Justice League of America #8

It's a Neal Adams variant and a Batman v Superman variant all in one!

Rating: If you don't like a story telling you that your spiritual belief is dumb through allegory, you might want to skip this comic book. I suppose you can pretend that the story is about everybody else's false beliefs and has nothing to do with yours. Religious people are pretty good at doing that. So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this will entertain you because you can see a bunch of people believing in a false god get their comeuppance! Stupid followers of Rao! Don't they know that ________ is the only real God! Just insert the name of your preferred god in that line because I don't care which one you think is real since none of them actually are.

• Previously on JLA SVU, Superman flew The Church of Rao into the moon. It was kind of a dick move because everybody seems happy with the Church of Rao and who is Superman to deny them their happiness? Sure, everybody is being mind-controlled at a genetic level (or something! I'm not a scientist or psychic!) but why should that matter? They chose to be happy (except the ones who didn't choose and were forced but then they were happy so what's the difference, right?)! And nobody has the right to tell anybody else that their choice of religion is stupid. Apparently. I mean, I'm keeping that right because everybody's choice of religion is stupid. And, once again, it's not really a choice. At least it's very rarely a choice. Everybody in the real world who believes in religion has been brainwashed which is mind-control-lite.

• Responding to that statement with "I am not brainwashed!" is exactly what somebody who was brainwashed would say!

• My favorite religion is Scientology because it's so utterly ridiculous that even people who have their own utterly ridiculous religious beliefs sputter and shake their heads and say, "Holy fucking Christ, that shit is ridiculous!" Is that how religious people talk? It's also possible they say, "By Allah! Scientology! What a fucking joke!" I think there are some other religions I could pretend to quote but I don't want to get in trouble with the last People of the Book because I've heard that they control everything.

• Superman and Rao battle each other back to Earth. This would make a good script for Rocky X.

• Superman learns that by beating on Rao, he's just hurting Rao's believers on Earth. Because the entire point of Rao's religion is so he can live forever by using up the life forces of his worshipers. That means Superman can't solve this problem by punching it as hard as he can. Oh well. I guess Earth is fucked.

• Oh wait! I forgot this was a Justice League comic book! That means Batman is still around to save the day. Or one of the other ones. Except for Aquaman.

• Dammit! I just said you can't help, dum-dum!

• Stupid Aquaman! He just stabbed millions of Earthlings in the back with his trident! I guess the rest of the League always forget about him and didn't keep him in the loop about Rao's plan!

• Superman stops Aquaman and Wonder Woman from killing Rao before they actually kill everybody on Earth.

• See?! Not in the loop!

• Batman and Cyborg have a plan that probably involves Parasite. They BOOM TUBE Rao and the others to the power plant where The Infinity Corporation first tricked them into battling Parasite before Rao showed up.

• The Flash is probably attending Woodstock right now. And Green Lantern is dillydallying on Ancient Krypton.

• The plan does indeed involve Parasite sucking Rao dry. Which I guess means sucking the people of Earth dry. But they'll get over it! I think?

• The Flash comes back just in time to add his power to The Parasite. Batman tells him to give Parasite access to the Speed Force and Barry is all, "Sure! Never question Batman!"

• Seriously. Never question Batman.

• Once Rao has enough power, Cyborg does the thing that is the plan and defibrillates all of Rao's followers which knocks them back to their senses. At least the senses they had which still allowed them to believe in Jesus or Allah or Yahweh or one of the other ones.

• The Justice League are knocked silly long enough for Rao to wander away to the Infinity Corporation where the Oblivion Stones are being held. Unless the stones are called something else. I can't remember.

• Superman has died in the battle. Which is bad news because the Infinity Corporation came to stop Superman dying in this universe just like he's been dying in every other universe. Basically they just helped cause the thing they were trying to stop. Welcome to the world of prophecy and time travel, dum-dums!