Go read Marc's entry on JLA/Avengers, then come back here.
Everything that could have been good about JLA/Avengers was contained in the cover of the fourth issue.
That cover--an enraged Superman, eyes flashing, holding Thor's hammer and Cap's shield, preparing for battle--writes a story all by itself, a story far better in its ethereal implications than almost any actual page-by-page story featuring that image could possibly be.
Implication one: He's tattered by some tremendous threat.
Implication two. Reality is falling apart--he's holding objects that don't even exist in his own universe.
Implication three: He's the last hope. There's no way that he ends up with Mjolnir and Flingy unless Thor and Cap are as good as dead.
Implication four: He's pissed, so we're in for some serious superhero payoff (that is, mondo ultra-violence).
An infinite number of good stories exist which could have this image in them. The actuality, of course, was much more like the cover to issue 3: a static jumble of a thousand characters adding up to nothing.
I can understand people being excited by the idea of JLA/Avengers, because the title implied what the cover to #4 delivered. But the actual book delivered the cover to #3.
Posted by Kevin J. Maroney at May 4, 2004 2:45 PM
