Justice League 3000 #14

I bet the next cover has Fire in a mirror image pose!

Some people think you can't be socially conscious while simultaneously having fun. To that, I say, "What is social consciousness?"

I just made up those "some people." It's a trick other people whom I've made up use to manipulate still more made up people into thinking that there is a debate that doesn't really exist. But the existence of the debate helps convince the still more made up people that they had better start acting or else the world is going to get really fucked up or something. I think it's called a scarecrow or something.

I make stuff up all the time to suit my purposes. It's easy to do and nobody on the internet knows about checking facts. Well, they sort of know about it. But they always suspect that somebody with more time has already done the fact checking and that they wouldn't have heard the thing they're hearing unless it were already true because why would people pass on false knowledge?

People not on the internet also don't know how to check facts. It's just that they don't see as many fake facts in the same amount of time. Oh, to be sure, the percentage of incorrect facts non-internet users hear is probably higher but they just aren't bombarded with as many. Especially if they've taken a shotgun and blown out the tube on their television. I'm assuming that if they aren't on the internet, they still own an old fashioned television. And a shotgun.

As some of you may have noticed already, I'm rambling and Howard Porter isn't doing the art for this issue of Justice League 3000. That's too bad because I like his style. And his mustache.

Last issue, the Justice League 3000 were reunited with Preboot Ice (as much as you can call it a reunion since the Justice League 3000 are kind of zombie reanimated clone type things of the originals). This issue, everybody wants to know what Ice has been up to for one thousand years. And Etrigan was summoning Fire (probably the Preboot version as well) to join the fun. And Preboot Blue Beetle and Preboot Booster Gold were also out there somewhere. So it looks like fairly soon (probably June?), Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis will once again be writing Justice League International. Except in the future. I wonder if they're going to dig up the Dibnys? And Oberon! And L-Ron!

That's Oberon! They remember Oberon!

So according to Ariel's knowledge, this future is definitely a New 52 version of the future. But the DNA they're using for the Justice League 3000 must have been lost out of Mega-Braniac's Multiversal Collection. And that would explain how Takron-Galtos can be so far away from where Earth-Main-Earth was located! Because it's the Preboot Earth that Mega-Brainiac probably left on the top of his spaceship as he was loading it up and then flew off with it still up there! So it tumbled off way out on the edge of nowhere where Cadmus discovered a DNA bank of super heroes that never belonged in this universe.

Knowing Giffen and DeMatties, my supposition is actually probable!

Ariel asks Ice to clear up the last thousand years of history because obviously she must have been paying attention to all of it. I bet the focus of her story is how she and Bea had a falling out over one of those stupid things friends sometimes have fallings out over. And then they just stopped talking and lost contact with each other and Ice went to sit in an ice castle while Fire went to Hell.

But before Ice can clear up all of this wacky doodle nonsense, we need to see how Booster and Beetle are doing.

Looks like they're having one of those fine messes they enjoy so much.

Ice tells one of the Super Buddies adventures from "I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League." You know the one. The one where they wind up in Hell (through no fault of Booster Gold's at all! Except the part that was totally his fault) and realize their good friend Ice has been there burning away for years! So for everybody keeping score, Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain's lives are not canon but the Super Buddies are. Seems fair to me!

Ice was not rescued that time but later Fire came back and traded her life for Ice's freedom. After many fruitless attempts to rescue Fire from Hell, Ice gave up on everything and locked herself away in a stasis pod. She was only awakened by The Great Disaster which apparently destroyed much of Earth. That was probably The Flash's fault for trying to change time and save his mom. Again.

One of her adventures with Kamandi after waking up from stasis. This looks like it was probably only a two issue Kamandi story.

I wonder if after April and May's big Convertible Event, DC Comics will just let The New 52 remain at the five years in the future of Futures End timeline and just back fill the five previous years with Preboot history? That would allow them to do a kind of soft merge of the universes. And then all of this shit about Booster and Beetle and the Justice League International and the Super Buddies which all happened in Preboot history could have happened during the five years prior to Futures End? It's messy but who the fuck cares? DC's Reboots are always messy in some way they hadn't thought of when they rush into fixing things.

Ice has some other adventures where she defeats the Atomic Knights because they're dicks. Then she escapes Earth in a space ark with a bunch of talking animals and left them on another planet while she headed to Camelot Nine. Her animal planet is probably where Captain Carrot and his crew live. And then after seemingly finding peace, Etrigan came to visit. For some reason she wasn't happy about it. Come on, Ice! It's Etrigan! How can two of my favorite characters not be friends?!

See? Fire learned to love him! You should too, Ice!

I think my infatuation with Ice Maiden was what led me to sympathize and really like Guy Gardner. If Tora saw something worthy of love in him, I knew I could accept him as well. Or maybe I just like guys who can take a punch from Batman. Okay, he was knocked out immediately and completely changed personalities. But his jaw didn't break! That's more than most people can say, right?

Meanwhile, Fire never once appears in this comic book (except in flashbacks) even though she was kind of promised at the end of last issue. Liars! Bastards! But Etrigan has another recognizable old friend at his side who's revealed on the final page.

Yes! Out of all the DC Characters across all time, Etrigan was the one to defeat Darkseid! That's my boy!

Justice League 3000 #14 Rating: +2 Ranking. See? This comic book shows that DC is finally slackening up on their whole continuity is king thing. Because it doesn't make any kind of sense at all with Etrigan in space and characters from the Preboot Era and Darkseid's head in a jar and the Super Buddies being mentioned in The New 52 and Superman being a total douchebag and Wonder Woman being a bloodthirsty cockgobbler and the Legion of Super-heroes not existing and Kid Flash and Solstice nowhere to be found on Takron-Galtos! I don't mind continuity but not when everything else is a slave to it. I like continuity where I can read a comic book like this and even if it doesn't make any sense in any kind of timeline, it makes sense to me as a fan of the characters. Etrigan in space? Cool because it's Etrigan. Maybe a bit different from Cornell's Etrigan who was different from Grant's Etrigan who was different from Wagner's Etrigan who was different from Kirby's Etrigan and so on and so forth. But essentially, I understand him and his motivations. I understand what makes him tick. It doesn't matter if he never interacted with a Pillow version of Uncle Harry. Or if he ever had a relationship with Madame Xanadu. Or if he ever possessed some squatter in London which he seemed to have done in Stormwatch but now that seems to not have happened in Batwoman. See? Even from writer to writer and within the same "universe," stories are lost and retconned and expanded upon and simply discarded when they aren't needed anymore. Between crises and reboots and cancellations and differing writers, characters go through a lot. At times, as fans, we find we have to abandon them, like when Nocenti was writing Catwoman. But they'll always, eventually, come back to a place where we can love them again (mostly due to a good writer at their back, no matter which universe they're in). I want more stories that are fun and carefree, and less stories that are dark and hamstrung by continuity. I have high hopes for the June Mini-Relaunch.