Sunday, June 4, 2023

Justice League America #47 (February 1991)


Fingers crossed General Glory gets a deal with Whole Foods to sell General Glory Whole Foods' Frozen Meals.

It's weird that I have vague memories of disliking this story arc because General Glory was a totally made-up hero who didn't actually exist. You see the problem with that logic, right? But when I was a young, ignorant comic book fan who thought canon and continuity were the be-all and end-all of comic book stories, you can sort of see how having a hero come out of nowhere and use up five months worth of Justice League stories all to himself could be anything but a traumatic event. Five fucking months of my life?! At 18, that was nearly 5% of it if I'm doing the math correctly (and by correctly, I mean guesstimating and making shit up). Who wants to read about this old fart for that long?! There's a reason I was buying Justice League and not Justice Society, DC! It's the same reason I would buy The Outsiders and laugh at my friend Sal who kept collecting old issues of The All-Star Squadron! I mean, sure, those were the young guys at the time those comics were published! But they were old fart comic books by the time Sal was collecting them! No wonder he became a Trump lover!

Yeah, you heard me! I just brought politics into this! I like to make it clear how much I despise the conservative view so that conservatives feel really uncomfortable reading the rest of the review. Or do they simply stop reading when they realize I just used "Trump lover" to mean "an old friend who became a gigantic fucking idiot"?! I don't know! I also don't care! Whee!

I'd just like to clarify that I fucking hate the idea of "canon" now. It's so fucking limiting. Who cares if Blue Beetle is circumcised "in canon"?! If a story needs him to be circumcised one month and not circumcised the next month, who fucking cares?! The discussion of what is and isn't canon is the most irritating thing about young people on tumblr! And they're irritating in so many other ways! Yeah, I said it! Who's the old guy now?! That's right! Me!

Oh, I can't stay mad at you, young people of tumblr! Except that one tumblr user who used to constantly chastise me for using "Superboy" tags in my Superboy comic book reviews because I was "using tumblr wrong" and the tag was for roleplay only! Fucking idiot! What's wrong with young people thinking there are correct ways to use certain sites?! The great thing about the Internet is that it is supposed to be a lawless frontier! But now if I'm on tumblr, I'm supposed to drive off celebrities. Or if I'm on Twitter, I have to be a right-wing troll who loves that dumb-dumb Elon Musk. Or, apparently, if I'm on Spoutible, I have to be a boring old leftist oldie. Oh, wait! I am that! Good work, me!

I was playing around one day pushing the edgelord limits of Spoutible and I finally hit the mark with this Twee...uh, Spout: "My local pet store is having a sweet deal. If you can kick a guinea pig over the roof, you get it for free." As if that wasn't obviously facetious hyperbole. Who'd even want a free guinea pig?!

This issue begins by wasting several pages re-introducing Mister Miracle to the pages of the comic book as he performs a stunt in Washington Square Park for a crowd that simply despises everything. The entire scene is only saved by one bit:


Ice being absolutely adorable.

This is the problem with appeasing canon and continuity! Far too much time has been spent in this series on replacing Scott with a robot because Scott was going on an interstellar tour in his own comic book. Then he came back so he could be back in the League but, due to his own comic book, he refused so he could spend more time with Barda. And now, just an issue or two after Oberon was all, "I'm out of here," the idiots are back! I never even read the monthly Mister Miracle comic book so all of this shit was wasted space as far as I was concerned. Either let him stay in the League and just fucking ignore what was happening in his comic book or kick him out immediately! I don't have time for this shit! I don't have time for any shit! I'm old, remember?!

Six pages later, Beetle, Fire, and Ice discover that Scott isn't even in the safe. It's some other guy in the Mister Miracle costume. Did Scott Free tool around with training a new Mister Miracle in his comic book? You know what? I don't care. I never bought it and I don't want to know. Although I'm angry that six pages of my Justice League comic book were taken up by this noob!


Back at the JLA Embassy, Guy Gardner is absolutely fan-boying his jeans over General Glory.

On one hand, I'm sad I haven't fan-boyed my jeans in decades. On the other, it's pretty gross and uncomfortable.

Martian Manhunter doesn't believe in comic book characters until Guy Gardner begins apologizing to the General for his language and temper. Is General Glory the only person in the DC Universe whom Guy Gardner respects?! Other than maybe Kilowog?

Mister Miracle arrives to make sure nobody beats up his protégé (whom I'm vaguely beginning to remember after seeing that hair on his head) just before Max Lord comes back from his trip to find everybody freaking out about General Glory, Mister Miracle, and . . . well, that's it, actually. The conflict about Mister Miracle not being Scott and General Glory being a comic book character goes on for so many pages, I actually thought maybe a ton of shit was happening all at once. I guess that's what Giffen and DeMatteis were going for: complete and utter chaos. But when you get right down to the bottom of it, there's really no need for the chaos. It's so contrived to make it seem like just another day of madness with the League! But at least a real threat happens while they're all arguing so that the story can move forward.


Oh boy! An emergency! Too bad it took 14 pages to happen.

The emergency is a fire started by General Glory's Nazi rival who had an accident while building a Nazi Death Weapon or a Nazi Doombot or something. The fire broke out near an oil refinery so the Justice League rush in to keep the place from exploding. General Glory rushes into the burning building to save some houseless people. But instead of finding anybody to save, he finds this:


Oops! Not that! That scan was meant for my personal collection!


Twitter Blue already defending this robot's right to free speech.

The Nazi-bot topples onto General Glory because what else is it going to do? Look at it! It definitely wasn't made for graceful movements. Or any movements for that matter. It's less articulated than a Gobot.

The robot and General Glory crash into the basement of the burning building. And since the rest of the Justice League believe he's just some crazy lunatic pretending to be a comic book super hero, they all assume he's just died. But instead, he comes walking out of the inferno clutching a poor puppy. The press eats it up and Max Lord, who loves nothing more than good press, gives him a spot on the team. And General Glory keeps the dog for a mascot. How long before it and the Justice League Europe cat get into a brawl? That'll probably happen in the huge Breakdowns event, right?!

Justice League America #47 Rating: B+. I know I whined about all the wasted space but even wasted space can be entertaining character work! My real main issue was I don't give a shit about the characters being worked! General Glory? Stop wasting my time! And the new Mister Miracle? Get the fuck out of here! I barely gave a shit about the current one and you think I'm going to care about a new, younger one?! Although I did enjoy the character work on Ice's butthole in that one panel. Nice work, Linda Medley!

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