Star Trek & the Green Lantern Join Forces in THE SPECTRUM WAR

It's not often that you see cross-overs between the fictional universes of competing comic book companies.  Maybe it is because they don't want to dilute their brands and intellectual property rights by meshing them with characters they don't have ownership rights over; or they don't want to provide a competitive or financial advantage to one of their competitors; or it just might be a big hassle publishers don't want to spend time and effort dealing with.  Comic book publisher IDW seems to be an exception to the cross-over prohibition though as it has had some fun creating entertaining limited series that unite one of it its key licenses Star Trek with other brands to attract new customers to its comic books and exhilarate its current base of fans.  First they had a cross-over 8 issue limited series a few years ago with sci-fi favorite Dr. Who that pitted the crew of the Enterprise along with the Doctor and his companions in a fight versus a united threat created by the Cybermen and Borg working together.  More recently IDW teamed up with rival Boom Studios for a 5 issue Planet of the Apes/Star Trek mini series that teamed up Colonel George Taylor with Captain James T Kirk versus villainous Klingons and gorillas as they deal with the "Primate Directive" on an Earth ruled by apes. Based upon the success of these two previous cross-overs, IDW is now joining forces with DC Comics for THE SPECTRUM WAR which unites the characters from the new Star Trek movies with the Green Lantern Corps.

Star Trek/Green Lantern #1 hits stores on Wednesday, July 8 2015 kicking off a six issue comic book saga called The Spectrum War which depicts the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise meeting the Green Lantern Corps. According to the teaser for this IDW/DC Comics joint venture, "Kirk and Spock make an unusual discovery on a lost world in the process igniting events that will change the fate of empires."  If you enjoy super hero adventures and sci-fi stories this seems to be a great fit that combines two popular brands within this comic book story.

I'm looking forward to picking up this first issue to check it out for myself.  Star Trek/Green Lantern #1 is 32 pages and priced at $3.99.  So what do you think.  Are cross-overs that merge franchises great or should characters just stay tied to their own fictional universes?