AT PLAY IN THE DCU: KURT BUSIEK TALKS JLA
07-14-2004 04:35 PM by MattBrady

(excerpt)

JLA #107 (Oct 2004) JLA #108 (Nov 2004)

“The offer to write the book came first,” Busiek told Newsarama. “The plan to springboard off of some of the developments in JLA/Avengers was a natural, but it came after I started working stuff out. In fact, there are two big developments happening at once -- the whole question of Krona and the Cosmic Egg, and the CSA [Crime Syndicate of Amerika] storyline. The Krona part was something I came up with early on, but the CSA epic was pitched later, as a separate mini-series, and it got folded back into the main book along the way.”

While Busiek readily cops to leaving elements behind in JLA/Avengers that could be readily exploited, he had no idea that he’d be the one to do the follow-up, and be doing it so relatively shortly after the original story ended. “I like it when things can unfold -- when you can see what happens next, as a result of whatever major events the characters have been through,” Busiek said. “So I wrote it with the idea that there could be follow-ups, but no idea whether I'd be doing those follow-ups or not. Had I been doing a regular Marvel book, there are things that could be done on that side, too, but I guess that'll be up to them at this point.”

Inter-company crossovers, fairly rare creatures now, used to be much more plentiful, but nearly without exception, they occurred “somewhere else,” in a dimension where both the Teen Titans and X-Men operate, for example, following up on plot threads from JLA/Avengers in JLA is a rarity – an event in itself in that it continues in one of DC’s flagship titles.

Given that the ongoing JLA series won’t be changing it’s name to JLA/Avengers, some careful storytelling will be necessary for Busiek. “You won't be seeing any flashback panel with the Avengers in 'em, that's for sure,” the writer began. “Beyond that, you'll get to see how it works in October. Or, well, September, actually, since Ron and I have a CSA story in the JLA Secret Files that serves as a prologue to this story, and to a number of other things.”

Setting up the story a little – if you’re one of the seven regular readers of JLA who passed on JLA/Avengers, Busiek offered a quick rundown of how things ended up the way they are at the beginning of “Crime Syndicate of Amerika”:

“A short JLA/Avengers finale synopsis: Krona wound up with enormous power over both the Marvel and DC universes, and tried to collapse them both, which would have resulted in a new Big Bang and Krona's chance to witness the mysteries of universal birth. He's got an itch to know how that happens. The heroes managed to stop his machinations, though, and in the end, Krona ended up trapped in a collapsing whirlpool of n-space and energy, resulting in a Cosmic Egg, one which will eventually hatch into a new universe. It's infused with the essence of Krona, making him a part of the process. So he'll get to know his answers from inside. Trouble is, nobody knows when the Egg will hatch, or what sort of universe will be born from it.”