324 JLA/AVENGERS
all in the service of a narrative that moves between the intimate explorations of human
emotion and the historical sweep that often characterize major works of literature.
Selected Bibliography: Kannenberg, Jr., Gene. “Th e Comics of Chris Ware.” Th e
Language of Comics: Word and Image, ed. Robin Varnum and Christina T. Gibbons,
pp. 174 –97. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2001; Raeburn, Daniel. Chris
Wa r e. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
Corey K. Creekmur
JLA /AVENGERS. Published in 2003–4, JLA/Avengers was a four-part miniseries
teaming DC and Marvel’s respective central teams of heroes against common antago-
nists. Th e book was written by Kurt Busiek and drawn by George Pérez, then the
creative team on Marvel’s Avengers.
Th e two companies’ teams fi rst unoffi cially faced off against each other in mid-1969
when the Avengers battled a villainous Squadron Sinister composed of loose counter-
parts of Batman, Superman, Flash, and Green Lantern. Th e idea was well-received
by fans, and in late 1970, both Ave nge rs and Justice League of America featured each
team facing other-dimensional analogues of their counterparts: the Avengers trav-
eled to the world of a heroic Squadron Supreme (which included versions of Black
Canary, Green Arrow, the Atom, and Hawkman in addition to those duplicated
in the Squadron Sinister’s quartet) while the Justice League of America traveled to
the post-apocalyptic world of Angor, which included heroes based on the Avengers’
Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Th or, and Yellowjacket. After initially inconclusive bat-
tles, in each case the two teams of heroes ultimately allied with the other as friends
before returning to their own dimensions.
In 1972, Marvel and DC’s books unoffi cially crossed when the writers of DC’s Justice
League of America and Marvel’s Th or and Amazing Adventures series set simultaneous
stories in the same Rutland, Vermont, Halloween parade setting, with the artists and
writers writing themselves into all three books as parade attendees and witnesses to the
actions of their companies’ characters, while the actions of the heroes and villains in each
book had unexplained ramifi cations in the others; for example, while a villain stole a car
in the DC book, one of the Marvel books pictured their villain dodging that same stolen
car as it fl ed the scene.
In 1975, Marvel and DC had both independently agreed to produce comics adapta-
tions of Th e Wizard of Oz; learning of each other’s plans, the two companies agreed
to cooperate to create just one version and the resultant book became the fi rst offi cial
joint project of the two. With the ice broken, 1976 saw a jointly produced Superman vs.
the Amazing Spider-Man book. A few years later, the early 1980s saw a succession of
team-ups, including another Superman/Spider-Man title, a Hulk/Batman team-up,
and a book featuring the X-Men and Te e n T i t a n s. Th e next planned production was
to be an Avengers/ JLA book. Plotted in 1982–83 by Gerry Conway (later revised by
Roy Th omas) and scheduled to be penciled by George Pérez, the book encountered a
