Friday, February 10, 2017

Justice League of America Rebirth #1


Batman's mom made him a coat of many characters.

The Review!
Batman has probably quit more superhero teams than anybody in the history of comic books. That's probably a verifiable fact even though I don't know anything about the history of non-DC Comic books. I mean, Wolverine probably quit a lot of teams, right? I bet every time a new writer hopped on board the X-men, they were all, "Wolverine is a total loner! He doesn't fit on a team! I'll have him quit but then his Kitty Pryde Daddy Boner will bring him back because he actually has a heart (with an inappropriate boner!)!" Some of you didn't understand that sentence and are preparing to send me a poorly argued anonymous message. You can, if you want, but I'll just make you look stupid when I respond to it.

One of my main rules that keeps me sane while spending so much time on the Internet is to only ever respond to argumentative people once. That's because most people have terrible reading comprehension so they start arguments over things that were never said. If I write something and somebody responds angrily, I'll simply respond by either clarifying my statement (which I shouldn't have to do because if they missed the point the first time, they'll simply go on living with their assumption and completely ignore the clarification or think I'm backpedaling on my initial point) or simply tearing them a hilarious new asshole. It's not usually hilarious to them but it's fucking comedy gold to any nearby observers. On some rare occasions, I'll respond twice but it's always to the detriment of my own sanity. You can't engage with people who purposefully misinterpret everything so that they can be angrily self-righteous at the world. The trick to not getting ensnared by people who think they're great at arguing but are really just huge dopes is willpower. You just have to resist the urge to prove your point. You have to realize that no matter how clear you are, they just don't want to get your point. As soon as they chose to respond angrily to you, they think they've won. The fight is over. But they only really win when you devote any attention to them at all. I know it's common to say "Don't feed the trolls" but it works far better than people realize. They hate nothing more than people turning their backs on them.

Enough of that bullshit. I have a comic book with Lobo to read! Oh Lobo! You are the best character even though liking you is like admitting to unironically liking hair bands from the 80s! Liking Lobo is akin to putting on your spandex pants and your white leather jacket with all the fringes and heading down into the pit to mosh to Warrant and Poison opening for David Lee Roth. I don't care! I admit it! I love Lobo and Poison and high heel shoes!

Um, anyway, Batman is once again walking out on the Justice League to form his own group (although I won't admit to it outside of this parenthetical reference, he's probably just going to split his time between both teams). As I mentioned somewhere before, I would love for this to be a new Outsiders group. But I get how that would go against the theme of inclusion. Orlando doesn't want the audience to think of these gay and female and immigrant and black and bad-ass characters as outsiders. Orlando is stating, "This is America. These are the people who make up this country. Oh, and also a really fucking rich white dude telling the others what to do."

The Justice League of America (the better version of the Justice League because it has America in the title. U! S! A! U! S! A!) will have its headquarters in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. It's the only time Rhode Island ever gets any love in fiction. The place is a disaster. I think the Crime Syndicate destroyed it. Unless it was the Manhunters. Who can remember now that this is Rebirth? Oh, and since this is the Rebirth issue, it will probably be twenty pages of the team sweeping up the cave and polishing steel and plugging the computers into power strips.

Oh! Before getting the team to clean the cave (which probably won't happen and Alfred will have to do it all himself), Batman has to recruit the team! I forgot he only recruited Lobo and Killer Frost so far.

The first person on the list is Black Canary's ass. That's a really decent first round pick.


Of course they always swing first! It's how comic books used to work! The bad guys were always bad. But then modern thought had to intrude and writers had to start asking questions like "But are they really?" and "What caused them to go bad?" and "If the bad guys aren't always bad, are the good guys always good?" and "What if we tear everything down and look at the whole superhero concept in ways that completely break the entire reason for the medium?!"

After watching the women fight for awhile, Batman makes his presence known. You'd think he would have tried to avoid unnecessary violence. You'd think that but his bat-boner would betray him.

Black Canary is already referring to Seattle as "her city." Don't you fucking hate recent transplants who go whole hog embracing their new homes? They're as bad as the local news who do ads that are basically handjobs for the egos of local residents. Here in Portland, one station has a promo that's all "Portlanders. We're thinkers and players. We're beer drinkers and wine tasters. We're super awesome at sex and we don't use umbrellas. We are so fucking righteously awesome guys! Watch our news!"

Batman explains that his team is a team of mortals and not a team of gods (except for Lobo, of course! Total god, that one). He also points out that Black Canary will be the team's conscience. I don't know how he figures that. I think he just wants to separate Black Canary from Green Arrow because he can. Batman probably hates Oliver Queen for stealing his rich white guy fighting street crime shtick.

Next up is Lobo who is hanging out in New Jersey for some reason. Maybe because his secret identity is Jon Bon Jovi!


That's a pretty good description of Lobo.

One of these days, I'm going to write a Shakespearean play about Lobo. It'll totally be easy because he's got that whole "stick to my word" honor thing which can easily turn his life upside-down. Too bad he doesn't have a daughter named after a sexually transmitted disease though.

So Killer Frost recruits Black Canary. Black Canary recruits Lobo. That means Lobo gets to recruit The Atom! I bet it involves human gauging!


Darn it. I wanted to see Ryan Choi inside Lobo's penis.

Now Ryan gets to recruit The Ray! I bet those two have a lot of fun together. Ray can turn into a beam of light and Ryan can ride him around! Probably. That sounds theoretically possible based on my high school knowledge of physics (which is mostly the knowledge of how many Gs the Tidal Wave roller coaster at Great America exerts on its passengers).

Next on the list is Vixen. You probably already know the list since you've seen the cover and possibly read all of the JLA Rebirth one shots. Vixen is currently hanging out in downtown Manhattan channeling koi. I guess she wants to suffocate? Oh, maybe it's some kind of catfish that produces electricity. I've never had one of those at Popeyes.

Batman tells Vixen that there is no team without her. That's a lie or else he'd have recruited her first! If she said no, was he going to fly back to Happy Harbor and call the whole thing off?

Now that the recruiting is done, it's time to call the first meeting of the Justice League of America to order!


I love you, Lobo!

Remember when Lobo first appeared in The Omega Men? Batman should have forced Lobo back into his purple and orange costume.

I love Lobo in a way that other people don't love Lobo. It's a special kind of love that most people don't understand. I don't care that he was meant to be an indictment of the grim and gritty mass killer characters popular among the moronic and stupid. Lobo, like Rorschach, transcended the authorial criticism inherent in his creation! Also he looks super cool and sexy, wears radical knee pads that don't make any fucking sense, rides a motorbike, looks like he's wearing clown make-up, has a butt-rocker sense of style, and is way into space dolphins. He's the fucking best ever.

Batman has a big speech that's basically "Representation matters!" If that's true of this team then Lobo represents me! He's bad-ass and great at math! I know I said I was not able to do math in a Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps commentary but that was a lie. In reality, when I walked into my calculus class as a senior and one of the nerdy kids looked at my cool-ass Lobo look (minus the clown make-up and knee pads), he was all, "What are you doing in this class?" I just lit my cigar and said, "Sit down, ya bastich." After I came back from the principal's office for smoking in class, I totally rocked that math!

There's an epilogue page that's not really an epilogue but one of those pages that was basically the entire story in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #13 where it's just random images of future events to get fangenders and their crotches all worked up. This one shows Lobo and Ray about to kiss, Destiny talking to Killer Frost, Batman holding Liberty Belle's shield, and Ryan discovering Ray Palmer. Sounds super exciting!

The Ranking!
Best comic book ever! I mean, not really, but it features Lobo! Twenty stars! All the thumbs up! Fifteen tub girls! Super fantastic!

4 comments:

  1. "Lobo, like Rorschach, transcended the authorial criticism inherent in his creation!" Transcended, no. Becoming the very thing he was supposed to condemn? Definitely.

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    Replies
    1. You leave the worst comments! I can't believe how badly you misunderstand Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!

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    2. What's to misunderstand? It still doesn't change the fact about Lobo becoming the very thing he was supposed to condemn even before New 52.

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    3. Even worse, you are a reviewer who lets mediocre/below mediocre crap like the Rebirth Justice League of America get a pass all because it features a character you like.

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