This was published in 1991 so was this a riff on Joan Rivers?
If your first thought is, "Why would they allude to Joan Rivers on the cover?", just remember the writers of this comic book are Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. No reference is beneath them! At least a Joan Rivers' reference would have been timely in 1991! They usually love referencing pop culture from the '50s. Plus it's Blue Beetle saying it, so you know he did the voice and everything.
The Justice League has been tasked with entering Bialya and arresting their ex-teammates for the murder of Mermaid. "Who?" you ask but I ignore the question because what do I look like? Jonni DC sitting on a stack of Who's Who comic books? Oh wait. I do have a stack of Who's Who comics! Mermaid doesn't have her own entry but she's included in The Global Guardians entry along with Icemaiden and Green Fury. Little Mermaid (as she's called in this entry) "is a mutant born in Atlantis able to change her legs to a fish tail and fly." That's a stupid fucking power. So she could only fly when she had a fish tail? Oh, but that's not all: "But, as she could only live 30 hours underwater, she had to be raised on land." What the fuck? Born in Atlantis and able to turn into a mermaid but can't live underwater? And why 30 hours? What must her physiology be like that she's okay for 30 hours but any more and she's done for? Is it a gill and lung thing? Does it have to do with pressure? Too much salt? Oh, wait. I'm forgetting that most of this is arbitrary shit written by writers scribbling out as much pulp as possible while dreaming about writing something meaningful. After reading this entry, I'm glad Mermaid was murdered.
Fire's entry says her powers, as Green Fury, were the ability to breathe "hot or cold" flame and "shoot sparks from her eyes to create illusions." Why cold flames? What's the point? And how did the sparks into illusions out of the eyes thing work? This all smacks of a writer merely collecting a paycheck and realizing that the idiot kids reading this tripe were never going to question any of it. Frankly, it's reminding me of that time Cullen Bunn wrote Aquaman but he obviously just had a John Carpenter on Mars script lying around and he sold it to DC as an Aquaman script for some easy cash. Fucking tell me I'm wrong, Cullen!
Here's Ice's entry: "Icemaiden has absolute power over ice and snow." Classic. So I'm as powerful as she is because fuck if ice or snow has ever bested me in any competition.
And since I've got the comic book open to The Global Guardians, let's check Tasmanian Devil and Jack the Lantern. Tasmanian Devil: "In emergencies, grows to great size, increasing his strength and speed." Do they mean he can only transform in emergencies or that he's responsible with his powers and he never uses them in non-emergency situations like when he fucks Extraño? Seems boring. "Jack O'Lantern has a magical lantern given to him by the fairy queen Maev." No way that's his real origin. Does Who's Who not do any research into the claims of the heroes it spotlights? Because there's no way Jack's Lantern isn't just some laser gun tarted up to look like a stupid bowling ball with eyes. The fairy queen story has got to be a lie. I bet Jack's not even Irish.
The Global Guardians was first called "The Global Guardians" in DC Comics Presents #46. I think I used to own that comic book but I gave away a bunch of my DC Comics Presents in a fit of madness a number of years ago. I did keep a few but there's no way I kept one starring these jerks.
The Justice League has been tasked with entering Bialya and arresting their ex-teammates for the murder of Mermaid. "Who?" you ask but I ignore the question because what do I look like? Jonni DC sitting on a stack of Who's Who comic books? Oh wait. I do have a stack of Who's Who comics! Mermaid doesn't have her own entry but she's included in The Global Guardians entry along with Icemaiden and Green Fury. Little Mermaid (as she's called in this entry) "is a mutant born in Atlantis able to change her legs to a fish tail and fly." That's a stupid fucking power. So she could only fly when she had a fish tail? Oh, but that's not all: "But, as she could only live 30 hours underwater, she had to be raised on land." What the fuck? Born in Atlantis and able to turn into a mermaid but can't live underwater? And why 30 hours? What must her physiology be like that she's okay for 30 hours but any more and she's done for? Is it a gill and lung thing? Does it have to do with pressure? Too much salt? Oh, wait. I'm forgetting that most of this is arbitrary shit written by writers scribbling out as much pulp as possible while dreaming about writing something meaningful. After reading this entry, I'm glad Mermaid was murdered.
Fire's entry says her powers, as Green Fury, were the ability to breathe "hot or cold" flame and "shoot sparks from her eyes to create illusions." Why cold flames? What's the point? And how did the sparks into illusions out of the eyes thing work? This all smacks of a writer merely collecting a paycheck and realizing that the idiot kids reading this tripe were never going to question any of it. Frankly, it's reminding me of that time Cullen Bunn wrote Aquaman but he obviously just had a John Carpenter on Mars script lying around and he sold it to DC as an Aquaman script for some easy cash. Fucking tell me I'm wrong, Cullen!
Here's Ice's entry: "Icemaiden has absolute power over ice and snow." Classic. So I'm as powerful as she is because fuck if ice or snow has ever bested me in any competition.
And since I've got the comic book open to The Global Guardians, let's check Tasmanian Devil and Jack the Lantern. Tasmanian Devil: "In emergencies, grows to great size, increasing his strength and speed." Do they mean he can only transform in emergencies or that he's responsible with his powers and he never uses them in non-emergency situations like when he fucks Extraño? Seems boring. "Jack O'Lantern has a magical lantern given to him by the fairy queen Maev." No way that's his real origin. Does Who's Who not do any research into the claims of the heroes it spotlights? Because there's no way Jack's Lantern isn't just some laser gun tarted up to look like a stupid bowling ball with eyes. The fairy queen story has got to be a lie. I bet Jack's not even Irish.
The Global Guardians was first called "The Global Guardians" in DC Comics Presents #46. I think I used to own that comic book but I gave away a bunch of my DC Comics Presents in a fit of madness a number of years ago. I did keep a few but there's no way I kept one starring these jerks.
How do I break it to my boner that this woman is dead?
Obviously the Justice League didn't kill Mermaid but they also should absolutely surrender so that things can be straightened out with minimal violence. But this is a comic book and that isn't going to happen, even if Blue Beetle agrees with me. Captain Atom, a military man, decides forcing the situation to devolve further out of control is the best tactic. And by "tactic," I mean "reactionary decision because he's been disrespected by Bialya for far too long and he believes all the propaganda fed to him by people wanting him to create a violent international incident." I think this is what is commonly referred to as a "Win/Win Situation." I mean, the Justice League are obviously going to lose in so many ways but it's a win for Captain Atom because he gets to punch people who won't respect his authority and it's a win for Jack and Sumaan because this will cause the international incident. I don't know what it means for Queen Bee and Bialya. Probably less of a win and more of a raging headache and a coup ending in her murder.
How are the Guardians going to do that? Do they have VHS footage of the old Justice League battling Amazo?
That was a pretty easy dig at the Global Guardians but what does Rising Sun expect, teeing up a comment like that?! At the team meeting later when they discuss how this battle went so wrong for them, somebody should suggest never putting "real heroes" and "Global Guardians" in the same sentence because it's just asking for the kind of lame, low hanging fruit retort I made in the caption. It's good advice. And I know good advice because I live by the best advice which is this: "Never say something will be worth it 'in the long run' to an old person."
Captain Atom being against surrender sadly did not mean he wanted to battle the Guardians. Instead, the Ex-Justice League leader orders a strategic retreat where Ice puts up a 0/7 Wall of Ice which falls immediately to Jack's fairy gift. But it gives the Ex-League enough time to escape the Guardians' meeting room. They wind up in a hall full of people in tanks being turned into the Queen's puppets. Weird place to keep the one room in the country that could destroy the Queen Bee by revealing her insane human rights violations. She probably just housed the lab in The Dome because the Guardians spend all of their time in a trance in the meeting hall. Putting your renters in a trance frees up a lot of space that would normally be used for bedrooms and bathrooms.
Captain Atom being against surrender sadly did not mean he wanted to battle the Guardians. Instead, the Ex-Justice League leader orders a strategic retreat where Ice puts up a 0/7 Wall of Ice which falls immediately to Jack's fairy gift. But it gives the Ex-League enough time to escape the Guardians' meeting room. They wind up in a hall full of people in tanks being turned into the Queen's puppets. Weird place to keep the one room in the country that could destroy the Queen Bee by revealing her insane human rights violations. She probably just housed the lab in The Dome because the Guardians spend all of their time in a trance in the meeting hall. Putting your renters in a trance frees up a lot of space that would normally be used for bedrooms and bathrooms.
For reasons beyond knowing, Owl-woman has just become my favorite character.
I always have a surfeit of choices when it comes to panels I can scan and I always choose the ones with the juicy asses. Some people might think I'm a creepy comic book reading asshole but other people know that's just a character I play on the Internet. I'm actually more into animated characters.
The Justice League arrives to drag their ex-employees out of Bialya by their ears, hopefully without any nosy Jimmy Olsens around to record it when the entire Dome collapses into the hidden sub-basement.
The Justice League arrives to drag their ex-employees out of Bialya by their ears, hopefully without any nosy Jimmy Olsens around to record it when the entire Dome collapses into the hidden sub-basement.
Lesson learned about places to keep your international war crimes hidden from the public eye, I guess.
The similarity between my speculation about Queen Bee's choice of locale for her puppet making and her "I'm fucked" monologue might make you think I had read ahead before writing my bit. But I assure you that this is just the kind of foresight a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader lives with every day. Usually I only need to read three or four pages of a comic book and then I can set it down because my mind is like Midnighter's except that where he can see every possibility in an upcoming battle and make all the right choices to end it quickly, I can see exactly what a writer is getting at in a dopey funny book. I'm also like Midnighter in that my ass, too, is a playground.
Here is an aside that's only an aside in my comic book reviews and wouldn't be an aside in a normal, rational, actual review of a comic book: I'm loving Chris Wozniak's art in this issue. For a "reviewer" reviewing a medium where art and words come together to create the experience, I give an unbelievably short amount of shrift to the art. It's incredible, really. As if I barely notice the art until Owl-woman's thick ass is staring me right in the face.
Rather than face an international trial for crimes against humanity, Queen Bee attempts to flee Bialya. It's too bad because she made sense as the leader of DC's obviously evil country. You don't have to wonder how the overall populace puts up with their country's constant evil if they're all brainwashed drones.
Back in New York, Inspector Camus confronts Herr Heimlich about his love of robots. I don't know what he's getting at but I suppose Heimlich is either a Nazi robot or Camus has footage of Heimlich fucking a vacuum cleaner. Either way, I think he's trying to blackmail him. Most people wouldn't want video of themselves fucking a vacuum cleaner out in the public but for me, that's just a great Tik Tok channel.
Cleaning up the devastation in Bialya, the Global Guardians learn that Doctor Mist was a robot (unless he was a vacuum cleaner), Jack the Lantern isn't the Jack they knew, and that mind control doesn't stop bowel movements. For the first time in a long time, they've got their own minds back. Mermaid's body is missing and judging by the way the Guardians are acting, they might not have any memory of her death. I mean, they seem sad and all but that might be because they've all shat themselves silly.
Here is an aside that's only an aside in my comic book reviews and wouldn't be an aside in a normal, rational, actual review of a comic book: I'm loving Chris Wozniak's art in this issue. For a "reviewer" reviewing a medium where art and words come together to create the experience, I give an unbelievably short amount of shrift to the art. It's incredible, really. As if I barely notice the art until Owl-woman's thick ass is staring me right in the face.
Rather than face an international trial for crimes against humanity, Queen Bee attempts to flee Bialya. It's too bad because she made sense as the leader of DC's obviously evil country. You don't have to wonder how the overall populace puts up with their country's constant evil if they're all brainwashed drones.
Back in New York, Inspector Camus confronts Herr Heimlich about his love of robots. I don't know what he's getting at but I suppose Heimlich is either a Nazi robot or Camus has footage of Heimlich fucking a vacuum cleaner. Either way, I think he's trying to blackmail him. Most people wouldn't want video of themselves fucking a vacuum cleaner out in the public but for me, that's just a great Tik Tok channel.
Cleaning up the devastation in Bialya, the Global Guardians learn that Doctor Mist was a robot (unless he was a vacuum cleaner), Jack the Lantern isn't the Jack they knew, and that mind control doesn't stop bowel movements. For the first time in a long time, they've got their own minds back. Mermaid's body is missing and judging by the way the Guardians are acting, they might not have any memory of her death. I mean, they seem sad and all but that might be because they've all shat themselves silly.
This is Ice suddenly realizing Breakdowns needs another plot thread.
Ice "flies" off screaming something about her family and her people being in trouble. I put "flies" in quotation marks because what she actually does is build an ice ramp and run up it. Is she going to run along an ice bridge all the way back to Scandinavia? How long is that going to fucking take? She doesn't even do that flying slide thing that Iceman loves to do. She just runs away up an ice bridge like she's actually going to get anywhere that way. Fire flies after her and you'll notice I didn't put that "flies" in quotation marks because Fire actually has useful powers.
Sumaan murders Queen Bee before she can fully make her escape and takes up the mantle as leader of Bialya. I'm sure the citizens of the country will eagerly accept him as their leader seeing as how he's so much more ruthless and underhanded as their old leader, his brother. It's an evil country! They don't have to brainwashed to love despots!
Sumaan murders Queen Bee before she can fully make her escape and takes up the mantle as leader of Bialya. I'm sure the citizens of the country will eagerly accept him as their leader seeing as how he's so much more ruthless and underhanded as their old leader, his brother. It's an evil country! They don't have to brainwashed to love despots!
See? Weary, confused, and evil.
Due to L-ron and Inspector Camus's uncovering Heimlich's association with Queen Bee and vacuum cleaners, he is removed from his leadership role with the League. Being that it was never revealed that he was a former Nazi, I'm sure he'll be back so that it can be revealed that he was a former Nazi. With his removal, I guess all the fired heroes have got their jobs back? But will Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light still be welcome on the team? They only appeared in one or two panels this issue so it's not looking good for them. Again.
Justice League America #55 Rating: B+. "Breakdowns" is so good that Giffen and DeMatteis should have begun their Justice League run with it! 'nuff said. Excelsior!
Justice League America #55 Rating: B+. "Breakdowns" is so good that Giffen and DeMatteis should have begun their Justice League run with it! 'nuff said. Excelsior!
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