Wednesday, June 14, 2023

Justice League Europe #23 (February 1991)


Is The Crimson Fox a color blind woman who also isn't quite sure what a fox looks like?

As far as I can tell, The Crimson Fox is the Bruce Wayne of the publishing world. She's rich and bored so she's become a super hero in her spare time. I don't think she has any super powers but that hasn't stopped her because "meritocracy" for rich people doesn't have anything to do with talent. Most people might interpret "merit" as "somebody who has the abilities and talent and powers to effectively act as a super hero." But rich people interpret "merit" as "somebody who has enough money to quash the dreams and ambitions of poor people who actually do have talent while also lifting themselves into a position of super power by hiring scientists and engineers to create loads and loads of super gadgets to help them become successful heroes." Sometimes they're smart enough to create all the gadgets themselves because that's the only way to really justify the person's identity as a super hero. "Batman's money isn't what makes him Batman!" is something some boring person defending Batman might say to try to convince themselves that Batman isn't just a rich bastard living out his personal revenge fantasies. The Crimson Fox might have super powers but I think she really just has super long and sharp nails which she uses to tear the faces off of petty criminals and Parisian vandals.

Of course that's all just cynical speculation on my part! I suppose I'll find out who The Crimson Fox actually is by reading this issue. Hopefully her back story, being written by a pedophile, doesn't include any pedophilia.

Every time I call Deathstork a pedophile, some huge Deathstork fan comes at me to defend him. But no one has yet to defend Gerard Jones! I guess that's because he isn't a cool hired killer with an eye patch who also just happens to enjoy fucking fifteen year old girls. And, I suppose, if I'm being generous, defending a fictional pedophile because you can blame his pedophilia on terrible writing by Marv Wolfman is a bit more acceptable than defending an actual distributor of images and videos of child sexual abuse. I suppose.


Hey! Look at Catherine's hair! Bart Sears is back on duty!

I already saw Bart's name on the cover so I didn't really need to see Catherine's hair to know he was doing the art this issue. But I'd also like to point out that I didn't need to see his name on the cover to know he was back on art duties this month because I saw Catherine's hair.

After I learn that Bart Sears is on art (or re-learn? (or pretend to learn I re-learned?)), Crimson Fox threatens to choke out Captain Atom while fucking him raw. Right in front of Catherine who also wants to do that! I would say we were about to get a threesome but the League isn't in Paris anymore. Stupid fuddy duddy London where nobody shags at all ever.


I'm torn between my feminist brain loving a woman who just wants to fuck and my other feminist brain that recognizes this as a sexual fantasy fueled by the male gaze.

Maybe Crimson Fox's super power is jerking a guy off without slicing his dick to ribbons with her claws? Or maybe slicing the dick to ribbons is the super power? What I'm trying to say is the whole male gaze fantasy thing worked on me and I can't stop thinking about Crimson Fox jerking off Captain Atom.

Crimson Fox runs off into the night hornier than ever thinking in translated French when she reveals that she does have a super-power and she's ethically fine using it in much the way Maxwell Lord does.


This is creepy and rapey for a normal comic book writer. This is nearly unendurable from a writer convicted of possessing and distributing images of child sexual abuse.

Isn't it interesting how the first thing comic book writers think a person would use the super power of suggestion for is to coerce a person into fucking them? A certain subsection of men seem to think "consent" means "getting a person to fuck you by any means at your disposal." Fuck, what am I even doing?! I'm going to start ranting about how Gerard Jones doesn't understand consent?! Of course he fucking doesn't! He was convicted of sex crimes!

I don't remember Crimson Fox having Max Lord super powers but then again I don't remember most of my teenage years so I'm not at all surprised. I mean I am surprised because I just found out something surprising about Crimson Fox which I should have remembered but not surprised that I didn't remember so that I could wind up being surprised by a comic book that I'm almost certainly re-reading for the fifth time, at least.

Speaking of surprises, I just re-learned (probably for the sixth time) that Crimson Fox is actually two people! Sacré bleu! Now don't blame me for my immediate thought after learning this fact! You have to realize the context of the thought: I grew up in the '70s, Internet pornography has ruined our brains, and I'm a cis het male! So, yeah, I was hoping to see them kiss.


But all I want to see is you putting your twin sister in awkward positions!

Having been born in 1971, yes, I owned quite a few pornographic magazines. Not a single one was purchased because, in those days, porn was like wild berries. You had to scavenge every bush in the city until you found a succulent stash which you'd harvest and take to a new bush to plant them. Or, if you had a good place to hide things from your parents, you could take them home. Most of the pornography I owned was Playboys stolen from my grandfather. He had a garage, a Ham radio workroom, and an unfinished cellar just filled with a treasure trove of miscellaneous shit. It was the greatest place to grow up as a kid and not just because some of those treasures happened to be pornographic magazines. I think my favorite thing he had squirreled away (even better than the porn) were loads and loads of billiard balls. It was so satisfying to play with billiard balls outside of their usual felt home. Nearly nothing more satisfying than the sound of a billiard ball clicking off of anything it clicked off of (usually it's just each other but when you're a young kid with loads of Star Wars figures just waiting to be Indiana Jones'd by a dozen multi-colored boulders, the clicks came from concrete, brick, wooden stairs, action figures, Batmobiles . . . anything I could smash them into).

Anyway, I mention the porn because I'd like to point out that I'm being entirely facetious when I say I want to see twin sisters make out. One of the Playboys I, um, "owned" had a spread of twin sisters naked together and it was the most awkward photo shoot I could imagine. I mean, not awkward enough to not jerk off over. But definitely not sexy like some people seem to think it is. It was mostly a lot of "fap fap fap ugh that's your sister's boobs your boobs are touching fap fap fap oh no they can see each others butts fap fap fap am I crying?!"

I also "owned" a copy of the Penthouse with Traci Lords who was apparently underage at the time of the photo shoot. My cousin Troy stole it from his brother Bill while I was out visiting for a week. I then stole it from Troy who blamed his friend who was also out visiting that week. I was also underage so I don't think it counts the same as Gerard Jones's "porn". Plus I got rid of it long before I learned the truth. But now I'm 50 and I still remember some of the pictures so that's kind of creepy. How dare time do that to me?! Of course, I also have visual memories of a lot of other wild stuff while being a kid experimenting with nudity with other kids! Time makes creeps of us all! At least I didn't have sex until I was the legal age of consent (as was my partner which is the important bit!) so my memories of my first time aren't illegal to jerk off to! This also applies to all of my subsequent sexual partners, just as an FYI! Even the one who technically raped me!

Shit this comic book review has wandered too far into my sexual weeds. Just forget everything you just read and let's get back to Crimson Fox finger banging the other Crimson Fox with her deadly nails.

Meanwhile, some American guy has joined a British tuning fork cult.


Why was the 1990s DC Universe having so much trouble with guys with tuning forks?

The cult rings the tuning fork to call hate down on their enemies. No monster falls from the sky so it's probably some kind of mystical spell that curses the enemies of the cult. Unless the monster will appear next issue, right after Crimson Fox, as Vivian D'Aramis, CEO of a perfume and publishing empire, becomes one of their members. Or one of their victims? Because I think the guy running the cult is the guy who ran perfume experiments which killed Vivian and her sister Constance's mother and also gave the twin girls the super power of sexual allure (or, if you want to be scientific and technological about it so that it sounds like something that could be possible, pheromones).

Based on Crimson Fox's origin story where her mother was a victim of a poorly run research program by the head of a perfume company, she's nothing like Batman! Her mother wasn't killed quickly in an alley by a poor person giving a little rich kid an excuse to spend his life beating up on poor people desperate enough to turn to crime. Her mother died slowly at the hands of a rich person who didn't care that his perfume experiments were deadly giving her an excuse to hunt down and murder corporate presidents! That's like almost the opposite!


Oh, there's the monster!

The gigantic tuning fork calls up a gigantic nightcrawler to eat and shit out the Stagg Industries factory in London. The cult, being made up of wealthy businessman from all over the world, use their magic worm summoning fork to destroy the businesses of all the wealthy businessmen who have not been invited to join their cult. It's a terrific business model and possibly the only one I find ethical. I mean, if you have the power to summon a monstrous worm that devours businesses who don't give a shit about fucking the world and then the worm shits out some nice healthy soil after eating the factory, who can complain?! Plus it ate Simon Stagg's factory so it must be a good guy.

Justice League Europe #23 Rating: B. It was a little bit boring and drawn by Bart Sears while also being written by a convicted sex offender. Hmm, when I write it like that, I think maybe I graded it too high. But it did have that terrific surprise where we found out Crimson Fox was two sexy women instead of just one sexy woman! But then we also learned that she's tempted to use her powers of sexuality to force other people to have sex with her. But it also had a sexy French woman constantly thinking about banging Captain Atom! So I think all the pros and cons even out to the grade I gave it. Whatever that was. I already forgot.

No comments:

Post a Comment