JLA/Avengers, the iconic 2003 crossover between DC and Marvel’s premier superteams, is coming back to print. Marvel has announced that each issue of the four-issue series by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez will be getting a facsimile edition this summer. As with the series’ original release, issues 1 and 3 will be published by Marvel under the name JLA/Avengers, while issues 2 and 4 will bear the title Avengers/JLA and be published by DC. The first issue is due out in May, and will be available with a variant cover by Ryan Stegman.
Here’s how Marvel describes the series:
It’s the grandest Marvel and DC comics crossover of them all and an icon-packed event decades in the making! After years of anticipation, JLA/AVENGERS reunited acclaimed writer Kurt Busiek (Marvels) with his AVENGERS collaborator George Pérez – an artistic legend for both companies – to assemble every single member of Earth’s Mightiest and the World’s Greatest in one blockbuster book! Universes collide as the Justice League fights the towering Terminus and the Avengers face the awesome menace of Starro! Each team must undertake an epic quest on the other’s world, with the fate of both realities in the balance!
JLA/Avengers has been reprinted a few times since its release in the early 2000s. The series received a deluxe, oversized hardcover collection in 2005, and a standard-sized trade paperback edition in 2008. In 2022 The Hero Initiative, in coordination with Marvel and DC released a limited-edition softcover collection of the series in support of series artist and Hero Initiative founding board member George Pérez, who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and would pass away shortly after the collection’s release.
The Hero Initiative edition of the series seemed to open the door to more collaborations between DC and Marvel, who have since released omnibus collections of all of their previous crossovers, as well as new team-ups between Batman and Deadpool. Their latest crossover, Superman/Spider-Man is due from DC next month, with Spider-Man/Superman to follow in April.
Look for the JLA/Avengers #1 Facsimile Edition to arrive in stores on Wednesday, May 27th, with subsequent issues following on June 24th, July 22nd, and August 26th.
