Monday, February 6, 2023

Justice League Europe #12 (March 1990)


Does making the word "son" bold and bright green change the meaning of this adage in a way that my genius blinds me to?

Sometimes in life, you might feel stupid but never admit that it's caused by your own ignorance and stupidity. Instead, try saying, "My genius often blinds me to more mundane or exoteric ideas!" Then you sound really smart because you used a word like "exoteric"! Except most people only know it's opposite, "esoteric," so they'll probably think you meant that and continue to believe you're an idiot, both because you said "esoteric" wrong and used it incorrectly! But really they're the dumbies! Although there's little satisfaction in knowing the person who thinks you're dumb is really the dumb one because they're too dumb to ever appreciate the irony.

Man I hope I used irony correctly there! I knew I was going to have trouble in life taking English 101 from Professor Morissette.

The last issue of Justice League Europe ended with The Metal Men confronting Metamorpho, probably because that's just the kind of idea you'd expect from editors at a DC pitch meeting. "What if Metamorpho, who can change into any element at all, battled Will Magnus's butt inserts, the masters of being specific elements?!" "Boy, that sounds super exciting, Dooley! Just the kind of genius idea that has kept DC the second biggest comics publisher in America! Way to go!"

That second line of dialogue sounded sarcastic but the speaker was really just being earnest and naïve. Earnest because the speaker is absolutely thrilled to be the second biggest publisher and naïve because there really were just two publishers to speak of in 1990. Oh, and also because he thought the idea sounded great!

I just spent about five minutes searching for naked pictures of Metamorpho on the Internet because I wanted to see what's going on down there under the Speedo. Either I have suddenly become terrible at Internet searches or Metamorpho's dong just doesn't exist, even in the deviant imagination of the entire planet's collective unconscious.

I suppose I could have just Googled "Metamorpho fucking Sapphire" but I have some class, Sir. I was looking for a non-sexualized image of his junk!


This is probably one of those images that got Fredric Wertham's mid-century underwear in a twist. But since it's Guy Gardner who has been thrashed to a pulp with some obvious injuries to his eyes, I'm going to side with Wertham on this one. This image should be illegal!

Mostly the previous image should be illegal because how dare Loebs, Giffen, and Sears depict Guy Gardner as somebody who gets his ass beat! He should be doing the beating of asses! Do you think DC often gets letters about thirty year old comic book issues because I'm about to vent my spleen so hard right now!

The Metal Men apparently approach every situation the way American cops do: they approach an individual with massive numbers, declare that they don't want to be violent but will if provoked, and then spit out a bunch of conflicting directions and attitudes. Iron is all, "We don't like violence but will defend ourselves if need be!" And Mercury is all, "Let's kick his ass!" And Gold is all, "Move away from the baby or we'll see that as us being provoked." And Lead is all, "We're going to beat the shit out of you but this is a Comics Code approved comic so I had to say sulfur instead of shit!" Platinum just looks on in horror as she no doubt is thinking about the way Will Magnus created several extra orifices on her alone.

I don't remember what Tin was doing because fuck Tin. Nobody cares about Tin. He's skinny, ugly, and less useful than aluminum. How had Will Magnus not scrapped him by 1990?!


See? American cops! "We don't want violence!" and "Don't provoke us!" simply means "Respect us no matter what we do and any sign of a rebellious nature will be seen as a provocation. Plus sometimes we don't even need a sign because we can tell if you're probably going to disrespect us."

Metamorpho and the Metal Men fight for a bit during which I'm fairly certain Metamorpho murders Tin.


That's definitely a robot corpse.

Meanwhile in Russia, Silver Sorceress uses her powers to escape the Russian gulag she and Blue Jay have been imprisoned in. She opens a portal to their devastated home world and leaves Earth. Blue Jay elects to stay because this Earth hasn't been destroyed and still has things like food and water. He escapes using his lame power to turn into a bird-sized man with wings. No way the Russians will catch somebody that powerful!

The currently emotionally crippled Animal Man and the perky if dim Rocket Red were knocked out by Guy last issue which is why they aren't helping Metamorpho. But Sapphire brings them around with her desperate whining for them to save Rex. But after they come to, and Animal Man does some serious whinging on about his dead kids, Java arrives. Being a caveman, he only knows one way to interact with others: club them to death. So a new battle begins just outside the observation window to Rex's son's room which is housing its own battle royale.

In the chaos, the baby's mechanical babysitter tentacle arms go haywire and toss the baby across the room. Java catches it and discovers just why the baby has been locked away from everyone: it has the power to transform other things into different elements. Java is fucked. But it's only a baby! It doesn't know what elements are! So Java's arms are now some kind of primordial slop.


Maybe it isn't as bad as it looks.

Everybody stops fighting because Java can't throw any more punches and the Metal Men are all, "Oh that's your baby? Um, uh, whoops?"

Simon Stagg appears to threaten everybody with law suits when Rex shoves the baby into his arms. Stagg screams in terror and his underwear fills up with slop but the baby has nothing to do with it. He, along with Sapphire and Rex, is immune to the baby's power. He holds his grandson and falls in love with it (which is the most unbelievable part of the entire comic book). Everybody celebrates Rex for being a hero and saving the day with compassion while Rex mutters and pouts because the kid had no effect on Stagg. So I guess everything turned out fine! Especially since Will Magnus made some robot arms for Java. Hopefully they don't have their own personalities. Plus I think Tin is definitely dead since that panel I scanned was the last time he's seen in the comic book.

And, yes, Tin being dead is part of "everything turned out fine."

Animal Man decides to take a leave of absence since he's dealing with a whole Grant Morrison plot over in his own comic book. And Rocket Red's family arrives from Russia. So now there's a couple of kids running around the embassy for Wally to play with.

Justice League Europe #12 Rating: A. Not a bad issue although—and I'd hate to say I hate belaboring a point seeing as how much I really love to belabor points—the only problem the Justice League actually deals with, like Wolfman's Titans, is family issues. But at least there's a big battle which includes Platinum yelling at Metamorpho for touching her tits. And the ultimate goal of the story was to give Simon Stagg a Grinch's change of heart. So now he wants to help humanity because he loves his grandson so much! Are you puking at the sentiment as much as I am? Probably not. I bet you think it's wonderful, you loser. And for the beta (cuck) story arc, Buddy Baker leaves the team for family reasons and Dmitri gains his family back. Oh, if only I had a heart to truly appreciate this nonsense!

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