Sunday, December 18, 2022

Justice League Europe #8 (1989)


Bart Sears is the proto-Rob Liefeld: "Gonna add all these soap bubbles so I don't have to get the feet right! Genius!"

Also don't look at Ice's waist because you might think thoughts critical of Bart Sears' drawing skills. And I'd hate for anybody to think critical thoughts on the Internet, especially if they can't draw a better Ice than Bart Sears drew! Fucking scumbags! Get out of here with your negative thoughts, you huge motherfucking pieces of shit who probably kick puppies right into the sides of kittens! Assholes.

Do you think some male artists think it's gay when they have to draw Captain Atom's ass? I bet David Finch has to draw eight female superheroes in towels coming out of the shower for every one man ass he draws. And I bet he pepper sprays himself in the face after drawing that ass.

The issue begins with Doctor Fate having just been expelled from the Realm of Order and ready to face what she needs to do. Emphasis on the "face."


Did nobody tell Bart Sears that Doctor Fate wears a golden helmet and that isn't just her face?

It's weird that earlier I identified Bart Sears as the proto-Rob Liefeld but here I'm just proven completely wrong. Bart Sears can draw a character emoting even while they're wearing a helmet while all of Rob's characters simply look like they're wearing helmets full of gritted teeth.

The Justice League arrive at Stagg's factory to find it surrounded by an army of the things they are now calling "zombie-vampires." Boring. I would have made a toxin that turned people into Werewolf-Mr. Hydes. You might think that's redundant but what I'm really saying is I'm a pretty lazy worker and that seems like the easiest kind of toxin to make.


Wait what? How does everybody just lose their suits they were wearing? How does Beetle not know how it happened?!

Notes Bart Sears didn't get before he finished the art on this comic book: 1. Doctor Fate wears a helmet. 2. The Justice League were all wearing HazMat suits.

Unless the Justice League is ready to just let Captain Atom and Fire unleash a swath of fire and radiation to melt the horde of infected villagers, I can't see how the Justice League is going to help out here. You'd think they'd at least evacuate the plant instead of standing around discussing what to do. Then let the creatures in and have Guy Gardner make a huge green prison around the place. And if they can't find a cure, Guy can just make the prison airtight so that they all suffocate! Man, I should be leading the team!

The Grey Man and Teasdale approach the Justice League themselves instead of using their army of monsters to destroy them. I'm sure that will be cleared up better than what happened to the HazMat suits. I mean, their whole objective is to kill as many people as possible. Why would they approach for a parley?

I was going to complain about The Flash repeating himself but then I saw Elongated Man and his stretched out neck and now I'm fuming that Ralph Dibny exists.

Has there ever been a more disgusting and useless superhero than Elongated Man? He can't go one minute with his neck the correct size. He never stops twitching that fucking nose. And he's somehow banging one of the hottest women in the DC Universe! Fucking man, I wish Jean Loring had accidentally killed him instead of Sue! Then Sue could have pretended to be upset, giving her the chance to cry on Captain Atom's cock and seduce him. Jesus Christ now I'm imagining what kind of damage Captain Atom's hot load could do to a person!

Teasdale and The Grey Man want to recover the vats full of Teasdale's toxin and the Justice League just lets them waltz on by because The Batman is afraid of The Grey Man. I'm pretty sure this is the second time in this story that he pisses himself, especially since Kevin Smith made it canon that Batman sometimes pisses himself. Man, we're so lucky to have Kevin Smith!

The vats are huge so I don't know how Teasdale and The Grey Man expect to remove them. Oh wait. I keep forgetting this is a comic book and The Grey Man can probably just teleport shit wherever he wants.

Doctor Fate arrives to stop The Grey Man and Teasdale since the rest of the League have decided to stand around picking their noses with Guy Gardner.


At least Guy has never admitted to pissing himself!

I'll never stop talking about Kevin Smith writing a story in which Batman describes pissing himself in his early years as the Caped Crusader simply because it pissed off so many comic book nerds.

Teasdale finally commands his army to attack as he gets ready to release enough toxin to infect the entire world. But when they walked through those electrified fences earlier that they walked through? Well, they're still up and electrified. So the army of zombie-vampires simply marches straight into it, frying themselves to death.

Quick quiz: Is Batman responsible for all of these deaths?! Of course not! He just stood around doing nothing. You can't blame a person for doing nothing! Sheesh!

The Grey Man grows more and more powerful with each death as he absorbs their dream essence (his job) and their souls (not his job at all). Teasdale just stands around with his dick in his hands.


I know sometimes you don't believe the things I write but I urge you to believe me more often than not. Dick. Hands.

Okay, fine. I admit I altered the color of the microphone he's holding. But it makes more sense that his dick is in that location and not a microphone. What is a microphone hooked up to the outside sound system doing set up right alongside the toxic vats? Oh, probably an emergency warning system in case there happens to be a critical failure and also happens to be an employee who would rather die while alerting everybody instead of running for their life.

The Grey Man sucks up so many souls that he grows to 100 feet in height. The Lords of Order look on, yawn, and say, "Not our fault, right, Batman?"


Why? God I hate him.

I don't think I've ever realized just how much unbridled fury toward Elongated Man I was full of until re-reading Justice League Europe. I hope King Shark eats him so that Ralph can live in his tummy as Yo-yo's roommate.

Oh! You know who is good at becoming super big and fighting other super big threats? The Spectre! Is The Spectre finally going to save the day instead of just making sure somebody who murdered somebody else winds up murdered?

The Spectre, continuing to sit on the sidelines until probably the last minute, leaves this magical fight up to Doctor Fate. Doctor Fate uses an absolutely brand new power, to which the old Doctor Fate in no way had access, to knock The Gray Man to the ground.

The Grey Man engages in one of those bits of dialogue where he has to say, surprised, "You hurt me!" That's so the reader can understand that Doctor Fate's vagina is muy powerful. He then decides to wrap up some loose ends by stepping on Teasdale in a panel that I simply can't believe got past the Comics Code Authority. I mean, if they're not censoring this gory mess, what the fuck are they up to? You know what, don't answer that. I bet 80% of the stuff they were censoring were story arcs Christians would simply lose their shit over, like gay couples and interracial drug-users.


You didn't think I was going to mention the panel and not scan it, did you?!

To save the day, The Spectre arrives with the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos in tow. Apparently The Grey Man was a big enough threat that the Lords of Chaos decided to get involved and then the Lords of Order, not to be out done, decided to stop pouting and help out. Together, they drain The Grey Man of his dream essence, turn him into a walking vegetable, and set him back to work. So with The Grey Man lobotomized and back on the job, and Teasdale turned into jam, and all the zombie-vampires fried to a crisp, the Justice League has nothing left to do but go home. Except for Power Girl who has to go to the hospital because she was swatted by The Grey Man and he's comprised mostly of magic and magic really hurts Kryptonians. I know she's not supposed to be Kryptonian and you'd think her new post-Crisis identity as an Atlantean would have made her less vulnerable to magic, but as I mentioned in a previous entry, we know she was never Atlantean! So even if it was accidental, J.M. DeMatteis gets the lore right in this story! Anyway, she's dying and Wally West is at her bedside practically showing her his dick.


Did DeMatteis think this scene would be touching?! I mean emotionally touching because it's obviously Wally doing sleep-creep touching!

Justice League #8 Rating: C. The Justice League were about as useful here as the Titans were in their Wolfman-Perez run. They stood around watching a bunch of villagers die while The Spectre ran off and got help. The Spectre was on the case from the beginning and I don't see how anything would have been different if the Justice League had just stayed home. Maybe Doctor Fate helped out a little bit but is she even really part of the team yet? She was basically going in for an interview when this whole mess fell in their laps. Back in the day, I didn't give a shit if the heroes I was reading about were actually heroes or not. I just wanted to see some action and maybe some jokes and hopefully Supergirl's and or Lobo's ass. Nowadays I think it's important that heroes act like heroes, mostly so GamerGate incels lose their shit and expose themselves for the rotten arseholes they truly are. "What the fuck?! Why does Superman care so much about racism all of a sudden?! Fucking woke bullshit man! Just do stories where he smashes aliens in the face and don't make the alien a stand-in for racism because we'll all know! And even if we don't know, we'll accuse you of it if you introduce two Black characters!"

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