Justice League Quarterly #4 (Autumn 1991)

I have never been more attracted to Ice.

Time for another fucking Quarterly! I know why I purchased the Quarterlies thirty years ago: because I was young, dumb, and definitely whatever the third thing is supposed to be. Also because I loved the Justice League. Although I am surprised I had an extra three dollars to purchase a quarterly issue every three months. Money was tight because I was fucking lazy. And now, thirty years later, I'm cursing my 19 year old self because my even dumber 51 year old self has decided to re-read all of my old comic books and write about them. If two aspects of myself at two different points of time were both morons, does the fact I'm a moron become a scientific certainty? Luckily that's probably not enough data points to draw a conclusion. So until more data comes in, I am, scientifically, not yet a moron.

The first story in this way-too-long comic book stars The Injustice League and is called "The Sunnie Caper" and makes me want to fuck Robin the Boy Wonder.

Well, not any of the boy wonders you're probably thinking of but this Carrie Kelley look-a-like.

The Injustice League hang out at a bar in New York that only serves super villains. The wait staff all dress like sexy versions of super heroes like Robin, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter. Probably Martian Manhunter. What server would look sexier than a woman in Martian Manhunter's crossed suspenders and speedos? If one of the wait staff winds up being dressed like J'onn, believe me, I'll scan that panel in immediately and then take a short swoon break. Never you mind how I define "swoon."

Major Disaster, Clock King, Cluemaster, Big Sir, and Multi-man are discussing whether they're good guys or bad guys. They were bad guys but it didn't pay because they were terrible at it. But then instead of getting their asses sued by the Justice League because they promoted themselves as the Injustice League, the Justice League hired them to work in Antarctica. But that fell apart when they had their asses handed to them by a bunch of vampiric penguins. Now they spend their time collecting unemployment checks and hanging around a bar debating their alignment.

Bruce, the member of the team who has no powers and does nothing and maybe is only a member because he rents the apartment where they all crash, turns the group on to a great opportunity: he's joined a cult and there's room for the rest of them too! For some reason, they don't leap at the opportunity to join the the Cult of Minister Sun. You'd think a bunch of unemployed losers all struggling with identity crises would jump at the chance to pester strangers at airports and malls for a place to live and a vocation which comes with a sense of meaning and well being. But instead, they decide to rob the cult because the heads of cults are always rich and also because robbing a cult would make them good guys and also because it would give them a sense of purpose. Robbing Minister Sun would solve all of their problems, the main problem being that they're broke assholes. I guess it wouldn't solve their being assholes but I also don't think they believe that's one of their problems. So fair play.

One of the main attributes of the Injustice League is that they can never succeed in anything they do. So they're about to get their asses handed to them by a group of weak-minded adults who can't function in society without somebody else telling them exactly what to do. That's me just lost all of my cult member and military readers.

"This is an 80-page comic book," I calmly explain to myself because I was just about to lose my shit about how boring the first fifteen pages are. "Sure, the writer could have skipped most of the scenes where the Injustice League discuss the heist and stake out the cult's compound. But he was probably told to pad out his story to fill another useless Justice League Quarterly," I whisper softly to myself as I stroke my hair and try to keep myself from screaming a final, existential scream into the void which my mind will never recover from. Panting, sweaty, heart beating too fast, I growl, "He could have at least made those extra pages funny."

These guys just turned up on page 15 which is the start of their story, making them way more interesting than the Injustice League with their 15 page set up.

Who are these guys? I don't know but I'll find out during the rest of the story! This is why that ancient old dude always said to start everything in the middle of the story. Because the beginning is all boring set up that the audience can extrapolate from the rest of the story. Like how Star Wars began in the middle because, as we saw years later, the beginning was all about some boring import tariffs being voted on by a Galactic Senate or something. I'd be more specific or correct but it was so boring that the only thing I really remember about going to see The Phantom Menace was the trailer for Fight Club before the movie. Star Wars was much better when viewers didn't know exactly what led up to the Clone Wars or what the Clone Wars even were, actually. All the soldiers were clones of Boba Fett's dad? Why?!

It seems some other villains have also decided to rob the cult. I hope those two guys are The Penguin and The Riddler! Unless they're FBI agents meant to be watching the cult to make sure they're not dangerous and have discovered the cult has tons of loot and intend to steal it themselves. Which is exactly what they are because I read ahead.

According to this story, the only power any of the Injustice League possess is the ability to throw knock-out gas capsules. And that's something just Cluemaster does. I know Major Disaster can cause terrible disasters which is a great super power but limits the situations where it can be used. Clock King creates schedules, Multi-man has mood swings, and Big Sir, while being strong, is just too stupid to be any use. If I were Cluemaster, I'd throw my capsule at my teammates and slit their throats at the end of this heist.

Fair enough. Cluemaster is shit as well.

This story is awful. The Injustice League fuck up but then things work out but then they get fucked in some other way but then things work out but then they get fucked again but then things really seem to have worked out only for them to get fucked super hard and the story ends leaving them where they were at the start: broke and starving. It's hard to judge exactly how original a story was when you're reading it 30 years into the future but I have to assume that this was trite, derivative garbage even in 1991. According to his Wikipedia, Will Jacobs, the writer, left writing soon after this to start a used book service or something. Good choice, Will. Except in 2014, he joined with his writing partner, Gerard Jones (uh-oh), to write a sequel to some book that made fun of Leave it to Beaver. Timely, that! I mean timely sarcastically in the sense that nobody in 2014 probably knew anything about Leave it to Beaver and also literally in that Gerard Jones was soon after arrested for possession of images of child sexual abuse. I'm sure Will Jacobs, his long-time writing partner, knew nothing about that at all. Wink, wink.

Saying "wink, wink" after a statement like that won't open me up to a libel lawsuit, will it? I just had something in my eye as I was typing and was trying to get it out!

After reading that story, I'm seriously thinking about taking my copies of Justice League Quarterly numbers 5-10 into the backyard and burning them so that I don't feel forced to read them. Maybe since they have nothing to do with Justice League continuity, I'll just leave them for after I'm done with the monthly issues. They really interrupt the flow of my other blog entries because they sit on my scanner waiting for me to continue reading them because I can only really read four to five pages at a time before I'm completely demoralized by the life my choices have led me to living.

It's strange insulting Will Jacobs' writing when I'm sure I was writing stupid super hero shit just like this Injustice League story at the same time. I suppose the difference is that I was 20 years old and not trying to publish my stories through anything but 'zines and Will was 36 and sold this garbage to DC. Perhaps the moral of the story is that I wasn't confident enough in my talent! And also that I wasn't the friend and writing partner of Gerard Jones who was currently working at DC.

The second story is called "Cracked Ice." It's written by J.M. DeMatteis and drawn by Darick Robertson so I'm expecting it to be average at worst. It begins with a double date at a New Age open-air market.

Fire's personality is quickly being reduced to "blow job queen."

Ice probably doesn't actually want to hear the end of Guy's sentence. "It's amazin' the things a man'll stoop to when he's into sucking ice cubes out of a goddess's asshole."

Guy Gardner bullies a guy selling pyramids containing the spirit of an ancient astral guide because nobody ever stops him from using his power ring to be a huge dickbag. How the fuck does Guy get to keep his ring (or his job with the Justice League) after all the bullshit terror acts he commits on regular people he personally despises? Shouldn't the Guardians be monitoring abuses of the universe's most powerful weapon? Or are they too busy fucking Zamorans and scolding Hal Jordan? At the very least, J'onn should fire his ass. Oh wait. J'onn did fire Guy's ass. But only after he turned his vitriol and abuse on one his teammates. Seems like it's okay for Guy to throw citizens around in the air using his ring whenever they espouse an opinion that goes against Guy's beliefs but sucker punch Ted Kord and everybody freaks out. Maybe if y'all had come down on Guy when he was treating regular people like shit he never would have turned on Ted. Besides, Blue Beetle probably needed to get sucker punched. It's all fun and games while Despero is destroying New York right up until Guy Gardner calls you fat, I guess.

Even Fire gets in on the bullying using her powers.

Why did they even come to this New Age fair if none of them believe in this shit?

Oh, right. Tora believes in it. Or she wants to believe in it. Or she will totally believe in it when she's suddenly possessed by the astral spirit guide later which will hopefully kick Guy, Fire, and Oberon's asses for not believing in this bullshit. Look, we all know it's bullshit in our reality. But this is comic books! Stop pretending demons, angels, and Ice Goddesses don't exist! Atheists are the delusional people in the DC Universe.

Hopefully you deconstructed the phrase "Atheists are the delusional people in the DC Universe" so you understand I only said that to not say the thing I didn't say there.

Only kittens and people I'm fucking ever look at me the way Oberon is looking at Guy here. And Oberon is not a kitten.

The spirit in Ice's cracked crystal possesses her, turning her into a huge silver naked lizard lady. Lizards don't have breasts though so even though Ice's lizard form has breasts, it wouldn't make any sense to include the best part: the nipples. Maybe other reasons exist why Darick Robertson didn't draw nipples, probably the same reason he didn't draw any labia.

Editorial probably forced Darick to add the tail so I wouldn't jerk off to this. Not that it's a deal killer.

Luckily my memory sucks so I really have no idea whether or not I masturbated to that panel. But knowing my history of jerking off, well, I mean, there's a good possibility. Also, I didn't mean to suggest that the tail would somehow dissuade me from jerking it to this panel. You should see all of the weird monsters in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual that I used as porn. I just mean that without the tail, that shot of Ice from that angle would more than do it for me. The only thing better would be if the shot were from behind!

Gross. Enough about my unbelievable sexual history. Is self-gratification included in a person's sexual history? It should be just so it would take more than a Post-it note to archive mine.

Coming along to help the Justice League are two characters from Giffen's Dr. Fate run: some guy and a demon. They have a book that tells them how to defeat every single demon from Hell. They just have to figure out what kind of demon Ice has become by reading the entire book before Ice destroys New York. My guess is that Ice will be saved by somebody chanting the words of the reading Ice received earlier from the channeler whom Fire scared the shit out of. If only the Justice League had remembered that they live in a fantasy comic book world maybe they would have taken the New Age street vendors more seriously.

It turns out I'm wrong! The demon, Petey, from Dr. Fate recognizes Demon Ice's language and talks the demon into leaving Ice and going back to Hell. I sure hope the anonymous commenter from my Justice League International Annual #1 review wasn't reading this. I'd hate for him to get apoplectic about me speculating on where the comic book was going instead of somehow knowing before reading it where it was going because people being ignorant online makes him so fucking angry! I don't hate may people but boy do I hate that dude! I made an erroneous bit of speculation at the beginning of the review which I called myself on for being wrong at the end of the review and this twat gets pissed that I would even speculate on something that I should have already known by reading the solicits for every comic book DC publishes. What a fucking piece of shit wanker! Why would I read solicits and spoil the whole concept of my blog where, as a Grand Master Comic Book Reader, I attempt to (and almost always succeed) at guessing which direction plots are headed! Man, I feel sorry for the friends of that guy!

Holy shit! This moment really should have been in the regular series! Imagine all the cheapskates who missed out on it because they didn't purchase this issue or read the solicits!

The issue ends with several short "Cat Tales" stories about Power Girl's cat. One is about how picky cats are with their food. The other is about how cats break everything when a mouse gets in the house. One is about how dangerous it is to bathe a cat. And the final one ends with the cat falling asleep with its face in a stinky shoe which was the most realistic out of all the cute stories. The cat still doesn't have a name though.

Mr. Bigger's crew obviously didn't know much about cats when they came up with there plan.

Justice League Quarterly #4 Rating: A. Please, this rating surprised the fuck out of me too but I thoroughly enjoyed half of this book. I hear what you're saying: "Shouldn't that mean the comic gets no better than a 'C'?" Maybe if your letter grades aren't entirely arbitrary the way mine are. Plus, this issue was the issue where Guy and Ice officially become a couple! Also it has four stories about Power Girl's cat! And even though they're all based on cartoon premises, they're still pretty true to the nature of cats! I loved them all very much! Plus Darick Robertson drew that pornographic image of Ice as a naked demon! Plus I ripped out the Injustice League story and burned it! So the rating of 'A' only applies to my personal copy.

Justice League Europe #30 (September 1991)

What is Ralph so shocked by? Jack's humongous boner?

Justice League America lost two members in the last capter of "Breakdowns" but also hired two more Looney Tunes' variants (Taz and somebody they can say, "What's up, Doc?" to). Hopefully Europe gets two more new recruits as well this issue to replace Captain Atom who is worth three heroes and The Elongated Man who is worth negative one hero. By my "how many heroes is a hero worth math," Justice League Ex has only three members (Captain Atom equals 3, Ralph equals -1, Ice equals 1, and Blue Beetle is worth 0). That means they should be able to hold their own against the Global Guardians who have a net Hero Tally of -5.

This issue is called "The Widening Gyre" which means it's super intelligent and artsy. I still love "The Second Coming" but I have to admit, the part in The Sopranos where Anthony Junior becomes obsessed with it seemed prescient. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time and the worst people in the world were already obsessed with it and showing their ignorance by quoting it in situations where they thought they were making a point but they were really exposing how ignorant they were. I just recently watched The Sopranos for the first time so I first began to realize loads and loads of people were quoting "The Second Coming" when that shit pile of rancid maggot shit television show Heroes used it. I've since seen it used in other various places but fuck if I can remember where. My main memory of the poem first being used by a clueless individual was when my friend Soy Rakelson, who was always full of passionate intensity, began quoting the lines about the worst people being full of the same while the best lacked all conviction. It always made my head hurt. Anyway, I'm no Yeats scholar so even though I love the poem, I know I'm missing a ton of meaning in it because that guy's entire oeuvre was basically a cypher full of his own metaphors and symbols. People love "The Second Coming" because all the words seem to make some kind of mysterious sense (plus it has some of the best poetic pull quotes in the game) whereas a fuckton of Yeats' other poems just leave your brain struggling with the sudden realization that you are the dumbest person on Earth. Also "The Second Coming" has the line, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." Fucking kick ass, man!

This issue begins with a British news correspondent describing how Max's "brain was savaged by a bullet." Take it easy there, British cowboy! He continues, refusing to take it easy, with, "His Herculean energy and personal charisma lost to a coma." Jesus fucking Christ, dude. I'm glad he's outside the JLE embassy reporting on Lord's condition rather than in Max's hospital room with his tongue up Max's comatose asshole. The correspondent continues by describing what has happened in the previous chapters of "Breakdown," making sure to remind everybody who was fired and who was hired.

Good recovery, news anchor, because you wouldn't want the public thinking the Justice League just hired a pedophile.

You know who else shouldn't want the public thinking they hire pedophiles? DC Comics. But I suppose they didn't know what Gerard Jones was into when he wrote this issue. I should give everybody who worked with him the benefit of the doubt even though it's hard to believe you can work closely with a guy writing comic books and not realize he's a creepy fucking weirdo. Oh, wait. Writing that clarified for me why nobody probably noticed being that everybody in 1991 who was into comic books was a creepy fucking weirdo. As a man, I speak only of all the fans who were men. Let women comic book fans from 1991 judge whether other women at the time were creepy weirds. My guess is they were a well-bonded sisterhood protecting each other from all the creepy dudes.

I wanted to make a Magic the Gathering joke there but Magic didn't exist in 1991. Before Magic came on the scene and all the nerds would gather at conventions in hotel lobbies and sit in parking lots playing the same card game, they would gather in hotel lobbies and parking lots playing niche board games like Fireball Island or The Dark Tower or Crossbows and Catapults. Man, us creepy weirdos really lost something with the onset of Magic the Gathering.

Back in Bialya, Queen Bee rages about Captain Atom's plane exploding. She realizes somebody is trying to frame her so that Bialya winds up on the losing side of an international incident. And by the way she screams at Jack the Lantern, I think she knows who is behind it.

That's the glare of a woman who knows you're fucking around behind her back. Not that I, the perfect person, would actually know what that looks like.

I don't mean to come off as self-righteous! It's easy to be the perfect person who never fucks around in a relationship when you're a massive hermit who avoids social situations and genuinely despises other people. Unless a woman came into my apartment and stripped me naked and made passionate love to me, preferably while I was sleeping, it would never happen. That's not just a statement of fact but a hint to seducing me!

Jack flies off thinking he's the king of the con. He believes he's got Queen Bee fooled when she gives him control of the Global Guardians to discover who is trying to frame her. Seems like the height of overconfidence. It's a good thing this isn't the original Jack the Lantern because that makes him easier to kill later in the story. Although the creative team didn't hesitate to kill the original one either. I think every single Global Guardian has become disposable chaff to increase the drama.

Justice League Ex, having fallen for Jack's con, arrive in Bialya to get to the bottom of Max's shooting. They disguise themselves as employees of Ms. D'aramis, the Crimson Fox's wealthy alter ego. This same plan to infiltrate in disguise didn't work last time when Bruce Wayne was the brains behind it so my guess is that this time they will all immediately be shot in the face while trying to get through customs.

I forgot Manga Khan was involved in "Breakdowns" as well until he gets his one page update scene. He's selling something he's calling a "World-Raper" to a bunch of sad sack aliens. I don't know what world they're considering raping but it's probably Earth. This scene doesn't identify what the "World-Raper" actually is but it's probably Despero (even though I was hoping Lobo was going to be part of this). I never thought about it before this but maybe Manga Khan is modelled on Marv Wolfman, what with his obsession with creating things that rape other things. "Manga Khan" does sort of sound like "Marv Wolfman" if you've just drunk the blood of a poet and sat on a cactus.

I love to sit on my hands!

Justice League Ex was built around dozens of faults but maybe the largest one is having to rely on Ralph Dibny. That fucker can't go thirty seconds without stretching his neck twenty feet so how is he supposed to keep up a disguise? Unless he's currently slithering around in the walls like an elongated tapeworm, he's probably been made by security and sitting in a Bialyan jail waiting to be shot in the face. While Ralph is out slithering like a disgusting wall eel, Blue Beetle surprises everybody with his technological savvy as he sets up a machine to confuse Queen Bee's listening devices, as he remembers she bugs everything in the city. Blue Beetle surprises me by misspelling his name "Ted Cord." I know it's in a speech bubble so technically he didn't misspell it. Technically Willie Schubert misspelled it. Unless Gerard Jones misspelled it and Willie Schubert simply transcribed the error and every single editor didn't notice. But I fucking noticed because I'm a petty bitch.

Eventually, Ralph returns.

This picture is now the grossest thing on the Internet and yes I know about Tub Girl and goatse.

Ralph reconnoitered the space beneath the hotel and discovered the secret tunnels Blue Beetle remembered from his first (or second?) visit. They're full of electronic eyes and ears but Blue Beetle has a gadget which can temporarily disrupt them. That way, nobody will know where Justice League Ex are headed! Unless they follow the trail made by all the gadgets being disrupted in a linear manner. Also Queen Bee probably already knows they're in the country anyway. It's only a matter of time until the face shooting begins

The team follow the tunnels until they're under The Dome, the headquarters of the Global Guardians, because Beetle's theory is that the shooter was a metahuman. When did Beetle become the master investigator? Isn't Ralph Dibny supposed to be the one who solves mysteries? Or does he just like twitching his nose at them?

Meanwhile, Inspector Camus winds up kidnapped by Mister Bigger and his hero-secret selling corporation. He gives him evidence that Queen Bee controls Heimlich with her brainwashing abilities. If that's true and Queen Bee is using the assassination attempt on Max to install one of her lackeys as the head of the Justice League, she's absolutely fucked by Jack and Sumaan's plan to frame her for the murder. Why wouldn't everybody believe she was behind the murder attempt when she's the one who benefitted the most from taking Max Lord out?

Using the secret tunnels, Justice League Ex stumble upon the Global Guardians.

Gross. No way their bodily functions stop just because they're in Queen Bee's thrall.

While investigating the Global Guardians' meeting hall, Jack Lantern and Owl-Woman wander in. A fight ensues which begins with Owl-Woman being frozen and never actually entering the fray. Jack Lantern holds his own against the +3 Hero Tally (Maybe +4 because Crimson Fox is there) which means Jack Lantern has a Hero Tally of either 3 or 4 all by himself. The rest of the Global Guardians' Hero Tallies really drag his down though to make the entire group a -5.

The battle ends when Captain Atom dodges one of Jack's blasts which winds up killing Mermaid.

At least this causes the Global Guardians' Hero Tally to go up to -2.

What did I say earlier about the drama of this story getting raised by the death of a few Global Guardians? I haven't called myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader in quite some time, mostly because I read this series thirty years ago and it would seem unfair to point out how great I am at predicting what's going to happen while reading a story I'd read before. But fuck if I can remember anything. I can barely remember personal memories. How the hell am I supposed to remember something that happened to a member of the most boring DC superteam thirty years ago?! Of course I didn't remember Mermaid dies. I didn't even remember they had somebody named Mermaid! And she was just mentioned several issues ago!

Jack Lantern, of course, reports to the Queen Bee that the Justice League Europe just murdered Mermaid. Queen Bee says, "What are you babbling about? Your up murdur mermay?" Europe murdered Mermaid is the Rural Juror of Justice League Europe, especially when spoken by an Irish guy to a Bialyan woman.

The rest of the Global Guardians come out of their trances ready to beat the shit out of Justice League Ex. I wonder if Mermaid comes out of her trance just in time to feel her life slip away? Hopefully she died instantly. With Mermaid dead and Tora in shock having seen an old friend murdered before her eyes, the fight between the Global Guardians and Justice League Ex could be a toss-up.

Queen Bee alerts Heimlich personally that he needs to send the Justice League to come collect their Justice League. L-Ron, being on monitor duty when the message comes in, becomes suspicious that Queen Bee and Heimlich are in direct communication. But being that he's only a little robot from outer space who nobody pays much attention to, L-Ron decides to keep the information to himself. Too bad nobody thought to befriend the poor little guy.

Justice League Europe #30 Rating: A-. I almost gave this issue a B+ but then I remembered, because of this issue, there was one less Global Guardian in the DC Universe and I smiled a smile I save for the most satisfying moments in life. Don't you dare try to read into that statement too much because I assure you, my life is full of satisfying moments like that! Moments where somebody else feels the brunt of a dark and uncaring universe while I manage to somehow remain unscathed once more. "At least it wasn't me!" would be my family motto if I hadn't realized at a young age just how dark and uncaring the universe is and I wasn't willing to bring another sentient being into existence to experience it. What kind of hypocrite would I be to create a life while I still harbor anger and resentment towards my own parents for creating me?! Ha ha! I just remembered the sound effect "SPLACH" and got a little boost of joy! Man, comic books are fucking awesome.

Justice League America #54 (September 1991)

Just because Blue Beetle was fired for being fat, it doesn't mean the artist had to make Ice gain weight too.

I think the cover artist assumed since Beetle lost his job with the Justice League because he became fat, Ice must have also gained weight to have been fired. He must not read the comic book because I don't think weight had anything to do with either of these heroes losing their job. I think it was because they were boring.

That's a joke! I've never once been bored by Ice or her ass. But she's terminally good-natured which, to many people, means super duper boring. So I can see why Ice might be fired if Herr Heimlich knew this was a comic book that needed to sell a certain amount of comics each month. Then by all means, fire the terminally nice woman! What kind of exciting plots are going to stem from Ice making sure everybody was always happy and comfortable? So boring! Readers want Guy Gardner telling everybody to suck his dick every five panels! Maybe if she'd played up her whole ice goddess thing and ran around the Embassy with terminally erect nipples due to her freezing cold skin and needing to fuck somebody every five panels to keep her body temperature at a proper level, she'd have stuck around. I suppose I might also fire her from the team if we extrapolate that she winds up flooding every place where she uses her ice powers. Didn't she flood a subway one time? Or was that not her fault because her ice was melted instantaneously by some jerk's fire powers (maybe Fire's?)? Anyway, it looks like she and Beetle are out. Good riddance to Blue Beetle, I say! What good is a guy with no powers who is also terminally broke so he can't even afford any materials to create his beetle gadgets?!

The issue begins with the ambassador of Bialya returning Captain Atom to Herr Heimlich, whom the ambassador addresses as "Ambassador Heimlich." What country is Heimlich an ambassador for? The United States?! As if the United States would hire a Nazi to be a prominent member of their great nation! At least in 1991, readers would understand why a Nazi was automatically the bad guy and would not have tried to defend one as a free speech enthusiast who was only professing their rational and completely logical ideology. At least I don't think there were many readers like that. I know from reading various letters pages that some readers didn't mind espousing racist opinions. So I'm sure there were a few who wrote in letters which began, "Dear Justice Log, you haven't properly shown how Mr. Heimlich meets the criteria for being a bad guy. Just because he's trying to straighten up the Justice League and thinks Kara's cat should be murdered like a, well, you know who. That doesn't mean he's not a nice guy who cares about and takes care of his own kind. Shame on you, mongrels."

"P.S. I, too, am surrounded by idiots so I don't see how this shows him to be a hateful man. Just — like all white men — exasperated!"

Jack the Lantern discusses the ongoing plan to make the Justice League believe Queen Bee shot Maxwell Lord with the person I assumed was Rumaan Harjavti in a previous issue of "Breakdowns." My mistake! The person who wants to dethrone Queen Bee and take the seat himself is Sumaan Harjavti! You can't blame me for getting it wrong when he looks nearly identical, has never said his first name until now, and dead people come back to life in comic books all the time. Sorry if that sounded a bit pissy. I can get a little defensive when a comic book tries to make my past blog posts read as if my reading comprehension were still only at a 7th grade level. I haven't had that low of a reading comprehension since 11th grade, dammit! You're now looking at a man with a 9th grade reading comprehension, baby!

As far as the return of Captain Atom to the Justice League, it turns out Captain Atom isn't allowed to turn into Captain Atom anymore. Also, the plane he and Inspector Camus travel home by has a slight mishap on the way.

Welp. They're dead.

I know they're not really dead because Captain Atom has to survive to become Monarch in the upcoming Zero Hour event. I mean he was supposed to become Monarch but every single fan guessed Monarch's identity really early in the event and DC couldn't live with that so they would eventually reveal Hank Hall (Hawk of Hawk and Dove) was Monarch. But then later, Captain Atom would become Monarch because, well, I guess they still had some post-Zero Hour scripts lying around that relied on Monarch's identity being the one they initially had planned. Since Atom and Camus obviously live (well, Atom obviously does, anyway), one of two things happened to save them (or him). Captain Atom broke his word and becomes Captain Atom to save himself (and maybe Camus and the pilot (but probably not the co-pilot or the flight attendants)). Or Camus uses his magic because I suspect he's just a French version of John Constantine. If he isn't, I'll be severely disappointed. Who wouldn't want a French John Constantine running around the DC Universe?

Herr Heimlich conducts interviews for the Justice League America team in this issue. First up is Martian Manhunter who easily keeps his position. Next up is General Glory who Heimlich seems to admire but winds up putting on probationary status. I think the joke is that General Glory goes into a long-winded story about his adventures in World War II which aggravates Heimlich. But I think the real reason is in this panel at the end of his story.

General Glory refers to Nazis as "monsters."

Based on the way Gerard Jones depicted Heimlich, I'd have thought Heimlich would have despised General Glory immediately. But Heimlich acts as if he looks up to and admires General Glory. Maybe the two writing teams didn't fully compare notes this early in "Breakdowns" and Giffen, in his story breakdowns, wasn't entirely clear on how much of a Nazi Heimlich was. Perhaps Giffen described him as a Nazi and Jones took it literally while DeMatteis thought it was more metaphorical.

I should correct something I said earlier because I would really hate it if readers actually think I only have a 9th grade reading comprehension. I don't mind if they think I love domestic violence or kick guinea pigs over buildings. Those are misinterpretations of the text that I can live with! But for readers to think I can't comprehend what I read?! I super comprehend everything! At well above a 9th grade level! I'm so good at comprehending stuff that when I read The Bible, I understand it better than anybody ever has before me! I just pick it up casually and I'm all, "Oh, this whole Onan story isn't about masturbation at all! It's about breaking contracts and disrespecting your father!" And then I'm all, "Why does the point of view of the story revolve around Abraham when Sarah seems to be the one in charge and her name means 'to rule' and later when Jacob gets renamed to "Israel," couldn't that be translated as 'to rule through God'? I think a bunch of men wrote this to destroy the matriarchy! All these religions should be called Sarahamic instead of Abrahamic!" Hmm, I don't know. Does that one make it seem like I have terrific reading comprehension or a fantastic imagination? Enh, I don't really care! This is a comic book blog, not a Bible blog! Boring!

It's also not just comic books! I saw Memento once and completely understood it on a level that most people probably still don't understand it because they just think, "Oh, I totally figured out the direction of the plot. Easy peasy!" I also understood Lost Highway after just one viewing. And "Night-Sea Journey" by John Barth? Totally realized the narrator was a sperm without anybody telling me! So much better at comprehending things than my high school friend Soy Rakelson! If you don't believe I'm as clever as I'm portraying myself to be because most of these comic book blog entries are idiotic pabulum, read my review of Ayn Rand's Anthem! It's super genius!

Even a Nazi will sometimes make some sane and rational arguments.

Heimlich fires Beetle from the League for all the reasons everybody pretty much suspected: he doesn't take anything seriously, he has no actual powers, and he's out of shape. Although check out his pectoral muscles. Me-ow! No fatty tit-tits for Ted! Just pure muscled manscape to smear mama's slippy love lube over.

Speaking of fatty tit-tits (I didn't say I didn't love them), Fire interviews next.

What the creative team implies has me thinking, "Am I a feminist if this scene gave me a boner?"

The previous page suggests that Blue Beetle could have retained his job if he'd really fucking wanted it. But not Ice. She ain't sucking no dick for an easy paycheck.

Guy Gardner walks into the chopping block next but survives. I think. Guy spends five panels bragging about his abilities and then Heimlich says, "GAKKKK." His hair flops down and he collapses on his desk. I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps during Guy's incessant self-fellatio, Heimlich was holding in the semen Fire snowballed into his mouth and he finally spit it out? The scene ends at that point so I guess he didn't die or anything. Does this scene make more sense if you're one of those idiots who doesn't like Guy Gardner? Do those people infer that Heimlich just got sick listening to Guy's honest assessment of his own abilities? I'd rather believe the semen thing.

Sorry, Guy. I'm all-in on you but even I don't get your drift.

"Marshmallow Manhunter" makes no sense but it's a great fucking line.

Up next: Ice. She used to have "Maiden" in her name but I think Guy Gardner fucked it off of her. Now that I think about it, was I supposed to think the band Iron Maiden was chaste?

Ice also loses her job for exactly the reason I mentioned earlier: she's just too nice. And I guess she doesn't suck the dick of old men just to keep her job. Maybe I'm being too disgusting and misogynist about Bea's interview. Maybe she beat the shit out of him and threatened to kill his entire family if he didn't let her keep the job. And that's why he passed out at the end of Guy's interview: internal bleeding. You know what? That's a better story and more accurately reflects Fire's personality. How dare this creative team try to make me think Fire sucked this asshole's dick! Fucking jerks!

"Stupid Six" was the alternate title for I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League.

Being that the League just lost two members, Heimlich has hired two more members: Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. I don't want to be too critical of these choices but they're a bit underwhelming. I get that Tasmanian Devil makes sense because he's an ex-Global Guardian which will add some drama as the two teams come into conflict during this story arc. Also, he's a member of the barely mentioned and probably still mostly destroyed Justice League Australia. And Doctor Light was a member way back in the beginning but barely did anything before deciding to leave. Did a Doctor Light solo series come out around now? Why else would she be back on the team except to try to sell more comics?! Maybe she's here for plot reasons and there will be a moment where only a hero with light powers can save the day. And maybe Tasmanian Devil is here to suck the dicks that won't respond to Bea.

I would scan the panel with the introduction of Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light but they look awful and I hate it. Although, what else am I going to do? Describe it to you with my horrendous ability to put words together in a manner that would evoke the image? I'm way too lazy and untalented to do that! Thank God for scanners!

They look like they both had to suck an old man's dick to get the job.

I've gone a little dick sucking heavy on this one. I promise that's the end of it. Unless you want more? Do you want more dick sucking? Do you?! Who's my little dick sucker lover? Is it you? Oh, you're so cute!

If you can't stand the joke about sucking an old man's dick, just replace the above caption with this one: Doctor Light looks like she just got off a log flume ride.

Ralph Dibny winds up in New York to hire Blue Beetle and Ice for his new team: The Ex-Men! Or is Justice League Ex better? Ralph's name is just Ex-Justice League. This was written in 1991 so that easily reads as "Extreme Justice League!" Now with loads of square guns, bandoliers, and pockets! Ralph takes them, via teleporter, to the Justice League London Embassy where brain-damaged Sue Dibny, wife of Elongated Man, waits for them.

I think Jean Loring has already made a few experimental forays into Sue's brain.

I'm not sure my "reviews" express how much I enjoy some aspects of this comic book when the creators get the tone right. They sometimes rely too much on shallow aspects of each character's personality for some dumb jokes. But when they go full blown whimsical with the characters having fun, I'm all in. Like these panels which made me laugh.

I find it truly adorable the way Blue Beetle easily slips into Ralph's goofiness.

Ralph and Sue take Ted and Tora to Crimson Fox's penthouse apartment in London/Paris. She's waiting there with Captain Atom and Inspector Camus who somehow survived their plane exploding. I imagine we'll be getting a quick flashback or explanation as to how this happened and I hope it involves some French magic.

If Captain Atom had a dick, Sue would definitely be sucking it.

I once dreamed that I would become a writer as respected as Vladimir Nabakov but then I remembered most of his novels didn't include dick sucking. And the one that did involved a pedophile. So then I decided to be more like John Barth. At least he had that one scene where Giles Goatboy fucks the woman in the sun dress when she bends over a desk. Weird that I can barely remember anything from that novel other than using the university system as a metaphor for the universe and the Goatboy sexually assaulting a woman in a sun dress. But I just wasn't smart enough. After that, I decided maybe I was more like Steinbeck but then I cry-laughed for five hours winding up out of breath and wiping the tears from my face as I said aloud to nobody, "Good one, Tess." Eventually I decided I was more of a masturbator and a cat owner than a writer and my life really took off from there.

It's a good thing DC Comics can't sue itself or else there'd be a huge Constantine/Camus plagiarism case involving Alan Moore and Keith Giffen. Even if DC could sue itself, Alan Moore probably wouldn't give a shit as long as he kept getting Constantine royalty checks and Giffen probably wouldn't testify out of pure terror of having a black magic spell cast at him. What I mean by "black magic spell" in the context of Alan Moore is just a long, withering look and a string of derogatory epithets hurled in Keith's direction. Being that Alan Moore believes language itself is a spell (and I fucking buy into his explanation. Probably because his explanation was a spell to make me buy into it), Keith Giffen would probably wind up killing himself after such a verbal assault. I mean black magic spell.

Back in New York, Tasmanian Devil gets to know his new team.

After that punch, I wonder what Guy's new personality will be?

I forgive Tasmanian Devil for punching a poor brain-damaged Guy Gardner because Guy really was being racist here (to the extent one can be racist against Australians. I'm not totally convinced that's a thing) and because Tasmanian Devil almost certainly doesn't know about the brain damage. Whereas Batman definitely knew what the fuck he was doing and probably planned on hitting Guy just right to make him stop being an asshole.

I know Guy's personality only changed after he banged his head on the console but most people still think it was the one-punch from Batman so can you Actually Nerds just understand how sometimes, as a writer on the Internet, I have to play to the majority of dolts out there? Just give me this one for once!

Tasmanian Devil knocking out Guy in one punch was way more satisfying than when Batman did it and nobody ever talks about it. Also check out Devil's ass. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I have one question about Guy getting sucker punched all the time. Isn't his ring supposed to keep him safe from dangers that he's not even aware of? Shouldn't it be shielding him from these punches? Or is the ring a little snarky asshole who understands these punches won't kill Guy and also that he deserves them? Like when you're hanging out with your one friend who can be a real irritating asshole and he gets himself in a fight with a bunch of other guys and you don't help him out because you're busy shrugging and saying, "What did you think was going to happen, Larry?"

Back in London or Paris, Captain Atom tells his plan to the rest of the new Ex-Men team: they're going to invade Bialya! Again!

Justice League America #54 Rating: B+. This issue was a lot of fun and also the art was wildly inconsistent. But when it was good, it really licked my aesthetic rim. Sort of cartoony with a style that pops. One thing Chris Wozniak loved doing was the big smile full of white without the hint of individual teeth which reads a lot like animation. It's also the exact opposite of what Rob Liefeld would do which might be one reason I found it charming. I'd rather have no teeth and a big white space than ten thousand gritted molars surrounding two canines. I'm not sure how much the various plots advanced in this issue but I also didn't think about that until just now. That means I was too entertained to give a shit about plot movement and that might be my biggest compliment to anything created to distract me from thoughts of death and to, for even a small amount of the day, keep my brain from playing songs in the background. I think I might be going slightly crazy because I always have a fucking song going in my head now. Even when I'm thinking about something, it's like music playing in the background but the background is deep in my skull. I hope this doesn't end in some astonishingly ugly mental crisis situation. Or maybe I do? I could use some time off in a place where other people are paid to take care of me.

Justice League Europe #29 (August 1991)

This sounds sarcastic.

When I write a passionate opinion online, some people reading that opinion who believe the exact opposite feel personally attacked. They will then drop a comment which personally attacks me and they'd be hard-pressed to see how they're in the wrong in that occasion. But I didn't direct my opinion at them. I didn't say they couldn't have the opposite opinion. But all they see is somebody attacking something they love as if I were purposefully directing the attack at them. But they're wrong. I can hate the thing they love and say it online! What I shouldn't do is seek them out personally and scream that opinion in their face. Which is basically what anybody attacking me in the comments is doing simply because I said something which they disagreed with. I'm only saying all of this to preface this statement: The Global Guardians fucking suck dirty assholes.

You know who else I think is shit? The Legion of Superheroes. Or The Legion of Super-heroes. I don't know which one is correct and I hate them so much that I don't fucking care enough to look it up. Fuck those twats.

Now remember my logic trap! If you disagree and decide to comment here, you're an asshole! Ha ha! Checkmate, motherfuckers!

Why is my brand "turn everybody who might possibly want to read my old-as-shit-fashioned blog against me"? Even I hate myself.

The cover says the art is by Bart Sears so imagine my surprise when I opened it to see this:

Motherfucking Darick Robertson, motherfuckers! Yes!

Look how Darick did Bart Sears' version of Catherine's hair but in an aesthetically pleasing way as opposed to the way Bart did it which didn't please my aesthetics at all. If Darick's version of Catherine's hair were a delicious looking photo of somebody's ravioli dinner presented on a naked pair of tits and posted on Instagram, Bart Sears' version of Catherine's hair is a picture of a naked person lying passed out in the bathroom from food poisoning while the toilet and walls are covered in bloody diarrhea and vomit posted on Rotten.com.

Robertson's work here, early in his career, definitely has an amateurish quality, tending toward the cartoony side of comic book art. In that respect, it might be, on a technical level, a bit worse than Bart's art. But I can't stand Bart's style so much that I'll take an early-foot-in-the-DC-art-door Darick Robertson over Sears any day!

It's got a bit of a "Daniel Clowes but with a colorist" feel to it.

I say "with a colorist" but Captain Atom has the Ghost World color palette down pat. Sue is close but just a little too green. Her tone and levels are spot on though!

I could scan some more panels that would get a Bart Sears' fan to post a comment saying, "You like this shit over the superbly muscled and big-haired Bart women?! You're a fucking pathetic piece of shit, you fuckclown!" But I won't because I don't want anybody to be able to argue that my opinion that Darick's art is better than Bart's may be wrong. No, you know what? I'm all for fairness! Here you go, chumps:

Ugh, Darick. I feel like I can shit on Darick's early work because I fucking love his art in Transmetropolitan.

Maybe Darick was working from an early version of the script that said, "Page 3, Panel 2. Captain Atom and Catherine have a sneezing fit."

As you can see from the sneezing panel, Captain Atom has received some evidence pointing toward Queen Bee as Max Lord's assassin. But when he demands to go punch her in the face himself, Catherines says, "Achoo!"

Every current member of Justice League International gathers in New York to meet their new interim leader. For some reason, Guy Gardner is also there. Maybe the paper work showing he's been sacked hasn't had time to go through. I guess it doesn't really matter because the new leader—whose name I refuse to learn just for this "Breakdowns" story arc—decides to conduct immediate job interviews to decide who should stay and who should go. He comes up with this idea when he asks about Batman and discovers Batman is on part-time status. I'm pretty sure Batman was the only hero he wanted to meet and now he's punishing the rest of the League.

The new guy fires Captain Atom but keeps the Elongated Man which proves that he is sabotaging the team on purpose. Perhaps Ralph hired him to keep Sue from porking Captain Atom (if she hasn't already?). Captain Atom, having nothing more to do after being fired and having no leash to hold him back, heads to Bialya to punch Queen Bee in the face. But Max's replacement calls ahead to Bialya to let Queen Bee know he's coming and that he's unaffiliated with the United Nations so if he's murdered, it won't cause an international incident. Jack Lantern puts on his murdering foreign invaders gear and comes in his underwear. I dropped the "O" from his name because fuck if I can ever figure out where to put the apostrophe. Jack Lantern sounds more ominous anyway.

Queen Bee actually isn't told about Captain Atom's incipient visit because Harjavti is back. He planted evidence to make it seem as if Queen Bee was behind Maxwell Lord's assassination so that the Justice League and Queen Bee would destroy each other. He's working with Jack Lantern because Jack double crosses everybody all the time. He's two-faced like, um, a Jack O'Lantern? And the rest of the Global Guardians' minds are currently swiss cheese. I think that's different from how their minds normally are. I wouldn't know because I've never read any other comic books starring them because they suck dirty assholes. Did I mention that?

Oh, my mistake. Ralph did get fired. I find that acceptable. This new leader knows what he's doing!

The team won't be much different without Ralph. I mean in a crime fighting sense. The comic book will be a lot different in that it won't constantly make me sick to my stomach having to look at that long neck and think about that nose twitching and constantly visualizing how he splits his dick into two separate rods to fuck Sue in the ass and vagina at the same time. Lucky woman!

That guy in the previous panel with the lavender hair is the new Max Lord whose name I refuse to remember. Darick's basically just drawing Simon Stagg. Maybe Darick refused to learn who the guy was as well and was just all, "He's Simon Stagg, right?"

Kara has her own plan to get things back to normal.

It doesn't strike me as a bad idea.

Maybe I should be using this guy's name because I think it's a clue about his Nazi background. His name is Rolf Heimlich. One of my favorite German words is "unheimlich" which means "uncanny or weird." In other words, things that aren't like home. So you would think that Heimlich means something like "warm and cozy," or things that are like you'd find at home. But no! Germans are much darker and more disturbing than that! "Heimlich" means "secretly"! So it's more about how things which happen in the home should be kept secret from those not part of the family. That's fucking unheimlich, man! Anyway, this guy's name means "secretly" and he thinks like a fucking Nazi!

Oh boy.

That "rrrrrr" is not Kara's cat purring. Remember the cat had a tiny camera installed in its eye to spy on the Justice League. It was implanted by Metawise, Inc, a corporation which runs a 1-900 number that gives out super hero secrets to C-list villains. Heimlich must have felt he was being watched which is why he stopped himself from using the proper noun he really wanted to use instead of simply repeating "animals." Mr. Bigger of Metawise, sensing something way worse about Heimlich than anything a C-list super villain might be up to, decides to have his company do a deep background check on him. I think we all know what Mr. Bigger's researchers are about to discover.

Captain Atom gets his ass kicked by the Global Guardians but only because there are like twenty of them. Plus instead of blasting them with nuclear blasts because he has no idea which ones would instantly be killed (probably most of them), he just kept asking them, "Who shot Maxwell Lord?" The Guardians take Captain Atom prisoner and Jack Lantern calls up Sue Dibny to let her know that Captain Atom has been taken into Bialyan custody.

Somebody's jealous!

Justice League Europe #29 Rating: B+. I'm starting to see how "Breakdowns" could have gotten my 19 year old self so excited (although I'd just recently started having sex so probably not that excited). A lot has already begun to happen. Max Lord shot. A new chief (who is probably a literal Nazi) coming in and not only dismantling the team but betraying them to Bialya. Mr. Bigger spying on the Justice League. The Injustice League acting as Max's bodyguards. Captain Atom captured by the Global Guardians who seem to be acting on Rumaan Harjavti's orders instead of Queen Bee's. Sue Dibny worried about Captain Atom fucking Queen Bee. That's a lot to process in just two issues! I only have one question about this story arc so far:

How many molars do people actually have?

Justice League America #53 (August 1991)

"I'm sorry"? I guess he saved Max's life.

I can't imagine every member of the Justice League being this sad that Max Lord has died so I'm assuming Liberty the Wonder Dog didn't survive passing Guy Gardner through his bowels. I'm also not sure how everybody regained their normal sizes. Did Kilowog invent a taffy-pulling machine? Oh wait. I'm acting like Justice League Quarterly has any place within normal continuity. I don't even know when it was supposedly out on the shelves!

After Crisis on Infinite Earths (which dragged me into super hero comics (I have to specify "super hero comics" because I definitely owned some Masters of the Universe comic books before that)), "Breakdowns" remains the most memorable event from my early years of reading comics. Early years? I was 19 when this came out! While that meant I'd only been reading comics for about 5 or 6 years, that was over 1/4 of my life at that point. It seemed like I'd been reading them for ages! At 53 issues, this was definitely the longest running comic I'd ever read (I was reading Ostrander's Suicide Squad at the same time which, I believe, would have been around issue #53 as well (both having stemmed from Legends)). My friends and I probably discussed "Breakdowns" more than any other comic we'd read at the time. Possibly because it was the main point of overlap in our comic book reading. But also it broke our brains because the silly funny book suddenly became super serious. Look how sad everybody is on the cover! Oh no!

You know what? Never mind that thing about comic book discussions. All we were talking about by 1991 was which Vertigo title showed the most tits.

Proving that I wasn't overstating the case at all: even the U.N. calls this the first DC crisis since "Crisis on Infinite Earths."

That was a pretty boring panel to scan but it's one of the most exciting panels in the first few pages of this issue. George Lucas must have popped five boners reading the first few pages of this comic book in '91 and thought, "This is what the prequels should be! Long boring scenes of politicians from various countries arguing about mundane bullshit!" Yeah, so what if I believe George Lucas was inspired by Justice League America #53?! It's my fucking reality and I refuse to remove my claws from it, leave it behind, climb down off this ledge, and live a boring life of not believing stupid bullshit.

Max Lord has been an authoritarian asshole driven by his own selfish motives who has shown little regard for the team members past what they could do for his ambition. And yet everybody cares about whether he lives or dies. Is this what makes them super heroes? Or is this what makes them tools of the system? You can't care about the lives of people who Max Lord manipulates, uses, and throws away for his own personal gain while also caring about Max Lord. The "every life is sacred" crowd are just facile centrists refusing to see the truth of reality. And that truth is that some people cause so much harm to other people that their deaths should be celebrated because it is a lifting of the pain and suffering of the people harmed by the now deceased person. Death can and should be celebrated in certain cases. Perhaps the members of the Justice League aren't as privy to the depths of Max Lord's depravity as the readers. They might still think he's well-meaning if a bit brusque and pushy, perhaps seeing his methods as necessary to put the Justice League in a position to help the world. To them, maybe Max is a hero, so I should see their concern in that light. Forgive me for letting my knowledge of the Max who raped The Huntress's mind to force her to join the League and will one day murder Blue Beetle and team up with Brother Eye to try and destroy every super hero cloud my judgment of the current situation! By all means, the team should hope for this bastard to recover, I guess.

Meanwhile Lord Manga Khan prepares a "one man army" for sale. Does Brother Eye's history with Maxwell Lord begin in "Breakdowns"? Or is Manga Khan just speaking, as he does often, poetically? Maybe the "one many army" is Lobo! Lobo has to make an appearance in "Breakdowns," right? This is proof that my friends and I were discussing Vertigo's nudity more than "Breakdowns" because I really don't remember shit that happens in this thing.

Some other dumb shit goes down with the Injustice League but it all gets cleared up before I can gather the fortitude it would take to care about any of it. While that nonsense is happening, the Justice League save some people in a sewer and declare themselves heroes.

I'll argue day and night that the Justice League hasn't done a lot of saving the world. But I also don't think J'onn is being fair to paint them as massive foul-ups.

J'onn kicked Guy Gardner off the team last issue but that doesn't stop J'onn from letting Guy do all of the heavy lifting of saving the people in the tunnels below New York. Even J'onn realizes that without Guy, there really isn't much of a team to speak of. I guess Ice could have made an ice stairway to get everybody out of the sinkhole instead of relying on Guy's power ring. Or Fire could have made, um, a fire stairway? Is that a thing?

I just watched a few minutes of Eurotrip on Pluto TV and I have to say I'm completely and utterly disturbed by Nona Mecklenberg being portrayed as sexy. Where is my little girl with the arm in the cast?! Where's my adorable little Harriet the Spy?! Where the fuck have I been since Eurotrip came out in 2004?! At least in Buffy everybody still treated her like the little kid I remember her being from The Adventures of Pete and Pete!

I will not be posting any pictures of this sweet baby from Eurotrip!

I just remembered something that gives lie to my previous reaction and subsequently makes me question every thought I've ever had: I own the issue of Maxim with Michelle Trachtenberg on the cover. But I'm pretty sure it's not because I'm a perv! I just loved Nona and wanted to read what she'd been up to! Also, I think I have only ever owned two issues of Maxim and both were purchased in an airport before a plane trip. One of those issues had small insert called "Maxim's Guide to the Web" which featured a couple dozen odd websites (you know, when the Internet was a wild frontier of varied and unique web pages). One of the sites features was HowFreshisThisGuy.com.

I owe so many apologies to the "mullet-helmeted dude" in the lower left corner.

That guy I can never apologize to enough is some mystery guy whose picture I stole from a Santa Cruz University based personal website of the guy (whose name may have been Cyril?). I used his image as the Dwarf-loving roller player Chris Davenport in my online comic strip DwarfLover. The web comic was popular enough around the turn of the millennium for somebody to have picked up his picture and submit it to HowFreshIsThisGuy.com. The Internet was a wild place back then.

Although, this was really small potatoes, right?! It's not like he turned into some kind of an ERMAHGERD GERSBERMS meme!

If you're curious about DwarfLover or simply curious about finding fodder to scold me for, you can find the comic still hosted at the site where all my comic book images are hosted. Do the work yourself.

Meanwhile in London, Power Girl now has to defend herself against Ralph Dibny's sexual harassment. Why didn't they just give the line about how tight her outfit is to Wally and keep things the way they're supposed to be? Now not only does Power Girl want to kill Ralph, Sue does too! Sue is definitely going to fuck Captain Atom at this point.

I think this is Catherine although I'm so used to Bart Sears' enormous hair version that I can't be sure. Seems more like Sue.

As you can see from the above panel, Justice League Europe is about to cause an international incident based on an unsubstantiated hunch.

Not for nothing but this version of Catherine is really sparking the part of my brain that makes me want to fuck cartoon characters like Erin Esurance and Shego.

Maybe that was for nothing. I don't know what the phrase "not for nothing" means or how to use it correctly.

The issue ends with some crazy-haired old fucker taken Max's place as the person in charge of the Justice League. His first order of business is to get a better Justice League. My guess is he'll simply get a "different" Justice League who won't be any better at all, full of jerks like Hawkjerk, Useless Arrow, and Aqualoser.

Justice League America #53 Rating: B. All it took was the death of Max Lord (well, he's not dead yet (and won't be any time soon because Wonder Woman has disappeared from Justice League comics in this era)) for the entire Justice League to break down and fall apart? J'onn has no power at all in the formation and day-to-day handling of the team? Their lives depend on the whims of whatever Celebrity Apprentice asshole winds up in charge?! It seems like a shit way to run a superhero team. No wonder Batman didn't want the fucking role of leader. It's a powerless position! I bet everybody but Guy loses their jobs and then Guy is all, "Oh yeah! Fuck you assholes! I'm the best! You're the worst! Suck my huge green light dick!"