Justice League America #31 (1989)

Why is Ice so intrigued? And why is Wally, super horndog, so repulsed? And what has happened that was so inappropriate that Beetle is losing his shit? And what is coming out of Dr. Fate's asshole?

Don't worry, I know why Wally is so repulsed. This comic is from 1989. It's only ten Reagan-years removed from the 1979 movie Phantasm which made one of its big horror moments a, in the parlance of the time, "tranny trick." And if you're thinking, "Well, 10 years should have improved people's attitudes," there's a reason I noted they were "Reagan-years." They're like regular years where prices increase and technology gets better but society moves backwards. That's why, on this cover, it's just a big joke that Wally, who wants to fuck every person with a nice set of tits and a great ass, is suddenly grossed out by this fantastic pair of tits and, I'm assuming, a superb ass. Is he grossed out because Doctor Fate is usually a man? Is he freaked that Nabu, a male God of Order, is inhabiting the body of a woman? I'm not sure. Maybe it's because Doctor Fate is both a man and a woman at one time?

You know what? I shouldn't blame the times. Grant Morrison was beginning his run on Doom Patrol in 1989 which would push all kinds of boundaries and celebrate all manner and types of people. If I need to put any blame on backwards attitudes, I guess that blame will go to Giffen and DeMatteis. Although I shouldn't make assumptions based on the reactions of some of the characters on this cover. Wally could be acting that way because Doctor Fate just blew a huge mystic fart. There's evidence for that as well! And that's probably why Blue Beetle is laughing so hard! I'm sure he's not laughing because Wally just hit on Doctor Fate and Nabu spoke in a manly voice and then Wally was all, "Oh God I'm gay!" Actually I'm not sure of that at all. In fact, I feel almost certain that's exactly what just happened prior to this scene.

Blue Beetle also just might be laughing at whatever is going on with Captain Atom's crotch.

"Wish there's something I could have done about it," thinks the nearly Godlike being. The Spectre is a fucking centrist.

"Oh, but I'm not allowed to interfere and save people from evil! I only punish evil after the fact!" The Spectre farts out of his asshole of his mouth. Well, might-as-well-be-a-cop godlike being if you can't even stop anything horrible from happening, maybe if the rules suck, you shouldn't follow the rules? Maybe use your powers to interfere in evil's plans as they're happening instead of waiting for the victims and then asking the spirits of the victims, "Hey, are you angry that happened to you? If so, check 'Seek Vengeance.' If no, why the fuck not, you weirdo?!"

The Spectre encounters The Gray Man in this destroyed place with no dead bodies. The Gray Man works for the Lords of Order collecting dream essence from the heads of corpses. We've seen a version of him before in Justice League International #2-7. But that guy hated the job and killed himself or something. I can't remember. It's been a long time! This one seems like he loves his job and can't wait to follow the repercussions of whatever just transpired in this destroyed town because it's going to create a lot of dead people. The Spectre was "compelled" here to meet The Gray Man, I guess, and maybe so he can warn the Justice League that some cosmic and/or heavenly tragedy is about to transpire. If I were the Justice League, I wouldn't wait around for some jerk like The Spectre to appear and threaten me into doing his bidding. I'd just get Madame Xanadu on the payroll so every other day she can be all, "The end of the world is nigh unless you get me some chocolate milk from the corner store!"

Meanwhile, unaware that they're about to face an actual threat to the world for once, Booster Gold, Mister Miracle, and Blue Beetle are reconditioning a Justice League Shuttle in the old cave headquarters outside Metropolis (recently rented out to the Doom Patrol as they begin their best adventures under Grant Morrison's authorship). They're also involved in a conversation that I'm sure eighteen year old me thought was fantastically postmodern.

Now I'm just confused. Am I reading the comic book version of the team? Or is this the real version (in a comic book) and they're somehow even more ridiculous in the comic book's comic book version?

In other news, eighteen year old me definitely got a boner from the next scene. And not the kind of joke boner where you say, "Boooooing!", and pretend that you got a boner. I mean an actual erection.

I'm probably wrong about the boner thing. At eighteen, I was actually more into Warhammer than boners.

Some people don't understand the difference between text and subtext so let me point out that me being a virgin at eighteen is subtext and also just speculation on your part! You don't know that a lot of Warhammer players fuck! You think some sweaty nerd has never swung a phalanx of Space Marines around the back side of a legion of Nurgle's minions in a surprise charge that absolutely obliterated them while a woman stood nearby watching and ruining her underwear? You think wrong, my friend!

Doctor Fate arrives on the scene. She's currently made up of one Linda Strauss and not one Kent Nelson. She, a grown woman, usually merges with Eric Strauss, a ten year old boy, her stepson, to become Doctor Fate. That might sound gross but you also haven't heard about the part where Eric's body was rapidly matured to be that of a man while still being a ten year old child. You also might think that's gross but you haven't heard the part where Linda begins to have romantic feelings for Eric. You might think that's gross but I haven't even gotten to the part where Eric reciprocates. I have no idea what was going on in the Doctor Fate comic book in the late 80s but I fucking wish I had been reading it! It sounds fantastic! Oh, and Kent Nelson is a corpse but his body has been possessed by Nabu so Kent Nelson's corpse is still walking around and hanging out. You saw him recently in that issue where Blue Beetle had been turned into a Bialyan Candidate.

Doctor Fate was advised by Nabu to see if the Justice League could use her help and maybe offer her some training and experience. So she uses her magic to slip through the roof of the JLA Embassy and surprise the Justice League.

Either Doctor Fate emerged inside Martian Manhunter, exploding him into green paste, or G'nort just threw up. Oh! Maybe Fire exploded into a fireball! And I guess that other sound effect is an alarm?

Batman drops by so that Oberon can spend a page explaining to him what just happened in the panel with the split pea soup flying out of the window. Obviously it was Fire being surprised by Doctor Fate and, not being in total control of her powers yet, blowing up. But the alarm needed explaining and, well, Oberon explained it but I don't know why it had to be a part of this comic. Maybe the new JLA security which identifies members of the group by costume and whether or not they usually have tits and if it doesn't recognize them, an alarm goes off will be an important plot point later in this story.

Batman, like me, doesn't give a shit about Oberon's explanation. But I, unlike Batman, don't disappear immediately because I have no respect for myself or my time.

Batman misses out on Max Lord meeting the new Doctor Fate. But not me! Because I'm still here! 33 years later! Reading it all over again! Oh joy!

I wish Doctor Fate hadn't interrupted Max Lord because I wanted to hear why he couldn't not stare at her tits. Mostly because I need a good excuse for all the times I get caught staring at tits.

Doctor Fate wants to come off the reserve list and be put on the "I can't promise I'll be here every time you call" list which is somehow different than the reserve list. My bet is that she doesn't last past this four issue crossover story. And yes, I can bet even though I've read this comic book multiple times because my memory is for shit.

I don't remember discussing the art by Adam Hughes with friends back in the day but, fuck me, his shit is amazing.

Looking up Adam Hughes, I see he hasn't done a lot that I would have come into contact with: this JLA stuff, a few odds and ends during The New 52, and Before Watchmen. It's a shame because I'm already loving his style and his panel choices. In the scene where Max Lord has a staring contest with Fate's tits, Hughes ads a lot of reflective surfaces and offers camera angles to show the reflections off of these surfaces: Fate's helmet, Lord's desk, several mirrors in the office. It's nice to see a lot of variety and flair in the layouts. Even the scene I hated where Oberon is explaining what happened to a fireman, Hughes lays it out so that the camera angle is over the fireman's head looking down at Oberon, shifting the fireman so that he's standing outside the panel. It's really an impressive choice (and maybe necessary based on how many words DeMatteis wrote for that scene. SO MANY!).

Just go back to that previous scan and look at Ice's and Fire's faces in that first panel. Kevin Maguire who?

I also like that female Doctor Fate's helmet has strong cheekbones. And that her shirt has those shapely lumps. The cape covers her ass so I'm guessing it's not her best feature. Although she knows magic so why isn't it? Is she lazy?

Fuck you, Batman!

That's it! The straw that finally broke the Dark Knight's back for me! I was okay with Batman carrying water for authority figures and the rich! I was just fine with Batman beating the shit out of the mentally ill and the impoverished who had no choice but to work for the mentally ill. I didn't give a shit that Bruce Wayne used crime and The Batman's suppression of it to gentrify different Gotham neighborhoods and make even more money in real estate. Never gave a second thought to the way he broke skylights on a constant basis to make a pretty penny on the side with Wayne Skylight Repair. But now I feel personally attacked! How fucking boring must monitor duty be? And it isn't like it's not entirely automated! Some light is going to blink and some siren is going to blare to let Guy know something is wrong somewhere in the world. He can't play some stupid browser game while he's waiting around?! I mean, I guess they didn't have browser games in 1989. But this is state of the art equipment! It definitely came with a few games to tool around with, like Minesweeper and Solitaire. Fuck Batman! He's like a fucking middle manager who just wants to see people keeping busy rather than letting them spend their time as they see fit while also doing the job intended. Let Guy play his stupid game, you asshole!

Hmm. Maybe I already hated Batman because of all the things I said I never cared about. I mean, I did fall in love with The Titans television show the instant Dick Grayson said, "Fuck Batman." Imagine if Marv Wolfman had chosen to do that early on in his memorable run on The Titans! But no! Instead, we got about 100 issues of Dick moping and pouting and living in the shadow of Batman when all he had to do was decide to be his own man. Becoming Nightwing should have been a metaphoric "Fuck you, Batman," but instead it was just a chance for Dick to feel like Batman forgot all about him. Sometimes writing to create drama ruins the fucking story. Think about how in The New 52, Batman saw Dick as his only real peer in the superhero community, and he expressed it, and he showed how proud he was of him? (All of that may have begun earlier in the stories where Dick took over the Batman role with Damian as Robin but I still haven't gotten to those yet. I hear they are terrific.)

Poor Guy Gardner. Batman really has it out for him, doesn't he? I guess I shouldn't expect a man who loves to cause brain damage to understand what a peer with brain damage is going through.

Of course the writers and editors are on Batman's side! But just think how shitty the JLA computer system is if some stupid game makes it so they can't get emergency alerts! Um, fuck Batman!

I don't know who that is on the other end of the emergency line but I'm guessing it's Catherine or Sue from Justice League Europe. The reason I can't tell isn't because she's green; it's because Adam Hughes draws attractive human beings while Bart Sears has been drawing pieces of beef jerky in wigs.

Oberon is giving The Huntress and Doctor Fate a tour of the embassy when J'onn J'onzz walks out of the teleporter fully nude. Does Justice League America have a head of human resources? Or did they quit because of Guy Gardner? And Batman! Probably more so Batman. Who would want to tell Batman that he needs to maybe stop punching team members in the face, even if those team members are misogynistic assholes with raging tempers who are also severely disabled? By adding the "severely disabled" bit, did it sound like I felt it was okay to punch team members in the face if they were disabled? Because I didn't mean that. But if they were disabled assholes, then, um, yes, I did mean it. But only if those two things go together! Like a terrible Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

I wonder what a Martian ding-dong even looks like? Maybe The Huntress and Doctor Fate didn't realize what they were looking at. "Why the fuck did J'onn have a dead squirrel dangling between his legs?" is probably what The Huntress said. Unless she said, "Meow! Kitty like!" I know she's not Catwoman. But her mother was! And also that was The Huntress talking as if her vagina were talking.

I'm really fucking mind-melding with Guy Gardner this issue! *swoon*

I discovered while doing this review that I can send my comic book panel scans over Xbox Live messenger. Now I have a new tool to bother everybody I know. "Hey guys I don't want to play Halo I just wanted to show you Fire's tits!"

No, really. Look at Fire's tits:

If I cropped this differently, you'd think it was Fire's ass. Or the inside crook of her elbow.

The group heading to Europe to help out the JLE with whatever problem they're having is composed of Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Mister Miracle, Fire, Ice, Martian Manhunter, Guy Gardner, Doctor Fate, and Batman. I don't know what happened to The Huntress. Did Adam Hughes just forget to draw her? Did she remain back with Oberon? Did everybody conveniently forget she was a part of the team already like so many other heroes before her?

But boy those tits, right? Whew!

Nobody knows what's happening in Europe because Sue Dibny doesn't know either. Justice League Europe went off to battle some mystery army and nobody has heard from them since. The only people who seem to know what's happening are two shadowy figures in a dark room shown in one panel.

I guess I could have said "Java and Simon Stagg" instead of "two shadowy figures."

Justice League America discovers a small village in some place in Europe under attack by unknown forces. They figure Justice League Europe are involved in the melee somewhere and so fly down to rescue them. Meanwhile The Gray Man and The Spectre stand around pseudo-philosophizing about metaphysical mumbo-jumbo or something. They don't know what they're up to so there's no reason I should even speculate! The Spectre knows he's super powerful though and can't wait to find out who he gets to punch in the face. Even if it's the Justice League!

Justice League America #31 Rating: B+. Man, why are DeMatteis and Giffen trying to make me hate The Spectre?! I want to like him but I can't like him if even he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing. He's supposed to be super powerful and God's buddy but here he is just acting like that idiot Pariah, lured to some catastrophe but having no idea what he's doing there. But that terrible Spectre stuff was only like the first couple of pages and the last page. The other stuff was actually pretty good! It's the way I remember this comic book! I laughed in several places which I haven't been doing at all lately reading this thing. It's as if this issue were the issue that remained in the forefront of my mind all of these years. The characters weren't overly silly but they engaged in some wacky things while being more or less characters rather than caricatures. Plus the art is magnificent. I imagine back in 1989, I loved when this series came out and then moaned picking up the Bart Sears' Justice League Europe. It's like night and day if night were overly muscled characters with big hair and small faces and day were super hot looking men and women in unique poses and exciting camera angles!