Avengers / JLA #2 of 4
Pencil, Inks, and Cover Art - George Perez
Color - Tom Smith
Letterer - Comicraft
48 pages prestige format (no ads)
$5.95 cover price
Publisher - Jointly publisher by Marvel and DC
Summary - Long-time dream job lobbied for by George Perez, as George draws and inks darn near every character in DC's Justice League of America and Marvel's Avengers. The plot is about a being named Krona who travels across realities and in each universe attempts to travel back in time to the moment of creation to understand the forces at work. In the Avenger's Universe Krona confronts The Grandmaster, an elder of the universe, who convinces Krona to bet this universe's fate on the outcome of a game of chance between two teams - the JLA and the Avengers. The game is to see which side can retrieve various objects of power from both universes first, and return those object to the Grandmaster.
How can I begin to describe this book? Comics have not been this enjoyable since Busiek and Perez did the first dozen issues of the current series of the Avengers. The art is excellent. The faces are extraordinary. This series of four comic books (close to 200 pages) have in George's studio for nearly a year and a half. The time spent and the craftsmanship shows through the art. The cover art is spectacular as George fits in the entire major and many minor characters. George Perez's time and effort in this venture is a study in itself. I think this is his best work since Avengers #12.
Did I forget to tell you there is a story? The story starts off a little slow for my tastes in issue #1 of the series. In issue #2 the story continues rapid paced and information filled, zooming along like a fastball from . Kurt has done an excellent job in giving fan boys what they always wanted, a contest to see who would win among opposing groups of heroes. While this is a tired old formula used on JLA books in the 1960's and Marvel Team-Ups in the 1970's - Kurt blends this formula into a bigger story . While the small group contests are mildly interesting and very entertaining, the real thought is if the more thoughtful members of each group can figure out what the stakes are and who the true opponent is while the other continue their diversion. It is just a diversion to race to retrieve object like the cosmic cube (Marvel) and the Orb of Ra (DC). Or is it just a diversion? What would the Grandmaster want with twelve powerful objects for both realities?
