The Wiz is back, stone-cold sober as a matter of fact, I can wiz, I can wiz, 'cos I'm better than you...

□ [“George Pérez & Kurt Busiek JLA/Avengers Reprinted, Only 7000 Copies"]

This article came out in mid-February.  I wasn't sure what to say and was wondering if there'd be any change in the decision.  So far, that's not happening.

How do Marvel and DC agree on only 7000 copies?  How do you even pick that number and why limit it?  George Perez has more than 7000 fans, people might want to donate to him of give the comic as a present to another fan.  Yeah, they'll sell it on ebay too but none of this explains why it should be so limited.  Just leaving the option open to print more would be more profitable to everybody involved.

My guess is that the main cause is DC's removal from the direct market.  I don't know how that makes a difference but then, I have no clue why they left the direct market in the first place.  It's probably based on being part of the Time-Warner megacorp.  They've been part of the company longer than I've been alive, as opposed to Marvel that has been purchased by whichever megacorp saw a benefit, currently Disney.

It's entirely possible this has been part of some long-term plan although I can't imagine what.  This was the last Marvel/DC crossover and there hadn't been all that many.  Most of them were in the second-half of the 1990s and probably helped build up to this.  The others were in the late 1970s/early 1980s, you could count them on one hand and Jim Shooter ended them by getting too full of himself, specifically for this crossover.

The first one is still a bizarre concept and I can't even find any info on it, an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz.  How do you even pick that?  Well, it was an immediate hit in 1900 and immediately turned into stage productions, then film.  The 1939 version starred Judy Garland who I am convinced was the first success of someone entirely manufactured by Hollywood.

DC bought the rights to adapt the movie, Marvel had bought the rights to adapt the books and both companies realized that they would be blocking each other if they both put out "Wizard of Oz" comics.  So this brought the two companies together despite their years-long feud.  Interesting choice to make that happen.  It was basically done by Marvel, DC just got a percentage of the profit.

Marvel also did two other movie adaptations.  There's Star Wars which infamously saved the company.  Not sure I've ever believed that but Marvel's always said it saved them.  Then there's Jack Kirby's 2001:  A Space Odyssey which I've never understood why he did it a decade after the movie came out which led to his own regular series that lasted for a year or so before cancellation.

At least DC and other companies did adaptations of books, movies, cartoons, tv shows, it's not unreasonable that they would get around to this movie.  It was popular on tv every year and there was no home video so unless you wanted to read the actual books, there wouldn't be much else for the audience.  But how did Marvel get into that with these three movies?  [Wizard of Oz and 2001 were both MGM movies but Star Wars was 20th Century Fox so there goes my theory that MGM was a major part of it.]

That's one reason I do think L. Frank Baum, Judy Garland and the Wiz were part of what made Hollywood what it is.  It sucked in the hot comics company, got them going (slowly) into Hollywood and connected professionally with their rival, the old comics company.  All of them had further impact on their fields over many decades, some of which we're still putting up with to this day.

So I don't know if this re-release of Justice League/Avengers is the end of an era or just the next step in whatever the hell Hollywood has been after all these years.

CDC Director Walinsky Was In St. Louis Thursday and Didn’t Appear to Know When to Wear a Mask and When Not To
March 4, 2022