Chances are, you already know if this book is for you. It is not "New Marvel," it is not Morrison-style JLA, it is not page upon page of well-written dialogue punctuated by the occasional action so that the super-hero folks will stick around as well. This is good old-fashioned super-hero crossover stuff, in the vein of Crisis on Infinite Earths or Secret Wars, back when the events themselves were cool and fun reading and not just a marketing department excuse to print money. Except that in the case of JLA/Avengers, it's both. This is a good read for anyone who has a fondness for the shared universes of either DC and Marvel, and a great one for those who have a fondness for both, and given that it is a long-awaited concept executed with style and skill, it is also no doubt going to make obscene amounts of money for the companies producing it, and hopefully nice hefty royalties for the creators involved.
Busiek and Perez are clearly having a blast here, and fans will find that their fun is infectious. In small pieces throughout, you see some of the neat ideas that must have been bantered forth at some point. Batman's brief meeting with the Punisher, which is carried off mostly off-panel and explained so very well (and humorously) by dialogue from Plastic Man and a brief, unhappy look that crosses Batman's face. Lobo taking on the Shi'ar Empire. Mongul versus The Brood. The Watcher popping up at the Watchtower. Busiek gives the whole thing a cosmic, sweeping feel, but he does it with the small moments, not just by pumping up the power and the spectacle, and if anyone ever doubted that this is a guy who "gets" both DC and Marvel overall, this book ought to banish any doubts.
Of course, just because the small moments are such fun doesn't mean that the big stuff gets overlooked. Busiek digs out a couple of big villains and throws them up against unusual adversaries. By now most of you have seen the preview pages, so hopefully this won't come as a spoiler to anyone, but Terminus versus the JLA and Starro versus the Avengers is just everything I was hoping for out of this crossover. Big, nasty villains who have resonance for those of us with a fondness for the world, taking on heroes who have a different resonance. Busiek also highlights the differences in these worlds in his approach to the characters. The Flash gets a rude awakening on his first visit to the Marvel Universe, and the Avengers a rude awakening of another sorts upon their first visit to DC. Even though these inter-company crossovers became all-too-common for a while there, Busiek and Perez show that it can still be special if done right.
A big part of that is that Busiek spends time on the character moments, not just the novelty value of the crossover. He's got a reason for all this, and the appearance of the Grandmaster is a big hint as to part of it, at least to those who know that character, but the first issue is more of a mystery as to why this is all happening. And the fun is in seeing how these characters react to that mystery, and to finding themselves in different worlds. Plastic Man's goofy response to so much of it, as best epitomized by his "Space referee" comment or his tactic of covering Terminus's "windshield," is a lot of fun, but I also enjoyed Quicksilver's disbelief at the way speedsters are treated in the DC Universe and of course Thor's reaction upon meeting Superman.
Throughout this review, I've talked a lot about the writing, and the reason for that is, I think everyone knew going in that the artwork would be perfect for the job. Not only is George Perez the definitive Avengers artist for many (Buscema fits that category for me, but I digress), he's done a fair amount of JLA work and he is absolutely the go-to guy on big crossover epics like this. His work is just packed with detail, you can see the time and effort that was put into the book, and there's enough eye-candy in the backgrounds that I can see Jess Nevins going to town with annotations for this book if he were so inclined. With Tom Smith's colors and nice paper quality, the book just comes out looking great.
Given the anticipation and the hype, it would have been all-too-easy for JLA/Avengers to be a bit of a letdown. Some may not find it their cup of tea, because Busiek's dialogue, while mostly great, does have some old-school exposition style to it at times and the story is most certainly a celebration of the shared super-hero universes of the Big Two, which not everyone likes. But I imagine that anyone who picks up this book will get exactly what they were looking for, which is a gorgeous, slam-bang super-hero epic 20 years in the making.
