This cover is genuinely creepy.
The cover or pull date on this issue is November 1991. That means the comic book probably hit store shelves in September of 1991, exactly ten years before the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists in 2001. Happening concurrently to this issue in the DC Universe (or just finished) was DC's series called Armageddon 2001. Martian Manhunter, being a telepath, must be contemplating the future tragedy. He probably read the mind of Monarch who was from 2001 and learned what was going to happen ten years from now. So he's taking a time out to contemplate life and love and existence. He's also probably thinking, "I know we just changed the future by defeating Monarch but I don't think I should change the future that much! The towers are just going to have to come down." I bet he put a mental block in his memory to make himself forget so that he wouldn't be tempted to interfere with the time line.
This issue is called "Look Homeward, Leaguers." That's probably a Thomas Wolfe reference but since Giffen and DeMatteis use references with no context, it's hard to tell. Just like Blue Beetle doing a Joan Rivers impression on the cover of the previous issue. Does it make sense? Does it add any layers to the meaning of the piece? Do most people not even realize it's a reference? No, no, and yes. Unless that yes should be "No, they don't." I probably shouldn't have asked a question with a negating bit in it. I never know how to answer those.
The credits have an added thank you bit for this issue:
This issue is called "Look Homeward, Leaguers." That's probably a Thomas Wolfe reference but since Giffen and DeMatteis use references with no context, it's hard to tell. Just like Blue Beetle doing a Joan Rivers impression on the cover of the previous issue. Does it make sense? Does it add any layers to the meaning of the piece? Do most people not even realize it's a reference? No, no, and yes. Unless that yes should be "No, they don't." I probably shouldn't have asked a question with a negating bit in it. I never know how to answer those.
The credits have an added thank you bit for this issue:
Yeesh. I wonder how old Mark Badger was?
Justice League America are informed that their United Nations charter has been revoked so they're now as homeless as Justice League Europe. That must be why they're returning to the old Justice League cave headquarters where the Doom Patrol are possibly squatting right now. Or maybe it's just Joshua Clay from the Doom Patrol that's hiding away in the cave? J'onn seems upset because the Justice League has helped save the world multiple times (his words, not mine) and they don't deserve to have their easy paycheck and free living quarters taken away from them. Isn't that all the benefits they get from having a United Nations charter? Supposedly the charter makes it easier to save the world but it really just causes a huge bureaucratic headache. As an independent contractor, the Justice League can go anywhere and create any kind of international incident they feel like without anybody telling them boo! Oh, sure, some political leaders will scream at them and condemn their actions. But who gives a fuck? They're the Justice League! Let's see some non-super humans try to stop them!
Whoops! Sorry. I stole Guy's thunder. Here he is saying basically the same thing.
Blue Beetle agrees with me and Guy. He decides to abandon the League to go join The Conglomerate while Guy Gardner goes back to doing the job he's been slacking on: guardian of Sector 2814. Fire and Ice quit and go their separate ways as well. But the biggest surprise is when these two leave:
Just kidding! I already forgot they were on the team!
Why did Giffen and DeMatteis even bother to bring them on the team?! They didn't do shit! Tasmanian Devil punched Guy in the face but that's about the extent of their accomplishments as Leaguers. And if Doctor Light didn't want the job, why did she sign up? This smacks of some kind of meta-publishing bullshit. Does DC need to make sure every single one of their characters makes an appearance every two or three years or else they lose the right to not pay royalties to the creators? It's just fucking weird. Half of the time I've been reading this comic book, it feels like the creative team has been adding new members who leave just as quickly or suddenly losing long-term members out of nowhere in an editorial note. It feels less like an ongoing story and more like a storage cabinet for barely used DC characters.
The Conglomerate doesn't hire Blue Beetle because he's too fat. The news devastates Booster Gold who now has to live with Ted as his filthy roommate because Ted can't afford to move out. I guess Blue Beetle takes the news badly as well although without the job, he gets to hang around Booster's sweet apartment eating pizza and watching game shows all day. I'd be Booster's wife for that gig. And I wouldn't mind keeping the place clean and tidy! Or maybe throwing him a handy every now and again. Not leaving the house while eating junk food and watching game shows all day has been my dream since 1st grade. I'd do some pretty degrading bedroom shit to maintain that lifestyle.
Bea and Tora have decided to do modeling for a living because remember that scene where they were battling Norse Gods? That was the top picture in their portfolio. But the agency that had been courting Bea for months tells her they're not interested if she doesn't have a connection to the Justice League. Which seems like bad business to me because she did have a connection to the Justice League and just because she left them doesn't mean that she suddenly lost all of that cultural cachet or her hot ass. Only two reasons can exist as to why this guy is passing on the opportunity to hire Fire (and Ice): 1. He's bad at business. 2. Hiring Bea was his plan to get an in with the Justice League so he could meet and fuck Martian Manhunter.
The Conglomerate doesn't hire Blue Beetle because he's too fat. The news devastates Booster Gold who now has to live with Ted as his filthy roommate because Ted can't afford to move out. I guess Blue Beetle takes the news badly as well although without the job, he gets to hang around Booster's sweet apartment eating pizza and watching game shows all day. I'd be Booster's wife for that gig. And I wouldn't mind keeping the place clean and tidy! Or maybe throwing him a handy every now and again. Not leaving the house while eating junk food and watching game shows all day has been my dream since 1st grade. I'd do some pretty degrading bedroom shit to maintain that lifestyle.
Bea and Tora have decided to do modeling for a living because remember that scene where they were battling Norse Gods? That was the top picture in their portfolio. But the agency that had been courting Bea for months tells her they're not interested if she doesn't have a connection to the Justice League. Which seems like bad business to me because she did have a connection to the Justice League and just because she left them doesn't mean that she suddenly lost all of that cultural cachet or her hot ass. Only two reasons can exist as to why this guy is passing on the opportunity to hire Fire (and Ice): 1. He's bad at business. 2. Hiring Bea was his plan to get an in with the Justice League so he could meet and fuck Martian Manhunter.
Imagine using these two adorable faces so you can suck a Martian's dick.
Dammit. Now I'm imagining sucking a Martian's dick.
Bea doesn't let this one dropped job offer stop her quest to become the hottest model since sliced bread. And Tora goes with her because she's bad at finances. At one point she says, "Our credit cards are only going to hold out another few days—and I don't want to blow what little savings I have." How does she think credit cards work? She's blowing her current and future savings by maxing out her credit cards! Fucking Goddesses and their inability to understand human monetary bullshit.
Guy Gardner acknowledges in a soliloquy that he's only a super hero so that he can beat the shit out of people and still feel righteous. I've defended him a lot because I loved him so much in the '80s and '90s and I was desperate not to acknowledge how wrong I was to feel that way but now his conservative values have really come to the forefront and I have to rethink my love for him.
Bea doesn't let this one dropped job offer stop her quest to become the hottest model since sliced bread. And Tora goes with her because she's bad at finances. At one point she says, "Our credit cards are only going to hold out another few days—and I don't want to blow what little savings I have." How does she think credit cards work? She's blowing her current and future savings by maxing out her credit cards! Fucking Goddesses and their inability to understand human monetary bullshit.
Guy Gardner acknowledges in a soliloquy that he's only a super hero so that he can beat the shit out of people and still feel righteous. I've defended him a lot because I loved him so much in the '80s and '90s and I was desperate not to acknowledge how wrong I was to feel that way but now his conservative values have really come to the forefront and I have to rethink my love for him.
Like all conservatives, Guy wants to murder homeless people.
Why do all conservatives desperately want to commit violence and murder? So much so that they "other" everybody possible to lay the foundation of the excuse they'll use the day they finally feel justified in taking another person's life. To them, every manufactured offense can be met with deadly violence. Disrespect a cop? You should die. Fall through society's cracks and lose everything so that you're living on the street? You should die. Shopping while Black and being incorrectly reported to the cops as being a shoplifter? You should die. Live your life as a gender different than what's on your birth certificate? You should die. Enjoying a carefree and humanist life unrestricted by religious dogma? You should die. I could probably go on and on with the examples because they fucking despise anybody who wants to make the world a better place for everybody (a better world they would reap the benefits of, by the way). They're small-minded, petty people who need to control everybody else's lives while also feeling like they're some kind of victim. Don't they realize nobody would have a problem with them living their life of conservative values if those values weren't all tied up in not letting anybody else live their lives?
Dammit. Now I hate Guy Gardner.
Guy comes home to the apartment he shares with General Glory to discover the General has invited all of the homeless people in the area in to have a nice meal.
Dammit. Now I hate Guy Gardner.
Guy comes home to the apartment he shares with General Glory to discover the General has invited all of the homeless people in the area in to have a nice meal.
General Glory's values come from a time when the United States was at its most socialist which is why he believes compassion is The American Way.
It should also be noted that General Glory's values come from a time before the Civil Rights Era where "socialism" meant "the government helps white people." Once it became clear that the government legally needed to help all people, "America" suddenly decided that maybe the government shouldn't be helping anybody at all. At least General Glory didn't pick up on the dog whistles of American mid-century socialism so he's genuinely trying to be compassionate to anybody who needs a little help. Guy, on the other hand, is a fucking prick.
J'onn tries to live a quiet, meditative life in a house he's rented but makes the mistake of taking L'ron on as his roommate. And since J'onn can't get any peace and quiet with the subservient, fawning little droid hanging about, he decides to try to fix the Justice League. Besides, the League has been his family for comic book decades. He doesn't know anything else. Also Despero is coming to Earth to start trying to kill them all again so J'onn will need some help dealing with that problem.
J'onn isn't the only one suddenly desperate to fix the League. Blue Beetle decides to get in shape and save the group. Fire decides to abandon her modeling career and get the League back. And General Glory talks Guy through his feelings for Ice and his teammates so that Guy also believes the League needs to be reformed. So basically the Justice League didn't exist for about six pages. This is what happens when you don't have Batman on the active roster. One day you lose funding and everything descends into chaos for a while (a very short while) because you don't have a super rich guy to buy a satellite headquarters for you.
The entire team wind up meeting outside the old cave headquarters and agree on the thing they should have agreed on immediately instead of all running off in a huff: keep the team together. It was so obvious! Even when they had a United Nations charter, they still kept sneaking into Bialya to cause trouble. Now they can do that whenever they want without anybody threatening to cut off funding!
Once they enter the cave, they realize somebody has recently been there. Like Joshua Clay!
J'onn tries to live a quiet, meditative life in a house he's rented but makes the mistake of taking L'ron on as his roommate. And since J'onn can't get any peace and quiet with the subservient, fawning little droid hanging about, he decides to try to fix the Justice League. Besides, the League has been his family for comic book decades. He doesn't know anything else. Also Despero is coming to Earth to start trying to kill them all again so J'onn will need some help dealing with that problem.
J'onn isn't the only one suddenly desperate to fix the League. Blue Beetle decides to get in shape and save the group. Fire decides to abandon her modeling career and get the League back. And General Glory talks Guy through his feelings for Ice and his teammates so that Guy also believes the League needs to be reformed. So basically the Justice League didn't exist for about six pages. This is what happens when you don't have Batman on the active roster. One day you lose funding and everything descends into chaos for a while (a very short while) because you don't have a super rich guy to buy a satellite headquarters for you.
The entire team wind up meeting outside the old cave headquarters and agree on the thing they should have agreed on immediately instead of all running off in a huff: keep the team together. It was so obvious! Even when they had a United Nations charter, they still kept sneaking into Bialya to cause trouble. Now they can do that whenever they want without anybody threatening to cut off funding!
Once they enter the cave, they realize somebody has recently been there. Like Joshua Clay!
See? I remember some stuff! But only if it's traumatic and reading Morrison's Doom Patrol was exactly that.
All memory is trauma in some form or another. It's why it's memory! If you didn't suffer some form of trauma, you wouldn't form a memory of the event. On some level, pure joy can be just as distressing to our mental state as terror. So while trauma can be defined as a physical injury, I think it's also a mental injury—a scar—caused by the power of the event. A memory is a scar.
I have a scar on my left arm, just beneath the inside of the elbow. It's a long cat scratch made by my poor, long-dead, best friend Judas. It's about two inches long and was caused when you was jumping up on the arm of a couch to jump up to a higher location and didn't realize my arm was there. I got the full brunt of one of this back claws just digging through my flesh as he propelled his fifteen pound body high into the air. It instantly welled with blood and I looked at it, got really emotional, and began to cry. Not because it hurt but because I knew it would scar and I would have a lasting memory of my favorite boy ripped into my flesh. It still makes me tear up when I look at it. That's what I think of memory.
Turns out the people currently living in the cave are the jobless, homeless Justice League Europe. Everybody vomits when they see them because Ralph's neck is fifty feet long. But I think everything goes smoothly after that.
Justice League America #56 Rating: B. The individual scenes of the Leaguers trying to live their non-League lives was entertaining enough to support the stupid premise that the League completely broke down as soon as the United Nations kicked them out of the Embassy. If I were more cynical than I am, I'd say the whole break-up was just an easy way to fire Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. Or I suppose if I were more charitable and less cynical, I wouldn't even have mentioned how silly it seemed for them to break up for a day or two before realizing the League didn't have to die without the United Nations backing it. Emotionally, they all needed time to settle down and re-evaluate their lives without the other Leaguers breathing down their necks. Every one of them needed to come to their own conclusion that being a member of the League was actually what they wanted. Except Guy. He needed help from his surrogate father and therapist, General Glory. And Ice knew all along but she had to support her best friend in her decision to leave. The only real problem now is that they have to live in a cave with Ralph Dibny.
I have a scar on my left arm, just beneath the inside of the elbow. It's a long cat scratch made by my poor, long-dead, best friend Judas. It's about two inches long and was caused when you was jumping up on the arm of a couch to jump up to a higher location and didn't realize my arm was there. I got the full brunt of one of this back claws just digging through my flesh as he propelled his fifteen pound body high into the air. It instantly welled with blood and I looked at it, got really emotional, and began to cry. Not because it hurt but because I knew it would scar and I would have a lasting memory of my favorite boy ripped into my flesh. It still makes me tear up when I look at it. That's what I think of memory.
Turns out the people currently living in the cave are the jobless, homeless Justice League Europe. Everybody vomits when they see them because Ralph's neck is fifty feet long. But I think everything goes smoothly after that.
Justice League America #56 Rating: B. The individual scenes of the Leaguers trying to live their non-League lives was entertaining enough to support the stupid premise that the League completely broke down as soon as the United Nations kicked them out of the Embassy. If I were more cynical than I am, I'd say the whole break-up was just an easy way to fire Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. Or I suppose if I were more charitable and less cynical, I wouldn't even have mentioned how silly it seemed for them to break up for a day or two before realizing the League didn't have to die without the United Nations backing it. Emotionally, they all needed time to settle down and re-evaluate their lives without the other Leaguers breathing down their necks. Every one of them needed to come to their own conclusion that being a member of the League was actually what they wanted. Except Guy. He needed help from his surrogate father and therapist, General Glory. And Ice knew all along but she had to support her best friend in her decision to leave. The only real problem now is that they have to live in a cave with Ralph Dibny.
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