While the heroes of the DC Universe are more popular than ever before thanks to the movies, TV shows, and cartoons, that doesn't mean that the members of the Justice League have only just started hobnobbing with real-world celebrities. If anything, it seems as if the more famous these heroes get, the less they hang out with other famous people.
But it wasn't that long ago that some of the most famous faces in movies and comics found their way into the adventures of DC's greatest champions. While Superman was the hero who mixed it up with the celebrities the most, he wasn't the only hero to meet up with denizens of reality, though he did come across the biggest names while other heroes usually hung out with lesser-known but still quite impressive people.
10 Don Rickles Helped Save The Day
One of the most famous celebrity cameos in comics, Don Rickles didn't just pop up for a quick meeting with the Man of Steel and his best friend in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, the insult comic took part in a two-issue storyline written and drawn by none other than Jack Kirby. In the story, Rickles has just signed a contract with the Galaxy Broadcasting System, which happens to own the Daily Planet. But before GBS can set up Rickles with his own show, an alien invasion causes some problems, and the angry comedian's genial doppelganger, superhero Goody Rickles shows up to help Superman and Jimmy Olsen save the day.
9 Pat Boone Sang A Duet With Lois Lane
Everyone knows that Lois Lane is the best investigative reporter in the DC Universe, but what most people aren't aware of is that she is also a huge fan of singer Pat Boone. In Superman's Girl Friend Lois Lane issue #9, Lois got the chance to not only meet her musical idol, but to perform a song with him as well.
For reasons that are unclear, Lois and Boone decide to have Clark Kent write a song about Superman, which Clark begrudgingly agrees to do. But after the reporter and the crooner begin to sing the tune, Superman realizes that the song he wrote has clues to his secret identity in it, so he must stop the two from finishing the song.
8 Grant Morrison Wrote Himself Into A Bind
Grant Morrison has never been a traditional superhero writer. Their stories always dig deep into the character or characters they are working on and play with the past of the medium to bring in something new. In the case of their work on Animal Man, Morrison brought back an old gag from the Silver Age and gave it a darker tone.
In their final issue writing Animal Man, Morrison inserted themselves into the story, revealing to the DC hero that every horrible thing that had happened to him recently was the writer's fault. Morrison put Animal Man's life back as it was before, bring his dead family back being the major change. Later, Morrison would appear in Suicide Squad #58 where they would be killed in action.
7 Flash Meets His Creators
While there are other examples of creators interacting with their creations, what likey gave Morrison the idea to insert themselves into Animal Man was 1968's Flash #179. In the story, Flash finds himself thrown out of Earth-One and sent to the real world where he heads to the DC Comics offices and meets with DC editor Julius Schwartz.
Over the years, Flash would travel to the real world a number of times, and in Flash #228, writer Cary Bates would find himself in Central City helping Flash fight Trickster. A Year later in Justice League of America #123, Bates would be a villain that threatened the existence of Earth-One and Earth-2, only to be stopped by fellow writer Elliot S! Maggin.
6 Shakespeare Worked For Dream
While Cary Bates and Elliot S! Maggin are great writers, they aren't often considered to be the greatest writers to have ever lived. That title, arguably, belongs to William Shakespeare, the man behind classics like Romero and Julliet, Hamlett, and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
In the case of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the play's existence, at least in the DC Universe, is thanks to Dream of the Endless. In Neil Gaiman's seminal Sandman series, Dream commissioned the Bard to write two plays for him. The first play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, was created and first performed for the Faerie folk in Sandman #19.
5 Neil DeGrasse Tyson Met The Man Of Steel
In the early days of the New 52 Era, Superman was trying to locate the remains of his home planet Krypton, and he turned to the smartest astrophysicist he knew, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. As seen in Action Comics #14, the famous scientist lives in Metropolis and is more than happy to help the Man of Steel find his birth planet.
To help add realism to the issue, Neil deGrasse Tyson did some real-world research and found a star system that is located 27.1 light-years from Earth that could conceivably be the location of the doomed planet if the story of Superman happened to be real.
4 Flash Fought Alongside Colonel Sanders
Traveling through the Multiverse, Flash has had a number of run-ins with heroes of other Earths, but none of the adventures of the Fastest Man Alive were as strange as the time he teamed up with Colonel Sanders, the creator and face of KFC, to stop an evil version of the famous fast-food entrepreneur from Earth-3.
The Colonel of Two Worlds proved to be popular enough that two more books, KFC: Crisis of Infinite Colonels and KFC: Across the Universe, were created, giving the Colonel a chance to meet Flashes from other Earths and team up with a number of DC heroes, including Green Lantern.
3 Julius Schwartz Hated Ambush Bug
The first time Julius Schwartz met any of DC's heroes was in the previously mentioned Flash #179, but the weirdest appearance of the famous creator and editor was in 1992's Ambush Bug Nothing Special. In the special, Ambush Bug is busy trying to get a job at DC Comics but finds that Schwartz hates him. To get around the problem, the green-suited hero tries to travel to a time when Schwartz isn't at DC, only to find that the well-regarded editor is always at DC, even as a cybernetic version of himself a thousand years in the future.
2 Bill and Hillary Clinton Mourned The Man Of Steel
Not every celebrity cameo happens during a fun adventure. During the now-classic Death and Return of Superman saga, then-President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton appeared at Superman's funeral. The two have a speech at the memorial for the Man of Steel, cementing their place in the history of the DC Universe alongside Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan as real-world politicians who made it into the comics.
Bill Clinton would later meet with the Cyborg Superman during the same storyline and go on to appear in a number of DC books, including Birds of Prey and Justice League before making his final appearance in Young Justice #18.
1 Jerry Lewis Yucked It Up On His Own Earth
While a number of celebrities showed up in the comics in one form or another, Jerry Lewis was the only one to be given his own Earth in the DC Multiverse. Set up on Earth-12, The Adventures of Jerry Lewis, which started off as The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, ran for an impressive 124 issues. Across the many humorous adventures that the funny man went through in his series, Lewis came into contact with a number of DC's most famous faces, including Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.