Justice League #41

I can't believe DC Comics sells enough extra comics every month to make these Variant Covers worthwhile.

This comic book is the Justice League, bitches! If you think they're going to battle anybody less than Gods, you're a fucking dimwitted motherfucker! I hope this aggressive introduction with all the cursing draws in more readers! Here's another saying the kids apparently come for: "Go big or go home!"

The issue begins with Kanto and Lashina invading the house of somebody they believe is Myrina Black. They're wrong because they're not into doing research. It's easier to just kill everybody in the vicinity of Myrina Black's last known location. She must be somebody so important that DC Comics hasn't published a comic book in which she appeared for over three decades. Geoff Johns probably obsessively dug through old copies of Green Lantern and Adventures Into Mystery and Batman and Justice League of America until he found just the right obscure person that next to nobody would remember. Now he's going to make her the most important person in this current Cosmic Crisis. He'll sell a lot of comic books and the fans will gush and rave about how they love Geoff Johns and I'll just be sitting here waiting to pounce on Geoff when he makes a mathematical mistake in one of his character's calculations. Oh, sir, I cannot wait! I am frothing at the wherever people froth just thinking about it!

While these clowns search for whomever, Mister Miracle is infiltrating Apokolips on his own mission. Hey! Did you know I once wrote a sonnet about Mister Miracle?! I did and I'm going to copy and paste it here because it's a fucking sonnet and I wrote it and you'll fucking read it, you pseudo intellectual scumbags!

Sonnet #WE11: "Father's Day"

Visage of stone which taught me how to act,
Ignoring all that I desired to be.
Imagination rectified to fact.
A miracle turned into pure fury.
A dream of God, a father far away,
Reminded me that I was not of stone
Nor flesh nor blood but love and spirit made,
Which merely left me feeling more alone.
Each voice commanded me to be like him.
And though a moth attracted to each flame,
I could not bow to each and every whim,
So chose escape and neither of their game.
And so a voice I'd known yet hardly heard,
Whispered, "God and Father are both absurd."

It's not actually about Mister Miracle even though it is also about Mister Miracle! It also uses turns of phrase I normally would stay away from because they're bits and pieces of dialogue directly from World's End #11 because the sonnet was the review of that comic book.

Hey! That was easy! I should copy and paste old reviews into new reviews more often! Who would notice?!

What can't be possible? Just tell me already!

Come on, Geoff Johns! You're such a hotshot writer, prove it! Stop fucking around with this bullshit false tension where you allow the character to see the big surprise MacGuffin but not the reader! If your MacGuffin were really that interesting, the reader would be propelled forward with the story on the excitement of finding out just how the MacGuffin will be used or how the heroes will stop it. Lousy writers do this cheap shocked character non-reveal crap! I guess I have to conclude that you're a lousy writer!

You know who else pulls shit like this, Johns?! Clickbait websites! Don't you feel dirty now?

Here's another sonnet!

Sonnet #GeoffJohnsSpellsHisNameWrong

Geoff. That's the name of a kid in boys chorus.
Geoff Johns' parents must have been huge douchebags.
Or they were really into Toys R Us!
Maybe they just loved jerking to sploosh mags?
God! The pretentiousness of the spelling
Makes my fucking God-damned teeth fucking ache!
How do I spell my same name? Not telling!
My hippie parents really took the cake.
Whatever! Fuck you! Just get off my ass!
Iambic pentafuckingwhatever!
This sonnet mayn't have any fucking class,
Cause "fucking" is a good meter filler.
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you!
Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you!

Maybe I wasn't in the right mood to write a sonnet! I probably should have used the couplet at the end to subtly portray how I'm angry at the spelling of Johns' first name because I'm actually envious that his name was spelled like the giraffe's while mine simply caused me to be called a Deaf Chef throughout elementary school. Maybe that came out in the rest of the poem and it would have just been redundant! In that case, the way I wrote it is just fine.

Oh! Oh! Let me guess! Is this the part where you explain that what you had in common is that you were all lost outsiders? FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING ASS, WONDER WOMAN! YOU DON'T KNOW FROM OUTSIDER OR HOW TO CORRECTLY PHRASE THIS SENTENCE WITH THE WORD "FROM"! Unless that "from" part is the part I don't know. But I know I got the FUCK YOU part right!

Remember that song by that pretentious guy that was in The Police? The one about the message in the bottle and how he discovers that he's not alone in being alone? Here's a little secret about how everybody feels alone: some people feel way more fucking alone than other people and the main reason is because lonely people treat lonelier people like assholes so they feel better.

Sorry! I let my feelings get ahead of the story! It turns out Wonder Woman says they all share the need for justice and searching. Although she does mention that they share a need for finding their place in the world which is just another way of saying they're lonely. But they're all good looking and have super powers (or money), so forgive me if I don't feel any sympathy for their not fitting in.

The Justice League head on over to Myrina Black's place to investigate the murder because it's tied to a BOOOM Tube opening inside the house. Plus Barry is the fastest CSI guy ever! He can contaminate a crime scene before the police tape can even be pulled out of the police tape box where it's kept for safe keeping.

Oh. I didn't realize everything goes faster in the vicinity of Barry Allen. DNA tests? No problem! Done in nanoseconds! My guess is Barry time traveled to get the results! Prepare for the next Crisis because of it!

Meanwhile Superman is visiting Lexcorps where everybody talks as if they're a robot or on the radio. I understand Lex has the weird staticky speech bubbles because he's in his super suit and his head is contained in a glass dome. But why is Captain Cold's voice all robotic and tingly?! Why do I even ask those questions? Oh! I know why! So I can point out that somebody at DC Comics fucked up without actually pointing my finger and yelling, "Nyah nyah! You fucked up!"

No wait. I fucked up. Captain Cold's face is apparently behind a plastic hazmat facemask thing as well except Jason Fabok only makes it apparent in one panel. Sorry for jumping the gun! Again!

Superman is visiting Lexcorps so he can see how Lex is taking care of Neutron, the assassin that tried to kill Lex which caused the Amazo Virus to break loose. Neutron is dying but Lex wants to keep him alive long enough to find out who has put a hit on Luthor. Luthor says the man is dying so they should wake him up to ask him who put the hit on Luthor even though that will kill the guy faster. Superman is all, "Unh-unh! No you didn't! Or won't!" He then says, "You can't cure cancer, can you, you stupid S.O.B!" And Lex is all, "What?! How dare you challenge my skills! Of course I can cure cancer! I just haven't tried yet because I didn't want to become incredibly wealthy off of the patents! But now that you've issued an elementary school dare, Superman, you better believe I'll cure cancer! I'll cure all of the cancers right now! In your face!" Geoff Johns, I mean Superman smiles smugly in the knowledge that he tricked Lex Luthor into helping humanity.

For being the smartest guy on Earth, Lex is actually pretty dumb. He apparently fell for this same trick when Superman dared him to build a prison that even Lex couldn't escape from. And so Lex did. And then Lex was put into it. Although that story really shows how dumb Superman is because obviously Lex would have a built a prison that seemed like he couldn't escape from but from which he could easily escape if he had wanted to. Instead he treated it like a vacation spa. I wonder if Superman really believed the daily Happy Ending Massage Treatments for the patients were necessary for the Unescapable Prison System to work?

Back on Apokolips, Mister Miracle runs afoul of Darkseid.

"A chair! Anything for a chair! Maybe I wouldn't be so angry if I could...just...sit...down!"

Mister Miracle gets away with help from his Mother Box. He's off to find the Justice League and tell them why they need to help him. Also, they're going to have to deal with Darkseid who wants revenge against them for stopping his conquest of Earth. And they're going to have to deal with the Anti-Monitor who followed the Crime Syndicate over from Earth-3. Or they're just going to sit back and try to protect Earth while Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor compare dick sizes.

Back in Myrina Black's house, Cyborg points out Myrina Blacks are being killed all over America (he doesn't care about any in other parts of the world). They'll need protection. But first, the Justice League has to be nearly obliterated by Omega as she crawls out of Barry Allen's mouth followed by lots of explosions. It's all very Michael Bay by way of Japanese horror films. Then she pulls some Wachowski Brothers shit before she pulls some old school psycho barbarian licking blood off of her axe moves. It's Batman's blood she licks, by the way. The other heroes are busy not being allowed on panel while Batman gets beat up.

Before Omega can kill Batman, Cyborg blasts her with, probably, a white noise cannon. So she turns her attention to Victor. Before she can kill Victor, Shazam throws her into a van (more explosions and fist pumps and high fives!) so she turns her attention to Shazam. Before she can kill Shazam, Wonder Woman gets her in a bear hug and wraps her Lasso around Omega's wrists so she can ask her a question: "Who are you?" The lasso doesn't work though for plot reasons. So Wonder Woman calls Superman so that Superman can save her before Omega kills her because that's probably the next step in the pattern.

Lex isn't just the smartest man in the world, he's also the most emotionally stunted.

I guess Superman's plan of waiting Lex out and constantly nitpicking him and calling him a criminal finally worked! He knew Lex would eventually blow up and show his true nature! If only Lex Luthor's genius weren't crippled by his constant emotional outbursts!

As for Lex's Kryptonite-as-Fuel plan, isn't that bound to fail? Didn't Ultraman snort most of the Kryptonite on Earth? So even if the Kryptonite could power Metropolis for a year (and how much would that take, Lex? Try being more scientific in your proclamations, enh?), isn't most of the Kryptonite (if not all but Metallo's heart) gone? Although I forget that, in comic books, whatever is currently happening or being said trumps anything done or said in the past. Plus Geoff Johns gets to make up all the rules. Plus I really have no evidence that all the Kryptonite is gone. I just remember Ultraman desperately searching for every Kryptonite Crumb he could find to stick up his nose.

Lex's sister, Lena, puts three bullets through Lex's super armor. I guess his armor isn't as super as he'd like people to believe. So was she the one hiring everybody in the world to kill him? Seems like she decided the better plan was to save her money and kill him herself. Although an even betterer plan would have been to enact her better plan when Superman wasn't around!

Back at the battle, it seems Green Lantern, not Superman, has come to keep Omega from killing Wonder Woman only to become her next victim.

Is free will like free energy?

Omega can break free will? That doesn't even fucking make sense! This is a thing that we as comic book fans have put up with for long enough! I'm tired of super powerful heroes suddenly meeting their match for poorly explained reasons other than "this villain is so bad ass you can't even!"

Meanwhile Omega has come to Jessica Cruz to say that she's the one Omega really wants! Not the other five or six or whatever number she just beat down while saying that they're the most dangerous or the one that needs to be dealt with first or the one with the most succulent sphincter. No, it was Jessica Cruz all along and her tether to Earth-3! By using Power Ring's ring, Omega summons the Anti-Monitor to Earth-Main-Earth! And I bet he's super pissed off that he failed to destroy infinite universes thirty years ago!

Lena Luthor has her own Mother Box and she uses it to BOOOM Tube Superman and Lex somewhere else. For Darkseid, of course. Mister Miracle also BOOOM Tubes somewhere else to escape from Lashina and Kanto. He winds up in Myrina Black's apartment where she lives with her pet Griffon unimaginatively called Griff. She's been planning a war against Darkseid because she heard it should sell a lot of issues of Justice League. If her name is Black and she owns a Griffon, does that mean she's from Gemworld?

Justice League #41 Rating: +1 Ranking. It's a blockbuster, all right. I get the feeling Geoff Johns is a bit of a Michael Bay but for comic books. It's a pretty spectacular story with lots of explosions and big villains and punching and kicking and robots! But if you don't ratchet your thinking power down a few notches, it kind of falls apart in multiple ways, and you notice all the cracks where you can slide in your +5 Crowbar of Criticism to tear it all down. But even though I can be critical, I'm also up for a fun super hero story with lots and lots of guest stars. I just hope the Universe isn't ending because of it! I also hope that the Justice League isn't relegated to spectator status although it seems like that's currently the case.