Why are the Justice League outside the cell looking down at a green-fisted baby?
I have a theory that sometime in the late '70s or early '80s, the Comics Code Authority simply abandoned their post. Like God, they simply established the rules and then fucked off. By the late '70s, I'm not even sure the current editors and writers at the major publishers even really knew what the rules were anymore. Because it didn't matter! Nobody was checking up on them anymore. As long as they had the stupid little "Approved" stamp on the cover, everybody was happy. Not that anybody even really noticed it. Nobody was checking to make sure a comic had the stamp before buying it. It mostly went unnoticed. The only time anybody noticed it was when it wasn't there! And that probably encouraged people to buy a comic book! I bring this up because it was almost certainly against the rules to put a fucking toilet on the cover of a comic book!
Here are some rules that I know Justice League (America or Europe) has broken in this current series:
"(1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals." In Justice League Quarterly #2, I felt sympathy for Fire and Ice who were arrested for bullshit crimes which made me distrust the NYPD. Also Captain Cold always inspires me to do crime.
Here are some rules that I know Justice League (America or Europe) has broken in this current series:
"(1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals." In Justice League Quarterly #2, I felt sympathy for Fire and Ice who were arrested for bullshit crimes which made me distrust the NYPD. Also Captain Cold always inspires me to do crime.
Me ready to do crimes.
"(3) Policemen, judges, Government officials and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority." The cop in Justice League Quarterly #2 was a huge bastard that not only arrested Fire and Ice for no reason but fined Ice for various reasons simply because he felt disrespected by her and Fire. Also I think he felt emasculated. You know, the two main reasons cops love to shoot and kill innocent people.
"(4) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity." I just checked to make sure Justice League Quarterly #2 was approved by the Comics Code Authority because it broke every single one of these rules so far. It was. I thought I was going to have to remember all of the previous issues I'd read to come up with examples of when DC broke all of these rules but apparently I only needed to remember the last issue I read! Because I don't remember Captain Cold and Heatwave making their jewelry heist sordid or unpleasant. It was the exact opposite! They were reminiscing about the days when criminals were gentlemen and non-violent! They really made it a pleasant experience for the clerks working behind the counter.
General Glory would never put up with breaking any of these rules! There are loads of rules and suggestions but they're all idiotic '50s nonsense about how prudes thought the world should work. It was just more ways to lie to kids about the truth of the world by portraying unrealistic bullshit at the expense of exciting and fantastic tales of science fiction and horror. Why is it always boring people who want to control the actions of other people to make them more boring and who crave power and authority so they can force that control? I guess it's because they're also fearful schmucks who think everybody else is going to succumb to propaganda and cause chaos. Why can't they just live their boring lives while also being brave enough not to worry about how everybody else is living their lives? If I want to drop LSD and go to Disneyland, let me! I let you go to church and not have pre-marital sex or drink or do drugs and instead just live a boring ass life, don't I?!
"(4) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity." I just checked to make sure Justice League Quarterly #2 was approved by the Comics Code Authority because it broke every single one of these rules so far. It was. I thought I was going to have to remember all of the previous issues I'd read to come up with examples of when DC broke all of these rules but apparently I only needed to remember the last issue I read! Because I don't remember Captain Cold and Heatwave making their jewelry heist sordid or unpleasant. It was the exact opposite! They were reminiscing about the days when criminals were gentlemen and non-violent! They really made it a pleasant experience for the clerks working behind the counter.
General Glory would never put up with breaking any of these rules! There are loads of rules and suggestions but they're all idiotic '50s nonsense about how prudes thought the world should work. It was just more ways to lie to kids about the truth of the world by portraying unrealistic bullshit at the expense of exciting and fantastic tales of science fiction and horror. Why is it always boring people who want to control the actions of other people to make them more boring and who crave power and authority so they can force that control? I guess it's because they're also fearful schmucks who think everybody else is going to succumb to propaganda and cause chaos. Why can't they just live their boring lives while also being brave enough not to worry about how everybody else is living their lives? If I want to drop LSD and go to Disneyland, let me! I let you go to church and not have pre-marital sex or drink or do drugs and instead just live a boring ass life, don't I?!
Why wasn't "horribly rendered facial expressions" against the rules, Comics Code?!
Some FBI agents arrest General Glory in the middle of the street for war crimes. Since he's a walking, talking embodiment of the Comics Code Authority, this must be some kind of allegory. General Glory constantly tries to control everybody's language, defends the FBI Agents so that they aren't treated in a way that promotes distrust of law and justice, and kills the fuck out of Nazis. Guy Gardner, being an example of a character that mostly defies the Comics Code Authority, constantly gets put in his place by General Glory. Giffen and DeMatteis must have still been reeling from five years earlier when they read Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and thought, "Remember when comic books used to have real heroes who didn't swear and actually saved the world and didn't mention dead dogs and also put pre-pubescent kids in physical danger because it would have seemed even more gay to have a male adult sidekick?"
The Hitlerbot's live feed still works even after it was smashed to pieces within 20 seconds of arriving at the Justice League Embassy, so Schmidt manages to see General Glory's arrest by the government of the United States.
The Hitlerbot's live feed still works even after it was smashed to pieces within 20 seconds of arriving at the Justice League Embassy, so Schmidt manages to see General Glory's arrest by the government of the United States.
Shmidt is so desperate to get credit for his work that he misses how he could use this to destroy General Glory.
Look, I get it! I would push my own mother into a sewer drain to make sure I got proper credit for something I wrote! I'm fairly certain that when I die and my life flashes before my eyes, I will have the exact same expression as Schmidt in the lower left panel for 85% of it. Only in 20% will I be screaming "Gott in Himmel" though.
I wonder what Schmidt's Evil Eye is going to be? I was truly hoping that he'd break out the Nazi War Wheel. What a weapon of staggering genius! Did some Nazi engineer once visit a fair where the Ferris Wheel broke free and went rampaging through town in a straight line causing a very narrow area of death and destruction before it ran out of steam and fell over on its side while thinking, "An unstoppable weapon!"?
Turns out the Evil Eye powers the Nazi Retirement Center in the Amazon forest so Schmidt won't be able to use it. Ha ha! Just kidding! He's going to fuck over all of his Nazi cohorts to get his revenge on General Glory! I guess not only is there no honor among thieves, but there's also no honor among Nazis. Who could have guessed?!
Guy Gardner tries to escape the feds with General Glory but General Glory, having vacuumed up all that honor left behind by the thieves and Nazis, refuses to run from justice.
I wonder what Schmidt's Evil Eye is going to be? I was truly hoping that he'd break out the Nazi War Wheel. What a weapon of staggering genius! Did some Nazi engineer once visit a fair where the Ferris Wheel broke free and went rampaging through town in a straight line causing a very narrow area of death and destruction before it ran out of steam and fell over on its side while thinking, "An unstoppable weapon!"?
Turns out the Evil Eye powers the Nazi Retirement Center in the Amazon forest so Schmidt won't be able to use it. Ha ha! Just kidding! He's going to fuck over all of his Nazi cohorts to get his revenge on General Glory! I guess not only is there no honor among thieves, but there's also no honor among Nazis. Who could have guessed?!
Guy Gardner tries to escape the feds with General Glory but General Glory, having vacuumed up all that honor left behind by the thieves and Nazis, refuses to run from justice.
General Glory? More like General Naivete!
General Glory doesn't remember anything from the last 45 years so he's a little bit ignorant on the history of justice and civil rights in the United States. These patriots are always so blind to the truth in their rabid need to defend everything about the United States. Criticizing and fixing your country should be seen as much more patriotic than blindly extolling its non-existent virtues. Also everybody should hate cops. It's actually more of an American tradition to hate cops and understand they're fascist morons than it is to praise and support them. Pretty much the entire 20th Century was spent pointing out how ridiculous and corrupt they were! That's the one American tradition I'd like to start up again!
Somehow, Guy being Guy, the attempted escape with General Glory turns into a mid-air fight with Lightray and Orion. It's the battle nobody wanted but everybody knew was going to happen sooner or later! Unless I'm wrong. Apparently comic book fans love it when good guys battle each other. I always think it's a waste of time, energy, and pages that I paid for! Especially since I already know Guy Gardner can beat the shit out of Orion but Orion will actually beat the shit out of Guy Gardner because all writers hate Guy Gardner. At least they did until Charles Soule took over Red Lanterns during The New 52. It was like Soule understood the Guy Gardner I always knew existed and proved to me that every other writer handling Guy was just being an asshole.
Anyway, eventually all the fighting between League members stops and General Glory is hauled off by the federal government.
Somehow, Guy being Guy, the attempted escape with General Glory turns into a mid-air fight with Lightray and Orion. It's the battle nobody wanted but everybody knew was going to happen sooner or later! Unless I'm wrong. Apparently comic book fans love it when good guys battle each other. I always think it's a waste of time, energy, and pages that I paid for! Especially since I already know Guy Gardner can beat the shit out of Orion but Orion will actually beat the shit out of Guy Gardner because all writers hate Guy Gardner. At least they did until Charles Soule took over Red Lanterns during The New 52. It was like Soule understood the Guy Gardner I always knew existed and proved to me that every other writer handling Guy was just being an asshole.
Anyway, eventually all the fighting between League members stops and General Glory is hauled off by the federal government.
Up until this week, nobody even knew General Glory was real!
Why the fuck is Perry White giving the green light on that article? "Breaking news: comic book character that nobody actually believed in might have committed mass murder!" I suppose I have to do that thing where the fan makes up excuses for the poor plotting of the writers yet again! My theory is that the previous day's paper had an article written by Lois Lane uncovering the truth about General Glory and how the United States kept him top secret by dosing all American witnesses with LSD and disappearing all foreign witnesses. She also probably uncovered his supposed war crime and hinted at General Glory being not all that he appeared since she knew he was going to be arrested. But then she allowed Daryl Polomus to write that story because she knew General Glory would eventually be cleared and she didn't want her name on such a click-baity article.
Okay fine. This is just about as ridiculous as the War Wheel.
Technically the Evil Eye was living just fine under the Amazon forest hooked up to the respirators and EKG monitors of the Nazi old folks home. Also it's a machine so it doesn't live at all. Am I getting too didactic? Or do I mean pedantic? If only there were a didactic pedant reading this who could put me straight.
I was just kidding! Didactic pedants can fuck off out of the comment section! And I didn't even hurt my own feelings saying that!
Ripping the Evil Eye out of the Nazi retirement home is the most heroic thing Schmidt will ever have done because he just killed dozens of Nazis. The entire place collapses so no future writers have to be concerned with it (unless they're Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison and they've got a way of retconning a really cool idea out of it).
General Glory's sidekick Ernie seems to have been bamboozled by Newkirk Sharp (the military handler of General Glory back in the day) who set up General Glory as a patsy for the slaughter of the POW camp. It's probably because General Glory stole the woman Sharp loved. Or he's a Nazi. Or, well, I don't know. It doesn't matter, right? There's always some dick in the military trying to fuck over heroic dicks in the military. Luckily the comic book artist who chronicled all of General Glory's adventures wrote a story about the POW slaughter that was never published. He says it's a factual account of the incident which the military kept from being published. But he's sure the comic book still exists somewhere! It's not like they would have instantly shredded or burned a document that could expose their traitorous actions, right?! But just in case they weren't smart enough to do that, the comic book artist has teamed up with the Justice League to find the truth!
Ernie, so hopped up on propaganda and lies, enters the General's cell intent on shooting him dead. But he can't do it because he's ultimately not a bad person. The Justice League arrives with the cartoonist Joe Mason to explain how they can prove General Glory didn't murder a bunch of American soldiers. But before any truth can be handled, Schmidt and his Evil Eye bust in to do some Nazi murdering of their own.
Justice League America #49 Rating: B. If the Comics Code Authority had still been paying attention to comic books in 1991, they probably wouldn't have given their support of this story arc. That's because it paints the American military as just as bad as Nazis! Both want to destroy General Glory for their own selfish reasons. I mean, sure, it's really just one person in each organization who wants to kill him so I guess that's how DC can get away with having Americans trying to achieve the same goal as Nazis. It really is just Nazi Schmidt and American Military-man Newkirk who want General Glory dead for their own reasons and they're using and destroying the organizations they work for (or used to work for, really) to accomplish their selfish desires. I hope Ernie kills himself out of shame for having doubted General Glory's honor for the last forty-five years. What kind of an asshole believes military reports over the word of their friends?! Sure, sure. I burn bridges at the snap of a finger but I'm also not declaring that I'm not an asshole! And I don't burn bridges because of idle gossip and rumor from other people! I burn bridges because I can't stand one single opinion somebody close to me once espoused! If I haven't made it clear, I've never engaged in any kind of therapy.
I was just kidding! Didactic pedants can fuck off out of the comment section! And I didn't even hurt my own feelings saying that!
Ripping the Evil Eye out of the Nazi retirement home is the most heroic thing Schmidt will ever have done because he just killed dozens of Nazis. The entire place collapses so no future writers have to be concerned with it (unless they're Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison and they've got a way of retconning a really cool idea out of it).
General Glory's sidekick Ernie seems to have been bamboozled by Newkirk Sharp (the military handler of General Glory back in the day) who set up General Glory as a patsy for the slaughter of the POW camp. It's probably because General Glory stole the woman Sharp loved. Or he's a Nazi. Or, well, I don't know. It doesn't matter, right? There's always some dick in the military trying to fuck over heroic dicks in the military. Luckily the comic book artist who chronicled all of General Glory's adventures wrote a story about the POW slaughter that was never published. He says it's a factual account of the incident which the military kept from being published. But he's sure the comic book still exists somewhere! It's not like they would have instantly shredded or burned a document that could expose their traitorous actions, right?! But just in case they weren't smart enough to do that, the comic book artist has teamed up with the Justice League to find the truth!
Ernie, so hopped up on propaganda and lies, enters the General's cell intent on shooting him dead. But he can't do it because he's ultimately not a bad person. The Justice League arrives with the cartoonist Joe Mason to explain how they can prove General Glory didn't murder a bunch of American soldiers. But before any truth can be handled, Schmidt and his Evil Eye bust in to do some Nazi murdering of their own.
Justice League America #49 Rating: B. If the Comics Code Authority had still been paying attention to comic books in 1991, they probably wouldn't have given their support of this story arc. That's because it paints the American military as just as bad as Nazis! Both want to destroy General Glory for their own selfish reasons. I mean, sure, it's really just one person in each organization who wants to kill him so I guess that's how DC can get away with having Americans trying to achieve the same goal as Nazis. It really is just Nazi Schmidt and American Military-man Newkirk who want General Glory dead for their own reasons and they're using and destroying the organizations they work for (or used to work for, really) to accomplish their selfish desires. I hope Ernie kills himself out of shame for having doubted General Glory's honor for the last forty-five years. What kind of an asshole believes military reports over the word of their friends?! Sure, sure. I burn bridges at the snap of a finger but I'm also not declaring that I'm not an asshole! And I don't burn bridges because of idle gossip and rumor from other people! I burn bridges because I can't stand one single opinion somebody close to me once espoused! If I haven't made it clear, I've never engaged in any kind of therapy.
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