Banshee and Blue Devil Vs. Mongul

 

This marks the fourth appearance of the Cassidy Cousins.  They  faced their unlucky curse head on in STF #4414, They met up with their Uncle Ted in STF #4282, and first were featured together in STF #3875...

Superman and Warlock

Often in comics, when two heroes first meet there is a misunderstanding that leads them to battle each other before joining forces against a common foe. For this story, I thought the could beat the bad guy before fighting each other for once. You have to mix things up once in a while, right?

The Vision Vs. Mongul

 

For The Man Who Has Everything by Alan Moore is one of my favorite Superman tales.  The fact that it was illustrated by Moore's Watchmen collaborator Dave Gibbons makes it even better.  I also quite enjoyed the adaptation of the story in Justice League Unlimited as well.  It was fun to put an STF spin on the story here.

Mon-El and Gladiator

 

I thought that this would be a suitable set of match ups as these are a couple of pairs of characters that mirror each other.  When I found similar poses, the concept wrote itself.

Mongul here is by  the incredibly talented Kevin Maguire.  I was lucky enough to pick up a couple of original pages by him several years back, one being a pencils-only page which I really like:

Beta Ray Bill Vs. Mongul

Thor: Love and Thunder seems that it will be a busy move with a lot going in it.  I had been hoping there would be room to fit Beta Ray Bill into the mix, but so far, I have not read anything about his inclusion.  He can't just have a small part, we need to find out how he will come to possess Stormbreaker, which Thor currently wields.  Will we have to hope for a Thor 5 to bring his saga to the big screen?

Flash Gordon and Superman

Because of the 80's camp classic film (and that film's role in the movie Ted), Flash Gordon is often considered a cheesy character.  For me, my first thoughts go to the amazing comic strips he appeared in.  The artwork is beautifully detailed, well ahead of its time when compared to most comics of the era.  I'd love to see a more serious take on the sci-fi hero one of these days.

The Thing Vs. Mongul

I still remember when Jim Starlin introduced Mongul in the pages of some of the very best issues of DC Comics Presents... He impressed me then and while he could have been written off as another Darkseid/Thanos type, he managed to carve out a career of his own including major turns in The Death/Return of Superman, For The Man Who Has Everything, Panic in the Sky and elsewhere.  I loved the animated version of Warworld on Justice League Unlimited and think that a live action version would be great someday (although Thor: Ragnarok looks to be doing the intergalactic gladiatorial arena thing first).

Legion of Super-Heroes and Captain Marvel

I enjoyed the animated Legion of Super-Heroes series for what it was, a cartoon geared at younger viewers.  It handled the large cast well and introduced viewers to a side of the DCU that was only hinted at on other shows.  What I would really like to see, however, is the Legion in one of DC's direct to video animated movies.  The Great Darkness Saga would be a cool story to adapt in that format.  DC's animated movies are great, but they seem to be in a cycle of Batman - Superman - JLA stories, which are I guess more guaranteed sales.  Hopefully they will venture out into more of their properties and we can see a true animated LSH epic one of these days.

Superman and Captain Marvel

When I think of Jim Starlin, my mind goes to his great artwork on Warlock and Captain Marvel.  The comics that really made me a fan of his, though, were his issues of DC Comics Presents.  His artwork on tales featuring Superman with J'onn J'onzz, Supergirl, Starman, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl are among the best from that series and was a lot more dynamic than I was used to for Superman titles at the time.   Nobody illustrates a space epic like Starlin!

Superman and Thor (Versus Mongul)

I already made a Silver Age version of this pairing, but I wanted to do a Bronze Age version as well, so here it is.  This is an example of artwork that has provided inspiration for more than one cover for me.  I loved the issue of DC Comics Presents that this came from, as it introduced me to the Prince Gavyn Starman.  I used the Starman image from that cover for my Batman/Starman B&B Lost Issue cover.  Now, for this team-up, I put Thor in Starman's place.  I did a lot of tweaking with the orange Kirby Dots as well, to make the cover work as a whole.

The Thing and The Martian Manhunter

Well, checking out the promos for the newly revamped DCU, I am sorry that thus far I do not see J'onn J'onzz anywhere, even on the Justice League. I hope he wasn't resurrected just to be shuffled off into comic book limbo for another decade. Apparently the promo image for the JLA only shows about half of the final team roster, so hopefully J'onn will still play an active role there. It really would be a shame not to include him as he is one of the few characters on the team not tied to a solo title and writers are free to do a lot more with him than the others within the book.