Justice League of America #7

You'd better make that single arrow count, Oliver!

I currently have a summer cold because I dared to walk amongst you filthy, virulent, disease-ridden organisms last week. So I've been sucking on some Halls Cough Drops things because they keep me from continuously coughing which is a nice change of pace from continuously coughing. The cough drop wrappers have "A PEP TALK IN EVERY DROP" (with a trademark symbol on that cleverest of clever sayings just in case you were thinking of stealing it for use with your semen or breast milk or something). They are the stupidest, most trite, ridiculous "PEP TALKS" that any middle management unimaginative suit and tie could come up with. Of course I'm going to share some with you!

"Don't wait to get started." Nope. You wouldn't want to look like a giant ass lazy fuck. This is America! Get off the couch and hit the bricks, Capitalist!

"You've survived tougher." Well I fucking hope so! If I die from an illness for which my main medication is sweetened candy lozenges, I fucking didn't deserve to live.

"Get back in the game." Here's a little sneak peek at America, all you foreigny foreigners: We treat everything as if it's a sport. If a sports analogy doesn't exist for a situation, that situation can't possibly exist. Everything in America is a competition and the longer I sit at home sucking on Hall's Lozenges being a weak twerp, the further back I'm getting in the race! I'm being left behind because I'm a weak piece of shit!

"Hi-five yourself." *slap* You know what? I feel better already! I'm pumped up now! Everything is awesome! Well, everything would be if I wasn't so fucking pissed off at this wrapper and the assholes who wrote it! "Hi-five"? It's HIGH FIVE, you stupid candy medicine monkeys!

"Turn 'can do' into 'can did!'" At first I just thought whoever penned these was reluctant to put an exclamation point on the sayings because they knew sick people would be reading them and who wants to read aphorisms in an overly enthusiastic voice when snot is streaming from their face holes. But now that I've found this one with an exclamation point, I can't help but read the others in a depressed voice. "Oh, I suppose you've survived tougher." "Hi-five yourself although I don't know what good that will do you."

"Don't try harder. Do harder!" Oh, I guess some of these have pickup lines on them too!

"The show must go on. Or work." What the fuck does that one even mean?! "Hey, you know, you've eaten pretty nearly a whole bag of these while away from your job for a few days and, well, don't you think maybe you should get back to work? America can't run itself, you know? Busy busy busy!"

And, of course, "Seize the day." With just a period, of course. They don't want you going fucking crazy while using the verb "seize"!

This issue opens with a gaggle of Lawyers telling Lex Luthor that he's about to become a free man. I suppose this shit will be explained more later but even if it isn't, does it really matter? It's not like DC has explained why Lex Luthor is in prison in the first place. Or what happened to his face.

Did they? Maybe I missed it in a mini-series I didn't read or something.

Anyway, Lex Luthor fires them all because, I suspect, Lex doesn't actually want to be free from the prison he created for himself. Because he can escape any time he wants, having made the place with his own designs. And he's living a nice, safe life of luxury behind his prison walls.

But then this bitch has got to come ruin his good times. "Touch my box! Touch my box!" Get the fuck out of here with that ratchet shit!

While Lex Luthor contemplates his conjugal visitor, Plastique is busy shoving coins onto Doctor Light's corpse. The Purple People Leader says something about Doctor Light's metamorphosis but whatever's going to happen, it'll have to happen without Doctor Light's soul because it's all cozy and secure in Heaven's Foyer.

And elsewhere, Doctor Psycho is doing truly psychotic things instead of acting like Superboy's bumbling sidekick.

I refuse to believe Lobdell's Doctor Psycho is the actual Doctor Psycho. I think it's just a hypnotized eight year old with delusions of being a well-written character.

I get the feeling that the comic books Superman, Superboy, and Action Comics aren't currently in The New 52 continuity. Eventually Lobdell will leave DC and everything he wrote will be ignored by the writers that come after. Because it's all shit.

The Justice League of America and Superman and some other members of the Justice League need some answers from Doctor Psycho because he was in Khandaq when Superman killed Doctor Light. So everybody believes he probably had something to do with it. Because he's a psionic. And he, you know, calls himself Doctor Psycho. But whatever Martian Manhunter learns will have to wait because the scene shifts to The House of Mystery where the rest of the crew is hanging out waiting for Batman to return from Heaven. Which he eventually does. And that's that for that scene. Personally, I don't think it should have interrupted the Doctor Psycho scene since it didn't really reveal much. Except maybe that The House of Mystery has a major woody for Catwoman.

The Atom cracks under Martian Manhunter's interrogation of Doctor Psycho.

So now the cats are all out of the bag and eating everybody's food. And Element Woman, who isn't always in a very good space, is emotionally wounded that her friend The Atom lied to her. But she'll feel better when Metamorpho turns up since the Free Comic Book Day Comic mentioned somebody stealing the Orb of Ra from the Black Room. So he's out there somewhere! And any appearance he may or may not have made in Batman Incorporated doesn't count because that comic book exists in a hazy place in The New 52 continuity.

With The Atom's revelations, Superman decides it's time to intimidate Amanda Waller. I hope she gets demoted down to Head of, and Only Head of, Task Force X.

Back to Lex Luthor's cell, Wonder Woman and her crew interrupt before Luthor can finger Pandora's Box. I really can't wait for the Trinity War to be over so I can stop repeating, over and over and over, double entendres about her stupid box. Even I'm sick of them! And I don't get sick of listening to myself very often

How the hell did they get in here? Fucking comic books.

Wonder Woman takes the box and becomes possessed by it, growing an eye in the middle of her tiara and a sword chained to her left arm. Batman and the others learn that The Phantom Stranger has been killed although who the fuck really cares. None of them really needed him anyway. And Superman and his Super Friends return to Amanda Waller which is when Plastique's Doctor Light bomb goes off. Which means it won't have killed Martian Manhunter or Superman or Element Woman or Firestorm or Cyborg although since it's a bomb, Green Arrow might be dead next issue! Right? No? Yeah, probably not.

Justice League of America #7 Rating: No change. So far it feels like this Trinity War could have been finished in two issues of the Justice League. These interim issues don't really feel like the plot is moving forward much. And there are so many heroes involved, nobody gets any real time to shine and there's no real feel for any of the characters. After playing this shit up since The New 52 began, it had better have a tremendous payoff!