The DC-Marvel Universe: How the Greatest Comic Collab Came Together

"It wasn't easy, but enthusiasm can move mountains," wrote Marvel Comics publisher Stan Lee in his introduction to Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man. "Comics," agreed Carmine Infantino, head honcho at DC, "may in this one momentous undertaking prove détente can be more than theory."

If comparisons between caped superheroes and nuclear superpowers appear overwrought today, it is difficult to overstate the impact that Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man created, among the impressionable...