And I don’t mean a fight of fists but of narrative, whose was better written, better handled. Truth be told there is little to nothing comparable about these two aside from being the main super-hero team of their respected worlds publishers. They both went on about the same time so it’s good enough for me.
This post was inspired by this article which helped me to read Morrisons JL and Busieks Avengers, (I liked JL more) so I could read JLA/Avengers thematically. Both these runs I think have more similarity between them then these two.
Now what’s my history, I read Hickman’s Avengers when I came back to comics and it’s to this day my favorite run on the team, Secret Wars feels like the perfect finale for the entirety of MARVEL as a whole and it was beautifully set up in this Sci-Fi epic. I just finished Justice League a week ago, my first exposure kind of was the animated movie based off the first arc which if you ask me was better done in the comic. While Avengers felt like an sci-fi epic, New 52 Justice League felt super safe for a good majority of it’s run. The art for both were very varied, but Justice League remained the most consistent.
But enough banter, let’s began!
The Roster
If there’s one shared problem Justice League has for me it’s that it’s team almost always played safe. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and boy Diana being the only girl for a long while is daunting. Honestly you should give Avengers a medal for having variety in every one of it’s runs, Bendis had one that was lead by Luke Cage. I’m not ragging on Geoff’s roster I mean I get it, this is the REBOOTED Justice League you really don’t need to tamper it, aside from Cyborg. Cyborg had joined the League and is now considered big enough to count as one of the big 7 effectively having taken the place of Martian Manhunter in most of the other media. I always thought this was the biggest wasted opportunity DC has done, because Cyborg is pretty lame. His biggest roles was always a meh Titans character, it’s obvious the popularity of the original cartoon pushed for him to be the token black member of the league. Which is a bummer since it was a good chance to push someone much more seasoned. It’s not all bad though, after the Forever Evil event we get introduced to Jessica Cruz for the first time, she becomes the Power Ring who was Earth-3’s evil counterpart for Green Lantern now that’s a pretty cool choice. Shazam joins which is eh but Lex Luthor becomes a member as does Captain Cold kind of, it’s great. JL’s group was slightly plain but it was also more concentrated which made them easier to explore which was different then Avengers.
Avenger’s get’s BIGGER, they mention that as the plan in the book. Create a machine that helps them decide the team who stays and who must go. The book starts off with the team based off the movie going to face Ex Nihilo who would later actually join and be one of my favorite characters. You get the usual Caps and Spideys and Thors, but you also get first timers Hyperion, CanonBall, Sunspot, Shang-Chi. Avenger’s always experimented even with their lamest stories. You don’t get neat things like villains playing heroes but you do get an evil Hulk who sticks around as well as everyone whose in the Illuminati. Unlike JL’s more concentrated line up Avengers focused on the team as some mystical force of good mostly in the pov of Cap and Tony who are at odds with one another narrative wise. Hickmans good at writing FORCES, main characters feel more then what they present us.
The Story
I have to be honest, Justice League was some of Geoff’s worse writing at LEAST until Forever evil came around then it became one of his best books. Before Forever Evil you get generic Darkseid invasion, then generic boring Atlantis story, some nonsense called Trinity War nothing excited things feel editor heavy it’s not interesting. Then Forever Evil happened, Johns is getting comfortable and he’s stretching. That fun and experimental-ness he had in Teen Titans becomes present during the story, Power Ring’s ring posses a random woman and they fight the Doom Patrol, Lex Luthor decides to be a hero and hires Captain Cold to do the same. After the Crime Syndicate are defeated Lex insists they let him join the League so they can defeat whatever threat destroyed the Earth-3 world. Batman agrees and Lex joins the team where he sort of plays the main character we get to see a side of him we rarely see and will eventually lose due to status quo. We get a well done story with the Amazo virus spreading among metropolis giving citizens powers as well as a serious case of the flu which had nicely done action in it’s panels. And then the finale the best part (of both really.)
Avenger was a series of stories that intertwined into let’s say two major plots, The story of Tony and Cap and Secret Wars. You get two or three issue stories that expand into the inner drama of the characters and their special moments as well as the moral struggle of the Illuminati who go on to destroy alternate universe to save their own. In this run they fight evil versions of the Avengers, an every species space war against the alien Makers, Thanos, a Justice League pastiche, and evil sexy woman in black. In the beginning of the story after (or before?) Ex Nihilo terraforms Mars but is stopped by Captain America and his new team. the Illuminati learn that the universes are dying and the only way they learned how to save it is too destroy the universes coming their way. Cap insists there has to be another way, but because they are short on time erase Steve’s memories of the Illuminati and put him in charge of the Avengers as a distraction. In due time he learns the truth and the Illuminati become wanted men, the Avengers comic passes a few months which catches up with the current lore at the time making it feel kind of like a well done time skip. This all ends with Secret Wars which to me was the best Marvel event in recent years.
The Grand Finale
While Avenger’s leads to Secret Wars, JL leads to Rebirth but before that it ended with Darkseid War. Darkseid War was great for the most part, the Justice League all become New Gods and use their newfound Godhood to stop crime. While this is going on The Anti-Monitor seeking to go back to his original form faces off in a war with Darkseid to do it. The JL along with Lex and the Crime Syndicate work together to stop the Monitor. It’s interesting to see Batman go around in the Mobius chair and be a literal deity in the slums of Gotham. It was a great story with great ideas. Grail kind of sucked but you know every writer wants a major OC to play big rolls in their stories. The story ends with Owlman in the Mobius char being killed by who we now know was Doctor Manhattan. This comic teased things that will be relevant in DC’s Rebirth later and finally followed up in Doomsday Clock.
From the start all of Hickman’s run from Fantastic Four to Avengers lead to Secret Wars, a event so big it’s still brought up today. In essence it was Marvel’s first Multiverse crisis, years in the making, so big it affected other books going on. Secret Wars deserves a post on it’s own, but Avenger’s ended with the threat of the Ultimate Universe crashing onto them, Ultimate Earth and Earth-616 were reaching their ends and no one knows what will happen next. Reed and most of the Illuminati create an arc to save a selected few which backfires saving only most. The Imperial Guard comes in with other alien races to wipe out Earth in order to prevent Armageddon. My favorite part of course being the very end, Old Man Captain America and Superior Tony having a final face off as the world ends around them, alluding to The Dark Knight by Frank Miller. Overall this is a 10/10 finale and Secret Wars was a great, i hope to one day talk about the run and Secret Wars itself.
The Verdict
It’s obvious that out of the two I prefer Hickman’s Avengers, John’s Justice League is fine too. The reason being Hickman’s great at doing grandiose sci-fi concepts. He made the entire Avenger’s as a whole feel like the main character as well as a grand force of good even with it following the struggles of Cap and Tony. Justice League having been cursed to be a reboot was tied down by introductions to a world we already knew that it sadly took a few years in for them to finally get interesting. The team was smaller so it was easier to write stories that had each member stand out and get a time to shine while Avengers had to limit that.
So yeah that’s my two cents, like I said these are vastly different books and could hardly be compared. I just wanted too as they went on at the same time seemed fitting. Currently I think Justice League has been killing it with Snyder and Aaron’s Avengers have been a lot of fun.
Thanks for reading, and remember Assembled we are strong forever fight as one.
Cartoonist's Man-Cave 