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Good Comics, pt. 3
2007-03-29 15:49:59

JLA/AVENGERS #1

We should have an update on our "click-through" experiment hopefully by Friday. So if you haven't yet clicked the link in the entry two posts back--well, what are you waiting for?

Today's Good Comic I Had A Hand In is the first issue of the JLA/AVENGERS crossover. Say what you will about this crossover as a whole (and for myself, I feel like it goes off the rails in issue #3, but that's a whole column in and of itself), but this first issue, I felt, hit the mark precisely, creating a strong build throughout the issue, setting up the larger premise of the series--a comparison between the DC heroes/universe and the Marvel heroes/universe. And it was damn pretty.

Getting this project up and off the ground was no easy thing, as there were three companies involved, rather than just two, since George Perez had signed on with CrossGen at the time. Fortunately, George had left a loophole in his CrossGen contract that allowed him to do a JLA/AVENGERS project should one be offered to him by a certain date. It took everybody right up to the last second to get the necessary paperwork to George.

The core of the team--myself, DC editor Dan Raspler, Kurt Busiek and George-- met in Florida, after the Orlando Megacon at which we announced the project, to work out the broad strokes of the story. We got a lot of good stuff out of that meeting. And when a blizzard warning closed Manhattan airports, Kurt and I rented a car and drove for 26 hours straight to get back to New York. I'd love to be able to say that we came up with all of the genius bits on that trip, but frankly we were both so tired and punchy for most of the trip that it's a wonder we didn't kill somebody.

Page 21 became known around the office as "Tom's Page", as not only did I insist that the Flash be the first hero to traverse the dimensional barriers between universes (both as a tip-of-the-hat to the fact that he was the first character historically to travel between worlds, and because he's my favorite super hero), but I also purchased the original artwork.

More later.

Tom B

off the rails?
we want a blog entry on why "it goes off the rails in issue #3", NOW! :)
Is that the issue where the two universes melt?

Seriously, I really enjoyed that crossover.

Keep up the good work, Tom!

Posted by jack.frost on 2007-01-10 10:29:18

surprisingly good
This crossover was the best of the DC/Marvel crossovers because it had a sense of "of course this can happen" that the other crossovers failed to pull off. Also, the characters behaved for the most part like they should have behaved, which is hard to do in any big event (secret wars, CW, etc...) I also liked how the crossover highlighted the differences between the worlds without necessarily trashing the different takes on supers. It showed that there can be lots of room for DC and Marvel, and the complete loss of one or the other would be detremental to comics as a whole. Plus, Supes with Cap's shield and Thor's Hammer was the ultimate fanboy moment.

Posted by bigdaddyhub2 on 2007-01-10 13:15:35

You make it sound like you had to fight to get the Flash to be the one to cross "the dimensional barrier" - Is that really the case? Because the logic of it was PERFECT - Like you said, he crossed between Earth-1 and Earth-2, making it not only a clever tip of the hat to that moment, but also a good fit for historical continuity of the character's abilities.

Did other people have different ideas that they wanted to see instead?

Posted by Druesome on 2007-01-10 14:40:20

Still waiting for the trade
Unless i missed something we are still waiting for the normal Jla/Avengers trade, Marvel released the super duper shiny gold plated hardcover, and DC was to release a regular trade or something like that

Posted by Rain on 2007-01-10 16:29:31

I loved this entire series. Man, I miss the Avengers.

Posted by motteditor on 2007-01-10 21:21:53

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