Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Justice League Quarterly #8 (Autumn 1992)


A white man in a suit is to blame? Was that supposed to be difficult? Or simply rhetorical?

Every member of the team must be matching up with their equivalent on the other team. And if that's the case (which it is because that's how comic books work and I know all about comic books and how they work having read Scott McCloud's seminal work, Comic Books and How They Work), I'd be completely fucking offended if I was Lizard Cyclops. "Oh? A challenging match-up for me is Blue Beetle? Get the fuck out of here! A challenging match for Blue Beetle could be a toddler with a Chatter Telephone."

Some of you might be too young to know what a Chatter Telephone is but you'll know when I say one thing: Skinamarink. It's the image that made you think, "That fucking movie looks so creepy!" And then you went to see the movie and you were all, "WTF?! That silly phone was hardly in it at all! Also: WTF?!"

The advert on the inside cover of this issue is for Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and it's absolutely fucking disgusting.


Can people stop fiddling about with farm animals? Leave the poor critters alone!

I don't know what Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest has to do with fucking barnyard animals but I just went on eBay to purchase a copy because it sounds fun!

The issue begins with Maxwell Lord firing most of the members of the Conglomerate by stamping out their faces on a picture of the group with his trusty "⊘" stamp. It's his most used stamp! I wish I had one for family photo albums with family members I no longer speak with because while they say they love me, they still vote Republican. It's simpler than using my mother's method which I discovered on a trip back home a few years: cutting people's faces out of the pictures and then acting like she doesn't know what happened when I decide to flip through the album until I finally realize that all the missing faces are attached to people my mother now despises and then grow deathly quiet and begin to worry that she might have something mentally wrong with her and if she's dangerous so later that night I block the door with a standing fan so that I don't wind up reverse-Psychoed by her.

Also, Maxwell Lord's clock has a weird way of displaying 10:27 AM.


Maybe artist Rod Whigham should have attended more than just art classes?

Okay, Max didn't fire any of the Conglomerate because he has nothing to do with them. They're run by his ex-wife Claire ("Are you a virgin, Claire? Why don't you just answer the question, Claire?" (You might think I'm quoting The Breakfast Club but I'm actually quoting Timothy Olyphant in Go!)). Maxwell Lord has simply offered the heroes better jobs through various shell companies he owns until they've all quit. He did this because he hates his ex-wife and he can't just let her have her own thing now that she divorced him for being a gigantic prick mind-controlled by a narcissistic satellite. Also, he dreamed up a huge arena event where the Justice League were to engage in a cage match with The Conglomerate and Max Lord liked the idea of wasting everybody's time by ruining the event. There's something seriously wrong with this guy. It wouldn't surprise me if he wound up murdering somebody some day!

Since Claire has lost all of her heroes, she quickly puts out some Craigslist want ads and gets several super hero applicants and a serial killer.


If you can't tell which one is the serial killer, might I advise you to delete all of your dating apps?

Claire's about to call the whole thing off when she gets one last applicant: The Plagiarizer! I mean, Norman the Doorman! He can open portals to parallel dimensions, particularly a faux Marvel dimension, and hire heroes from that world! Like the guys on the cover who may have caused you to think, "Haven't I seen these guys before? Is that Wolverine with a bow? Is that, um, the fast one? And the fire one with boobs?" If only Scott McCloud had a chapter in Comic Books and How They Work on recognizing Marvel parodies!


"Gentlemen"?! What a weird way to begin negotiations when at least three of them are presenting as women!

I might be off on how many are presenting as women because I'm too woke to see gender. My main chat up line is, "If you have a vagina, may I put my pee pee into it? And if not, you must have a butthole, no?" Sometimes it works and then they expect me to piss in their vagina and I have to be all, "No, no! That was slang for my ding dong!" And then they're all, "Oh! I've never tried a Hostess snack cake in my cake hole!" And then I have to run out and buy some Ding Dongs to shove inside them and by that time, I'm really not interested in orgasming. I'm just hungry.

What I'm trying to say is, yes, I've eaten a ding dong out of a bung hole.

The charity event where some superheroes bash some other superheroes for loads of money begins the next night at 7:60 PM on the dot.


I didn't think Ice was legally allowed to ride ice slides around! I guess if they're already stealing Marvel ideas with the guest heroes, why not go full Huck Finn?

The Flash begins making fun of The Conglomerate and their powers and Blue Beetle joins in because his super power must be a lack of self-awareness. But to their surprise, Claire introduces the new Conglomerate: Flamestar! Iceman! Spider-man! Mr. Fantastic! Hawkeye but also Wolverine! Quicksilver! And, um, Metamorpho! Blue Beetle shits his pants which makes the fourth time this issue. I just didn't mention the other three times because I was embarrassed for him.


"The Crawlies" must be how they say "The Skitters" in the Midwest.

Blue Beetle and Elongated Man lose the first battle because Blue Beetle doesn't have any powers but Cyclopean Spider-man has the proportionate strength of a scarab and destroys their flying disc. Blue Beetle thinks about making a stink but doesn't want to call attention to his lack of powers so he's all, "Um, good job! Well done! I was just about to do that same thing!"

Next up, Quicksilver versus The Flash in a power walking competition.


Shouldn't this be taking place in a mall?

While Quicksilver and Flash speed walk around the stadium, the other members of their groups shoot baseballs at them out of shoulder launchers. That doesn't seem too dangerous! Imagine speed walking at the speed of sound when you're suddenly smashed in the face by a hard rubber ball coming from the opposite direction at, well, any speed at all, really! One of these assholes is about to die.


It was Wally! He's dead now!

Quicksilver vibrates in that special way that causes the space between his atoms to become so large that other, more tightly packed atoms can pass right through. I know, it doesn't sound feasible, does it? You'd think that both objects would have to vibrate for that to work. I'm no scientist but I think I just found a flaw in the physics in this comic book! But then again, being that I just admitted to not being a scientist, you might be able to see the flaw in my reasoning. But do I even need to run any experiments to prove that something vibrating super fast wouldn't allow something not vibrating super fast (or, let's get wild here, is also vibrating super fast!) to pass right through it? Can't I just motion at the world around me and at the entire remembered history of mankind and say, "When has something that's usually solid ever passed through something else that's usually solid? And remained intact, I mean! Because, sure, birds have passed through jet engines but that's not exactly what we're talking about here, jerkface!" I suppose the theory is that gases and liquids can pass through gaps in solid material so if the solid material's gaps were wide enough (oh man I'm getting horny), solid material could also pass through solid material! Although it's easier to make your own gaps in solid material if you need to pass solid material through it which is why civilization invented doors and windows.

Anyway, Wally either isn't smart enough or isn't talented enough to vibrate correctly and gets beaned in the head with a baseball. Unless it's beamed. Maybe it's both. He doesn't die because he was hit in one of his non-critical body parts.

Blue Beetle was the one to blast Wally in the head so it might actually have been intentional. It's caused the Justice League to lose the second event and Max Lord to accuse Claire of cheating somehow. This is how you know somebody has cheated. They believe that the only way somebody else could have beaten them is if they cheated as well. But then they can't come right out and state that claim so they have to whine in the media every day for four years looking like a bitch-ass baby. Then a bunch of fuckshit losers believe their propaganda while screaming about free speech because some thirteen year old online said they shouldn't use the word "retard" supported them while pretending to believe it was for free speech but actually they just wanted to call people retards without being seen for the assholes they were. Then when their "team" somehow won because half of the country are either too stupid to live or fascist dickwagons, they cheer the ending of free speech for the people they don't like even though they were all, "Free speech for everybody!" Man, I fucking hate the freedom lovers. They're the ones who never actually understand freedom and just want the freedom to end the freedom of other people. Suck a boar's tit, you fucking imbeciles and bullies. Find some joy. Read a book. Eat a fucking vegetable.

Back at Justice League Headquarters, Hal Jordan drops by to watch the event with Oberon. Oberon claims the Marvel Like-a-Looks have been cheating like crazy but I don't know where he gets that. Who wrote the rules for this fucking thing? So it's cheating if you vibrate while speed walking or smash the floating disc of a rival? It's cheating to actually use all of the super powers at your disposal? Did Blue Beetle add that rule to the games?

While watching the game, Hal Jordan seems to recognize one of the members of the other team and he seems pretty shocked by it.


Or maybe this guy's dick just flopped out on the live feed.

Being an expert in all things Qwardian unless he's an expert on all things Earth-3 because who can fucking follow DC history when you're reading old books and you have to keep asking, "Wait? Is this Post Zero-Hour? Is this Pre-Crisis? Is this before or after John Byrne said Superman couldn't breathe in space? Did I just make that up? Are we all just making everything up as we go along? Is civilization just a bunch of slippery rocks on the cereal box?!", Hal Jordan recognizes The Conglomerate for what they really are: Qwardians! Or Earth-3ians! He tells Oberon they're new members of what had been known as the Crime Syndicate. Oh, that's why I brought up Hal being an expert on Qwardians because none of The Conglomerate are recognizably members of the Crime Syndicate like Owl Man or coke-snorting Ultraman or Johnny Superfast or Superwonderwoman or Cock Ring. He just realizes they're Qwardians following in the footsteps of the Earth-3 Crime Syndicate who are from Qward I mean. In other words, they're super duper evil and probably about to kill the Justice League.

Once Hal realizes who these jerks are, he flies off to warn the Justice League that they're in a real life or death battle. But at the same time, the Little Crime Syndicate drops the act and begins trying to kill the Justice League. So while Hal doesn't need to warn them, he probably can save their asses since he's the only real member of the Justice League in this fight. You know what I mean. Booster Gold? Blue Beetle? Fire? Ice? Those are all Giffen/DeMatteis era members of the Justice League. Hardly serious heroes! Oh, plus I forgot Elongated Man because why would I want to remember him? The only real power members on the team are Power Girl and Wally West and they're too inexperienced and full of diet soda to be truly awesome.


This is for all the perverts who have a squish kink.

Realizing the Justice League can't beat The Crime Conglomerate, Max Lord enlists the help of Norman the Doorman to send the Conglomerate back to Earth-Qward. So he makes a door and Green Lantern (with the help of friendship! Like Sailor Moon!) pushes them all back through the door and it's over. Everybody thinks it was a fun match and Claire's corporate sponsors are thrilled by the publicity. Fuck. That means The Conglomerate will probably show up again in one of these fucking Quarterlies. And I don't mean a cool version like this Crime Syndicate version! They'll probably be back to their boring roster of Big Silent Guy and Vibe's Less Popular Cousin and Gypsy. Ugh!

The 1st back-up story stars Power Girl and Flash. That probably means it'll be eight pages of Wally West begging Power Girl to touch his dick. Unless it's seven pages of that and one page of Power Girl screaming, "Fine!" and then ripping it off.

Power Girl and The Flash attend some kind of society gala in London. I don't know what it's for. I read what it was for but then I turned the page and now I've forgotten what it's for and I'm not spending any extra time reading this comic book by turning back to the previous page. It's a good thing I don't mind living in ignorance about almost every aspect of life. Personally, I wish I was ignorant of even more than I currently am ignorant. Why couldn't I do as Robert Frost told me and stayed gold? Why did I have to lose my virginity to that hussy?! That hussy was Linnea Quigley and "losing my virginity" was jerking off to her dancing naked on a grave in Return of the Living Dead. I lost my virginity a lot when I got that movie on video tape. When I technically did lose my virginity, the women I was with were always, "Why do you only last exactly 48 seconds every time?" Because I had to learn to nut before the scene was over so I didn't have to stop and rewind! Duh!


"Sir. My tits are down here."

Some Vincent Price looking motherfucker with a stick the size of Big Ben up his backside give Wally a tongue lashing as they enter the party. He hates America and its superheroes and believes the Justice League has just brought trouble to London the way the Titans brought trouble to New York. He's not wrong so I think he might be the protagonist of this story.

Before the party really gets swinging, some woman named Rook in a bird costume drops through the glass ceiling with her five robot birdmen. See? Vincent Price was right! I hope he gives them an overly long glare and a really savage tut after this.

Rook slaps some brain scramblers onto the heads of Flash and Power Girl leaving them helpless like a baby.


Power Girl's words! I think that aphorism is ableist!

Babies are only helpless because we put them in cribs and diapers. If they weren't restrained in those ways, they could poop as they rolled or crawled around and they stick everything in their mouth so they'd eventually eat something nutritious. I suppose they'd be helpless if a herd of boars came charging through but what are the chances of that when you leave your baby in the yard to fend for itself? Like 10 percent?

Luckily some twat named Peter Cannon has also been invited to this party. He's actually the superhero Thunderbolt. I know what you're thinking: Who? You know, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt! Yeah, that's all I know about him too. I bet only huge comic book nerds bought his comic books. I don't know why he's suddenly starring in a Justice League book. I guess DC wanted more than just huge nerds to buy his comic books! This story should have been called, "Hey, Comic Book Fans! There's a Hero Named Thunderbolt! He's Super Cool! You Should Read His Comic Books!" Instead they named it "Ballroom Blitz" because that name hadn't been overused by 1992 at all!

Thunderbolt also gets a scrambler jammed on his head but he doesn't immediately start shitting all over babies and their flaws. Power Girl warns him the jammer cuts out super powers but he's all, "But I don't have any super powers!" And every reader who was beginning to think Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt was kind of cool just let out a long, "Awwww! Boring!"


He's lying. If that were true, he'd be Green Lantern instead of Hal Jordan.

I don't know why Peter Cannon has cum all over his face in those panels. Maybe that's what happens when you fully exert your will. Your face has an orgasm.

Power Girl and Flash, being without any will what-so-ever, could not take the jammers off themselves. So Thunderbolt removes their jammers so that they can save the day, having super powers and all. I don't even know why anybody without super powers would bother with a costume. Stupid Thunderbolt. Moronic Blue Beetle. Idiotic Batman.

Rook gets away because she's probably going to be one of Thunderbolt's arch enemies in his new monthly comic debuting next month! Fuck! I was tricked into reading a fucking advertisement! Do I even dare to read the next two stories?! What if I get tricked again? I'll be the laughingstock of the Internet! Better to just not believe anything at all and become a super cynical piece of shit who argues about everything with anybody I can find!

In the third story, Fire spends eight pages trying to get Max laid. She finally resorts to setting him up with his first wife and it goes well. Or poorly. I don't know. It doesn't fucking matter. It was a pre-Breakdowns flashback! Who the fuck cares about Maxwell Lord to care enough about his sex life anyway?

The last story stars the Global Guardians so I just re-read the Maxwell Lord getting laid story. It wasn't that good but it was probably better than another Global Guardians story. Why do the Justice League Quarterly team keep trying to make the Global Guardians happen?! Things were going so well when they'd lost three members but now all their members have come back to life! They're moving backwards! Maybe the Mermaid hasn't come back to life. I don't remember. But then again that might be what this story I'm definitely not going to read is about. Guess we'll never know!

Justice League Quarterly #8 Rating: Jesus fucking Christ I can't believe I keep reading these things! Just two more. Keep repeating to yourself: Just two more. Just two more. It's almost over, buddy! We're gonna get through this!

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