Sunday, June 18, 2023

Justice League America #48 (March 1991)


This should probably be "der Überbot."

I don't know German and my research skills are shit but the German word for robot uses the masculine form of "the" so my guess is that the word "Überbot" which basically means "Aryan Robot" (fuck you, I know what it really means which is why I added "basically means," you fun vampire) would be a masculine noun. I could ask the Non-Certified Spouse who is basically fluent in German but she's sleeping because I always wind up reading comic books before the sun comes up. Also, the Überbot looks like Hitler so it should be masculine (yes, I know masculine and feminine nouns don't actually have anything to do with real gender, you constantly interrupting fun vampire).

I'd accept that you could probably use Über to mean "super" in benign situations that don't evoke anything German. But if you call something German "Über" than I'm going to have to assume you're a Nazi and your version of "Über" translates to "Aryan" which probably 100% translates to "white supremacist."

Out of all the words people on the Internet get angry at people on the Internet for using, I only really have a complaint with one of them: "kitler." Man, I love a cute little kitler!

This issue begins with the old German man who hates General Glory trekking through a South American rainforest (is the Amazon the only one down there? If so, he's in the Amazon! But while I often don't mind making huge and ignorant assumptions, I didn't want to assume this time!). The comic book says "South American jungle" but is that really the same thing? I don't think it is and I think the image of the old man running practically unimpeded along the forest floor indicates that he's in a rainforest and not a jungle!

Look, if I get anything wrong, just leave it, okay? You should know the main thing about me is that I never really know what I'm talking about but I'm still super smart somehow.

The old man is searching for a secret Nazi base that he hasn't been to in, at most, 24 years.


The security rock must have been installed sometime after 1967 when the term PIN (Personal Identification Number) began to be used after the invention of ATMs (Ass-to-Mouths).

Deep beneath the floor of the rainforest, the old man enters an old folks home for Nazis. Swastikas are everywhere so I can't scan any of the pictures lest I make tumblr cry. Although the Hitler robot on the front cover probably already made them faint.

Schmidt, the old man who hates General Glory, wants the old Nazis to activate "Weapon H" (which must be the Hitler bot) and take over the world. For some reason, he decided now that General Glory was back would be the best time for this plan. But wouldn't the best time for this plan been when General Glory was nowhere to be found?! Schmidt feels like having their old enemy back in the public eye will rally all of the Nazis together again. But what he doesn't plan on is that all the old Nazis are old and just want to enjoy their prune breakfasts in the safety of their jungle hideout where they don't have to worry about being found guilty of war crimes. What Schmidt also doesn't realize is that the GOP has been really building the framework for a new Nazi takeover for the last eleven years (his time! Because of Reagan and his cohorts!). Yes, yes, by all means: defend Reagan in the comments! Any defense of Reagan just proves you live in an alternate reality that refuses to accept true things.

The old Nazis, being comfortable in their secret hideaway, tell Schmidt he can activate Weapon H if he wants but to leave them out of it. That doesn't seem like a good plan. A good plan, if they don't want their secret lair discovered, would be to put a pullet in Schmidt's head and toss his corpse out into the jungle.

While Schmidt travels to South America to plan his new Third Reich (so, um, a Fourth Reich?), the United States Government gets wind of the return of General Glory and freaks the fuck out. I don't know why. I guess because they realize super-duper patriotism could cause a lot of fucking trouble?


Oh how naïve we were in 1991 to think this might actually be "The Last Giant Nazi Robot Story"!

This is off the record but Weapon H is kind of adorable. Can something I write and post on the Internet be "off the record"? Well, I'm making it possible right now through sheer force of will!

Imagine if Weapon H had been released as a Shogun Warrior? I mean, they had the Godzilla Shogun Warrior! Why not Nazi Robot Adolf Hitler?! Now imagine being the kid who got Weapon H Shogun Warrior for Christmas! I'm still always proud when I see Gaiking anywhere on the Internet. It would suck to have to be ashamed of the awesome robot toy you had as a kid!

Weapon H appears in Berlin so Justice League Europe gets the call first. But Sue Dibny, stuck on monitor duty, is all, "All of our members are currently busy. You'll have to call Justice League America to stop the Hitler robot." What the fuck are Justice League Europe so busy with?! The Tremor worms? Pretty sure only like four or five of them were dealing with that. Elongated Man and Metamorpho could probably help out with Hitlerbot.


Why is Sue delivering this mundane information so dramatically?!

I think Sue's original dialogue for that panel was, "He just won't fucking stop stretching his neck and wriggling his nose! It never fucking ends! Help me, Catherine! Send him on a suicide mission! Anything! I can't be banged that monstrosity anymore!"

Back at the JLA's New York Embassy, General Glory continues to have to prove to Martian Manhunter that he's a real person and not just a comic book character. To do so, he has Martian Manhunter read his origin story in a comic book.


The comic book also gives us the origin of Guy Gardner's stupid haircut. Which is just a really genius thing to include. Good job, Giffen and DeMatteis.

The comic book was a way for General Glory to remain top secret. It made any eyewitness accounts of General Glory seem laughable. And so everybody believed he was fictional for decades. Except Guy Gardner, of course. But I'm not sure Guy can distinguish between fiction and reality anyway.

General Glory recounts the last mission he remembers going on when asked about what happened to his sidekick. But his sidekick isn't even in the story so I'm not sure how it's applicable! Anyway, he was frozen in ice like some other super hero you may have heard of and the next thing he knew, he was just his normal civilian self again. And he grew old barely remembering any of his past until recently. Martian Manhunter suggests probing his mind to find out more information but at just that moment, Weapon H attacks!

And is destroyed in three pages. Martian Manhunter tears its arm off and Green Lantern crushes it in one blow. And that's the end of the huge Nazi robot threat! But it's not the end of the comic book because the feds have to show up to arrest General Glory. I bet it's because appearing in public means he's leaking top secret information!

Justice League America #48 Rating: B+. I might have given this issue an A but the art across the last few pages was incredibly amateurish. I think it was "way late and almost past the deadline no time for the inker to do a pass over the art" draft. It felt like the artist was drawing the comic book the way I review comic books. Put a lot of effort into the first two-thirds and then just summed up the last third in one paragraph. Exactly like I did here! But I only did it this time so I could compare my review style to the art in this issue. Normally I just do it out of laziness and growing boredom.

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