Thus far, it strikes me as the story that could have been "DC vs. Marvel" if that miniseries hadn't devolved into a marketing gimmick of Popular Character X fights Popular Character Y. In "JLA/Avengers," the two teams are forced to collect various items of power (including such storied trinkets as the Spear of Destiny, GL's Power Battery, the Cosmic Cube, and the Ultimate Nullifier.) As the two groups find out, they're being manipulated by the Grandmaster into playing an interdimensional game as part of a wager with Krona... who intends to destroy the Marvel Universe as part of his endless quest for knowledge.

The mixture of elements from Marvel and DC creates some wonderful images. Iron Man integrating a Mother Box into his armor. Darkseid wielding the Infinity Gauntlet. But the best part of the series is how intricately the dialogue reveals the distinct differences between the Marvel characters and the DC characters. It's as if someone made a list of what distinguishes the two, and then wrote the story to play off those components. Actually, I'm sure that's what writer Kurt Busiek did.

In the Marvel Universe, the Flash gets beat up by a throng of mutant-hating townspeople... contrasted to the Avengers finding the Flash Museum and astonished at how the DC Universe populace reveres their heroes. Batman meets the Thing and remarks to Captain America about his "rough edged charm"... punctuating the almost complete lack of monstrous heroes in the whitebread human DCU. Cap trying to connect with Batman because they both lost a kid partner. Superman claims the Marvel Earth is physically smaller than the DC Earth, a subtle way to emphasize that DC characters have been in continuous publication since the 1930s while the Marvel stable first came together in the 1960s (albeit with some borrowed and forgotten characters from the 1940s.)

And Hawkeye referring to the JLA as a wanna-be Squadron Supreme! A throwaway gag that only die-hards will appreciate!

George Perez, the artist of "JLA/Avengers" is truly a comics legend, and it's great to see him work on a series of this magnitude. He is a master of panel layout, taking pains to create symmetry on the page and visual connections between events separated by time or distance. His use of tiny little panels to make individual reaction shots or capture fleeting moments is genius. This is interactive reading, a fine example of how the page itself can be manipulated to help tell the story.

Then there's "Batman/Joker: Switch", a new one-shot that shipped this week. Sucks. Suckity suckity suck suck sucks.

I guess I have to blame writer Devin Grayson, but I used to love her character work on Titans, so I feel like it isn't all her fault. Something just goes incredibly wrong with this story, and it ends up being a complicated excuse for John Bolton (who is a great artist) to paint misshapen failed plastic surgery patients.

"Switch" begins with - and utterly abuses - the image of a confused Joker with no mouth. The visual of a mouthless, grinless Joker is indeed arresting... since the toothy smile is as much a part of the character as the green hair and chalky skin. But we soon find out that his mouth has been moved to the back of his neck. Still talking, moving, in perfect working order. Which just strikes me as stupid.

In fact, the crazy doctor who did this to Joker is revealed to have an entire cadre of people who have had various facial parts sewn up and relocated. One attractive girl gets her left eye shifted to below her cheek. I don't ask a lot of comics in general, but it's far too much for me to accept that a mouth can be moved from the front of the head to the back and still work fine. Especially in a Batman book, where I generally expect a relatively high baseline of reality.

I could probably get past the bizarre demonic surgery if the story made any coherant sense at all. Much of it is Joker rambling - even worse than usual since he's drugged up and half-amnesiac for most of the story. The "switch" referred to in the title indicates that Joker is investigating his own case, trying to find out who moved his mouth. IE, Joker acting as the detective Batman, permutated through his typical routine of warped logic and cruel killing. The entire mystery of Who did this and Why is resolved in less than three pages, and it's not even anything compelling or interesting: just that the doctor likes to deform people ("it's art") and Joker agreed to run cover for him but then forgot about it.

Perhaps he forgot because of the intense medication required for the operation. Perhaps because he simply thought it would be funny to pretend to forget. (He winks at the end of the book, maybe to indicate that he knew more than he let on.) Whether or not Joker was pulling a joke on Batman and/or the doctor is too boring to even consider. If he knew it was all a pre-arranged plan with the doctor, then the entire story is pointless. If he didn't, then it's just a prolonged exercise through gruesome painted panels until the inevitable scene where Batman punches his lights out.

I don't mind the imagery of disfigured people. It makes for some cool and weird positioning as Joker's lips talk from the back of his head while his eyes continue to react normally from the front. One particular panel where he leans conspiratorially towards Batman is especially funny. But you have to back it up with some semblance of story.