JLA/Avengers Crossover

[XPac]

True. Add to the fact that lost in all of this, they were fighting over the last artifact. So, the Avengers were dumb to leave the fight for the artifact to jump one guy and the Justice League was dumb to just stand around and not go after the artifact when the Avengers dropped everything to attack Supes.

Still, like others have said, it was a fun story despite some things that I didn't particularly care for (Galactus jobbing was a big one).

Like it or not (and I certainly don't), I think at this point writers, even unconsciously, have sort of almost universally decided to use Galactus in this sort of capacity. He's the guy you pull out to make some OTHER cosmic being seem more uber. In this case I don't even disagree that Galactus would be less powerful... but it just adds to the cumulative effect of watering down a guy who at one point was considered (by some at least) to be the ultimate big bad. It's sadly to the point where I'm essentially expecting Galacutus to be jobbed out whenever a new cosmic threat rears it's ugly head.

The fact that Galactus was essentially turned into the guys house was perhaps a bit more humiliating than his average cumberstomp... but in the least it showed some creativity.

Still, I'll agree that most of the complaints are relatively minor. It's your atypical comic book stuff. No major red flags.

[XPac]

C'mon people. Things were supposed to have happened fast, in the heat of battle. Supes took down Thor, some Avengers disengaged from their own fights, bludgeoned Supes, the others JLAers saw what was happening, Aquaman took action. Bing, bang pow. The standing around, if there truly was such, was merely for dramatic impact.

Peace

Yeah, but it was an entire third of the Avengers entire group that endanged SUperman. And it was literally their most powerful members. And it wasn't just a quickie attack either... they were standing around pounding on him.

There's absolutely no reason at all the rest of the league shouldn't have been able to completely take over the fight in that small window of time. The JLA deciding to just stand around and watch was really the only reason that mistake on the Avengers part didn't essentially wipe out the rest of the team right there.

If we're talking Power Pack or something I could understand them making such an obvious mistake. But I think it's fair to assume a bit more out of the JLA or Avengers. Maybe the message there is that without Cap and Batman on the battle field, the teams sort of devolve into just mobs or something.

[marshal99]

The nice thing was at the time the JLA and Avengers line ups were fairly classic anyways, so it didn't even take much.

Had JLA/Avengers taken place a few years later, the event probably would have had an entirely different feel.

Ewww , Bendis avengers & Meltzer JLA would be awful.

[hawkeyefan]

Best part of the whole thing was when Hawkeye called the JLA a bunch of Squadron Supreme ripoffs.

In general, it's a fun book that had a lot going on. Because of what I am guessing was editorial mandate (as Kurt said, he had two editors) the story is a pretty traditional one, but that's to be expected in something like this. The characterization and art are both impressive.

And yeah, the Thor/Superman fight couldn't really end any other way. They could have depicted it any way they want...the end would have to be the same.

[Nomads1]

Ewww , Bendis avengers & Meltzer JLA would be awful.

Yeah, that would have been a whole different kind of animal.


Peace

[marshal99]

The avengers and JLA can sit around the roundtable for 10 pages , just talking heads with stupid thought bubbles.

[Whirlwind Dinamo]

Again, Superman's "weakness" to magic has been overstated. If that were the case, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman would demolish Superman every time they fight, with them being magical/divine.

Mjölnir is suposed to be one of the most powerful weapons in the Universe
from the Kenneth Branagh movie: ODIN (Anthony Hopkins)"So long entrusted with the mighty hammer, Mjöllnir, forged in the heart of a dying star. It's Power Has No Equal! "
yet Superman caught the hammer and punched out Thor....terrible writing
if he speed blitzed Thor that would be fine but they traded blow for blow and Thor was hitting him with the DAMN HAMMER, I mean what was the hammer in JLA/Avengers!?!? Did it all of a sudden become a A PLASTIC TOY

It doesn't take an Asgardian Godblast or a mighty blow from the hammer to put a Krypton down, they are vulnerable to magic and have been put down by far less




http://www.flickr.com/photos/zsabreu...7627283668679/


some writers conveniently ignore that weakness when he needs to win
and like I said I have many other issues with the book, Photon making a joke of Lanterns, mainstream characters in the book outnumbered by obscure characters, forced plot devices and the jobbing of Galactus and dorky dialogue, Kurt a great writer but the dialogue didn't work in the book. I think Bendis or Loeb even though I'm not really a fan of their work, I think they could have wrote a more fun book.

[XPac]

Ewww , Bendis avengers & Meltzer JLA would be awful.

I think that would have been fun, but in a very different kind of way.

It wouldn't have a lot of the old school classic match ups that the Busiek Avengers era Avengers had, because obviously the New Avengers are a bunch of new guys. But I think the MU and DCU for that matter during those particular eras were actually in very interesting places, and that could have provided a very different backdrop for the event. I think if one were using a Bendis era Avengers, the MU itself would play a much bigger role in the story.

I don't think we'll ever see anything like that again as I imagine Disney and Warner Brothers would have such a thing infinately more complicated, but I definately think a cross over with the Bendis or even the Hickman Avengers would be pretty darn fun in their own right.

[Nyadnar17]

Is it worth getting the JLA/Avengers crossover, will it be a graphic novel to have in my collection.

One of the best battle/crossover books ever. Yeah hardcore battle boarders can nitpick it to death, but if you ask even them to rank this thing it comes out on top. Battleboards aside, this thing is such a labor or love and joy that you can feel it on every page. Fuck I am about to go reread it right now.

[jackolover]

Didn't wolverine managed to tag thor and has thor saying that wolverine is faster than him ?!

And I give you Mighty Avengers # 34 where Thor states -" I have vanquished faster than you" to Quicksilver and then takes him out.

[jackolover]

Big difference between Quicksilver's speed and Superman's. Like Flash, Superman is way faster than Pietro.

Thor has fought those with superspeed before, such as Gladiator, but for the most part, they don't use their speed against Thor.

But Thor said to Quicksilver - " faster than you". Who knows where that goes?

[jackolover]

Had Thor decided to actually shoot at Thor with something (lightning or whatever), I don't think he would interpret that as deadly force anymore than I think Superman using heat ray vision was a decision on his part to use deadly force against Thor.

I think Superman at that point was smart enough to measure his opponent and realize he didn't need to use kid gloves. I would presume Thor would be smart enough to make that conclusion as well. He didn't act like he knew, but I'll assume he did.

Like I said earlier, I at least would have been fine if Superman had simply knocked Thor out, without that whole heat ray vision scene, because I do believe that Supes is a BIT stronger and a BIT tougher. I just am personally not a huge fan of one guy losing because he was stupid. To me at least, not demonstrating basic common sense comes off much worse than Thor simply not being quite as strong as the guy he's fighting.

But that's me.

Like I said, I don't think Thor was stupid, just that Thor has two settings. A softer, hero vs hero setting, and a deadly force setting where he uses whatever it takes to kill an opponent. Thor was using the softer setting and to you that makes Thor look stupid. To me, it is a reasonable downgrade in power when you know your opponent isn't taking over the world or trying to kill you.

[jackolover]

Mjölnir is suposed to be one of the most powerful weapons in the Universe
from the Kenneth Branagh movie: ODIN (Anthony Hopkins)"So long entrusted with the mighty hammer, Mjöllnir, forged in the heart of a dying star. It's Power Has No Equal! "
yet Superman caught the hammer and punched out Thor....terrible writing
if he speed blitzed Thor that would be fine but they traded blow for blow and Thor was hitting him with the DAMN HAMMER, I mean what was the hammer in JLA/Avengers!?!? Did it all of a sudden become a A PLASTIC TOY

It doesn't take an Asgardian Godblast or a mighty blow from the hammer to put a Krypton down, they are vulnerable to magic and have been put down by far less



some writers conveniently ignore that weakness when he needs to win
and like I said I have many other issues with the book, Photon making a joke of Lanterns, mainstream characters in the book outnumbered by obscure characters, forced plot devices and the jobbing of Galactus and dorky dialogue, Kurt a great writer but the dialogue didn't work in the book. I think Bendis or Loeb even though I'm not really a fan of their work, I think they could have wrote a more fun book.

I don't know if Bendis or Loeb could have done any better with those two editors. The book would have to have read exactly the same only with slightly different dialogue. Knowing how Events go, being orchestrated down to the last movement, all the writers have left to do is fill-in the word balloons.

[jackolover]

One of the best battle/crossover books ever. Yeah hardcore battle boarders can nitpick it to death, but if you ask even them to rank this thing it comes out on top. Battleboards aside, this thing is such a labor or love and joy that you can feel it on every page. Fuck I am about to go reread it right now.

Yeah. Have to agree with this. I remember when I read this at the time, how every word, and every action had to be precisely choreographed, because of the history of all these super heroes. There is a sort of magic to super heroes we tend to overlook, but it is there, and I saw it recently when re-reading the first X-Men Essentials, how those first mutant kids never lost. It wasn't that they never came up against impossible odds, but that they consistently beat the odds. The odds being, "you can't win them all". But when you come up against other super heroes who also have this fantastic win loss ratio, the two magics come into conflict and one has to lose. It's a very painful dilemma. The only character who actually has that "never lose" power is Squirrel Girl, but they all have it, to some degree. That DC and Marvel were able to sit down and map that out, you could feel it on the page.

[Kurt Busiek]

Knowing how Events go, being orchestrated down to the last movement, all the writers have left to do is fill-in the word balloons.

Nope. The editors didn't give us carte blanche, but they didn't orchestrate the story, either. We all got together, I laid out what I wanted to do, they (and George) had comments and suggestions and edits, and we went from there. Just like most other Marvel or DC stories I've done, but with two sets of editors to run things by.

If Brian or Jeph had written it, I'm confident it would have been an utterly different work. I'm sure it would have annoyed some segment of the readers mightily, though -- it's virtually impossible to do one of these without that.

kdb