NEWSARAMA WEEKLY 03.02.2001
Author: Michael Doran

Update - JLA/AVENGERS MEGACON PANEL REPORT

As expected, this afteroon at the Orlando, FL. Megacon convention, DC and Marvel Comics jointly announced that the long-awaited and long-rumored crossover between the JLA and the Avengers is finally a go.

Under the working title JLA/Avengers and Avengers/JLA, the four-issue, 48pp, squarebound-format mini-series will be co-published by Marvel and DC (with each publishing alternating issues), and of course written by George Perez and Kurt Busiek and illustrated by Perez. No publication date has been announced yet, but DC’s Mike Carlin and Marvel’s Tom Brevoort have both gone on record as saying the project would not be published in 2001, and it`s projected for a tenative summer 2002 release.

Though no plot details have been worked out, including whether the teams will team-up or face-off against one another, and which characters will star, Busiek revealed he’ll have the teams against impossible odds and facing a galactic threat, and maybe each other. And of course Busiek promises lots of characters for Perez to draw.

A panel discussing the project ended around 4 p.m. EST. Our man on the scene Matt Brady attended the panel, and here’s his report of the event…

Tom Brevoort, Kurt Busiek, Dan Raspler and George Perez finally confirmed it all on Friday at MegaCon. JLA/Avengers is a reality.

The panel began with Kurt Busiek joking that all in attendance were there for the wrong reason – the crossover in fact, according to the writer, would be Teen Titans/Fantastic Four, and in saying so, produced a piece of art that showed the two teams together, a mock-up made from covers of the two series. The ruse was apparently even played out on Perez, who, according to Busiek, was tricked into penciling fake promo art for Avengers/JLA.

As the joking died down, the assembled creators confessed that an Avengers/JLA team up was a reality, and than opened the floor to questions.

During the session, Perez admitted that he’d signed to do the crossover on December 12th, and had found it tough to keep quiet this long. "I’m very grateful to everyone involved," Perez said. "Everyone here [Perez indicated the other members of the panel] wasn’t even in comics when I began this project 20 years ago, and until this very second, I was still skeptical it would ever be a reality."

That said, it was announced that the four-issue, prestige-format mini-series, with two issues published by Marvel and two by DC, would be both penciled and inked by Perez, and colored by Tom Smith. Perez will pencil and ink the covers as well. As a result, according to Brevoort, "this is going to take a long time, and we’re not going to see this before 2002."

Time-wise, Perez said he would begin work on the crossover as soon as he receives the plot, but still will complete his two issues of CrossGen Chronicles. Once those two are completed, he will take a one-year leave of absence from CrossGen to complete the crossover. Brevoort said that they are entertaining the idea of publishing monthly progress reports, perhaps posting a panel or two a month on Marvel or DC’s website.

As for the members of the respective teams that will appear, Perez’s mantra throughout the presentation was, "anything is possible," hinting that even if characters aren’t directly in the plot, there are walls to fill with pictures and monitor screens. "Plus, Perez said, "Jarvis has a wonderful scrapbook full of pictures of lots of people, both heroes and villains."

All those assembled at the panel stressed that the promo art that was produced for the presentation did not represent the final roster of the mini-series. Both teams will be represented by classic team rosters, and will not represent one specific moment in the continuity of either. However, Busiek did say that Hal Jordan and Barry Allen will be in the crossover – in some capacity.

Speaking of the mechanics of the crossover, Busiek said that the four issues will be the first time the heroes meet, despite previous encounters. "If it contradicts anything else," Busiek said jokingly, "Too damn bad." The writer also reported that the miniseries will include the "best Captain America/Batman fight ever."

Perez called a meeting between Rick Jones and Snapper Carr "a must."

As for villains, Busiek promised a lot of them, but all downplayed the idea of creating a new villains specifically for the crossover, given the legal questions of ownership. It was pointed out however, that DC and Marvel co-own the character of Access, from the previous Marvel Vs. DC/DC Vs. Marvel crossover.

When asked if this crossover could lead to further crossovers, there was a mixed response. While Busiek said he would love to write a JSA/Invaders crossover ("But Roy Thomas would kill me"), Brevoort said that being that JLA/Avengers is so long in coming, and the companies haven’t done many crossovers for a while, the mini-series will work to restore the special nature of such a meeting between universes. "If you do too many, it just gets pedestrian," the editor said.

Perez took the opportunity of the panel to officially announce the cancellation of Crimson Plague, his creator-owned title from the Gorilla imprint of Image Comics.