JLA/Avengers: The issue 3 that never was...

[arbre_rieur]

This is from one of the cooler extras in the JLA/Avengers hardcover collection.

Apparently, Kurt Busiek's original plot to issue 3 had to be heavily altered. Originally, it was going to depict what each of the two universes would be like if it had been made by the other company's creative staff. So we'd see a DC Universe by way of 60s era Lee, Kirby, Ditko, et al, full of violent emotions and soap opera elements. And vise versa, we'd see a Marvel Universe in the style of Silver Age DC, with imaginary cities and kooky sci-fi. Superman feels guilt over the destruction of Krypton, Captain America is a US Senator and operates out of Capitol City, etc.

Unfortunately (in my opinion), the editor on the DC side of the project ended up nixing this part of the story, but the hardcover includes Busiek's original typed-up plot.

Actually, it includes two different drafts of the sequence. This is the second draft. It's not that different from the first.









And because I'm not sure if the above counts as a comic scan by the community's definitions, here's one of my favorite sequences from the published version of JLA/Avengers:



















Geeky bit of trivia: In the real Marvel Universe, the Avengers never encountered Ultron-4. He was already on his fifth body when he made his debut.

In Busiek's original plot, the stuff with the flip-flopped universes would have shown up shortly after that scene. The get-together winds down, the characters all go their separate ways, and then the reality-shift hits.

Comments

[venatosapiens]

I've always gotten a huge kick out of these crossovers because of scenes just like this. Watching characters from the different universes bounce off of each other occasionally is a lot of fun, and I'm glad this particular series happened before the cold war between the two companies started.

[icon_uk]

Kurt Busiek and George Perez are about the only creative team I can imagine who could take on a project of the scale of the flip-flopped worlds and make it not only cool, but make it look plausible.

[venatosapiens]

Right? What a shame we aren't going to get to see it.
...unless some fan artists were to take a crack at it. Anybody interested?

[domino_blue]

HA! If I only could draw....I can write but I would so love to make this a reality.

[sadoeuphemist]

ehhh....
http://imgur.com/p469b

[sadoeuphemist]

hrmmh....
http://imgur.com/ieD06

[quatoria]

Those are fantastic!

[arbre_rieur]

Ooh. Cool!

[q99]

On the flip side, I really like what we got. Seeing the two universe's characters interacting like that was fun, more-so for me than reinventing them would've been.

[arbre_rieur]

It wouldn't have taken the place of the scene I posted. It would have taken place after it.

[q99]

hm, what did replace it then?

[arbre_rieur]

As far as I can tell, everything between the Vision waking up in the middle of snow and the double-page spread of Iron Man and Superman looking at the merged Earths.

[jkcarrier]

That would've been fun, but it's not hard to guess why the DC people squashed the original concept. The style-switch emphasizes the old-fashioned corniness of the DC characters, a reputation they've been desperately trying to live down for decades.

[big_daddy_d]

Any chance of there being drawings?

[arbre_rieur]

I don't think it got that far in the development process.

[michael_ellis_day]

I actually prefer what we got to what was in the proposal. The other thing could have made an interesting miniseries on its own, but it would have seriously detracted from the main storyline of JLA/Avengers.

Looking at these pages again reminds me what a remarkable feat of writing JLA/Avengers was, even just purely on a technical level. Page after page is dense with information to the point where the character practically have to speak in nonstop exposition to one another...but Busiek is so in command of his skills that it never feels bogged down in exposition. You get the crucial plot information but also the humor and the warm character vignettes. It all just comes across as really well judged, and that's a lot harder than it looks.

(Some of the time with the ongoing Busiek/Perez Avengers run, I felt like that balance wasn't always reached -- there are bits where you have to slog through exposition because you know this information will be important later, but it's not entertaining in its own right. I mention this only to explain that this is so difficult, even someone who really has a gift for it can miss the mark. Busiek deserves huge credit for succeeding here.)

[blackruzsa]

I loooooved this one. That the universe clashing thing was really messing everything up. And it amused me to see their universes literally... er, clashing.

[eyz]

Woah!
Are there more "extras" in this hardcover edition of the TPB?

Anyway, this sounded really fun! why must Editors always prevent such creative and original projects?

[arbre_rieur]

--Are there more "extras" in this hardcover edition of the TPB?

There's a whole bunch, including some pencil pages from the first aborted attempt at a JLA/Avengers crossover, from decades ago.

[mrstatham]

Ehh.. I'm sorry, but no-one with Clint Barton's classic purple costume should even think of mocking anyone else's costume, whether they look like Robin Hood or not.