Sunday, December 3, 2023

Justice League Europe #37 (April 1992)


Why does Europe get the better Leaguers?! Probably to make up for Aquaman.

April must have been "Parody Old Covers Month" at DC this year because this cover is a parody of Issue #9 of the original Justice League of America series. We've seen this cover referenced before in this comic book just six months ago in Issue #31 when Justice League International gets turned into trees by Loki. Here they're not exactly turning into trees. They seem to be turning into mutants or various instances of Edward Sextoyhands. The thing that strikes me most about this cover though is Kara's headband. Why did she add a headband to her costume?! Did she think it might distract from how terrible the rest of her new costume is? At least she's back to sporting a boob window. But everything else about it sucks a big fat Crimson Fox's left hand.

I don't know who Deconstructo is. Sounds like he should be battling Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol.

This issue is called "Changing" which is really clever because the first page shows all the women changing and also the entire team will later be changed into statues with toys that can pleasure even the most insatiable of nymphomaniacs. It also makes me think about how the artist has changed from Bart Sears to Ron Randall and I'm not happy about it at all. Not because I liked Bart Sears' art! I just liked it better than Ron Randall's!


Bart Sears would have had Kara's suit zip up from the front!

I don't actually dislike Ron's art more than Bart Sears. That was a joke which painted me as a pervert who prefers artists who love to draw their characters mostly naked. And I can't fault Ron on that when he drew Doctor Light in a towel. You're not a professional comic book artist if you can't figure out a way to get at least one female character in just a towel during an issue. Ron knocked it out of the park on this issue! I do think the colors are making his work seem a bit flat here. Hopefully Ron has seen what all those new kids at Marvel are doing with their terrible but kinetic art and he'll be inspired to liven this shit up. Or maybe it's just Randy Elliott's boring inks and Gene D'Angelo's flat colors?

Kara isn't being postmodern and speaking to the reader. She's talking to Ralph Dibny whom we learned was a total peeping peeper last issue when he was agog at Power Girl's back left shoulder. And now he's trying to get a peek at her naked back left shoulder! What a cad!

Sue nearly catches Ralph being the new sex pest in the League (since Wally declared he's giving that up last issue, I guess) when she hunts him down to remind him he's getting a new costume too. Unlike Power Girl, I don't think Elongated Man's new costume can be any worse than his current one.

Justice League Europe have moved back into the London Embassy for a few weeks as they figure out what to do next. While Sue was getting it ready for the team, she and Doctor Light stumbled on a vandal spraying graffiti all over the downstairs walls. Things like "Meaning is dead" and "A menu is as good as a myth" and "Going going gone!" and "No Art" and "No Heros" (his spelling!). Sounds like a right terrible nihilist and a villain from the Doom Patrol comic! Um, like I said earlier!

The vandal manages to steal a piece of alien technology Doctor Light brought by and uses it to teleport away. Unless he disintegrated himself. But probably not since he's now definitely Deconstructo.

Meanwhile, Crimson Fox questions Power Girl's reasons for the new costume that displays her tits.


If I wasn't so busy staring and drooling and tripping over myself, I might feel insulted.

I wonder what kind of window Ralph will have in his costume to show he's a healthy, strong man!

I'd be more convinced of Kara's reasons for the boob window if I didn't know men were writing and drawing this issue. The exchange between Kara and Doctor Light about her "mood swings" on the next page really doesn't come off well knowing that thing about men writing and drawing this issue.


What's the condition called, Doctor Light? Bossy Bitch Syndrome?

The only condition Kara is suffering from is Idiotic Coworker Syndrome. Of course she's going to seem like she has mood swings because Wally is constantly trying to fuck her, Ralph is constantly eye fucking her, Metamorpho is a gruff weird fucker, and Max Lord has almost certainly used his mind control powers to get her to flash him. It's a wonder she's been as calm as she has!

Mr. Paul, the new Justice League tailor, makes sure to casually ask the one member of the team that desperately needs a costume change.


It's not about vanity, Arthur. It's about the horrid orange and green combination.

Mr. Paul suggests a blue costume for Aquaman which Aquaman immediately shoots down because he tried it and it was somehow worse than this orange and green atrocity. Aquaman finally convinces Mister Paul that he doesn't need a new costume and Mr. Paul leaves the room steepling his hands and saying, "I'm sure you know best," in a really suspicious manner, almost as if he were in a Doom Patrol comic book and was creating underwear that eats the souls through the asshole of whoever wears them. Don't steal that, Grant Morrison!

Meanwhile, the "Deconstructionist" artist goes rampaging around London, upset that no gallery would display his art. If his graffiti is indicative of his artistic talent, I'm not surprised. He also goes around spouting bullshit that Ann Nocenti would have been proud to have written.


He ends his rant saying, "Language is a lie!" Which I would totally agree with if he had used a means other than language to communicate the sentiment.

Deconstructo seems to think saying things that don't mean anything means something. But since it can't mean anything, why even bother trying to communicate anything? He's like a young person on tumblr who once smelled a dictionary with a definition of "deconstruction" in it and now believes they're really good at deconstructing things but what they're actually really good at is stating the obvious and hating things for subtext they've projected into the art. Miscommunication may be at the center of what deconstructionism tries to express but simply misunderstanding things doesn't make you a deconstructionist.

Bruce Wayne happens to be at the United Nations fundraiser that the Justice League are helping with so that they can live at the embassy a little while longer. He acts like he doesn't understand deconstructionism so nobody will guess he's The Batman who knows everything. Mr. Rushkin, the man in charge of the event, totally falls for it, the dope! Bruce Wayne is all, "I'm fairly uneducated but I love superheroes! I just find them so fascinating because I could never be one. Ever! Not even The Batman! Boy, that would be funny, right? If Bruce Wayne were Batman! I'm not though! Don't deconstruct my dialogue and think you've discovered what I'm really saying in the words I'm not saying because the words I'm saying are perfectly clear: I am not The Batman!"

As Bruce waffles in side, Deconstructo stands outside shouting, "I'll show you the meaning of no meaning," which obviously makes no sense therefore it must be deconstructionism and/or written by Ann Nocenti. Obviously it makes sense that you can show somebody the meaning of no meaning. But his entire belief is that nothing means anything which means he can't prove that no meaning means any more than meaning. Because that would prove that meaning communicates something valuable in the fact that nothing of value can be discerned via the meaning of things! Better yet, deconstructionism is actually an attempt to better understand things by taking apart and studying the way language and words work within the context they're written or spoken in. So it isn't just that there's an ideal form of which we see only the shadow of it because the "ideal form" constantly shifts and changes meaning and definition based on the interplay of other shadows! It was never meant to be nihilistic, Deconstructo!

Deconstructo is hurting my head! I can't wait until Batman punches him in the nose and makes a clever Derrida pun. I am not Batman and not clever so I cannot think of one that doesn't sound embarrassing. Also I don't understand Derrida and Deconstruction no matter how much I've studied it in college! I can only pretend to understand it by pretending that I also understand Foucault, Nietzsche, Plato, and Saussure!

Sue, having taken Catherine Cobert's job as JLE liaison, introduces the new Justice League Europe at the fancy gala. The new roster is made up of Doctor Light, Aquaman, Power Girl, The Flash, Crimson Fox, and The Elongated Man. Two people in the crowd seem marginally impressed. Bruce Wayne is not one of them.


Sue took Catherine's job because Catherine was promoted.

Sue blabs to Bruce Wayne that Justice League Europe needs a leader and Bruce Wayne is all, "Oh, they do, do they? Like somebody who is resolute, unquestioning of his own purpose, nearly instinctive in his decisions, constantly alert, dresses like a bat?" And Sue simply thinks, "I want to fuck this man."

Deconstructo attacks by turning everybody and everything in the gala into nonsensical weirdness. So he's more Dada than Deconstruction, I'd think. But the word "Deconstruction" is nice because of its connotation of taking apart something that has previously been constructed. Did that sound smart? No? Fuck you.

Every member of Justice League Europe have no understanding of art and/or nonsense, so they fall to the ground and go, "Duh! What do we do? How is art?!" And then Batman arrives and he's all, "Use your mind, idiots. You can just understand things by using your mind. So dumb! The lot of you! Idiots!" Sue Dibny watches this happen and thinks, "I am fucking soaked!" I mean, "There's our new fuck buddy!" I mean, "The leader we've been dreaming of fucking!" Yeah, close enough.

Justice League Europe #37 Rating: B+. It was enjoyable and employed an antagonist who wasn't specifically going after the Justice League. Yes, he became a super villain because Doctor Light didn't secure her alien technology very well. So that's on them. But at least he took out his anger and frustration at the entire world because they could not understand his art. Hopefully he'll be defeated when Batman says, "Dude. Your art sucked. Just keep practicing, buddy. You'll find your message! You'll develop your style! Everybody's first sculpture of a sieve with melted action figures in winds up being a bitter disappointment! Just remember that your art has to say something on its own! If it can't stand alone and needs a manifesto to explain it to the audience, it's not fucking art. It's just a prop to sit next to your written message!" And then the kid will be all, "Yeah, you're right Batman! I'll keep at it and one day, I bet I'll have a piece hanging in Wayne Manor!" And then Batman will be all, "Don't fucking bet on it, you hack."

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