Rating:  -
Wow! This was years in the making and I expected the heavens to move and mountains to crumble, and all I got was a pretty good category 2 hurricane. The art was top notch and the writing was very good but, I expected more from the plot. The characters for the most part were dead on but, the fight between Thor and Superman was bogus! Let me correct that. The fight was good but the outcome sucked! All in all a very good read and a beautiful book to own. Well worth the money.
Rating:  -
I still remember as a boy how I thought that it would just be too cool if the Justice League and the Avengers met. However, I also knew that since DC and Marvel where fierce competitors that that was never going to happen. Even 40 years later when it was announced that it really was going to finally happen I was still somewhat apprehensive, since most previous crossovers between the two companies had been mediocre efforts at best. Well, this is the exception- this is really good. In fact, if I was a life-long comics fan on my death bed, this is the story that I would choose for one last magnificent read. It is not only drawn to the highest standards, but it actually has a plot worthy of heroic myth.
This isn't waterered-down pap without a viewpoint. Superman makes it very clear that he doesn't think much of the Avengers or their chaotic version of earth. He comes right out and says that the Avengers aren't heroes- or if they are then they are failures. This points out a fundamental difference between between DC and Marvel. When Marvel always tried to "humanise" their characters and show all their faults and warts they lost something of the archetypical quality of the true hero. DC remained true to the ideal. That is why their world is orderly, clean, and optimistic. The DC heroes remained true to what heroes should be- and kept the respect of the people. In contrast, the Marvel heroes with their flaws barely manage to contain things in the corrupt and chaotic world that they serve- and the people often have little or no respect for them. While Captain America tries to justify this as defending the peoples' freedom- while calling Superman a f*scist - this doesn't ring true. Of course I could be biased here, I always did prefer DC over Marvel.
The action is virtually nonstop, dynamic, and purposeful. Plus, you not only get the JLA and Avengers, but you get practically every character of major and minor significance of either universe- and all their variations down through the years. It is a great way to measure just how comprehensive your knowledge of comics really is.
This is a big story- it could be a grand opera. What could be bigger than the fate of not one, but two universes? This really deserves a deluxe, prestige format.
By the way, the cover shown is not the actual cover of this edition (they used the wrap-around cover of issue number three.)
Rating: -
I enjoyed this mini-series quite a bit. I haven't been a fan of comic books for a very long time, and I haven't been around long enough to have followed the adventures of the Avengers or JLA from the start. But being a fan of both teams I can say I certainly wasn't disappointed in this book. A lot of comics are coming out that take a more realistic view of things. This on the other hand is what comic books are about for me. Galactic scale adventures. There are a lot of moments that I loved in this book and if you're a fan of either team I'd recommend this book.
Rating: -
The boxed set comes with a second book which features art from and the story behind the ill-fated first attempt at this team-up. I remember feeling very bitter back then that company politics had derailed such a dream crossover. Now, however, I have to say I'm happy it happened. If the JLA/Avengers crossover had happened as planned the first time, would we have this treasure? Busiek was the perfect choice to capture the wonder, the history, the majesty and the personalities of these two teams. Perez remained the perfect choice to visualize it.
In fact, company favoritism seems completely absent from this story. Busiek uses a pure fanboy approach to realistically address the situation. Sure the JLA big guns are more powerful than their Avengers counterparts. But the Avengers are no stranger to being underdogs and here, as they always have, they fight harder.
The story is well paced, mixing history from both companies, great dialogue, very humorous situations and, of course, the fights we want to see.
My only complaint is not a valid one. I wanted to see more of some of the characters. But with so many characters they could have easily made this story four times as long. Which would have been fine with me but perhaps not what the companies were looking for in a crossover event. My all-time favorite characters are Iron Man and Wonder Woman. They are prominent enough to make me happy.
I highly recommend the oversized hardcover boxed edition. This story, this art, deserves to be enjoyed in a larger, more vibrant format.
JLA Assemble!
Rating: -
Busiek to me is hard to pin down. Some of his astro city stuff is great. His Superman: Secret Identity easily stands with the best in the genre. And his work on Marvels was very well done. His Avengers work with George Perez, on the other hand, has always left me flat. I haven't liked it at all, and for many of the same reasons sited in the negative reviews here. His Avengers work always seemed trite and childish to me, with weak characterizations, throw away dialogue, throw away characters, and pedestrian plots. In fact, I barely made it through the recently released Avengers Assemble hardback Marvel released collecting Busiek and Perez's old Avengers work.
But for some reason I loved JLA/Avengers. I understand a lot of the criticisms. I too would have liked it to be another couple of issues longer to allow more detailed battle sequences and greater characterization. I also find myself wondering how someone like Brian Bendis or Mark Millar would have handled the same project, writing it more to today's audience. But sitting in my living room on a sunny afternoon reading it earlier today, I remembered what it was like to read boooks like Crisis or Secret Wars when they first came out. And while it is definitely a throwback to a simpler time (I really felt like I was reading an 80's comic, but with much higher production values and much better coloring,) it did have some affective scenes. My only real complaint was how rapid and vague the final defeat of the main villain was -- Busiek could have done much, much better there. The hero's finally reach the villain and then -- boom -- it's over and what exactly happened?
Anyway, I would love to see a JLA/Avengers done by the Ultimates team (with Millar writing,) or by the the guys doing Avengers now (with Bendis writing,) or heck, with Joss Whedon and Sean Cassidy from Astonishing Xmen -- in truth there are a lot of writers I'd like to see tackle it -- but this book still felt historic to me, still reminded me of my childhood, and still gave me a fun, nostalgic afternoon of reading. And while it was definitely a throwback to the eighties, I again want to stress that the coloring and production values were vastly better than they ever could have been in the 80's.
Oh, and the second vollume in the collection, collecing the behind the scenes story of why this book took over twenty years to come out, was very intersting as well. Overall I have to recomend this collection to any long time comic fan.
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