Green Lantern #30 (Early October 1992)

No idea how I wound up with a newstand edition of this issue.

I bet the direct market edition of this comic book kept Gorilla Grodd's penis on the cover. In this one, all you get is the monkey between his legs wanking him off.

Is "Gorilla Warfare" the most overused comic book title? It's got to be a toss-up between that and "Present Tense."

I can't wait to find out how a telepathic monkey managed to defeat a man with the universe's most powerful weapon and a hero so fast that he should never, ever have an issue defeating any villain ever. How do you fuck up being faster than everything? Oh wait! I know! I bet The Flash gets bested by that whole "nothing is faster than the speed of thought" garbage!

According to my Blogspot Labeler, this is the first comic book I've read in the last 13 years that Mark Waid had anything to do with. How is that possible?

The first thing to note as this story gets started is that Hal Jordan has recently taken over as the leader of Justice League Europe. Does that mean he's already fucked Crimson Fox and Sue Dibny? And also the other Crimson Fox, probably. Wally never had sex with any of them because he's a gigantic sex pest who tried so hard to get into Power Girl's onesie that Catherine Cobert had to invent Human Resources. If Human Resources existed long before the early '90s, just remember that I was talking about the DC Universe timeline, you nerd.

See?! I hadn't even read that panel when I wrote the last paragraph!

Oh, never mind. I just assumed Catherine was yelling at Wally. Easy mistake to make.

Crimson Fox sniffs out Hal Jordan immediately and begins sending the least subtle signals that she wants to fuck him. Wally West gets jealous that none of the women in the League ever hit on him. I guess he's forgotten that he has red hair.

I kid! I kid! Don't get annoyed at me, my friendly neighborhood tomato goblins! The main reason nobody flirts with Wally is because he's a gross asshole.

Meanwhile, in Gorilla City:

Wait. I didn't know Gorilla City was in France!

I kid again! Of course I knew it was in France! Isn't Monsieur Mallah from there?!

Do I have to keep telling the readers when I'm joking? Or should I just let them all believe I'm an ignorant piece of shit? Like that Anonymous guy who used to chastise me for praising any comic book with Lobo in it. He thought I was a major dipshit! But then I thought he was pretty fucking dumb myself! Who brings a logical debate into this fucking funhouse mirror of comic book review sites?! Anybody who tries to have a logical debate with me has already fucking lost. There's no logic to be found here, Ms. Frizzle.

"Oh, oui oui! Le petit ignorants from other countries cannot hold la bougie to our intelligence incroyable!"

These apes drinking espresso, smoking cigarettes, and discussing philosophy are all admirers of Grodd who currently languishes in a Gorilla City prison. Probably because, like Ozzy Osbourne, he was repeatedly accused of corruption of the young. But not for long! Grodd receives another chess move in the mail from Hector Hammond. But it's not really chess moves he's been sending; it's a secret code! And the message Grodd receives this day is the one he's been waiting for. He telepathically lets his followers know its Les Mis time! Except with, you know, a successful revolution, he hopes.

And playing the part of Elvis: Hal Jordan! (Not pictured)

Solovar, King Ape of Gorilla City (in France), radios The Flash for help because The Flash has helped him in the past. No other humans ever helped him. They just went, "Ew. Gross. A talking ape." Solovar doesn't realize that Barry Allen was vaporized in Crisis on Infinite Earths. But luckily, the radio that Barry used to communicate with Solovar has been stored in The Flash Museum in Central City (unless it's Keystone City) and maintained in working condition and plugged in this entire time. The curator of the museum hears the message and decides that maybe the new Flash should hear it.

The Flash is too busy to answer his phone because he's saving kids or something in Flash #69 (which we'll get to in a day or two). So the message, which seems to be super important since it came from a gross talking scientist ape, gets bounced around until it finally arrives at Justice League Europe headquarters where Sue Dibny is all, "Fuck! We just moved in! Can't I get a moment's peace and quiet to jerk off to the memory of Captain Atom before all hell breaks loose?!" Ralph begins to cry silently upon hearing his wife say that because of course his head and eight feet of his neck were eavesdropping behind her like some Lovecraftian giraffe.

Hal Jordan also eavesdrops on Sue and the message and realizes that the radio call could have been about Barry's nemesis, Grodd. So he rushes off to check it out as tribute to his old, dead friend.

Grodd's plan and his supposed evolved ape army's ape reaction.

Grodd had better hope that 3rd meteorite still has some evolution juice because his soldiers still got too much ape stink on them.

Green Lantern investigates the ape call to Barry Allen and winds up being taken by a government agent to an bunker underneath the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. It's the office of the Bureau of Amplified Animals where, as the agent says, "beasts who've been given unnaturally high intellects — either through sports of nature or scientific experiments — have been gathered to help mankind." Gathered to help? Or forced? If these animals actually had any intelligence, the last thing they would be doing would be helping mankind! But maybe they're working for animals from the inside. The guy running this organization? A chimp named Detective Bobo. Later people would often refer to him as Detective Chimp which seems disrespectful until you realize his full name is Bobo T. Chimpanzee (the "T" presumably stands for "The"). He refuses to speak in this story, possibly choosing to hide that ability from the humans he doesn't quite trust. Instead he speaks telepathically.

Detective Bobo wants Green Lantern to find Gorilla City and stop whatever nonsense Grodd is up to. But Hal won't be going on the mission alone. He'll have a partner familiar with Gorilla City.

Does Rex look kind of sexy to anybody else? Is it just me?

Green Lantern, Rex, and some military officer who amplifies Rex's telepathic ability fly to Africa to find Gorilla City. They land in the jungle and not surprisingly find evidence of large apes in the area. What is surprising is that the apes seem to have blasted a bunch of shit with laser guns. Hal's finally buying into the weirdness of this mission when The Flash comes running out of the jungle. How'd he get here?! We'll find out in Flash #69!

Green Lantern #30 Rating: B+. Detective Chimp and Rex the Wonder Dog make an appearance so how can this issue be bad? Not much really happens though which is my excuse for not giving it an A although the real reason that it didn't get an A is that my ratings don't actually mean anything. They're a gut feeling that I vomit out when I'm done to make these seem like legitimate reviews instead of me rambling and making vulgar remarks about superheroes. The theme to this issue seems to be something about how even with intelligence, humans can still be fucking animals. Not literally fucking animals. I mean, Hal might fuck a fox later but that's not exactly the same thing. As part of that theme, the reader is asked to contemplate how various animals act when given intelligence by comparing Grodd to Bobo and Rex to Wally. Or maybe it's just a fun throwback to Golden and Silver age silliness. Sometimes a talking gorilla is simply a talking gorilla.