Justice League Europe #36 (March 1992)

Max Lord looks insane.

Oberon might be saying, "Hey Max! Everybody is leaving!" Or he could be saying, "Okay Max, Justice League America have left now. Let's get Justice League Europe's shot now! Metamorpho, you idiot, get back here!" Oberon doesn't yell at Crimson Fox to come back because she'd scratch his eyes out if he raised his voice to her. And nobody wants Ralph around anyway.

It's also possible that's a wax figure of Max Lord that the teams were admiring and then Blue Beetle farted.

This is the final part of "Breakdowns" (as you can see by the cover) but it's the first issue that Giffen and DeMatteis had no hand in writing. This one is all convicted sex pest, Gerard Jones! He does not pull the name of this story from "The Second Coming." Unless "Breakdowns: Postscript" is one of the lines I don't remember. I don't have the whole thing memorized like all the nerds who have glamourized that particular poem of his. I get that it's a cool poem with a big monster in it and a couple of lines that can be interpreted in your favor even when you're the passionately intense worst person.

Speaking of the worst person, here's a scan of part of Maxwell Lord's body by the current artist Chris Wozniak.

Calm down, ladies. It's just his finger. I think.

I just noticed there are online reviews of Yeats' "The Second Coming." Christ, the Internet is so fucking broken. "Five stars! Would read again. Makes it quite apparent that something is coming for a second time! Scary!"

I know I sound super old when I rant about this shit but the Internet has fucking sucked for so many years now. Like five sites that people visit (all social media shit), search engines that don't fucking work, and sites having to be designed for people looking at them on the tiniest screen imaginable. Everybody is using the greatest technology of our lives incorrectly. They "keep in touch" with friends via Facebook, they "share their lives" on Instagram, they get their "news" on Twitter, bully "celebrities" on tumblr, and "jerk off" to Pornhub. I don't know why I put "jerk off" in quotes. It just needed to fit the pattern, I guess. The way we're all supposed to be using the Internet is checking in on ten to twenty of our favorite websites on a daily basis to see if they've updated and then emailing our friends pictures of goatse via Squirrelmail. And those websites were pretty fucking specific! Bad Candy. Fat Chicks in Party Hats. Brunching Shuttlecocks's Ratings. Future Retard. Photoshop Phridays. Rotten.com.

Ugh. You know what? I never went to Rotten.com. My existentiality couldn't take it, man. I used to read random entries on Encyclopedia Dramatica (basically an Edgelord Wikipedia) until I stumbled across a gif of that guy who shot himself in the head over Björk (at least I think it was that guy). I won't describe what the gif showed although I'm assuming it was a low caliber pistol because blood and brains were not part of the gif. But I watched that gif run over and over again I don't know how many times, feeling sicker and sicker but unable to look away, somehow trying to capture the moment in his face where he simply stopped existing. tumblr likes to have a good laugh over online cursed images but they're usually talking about a paused scene in Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers where Dale's tail looks like a penis for a moment or some Make Me Cute photoshop creepy pasta. But I have seen a cursed image and it haunts me still to this day. I absolutely stopped reading Encyclopedia Dramatica after that. Like I said: my existentiality couldn't fucking take that shit.

Guy Gardner, General Glory, and Kilowog all quit the League. That leaves Max Lord with the lowest power levels the League has ever had (excluding that time Aquaman was leader and got half the team killed (or was J'onn leader then? Nah, better to blame it on Aquaman)). But they have one secret member nobody knows about yet!

Aww! Little L'ron has learned how to feel!

By the end of Max's little meeting to catch up with his team, he has nearly no team left. Despero in L'ron's body looks like his heavy hitter at this point as Metamorpho and Rocket Red also quit.

"Happily married man ogles big-breasted woman's back left shoulder."

I don't get the artistic choice in the above panel. Why have Elongated Man act like a teenage boy seeing a naked pair of tits for the first time in his life? Why does he look even more insane than Max Lord on the cover? Power Girl is fully clothed and even if she wasn't, Ralph is checking out the back of her head. The only part I understand is Wally looking on admirably at Ralph trying to piss off Sue.

It's also possible that's a wax figure of Max Lord that the teams are admiring and Power Girl just farted. Oh, and Ralph, with his twitchy nose, loves sniffing farts. You knew that, right?

Power Girl also decides to quit, saying that she doesn't want to work with a bunch of cowardly quitters. Yes, some of the team point out the contradiction but none of them go into depth about how stupid her statement sounds being that she won't be working with the people who quit. Her brain must be rattled from not knowing if she's Atlantean or Kryptonian. Or is that just my brain? I imagine her real reason for quitting, seeing as how she nearly cracks Wally's skull with the can of Diet Mr. Pibb she's drinking, that she's just sick and tired of these men trying to get a glimpse of her underwater treats. Unless they're outer space treats. Where were we on the status of Kara's origin in March of 1992?!

Max continues to try to convince everybody not to make like a rat on a sinking ship. Why are rats the go-to creature we see as smart enough to flee a sinking ship? Shouldn't the go-to creature be humans?! And isn't that saying used to indicate a kind of cowardice or disloyalty? Who wouldn't flee a sinking ship?! Who are these dumbasses who think something like that is noble?!

I'm glad Max points out how the Justice League were the only reason these threats attacked but I'm disappointed he credits their defeat as teamwork. It was all L'ron, Kilowog, and Silver Sorceress, baby!

Finally, Catherine, not having Captain Atom to flirt with anymore, fakes a call from the United Nations and tells Max she's been re-assigned. The only members left are Blue Jay, Fire, Ice, Beetle, Crimson Fox, The Flash, The Elongated Man, and Sue Dibny. Not a lot of power there. Although if I were to act like a major comic book nerd, I could probably wax philosophic about how The Flash is the only member of the team needed to stop most super villains. But only if you treat his super power as the nearly god-like power it is. Unless his opponent was also a speedster, The Flash should be able to best any other person on the planet. And if his opponent is a speedster then it would basically amount to a fist fight in a parking lot. Just one that's over really fast to all the bar patrons that have spilled outside to watch. Also, if The Flash were the only member, this comic book would be called The Flash and I wouldn't buy it.

Oh wait. Crimson Fox quits as well. She fakes her reason too! She says it's because she won't work under a boorish American male (good reason!) but really it's because of the exact reason I made up for Catherine leaving: Captain Atom isn't around to fuck! Holy shit! Is it bad that I think like a convicted sex pest writer?!

Crimson Fox sounds like Aqualad! If she doesn't get wet every 24 hours, she'll die!

Get it? Crimson Fox's suit is as brown as the Silver Sorceress's suit! I guess the editors were tired of receiving letters complaining about characters with colors in their names that don't match their superhero outfits. But now they can't complain at all! Because this whole colorblind thing is such infallible logic! Ha ha! Nerds! Get fucked!

Sue convinces Max to let everybody take lunch so they can think through their decisions to stay with the League. While Sue and Ralph go off to fuck in the kitchen, Hate Robot L'ron stomps off to find some Justice League members to kill. I hope he begins in the kitchen! Not because I want Sue to die. I just want him to walk in just in time to see her slipping her panties off! please please please please please

L'ron doesn't walk in on Ralph and Sue but Wally West does! Unfortunately, being The Flash, he walks in way too soon while Sue and Ralph are still fully clothed. They let Wally know that they're quitting the League as well because they have a mini-series to star in! That prompts The Flash to quit as well! He says it's because he's tired of being the butt of everybody's jokes and playing into the "Mister Sweaty-Palmed Sex Fiend" game. But I don't know how much he was playing. I haven't seen any evidence that Wally isn't a sweaty-palmed sex fiend. But then I never read his monthly comic book. Maybe he was respected more by the writer of that series.

How did Blue Beetle lose fifty pounds between comics?! He was getting called fat by Tanya just a few hours ago!

The creature yelling, "JUSTICE LEAGUE!", is L'ron. I mean Despero. He promptly kicks the new and not-at-all-improved Justice League's asses in just a couple of pages.

It's not Sue slightly raising her skirt so she can tug her panties down to her ankles as Ralph's rubber dick grows fat but it's a nice surprise!

Let's see . . . in March of 1992, I was 20 years old? Yeah, I'm sure I jerked off to this. I didn't find any pubes stuck between the pages though. So maybe I wasn't as gross as I like to imagine!

I'm not saying jerking off is gross! I'm saying the frequency off with which I used to jerk, the places I off in which I used to jerk, and the subject matter off to which I used to jerk were gross! Man, that mangled grammar is really turning me on! BRB!

Despero'ron defeats the Justice League but then is blasted apart by a duck hunter wandering around outside the Justice League Cave. That ridiculousness is enough to send even Blue Beetle to the unemployment line. He can only be upstaged by so many people before he realizes he has no dignity. And being bested by a duck hunter seems to be that final upstaging.

After Beetle quits, Blue Jay follows his lead. And then Fire and Ice. So I guess that's why the cover showed just Max and Oberon! That's it! They're the new Jusice League! And yet I kept buying this for 40 more issues?! Egads, I was dumb!

Justice League Europe #36 Rating: A. It was fun! I liked seeing everybody lose hope, one by one realizing that they never really did save the world in any meaningful manner because every threat was actually caused by something they did (or their mere existence). The entire team has walked away and yet the next issue of Justice League America shows the new League! Where do I go to read about the formation of the new group?! Oh! It's a comic book I've already reviewed: Justice League Spectacular #1! I guess I'll re-read that before I continue on to JLA Issue #61. You should go read the review of that one too! You just passed over the link!