What is Ralph so shocked by? Jack's humongous boner?
Justice League America lost two members in the last capter of "Breakdowns" but also hired two more Looney Tunes' variants (Taz and somebody they can say, "What's up, Doc?" to). Hopefully Europe gets two more new recruits as well this issue to replace Captain Atom who is worth three heroes and The Elongated Man who is worth negative one hero. By my "how many heroes is a hero worth math," Justice League Ex has only three members (Captain Atom equals 3, Ralph equals -1, Ice equals 1, and Blue Beetle is worth 0). That means they should be able to hold their own against the Global Guardians who have a net Hero Tally of -5.
This issue is called "The Widening Gyre" which means it's super intelligent and artsy. I still love "The Second Coming" but I have to admit, the part in The Sopranos where Anthony Junior becomes obsessed with it seemed prescient. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time and the worst people in the world were already obsessed with it and showing their ignorance by quoting it in situations where they thought they were making a point but they were really exposing how ignorant they were. I just recently watched The Sopranos for the first time so I first began to realize loads and loads of people were quoting "The Second Coming" when that shit pile of rancid maggot shit television show Heroes used it. I've since seen it used in other various places but fuck if I can remember where. My main memory of the poem first being used by a clueless individual was when my friend Soy Rakelson, who was always full of passionate intensity, began quoting the lines about the worst people being full of the same while the best lacked all conviction. It always made my head hurt. Anyway, I'm no Yeats scholar so even though I love the poem, I know I'm missing a ton of meaning in it because that guy's entire oeuvre was basically a cypher full of his own metaphors and symbols. People love "The Second Coming" because all the words seem to make some kind of mysterious sense (plus it has some of the best poetic pull quotes in the game) whereas a fuckton of Yeats' other poems just leave your brain struggling with the sudden realization that you are the dumbest person on Earth. Also "The Second Coming" has the line, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." Fucking kick ass, man!
This issue begins with a British news correspondent describing how Max's "brain was savaged by a bullet." Take it easy there, British cowboy! He continues, refusing to take it easy, with, "His Herculean energy and personal charisma lost to a coma." Jesus fucking Christ, dude. I'm glad he's outside the JLE embassy reporting on Lord's condition rather than in Max's hospital room with his tongue up Max's comatose asshole. The correspondent continues by describing what has happened in the previous chapters of "Breakdown," making sure to remind everybody who was fired and who was hired.
This issue is called "The Widening Gyre" which means it's super intelligent and artsy. I still love "The Second Coming" but I have to admit, the part in The Sopranos where Anthony Junior becomes obsessed with it seemed prescient. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time and the worst people in the world were already obsessed with it and showing their ignorance by quoting it in situations where they thought they were making a point but they were really exposing how ignorant they were. I just recently watched The Sopranos for the first time so I first began to realize loads and loads of people were quoting "The Second Coming" when that shit pile of rancid maggot shit television show Heroes used it. I've since seen it used in other various places but fuck if I can remember where. My main memory of the poem first being used by a clueless individual was when my friend Soy Rakelson, who was always full of passionate intensity, began quoting the lines about the worst people being full of the same while the best lacked all conviction. It always made my head hurt. Anyway, I'm no Yeats scholar so even though I love the poem, I know I'm missing a ton of meaning in it because that guy's entire oeuvre was basically a cypher full of his own metaphors and symbols. People love "The Second Coming" because all the words seem to make some kind of mysterious sense (plus it has some of the best poetic pull quotes in the game) whereas a fuckton of Yeats' other poems just leave your brain struggling with the sudden realization that you are the dumbest person on Earth. Also "The Second Coming" has the line, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." Fucking kick ass, man!
This issue begins with a British news correspondent describing how Max's "brain was savaged by a bullet." Take it easy there, British cowboy! He continues, refusing to take it easy, with, "His Herculean energy and personal charisma lost to a coma." Jesus fucking Christ, dude. I'm glad he's outside the JLE embassy reporting on Lord's condition rather than in Max's hospital room with his tongue up Max's comatose asshole. The correspondent continues by describing what has happened in the previous chapters of "Breakdown," making sure to remind everybody who was fired and who was hired.
Good recovery, news anchor, because you wouldn't want the public thinking the Justice League just hired a pedophile.
You know who else shouldn't want the public thinking they hire pedophiles? DC Comics. But I suppose they didn't know what Gerard Jones was into when he wrote this issue. I should give everybody who worked with him the benefit of the doubt even though it's hard to believe you can work closely with a guy writing comic books and not realize he's a creepy fucking weirdo. Oh, wait. Writing that clarified for me why nobody probably noticed being that everybody in 1991 who was into comic books was a creepy fucking weirdo. As a man, I speak only of all the fans who were men. Let women comic book fans from 1991 judge whether other women at the time were creepy weirds. My guess is they were a well-bonded sisterhood protecting each other from all the creepy dudes.
I wanted to make a Magic the Gathering joke there but Magic didn't exist in 1991. Before Magic came on the scene and all the nerds would gather at conventions in hotel lobbies and sit in parking lots playing the same card game, they would gather in hotel lobbies and parking lots playing niche board games like Fireball Island or The Dark Tower or Crossbows and Catapults. Man, us creepy weirdos really lost something with the onset of Magic the Gathering.
Back in Bialya, Queen Bee rages about Captain Atom's plane exploding. She realizes somebody is trying to frame her so that Bialya winds up on the losing side of an international incident. And by the way she screams at Jack the Lantern, I think she knows who is behind it.
I wanted to make a Magic the Gathering joke there but Magic didn't exist in 1991. Before Magic came on the scene and all the nerds would gather at conventions in hotel lobbies and sit in parking lots playing the same card game, they would gather in hotel lobbies and parking lots playing niche board games like Fireball Island or The Dark Tower or Crossbows and Catapults. Man, us creepy weirdos really lost something with the onset of Magic the Gathering.
Back in Bialya, Queen Bee rages about Captain Atom's plane exploding. She realizes somebody is trying to frame her so that Bialya winds up on the losing side of an international incident. And by the way she screams at Jack the Lantern, I think she knows who is behind it.
That's the glare of a woman who knows you're fucking around behind her back. Not that I, the perfect person, would actually know what that looks like.
I don't mean to come off as self-righteous! It's easy to be the perfect person who never fucks around in a relationship when you're a massive hermit who avoids social situations and genuinely despises other people. Unless a woman came into my apartment and stripped me naked and made passionate love to me, preferably while I was sleeping, it would never happen. That's not just a statement of fact but a hint to seducing me!
Jack flies off thinking he's the king of the con. He believes he's got Queen Bee fooled when she gives him control of the Global Guardians to discover who is trying to frame her. Seems like the height of overconfidence. It's a good thing this isn't the original Jack the Lantern because that makes him easier to kill later in the story. Although the creative team didn't hesitate to kill the original one either. I think every single Global Guardian has become disposable chaff to increase the drama.
Justice League Ex, having fallen for Jack's con, arrive in Bialya to get to the bottom of Max's shooting. They disguise themselves as employees of Ms. D'aramis, the Crimson Fox's wealthy alter ego. This same plan to infiltrate in disguise didn't work last time when Bruce Wayne was the brains behind it so my guess is that this time they will all immediately be shot in the face while trying to get through customs.
I forgot Manga Khan was involved in "Breakdowns" as well until he gets his one page update scene. He's selling something he's calling a "World-Raper" to a bunch of sad sack aliens. I don't know what world they're considering raping but it's probably Earth. This scene doesn't identify what the "World-Raper" actually is but it's probably Despero (even though I was hoping Lobo was going to be part of this). I never thought about it before this but maybe Manga Khan is modelled on Marv Wolfman, what with his obsession with creating things that rape other things. "Manga Khan" does sort of sound like "Marv Wolfman" if you've just drunk the blood of a poet and sat on a cactus.
Jack flies off thinking he's the king of the con. He believes he's got Queen Bee fooled when she gives him control of the Global Guardians to discover who is trying to frame her. Seems like the height of overconfidence. It's a good thing this isn't the original Jack the Lantern because that makes him easier to kill later in the story. Although the creative team didn't hesitate to kill the original one either. I think every single Global Guardian has become disposable chaff to increase the drama.
Justice League Ex, having fallen for Jack's con, arrive in Bialya to get to the bottom of Max's shooting. They disguise themselves as employees of Ms. D'aramis, the Crimson Fox's wealthy alter ego. This same plan to infiltrate in disguise didn't work last time when Bruce Wayne was the brains behind it so my guess is that this time they will all immediately be shot in the face while trying to get through customs.
I forgot Manga Khan was involved in "Breakdowns" as well until he gets his one page update scene. He's selling something he's calling a "World-Raper" to a bunch of sad sack aliens. I don't know what world they're considering raping but it's probably Earth. This scene doesn't identify what the "World-Raper" actually is but it's probably Despero (even though I was hoping Lobo was going to be part of this). I never thought about it before this but maybe Manga Khan is modelled on Marv Wolfman, what with his obsession with creating things that rape other things. "Manga Khan" does sort of sound like "Marv Wolfman" if you've just drunk the blood of a poet and sat on a cactus.
I love to sit on my hands!
Justice League Ex was built around dozens of faults but maybe the largest one is having to rely on Ralph Dibny. That fucker can't go thirty seconds without stretching his neck twenty feet so how is he supposed to keep up a disguise? Unless he's currently slithering around in the walls like an elongated tapeworm, he's probably been made by security and sitting in a Bialyan jail waiting to be shot in the face. While Ralph is out slithering like a disgusting wall eel, Blue Beetle surprises everybody with his technological savvy as he sets up a machine to confuse Queen Bee's listening devices, as he remembers she bugs everything in the city. Blue Beetle surprises me by misspelling his name "Ted Cord." I know it's in a speech bubble so technically he didn't misspell it. Technically Willie Schubert misspelled it. Unless Gerard Jones misspelled it and Willie Schubert simply transcribed the error and every single editor didn't notice. But I fucking noticed because I'm a petty bitch.
Eventually, Ralph returns.
Eventually, Ralph returns.
This picture is now the grossest thing on the Internet and yes I know about Tub Girl and goatse.
Ralph reconnoitered the space beneath the hotel and discovered the secret tunnels Blue Beetle remembered from his first (or second?) visit. They're full of electronic eyes and ears but Blue Beetle has a gadget which can temporarily disrupt them. That way, nobody will know where Justice League Ex are headed! Unless they follow the trail made by all the gadgets being disrupted in a linear manner. Also Queen Bee probably already knows they're in the country anyway. It's only a matter of time until the face shooting begins
The team follow the tunnels until they're under The Dome, the headquarters of the Global Guardians, because Beetle's theory is that the shooter was a metahuman. When did Beetle become the master investigator? Isn't Ralph Dibny supposed to be the one who solves mysteries? Or does he just like twitching his nose at them?
Meanwhile, Inspector Camus winds up kidnapped by Mister Bigger and his hero-secret selling corporation. He gives him evidence that Queen Bee controls Heimlich with her brainwashing abilities. If that's true and Queen Bee is using the assassination attempt on Max to install one of her lackeys as the head of the Justice League, she's absolutely fucked by Jack and Sumaan's plan to frame her for the murder. Why wouldn't everybody believe she was behind the murder attempt when she's the one who benefitted the most from taking Max Lord out?
Using the secret tunnels, Justice League Ex stumble upon the Global Guardians.
The team follow the tunnels until they're under The Dome, the headquarters of the Global Guardians, because Beetle's theory is that the shooter was a metahuman. When did Beetle become the master investigator? Isn't Ralph Dibny supposed to be the one who solves mysteries? Or does he just like twitching his nose at them?
Meanwhile, Inspector Camus winds up kidnapped by Mister Bigger and his hero-secret selling corporation. He gives him evidence that Queen Bee controls Heimlich with her brainwashing abilities. If that's true and Queen Bee is using the assassination attempt on Max to install one of her lackeys as the head of the Justice League, she's absolutely fucked by Jack and Sumaan's plan to frame her for the murder. Why wouldn't everybody believe she was behind the murder attempt when she's the one who benefitted the most from taking Max Lord out?
Using the secret tunnels, Justice League Ex stumble upon the Global Guardians.
Gross. No way their bodily functions stop just because they're in Queen Bee's thrall.
While investigating the Global Guardians' meeting hall, Jack Lantern and Owl-Woman wander in. A fight ensues which begins with Owl-Woman being frozen and never actually entering the fray. Jack Lantern holds his own against the +3 Hero Tally (Maybe +4 because Crimson Fox is there) which means Jack Lantern has a Hero Tally of either 3 or 4 all by himself. The rest of the Global Guardians' Hero Tallies really drag his down though to make the entire group a -5.
The battle ends when Captain Atom dodges one of Jack's blasts which winds up killing Mermaid.
The battle ends when Captain Atom dodges one of Jack's blasts which winds up killing Mermaid.
At least this causes the Global Guardians' Hero Tally to go up to -2.
What did I say earlier about the drama of this story getting raised by the death of a few Global Guardians? I haven't called myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader in quite some time, mostly because I read this series thirty years ago and it would seem unfair to point out how great I am at predicting what's going to happen while reading a story I'd read before. But fuck if I can remember anything. I can barely remember personal memories. How the hell am I supposed to remember something that happened to a member of the most boring DC superteam thirty years ago?! Of course I didn't remember Mermaid dies. I didn't even remember they had somebody named Mermaid! And she was just mentioned several issues ago!
Jack Lantern, of course, reports to the Queen Bee that the Justice League Europe just murdered Mermaid. Queen Bee says, "What are you babbling about? Your up murdur mermay?" Europe murdered Mermaid is the Rural Juror of Justice League Europe, especially when spoken by an Irish guy to a Bialyan woman.
The rest of the Global Guardians come out of their trances ready to beat the shit out of Justice League Ex. I wonder if Mermaid comes out of her trance just in time to feel her life slip away? Hopefully she died instantly. With Mermaid dead and Tora in shock having seen an old friend murdered before her eyes, the fight between the Global Guardians and Justice League Ex could be a toss-up.
Queen Bee alerts Heimlich personally that he needs to send the Justice League to come collect their Justice League. L-Ron, being on monitor duty when the message comes in, becomes suspicious that Queen Bee and Heimlich are in direct communication. But being that he's only a little robot from outer space who nobody pays much attention to, L-Ron decides to keep the information to himself. Too bad nobody thought to befriend the poor little guy.
Justice League Europe #30 Rating: A-. I almost gave this issue a B+ but then I remembered, because of this issue, there was one less Global Guardian in the DC Universe and I smiled a smile I save for the most satisfying moments in life. Don't you dare try to read into that statement too much because I assure you, my life is full of satisfying moments like that! Moments where somebody else feels the brunt of a dark and uncaring universe while I manage to somehow remain unscathed once more. "At least it wasn't me!" would be my family motto if I hadn't realized at a young age just how dark and uncaring the universe is and I wasn't willing to bring another sentient being into existence to experience it. What kind of hypocrite would I be to create a life while I still harbor anger and resentment towards my own parents for creating me?! Ha ha! I just remembered the sound effect "SPLACH" and got a little boost of joy! Man, comic books are fucking awesome.
Jack Lantern, of course, reports to the Queen Bee that the Justice League Europe just murdered Mermaid. Queen Bee says, "What are you babbling about? Your up murdur mermay?" Europe murdered Mermaid is the Rural Juror of Justice League Europe, especially when spoken by an Irish guy to a Bialyan woman.
The rest of the Global Guardians come out of their trances ready to beat the shit out of Justice League Ex. I wonder if Mermaid comes out of her trance just in time to feel her life slip away? Hopefully she died instantly. With Mermaid dead and Tora in shock having seen an old friend murdered before her eyes, the fight between the Global Guardians and Justice League Ex could be a toss-up.
Queen Bee alerts Heimlich personally that he needs to send the Justice League to come collect their Justice League. L-Ron, being on monitor duty when the message comes in, becomes suspicious that Queen Bee and Heimlich are in direct communication. But being that he's only a little robot from outer space who nobody pays much attention to, L-Ron decides to keep the information to himself. Too bad nobody thought to befriend the poor little guy.
Justice League Europe #30 Rating: A-. I almost gave this issue a B+ but then I remembered, because of this issue, there was one less Global Guardian in the DC Universe and I smiled a smile I save for the most satisfying moments in life. Don't you dare try to read into that statement too much because I assure you, my life is full of satisfying moments like that! Moments where somebody else feels the brunt of a dark and uncaring universe while I manage to somehow remain unscathed once more. "At least it wasn't me!" would be my family motto if I hadn't realized at a young age just how dark and uncaring the universe is and I wasn't willing to bring another sentient being into existence to experience it. What kind of hypocrite would I be to create a life while I still harbor anger and resentment towards my own parents for creating me?! Ha ha! I just remembered the sound effect "SPLACH" and got a little boost of joy! Man, comic books are fucking awesome.
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