Stan Lee's work on Just Imagine -- a project where the Marvel forerunner redesigned DC's heroes -- returns in December to honor what would have been the iconic creator's 100th birthday.

Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee is a 96-page one-shot anthology featuring ten stories starring Lee's interpretations of a wide variety of DC characters, including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Sandman. Creators contributing to the anthology include The Batman film producer Michael Uslan, who worked on the original Just Imagine books alongside Lee in 2001 and 2002 to design a new version of Shazam.

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Joining Uslan is an impressive list of DC writers. Mark Waid (Kingdom Come, Batman/Superman: World’s Finest), Jerry Ordway (Superman, Action Comics), Kenny Porter (DC: Mech), Stephanie Williams (Nubia & the Amazons, Trial of the Amazons), Michael W. Conrad and Becky Cloonan (Wonder Woman, Batgirls), Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing (Batman Beyond: Neo-Year), Meghan Fitzmartin (Tim Drake: Robin), Steve Orlando (Martian Manhunter) and Zac Thompson (Batman: Urban Legends) all pen stories for the anthology.

These writers are joined by a star-studded array of artists, including Lee Weeks (Batman, Daredevil), Kevin Maguire (Justice League International, World's Finest) Jerry Ordway (The Adventures of Superman, The Power of Shazam!), Karl Mostert (Batman: Urban Legends, DCeased: Unkillables), Juan Ferreyra (Green Arrow, Gotham By Midnight), Anthony Marques (Batman: The Audio Adventures), Pablo M. Collar (Are You Afraid of Darkseid?), Belén Ortega (DC Pride: Tim Drake Special), Max Dunbar (Batman Beyond: Neo-Year) and Hayden Sherman (Batman: Urban Legends). Jim Cheung (Justice League) provides a wraparound cover for the book, featuring all of Lee's heroes side-by-side, while Steve Beach, Riley Rossmo, Jason Howard, Kelley Jones, Ariel Colon, Kyle Hotz, Christian Ward, Clayton Henry, Jorge Corona, Belén Ortega, Dan Panosian and Cully Hamner (1-in-25 ratio) provide variant covers.

What Was Just Imagine?

While he was widely regarded as one of the major minds behind the Marvel universe, Lee stepped away from his regular duties at the House of Ideas in the '90s to embark upon new endeavors. One of these was working with DC on a series of one-shots that gave Lee the unique opportunity to play in the sandbox of Marvel's greatest competitor.

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Lee's character reinventions featured a Black pro-wrestling Batman -- twenty years before Jace Fox would hit the streets as the Batman of New York City -- and a Superman who was a member of the Kryptonian Police Force. Lee's Wonder Woman was a Peruvian activist with a magical Incan staff, his Green Lantern was a professor blessed with mystical abilities after searching for the legendary tree Yggdrasil and his Flash was a woman injected with hummingbird DNA. Lee's version of Catwoman -- while resembling her normal counterpart slightly more than the other Just Imagine characters -- had catlike superpowers, while his Shazam was an Interpol agent capable of transforming into a demon and his Sandman an astronaut who entered a dream world.

In a clever ode to DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, Lee's DC characters were eventually united in their very own crossover which saw them fighting a cosmic being named Crisis. They would appear years after their debut in 2015's The Multiversity, a series written by Grant Morrison which explored the DC universe and gave Lee's world an official designation -- Earth-6.

Tales from Earth-6: A Celebration of Stan Lee goes on sale Dec. 27, one day before what would have been Lee's 100th birthday.

Source: DC