COVER STORY: JLA/Avengers #3

What makes the best comic book covers? It is a great topic for debate. For us, as individuals, there is no wrong answer, of course; it is purely subjective. But, with a little thought it’s possible to explain what it is about a particular image that grabs you. The best images are the ones that make you stop and check out something you weren’t previously planning to purchase – and in some cases, you even end up picking up a title you’ve never even heard of before.

Released in 2003, JLA/Avengers and Avengers/JLA (as the long-awaited limited series was intermittently called during publication) was literally decades in the making.

Produced by the top selling Avengers creative team of Kurt Busiek and George Pérez, it was also certainly well worth the wait. Especially when it came to the cover of the third prestige format issue, which, besides being published by Marvel like the first issue (the second and fourth parts were published by DC Comics, don’t you know), also featured a wraparound cover spotlighting every single member in the ranks of the World’s Greatest Heroes and the Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, respectively.

Besides featuring DC’s trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, and Marvel’s Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, the cover also included other secondary members – from Ant-Man to Aztek to Wonder Man to Zauriel.

As a bonus, the story within even touched on the ill-fated original crossover that was to see print in the 1980s. Produced in part back in the day by Pérez, Gerry Conway, and Roy Thomas, the original JLA/Avengers event is treated as a dream or like some untold tale made real.

Of course, aren’t they all?

–Scott Braden