Cool Jam: Avengers Fight!

Commisioned by Bill Lait

Back in 2013, I was admiring many of the fantastic jam pieces here on CAF, and I decided I would start one of my own. I decided to base it on George Perez' wraparound cover for Justice League of America #200, one of my favorite books. You can see it in the additional images below. It was originally going to be a Justice League jam, but as I was staring at the cover, I realized how many analogues there were between the Justice League and the Avengers, and I thought "Why not make it an Avengers jam instead"? So I did. I found a nice hi-res image of the original cover, borrowed a projector from work, taped a couple of boards up to my living room wall, and lightly sketched in the figures. I originally had planned on keeping it close to the original, but as I thought about it, I had to make changes. For instance, Ms. Marvel didn't have a magic lasso, so Wonder Woman's pose didn't make sense. The Avengers didn't have a stretchy guy, so I'd have to replace Elongated Man. And I wanted to add more characters - there were 15 on the original, but mine has 20. And so it gradually evolved over the last three years into what you see here.

I am indebted to all the artists involved. They were very generous with their time and their pricing, and obviously I couldn't have done it without them.

Here's the order in which it happened.

2013 Wizard Ohio
Michael Golden did Ms. Marvel
Mike McKone did the Vision
Chris Sprouse did Yellowjacket and the Wasp
Ron Garney did Captain America

2013 Pittsburgh Comicon
Ron Frenz did Thor
Barry Kitson did the Black Widow
Lee Weeks did Hawkeye

2014 Gem City Comic Con
Darryl Banks did Monica Rambeau/Captain Marvel/Photon

2014 Indiana Comic Con
Bob Layton did Iron Man

2015 Cleveland Comic Con
Andy Smith did Wonder Man and the Beast

2016 Gem City Comic Con
Art Thibert did the Scarlet Witch

2016 Indiana Comic Con
Mike Perkins did the Falcon
Aaron Lopresti did She-Hulk

2016 Motor City Comic Con
Nick Bradshaw did Quicksilver

2016 3 Rivers Comicon
Bob McLeod did the Black Knight
Pat Oliffe did the Black Panther

2016 Cincinnati Comic Expo
Tom Raney did Captain Marvel

2016 Akron Comicon
Joe Staton did Ant-Man