JLA Avengers
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JLA/Avengers (Issues #2 and #4 titled Avengers/JLA) is a comic book limited series and crossover published in prestige format by DC Comics and Marvel Comics from September 2003 to May 2004. The series was written by Kurt Busiek, with art by George Perez. The series features the two companies' teams of superheroes, DC Comics' Justice League of America and Marvel's Avengers.
Publication history
In 1979, DC and Marvel agreed to co-publish a crossover series involving the two teams, to be written by Gerry Conway and drawn by George Pérez. The plot of the original crossover was a time travel story involving Marvel's Kang the Conqueror and DC's Lord of Time. Writer/editor Roy Thomas was supposed to script the book, based on Conway's plot, and although work was begun on the series in 1981 (Pérez had pencilled 21 pages by mid-1983), editorial disputes prevented the story from being completed. The failure of the JLA/Avengers book also caused the cancellation of a planned sequel to the 1982 crossover , The Uncanny X-Men and The New Teen Titans.
An agreement was reached between the two companies in 2002, with the story to be written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by George Pérez. In a joint panel at WonderCon 2000, Busiek (then writer of the Avengers) and Mark Waid (then writer of the title JLA) stated they had nearly come to an agreement to begin the crossover within the regular issues of the respective titles but the two companies could not come to a business arrangement. When the series was approved, Waid was unavailable due to an exclusive committment with companyCrossGen, and Busiek became solo writer.
The series was reprinted by DC Comics in 2005 as a two-volume collector's edition hardcover, and then re-released as a trade paperback in November 2008 .
Plot summary
Krona, an exiled immortal from the DC Universe who gains the powers of entropy, begins destroying entire universes, obsessed with learn what existed prior to the Big Bang. The Grandmaster, one of the Elder of the Marvel Universe, offers to tell Krona about an entity who has the knowledge he seeks; but only if Krona can beat him in a game. The game involves manipulating the Avengers and the Justice League into trying to obtain twelve items of power (six from each universe - the DC items being the Spear of Destiny; the Book of Eternity; the Orb of Ra; the Psycho Pirate's Medusa Mask; the Bell, Jar and Wheel of the Demons Three; and the Green Lantern Power Battery of Kyle Rayner; and the Marvel items being the Ultimate Nullifier; the Evil Eye of Avalon; the Wand of Watoomb; the Casket of Ancient Winters; the Cosmic Cube; and the Infinity Gems) that have been hidden around across the two universes.
The two teams battle until all of the items are gathered, at which point Krona and the Grandmaster betray each other. Krona mortally wounds the Grandmaster and scans the character's mind to learn of cosmic entity Galactus, although the Grandmaster's last act is to trap Krona between the two universes. Krona breaks free and begins to merge the universes, which would result in their destruction and the birth of another universe. The Avengers and the Justice League join forces to battle Krona, with time distortions causing a rapidly varying roster of characters from the history of both teams to appear. Krona is finally defeated, imploding to become a "cosmic egg". The two universes are returned to normal with no evidence of the villain's tampering, and in the title JLA the cosmic egg is revealed to be being monitored by the Justice League of America.
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