignored later), and it's actually more boring than seeing a hero fight a villain who actually has a plan and a goal. At least there's conflict of motivation there.

I agree they've all been done to death, which is part of the reason comics don't interest me that much to begin with. But I think they're still marginally fresher than their straightforward counterparts.

What I do still find interesting are villain or hero swaps - when one hero has to take on the villain of another franchise. For example, could Lex Luthor stymie the Flash, or how would Vision take on Magneto?

Many of these have been done too, but I think there are fewer examples.

[Rater202]

At this point, I think the fight is just kind of grandfathered into the concept of Superhero comics.

Some of the more recent ones have been playing with it--In Spider-Man/Deadpool, sociopathic murderer Itsy Bitsy legitimately believes that she's the good guy and asks, while fighting Wade and Spidey, "Can we skip the 'heroes fight becuase of misunderstandings' thing and skip right to the three way team-up?"(from memory.)

(The storyline later plays Spider-Man and Deadpool fighting for drama rather than fanboyism, but it lasts less than a chapter unless you count the spar in an earliar chapter and there's a build up to it.)

[Rogar Demonblud]

The only 'heroes fight' thing I find tolerable is when they're explicitly doing it as training, to push themselves into becoming better. The Big Two won't do that any more, but most of their heroes are such only for narrative convenience these days.