Justice League International #18 (1988)

Early Lobo did nothing for my penis.

Just look at how flaccid ensuring early Lobo's look was! Some bro-dude with spiky hair and thick mascara in a cheap faux-leather jacket with a high collar. Where's the big rippling muscled chest? The strong jaw covered in stubble? The tight leather pants with the skull belt buckle? The massive chain wrapped about his arm because you know what they say about a guy with a massive chain? Whew. I'm sweating just describing him! Instead, we've got this normal looking blue dude?! At least this isn't his first appearance where he's wearing a purple and orange leotard.

How the fuck did Lobo ever become so cool?!

I'm sad that I don't have Lobo's first appearance. I didn't read The Omega Men back in the day because it was one of those DC books that proclaimed, "We know this book is super extra expensive but look at our cool innovation we call Baxter paper! So nice! Pay up, dweebs!" Also it was The Omega Men. Who the fuck were they and why should I care about them?!

Comic book fans don't know how tough we had it back in the day. Imagine living in a world where Lobo didn't give you a boner? Terrible times!

Reading the first page, I'm reminded that Scott Free was kidnapped by Lord Manga Khan and taken into deep space which means I absolutely read the Annual at the wrong time. Except that any time you read an Annual, you're reading it at the wrong time because Annuals are simply never worth reading.

Calm down, DeMatteis. This isn't a Vertigo title.

Martian Manhunter, G'nort, Big Barda, and Rocket Red have travelled millions of light years across the universe in pursuit of Scott Free. Which seems like a waste of time, actually. Scott Free is Mister Miracle and the one super power he has is escaping shit. Shouldn't they just be sitting at home enjoying a good book while waiting for him to return? If I were Mister Miracle, I'd be offended and a little bit hurt that they didn't trust me to do the one thing I'm known for.

Barda's lips scream, "Kevin Maguire drew this!"

As a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader, I can analyze art and see the tell-tale signs of the artist who drew it. If it's full lips in this precise shape, it's Kevin Maguire. If it's a woman who looks thirteen years old and is wearing a towel after just getting out of the shower and all the men have fish lips, it's David Finch. If the women have clear skin and the men are covered in hundreds of lines and cross-hatching, it's Jim Lee. If all the characters look vaguely the same but seem to be wearing different wigs, it's Steve Dillon. I can probably recognize more artists than that but I can't give all of my secrets away for free! I could probably charge for a Master Class of this shit!

The Justice League catch up to Lord Manga Khan and The Cluster before The Cluster even arrive at the place which the Justice League catch up to them. There's probably a better way to say that but I'm just trying to get through all of the Mister Miracle was kidnapped stuff so I can get to the Guy Gardner battles Lobo stuff!

Here we are introduced to Lobo being (mostly) pleasant for the last time ever.

In his free time, Lobo hangs out in his space junkyard shirtless admiring his space dolphins. Later he'll also hang out with his space dog and some penguins he picks up on his trip to kill Santa Claus. You might be wondering how he would have gotten penguins from the North Pole, but just remember that most writers at DC (even Scott Snyder whom I thought was competent) constantly get the Arctic and the Antarctic mixed up. But feeling serene and chill can only last so long when you're the greatest intergalactic assassin in the world. Pretty soon you get a call from a potential client and it's back to splattering some weird alien's brains all over the inside of their cockpit.

That bit about being the greatest intergalactic assassin in the "world" was a fucking joke. I felt the need to clarify because some of you Internet nerds were probably really starting to feel smarter than me for a second! Not that you aren't almost certainly smarter than me. But I can't have you feeling that way for all the wrong reasons, like taking a joke literally!

I guess this is as cool as things could be in the 80s without destroying reality.

As you can see, Lobo was suffering a bit of an identity crisis in that he was basically Beetlejuice on a space bike. A pretty lame space bike. Luckily, one of the greatest features of the universe is that things get cooler as they move forward in time. Just imagine how cool teenagers will be in 2100! You teenagers today are such squares!

Lobo accepts the job to kill the Justice League. That means this will be the first job of many which he completely fails at. "Of many" because this story begins a fond tradition over the next few years where writers bring in Lobo to battle the main character of their series to prove that their character can defeat, through brains or brawn, the deadliest threat in the DC Universe. Which means after a few years of Lobo failing to murder anybody, he went from deadliest threat to most incompetent intergalactic assassin. Such a shame!

How did I miss this advert when I was sixteen?! My life could have been so different!

Giffen's layout for the next scene is four clever split screen panels where we see the Justice League saying and doing the exact same thing Lord Manga Khan and L-ron are doing. So J'onn and Lord Manga both say, "They're just sitting there!" And then in the next panel, Barda and L-ron both say, "We should make the first move!" Then in the third panel, J'onn and Manga both say, "No. We wait." And then in the fourth panel, apparently the layout was too clever by far because the letterer puts the quotes on the wrong sides of the panel.

I mean, J'onn is psychic so maybe he read Lord Manga's mind and is all, "See? That Lobo guy is definitely coming!" But then I guess Lord Manga forgot that he just hired Lobo in that scenario?

Lobo lands on the Justice League ship and announces himself with a cheeky little "Greetings from Lobo!" This causes Big Barda to shit her costume because she's the only one who has ever heard of Lobo before. You can't count Lobo's arrival as causing G'nort to shit his pants because he'd already shitted them for other, more varied reasons.

Now I'm wondering what a Martian turd looks like. Probably not too healthy looking judging by all the Oreos and Eskimo Pies he eats.

Okay, so G'nort knows who he is as well. So I guess G'nort shit his pants twice.

If Lobo is Czarnian, why would G'nort tell J'onn what his name means in a Khundian dialect? What does "Lobo" mean in Czarnian?! Probably "wolf."

This is the final paragraph in the Khund entry on the DCfandom wiki:

Khunds have two sexes, and live approximately 70 years, although the reds sometimes live up to 140 years and have an average lifespan of 95 years. They reach sexual maturity between 14 and 16 years of age, and can usually reproduce up to age 50 or so for women and 75 for men. Unlike humans, the males also cease to be capable of reproduction, though at a later age then women.

Why do we need this level of detail on Khund sex, lifespan, and how they reproduce?! Especially when it's basically, "They're sort of like humans, mostly." Does every entry on this fandom end in these kinds of details? Are the DCfandom stans obsessed with how many dicks all the aliens in the DC Universe have and where they put them and up until what age?! Maybe I should join.

Barda decides to let Lobo in through the airlock so that he doesn't smash a hole in the ship. Once he's inside, Lord Manga Khan and the Cluster zip off toward Apokolips to sell Mister Miracle to Darkseid, opening up a whole new world of trade in instruments of torture, fire spewing holes in the ground, and, presumably, body bags.

Lobo dismantles Rocket Red's armor in one off-pane "KRUNCH!" meaning that Rocket Red is now just Dmitri and probably soon to be DOA. But J'onn, the greatest member of the Justice League ever, is there to stop Lobo!

The whole "every drop of blood turns into a new Lobo," while pretty fucking bad ass, would actually be a huge pain in the neck for Lobo himself, I'd wager.

Imagine taking a shit that tears a hemorrhoid and then every single drop of butt blood turns into another you! Fucking hell. And how quickly does it happen? Do they turn into new yous while flushing through the pipes?! And then do your clones' drops of blood turn into more clones?! It seems like a giant headache, having to be careful not to accidentally cut yourself chopping vegetables or else you're suddenly going to have to chop more vegetables to serve the other fifteen people now suddenly living with you.

While J'onn stalls Lobo without drawing any blood, Barda begins tampering with her Mega Rod to make another Boom Tube to randomly teleport Lobo away from them across all time and space. Unluckily for Guy Gardner, that completely random place is going to be Justice League Headquarters, Earth.

Barda's plan works although, if she knows who Lobo is, then she also knows he doesn't give up on a contract. So teleporting him away is just a delaying tactic. Unless she purposefully teleported him to Guy Gardner's location?! I mean, she says that the settings she used teleported him randomly. But given everybody's hatred for Guy Gardner, and given that Barda knows all about Lobo, she must have done it on purpose to make sure he stays out of their hair. Because the only way Lobo doesn't immediately come back to kill them to fulfill his contract is if he finds more Justice League members to kill. That Big Barda is pretty crafty!

Dammit, Oberon! Move your fat head! I'm pretty sure Fire's labia is hanging out!

Fire decides everybody should just chill out for a bit and not worry about League business while the grown-ups are away (J'onn and Barda). She points to Guy Gardner as an example because she and Ice have only known his "One Punch" personality.

Yikes, Oberon. Ixnay on the rainbay amageday!

Guy Gardner isn't brain dead. That's just a clever little joke by Oberon to point out that Guy is actually suffering from some pretty serious brain trauma after Batman punched him and nobody fucking cares because it made Guy nicer. And don't forget that even before Batman's punch, Guy was suffering brain damage from his early career hanging out with Hal Jordan. Which Batman, who knows everything, must have known when he punched Guy in the face. Am I suggesting that Batman knew exactly where to punch Guy to cause more brain damage which would make him nice and polite? Of course I am! Batman is a motherfucking dick.

Just at the moment where Ice is all, "Guy is the sweetest person I've ever known," Lobo teleports into the back of Guy's head, knocking his old regular brain-damaged personality back into him. That means next issue will be the fight of my century! My two favorite characters go toe-to-toe and, if I'm remembering correctly and not mixing up my sixteen year old masturbation fantasies, mouth-to-mouth!

Justice League International #18 Rating: A+. Obviously this issue gets the highest rating because Lobo is in it. No way am I going to disrespect The Main Man! There was also, as you saw on the cover scan, a sixteen-page bonus book by new up-and-coming artists. But what am I?! DC's head of recruitment? I'm going to do their thirty-year old work for them by reviewing some newbies?! Bah. Fuck. I guess I am! Stay tuned for the Bonus Book Review in another blog post!