All writers have them, those stories or books that are written but for any number of reasons never see publication. Often, the reason is as simple as it didn’t sell. Other times, it can get a lot more complicated.
JSA: Ragnarok is one of the complicated ones, which explains why it was a long time in the publishing.
I signed the contract to write the first of what was supposed to be a trilogy ofJustice Society of America novels in 2004 for iBooks, whose publisher Byron Preiss had a license with DC Comics to publish a line of novels. My first draft was delivered on July 27, 2005, and my revised draft in October; the book and its cover (a painting by Alex Ross as seen below) were designed and laid out by early 2006; the color printout I have of the original cover is dated February 16, 2006, even though according to the publishing information on the title page in the PDF I have of the designed book the “First iBook edition” date is given as January 2006.
But there was a good reason for the delays and confused timing.