ANOTHER JLA/AVENGERS TIDBIT
Thursday March 8, 2001

Got room for a little bit more JLA/Avengers news?

While the formal announcement from DC and Marvel Comics on Friday that the long-awaited JLA/Avengers team-up miniseries will be a reality some time in 2002 was welcome news to fans who had been hoping and anticipating since the 1980s, the project is in such an early stage that few details were available, beyond creators, format and so on. (See Friday's Comic Wire Extra and the follow-up piece in Monday's Comic Wire for all that, as well as the creative team's views on the project and past DC/Marvel collaborations.)

Project writer Kurt Busiek, though, is a regular in online forums around the Internet, including CBR's own Avengers message board, where he has answered some questions about the upcoming project, including why the miniseries will ignore DC's and Marvel's previous crossover specials and miniseries.

"Because, for the most part, the readers (and for that matter, the creators and editors) don't want to have a 'JLA/Avengers' project like this feature the characters meeting and saying, in essence, 'Oh, you again. Hi, gang,'" Busiek posted over the weekend.

"Not only do George [Pérez] and I, as well as [editors] Tom [Brevoort] and Dan [Raspler], want to make this book feature a 'first meeting,' so the teams aren't familiar with each other, but we've had over 150 e-mails so far at the JLAAvengers address, and over and over again, readers have asked for us not to make this a sequel to previous crossovers, but to have the teams meeting for the first time."

Busiek set up the e-mail address to solicit fan input on what they really want (and don't want) from the project.

STILL MORE 'JLA/AVENGERS' NEWS
Monday March 5, 2001

In case you missed the news this weekend -- covered in depth, to put it mildly, in Friday's Comic Wire Extra -- after well over a decade of false starts and legal wrangling, DC and Marvel Comics are bringing together their two all-star teams of superheroes in the project fans have been waiting for since the Reagan administration: "JLA/Avengers."

The announcement was made Friday afternoon at Megacon in Orlando, Florida. Some new details came out of the panel discussion where the 2002 miniseries was announced (after playing with the minds of those in attendance and showing a mock-up for the "announcement" of a "Fantastic Four/Titans" crossover):

The four issue miniseries will have wrap-around covers on each. The advance teaser art put together by series artist George Pérez was auctioned off on Saturday to benefit ACTOR.

As for the original pages that Pérez did in the early 1980s, they won't be included in the project in any way.

The pages' current owner, "Rob Liefeld can sell them on eBay," series writer Kurt Busiek said at the panel.

Pérez, in fact, prefers that those pages from the past remain in the past.

"I'm not the same artist I was 18 years ago," he said. "I, myself, would not want these pages published. They don't represent me."

Pérez is also happy that this won't be the only hotly awaited superhero project of 2002.

"I want to thank Frank Miller for doing ['Batman: The Dark Knight Returns' sequel] 'The Dark Knight Strikes Back.' Hound him instead of me."

As for nitty-gritty details, the project is still in such an early stage that few details are available -- Pérez, Busiek and editors Dan Raspler and Tom Brevoort all planned to get together and discuss the project over the weekend -- but the miniseries won't be an What If?/Elseworlds imaginary project as some crossovers have been labeled.

The sometimes reluctant Justice League of America member Batman will be in a fairly classic mode, Busiek said: "Three words: World's Greatest Detective! That Batman."

And the Avengers' Scarlet Witch will be in the costume that Pérez created for her when he worked with Busiek on the relaunched "Avengers" series: "The gypsy one!" Pérez stated loudly, when asked at the panel.

Otherwise, though, fans will have to wait for the project to be more developed before squeezing more details out of the creators. The most common answer to questions at the panel was "It's not out of the question."