tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83722379771021972362024-03-28T16:36:01.461-07:00Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.comBlogger4487125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-62627252995358176732024-03-27T15:29:00.000-07:002024-03-27T15:29:44.993-07:00Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #3 (February 1990)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED3.jpg" /><br />
<b>Beaten by yet another sign?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Two issues later and Hal Jordan has no idea how to use the most powerful weapon in the universe. What the fuck is wrong with the Guardians? Are they fucking masochists? It's the most powerful weapon in the universe and it can't download a user's manual into the brain of whoever it takes on as its new host? And, yes, the ring bearer is a host. This ring is a fucking parasite. It uses up the host and then flies off to find a new one. Doesn't even help them understand its power. Just protects them as best it can which isn't total because, well, there are always more assholes full of bravado!<br /><br />
This issue begins with Hal Jordan being choked by the adorable massive yellow space kitten while thinking, "What happened to my power?" I think he means the power given to him by the ring and not the power over his own life destroyed by alcohol and self-pity. It's a really dumb question to ask because one of the few things Abin Sur told him was that he had to occasionally charge the ring via a transdimensional lantern. Abin Sur's entire death speech was "You were chosen because you are fearless, just slightly closer to me than Guy Gardner, and you have to charge the ring by shoving your fist up a lantern that's stored in a pocket dimension on some poor planet of aliens who don't realize that once the lanterns and their juice are taken away, their entire society will collapse." No wait. Abin Sur told Hal far less than that. Some of that was my editorial on the encounter. Oops!<br /><br />
This issue is called "The Ring" because the adorable massive yellow space kitten wants Hal to get in the ring and fight him.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED3a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh no. I want to fuck the massive yellow space kitten.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The massive yellow space kitten nearly pops Hal's head off with its thumb before the ring completely powers down and Hal winds up in his street clothes. This fools the massive yellow space kitten into thinking Hal isn't the Green Lantern at all because massive yellow space kittens have no object permanence. Hal basically disappears in the grip of the massive yellow, and adorable, space kitten. It loses interest in its prey, the way massive yellow space kittens are wont to do, tosses him into a wall, and flies away to find Green Lantern.<br /><br />
Hal Jordan steps over the dying cops and walks away from his jail cell. I'm assuming that's legal, right? He didn't intend to break out of prison. It was just a lucky break, like winning the lottery. So technically he's free to do what he wants and what Hal wants to do is not help out the dying cops at all. Good on you, Hal!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED3b.jpg" /><br />
<b>I'm not saying Hal just apathetically stepped over this dying cop. Trigonometry and geometry are saying it.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hal decides he should head back to the hospital so he, once again, hitchhikes. He doesn't have the ring to protect him from being arrested again and he doesn't panic when the driver approaches a police roadblock. Hal doesn't seem worried in the least that the police might be looking for him. I guess he believes he did his time. He did the right thing, turned himself in, and then the cop failed to keep him locked up. Is that his problem? If I were twelve, I'd probably view the world that way. But the confidence it takes to be a grown ass adult and think, "I don't have to hang around still being arrested once the jail is destroyed. I'm a free man! No worries at all anymore!" That's why Hal Jordan is fearless.<br /><br />
Hal discovers that the hospital has been completely destroyed. Andy and everybody within it are dead. Killed by some massive yellow space kitten which Hal couldn't stop. Looks like somebody just learned a little something about power and responsibility! Although Hal didn't have the power to stop the space cat so harbored no responsibility to stop it. Maybe this is more a lesson about with great power comes the need to fucking listen to the guy giving you that great power, especially the bit about charging your stupid power ring.<br /><br />
Ferris Aircraft has also been destroyed. The massive yellow space kitten seems to have destroyed every place where Hal used the ring. Well, at least that fucking yellow sign was finally destroyed. Hal realizes the only way to stop the massive yellow space kitten is to turn himself in to it. Is that going to be Hal's go-to move? Turning himself in to authority/massive yellow space kittens?<br /><br />
Hal finally remembers Abin Sur's words about charging the battery. He heads back to the crashed ship and finds the lantern into which he immediately sticks his fist. After it charges, the ring finally begins talking to him. Maybe Hal needed to fist the lantern so it could calibrate with his Earth language. Hal learns the ring must be charged every 24 hours and that the massive yellow space kitten is named Legion and that it has killed four Green Lanterns so far. Probably by accident. You know how reckless kittens can be playing with their prey. Also because Legion wants a Green Lantern alive so that it can take them to Oa.<br /><br />
The ring plays Hal a video (or 8mm?) of Abin Sur's death at the hands of Legion. The movie contains several clues that the green cannot affect yellow, like when Abin refuses to use the ring against Legion and when Abin finally does, the light just bounces off of Legion and when Legion says, "Have you forgotten what color I am? Yellow! I'm yellow! Ha ha! You can't hurt me due to my color which is yellow!" I'm sure Hal picks up on at least one of those clues because when Legion attacks him in the middle of the movie, Hal thinks, "I wish I had a nuclear bomb right now!" And guess what? He does have one! The ship's engine runs on nuclear fission! The ring leads him right to it and Hal, assessing the situation, decides it's okay to set off a nuke to kill Legion. He is in the middle of the desert, after all. He also figures he's going to die but he doesn't care because he's lost everything he cares about already, like his power and his dignity and his control over alcohol consumption.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED3c.jpg" /><br />
<b>To a kid growing up in the '70s, this was their third biggest fear. Right after quicksand and killer bees.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><b>Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #3 Rating: B+.</b> Hal's paralyzed friend Andy's death got me thinking a bit about the death of minor characters to add drama to the main character's life. Gail Simone created a whole movement around this trope called "Women in Refrigerators." While that was actually more about the hero's love interests being killed or maimed to increase the drama and angst of the hero, it's mostly the same idea with what happened to Andy here, and, of course the original "woman in a fridge," Spidey's Uncle Ben. Minor characters die to teach the main character a lesson. It happens but my theory is that it happens more often for a way less radical reason than teaching the hero something, or creating some kind of intense drama for the hero. My theory is that the writer suddenly realizes, "I don't want to have to keep writing this awful nobody of a character! Let me just bring a hospital down on their heads and be done with them!" Gail Simone was looking at the problem from an artist and socially conscious person's view; I'm looking at it from a lazy writer's point of view! Who wants to read more about paralyzed Andy?! So boring! Either give him a ring and make him exciting or get him the fuck on the bus outta this comic book! I also don't want to ever again hear from Hal's brother, Hal's brother's girlfriend, Biff, or even Carol Ferris! Get thee to Oa already, Hal, so I can be introduced to some actually interesting characters!<br /><br />
Man, I'm really disappointing myself with this conclusion! I've never been more anti-Kurt Vonnegut in my life! I should appreciate the minor characters. If I were my own child, I would kick me out of my house.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-18671733025341813492024-03-26T19:38:00.000-07:002024-03-26T19:38:39.675-07:00Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #2 (January 1990)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2.jpg" /><br />
<b>This cover is a representational metaphor of the ending of the last issue. Please do not take it literally.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I'm not totally convinced that Hal Jordan didn't kill himself at the end of the first issue. He flew full force into a yellow billboard which the ring could not protect him from. Can a person survive that? Does the ring have medical capabilities that can keep Hal alive and regenerate any damage provided he did not die on impact? Perhaps the ring protected him from smashing into the wood underneath the layer covered in yellow paint so that he only received a nasty concussion instead of a shattered skull? What I'm saying is that Hal Jordan doesn't know how his ring works and neither do I.<br /><br />
This issue begins while Hal lies unconscious in the desert sands having very nearly killed himself. He dreams about being an experimental test pilot just like his dad. He dreams of finding himself in a crashing plane just like his dad. The first thing he says, because he's Hal Jordan, is "This isn't my fault." We know, Hal. We know. Nothing is ever your fault. You're the most responsible man in the galaxy. You're the strongest willed with the least fear. You're not pining for Carol Ferris. You're not a complete loser at your place of employment. And you totally don't have a drinking problem. Those are all things that other people, who don't know you very well, accuse you of. You are the fucking man. You are Hal Jordan, Green Lantern!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2a.jpg" /><br />
<b>So heroic.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hal tries to work out why he couldn't defeat a billboard but between the concussion and being absolutely ignorant on his new jewelry, he can't figure it out. He decides maybe he'd better not fly for now and instead hitchhikes back to town.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2b.jpg" /><br />
<b>I wish this car had been yellow.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">If the driver of this car hadn't been wearing his seatbelt, it wouldn't have been Hal's fault that he smashed his ribcage against the steering wheel and flew through the windshield, his decapitated head slowly rolling to a stop at the feet of a bewildered young coyote because remember when we learned earlier that nothing is Hal Jordan's fault? Reading comprehension matters, kids! Especially when you make up as much shit as I do while reading.<br /><br />
Hal gets a ride to the hospital where he bathes his friend Andy in the light of his ring to try to heal his paralysis. If the ring rots human flesh at large levels of exposure or creates cancerous tumors in soft organs, Hal wouldn't be responsible. How could Hal have known? Not his fault. Stop trying to make everything his fault. Especially all the stuff that definitely hasn't happened in this comic book but I keep speculating could have happened. Sure, Hal's a careless, selfish prick but, somehow, through the luck of the draw, he's not a murderer and a cancer causer. At least I don't think he's the latter one. Has anybody followed up on Andy thirty years on?<br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2c.jpg" /><br />
<b>"This ring couldn't protect me from a billboard but I thought it might be omnipotent!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The reason John Stewart exists as a Green Lantern was because Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil were all, "What if there were a smart Green Lantern from Earth?"<br /><br />
The cops are looking for Hal because he nearly killed a bunch of people while driving drunk. So Hal decides his Green Lantern costume needs a mask. Ol' Johnny Law be way too stupid to find him now! He barely escapes from the cops by turning incorporeal and flying through the hospital window. He then decides to float in the air for awhile blaming that stupid sign.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hal, you big dumb moronic idiot. The sign isn't a sign! It's a sign! You know, a signifier! Of something deeper that's wrong with you!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The metaphor encapsulating the reason Hal's life has fallen apart couldn't be any more literal. He's just too stubborn to see it. While he's pitying himself, head in the clouds, an experimental Ferris aircraft passes him by. Life is making this shit way too easy for Hal. Why can't the metaphors, signs, allegories, and analogies in my life be this easy to understand? Instead, I have to smell something rotting, move the furniture, discover the dead mouse my cat dropped behind the couch who knows how long ago, and link all of that to my fatherly abandonment issues! But Hal gets a fucking sign as a sign that his life is falling apart and a plane he should be flying flying past him and leaving him behind. Who needs the ability to reflect on one's self when life just puts it all out there for you?<br /><br />
Hal almost causes the pilot to crash his jet by appearing outside his cockpit. Hal uses the ring to save the plane and land it safely after which he expects to be greeted as a huge hero. He's not. The pilot calls him out on almost making him crash and Hal, upset that nobody sees the hero he knows he is, and really fucking angry at that Goddamned sign, flies away saying, "To hell with you. To hell with this." That leaves everybody on the ground confused because nobody knew it was Hal Jordan so they have no idea why he's acting so pissy and entitled. If they knew it was Hal, they would all be going, "Oh, yeah. Him. What a jerk."<br /><br />
Meanwhile on the moon, a massive yellow space kitty dreams about crushing Abin Sur into kitty litter.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2e.jpg" /><br />
<b>This guy is cute here. Later he looks more like Venom, for some reason, probably editorial saying, "Why the fuck is this alien so cute, you assholes?!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I realized I haven't mentioned that this issue was not written by Priest. It's written by Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones. I had to check the cover several times before I was convinced this was definitely the second issue of this series. Why did Priest leave after one issue? I feel like he dropped his pen after writing the bit with Hal slamming into the yellow sign and was all, "Owsley out!" Maybe he meant for Hal to die in his story! You know how every writer needs to attempt the "last" Batman story? Maybe Priest was writing the "last" Green Lantern story (while also being the first)? It makes sense! If there's any character out there who would be reckless enough to die immediately after donning the superhero mantle, it'd be Hal Jordan! He was a test pilot, after all. And a failed one to boot, at least in Priest's story. Fuck. I really love <i>Emerald Dawn</i> #1 in that light!<br /><br />
Hal decides to own up to his responsibilities and turns himself into the police. He shoves the ring way up into his prison wallet and walks into the police station to be arrested.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2f.jpg" /><br />
<b>This is Hal when he realizes he should have shoved the ring into his prison wallet. Instead the cops took it with his other personal possessions.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The next issue begins, "Five years later." No, just kidding! It's just a DWI! That's basically a slap on the wrist! He could have killed people and he'd be out in no time. See, the thing about laws and what kind of prison time you'll do for breaking those laws is that they're adjusted by the possibility of a senator or congressperson being arrested under those laws. So most congresspersons know they're never going to sell crack on the streets. So if somebody breaks that law, they can throw the book at them. But congresspersons also know that there's a pretty decent chance that one day a cop who doesn't give a shit about the congressperson's position of power will arrest them for driving drunk. So a DWI needs to be easy to get out of through wheeling and dealing and, probably, bribes. But even if the congressperson has the worst luck ever with a punishing judge and a rabid prosecutor, they still won't serve that much prison time. And it definitely won't be hard time! Fucking assholes.<br /><br />
Also, there's still nine pages left. Hal will probably get broken out by the massive yellow cat alien. And his ring, although he doesn't know it yet, pretty much has a mind of its own. It'll find him when he needs it.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Is Gerard Jones writing some sexist pig cops or do these sexist pig cops reflect Gerard Jones' beliefs? You know what? It doesn't matter. Because Gerard Jones is a fucking disgusting human being.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Just as these cops are really settling into their whining about how women don't want to fuck them, the massive yellow cat alien breaks through the wall. Hopefully it just killed these two guys. They sound like those guys on Twitter who are always confessing about how bad they are at sex. "From my experience, women hate sex." "I've had loads of women and they never get wet down there. It's a myth!" "I just cum in my pants immediately when a woman looks at me because women can't cum so why should I bother?" I think two of those tweets were from Ben Shapiro.<br /><br />
The ring does not fly to Hal's finger. Maybe it hates him. He has to run out of the smashed cell and dig through the evidence locker to get it. Not that it helps him. I thought maybe he'd learn that his ring doesn't work against yellow here. But instead, the ring just decides, "Fuck it. That guy is too yellow. I ain't doing shit."<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED2h.jpg" /><br />
<b>I guess it could be out of juice too.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The massive yellow kitty cat grabs Hal in its paw and demands Hal take him to Oa so he can hiss at the Guardians. Hal just says, "Duh?"<br /><br />
<b>Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #2 Rating: A.</b> Solid characterization of Hal Jordan, really laying into his strengths and weaknesses as a human being. My guess is that this is the first <i>Green Lantern</i> title I ever read which probably explains why I think of Hal the way I do. His human flaws probably eventually get filed down a bit so that he doesn't seem like such a stubborn jerk. I do love that, to help build the heroic side of his personality, Jones and Giffen allowed him to turn himself in and take responsibility. Maybe he did so because he knew the cops, ultimately, couldn't contain him. But I also think he's showing remorse and wants to move on. He definitely doesn't want to live a life where this incident constantly haunts him. If Hal Jordan didn't take responsibility, he'd probably wind up being MAGA. My theory is that most of the people who go all-in on MAGA have some dark, horrible secret that they've never actually dealt with and they know that if it ever comes out, everybody will see them for the horrible person they truly are. Which is crazy because if they'd only dealt with it, they actually could move on from it. Instead, they want to live in a world where they get to bully anybody whom they know would see them for the criminal (or maybe just utter asshole) they truly are if their past were to see the light of day. Trump, somehow, makes them feel exonerated from ever having to redeem themselves of their pasts. He's their garbage Jesus. Oh man, I haven't really read many modern comics. Guy Gardner isn't MAGA, is he?!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-61362873430774778232024-03-22T15:25:00.000-07:002024-03-22T15:25:59.616-07:00Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1 (December 1989)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hal Jordan: Messiah figure.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I know the writing credits to this series say "James Owsley" but when I refer to the writer, I'll call him Christopher Priest, or just Priest. Just thought I'd start with that before it became confusing to those who didn't know he later changed his name. It's not me losing my mind! It's just me referring to the writer as he's chosen to be referred to. I will not be referring to M.D. Bright as "Doc" though. No, you know what? Maybe I will. It's easier than typing "M.D."<br /><br />
The comic book part of this blog began in 2011 with DC's New 52 because I thought I loved comic books. I own enough of them to fool anybody into believing that. But as I read more and more of The New 52, I began to realize that maybe I didn't love comics. At least not in the way most comic book fans love comics. Because if I truly loved comic books, wouldn't I remember all those comic books I read when I was younger? It's true, I did remember some. But not all and by no means even the majority of them. It was only then that I realized I loved stories, be they comic books or not, and they had to be well-written and intriguing and impactful. I began to notice commenters to my blog actually remembered so much more about the past comics they read, as if all the comics had been impactful, as if — gasp — they truly loved the medium. Perhaps I just loved some of the art and some of the stories and the fact they were about a buck a pop. I became disillusioned, depressed, and distraught about what I'd been doing with my life. And, so, I stopped purchasing new comics (again!). My mediocre love for the genre left me wondering why I was spending nearly five dollars for a comic I could read in five minutes, half the time telling a mediocre story with middling art, when I could be purchasing or reading actual books! With fantastic plots and intriguing characters! Books! That I could read in public and look smart as opposed to, well, I don't want to denigrate people who read comic books in public! I've done that plenty of times because, in truth, I don't care if I look smart while in public. I don't care if I look smart writing this blog! If I'm caught reading <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i> in public, it's simply because I fucking love that book and probably need to read it a fourth time! Plus I look smart reading it.<br /><br />
What all that was meant to say was this: I have no fucking memory of <i>Emerald Dawn</i>! Wasn't this supposed to be the big return of Hal Jordan into the post-Crisis world? Don't people still talk about it to this day?! And here I am, owner of the comic book, a person who read it off the shelf, and I can't fucking remember one moment from it. Oh shit. Oh shit. Here comes the despair and depression again. What good was my life if I can't even remember doing the things I did during it?! I might as well be an amnesiac waking up from a 35 year coma! Fuuuuuuuuck.<br /><br />
Oh well! Let's see if I remember it while rereading it! Won't that be fun! Plus I can destroy the value of the comic by dripping weepy snot tears all over it as I contemplate my squandered opportunity and complete waste of existence.<br /><br />
There's one more thing about me before we get to how the issue begins: I hold nothing sacred. Don't misunderstand me; I have beliefs. I believe a lot of shit! But I don't care if those beliefs are skewered by somebody else, or by me even. Sometimes that makes me entirely the wrong person to write about a comic book, depending on what that comic book is about. Like, say, <i>Bitch Planet</i>. That's like playing fetch with your pit bull by tossing a hand grenade. I know (knew? I already did <i>Bitch Planet</i> reviews!) I'm gonna say some disrespectful shit if I find something funny. Some people think of it as being an edgelord but it's just stuff I find funny that inches into other people's sacred territory. Stuff you don't joke about. A lot of people have those boundaries and they think if somebody makes a joke outside those boundaries, they're doing it to get a rise out of people within those boundaries. But it's not like that at all. I don't even seen the boundaries when something is funny. Frankie Boyle describes it well in his current podcast, <i>Here Comes the Guillotine</i>, but I can't remember how he says it or what episode he says it in but I do remember nodding vigorously at his comment. Again, it doesn't mean I don't have strong, compassionate beliefs. And it doesn't mean I'll joke about offensive shit. That's boring, low hanging fruit best left to immature assholes and insecure adult white men. It's just that sometimes I can't help laughing at something horrible. Like that video from some terrible Fox show many, many, many years ago where an Australian teacher is filming two girls walking along a thin trail on a cliff that gives way and they begin tumbling down a near sheer cliff. That's not the funny part. That wouldn't make me laugh. But what got me, what truly made me break down into tears, was the teacher continuing to track their fall with the camera and yelling, "I told you not to go out there!" I mean it's horrible. But it's some darkly funny shit. Like when this moment happens:<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1a.jpg" /><br />
<b>I don't know what got me: either the hat or the over-exaggerated sound effect.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">That's little Hal Jordan watching his father die in an experimental plane crash. Ha ha! Pretty fun, right? No, of course it isn't! It's supposed to be horrible! Priest creates a scene with bookended parallels, one depicting the Brightest Day of Martin Jordan's first successful pass of the sonic plane, the other depicting the Blackest Night of Martin Jordan smashing down on the runway and incinerating right in front of his boy.<br /><br />
Oh, I should also say, those two girls wound up being okay. Obviously they wouldn't show a tourist's snuff film on television! No, wait. That isn't so obvious because that show was on Fox in the '90s. I think anything fucking went back then and on that network.<br /><br />
Anyway, Hal's dad died in a fireball of airplane fuel and braggadocio and Hal's all, "I want to be just like my father!" Cut to twenty years later.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Carol ready to eat some dick.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">That three panel scan above looks like 1/3 of the comics that used to be in the newspapers when I was a kid. They were the ones I'd always skip over because I didn't read the comics daily and, even if I did, who could follow a long form story three miserable little chunks at at time? Although if Mary Worth gave that look Carol Ferris was giving, I'd probably have read it more. That look would have intrigued me at 12. That look intrigues me at 52!<br /><br />
Carol isn't currently Hal's girlfriend. Carol is Biff's girlfriend which means I pictured her eating the wrong dick earlier. Apologies to everybody involved except my brain who got to see some images of Carol eating a dick and didn't care whose dick it was. Good stuff!<br /><br />
Hal, upset that he got called a momma's boy and a non-pilot while also having his hat sarcastically called "nice," decides to prove to Biff, who isn't there because Carol is eating his dick somewhere else, that he basically is a pilot by driving his jeep as fast as he possibly can on curvy mountain roads.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Well, I don't know if he's a pilot or not but he's certainly not a driver.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Cut to twenty years later as Hal wakes up from his coma. Okay, maybe a little bit less than twenty years later. Like 175,196 hours less. Hal learns he's crashed his car while drunk. Carol is there in his room to glare at him and slam the door as he explains that it was the sign's fault. Since the sign didn't jump out in front of his car, he must mean he saw the words "Happy Tymes" and couldn't help but think about Carol eating his dick. That would cause anybody to crash. Just ask Billy Halleck.<br /><br />
I guess Hal didn't get anybody killed and Ferris Aircraft swept the incident under the rug because Hal Jordan is at work the next day. But not to fly real experimental aircraft. That would be irresponsible. No, he's testing out a flight simulator. And somehow that flight simulator rockets off its mounting, flies through the wall, and takes off into the sky. I'm going to guess that wasn't built into the simulator and this is how Hal Jordan winds up meeting Abin Sur, post-Crisis. If that's not the case, and this isn't Abin Sur pulling Jordan to him, this will wind up replacing Nightwing driving a motorcycle up the side of a sidescraper as my go-to example of how unserious comic books are.<br /><br />
As Hal flies off in his simulator, he hears Abin Sur in his head describing how the Green Lantern Corps was formed. It goes something like this: "Order begat chaos which was actually order because order is the way of things. But then out of that order came sentient life and sentient life was all, 'Fuck order! Eat my dick!' And because the eating of dicks was not logical, order had to be restored. Which is why the Green Lantern Corps was formed. To stop all the dick eating in the universe."<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1d.jpg" /><br />
<b>That's a whole lot of words just to say "fascist."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Abin Sur tells Jordan that knowledge is power and Lolly's got some adjectives and some kids with weird names took a fucking rhinoceros on a bus and The Monkees are a fucking person, place, or thing. Unless what he actually says is that power without knowledge is violence. But he never really defines power with knowledge. Unless that's his definition of order. Which, again, just sounds fucking fascist. Power with or without knowledge leads to violence and thinking you have the knowledge simply excuses yourself for using violence as the means to your end. Sixteen pages into the first issue of <i>Emerald Dawn</i> and I'm beginning to remember why I hate Green Lantern and especially Hal "Always Quick to Fisticuffs" Jordan.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1e.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Be sober." Abin Sur throwing shade.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hal tries to rebel against being a Green Lantern because that's what makes Hal such a great Green Lantern. He refuses to follow orders when he thinks those orders are stupid or go against true justice. It's one of two things I like about Hal. The other is that he loves to punch people in the face. In reality, I'm not big on people who do that seeing as how I was once punched in the face by stupid jerk Jimmy Arthur. But in a comic book, it's always nice to have a lead character ready to spring into action and break up all the damn speech bubbles.<br /><br />
Just to be clear, after Jimmy Arthur punched me in the face and knocked me down because Jimmy Arthur was fucking massive, I jumped up and hit him with my skateboard. Was that fair? Do I care? It worked and he ran off bleeding all over the place. According to the police who questioned me later that night, I was the absolute winner of that encounter! And you know you were the most violent asshole in an altercation when the cops point it out. Those guys are super violent dickheads.<br /><br />
Man, if I were a Green Lantern, every issue would just be me hitting another alien in the head with a gigantic green skateboard.<br /><br />
Hal Jordan continues to refuse to become a Green Lantern but it's no use. The ring has decided. Abin Sur turns into an hourglass without the glass and the ring flies onto Hal's finger. It immediately puts him in the green and black uniform and Hal is appalled. I don't know why. It's actually one of DC's better costumes. Maybe he's just upset at the responsibility. He doesn't seem to be too big on responsibility at this stage of his heroic journey. This is Stage One: Like Father, Like Son. Pretty sure that's what Campbell named it.<br /><br />
Hal figures out the ring can make him fly and since he's always wanted to be a pilot, he begins to enjoy it. Not knowing what else to do, he calls Carol to check on his job, his brother, and his friends. His job seems to be done because they think he somehow stole the simulator rather than thinking the simulator almost killed him. His brother and his brother's girlfriend are fine. But his friend Andy, Carol tells him, will be paralyzed for life. Angry and unwilling to blame himself, Hal decides to take his anger out on the "Happy Tymes" sign. The yellow "Happy Tymes" sign.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/GL/ED1f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Now this, I think, I was supposed to laugh at. I mean, while also being awed at the beauty of Priest's writing. Both of those things, right?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><b>Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn #1 Rating: A+.</b> How great is that ending? Is this what people who read this in 1989 remembered for the rest of their lives because they were much smarter than I was? They were all, "Look at Hal! Refusing to take responsibility for anything! His job. His friends. The Green Lantern ring. His drunk driving accident. What a fool!" And then the symbolism of the sign that wrecks his life and smashes in his head because his ring is powerless against it having the phrase "happy times" emblazoned on it. As if Happy Times are something he's not allowed anymore. The Happy Times died when he was a child in a fireball of airplane fuel and braggadocio. And now the thought of them only causes him pain. The sign's fault. The happy times now long past's fault. Always somebody else's fault. Never Hal's. What a great re-introduction to this character. I love it so far! Of course, it's just one issue. Can Priest keep it up for six issues? I mean, probably. I do love Priest's writing. He especially loves that thing where he drops the title at the end because the title means so much to the overall theme. He knows you'll forget it if he drops it at the beginning, and also it will sort of be a spoiler to bits coming up. So instead, he's all, "Here's the ending where Hal runs into a sign and the issue is called 'The Sign' and can you think of other ways the 'sign' theme appears throughout the story? No? What are you, an idiot? Maybe think about the comic a little bit before putting it away. No wonder you didn't remember any of this, you fucking dolt! You moron! You nincompoop!"<br /><br />
Hey, man! Geez! Give a guy a break, fake only in my head Christopher Priest!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-2914408405375713922024-03-22T11:24:00.000-07:002024-03-22T11:24:37.504-07:00Justice League America #83 (December 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83.jpg" /><br />
<b>Corbett. Corbett is next. How can you forget his name?! It was only said 18,000 times across the last three issues.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Last issue, we learned Guy Gardner is a murdering jackhole that can't stop trying to put his dick into Wonder Woman's butthole. I've extrapolated some of that information from Vado's text as the reference to Wonder Woman's butthole wasn't explicitly stated. But it's there if you do the work and read closely between the lines. It's also possible that I just see Wonder Woman's butthole everywhere I look. It's not the most terrible mental illness in the world. As long as you don't explain why you're poking your finger into every hole or gap you encounter, other people don't think much about it. They just think I'm curious and I've got terrible asthma.<br /><br />
I'd be willing to bet my mother's life that editorial mandated this story about the Guy Gardner imposter after Dan Vado's terrible depiction of the character. "Look, we know Guy's a jerk," Brian Augustyn said, "But he's not a murdering psychopath who can't stop hitting on every woman he encounters. He's a hero, you idiot. Who hired you? Make this right or DC will have to fire you. And then what will you do? Make a living with your little Slave Labor Graphics gig? Nobody wants to read that alternative press crap." And Dan Vado was all, "Alternative Press? Fuck yeah. Now that's a convention!" And the next year, I was handing out copies of <i>The Galactic Hero Corps</i> at the first Alternative Press Expo in San Jose and hanging out with Too Much Coffee Man.<br /><br />
I had seriously forgotten that Dan Vado started Slave Labor Graphics and began the Alternative Press Expo! I knew his name was familiar, being that I'm from Santa Clara and drove by Slave Labor Graphics when it was on Bascom Avenue quite often and attended the Alternative Press Expo at least twice. But all I really knew about Slave Labor was that they published <i>Milk & Cheese.</i><br /><br />
After Blake is murdered by Guy, Corbett cradles him in his arms and weeps. I thought they were just guy pals but now I suspect something a little more Wildean about their relationship. Guy's murder of Blake lets the fish space police gain the moral high ground which they immediately use to condemn Wonder Woman and all the people of Earth.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83a.jpg" /><br />
<b>I actually believe this fish space policeman because he did everything he could by the book. Except for shooting Crater. Which was a total accident. Probably.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">And that's it for the saga of Blake and Corbett! What a story! Full of twists and turns and attempted rapes. It showcased Diana's upstanding defense of truth and justice. Which ultimately led to her protecting violent criminals and then having one of her employees murder one of the violent criminals that they were supposed to be giving asylum to. I'm not totally sure if the story was supposed to make Wonder Woman look heroic or a naïve pushover? Anyway, it's over and now it's time to hunt down Guy Gardner!<br /><br />
Captain Atom informs Wonder Woman that the government will probably want to prosecute Guy but I'm not sure how that's going to work. He killed an alien who only just arrived to Earth and then his body was transported off of Earth, leaving no sign of the crime or the victim except the witnesses. But does the law even apply to extra-terrestrials? If the government prosecutes Guy for murdering an alien, don't they also have to prosecute themselves? I've seen the alien autopsy video! I know what this government's been up to!<br /><br />
I know I've made fun of Kevin West's art a lot, being that he's got a lot of the '90s tropes happening in it, but I feel I should state this plainly: I actually really like a lot of it. He draws a fantastic Wonder Woman. I have a feeling that some of his worst panels are because he's modeling characters off other artists of the time. When West isn't drawing everybody standing like an action figure with legs akimbo, I actually fucking love his art. There. Is everybody happy when I tell the truth and drop the facetious, angry idiot act?<br /><br />
I actually added that last paragraph so that people will think most of what I write is an act and I'm not an angry basement dwelling virgin idiot! Ha ha! Fooled you!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83b.jpg" /><br />
<b>See?! See?! The legs akimbo thing! What's wrong with everybody? Do they all have juicy loads in their pants?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This is the final issue of <i>Justice League America</i> that I purchased way back in 1993. What series should I read next? Which series will I read next? Nobody knows! Not even me! Whatever's in the next box I open, I suppose. I really want to reread <i>Transmetropolitan</i> which is on my shelves and technically probably should be the next thing I read but do I really want to write about it? Most of my posts will look like this: "Yes! Oh my God! Hilarious! How does Warren Ellis do it?! When did Darick Robertson get so good?! His art was so mediocre in <i>Justice League Europe</i>!" Then there will be six paragraphs, alternating, of "Ha ha ha!" and "Mind blown!" Then I'd rate the issue five big hard dicks out of five and try to score some futuristic drugs.<br /><br />
While Guy Gardner runs around the city probably murdering jaywalkers, Booster Gold decides to shit all over his friend, Ted Kord. Ted has been squirrelled away in his basement lab working day and night on a suit of armor for Booster so Booster can get back to doing what he loves: being in the public eye. But is Booster grateful? Does he see that as Ted Kord being part of the team? Of course not!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Is Dan Vado trying to make me hate every member of the League?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">How is Beetle turning his back on the League? He just made you a major piece of technology to get you back into action, you piece of shit! He's been through major trauma! Too bad The Sanctuary wasn't up and running in 1993. Maybe Ted Kord could have gotten back into the Beetle suit sooner. Or maybe it's a good thing The Sanctuary didn't exist in 1993. Ted Kord is fine playing the combined role of Oberon and Kilowog. The world doesn't need one more costumed rich guy who doesn't have any powers and also probably has a long term brain injury thanks to Doomsday.<br /><br />
There's a few pages of the drama going on in Ice's homeland but that's the B Story and since I didn't stick with this comic book until it became the A Story, I don't really care about it. Is that the story where Ice dies? If so, I'm glad I never read it. Fuck Dan Vado if it is! If it isn't, I'm sorry I said, "Fuck Dan Vado," Dan Vado.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh no! The B Story is rearing its head too soon. Shoo! Shoo! Get back!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I guess I have to acknowledge the Ice Battles Her Brother for the Throne of the Northern Lands subplot if it gets Blue Beetle back into his costume. It looks like this Ice rescue mission is turning into the first <i>I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League</i> story! Especially since Guy Gardner comes strutting into the room while they're discussing it. Which causes them to all freak out because Guy constantly murders people now and always tries to fuck Wonder Woman. Eeep!<br /><br />
Guy acts like everybody should be impressed with his murder ability but they're all, "We have to stop you!" At least this time, Guy attacks Booster Gold first. Unlike last time when it was the Real Guy and he stopped by to see Ice and then everybody began to beat the shit out of him.<br /><br />
Wonder Woman shows up with her lasso but Guy uses his ring to keep it from touching him. That's suspicious! Why doesn't Guy want to tell the truth?! What's he hiding?! I can't even imagine the shit I'd tell Wonder Woman if I were caught in her lasso. I'd probably be all, "I can't stop watching <i>Sailor Moon</i>! And not in a weird pedo way! I'm pretty sure I'm envious of the Sailor Scouts! Why can't I be a pretty soldier in a sailor suit?! I want to flirt with boys and wear short skirts and eat Japanese snacks and shower with my friends! Hmm, okay, maybe there's a little weird pedo stuff in there. But only because I want to be a cute young girl!"<br /><br />
Anyway, the team defeat Guy Gardner. As they're deciding what to do with Guy Gardner, Guy Gardner walks in looking like '90s Image trash and sporting a '90s Image gun.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA83e.jpg" /><br />
<b>At least now I know why I never bought Issue #84. This image made me so sick, I threw up, had a mini-stroke, and forgot all about this series.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I hope the next series I read is <i>Guy Gardner, Warrior</i>!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #83 Rating: C.</b> In the same way that Crimson Fox wound up being two people instead of one to satisfy letters being written about how her accent kept disappearing, this whole two Guy Gardners story feels like an editorial mandate to fix continuity issues. The continuity issues this time were probably Guy Gardner acting so much worse than he usually acts in <i>Justice League America</i> while he was probably being his normal terrible self which was more charming than disgustingly irritating. Letters were probably pouring in saying things like, "Sirs, I have talked to the pooch and it has accused you of anal penetration. You have created an untenable situation in the characterization of that anti-hero, Guy Gardner. I would be remiss not to send this missive chastising your company for the way you call two different characters by the same name and expect the readers to somehow fix the anomaly within our minds as we read. I assure you that this is too large a discrepancy to handle in the usual fan way, i.e. simply ignoring it and screaming, 'La la la la,' whenever your brain begins, 'Actually...'." Editors hate that shit. That's when they pull the Cat o' Nine Tails out of the secret wardrobe in their office and begin stalking the halls of the DC offices looking for writers to whip into submission. "Fix this, you dumb bastards! I can't endure this idiotic thirty-plus year old man babies thinking they're smarter than us! Make this right in a way that shows they were fucking wrong or I bring out the Pear of Anguish!" Anyway, I don't know how this resolved. I think I own <i>Guy Gardner, Warrior</i> #15 which might be where this story finishes. So I might learn how it resolves some day! Maybe <i>Guy Gardner, Warrior</i> will be the next comic I read! I think I only have 17 issues of that because whenever it became simply <i>Warrior</i>, it was always sold out and I never saw it on the shelves again and then I completely forgot it was even a thing, simply believing it was cancelled in the middle of a story arc.<br /><br />
Overall, I can see why people disliked this volume of <i>Justice League America</i>. Even when Dan Jurgens came in to make it more serious, it simply seemed like a standard villain of the month comic biding its time until the Death of Superman. And Dan Vado and Kevin West did not do it for me at all. So much so that I stopped reading the series with an issue that says "Part 1" right on the cover. I never fucking did that! I always had to know how stories ended! I must have really vomited a lot after that Guy Gardner last page appearance. And also the mini-stroke. Unless my brain simply blocked out this series as if I had suffered some serious physical trauma. Maybe it was so bad that I blocked out the existence of <i>Guy Gardner, Warrior</i> as well! What if all those months, the comic book was on the shelves on new comic book day but my brain just blurred it out of existence, turning it into one of those 3D paintings of a schooner that most people only pretend to be able to see!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-82293040119495895422024-03-21T16:14:00.000-07:002024-03-21T16:14:43.085-07:00Justice League America #82 (November 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82.jpg" /><br />
<b>Kevin has levelled up his '90s Image style to include loads of lines on male faces, no pupils, and scads of teeth.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Other things Kevin West has in common with this awful trending style of the times: all pants are painted onto muscular legs while joining up in a weird diaper crotch area that all but screams "I used an articulated art figure or a small G.I. Joe as a model for this!"; thumbs that simply look like a smaller finger but is somehow longer than the other fingers because how do you make fingers come out of a hand?; when not drawing a fist, draw a claw (like the one on the cover where the hand becomes much too wide because they don't know how four fingers fit on a normal-sized hand and also the first two fingers are basically the same exact finger); when something blocks part of one of the character's limbs, completely forget how long or short or extant that limb should be on the other side of the obstruction.<br /><br />
Dan Vado's instruction for this cover was probably, "Guy Gardner loves killing. He can't get enough of killing. So show him absolutely thrilled that he's killing somebody. To make sure you know he's trying to kill Blake (or Corbett. You choose which hair style is easier for you!), Wonder Woman should be trying to stop him with one abnormally long arm. Try not to show any feet at all!"<br /><br />
I wouldn't bet on Vado having added the feet part of the instructions. How often do feet appear on a cover anyway? Unless the cover is by Dan Jurgens because he loves drawing people flying in a foreshortened pose so their weird atrophied legs can dangle beneath them.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82a.jpg" /><br />
<b>If you're going to advertise the new Robin comic this way, I'm going to expect Robin to masturbate every issue.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">"Finally some peace and quiet," exclaims Robin as he pulls his gay and straight porn out from the only place Bruce never looks: an old family photo album. "Bruce is in Metropolis flirting with Superman and Alfred's at some old SAS reunion in London that will probably wind up becoming a six issue mini-series because at some point Alfred had to not only be the butler who took care of his employers' mourning kid and refused to get him therapy but also a super duper bad-ass himself. Then Robin masturbates for twelve pages while Two-Face sits around bored wondering why Batman didn't get the clue about his heist which he wrote on the back of a Macy's bra catalogue. "Was the whole 'Double D' theme too subtle?" he asks and then answers, "Yes, Harvey. You're an idiot."<br /><br />
New readers to this series are greeted by the always useful trope of a newscaster explaining the situation from last issue.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Really, really, really new readers, like those born in the 21st century, might wonder what's up with those weird scan lines. That's what standard definition television looked like, kids. Only worse.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">So aliens want their fugitives back and the government wants the aliens to go away so they want the Justice League to give the fugitives back and Captain Atom just wants to collect his paycheck without a lot of guff from his bosses so he wants the Justice League to give the fugitives back and Max Lord doesn't want his property destroyed so he wants the Justice League to give the fugitives back and Wonder Woman wants to make sure she's not delivering innocent fugitives into the hands of monsters for execution so she's decided to give the middle Amazon finger to everybody else. That's the bow pulling back finger and also the clit stimulation finger. It's a very suggestive Amazonian finger to give somebody. Also confusing.<br /><br />
Max Lord is all, "Please, Wonder Woman. Forget about the name of our organization for one minute. Pretend we're called the 'We Don't Want Our Headquarters Destroyed League.' It's just the lives of two aliens versus our property which cost like a lot of money. Please do the right thing." And Wonder Woman is all, "Those aliens have names: Blake and Corbett! Haven't you been paying attention to how often Blake and Corbett's names, Blake and Corbett, have been used in the script? That's probably to help humanize them with the reader so that the reader will be all, 'Please save Blake and Corbett! I don't which is which but I love them so much!' Which probably means they're super evil and Dan Vado is a conservative trying to pull a whole 'Law and Order wins again, you hippie peaceniks!' gotcha moment. But still, I must serve truth and justice before property!" And Captain Atom is all, "Sigh. I guess I'm going to have to bust Wonder Woman in the face."<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hey! That's pretty much exactly what I said! You didn't raise no illiterate here, Momma!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Also look at how long Max's legs are. So long. As Naomi Smalls would say, "They go right up to his asshole." Which, I mean, that's what all legs do so I don't know what the fuck Naomi Smalls was talking about on <i>Ru Paul's Drag Race Season 8</i>. Depending on if you understand anatomy or not, legs might even usually go past the asshole! I don't know where the leg legitimately ends although I'd say above the genitals which are about the same place as the asshole, roughly.<br /><br />
Captain Atom and his team of cardboard cutouts of every '90s character ever created have been tasked with investigating the alien ship, just to make sure it isn't harming the city by hovering over it. You know, the way Captain Atom harms the city by hovering over it blasting gamma rays and radiation into everybody's brains.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Apparently there was a time in the history of comic books when these characters were exciting and dynamic as opposed to boring and stupid. I, personally, don't remember that time. I've hated them forever.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Crater has five fingers not counting his thumb in that picture. If I were being charitable, I'd say the extra finger was a mistake by the colorist but why would I be charitable when I fucking hate these characters and the way they're drawn and their stupid single color outfits and their Goddamned fucking glasses and their gritted teeth and their stupid geometric guns that Rob Liefeld should have trademarked when he had the chance. Was there a school of art at the time competing with The Kubert School where a whole slew of up and coming terribly lazy artists were getting an education? Because how did they all draw everything so fucking similarly? How often were readers obligated to see people in the same pose as Cinder in that panel? Especially if you were reading Marvel at the time.<br /><br />
I already forgot the names of Crater's companions so I had to look them up. While doing so, I discovered The Peacekeepers had six appearances in total. About half of them were here in <i>Justice League America</i> during their first appearance. Hopefully the other appearances were where they were killed in battle.<br /><br />
Crater gets shot out of the sky by the space fish police but he's saved by Maxima. Man, I hate Maxima! Now this jerk is going to get another three appearances somewhere!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Every garbage human being thinks "just following orders" is an adequate explanation for doing whatever the fuck they want.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The space fish police in charge of the lasers didn't actually mean to shoot Crater in the skull. He was just following orders except poorly because he wasn't actually supposed to hit Crater is what I meant. So his commander yells at him which might be a joke by Vado because the previous panel with these two space fish police had them expressing their dismay about how much humans yell at each other. Or Dan Vado just isn't paying particular attention to what he's writing as he goes.<br /><br />
The space fish police commander mentions Blake and Corbett by name again when he suggests that maybe they leave Blake and Corbett to the Earthlings and just go home. Meanwhile, Blake tries to rape Fire. Unless it's Corbett trying to rape Fire. No, no. It's Blake. Obviously Fire says his name like eight times on one page.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82f.jpg" /><br />
<b>At least Fire finally put some pants on.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">My mention of Fire's clothing has nothing to do with Blake's attempt to rape her! Just in case that wasn't clear and if you're coming from tumblr, it almost certainly wasn't clear. I only mention it because the last time Fire was on panel, she was simply wearing a barely-long-enough-to-cover-her-ass shirt. Actually, it was the shirt she was wearing in this scene, I think. And I suppose if her legs weren't bright pink, it might look like she were walking around with no pants on. Hmm. I think this was another case where the colorist fucked up. Personally, I think the colorist fucked up by putting pants on Fire in this scene. I much prefer my Fire without pants.<br /><br />
Fire kicks his ass and almost learns that Blake and Corbett are pretty fucking guilty, making Wonder Woman look naïve and stupid and lame. Dumb compassionate people who believe in justice and freedom and turning hawks into doves! Dan Vado just showed them! See how Blake and Corbett were actually guilty and terrible people? The Justice League should have listened to the cops and the military and the government right from the start. I probably stopped reading this comic book because of Dan Vado's pro-authority attitude!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82g.jpg" /><br />
<b>"No, Blake! It's me, Corbett! There's no time for rape! Otherwise, you know, I'd be all, 'Go for it, Blake!' It's just, you know, no time!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Blake and Corbett try to run off but they run into The Ray. They try to kill him while Fire yells to stop them. So it should now be clear to everybody that Blake and Corbett are totally bad assholes. I hope all the readers have learned their lesson about helping out people on the run from authority. It's always a bad decision and the authorities are always in the right and boy, you sure wouldn't want to look like a total chump being fooled into doing the right thing, would you?!<br /><br />
Fire runs out and yells, "Boy, did we ever misjudge those two." Which seems like, maybe, the weakest observation she could make at this juncture. "Gosh and gee willikers, Ray! How'd we ever get fooled so bad? Hee haw!"<br /><br />
Blake and Corbett don't get far before The Ray stops them and Captain Atom shows up. But still, Wonder Woman won't give them up. She has Guy take them back to headquarters where she assures everybody that everything will be wrapped up nicely in the last few pages. Everybody trusts her because, you know, she's Wonder Woman!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82h.jpg" /><br />
<b>Look at Guy using the third person pronoun even when it's not necessary. So considerate of others and their possibilities!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Back at headquarters, Diana tries to point out that Blake and Corbett's guilt or innocence doesn't matter in this case because it's the general principle of granting asylum that she's trying to protect. Yes, Blake and Corbett will be dealt with as necessary but not without the same basic rights to due process and not getting instantly murdered by Guy Gardner.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA82i.jpg" /><br />
<b>Well, maybe Diana can apply her theories to Corbett.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Well, well, well. It looks like some editors finally got hold of Dan Vado and were all, "Um, you know Guy isn't this big of a jerk, right? I mean, yes, he's a jerk. But he's not a murderer and he shouldn't be sexually harassing every female member of the League every time he enters a scene." And Dan Vado was all, "Oh, um, yeah, um, I know! I've got this, um, story? Idea? That, well, this is Guy's evil twin! Right? Always has been. Totally my idea all along! Big shocker right?!" I'm assuming that's what happened because I don't dare believe that I was wrong about Dan Vado's preoccupation with making Guy Gardner an absolutely terrible and unforgivable caricature of his already pretty shitty self. And there's no way editorial would be okay with having Guy commit outright murder in front of everybody. Therefore, this isn't actually Guy Gardner which allows Vado to pretend it wasn't Guy Gardner the entire time.<br /><br />
Also, it was going to be too boring writing a bunch of pages where the characters talk out their problems and settle on a good diplomatic solution. Easier to just have Guy kill the alien (Blake) that tried to rape Fire. Ultimately, nobody's going to be upset about that.<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #82 Rating: C-.</b> The big twist was that the space bad guys on the run and being protected by Wonder Woman really were the bad guys. Vado spends one panel on Wonder Woman considering how she might be racist in that she sided with the human looking aliens over the space fish police. But that just shows that Wonder Woman is willing to question herself and do some real soul searching to uncover any possible flaws that might keep her from doing the best job of serving justice and truth. In the end, whether Blake and Corbett were actually terrible criminals, Wonder Woman did the right thing. It's the kind of right thing that nobody is willing to get behind anymore because it's more important to never be tricked by somebody presenting themselves as something other than they are. Internet trolls are huge on that. They won't believe any truth at all because they don't want to ever look stupid. Although they will believe the most farfetched conspiracy theory currently making the Tik Tok rounds. But that's mostly because you can't really prove a terrible Internet conspiracy false. So they never have to look stupid! I mean, obviously they look stupid believing shit like The Mandela Effect and Wayfair sex trafficking. But you can't prove that they look stupid until you prove those things aren't true! And good luck proving something everybody knows is preposterous anyway! You can't prove a falsehood, nimrod! Ha ha! Checkmate! I look super smart now by simply believing the dumbest shit!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-64572169157372968552024-03-15T08:08:00.000-07:002024-03-15T08:08:37.959-07:00Justice League America #81 (October 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81.jpg"><br>
<b>I'm not an artist and even I can tell The Ray's right foot has been ripped from his body.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">There's just no way The Ray's right foot can be in that position and still be attached to his leg. Unless, of course, you're an artist who tends to draw overly long legs. That would mean The Ray's knee is much further from his crotch than normal and could bend down to place his foot into that position. I don't know why I'm being so critical of this cover that shows two men scissoring. I should just sit back and enjoy it.<br><br>
This issue begins with Wonder Woman somehow keeping her shit together even though her leg has grown inordinately long.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81a.jpg"><br>
<b>I don't know. Is that too long? It's not like I'm an anatomy expert.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I looked up how long a person's leg should be according to their overall height and it seems to be 50% of their height is leg. So measuring Wonder Woman's leg from the heel (and not the toe, perspective adding a full actually drawn foot of height) to the top of her leg, her leg is equal to 150% of her upper body. Way too long! Even if I measure from her heal to her vagina, her leg becomes equal to her vagina to the top of her hair. Closer but, I mean, she's got a ton of hair! But maybe that's how Kevin West measured her? Although taking measurements is work. Just drawing a dynamic lady that feels right and looks hot is way easier and, according to readers in the '90s, apparently exactly what they wanted.<br><br>
Some people might find it strange that I nailed every single way Kevin West's art was going to be wonky after simply seeing Wonder Woman's face on the cover of the last issue. I suspect those people are nowhere near old enough to remember when this art style swept comic book shops across America. Comic books fans were pulling their dicks out on the carpeted floor over <i>Gen-13</i> covers and Mary Jane bending over on the cover of <i>Spider-man</i> (with her way too long legs, tiny waist, huge fucking rack, and 13-year old girl face. Fucking comic book nerds. You can't trust them and, trust me, a comic book nerd, I should know).<br><br>
Captain Atom, standing in the super sweet '90s Image style pose that says either, "I'm falling forward because I have inner ear issues," or "My balls are so fucking sweaty it's beginning to chafe," assures Wonder Woman that he is dead serious about beating the shit out of her to send some space refugees asking for political asylum back where they came from. He totally gets America in 2024.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81b.jpg"><br>
<b>After describing the pose, I figured you might be interested in seeing it. It's the pose that fooled everybody into calling this style "dynamic."</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Because Captain Atom is covered head to toe in shiny, radioactive metal, he gets to be drawn with the 13-year-old girl look. What I noticed last issue, although the women are drawn super clear skinned as they continue to be in this style, the men have yet to be drawn full of lines and a huge fish mouth. The lines show they're masculine and have done loads of yard work and other outside stuff (like, um, doing oil changes in the driveway? What do guys do when they go outside? Aside from catcalling women?). I think the fish is simply because the artists only know how to draw the big pouty lips of a woman and to differentiate between a woman's mouth and a man's mouth, they wind up just flattening out the mouth and making it too wide. Perhaps it's also because men aren't supposed to smile. Smiling is feminine and might get you called gay by a guy who will absolutely smile after he calls you gay while high-fiving all the other guys who suddenly know how to smile.<br><br>
I don't like bad mouthing my gender but they make it so fucking easy and also I kind of do like bad mouthing my gender after all the fucking shit they gave me in the boys locker room in junior high when I was fat. Assholes. Trying to be as male as possible when you're male is the biggest mental health disorder in America. Calm down, dudes. You'd probably really love <i>Sailor Moon</i> if you gave it a chance! Especially that one where Venus is upset that the Witches aren't trying to take her pure heart and she's all, "Why won't they take it?" And Artemis is all, "Probably because of that thing you do with your electric toothbrush." And Venus is all, *boots Artemis to the moon.* But then when the witch finally does take her heart, instead of collapsing, Venus grabs it and goes running around like fucking Gollum with his Goddamned precious. It's so fucking adorable and it's one of those episodes that explains why none of the scouts are my favorite. They all have such adorable and entertaining moments throughout the series that I could never pick a favorite planet baby.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81c.jpg"><br>
<b>This is the 3rd scan from the 1st page. I have nothing to say about it except I love her.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">That face Wonder Woman is making isn't because Guy Gardner just said, "I'd love to trowel your back garden, babe!", it's because Captain Atom, working for the government, thinks he's in the right. He might be because we don't really know much about Blake and Corbett except that their names are Blake and Corbett and they're kind of indistinguishable from each other. But Captain Atom won't win the "I'm right" argument if his only evidence is that he's with the government. He'd be better off arguing, "I'm in the right because my friends Deathkiller, Gunpistol, and Murderbang's weapons say I am, Wonder Bitch!" Okay, okay. He just lost the argument again by calling Diana "Wonder Bitch." Man, he can't catch a break, this guy.<br><br>
Apparently Deathkiller, Gunpistol, and Murderbang aren't threatening enough to scare Wonder Woman away, probably because all of their arguments are bullets and Wonder Woman deflects bullets the way I eat Oreos. That analogy makes sense if you've ever seen me eat Oreos.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81d.jpg"><br>
<b>What this group looks like is my dream orgy.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I love to insult Kevin West's art as much as I can because I'm a hateful prick but even I have to admit he gives great hair on Diana.<br><br>
Wonder Woman says she doesn't want to fight but will to defend the political space refugees so it's Atom's call if they're going to fight. And Captain Atom, not willing to take responsibility, is all, "So you're not giving them up? Then you've made my call for me!" Then he says his famous battle cry: "Let's get hot." He doesn't even use an exclamation point because that would be seen as emotional and Captain Atom is a man and men don't get emotional except that they do all the fucking time but their main emotion is rage and men don't think that counts as an emotion. That's just being a tough guy! Crying is what makes a person emotional. Pee-yuke! Who would ever cry?! Except maybe if they watched <i>Pig</i> and then welcome to snotty time weepsville, Mr. Macho!<br><br>
The fight breaks out and immediately everybody uses the worst tactics possible.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81e.jpg"><br>
<b>Look at this mess! Only one person doing the right thing!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Wonder Woman's the only fighter using her strengths to her advantage. She's super strong and agile so close in and start punching. She's punching a normal human being so Gunpistol's skull has just been exploded but that'll win her the fight. Guy Gardner should be projecting his bubble around Deathkill, I mean Cinder, instead of going on the defensive. Enclose her and she's done! I guess Cinder is doing what she should be doing. Her only really poor tactic is choosing to battle somebody with a power ring. Maxima has mind powers and the ability to manipulate metal which I assume that gun is made of (could be plastic but I doubt it) and she chooses to grapple with him? Deathpistol and Murderbang should have already fired off some shots instead of losing advantage by not shooting any bullets at all while the heroes close on them. And what the fuck are Captain Atom and The Ray doing? I guess they're desperate to get the scissoring going because these two idiots have super powerful long range blasts!<br><br>
Booster Gold tries to enter the fray and Captain Atom finally remembers he can blast things and does. Booster Gold's suit short circuits, trapping him in Ted Kord's hideous looking death trap.<br><br>
Guy Gardner decides to sexually harass Cinder instead of defeating her and he pays the price when she uses her suit's "sonics" option. Some other options: cannon, beams, small arms. The military is so imaginative.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81f.jpg"><br>
<b>"IKEA"? How cute. He must be thinking about Tora.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">According to Dan Vado, Guy Gardner can't stop lewdly asking women to fuck him and he's also dying to kill somebody. It's weird because those really weren't attributes of Guy before this. Were they? Pretty sure he loved threatening to beat the shit out of people but he wasn't constantly drooling over killing somebody. And, sure, he's dropped a line or two that could get him in trouble with Human Resources, if the JLA had any. But every line he's said to a woman since Dan Vado has taken over has essentially been, "Let's go fuck, babe."<br><br>
Gunpistol's actual name is Crater and Murderbang's actual name is, um, Zach? Apparently Crater wasn't too hurt by Wonder Woman and also Wonder Woman ran away from him after punching him. And Maxima ran away from Zach after grappling with him. Because the next time they're all in a scene together, this is happening:<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81g.jpg"><br>
<b>Yeah but why are they incoming? Why did they outgo earlier when they were already incomed?</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Captain Atom defeats The Ray while Cinder defeats Guy Gardner. So it's hilarious that Wonder Woman criticizes Atom's team by saying, "They don't operate very well as a team. Our group could learn from their bad example." If your group can't learn from its own bad example, they're never gonna learn, Diana. And immediately after this happens, Maxima flies off on her own to stop Zach and Cinder and winds up blasted into unconsciousness by Captain Atom. Maybe Diana was just helping Maxima to learn.<br><br>
Blake and Corbett set the self-destruct sequence on Blake and Corbett's ship. Blake and Corbett then try hoofing it across the snow while their ship explodes all over Zach.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81h.jpg"><br>
<b>See? 13-year-old girl face.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I guess escaping out the service hatch after you've set the self-destruct is an old military trick because that panel was right after Zach told Captain Atom, "I guess they escaped through the service hatch." There's no other evidence that Captain Atom should have panicked so quickly. But there he is. Hearing the word "service hatch" and freaking the fuck out. Maybe he just has some post traumatic stress from the military where somebody did something horrible to his "service hatch."<br><br>
Captain Atom rescues every member of his team because they were all more terrible than the Justice League. I wonder if Crater is nicknamed Crater because he craters his pants every fight. And Cinder is called Cinder because she cinders her pants every fight. And Zach is called Zach because he always hides the evidence of shitting in his pants after every mission and that's the only way anybody ever gets a nickname in this squad.<br><br>
I know "cindering" your pants doesn't make sense but why should I care? I just foofled my pants and I'm too distracted to make any sense right now.<br><br>
The Justice League get away and Captain Atom decides to let them go. He doesn't want to have another battle with his nitwit '90s Image team.<br><br>
Meanwhile somewhere in the Arctic, Tora's brother kills their father before their father can declare Tora the rightful heir. So boring.<br><br>
Back at JLA Headquarters, Wonder Woman tries to make the political space refugees at home.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA81i.jpg"><br>
<b>Why isn't Fire wearing any pants? And why is she standing like she just cindered herself?</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Guy Gardner and Maxwell Lord don't think Wonder Woman should be providing asylum to these guys. But isn't political asylum a moment to make sure people are safe before learning the truth of the situation? Aren't we supposed to care about other people and give them the benefit of the doubt, especially when we know how terrible people in power can treat their subjects? These guys may be alien space murderers. But what's the harm in protecting them from the unknown threat of the space fish police while they sort that out? Seems like the right thing to do. Which is basically the name of this story: "Do the Right Thing." Catchy title, right?<br><br>
Bill Clinton even gets on the act, threatening the Justice League with harsh laws that could restrain super hero activity in the United States if they don't buckle and give up Blake and Corbett. I mean Corbett and Blake. For some reason, everybody decided their names should be said that way around this issue. Max is all, "We have to give them up. It's the law!" And Wonder Woman is all, "Fuck the law. I am the law here!" Then she head bangs for three minutes straight and says something about truth trumping laws. Max does not continue to argue by singing, "But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We both have truths. Are mine the same as yours?"<br><br>
Captain Atom arrives with his noobs and Max tries to talk him out of destroying the building. While they're negotiating, the space fish police move their ship over the building. It's a very big ship. Huge. Massive. A space fish policeman once came up to me, tears streaming down his face, and he said, "Sir, you've never seen a ship this big. Just the most terrific ship." Anyways, Max sees the ship and what do you know? Massive cinder.<br><br>
<b>Justice League America #81 Rating: B+.</b> Pretty decent space political conflict happening in this one. Nobody knows what's the right way to act in this situation. Except for Dan Vado who is going to write the ending and then everybody can decide who was right based on how Dan finishes the story. Except obviously Wonder Woman is right in this situation. Everybody is using threats and violence to get what they want. All she is doing is saying, "Calm the fuck down. Let's take a breath and see what's what." And why doesn't that happen? Because the space fish police don't want them knowing what the truth is. So they twist Bill Clinton's arm and he's all, "I don't want to get blown up. So who cares what the truth is, return those people who might be innocent victims. No skin off my back." And Captain Atom is all, "Just following orders! I could get fired if I don't kill Corbett and Blake!" And Zach, Crater, and Cinder are all, "Um, yes, sir! Ditto, sir!" And Max Lord is all, "I don't want our building ruined again so who cares if these guys are taken back to space fish prison and shot in the head? Just get them out of here!" But Wonder Woman doesn't have a personal agenda. Hell, she's not even on the side of Corbett and Blake. She's just willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and get to the bottom of the situation. Exactly what fucking asylum is for. Not that anybody would know that in 2024. They barely knew it back in 1993!<br><br>
Wait! I just realized what Wonder Woman's personal agenda might be! Didn't she fuck Steve Trevor because she gave him asylum on Paradise Island when everybody else wanted to immediately cut his dick off? I mean, she at least got to fuck him because somebody gave him asylum. So she might be thinking with her pussy! It might be subconsciously but Wonder Woman's pussy is all, "Hey hey ladies!" (The ladies her pussy is talking to our her boobs.) "I'm getting all engorged here because the last time we heard the word 'asylum' this much, we ended up getting some spectacular dick all up in us! This time we got two to choose from! Or why choose, right, Ms. Flowers?" (Ms. Flowers is Diana's butthole.) So there you have it! Wonder Woman might not care about truth as much as she wants everybody to believe! She's just super horny!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-79733366970215811082024-03-14T08:55:00.000-07:002024-03-14T08:55:55.662-07:00Justice League America #80 (September 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80.jpg"><br>
<b>Oh no! It's happening. Wonder Woman has '90s Image face!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I think I'm beginning to suspect the real reason I dropped this title and its name might be Kevin West! I'm not being insulting. I'm just expressing my taste for specific art styles. And my taste does not include overly long legs, grimacing men, clenched fists because fingers are hard to draw, scenes littered in rubble to hide feet, and women with whatever the fuck Wonder Woman's face is doing on this cover. Some of you who didn't have to look at the new comics wall in your local comic book shop in the early '90s might be asking, "What's wrong with Diana's face? That's perfectly acceptable, and possibly beautiful, art!" Yes, outside of the context of the art that was trending in the '90s, you wouldn't think twice about Wonder Woman's face on this cover. But sitting on a comic book shelf side-by-side with dozens of covers where women look exactly the fucking same as that, you'd lose your fucking mind. Which is what I did in the '90s. I fucking hated that art trend so much. Which could explain why I dropped this book just a few months after Kevin Smith took over art duties.<br><br>
You might also be wondering what the fuck I'm talking about because if you weren't hyperaware of that fucking '90s woman face on Diana's puss, you could almost mistake this cover for anything out of the ordinary. But that face leads you to Diana's leg which leads you to everybody's fists which leads you to Booster's grimace which leads you to no feet (except The Ray's left foot which, if you look at it closely, you might just guess why Kevin West didn't draw any of the other nine feet that should be on this cover). If this were a non-'90s Image art style comic book (and, yes, I know the art trend happened before Image. But it was the fans getting their cocks so hard over the styles of McFarlane and his imitators that made them all think, "We are making so much money for Marvel and DC, we should own all of this shit outright!" And so Image. Based on this art trend. So '90s Image art), I wouldn't have been derailed by it and would definitely have spent three paragraphs on how Booster Gold's dick is about to be fried crispy golden.<br><br>
The issue begins with two aliens, Blake and Corbett, on the lam from justice. Black and Corbett, who are named Blake and Corbett, are being chased by aliens who love to add the names "Blake" or "Corbett" to every single thing they say. I get the feeling Dan Vado lost a bet to his friends Blake and Corbett and was forced to put their names into this comic book a certain amount of times. Which he did. All on the first page.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80a.jpg"><br>
<b>Look at Blake and Corbett! How can I talk about anything else except that they look like clones of every male character Liefeld has ever drawn in his life?!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Maybe Dan Vado uses the names multiple times so that the reader will easily identify which alien is Blake and which alien is Corbett. Although if that was his reasoning, he might have thought to make them look slightly different from one another. I guess Corbett is the one with the flippy bangs and Blake is the one with the spiked hair. I'm actually surprised both characters have two normal eyes each. It's a lot easier to draw a face when you've got a distracting dead eye or bangs hanging over half the face so you don't have to think about the usual symmetry of faces because symmetrical faces are harder to draw than fingers or feet.<br><br>
Blake and Corbett crash their ship on Earth and the fishy aliens chasing them give up for now. Being super into justice and catching criminals, they don't to accidentally break any of the local system's laws. They move off to research Earth and monitor the situation.<br><br>
Elsewhere on Earth, in New York City where Blake and Corbett didn't immediately crash, a woman is giving a tour of the entire fucking city to some kids, ending in Justice League America headquarters.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80b.jpg"><br>
<b>I know some smart ass on the Internet will be all, "Look at all the fingers and feet on this page, you stupid piece of shit asshole!" But might I also point out Rick Burchett was doing the inking? He probably fixed all the really fucked up hands and feet.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I'd also like to point out how the woman has her arms crossed thus hiding her hands. We'll see so much of that that I'm not going to bother to scan in every scene with somebody hiding their hands in this way. The fishy alien already did it once and his hands are way easier to draw because he only has three fingers per hand. Also, I don't mean to suggest Liefeld and West and all the other couldn't draw hands and feet. Of course they could! You get people defending Liefeld bad art all the time by posting a picture where he drew feet and captioning it, "See? Feet! In your face, people who love actually good art!" My theory is that they're really just fucking lazy. Why draw feet if you don't to? Why draw fingers when a fist will do? Why learn what an actual body looks like and how it moves when you can just pretend your art is "dynamic"?<br><br>
For some inexplicable reason, the Justice League have opened up a lobby to the public as an information center and a hall of fame. Currently the only notable member the League has had in recent times is Superman so he's the only guy in the hall of fame. It's a pretty lame set up.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80c.jpg"><br>
<b>See? This kid agrees with me.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Booster Gold and Fire, having absolutely nothing to do and apparently not having been given access to alternate, non-public ways into headquarters, wander through the lobby where they're exposed to teenagers who speak like an adult thinks teenagers speak. I don't blame Fire with getting instantly annoyed with Dan Vado's weird teen speak. But I do blame Booster Gold for being a total misogynist.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80d.jpg"><br>
<b>Firstly, I don't think this kid does know how women are. Secondly, I don't think Booster knows either. Thirdly, Fire never looked so '90s.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Here's a fun game! Compare Fire's face in that panel to Wonder Woman's face on the cover. What do you know! It's the same face! Now imagine that face on every comic book cover on the rack every fucking new comic book day! What are the symptoms for post traumatic stress disorder?<br><br>
Oh shit. I mentioned the too long legs thing so I should probably give an example of that.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80e.jpg"><br>
<b>Look how fucking low her knee is! And how do both knees basically line up when one leg is bent?! Why do I suddenly hear helicopters and machine gun fire?!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Fire gives Booster some what-for about his sexist remarks until he apologizes. What a cuck! Although after he apologizes, he and Fire seem to get along a lot better. As if, maybe, taking responsibility for your words and actions, and making a heartfelt and sincere apology, can make the world a kinder, better place? Did this comic book fall through a temporal vortex from the future because from what I understand from the Comicsgater, this is woke bullshit that never would have appeared in a non-modern comic book? Where'd this agenda come from?! Treating women like individual human beings?! I'm fucking shook, man!<br><br>
Booster and Fire seek out Blue Beetle who has just finished the first build of Booster's new armor. He was also apparently working on a way to get Fire's powers back but creating an accident that somehow gives a person super powers is somehow different than using math, science, and technology to build a huge suit of armor. Ted tells Fire she's out of luck and she hugs him for trying and he apparently thinks she's absolutely in love with him and wants to fuck him because she decided to hug a close friend in gratitude.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80f.jpg"><br>
<b>See? Kevin West isn't a bad artist at all! He totally nails Ted's "Oh my God Fire wants to touch my dick" reaction.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I'm serious! That's a really beautifully done panel. Which comes back to how I'm not trying to say Kevin West sucks at art. What I'm saying is that I can't fucking stand all of the lazy tropes that this "dynamic" '90s art style set up. It's weird how a lot of it tended to lazy art when McFarlane arguably began by cluttering up every single panel with all sorts of weird details. As a point of historical detail, I think Marc Silvestri is credited as being the old school guy who began the trend that became the '90s Image style. But I don't know for sure because I never paid much attention to the Image stuff. And I wasn't really buying Marvel where the Image style took off.<br><br>
There's been a second plot happening in the background of the last few issues that I haven't discussed because it's been so boring and hack. It's about Tora heading back to her kingdom where she's the daughter of the king. He's sick and her younger brother has all but taken over the throne. But he's a dick so when Tora shows up again, her father is all, "Tora is older! She shall take the throne!" And her brother is all, "Ew! I'll show you! I'll get even!" Then he slams his wine down on a table and walks out.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80g.jpg"><br>
<b>He slams it down with his left hand even though he's been holding it and drinking from it with his right hand across several panels, and gesticulating angrily with his left.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="lef">Often when I'm angry and want to show my anger by slamming an object down on a nearby table, I take the time to switch hands, especially if I'm being drawn by an artist who doesn't give a fuck about a scene's continuity.<br><br>
I love Ice and I know she was a member of the Justice League for a long time but this comic book is about Justice League America and it should concentrate on Justice League America members and not on some tired battle for the throne story arc. Also maybe they should concentrate a little bit on Blake and Corbett since I was forced to learn who they were earlier.<br><br>
Several pages into the comic book and Dan Vado hasn't had an opportunity to make Guy look like the biggest pig on the planet.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80h.jpg"><br>
<b>Oh, there we go. Immediately as he appears in the comic for the first time.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">The Justice League should have taken all the money they spent on that stupid, useless lobby and information center and used it to hire a Human Resources department. How the fuck does anybody let Guy remain on the team when he can't refrain from suggesting lewd things to Wonder Woman and Maxima? I've said the same about Justice League Europe when Wally couldn't go a single panel without trying to get Power Girl to suck his dick. Why do the writers of this comic book think this shit is cute? Does Vado actually hate Guy and just wants readers to hate him? Or does Vado think this is charming rebel talk, just like he thought the teenager speak earlier was off the cuff. Or chain. Or whatever. I'm not pretending to know how kids in the '90s spoke!<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80i.jpg"><br>
<b>Yeah, he has gotten more annoying! Fucking Dan Vado.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Why is Wonder Woman getting angry at Maxima? This is like that time Ernesto was bullying me on the playground in elementary school and I called him a fucker and the teacher heard so we both got in trouble. Stand up for the right side of history, people! Stop getting angry at the people fighting back against oppression and suggestions that they want to suck somebody's dick! Also, Guy Gardner should sue Dan Vado. Is that a thing that could be possible?<br><br>
Oberon has alerted the team to Black and Corbett's crashed alien ship in Alaska. The government wants the Justice League to escort them to the site and see what's up. Booster Gold, having not tested his armor yet, demands to go on the mission. Wonder Woman, being a terrible leader, agrees to let him go.<br><br>
Meanwhile the space fish decide to recover Blake and Corbett through legal means by contacting the American government and simply asking that they be returned. It's hard to remember what America was like in 1993 but I'm pretty sure we still took the idea of taking in refugees seriously. So the fish aliens might not have a lot of luck with getting Blake and Corbett returned to them. Although Black and Corbett fire on the Justice League when they approach the crashed ship, so maybe it'll be an easy decision to give them to the space police fish.<br><br>
Eventually the Justice League disarm Blake and Corbett and hear their story. They've escaped from a prison planet and claim to have been political prisoners. Wonder Woman is all, "Oh, then we should grant you asylum!" But then the American government is all, "No, no! We are extraditing these jerks!"<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80j.jpg"><br>
<b>Captain Atom and his weak-ass ankle, returned from the dead or his trip to the past or wherever the hell he was, represents the American government.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Captain Atom didn't come alone. To make sure he can secure the prisoners from the Justice League, he brought along a top squad of government soldiers that are not exactly like every other group of high technology soldiers in every single '90s comic of the day.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA80k.jpg"><br>
<b>Their names are probably Deathkiller, Gunpistol, and Murderbang.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Why do these guys look like every G.I. Joe figure that was ever sold that either didn't have a distinct personality or maybe got a name but never appeared on the cartoon?<br><br>
<b>Justice League America #80 Rating: B-.</b> So many things are beginning to annoy me about this series. I only collected it for three more months, possibly to finish out this story line, or maybe I just wasn't as astute when I was 21. But it's nice to know that I'm still mostly the same person seeing as how I'm reading it now and thinking, "How much more of this shit am I willing to put up with?" Most of the "this shit" is simply the way Dan Vado has decided to portray Guy Gardner. If he got him so wrong, how can I trust that he understands any of the other characters that I'm not too familiar with? It's also possible that I've simply had too much <i>Justice League</i> over the last few years. I look forward to reading something entirely different in a week or two!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-13974438505559670942024-03-13T06:52:00.000-07:002024-03-13T06:52:58.650-07:00Justice League America #79 (Late August 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79.jpg"><br>
<b>"These don't look like The Extremists." "Oh, they're the <i>NEW</i> Extremists. They don't look so tough." "OH! They're deadly! Now I'm hooked!"</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I don't know who any of these Deadly New Extremists are but historically super villain groups love to recruit one-to-one match-ups for existing super hero teams. My evidence that this is happening here is how every character is fighting one other character and also that Dreamslayer and Bloodwynd are not depicted, meaning the two magick guys are off fighting each other because that's a good match-up. Based on that huge assumption, I'm going to guess the powers and names of the New Deadly Extremists!<br><br>
First off, the guy battling Guy Gardner. Guy Gardner's super power is to make constructs out of light, or light constructs. So I bet this guy makes heavy constructs out of solids! Like that big duffel bag gun he's carrying. His super name is Gym Break-in. Because breaking into something is the opposite of guarding something. And Jim is a first name like Guy but the play on words is that he works out with really heavy equipment, like the constructs he makes!<br><br>
The big galoot battling Wonder Woman must be the opposite of a wonder and the opposite of a woman. Something like Mundane Man would be getting us on the right track. But let's go a little further. If he's a regular, boring, non-wondrous man, that means he's probably a chauvinistic bore. His name is probably Toxic Masculinity. Wonder Woman doesn't look tough but she's super powerful so Toxic Masculinity must be super weak since he looks so tough. That's a super power because once Wonder Woman beats his ass, he cries out how feminism has destroyed heterosexual relationships, gaining the pity of any pawns of the patriarchy standing around nearby (or sitting over their keyboards putting their credit card information into X so they can jerk off to the number of views they have on every boring post but no other engagement at all. Then they hide the Blue Checkmark so they don't like Elon's cuck).<br><br>
The sexy woman about to do the Crane Kick on Maxima has to have powers opposite of Maxima's. I don't know Maxima that well but I think she can manipulate metal and blast people with her mind. This woman has a glowing knife and a bustier. Don't think I'm jumping to conclusions that half-naked sexy women are vacuous imbeciles when I say this woman is probably a vacuous imbecile. That's just the opposite of being able to blast people with thoughts. This woman has no thoughts and thus she can suck people toward her. Then she stabs them with her plastic knife because she can manipulate plastic because that's totally the opposite of metal. Her name is Suckyoubustier. She also loves anal because that's the opposite of constantly trying to suck Superman's dick.<br><br>
Jay Garrick is super old and runs fast so his nemesis is super young and walks slow. She uses youthful slang and doesn't know anything about World War II. She has gorgeous hair which I'm totally in love with because that's the exact opposite of wearing a pot on your head. Her name is Strip Tease because that's the opposite of getting flashed. You might think the opposite of getting flashed is putting your clothes on really slowly but that's just because you were raised by normal parents in a mediocre educational system that never taught you to really examine how opposites work. Also don't you want to see her get naked really slowly because I can't stop thinking about it now that I thought about it.<br><br>
The Ray looks like he's fighting some guy who would be named Serpent Dude or Ye Olde Robin Hood. But he's wearing shades which gets us into seeing how he's the opposite of The Ray. He's totally into darkness and being cool instead of lightness and being a huge nerd. The Ray shoots beams or "rays" of light so this guy throws blobs of plasma. His name is The Squirt. I don't know why he wears a chain across his chest. Is that part of being a cool dude?<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79a.jpg"><br>
<b>Here we go! Just a matter of pages before all my speculation is confirmed!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Wonder Woman freaks out because she realizes the team isn't ready for this kind of fight. She just thought they were going to beat the shit out of a bunch of no-power civilians which is why she let that old fogey Jay Garrick come up with the plan. But now the team has to scatter because she doesn't want them fighting on the airstrip and destroying it. Now that's leadership! You know how rare it is for a super hero to be concerned with the property damage that will result in their huge super brawl?! Max Lord must have put stipulations into their contract with the League that each hero is responsible for any property damage they cause and liable for any injuries sustained by onlookers.<br><br>
Toxic Masculinity, whose name actually turns out to be Brute, meaning I was fucking close enough to score a point on this one, attacks Wonder Woman.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79b.jpg"><br>
<b>Pretty sure "UUHHH EAT HUHHH!" translates into "Get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich."</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I don't know what Wonder Woman's "GAAAFFF!" translates into unless I read it backwards and then I'm fucking upset. Wonder Woman! Saying slurs backwards doesn't make them okay!<br><br>
Jay Garrick battles Strip Tease whose actual name is Death Angel. That makes sense! Even though I pointed out the villains should be the opposite of the heroes, you know that includes villains who have powers which exploit the weaknesses of the hero. So Green Lantern winds up having, as an opposite, the foe Sinestro. Jay Garrick's main weakness is being old so you'd expect he'd have a hard time against a villain who was basically the angel of death. I may have missed the mark on this one but now I'm picturing the angel of death stripping slowly.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79c.jpg"><br>
<b>You know what? Seeing your wife young again is basically watching a strip tease to an old person. I get another point for this one!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I just realized another reason why Strip Tease would be a great nemesis for Jay Garrick! You can't run fast with a hard-on! This is why I was never good at football on downs after I'd tackled somebody.<br><br>
Bloodwynd blasts the vampire off of Jay Garrick but then he's blasted into another dimension by Dreamslayer. It can't be the real Dreamslayer because the real Dreamslayer is dead. If it is the real Dreamslayer, I won't write it but I will think this: I hate you, Dan Vado.<br><br>
Dreamslayer helpfully explains how he "survived" being killed by Silver Sorceress. So I guess I don't hate you, Dan Vado. I just thought maybe I did while I looked at you out of the sides of my eyes. Then after reading Dreamslayer's explanation about how he really is dead and trying to resurrect himself, I was all, "Okay, that explains everything. I now have no problem with him appearing over the airstrip and blasting Bloodwynd because he was actually dead and not really there at all. Totally makes sense."<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79d.jpg"><br>
<b>Oh, I get it! Dreamslayer wants to marry Bloodwynd.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Dreamslayer explains how he was killed but that Silver Sorceress didn't account for life after death. Being that Bloodwynd has now been pulled into The Realm of the Dead (coincidentally it's where Bloodwynd gets his power), I'm surprised he doesn't tell Dreamslayer to shut the fuck up as he goes racing off to find Superman. Or had Superman already returned by August '93? I really didn't pay much attention to all the Reign of the Supermen shit at the time.<br><br>
The Extremist Guy Gardner winds up fighting is called Gunshot which totally makes sense because he wields a gigantic vibro-axe. He talks more shit than Guy Gardner.<br><br>
Maxima's rival is called Meanstreak. I guess her theme is dominatrix? She throws psychic knives while having to constantly pull up on her bustier so her boobs don't pop out. I think she's my favorite deadly New Extremist.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79e.jpg"><br>
<b>The guy Ray matches up with is called Cloudburst. Or Bad Weather. He needs some practice revealing his name.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I get the feeling the Deadly New Extremists have made a few mistakes in their match-ups against the Justice League. A bunch of them are using powers that help to power the Justice League members themselves. So Dreamslayer lives in the Realm of the Dead and uses its power to attack Bloodwynd whose power comes from the Realm of the Dead. Bad Weather/Cloudburst uses lightning to blast The Ray who is master of light which, if you pay close attention, is part of the word "lightning." Meanstreak uses psychic knives on a woman who has mastered psychic powers (and also manipulating metal which *gasp* knives our made out of!). Gunshot talks more shit than Guy Gardner so Guy can't get a word in meaning he can concentrate on making some light constructs that can easily defeat a guy with a terrible name and an axe. Brute is as symbolic a character you can get of the patriarchy and Wonder Woman fucking smashes that shit before seven in the morning daily. And Jay Garrick's prostate hasn't worked for years and some vampiric succubus thinks she's going to tempt him into her poison arms?! I think the deadly New Extremists might be fucked.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79f.jpg"><br>
<b>See? Marriage. If there's one thing I instantly recognize, it's a twink trying to fuck me. I mean somebody.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Bloodwynd rejects Dreamslayer and he takes it well, pointing out that he usually doesn't take rejection well. Normally he'd burn down the person's flat or end them if he catches them with another man or any of those other John Lennon songs about doing the most vile shit when a woman rejects you. Bloodwynd winds up back on the airstrip while Dreamslayer says, "Ta ta! See you later! Kissies!"<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA79g.jpg"><br>
<b>Except for Brute because Wonder Woman didn't need any help beating his ass.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I'd argue Wonder Woman's point about the deadly New Extremists being perfectly suited to battle each Justice League member one on one and, oh yeah, I did already! Maybe Wonder Woman would have lost if that little kid she rescued last issue hadn't run at Brute screaming, "No! No! No! No! No!" It's the only English he knew. Also Brute comes back because he needs to be put down by somebody other than Wonder Woman. Those are the rules! So Maxima takes out Brute, Jay Garrick takes out Gunshot, Wonder Woman takes out Death Angel and Meanstreak, Guy Gardner takes out nobody (although he finishes off Gunshot, I guess), and The Ray takes out Bad Weather/Cloudburst. Oh wait. How did he do that? That was against the rules!<br><br>
Oh well, the deadly New Extremists were not deadly at all. Dreamslayer teleports them all away after being defeated, leaving the local warlord to face justice at the hands of Justice League America. The United States' news is all, "Justice League America are international heroes!" The rest of the world is probably all, "How soon before they begin imposing American beliefs on the rest of the world?! This is a crisis like none we've ever seen before! Maybe we should get Justice League International to put a stop to this imperialism!"<br><br>
<b>Justice League America #79 Rating: B.</b> Just a standard, by the book bad guy team versus good guy team. Wonder Woman even takes a moment to explain how it works to readers in that panel I scanned where she's all, "The team was meant to match up to us equally!" It's such a standard trope that I went off on it at the beginning before even opening the stupid comic book! But you know what? I also enjoyed it! I guess there's a reason why this shit is such a common trope. Although I still don't know if The Ray's rival was named Cloudburst or Bad Weather.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-86956388018111073152024-03-12T10:34:00.000-07:002024-03-12T10:34:00.660-07:00Justice League America #78 (Early August 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA78.jpg" /><br />
<b>Do all women throwing cars look this sexy?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't believe I've ever made a woman angry enough to throw a car. Maybe I have and there just weren't any cars close enough to throw. That's probably what happened. Imagine being a man and not believing you've ever made a woman angry enough to throw a car! I probably do it on a daily basis without even trying! Definitely gonna think twice before getting into an argument with a woman in a parking garage.<br /><br />
The issue begins with a plane carrying food and medicine being shot down. One of the pilots says, "I'd hate to dump our load," which are some pretty good last words. They're better than the other guy's last words which are kind of racist. He's all, "Why do we even bother helping these people when the supplies we bring just get stolen by other people and relief workers are murdered because they're animals!" He doesn't say the animals bit but you can tell it was implied, being that I called him racist already. Maybe he wasn't racist but I judged him and, well, that's that. Everything he said after I looked at his smug pilot's face and bright blonde hair and thought, "Racist," can't be read any other way. I'm glad he fucking smashed his face into the side of that mountain. Good riddance!<br /><br />
Due to the violence on the island with the mountains now covered in pilot jelly, the United Nations has asked the Justice League for help securing the island and protecting the civilians from all the warlords trying to secure power by stealing the food and medical supplies being flown in. Guy Gardner seems upset by not only this mission but the time of the meeting, the nationality of the United Nations representative, the temporary recruitment of Jay Garrick, Beetle working on a new suit for Booster, doing the military's job for them, and just about every other thing mentioned in any panel for the first few pages. It seems Dan Vado's version of Guy Gardner is just a whiny, contrarian piece of shit. I won't deny Guy often comes off as whiny or contrarian or a piece of shit, but he often doesn't pull off all three multiple times across only a couple of pages.<br /><br />
Jay Garrick gives the new League a little pep talk, mostly so he can point out he's not just old but experienced as well. That's the line I use at the club every weekend!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA78a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Good thing there weren't any cars in the conference room.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Wonder Woman, realizing that the main thing any old man wants is to still feel useful, allows Jay Garrick to come up with the plan to invade, I mean defend, the island in the Indian Ocean. Shouldn't this be a job for Justice League International? I'm not sure why the American version of the team, the one with "America" in the name, probably because they're supposed to be defending America, was pulled for this mission. No wait, I am sure why. Even down a bunch of members, they're more powerful than the European group.<br /><br />
Speaking of being down a few members, readers already knew the team was down Superman, Fire, and Booster Gold. But it seems Black Condor and Agent Liberty have skedaddled as well. That makes sense because neither one belonged on the team. Black Condor didn't want to be a hero and Agent Liberty was a murderer who thought he was a good guy with a gun.<br /><br />
Jay's plan is to split the League into two groups. Blue team consists of Wonder Woman, Guy Gardner, and The Ray. Their mission is to destroy all of the warlords' fighter jets and missile sites. Red Team consists of Maxima, Bloodwynd, and Jay Garrick. Their mission is to secure the airport. That's the extent of his plan. See how simple the plan was? Exactly the type of job you give to the old man to feel useful. Plus the opponents are mostly young men forced to fight for the local warlords, so they surrender quickly when they realize they're outmatched by all the heroes. Finally, an easy win for the Justice League!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA78b.jpg" /><br />
<b>At least until the final page.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><b>Justice League America #78 Rating: C-.</b> This issue (which felt like a rejected <i>Suicide Squad</i> script) was 1/2 prologue leading up to the last page encounter with the real villains, The New Extremists, and 1/2 portraying Guy Gardner as a murderous, violent asshole. At one point while fighting basically young men who almost certainly were forced into fighting for the local warlord, Guy says, "If I don't kill something soon, I'm going to die of boredom." Has killing ever been an aspect of Guy's personality? I don't think he would have been chosen as a Green Lantern with murder in his heart. Sure, he loves to rough people up to prove how masculine he is. But craving killing something? Was Dan Vado's portrayal of Guy Gardner the reason I quickly dropped this book after he became the writer? The final issue I own is Part One of a multi-part story about Guy Gardner which speaks to how uninterested I was in Dan Vado shitting all over Guy. I get that writers often have different takes on various characters but isn't keeping them somewhat recognizable the job of the editors? That's my main complaint. My minor squabble is that Maxima never really overdrove anywhere! She just smashed a jeep or two and was all, "Boy, that Jay Garrick is a pretty good warrior for an old as fuck old guy."
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-26855746439171769552024-03-11T15:12:00.000-07:002024-03-11T15:12:23.557-07:00Justice League America #77 (Late July 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77.jpg" /><br />
<b>Gross.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Whenever a plot seems to be an allegory about disease and the wasting away of the flesh, why is my go-to belief that it's about AIDS? Why not cancer? It's easy to think that being sexually transmitted, it becomes a more versatile disease for a fictional allegory. Cancer is random and stupid but you can't get it from sitting on public toilet seat. I mean from kissing a stranger. I mean from blood-to-blood contact with somebody you met in a park, or a loved one, or a transfusion from a health care system that didn't take AIDS nearly as seriously as they should have because we had an asshole president and his mean-dick-sucking wife who refused to treat AIDS as a national epidemic and instead viewed it as a consequence of living a gay lifestyle. That's a lot more meat for your allegory than "Well, I was diagnosed with cancer like almost everybody in the world will eventually be as well if they live long enough." Then again, I suppose it depends on the point of your allegory. Many cancers can be traced back to government blowing up atomic bombs right in our own backyard or not giving a shit and allowing corporations to do whatever the fuck they want with whatever chemicals they wanted. So cancer could be a good allegory for getting fucked by the system while AIDS is a good allegory for getting fucked by your social connections. But the main reason I find I can't stop comparing all of the plots about diseases to AIDS is that I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area in the '70s and '80s and saw how it ravaged our friends, neighbors, and loved ones, especially early on when nobody really took it too seriously in parts of the country that didn't have such a large gay population. It's probably in my top five things that terrified the fuck out of me while still young, scarring and reshaping what would become my adult brain. AIDS haunted me because it was so mysterious for so long. For things that terrified me as a youngster, it was right up there with Killer Bees invading California from South and Central America and shining a flashlight into the sky while standing in my driveway late at night. My understanding of light at the time was that it kept going forever and it traveled so fast (practically instantaneously) that I was obviously signaling to alien beings that I was extant and that I was delicious.<br /><br />
Now that I think about it, was me shining a flashlight into the sky to provoke aliens my areligious version of praying to God?<br /><br />
When we last left Martian Manhunter, he was filled with men: The Atom, The Ray, Rott, Weapons Master, and the mysterious Bloodwynd. Your first thought was probably, "You can't fit that many penises in so few orifices." My first response is "Maybe you haven't tried" and my second response is "J'onn is a shapeshifter, buddy. He'll make as many orifices as needed." Upon arriving inside J'onn, everybody was met by Rott, the disease allegory.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Simon Bisley was banned from working with DC for years because he drew one penis on one Lobo arm and Rick Burchett was allowed to keep working after this disgusting panel?!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This dude invited The Ray into his penis mushroom playground and then immediately began kicking his ass. Imagine being invited to a party and then being threatened by the host because you were expecting to have a good time rather than being assaulted upon walking in the front door. Also the party smelled like moldy taint. Also the previous guests were all strapped into weird sexual torture devices. I don't have to imagine that because, remember, I grew up in the Bay Area!<br /><br />
Rott threatens to snap The Ray's spine into "so many pieces they can't be counted." He sounds like God talking about Abraham's sperm. Also, why would ask for The Ray because The Ray can help him escape only to threaten to kill The Ray once he got there? Is this part of the HIV allegory? How HIV attacks the immune system because it thinks it's helping or something? I'm not a doctor! I don't know how HIV and AIDS work! I'm just a kid who grew up terrified that I was going to die! I'm still that kid! At least I finally lost my fear of Killer Bees invading in my 40s because, well, they seem to have settled nicely in Texas and mostly had their aggression bred out of them by mating with American bees. Damn, talk about a xenophobic allegory! Our country is being invaded by Africans who are going to mate with our women and have aggressive criminal babies! It's basically one of the main plotlines in <i>The X-files</i>. Was everything we were taught to fear growing up just xenophobic allegories that othered minorities? That was a rhetorical question, meaning it doesn't need to be answered meaning we already know the answer meaning yes, yes that was everything we were taught in the '80s.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh shit! Being an aggressive, violent twat was all part of his plan!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This is why I never get into fights with aggressive men who obviously want to fight me because I'm so awesome. I won't fall for their plan of taking my power after I punch them in the face! I see through your shifty shenanigans, you asshole bumping into everybody at the club!<br /><br />
I just realized Rott is shaped like a Masters of the Universe action figure. Also, his crotch cries for freedom. That's why he would have been called "Freedom Crotch" in the He-man cartoon.<br /><br />
Using The Ray's power, Rott bursts out of J'onn's chest. I was going to add a comparative simile to that statement but it would have either been "like a chest burster" which is pretty fucking redundant or it would have been the most disgusting, over-detailed comparison to male ejaculation. That one didn't seem like the proper choice not because it would have been gross but because I know dicks aren't located on chests. So I chose not to add a simile and just ramble about the choice of not choosing instead.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Artist's rendition of me and my ejaculate.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The first thing Rott does after gaining freedom is assume Booster Gold is going to send him back into the gem and punches him in the face. I've made terrible assumptions in my life but I don't think I've ever walked into a room, didn't like the look of a guy in high-waisted pants, and knocked him the fuck out because he looked threatening. Who would ever think a guy in high-waisted pants was threatening? Wait. Did Hitler wear high-waisted pants? I have no reason for asking that assumptive question but if the answer is "Yes," I might rethink how I feel about men in high-waisted pants. To be clear, I will look down on them as the genocidal lunatics they obviously are.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Beetle said he was down, J'onn, not out. Now he's also "down" in that his feelings have been hurt.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Obviously Booster knows he's not as strong as J'onn. But nobody wants to hear that, especially after they've just been knocked out by a sentient syphilitic spirochete.<br /><br />
Only one person ever looked at Blue Beetle and thought, "He's just DC's version of Spider-man." That one person was Dan Jurgens. Ever since Dan took over the book, Blue Beetle has been hanging upside down from lampposts, squatting on the backs of chairs, and running around hunched over. I guess Dan is one of those idiots who think spiders are bugs. I am one of those idiots who will mock a person for thinking that.<br /><br />
Rott rips the gem from J'onn's chest and declares he's going to use it "for power. For the dark side." Great. He's not only a living representation of an STD; he's also a <i>Star Wars</i> fan.<br /><br />
Inside the gem, The Atom finally gets free of the Stasis iPhone he was trapped within. He and The Ray ponder how they're going to escape when they find the original Bloodwynd hanging from the rafters. He explains that he can explain.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh no. The allegory is worse than I imagined.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This isn't an allegory about sexually transmitted diseases at all. It's an allegory about a Black man struggling with his internal, violent nature! Egads! It's like I'm reading fiction from four plus decades ago! Oh, wait. That's right. Never mind.<br /><br />
I understand that this story could just be one individual man wrestling with the darkness inside of him. That's always a rational possibility. But I've got a degree in literature so I've read enough literature from across centuries within the context of the times each piece was written and one thing's certain: if you're writing in the context of "Western Civilization" and you're writing about one individual's struggle with whatever, that character is always white. Because in "Western Civilization," "white" (and, ultimately, "male" and "heterosexual") is a blank and neutral canvas within to inscribe the themes of your plot. "White heterosexual males" were the only characters who could be "individuals" with internal struggles. Much of this was just unconsidered supremacy but it was also due to an understanding of context and interference from things outside the author's plot. If the main character were a woman or non-white, the plot would essentially need to deal with a whole host of outside distractions. The character no longer becomes an "individual" but a representation of a smaller group. So a woman must represent not only herself but all women in the context of the historic moment. How that character acts will be seen by the audience as the way all women would act, and thus she must shoulder a responsibility to act "appropriately." Whereas a man can just do fuck all and, if his actions are reprehensible, will be judged as just an individual jerk-off. Non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual characters are never given that kind of latitude and freedom. They can never be just a reprehensible piece of shit without a large portion of the audience thinking, "Yep. Those types are all reprehensible pieces of shit."<br /><br />
What I'm trying to say is that it looks bad, even in 1993, to have a Black character struggling with their inherent violent nature! Maybe that's just me and my racist reading of this text. But if my reading of this text is racist, it's only because I grew up in the context of people writing racist texts like this!<br /><br />
Bloodwynd tells his origin story to The Atom and The Ray.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA77f.jpg" /><br />
<b>The woke mind virus must have time traveled to 1993 because I was led to believe this kind of stuff only exists in modern comics.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">It's not just Bloodwynd's violence and anger that has been captured by the gem; it's the violence and anger of all of his ancestors who kept the Blood Gem safe. Also it's the violence and evil and darkness of slave owner Jacob Whitey. I mean Whitney. Because the gem was used to murder him and capture his soul! So Rott is actually representative of the centuries of violence perpetrated on the African people stolen from their home and enslaved by white Americans. Now I'm wondering why Bloodwynd seems so ashamed of this evil and ugliness! He has a right to be angry! Maybe if he stopped trying to imprison Rott and instead incorporated him into his being to become whole (like a 1993 Black version of Hedwig), he would become balanced and more capable of restoring justice to America! Didn't we learn in <i>Justice League Europe</i> when the team went up against Echidna the Mother of Monsters that it's better to understand rather than suppress one's darker nature?!<br /><br />
What The Atom and The Ray learn is that Martian Manhunter was manipulated not by Bloodwynd all this time, but Bloodwynd's evil side, Rott. Although J'onn wasn't being a big jerk so maybe Bloodwynd tempered the control somehow. It doesn't make perfect sense but then I'm pretty sure Bloodwynd was never meant to be an actual character, just J'onn in disguise. But seeing Bloodwynd's popularity, Dan Jurgens had to rewrite the story so that an actual Bloodwynd could exist after all was said and done.<br /><br />
While The Atom and The Ray learn Bloodwynd's half of the story, Martian Manhunter gets the rest of the story from Rott. It turns out J'onn didn't find the gem in a cute little boutique store. But the story is still pretty close to my assumption from last issue's review. He was about to fly into space when he was distracted. Not by antiquing but by a scream from Bloodwynd. While trying to help Bloodwynd, the gem wound up on J'onn's chest and Rott took over, forcing him to infiltrate the Justice League as Bloodwynd to find a power source to help free him. And that's the story of Bloodwynd! Are we all satisfied?<br /><br />
I'm satisfied! It was a decent way of explaining J'onn's transformation while also keeping Bloodwynd as a real character. Now he can stop being mysterious and actually build a personality while interacting with the other members of the League. Oh, and also they all escape from the gem while trapping Rott back inside of it. And then Dan Jurgens ends the story with "So long. It's been fun!" with his signature. I guess that's it for Dan then!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #77 Rating: B+.</b> A bit rushed, probably due to Dan Jurgens only having two more issues left to explain Bloodwynd, but overall a solid origin story for a character that was probably never meant to be anything more than another disguise of J'onn's. It's possible Dan planned this whole thing out exactly as he wrote it but, in the end, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that a writer can write their way into and out of whatever situations they place the characters. And Dan was more than capable throughout this run. Plus you could tell he really respected Blue Beetle! Blue Beetle was probably the star of most of Dan's run, really coming through for everybody at the end of each story. He even beat Eclipso in an annual! On the other hand, Superman did practically fuck all. And everybody was worried he'd take the spotlight away from the rest of the group! I suppose he did but he did it by dying and not by saving the world singlehandedly every story. Ha ha! What a loser.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-2788633529966920522024-03-10T08:01:00.000-07:002024-03-10T08:01:56.653-07:00Justice League America #76 (Early July 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76.jpg" /><br />
<b>Not even Dan Jurgens kows what the fuck is happening on this cover.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Since Dan Jurgens was only allowed to write two more issues of <i>Justice League America</i> after he blew whatever was left of his wad after the Death of Superman on his Doctor Destiny story, he was required to give readers the origin of Bloodwynd. Maybe not contractually obligated but I'd argue socially obligated. You want to be seen as a responsible writer? Answer the plot questions you've littered all over your stories that were meant to intrigue readers into buying more issues to satisfy their curiosity. If you want to be Scott Lobdell, have Superman encounter a floating door in the sky and never again do anything about it at all because why not?<br /><br />
<b>Scott Lobdell:</b> "While writing, my brain was all, 'What if Superman encountered a door floating in the sky?'"<br />
<b>Editorial:</b> "You mean like a throwback to an old '50s or '60s Superman story where the cover might be all, 'What family secrets lie hidden behind the Door That Floats Over Smallville?!'"<br />
<b>Scott Lobdell:</b> "What? You now I've never read a comic book in my life. I just thought, 'That's be weird, right?'"<br />
<b>Editorial:</b> "Yeah! Cool. So what'll be behind it?!"<br />
<b>Scott Lobdell:</b> "Fuck if I know. I love it when my brain surprises me!"<br />
<b>Editorial:</b> "So that'll be the next story arc? The mystery sky door?"<br />
<b>Scott Lobdell:</b> "The what? What door? I think I'll have Superman invent a new kind of math next month."<br /><br />
I don't remember how the whole Bloodwynd thing plays out but I think readers eventually learn Bloodwynd is actually a real character that isn't just J'onn putting on blackface. Editorial, after receiving an influx of letters from fans applauding DC for their inclusion of a Black magic-based character in the Justice League ranks, probably realized that having Bloodwynd just be J'onn in disguise was going to disappoint a lot of readers. Knowing what Dan Jurgens was soon to reveal to shocked readers, they probably demanded that Dan come up with a story that allowed Bloodwynd to remain an actual character and not just a Martian minstrel show.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76a.jpg" /><br />
<b>"And why do you still have that gem stuck in your chest? And why are my pants so high-waisted?!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">J'onn explains that he has no memory of his time as Bloodwynd and Booster, disappointed, is all, "Aww." The end! Good explanation, Dan Jurgens! My guess is that J'onn attended one of those hypnotism shows and reacted poorly when he was told to act like a chicken. Maybe the Martian word for "chicken" is "mysterious Black wizard."<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76b.jpg" /><br />
<b>J'onn is every politician when an old photo of them turns up in blackface. "Um, I have no memory of the event! Why would I do such a thing?!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Why do you think Dan Jurgens put Booster Gold in such awful pants? Do you think Dan had begun wearing pants like that and he was all, "They are too cool! I'll show everybody how cool they are! Booster Gold will wear them because he's so cool!"<br /><br />
Booster Gold lists every strange power Bloodwynd ever used so that Martian Manhunter can explain them all away as being powers he already possessed. Hasn't Booster Gold been paying attention? J'onn has basically every power in the DC Universe. And those he doesn't have, his other powers can simulate easily. Another person who hasn't been paying attention: Blue Beetle!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76c.jpg" /><br />
<b>He can't fucking remember, you asshole.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Blue Beetle, being the intense genius that readers in the letters pages continually delude themselves into believing him to be, decides that the secret to J'onn's mysterious transformation and memory loss is the jewel embedded in his chest. His evidence? "Both you and Bloodwynd wore the thing." Animal crackers! He's right! It was so obvious! How did nobody see it before?! Oh wait. I know how. Only Booster Gold has been hanging around to make that intuitive leap and he still doesn't understand why his pants look so ridiculous. No wonder Blue Beetle hangs around with Booster Gold. Anybody would seem to be a genius compared to him. Booster Gold really should reactivate Skeets permanently since that's where all of Booster Gold's knowledge resides. Skeets was Booster's iPhone before everybody in the world became braindead assholes who didn't need to know anything because the contraption embedded in their hand like the Mark of the Beast tells them whatever they need to know when they suddenly need to know it (if they even realize they need to know something they don't know).<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76d.jpg" /><br />
<b>This gonorrhea-ridden monster and his garden of fungal phalluses has been trapped insde the jewel on J'onn's chest. Weapons Master is just visiting.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Is this entire story an allegory for sexually transmitted diseases? Bloodwynd? Like something borne on the wind but in the blood. Like a virus! Sex rot! Which is fitting cause this guy's name is Rott. It must be Martian AIDS which is why all of the phallic imagery inside J'onn's chest jewel.<br /><br />
Rott's plan to escape his jewel-dimension prison relies on using the power of J'onn and the rest of the Justice League. Weapons Master, having accidentally discovered Rott while hopping dimensions, just wants to see the Justice League destroyed fro embarrassing him in front of his girlfriend a few issues ago. Why that plan involved J'onn rejoining the Justice League as a completely different person hasn't been revealed yet because I'm only like five pages into the comic book. But I'm sure it had something to do with Dan Jurgens figuring all of this out way after introducing Bloodwynd to the team.<br /><br />
Also trapped inside the extra-dimensional jewel: Bloodwynd!<br /><br />
Blue Beetle runs every test he can think of on the gem and learns nothing. But that doesn't stop him from making up some theories! Because that's how science works when you're the smartest guy in a room that only contains you and Booster Gold.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hmm. I was kind of hoping Beetle's theory would be more spectacularly crazy and less mundanely obvious.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I guess having an actual genius scientist standing over your shoulder really puts a leash on how pedophile-ring-in-the-basement-of-a-pizza-restaurant unhinged the theories you're willing to vocalize are. Still, he could have come up with something insanely clever like "This gem represents Martian AIDS contracted from all the White Martian dick J'onn has been sucking!" You'd think that I wouldn't be so quick to act like AIDS is a stereotypically gay disease especially since, in this run's last year or two, I've been barraged by DC's extended run of advertisements to educated readers on the reality of AIDS!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76f.jpg" /><br />
<b>This is one of them. See if you can spot where Past Me Photoshopped it!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I searched "AIDS" on Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea to find this advert from a <i>Team Titans</i> review. What I discovered was that I have pages and pages of reviews that mention "AIDS." What's wrong with me?! Do I think AIDS is a joke?! No, actually. But it's crazy how often I think a story is really just an allegory for how America handled the disease in the '80s. Especially that Benjamin Percy run on <i>Green Arrow</i> with the werewolves! That's the one time I think my AIDS allegory theory was actually valid.<br /><br />
The other half of that panel I scanned contains The Atom's response to Blue Beetle which is an actually respectable extra-dimensional scientific theory. And the only way The Atom knows to test that theory, you've probably guessed: shrink down and enter J'onn's penis! I mean his gem!<br /><br />
The Atom shrinks down and enters J'onn's gem while spewing the most vile innuendo I've ever read. Ray Palmer might as well have just asked J'onn to pull down his bikini briefs so he could fuck him. And as we all know, being that this is an AIDS allegory, The Atom has just contracted HIV, the virus which leads to AIDS! Playing the part of the HIV virus on the next page is Weapons Master!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA76g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hee hee!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Being that Rott is trapped inside a gem, my guess is that they need The Ray's help to escape! That's also based on that time I looked at and scanned in the cover earlier. I may not be a scientist who knows anything about gems and refraction and alternate dimensions and pizza basement pedophile rings, but I am capable of remembering something I looked at within the past hour. I'm not a genius though so anywhere outside of that hour will wind up with diminishing returns on what I can remember. Unless I once Photoshopped Tim Drake telling Alfred that he's going to get some pussy. That's something I'll remember until the day I die.<br /><br />
Weapons Master arcs some kind of painful energy through the gem, forcing Martian Manhunter to finally attempt to remove it from his chest. After he does so, he begins to wither and die. Booster Gold puts the gem back on J'onn's chest instead of letting J'onn die and ending the story. That could have been a way to go too! Once J'onn has caught his breath and stop withering into nothing, Rott demands they send The Ray into the gem or they'll kill J'onn. Luckily The Ray isn't around to hear everybody's reaction to the thought that The Ray might be the Justice League's most powerful member. A whole lot of exclamations ending in interrobangs filled the room and probably a bit of snickering as well. "That dumb kid from Philly who's nothing more than a fancy flashlight?! Ha ha! Ridiculous!" But no! Not ridiculous! Remember how Oberon ran a battery of tests on The Ray a few issues ago and everybody said things like, "His power levels are off the charts!" and "He's going to blow the building if we keep pushing him!" and "I, Superman, am going to go get a latte and a croissant since nobody seems to fucking need me anymore now that you have this super powerful kid that you're all impressed by!" Which is true, I guess! It's not like Doomsday beat The Ray to death!<br /><br />
Oh wait. Superman was already dead by the time The Ray came along, wasn't he? That was sort of the point of hiring The Ray and Black Condor and Agent I've Got A Gun. Well, how was I supposed to remember that? It's not like I read that issue sometime within the last hour.<br /><br />
The Ray rightly hesitates about entering the gem, realizing that it's probably a trap. But J'onn and Beetle and Booster are all, "But RaaaaAAAAaaaaAAAAaaay is in theeeeeEEEEEEeeeEEEEeeeere! You have to HELP our FRIEND!" So The Ray turns into a laser beam and enters the gem only to find himself in the clutches of Rott and the Weapons Master! Too bad they didn't send Agent Liberty. He could have, according to his view of the way the world works, used his bullets to keep this story from needing a second part.<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #76 Rating: B.</b> I have a feeling Dan Jurgens believes this is adequate explanation for what happened to J'onn and he won't be providing too many more details. So let me surmise how this happened: J'onn quit the Justice League meaning to go on a meditative retreat across time and space. But before leaving Earth, he stopped into a small antiques dealer in Bangor, Maine, where he saw a beautiful brooch that he couldn't resist. Upon placing it on his chest, being that he's a powerful telepath, J'onn subsumed the personality of one of the people trapped inside: Bloodwynd! Lucky he didn't become Rott, I guess. Bloodwynd, realizing he now had control over J'onn's personality, decided to join the Justice League where he might meet people who could help free him from the gem. Unfortunately, before he could come up with a plan, Doctor Destiny interfered and J'onn regained control of his body. Bloodwynd, exhausted from the mental strain of controlling J'onn's body, collapsed unconscious within the gem. But his cellmate Rott had been observing everything and realized that The Ray could probably free him from the gem. Also Weapons Master wound up visiting for some reason. I guess to give the story some kind of historical continuity between the antagonists and the League.<br /><br />
I very much like the design of Rott and wonder why he didn't become a major Justice League villain. Probably due to all the sores erupting all of his skin. He's got the Lobo body type that probably made readers' dicks hard but all those spirochetal oozing sores is a real turn-off, man.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-27448050175060823612024-03-08T08:01:00.000-08:002024-03-08T08:01:32.078-08:00Justice League International #51 (June 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE51.jpg" /><br />
<b>This looks shit, mate.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't want to hurt Ron Randall's feelings by defecating, eating my defecation, and then vomiting it back up all over this cover because I've been absolutely satisfied with most of his work on <i>Justice League Europe.</i>. But this cover looks like something some pizza farting weirdo incel would back on Kickstarter after listening to 13 hours of Ethan Van Sciver YouTube rants. I know, I know. It's not that bad and it isn't chock full of half-naked women with watermelon-sized breasts or a cybernetic frog. But it does look like Ron spent about two hours on it while hopped up on Vicodin and Red Bull. The coloring is flat (which might not be his problem but that doesn't change my critique. It just shifts it over to Gene D'Angelo or somebody), the characters all posed roughly the same way (arms out, stumbling down stairs) and the grimaces have caused me to flash back to staring at the New Comics rack in my local comic books store circa the early '90s. I guess this comic was from the early '90s but reading this series didn't mean I wanted to be reminded of existing in that place and time. It just feels so amateurish. Which would be a great excuse for why this was the final <i>Justice League Europe</i> comic I ever bought. But I can't use that excuse. I'm sure 21 year old me would have felt this cover was exciting. My reason for dropping the series was probably way more pathetic, like the change in title, or Crimson Fox's new outfit, or I'd had all I could stand of Hal Jordan, or I was spending more and more of my comic book money on Vertigo books. I say probably because I can't remember any of the dumb shit I was thinking at 21, except maybe, "I want to fuck Lobo so hard."<br /><br />
Whatever the reasons, <i>Justice League International #51</i> was the end of the road for me and the European crew. Hopefully the reason was that I was getting laid regularly by this point in my life and just forgot all about picking up this book, especially with the name change. I kept picking up <i>Justice League America</i> for about another ten months which really boggles my mind. Why one and not the other? If I were offered the opportunity to time travel right now, I just might waste it on going back and asking my younger self why he stopped picking up this title. Except that might cause some kind of catastrophic paradox where younger me would be all, "What? Oh! I just forgot about it! I'd better go get the issues I missed and keep buying it!" Then I'd return to the present with even more shitty <i>Justice League International</i> books added to my re-read stack. Good thing time travel doesn't exist! I just dodged that bullet and also the bullet where I'd cause a paradox by having sex with my grandmother.<br /><br />
This issue begins with Sue Dibny being just as adorkable as usual. That's adorable while also being a complete dork. The definition of dork is "somebody who wears a nerdy hat." The definition of adorable is "somebody who can pull off wearing a nerdy hat." You usually see the first definition all over the place at Magic the Gathering tournaments but you never, ever see the second one there.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE51a.jpg" /><br />
<b>As far as Disneyland rides go, this isn't the worst.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The worst Disneyland ride is obviously the Teacups. Pointless and vomit inducing. I'd rather fly in the tiny Dumbo cars or listen to the foreign children sing happily. As a kid of the '70s, those were your main choices, along with the dark rides like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland. That's because your parents weren't about to spend their hard earned cash on an E Ticket for you when you were probably too small to go on any roller coasters anyway. Those fucking teacups, man. How many times did I get hornswoggled into going in those when I would have been more than happy to go to Hell with Mr. Toad again.<br /><br />
Justice League International aren't actually in Disney if you actually thought that I was being serious for one actual minute, actually. They're in Xochimilco, Mexico, for some kind of international security summit but they seem to be mostly doing tourist stuff. Sue decided to go on the "Get Pulled Under the Water by a Bunch of Ancient Aztec Ghosts" boat ride. I like how annoyed the woman next to Sue looks. "Can't that nerd get kidnapped by ancient underwater zombies a little more quieter? I'm trying to have a romantic boat ride here!"<br /><br />
Ralph freaks out for a few pages wondering where Sue is before he finds a ransom letter back in the hotel room. To get Sue back, Justice League Europe must go to a specified location. That's about it. So the plan is for Justice League Europe to head into Sue's kidnapper's trap while the members of Justice League International hang back and scope out the situation. That's Maya, Tasmanian Devil, and probably Metamorpho. The location turns out to be some modern ancient pyramids full of half-naked dudes in loin cloths.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE51b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Sue's cell structure was modified to interact with her cell's structure.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Sue has lost her cute little hat and Power Girl is wearing a thermal underneath her outfit. In the jungle! Maybe it's a sign of the trauma she's experiencing from her intimate encounter with Hal Jordan. He forgot they fucked because he had amnesia when they fucked which is totally how amnesia works. So she's trying to cover up as much as possible, feeling insecure and used. Or the colorist just fucked up.<br /><br />
The person who kidnapped Sue claims to be Montezuma the 189th. Do you think Gerard Jones did the generational math on that? I was ready to believe it but then I looked up Montezuma II and when he ruled and it was the 16th Century! How the fuck do you get 187 more generations in about 500 years? That's fucking crazy, man. The Justice League should have smelled a rat immediately! Instead, they take him at his word that he's trying to peacefully and politically return Mexico to the Aztec people. But his guards are off sneaking about and discussing how Montezuma is actually up to no good! Ralph is the guy who solves mysteries so let's hope he's all, "Wait. The 189th Montezuma? How the fuck does that math work?!"<br /><br />
Little do the guards know that they're revealing all of their plans right in front of Metamorpho who was pretending to be a wall with a big dumb face on it. Rex decides that's enough sneaking about even if it puts Sue in harm's way because Montezuma the 189th's plan is to nuke Mexico City. I don't know how nuking Mexico City will bring back the old Aztec Gods but then I grew up areligious. I don't understand how any of that shit works. Aside from that none of it actually does work. Montezuma the 189th is just another deluded fool who believes faith is actually some kind of righteous attribute rather than a tool to manipulate and control.<br /><br />
The team begin to scour the city looking for where the nuclear bomb is hidden before it goes off. They decide it's probably been planted in a building that symbolizes the European conquest of the region and begin splitting up to search various sites that match that description. Although they forgot the site that Maya mentioned earlier out of the blue, interrupting Ralph just to point it out. I was wondering why the fuck she did that! It's like a thriller where they introduce the killer sometime in the first half of the movie but just in passing so you don't really notice him but later, when he's revealed, the writer and director can be all, "We played fair! The killer was part of the cast, see?!"<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE51c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Later when they're discussing where the bomb might be, this church is just sitting there like a non-red herring in the background stinking up the narrative.</b><br /><br />
<img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE51d.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Do you think we should have listened to that nonsense Maya and Ralph were discussing earlier? Nah! Fuck those jerks!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Dropping clues like this was the kind of thing DC's writers did in that 12 issue Maxi-series, <i>DC Challenge</i>, where a new creative team took over the story after each issue and was supposed to continue the story and follow the clues left by previous writers. But they never did figure them out from month to month. I remember one clue was a number 517713 173 which flipped and turned into letters was Eli Ellis, exposing some guy as the culprit or something. The clue was so obvious that even I noticed it! Just like I noticed this church clue! So while it seems hilariously obvious, it's actually pretty good, based on how terrible DC's writers are at figuring shit out. I know nobody had to "figure out" Jones and Jacobs' clues! I was just pointing out that it reminded me of <i>DC Challenge</i>.<br /><br />
Ralph, Taz, and Maya find Sue and carry her out in her cell which they can't open because its structure is tied to her cell structure. Rex figures out the clue and tells the others that the bomb is probably hidden in the church. Wally finds it and Tasmanian Devil risks everybody's life by convincing them he knows how to deal with it when he really just guesses at defusing it. That means that in an infinite amount of parallel universes minus one (this one), the nuclear bomb blows up the Justice League and Mexico City. Good work, Justice League!<br /><br />
At the celebration later, Kara, who has been getting sick regularly, gets sick smelling food. So I guess she's pregnant with Hal Jordan and/or Arthur Curry's baby/babies. Everybody also learns that they have more countries to visit to let everybody across the world know Justice League International is in business. And since these Aztecs weren't really Aztecs but some highly technological gang, probably Intergang, that means the Justice League will be facing more threats all over the world. But luckily I don't have to read about those threats because this is my final issue of <i>Justice League Europe</i>! Yay!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League International #51 Rating: C.</b> So this is what it feels like to read a comic book story that begins and concludes in one issue. Yes, I know that it technically has more parts to this story as Intergang (or whomever) fuck with the Justice League all across the world. But in this one, they went to Mexico, Sue got kidnapped, they found her, they were threatened as a distracting ploy, they stopped the real plot, and they all had a nice dinner in celebration. That feeling, the one of reading a complete story, was not a good one. Every bit seemed too contrived or rushed. And what was with the veneer of an Aztec plot wallpapered over some plot about high-tech baddies trying to blow up Mexico City for no logical reason? Blowing up Mexico City makes sense if the Aztec plot isn't just a means to conceal the bad guys' real plan. But since they have another plan and they don't mean to take back Mexico for the Aztecs and bring back the Aztec Gods, what are they destroying Mexico City for? To rob all the banks? They don't need money if they have the means to build a whole technological Aztec pyramidal landscape and purchase a small nuclear bomb. And they're not just trying to get the Justice League to go back to Europe since that was just part of the distraction? I guess if I read the following issues, I'd come to understand Intergang's plan. Also I don't know if it's Intergang but if not, it's some other DC clone of Intergang. I understand why I never picked up <i>Justice League International #52</i> now. Maybe. I've read worse issues and still picked up the next issue. So who the fuck will ever know until I can get my hands on that time machine.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-11732924640063118442024-03-07T01:37:00.000-08:002024-03-07T01:37:28.025-08:00Justice League America #75 (June 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75.jpg" /><br />
<b>Best cover of the series so far and not just because The Atom is coming in his pants.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Why does any character with just a skull for a head seem cool? Do we all long to be liches? Mr. Bones. Ghost Rider. The Punisher's shirt. And this version of Doctor Destiny that doesn't quite make any sense but I guess he's decomposing but can't quite die because he's infused with Morpheus's dream energy? I have another question but I realize I talk way too much about buttholes so I'll just move on.<br /><br />
Last issue, Bloodwynd was forced to reveal his true identity: Martian Manhunter! What a twist! Somebody once said, "A real Norman Bates in a wig shocker!" And since Artificial Intelligence seems to have made it okay to steal other people's work when it's sort of mashed into a machine-formed tater tot made up of thousands of artists' actual work, I'm going to say it here but pretend I said it myself. "A rale Borbam Baterfield in a big tent shockzilla!" Pretty sure that's how AI would have said.<br /><br />
I wonder if I was the one to write "A real Norman Bates in a wig shocker"? Was that fucking me? In my <a href="https://tessatechaitea.blogspot.com/2021/09/heathers-pop-epic-thing-i-wrote-in-my.html">Celtic poem of the movie <i>Heathers</i></a>? I think it was! I'm fucking stealing from myself here!<br /><br />
Seriously though. I had no idea that I was the one who wrote that while writing all that AI crap. The realization sort of snuck up on me afterward. I hate getting less intelligent as I get older!<br /><br />
Bloodwynd was punched so hard by dream Martian Manhunter that he turned back into real Martian Manhunter. As they were fighting, Doctor Destiny's control over his dream realm became strained and his dream hosts began convulsing. I say "hosts" because it seems Ted Kord, lying in a coma next to the unconscious Atom, begins convulsing as the two J'onn's fight escalates. And Booster is right there to scream at the doctor.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75a.jpg" /><br />
<b>That's the face of a man watching the only person he really loves begin to die.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Doctor Destiny has infiltrated Justice League Headquarters but no alarms go off like they did a few issues ago when Guy just came by for a visit. Maybe Max Lord disabled them so no more tiny jerks could confuse the League by playfully setting them off just as the most reviled member of the team stopped by to try to get into Ice's pants. Doctor Destiny puts Oberon and Fire to sleep and heads up to find where The Atom is. Apparently, by working in The Atom's brain, Doctor Destiny will be able to supplant reality with his fascist dream version of it. He really is fucked up. If I could change reality, I'd make a world full of Aubrey Plazas and Sydney Sweeneys who shunned clothing and had huge crushes on me. And maybe a few naked Jemaine Clements too, just in case I feel like a bit of New Zealand dick.<br /><br />
Real Martian Manhunter gets his ass kicked because he's so confused. Maybe he didn't purposefully turn into Bloodwynd? And he can only turn back to himself when he gets punched super hard which is why Blue Beetle saw J'onn after Bloodwynd was smacked by Doomsday.<br /><br />
Just as real J'onn is about to be killed, Blue Beetle shows up and distracts the dream Justice League long enough for real J'onn to get his bearings.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Dream J'onn's weakness is farts and Beetle gets him right in the mouth.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">As he frees them, Blue Beetle explains to his teammates that they're in a dream but they're not asleep. But he is asleep and he's also in their dream. He can't explain how they're in the dream but he knows he's in the dream because he's hooked up to the same machinery as The Atom. Well, that explains why Justice League Headquarters has multiple beds attached to the same life support machinery. Otherwise this wouldn't make any sense at all! Are they also hooked up to the same catheter?<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Has anybody checked this doctor's credentials? I think he might be another plant by Sonar.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The doctor is all, "It's almost as if they've fused into one being!" Maybe don't plug their brains into the same monitoring system, you fucking hack! I say "hack" because if a doctor every said to me, "It's almost as if" and then followed that up with the dumbest sci-fi trope, I'd sue his fucking underwear right off his ass. How about you stop speculating about your Buck Rogers bullshit and try to save Ted's life, you asshole.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Is it gay to be hooked up to the same life support machine as another man?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">As you can see in the background of that last panel, Doctor Destiny has arrived. Hopefully the doctor can defend his patients because Booster Gold can't. Unless his running shorts are infused with future technology.<br /><br />
Freed, the Justice League attack the dream Justice League. But it doesn't go so hot because they don't have a Flash and we all know nobody can beat The Flash. At least when the writer decides to play things straight and not fudge universal laws by allowing The Flash to be blinded by a carefully tilted mirror or hit with a slow ass boomerang. But standing outside the fight, Green Arrow finally decides he can't be a part of this fascist group of militaristic thugs anymore. And Batman is right there in the shadows to say, "It's about time! Now let's hit The Flash with a batarang (which is somehow different than a boomerang and readers will buy that it can easily take out The Flash)!"<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75e.jpg" /><br />
<b>This is where Agent Liberty's bullet theory would have been welcome. He could have blown Hawkman's head off after he says "Next shot?" whereas Ollie was still groping for an arrow three quote bubbles later.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Black Canary watches Ollie disintegrate over the Justice League Satellite monitor where she's hanging out with The Atom. While she's sighing with relief that she doesn't have to give him the "It's not you, it's me speech" she'd been working on, The Atom realizes he's in his own dream and that all of his former colleagues whom he always thought were fascist assholes must be stopped. Maybe if he'd thought better of them and all and never considered they could become power hungry monsters, this never would have happened in the first place.<br /><br />
Back at headquarters, Doctor Destiny tries to stab Booster Gold but misses. Then he stops trying to stab Booster Gold to tell explain what's happening. Booster Gold, instead of trying to disarm Destiny, listens patiently.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75f.jpg" /><br />
<b>I can't blame Booster; I'd want to know what was going on too.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">So I guess this is Morpheus's fault. If only the Vertigo universe had split from the main DC universe sooner, this could have been prevented! But now it's just an outdated moment that lingers in the minds of rabid continuity fans like an intestinal parasite. At least until <i>Zero Hour</i> happens soon and any continuity issue was just wiped away in a general shrug of editorial's shoulders so any time any fan at any convention stood up to ask why something contradicted something else, they could just wave their hands, do a little dance, and say, "Zero hour fixed it!"<br /><br />
The Atom, realizing he's to blame for simply noticing that Hawkman was a violent asshole and happened to think about it one time too many, turns the JLA satellite's lasers on Hawkman's Torture Barn, destroying it and nearly killing everybody. Blue Beetle escapes by wishing himself out of his coma, just in time to keep Doctor Destiny from stabbing The Atom. I mean stabbing The Atom a second time. Luckily a guy pretending to be a doctor is there to help patch up The Atom.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA75g.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Shake off your coma"? Yeah, definitely works for Sonar.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">How embarrassed is Booster Gold going to be that he, a perfectly fit specimen of a muscular man, couldn't stop Doctor Destiny but his buddy half-groggy from being in a coma for weeks had no problem at all? He's probably going to take it on Skeets, either sexually or violently. I hope suggesting that Booster might rape Skeets doesn't trigger anybody because the way I view Skeets, I'm basically saying, "Booster is so emasculated he's going to go home and jerk off on the toaster."<br /><br />
Blue Beetle manages to bring every member of the real Justice League back as well. I'd explain it in more detail but nobody spends five panels giving all the technical information as to how it works. Beetle just reappears in the dream and says, "Touch me!" And everybody touches him and they all go home. Man, I wish that's how <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> had ended. "Great Oz! How do I get home?!" "Well, Dorothy, just stick your hand behind this curtain and hold on!"<br /><br />
Once everybody is back and the "doctor" proclaims The Atom's stab wound is just a minor flesh wound, Blue Beetle gives nobody any time to understand what the fuck just happened and turns on Martian Manhunter, demanding he explain himself and his Bloodwynd secret! Nobody seems in any hurry to get Doctor Destiny secured which makes me think Booster Gold killed him while Blue Beetle was rescuing the others.<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #75 Rating: A.</b> It's weird that remember loving Giffen and DeMatteis's <i>Justice League America</i> while not really caring for Dan Jurgens' version and yet this feels like the best story to come out of this entire run. It's not just a sci-fi Elseworlds story for the sake of seeing what would happen if the Justice League were evil. The subtlety of having all of this come about due to the way The Atom sees himself and his teammates really puts the idea over the top. It's also the view of the Justice League through the eyes of a villain who has constantly been beaten near to death by them. Entangle those two perspectives and you get this mess of a Justice League that's a bit too close to the truth for The Atom to take. My guess would be that he went off to become a hermit after this but I think he had a special one-shot <i>Power of the Atom</i> comic come out around this time. Hopefully he was thoroughly depressed through most of it. Or, at least, went around to Hawkman's flat and popped him one in the beak.
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</div>Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-1971158826384490282024-03-04T08:30:00.000-08:002024-03-04T08:30:24.671-08:00Justice League Europe #50 (May 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50.jpg" /><br />
<b>This cover got clowns thinking Sonar's as powerful as Galactus.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">You'd think the final battle against Sonar would last about five pages but this thick monster is a hefty 50 pages. That probably includes advertisements because comic book publishers will tell any rank lie to increase the cover price of their comic book. Like "50 pages!" or "New Baxter paper!" or "Superman dies forever!" Like a cheap bastard, I just counted the pages and it turns out this comic book is 54 pages, not including adverts. So that's like 8% more comic book than I expected! I don't know if I can handle this.<br /><br />
Guessing that this milestone double-sized issue might very well be a lot of people's introduction to the comic book, Sonar gives a synopsis of how he's practically defeated the entire eastern world so far. I'd scan the pages but I don't think Blogger would take too kindly of a double-page spread of Sonar sucking his own dick.<br /><br />
Sure, Sonar triumphed over Russia and the Rocket Reds and Justice League Europe and the Justice League Reserves and the Justice Society. But his greatest accomplishment was getting Sue Dibny to lie to his face about how much she loves him.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Dude, fuck your voice analyzers. If you haven't busted a nut in her yet, she's manipulating you!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I guess this is one of those flaws of hubris that so many literary characters suffer from. He's so up his own ass that he doesn't realize Sue's playing him. Although I do admire when he just spills all the tea on himself with a frustrated "I don't know what women want!" If Sue did bang him to gain his trust, she definitely didn't enjoy it. You know Sonar hasn't even bothered making a sonic vibrator.<br /><br />
Hal Jordan and Power Girl have taken refuge in the old Soviet party headquarters where Power Girl, turned on by Hal's amnesia, tries to kiss him. But before he can ask, "Am I straight?", the wall blows inward and they're knocked to the ground. If this were a cartoon, Hal would instantly have gotten his memory back from the concussive blast. But sadly, this is reality.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50b.jpg" /><br />
<b>No wait. Yep, that's right. Just remembered. Comics are closer to cartoons.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Green Lantern doesn't actually remember who he is from a reverse knock on the head. He just decides to believe Power Girl and be Green Lantern. He's really bad at being Green Lantern though and Sonar nearly kills him. But Power Girl knocks the entire building down around them to keep Sonar from knocking the entire building down around them but in a dangerous way. Power Girl's way is also dangerous but it gives her time to jump on top of Green Lantern and remind him how to have sex.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50c.jpg" /><br />
<b>I wonder what he's concentrating on?! I can't wait to find out some day!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">If you were terrible at sex and then got amnesia, do you think you could maybe wind up being good at sex because you forgot all of the stuff that made you so bad at it, like how picturing some naked boobies makes your baby goo rocket immediately out of your man piston? If you forgot about all the things that made you a one pump chump, maybe you could get off two or three pumps before you remembered how awesome all that stuff was!<br /><br />
Green Lantern makes a protective bubble around him and Power Girl so that Sonar can hover outside it making innuendos. Is "If I just keep pounding and pounding" an innuendo? Or is that just right there on front street sex talk?<br /><br />
Inside the bubble, Power Girl decides to take another shot at getting Hal's business all up inside her business.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Here's hoping Green Lantern remembers where his penis goes.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">While the super sex happens, Justice League America arrives in Russia. The first enemies they encounter are the Global Guardians. They've defeated them about eighteen times already so this should be a piece of cake, especially since Crimson Fox has promised to suck off the Olympian if he fights against his team. And then there's the double splash page that I can't scan because my scanner is too small. If you could see it, you'd think, "They're fighting way more than the Global Guardians, you idiot." And, yes, that's true! They're fighting all of the enemies revealed at the end of the last issue. But it's not like adding Copperhead, Baron Bedlam, the Injustice Society, and the Royal Flush Gang add much more power on top of the Global Guardians. And with Sonar leading them all? Truly, it's a cavalcade of C-list characters.<br /><br />
I've been reading comic books for way too long and/or been way too horny for far too long.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50e.jpg" /><br />
<b>My first thought was, "Oh my! Whose ass is this?!"</b><br /><br />
<img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Luckily before I pulled out my dick, I realized it was Multi-man's head.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Crimson Fox wades into the battle bottomless and I've never loved a hero more. Move aside, Lobo! Crimson Fox's butthole has my heart now!<br /><br />
While the battle to save a small and insignificant part of the world rages on, Elongated Man pouts his way to the airport to fly back to the United States. He truly believes Sue has left him for Sonar and even though we all know it's not true (we meaning everybody except Ralph and Sonar), he really should get packing. Sue's way too good for Ralph! But in the end, Sue passes along some clue that makes him realize she's just pretending to fuck Sonar. Ralph Dibny realizing he doesn't have to walk away from his marriage with Sue is the most disappointing thing I've ever read in a comic book since that time Crimson Fox didn't actually show her butthole in battle and I had to lie about it to actually feel something.<br /><br />
The Olympian, also desperate for a crack at that butthole, turns on his comrades and begins fighting on the side of the Justice League. And then Godiva switches sides! I guess she got a whiff of that fox sphincter too! Crimson Fox bottomless in battle might be the most powerful character in the DC Universe! Her pheromones are just flying free all over the battle field! Man, I wish this were a Scratch-n-Sniff issue.<br /><br />
While Justice League Europe could barely handle Sonar and a handful of Rocket Reds, Justice League America swoops in and takes out Eurocrime, the Global Guardians, the Royal Flush Gang, the Injustice League, and Copperhead. Although I'm not sure why the Injustice League are battling the Justice League yet again. I guess they were dropped from the payroll when Superman took over and they had to take this job to make rent.<br /><br />
With fight nearly over, and the Justice League triumphant, Baron Bedlam runs off to tell Plan B to cause a huge disaster. Plan B is Major Disaster. He creates a huge lightning strike from the sky which somehow covers for everybody escaping in an instant? I don't know how that works but that's okay because this is a comic book with its own mysterious laws of the universe. The only combatants who don't escape are the Global Guardians. They've sniffed so much Crimson Fox butthole that they've effectively switched sides.<br /><br />
Oh yeah, Little Mermaid somehow isn't dead either. She explains that it was her evil twin that was killed. Okay, comic books. That's enough dumb bullshit what with the lightning teleport and the evil twin explanation. What's next? Nightwing driving a motorcycle straight up the side of a skyscraper? Ha ha! Can you imagine?! Well you don't have to! Just read <a href="https://tessatechaitea.blogspot.com/2015/10/batman-robin-eternal-1.html">Batman and Robin Eternal #1</a>!<br /><br />
The Flash suggests Crimson Fox should fight naked more often and it's only then that she realizes she's exposed her face to everybody. Half of them recognize her as the president of Revson Cosmetics and she's all, "What? No! Zut alors! I am ze different person!" But nobody buys it even though they know Constance D'aramis can speak fluent English.<br /><br />
While things go poorly for Sonar's allies, he seems to be doing just fine against some really powerful heroes.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50g.jpg" /><br />
<b>No heartbeats? Welp, they must be dead! Can't figure out how this could be a trick at all.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Sonar is really trusting. First he believes Sue will actually touch his dick. And now he believes he, a C-list nobody with the power to eavesdrop on people at great distances, has killed Green Lantern and Power Girl. This guy really is fucking delusional.<br /><br />
Back in Moscow, Mister Miracle escapes because that's what he does. And since what he does is basically a magic trick, it would be wrong for the comic book to explain how he does it. He also frees Aquaman who couldn't break out of his manacles for some reason. I guess Gerard Jones forgot that Aquaman has a few more positive qualities besides talking to fish and sexually satisfying dolphins, like super strength and invulnerability from living in the high pressures under the ocean. He was probably just waiting for the right time to escape when Mister Miracle wandered in and was all, "I can free you easy!" Then Scott pulled a ring of keys out of his asshole and unlocked Aquaman's chains. Whoops! I spoiled the trick! I guess I'll never be asked to join the Magic Castle<br /><br />
The Justice League arrive in Moscow too late to stop the rest Sonar from brainwashing the Justice Society and the Justice League Reserves. So it's the second big brawl of the comic. What a special 50th Issue!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50h.jpg" /><br />
<b>Alan Scott transports his friends in a massive yoni.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I would expect Atom to match up with Wonder Woman but instead she battles Tasmanian Devil. That's probably to give him some cred since he's totally underappreciated. He should be way more popular though since he's basically an Australian werewolf. Atom battles Thunderlord. Bushmaster and Impala battle Jay Garrick. Fire battles Metamorpho. Guy Gardner battles Alan Scott. Booster Gold battles Doctor Mid-Nite. Agent Liberty battles General Glory. Wildcat battles Maxima. And The Huntress whangs crossbow bolts at random. But truly, there's only one battle that I'm interested in.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50i.jpg" /><br />
<b>This may surprise you but I've never had the opportunity to fight a woman wearing no bottoms before.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Chandi Gupta witnesses all of the non-brainwashed heroes getting their asses handed to them (some without any clothes on) and she grows increasingly ashamed at merely watching the spectacle. Why the Justice League brought along a thirteen year old girl to what amounts to a small international war I can't guess. She could have remained in the castle with the living suit of armor and the cat, couldn't she? Just because she can create a bow out of thin air doesn't mean she should be put in harm's way? Does everybody live by the Batman code? "If there's grass on the playing field, they're old enough to get crowbarred in the head by The Joker?" "Batman's Code" is probably less crude and more general but I think you get what I'm saying.<br /><br />
Anyway, Chandi turns into Maya and saves the fucking day.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50j.jpg" /><br />
<b>Please, Wonder Woman. You got lucky. It could just as easily become a "You rode a 13-year-old girl straight to her grave. And the rest of us, straight to Hell" situation.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Sonar arrives with reinforcements but since those reinforcements are the Injustice League, Baron Bedlam, the Royal Flush Gang, Eurocrime, and a handful of Rocket Reds in old Soviet armor, he's quickly knocked on his ass by The Flash as Guy Gardner's power ring de-brainwashes everybody. Guy didn't think to do that himself. That was an Aquaman plan.<br /><br />
Green Lantern, Power Girl, and Doctor Light show up to act like they're the big saviors but the fight is practically over by then. Green Lantern gives a big speech about how they fooled Sonar into thinking they were dead and I realize there's something to be said for the mystery of Mister Miracle's escapes, the dignity of just performing your tricks and getting on with your life. Hal just stands around bragging giving Sonar time to reveal he's about to trigger a bunch of old Soviet nuclear missiles with a simple sound.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50k.jpg" /><br />
<b>"No" seems like an awfully unsafe trigger word for launching nuclear missiles.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Oh wait. The "No!!" isn't the trigger word; it's his reaction to discovering Sue sabotaged his trigger mechanism. Sue and Ralph arrive just in time to explain that to Sonar and the readers. Then Ralph explains how Sue clued him in that she wasn't really in love with Sonar. Once again, I'm wishing everybody had the dignity of Mister Miracle. Ralph, being the worst character in the group, gets to give Sonar his knockout punch by amplifying the resonance of Sonar's attack and using it to fuel the right hook. And that's the end because everybody else gives up once they've been brain-re-washed and threatened by Tasmanian Devil.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50l.jpg" /><br />
<b>Now can somebody please get this lady some pants?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">If I were Metamorpho, I would just turn into some slacks and slap myself on Crimson Fox's lower half. I'm pretty sure he's got her consent since they've been fucking and all.<br /><br />
The team flies back home to London in a Modoran sonic jet, given to them freely by the thankful Modoran people. Power Girl excitedly sweeps up her cat in her arms (still not named, I guess? Maybe it was named in a <i>Justice League Quarterly</i> that I'm avoiding reading) and Crimson Fox, after hours of travel, still doesn't have any pants. What the fuck is wrong with these people? There are three fucking Green Lanterns in the group that could at least make her some green or yellow slacks.<br /><br />
The issue ends with Aquaman resigning (I think his limited telepathy allowed him to read Power Girl's mind and find she has moved on to Hal Jordan. But that's just my theory!), the suit of armor having disappeared, three new heroes joining (Metamorpho, Tasmanian Devil, and Maya), and Crimson Fox finally getting some pants. As well as a whole new suit, actually. It's a lot like the old suit but with her real hair hanging out of the head piece instead of a gigantic fox tail. Oh, and they're also given the go-ahead to be a wider ranger group. No longer will they be Justice League Europe! They're back to Justice League International!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League Europe #50 Rating: B.</b> These extra length books are always a bit too long for me (which is why I'm avoiding all of my <i>Justice League Quarterly</i> issues) although this one never felt like it was padding the extra pages. It actually felt like it packed too much in and had to shorten bits. The two fight scenes barely touched on the battle having so many combatants. Most of it was relegated to a few background brawl shots. Anybody who read all the words I wrote already knows my favorite part: Crimson Fox running around half-naked in the Russian snow. It was just so fucking ridiculous and, somehow, adorable. Plus Kara being reunited with her cat was slightly emotional. That might be because today marks the fifth year since the death of my sweet little Pelafina (which means ten years since I lost the love of my life, my precious little Judas kitty).<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE50m.jpg" /><br />
<b>Pelafina is the precious little black thing being hugged by Moose with Toast joining in. This was many, many years ago (over 20?!) when she was staying with our neighbors while we traveled out of state (Judas got to go on the road trip, being her older brother/mother).</b><br /><br /></div>
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-72322144393187196002024-03-03T00:53:00.000-08:002024-03-03T00:53:42.608-08:00Justice League America #74 (May 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74.jpg" /><br />
<b>Bloodwynd: Powered by Oreos.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Is this the issue where we finally find out that Martian Manhunter was pulling a Rachel Dolezal for the last few months as Bloodwynd? In last issue's letter page, Paul J. Russell from Brisbane, Australia, wrote, "at last, a black man in the JLA!" Martian Manhunter might have been thinking, "They'll never suspect it's me if I pose as a Black hero!", believing no harm could come from it. But what he doesn't realize is that the Justice League doesn't often recruit Black heroes. So if he takes up a spot as a Black hero, does he think they're going to hire a second Black hero? Isn't this activity of his a bit too close to blackface? And another thing I just realized: why was Blue Beetle so suspicious of him? Was it because he is Black? I suppose it's because nobody had ever heard of him before he floated into Maxwell Lord's office to tell Max that he's now a member. But it could also be the other thing! Fucking Ted Kord. Somebody should check into Kord Industries hiring practices.<br /><br />
Doctor Destiny has decided that anybody who wears a costume needs to be punished. His costume doesn't count because it's in response to their costumes. It's an anti-costume. Plus he's basically just a lich in a cape now, thanks to Morpheus's fucking dream stone that leeched the life out of him and left him a husk of a nightmare. He's escaped Arkham which truly sucks because if any costumed villain deserves to be in a mental institution, it's this looney tunes. And yeah, I meant to be super insensitive there! This guy is fucking crazy! Did you hear what he did to all those people in that diner that one time? Fucking maniac. And now he wants to do that to the Justice League. He wants them to eat themselves up from the inside by tainting their dreams. Or just The Atom's dreams. I'm not sure how it all works. It's comic book science!<br /><br />
Does batshit make people insane? Is that something that used to happen to sailors who trafficked in South American guano? Is that where we get the phrase batshit crazy? Am I being too literal? Whatever the case, Doctor Destiny is batshit insane. Q.E.D.<br /><br />
I'm not sure you can use Q.E.D. after writing one single statement without any evidence to back it up. I guess I'm expecting everybody to remember all the evidence I gave earlier (which was pretty light but more than nothing).<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Farmer Hoggett voice: "Q.E.D., pig. Q.E.D."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hawkman continues to beat the shit out of Black Condor with a mace made from the yellow light of Sinestro's ring. He's not very imaginative.<br /><br />
That was a lie. I fucking lied. But it's because I'm annoyed at Gerard Jones and Ron Randall for not having Hawkman use a yellow light mace against Black Condor! That's fucking funny and exactly what anybody who understands Hawkman would expect! They've completely fucked this moment! Not because Hawkman is using some giant flyswatter or huge boxing glove like any person who suddenly found themselves with a magic Lantern ring would be using. It's because it's even dumber than Hawkman using a light energy mace. He made a fucking sword. What the fuck?! He doesn't have proficiency in martial weapons! He has proficiency in simple weapons! So fucking unbelievable!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman would never have to ask this question. She'd just be all, "Black Condor must have praised free lunch programs in school."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The Justice League arrive to stop Hawkman from killing Black Condor but then Red Tornado arrives to stop the Justice League from stopping Hawkman killing Black Condor. Typical cop bullshit. The cop motto, "To protect and serve," has always been missing the final word: "themselves."<br /><br />
Not that the Justice League is any better. At least not since they decided to hire NRA mascot, Agent Liberty.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Maybe just leave this asshole and Hawkman alone to sort out their terrible ideologies. With bullets and maces.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">One of Jesus's most popular sayings, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," seems to be the most widely misunderstood or purposefully disregarded of his teachings among Christians and conservatives. They seem to take it as permission to "cast stones" if you believe you've never sinned. But Jesus's point is that we're all sinners and we should all be allowed the chance to redeem ourselves for those sins. Redemption of sin is his whole fucking life's (and death's) purpose! But Christians and conservatives love to mix Old Testament with New Testament which is fucking crazy because once you're Team New Testament, I think you're supposed to disregard Old Testament. The only parts of the Old Testament that Jesus wanted people to believe in were the prophecies that would indicate the coming Messiah because he needed to use those to fool everybody into thinking he was the Messiah. How can you buy into both books when God was all, "I'mma kill all of mankind because one of them farted weird," and Jesus was all, "You shouldn't kill anybody ever because you have to give them a chance to redeem their sins, you stupid fools." That "you stupid fools" was me just consolidating what Jesus must have thought of his disciples since every time he'd give them an allegory, they'd stare at him dumbfounded and he'd have to tell them exactly what the allegory meant. I guess it's Biblical for Christians to be stupid fools.<br /><br />
Back to Agent Liberty, why the fuck does he think his gun and his bullets somehow trump all the other super powers? He's been too long in civilian life. I'd also suggest kicking him off the Justice League if his go-to move is blasting somebody in the head.<br /><br />
Luckily, Green Arrow has dropped by with The Flash. Green Arrow never misses an opportunity to best a guy with a gun with his arrows. It gets him so hard. It's the only reason he and Dinah have any sex life at all.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74d.jpg" /><br />
<b>This absolutely did not make me think, "Bukkake."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The Justice League came upon Sinestro wandering the desert missing both of his arms and they, like any compassionate and normal human being, offered to help him. But The Flash is hopped up on the "if you're for protecting the Palestinian citizens against brutal slaughter by the Israeli government then you must be a Pro-Hamas terrorist" argument. I'm not surprised. The most vocal and terrible at logic Americans always are. It's practically the state of the union at this point, 23 years past 9/11 (40 years past Vietnam (more years past other imperialist actions by our country that I'll stop mentioning or this parenthetical reference is going to get way too deep)), where if anybody speaks up against the atrocities being committed by the United States or their allies, they're seen, not as conscientious objectors, but as traitors and idiots and, currently, antisemites. Help the wrong person and, well, I guess you deserve to get bukkaked by The Flash.<br /><br />
Wonder Woman answers The Flash's argument with a knee to the groin.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh, and some other obvious logical shit.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hawkman ends the fight by threatening to kill Black Condor with his yellow light sword and Agent Liberty doesn't shoot him in the face as a counterargument. So much for bullets being the best answer in every situation!<br /><br />
Back in New York, Bloodwynd, The Ray, and Guy Gardner continue to battle Green Lantern, Firestorm, and Martian Manhunter.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74f.jpg" /><br />
<b>You can tell this is an evil version of Hal Jordan because he's acting like a cop instead of a barroom brawler.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hal's "You have to assume they are lethal" is the modern day equivalent of Stand Your Ground lovers' "I feel threatened!" It's just an invocation for anybody standing around listening which gives them carte blanche to start murdering the people they're forcing a conflict on. It's also the modern day policing manifesto: "We always feel threatened so we always have the right to use lethal force." Of course one reason they always feel threatened is because they've cultivated such a violent and selfish organizational persona that everybody does indeed hate them. Even the people who love and profess to back them only do so in words only. Because they're usually the gun nuts who are the most ready to kill a cop over anybody.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74g.jpg" /><br />
<b>I think J'onn has interpreted the Earth idiom "dick measuring contest" too literally.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Bloodwynd, realizing his major weakness is to fire, and seeing Firestorm descend upon him, flees from the battle, leaving Guy Gardner and The Ray unconscious on the street. He's also probably confused seeing another Martian Manhunter. For those who don't remember or don't know or haven't read me say it five million times already, I say "another" because Bloodwynd is Martian Manhunter. Unless, after all this time, I'm actually remembering it wrong! Can you imagine if I've gotten that wrong?! So many blog posts I'm going to have to go back and edit so I don't look like such a dumb asshole!<br /><br />
Bloodwynd doesn't just flee though: he turns incorporeal. That's a big hint as to who he is! The others don't realize that's what he's done though. They figure he probably teleported.<br /><br />
After the battle, the Fascist Justice League send Guy and Ray off to Hawkman's Torture Barn. Then they begin rounding up witnesses, just in case the reader wasn't too clear on the whole "Fascist" point.<br /><br />
Meanwhile, Fire changes into an outfit that's really just the colorist making her skin purple. And Booster Gold puts on some workout clothes. So you'd think they're going jogging or something. No, no. They've gone to check on The Atom whom they found nearly dead on the floor of Justice League Headquarters.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74h.jpg" /><br />
<b>That's not a doctor! That's The Ventriloquist!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The Atom isn't as comatose as Ted Kord is. He wakes up long enough to tell Booster and Fire about his dreams of a fascist Justice League, his old crew. He describes his condition of sleeping all the time while having the same dream and still being exhausted when he wakes but they're too new to remember Doctor Destiny and his materioptikon. The Atom might make the connection but, suffering from such extreme sleep deprivation, his mind is absolutely on the fritz. So that gets them nowhere.<br /><br />
Fire, Booster, and The Atom are, of course, still in the "real" world. I'm not sure The Atom can be in the dream world! Other than his dream version, of course. But how did the others get there? Same way real people sometimes get in Morpheus's dream realm, I guess.<br /><br />
Bloodwynd travels to Gotham to get answers from The Batman who, of course, has them. He also has Wizard who he rescued before Hawkman could chop his balls off. With the nuking of China, Batman has finally decided to stop the Justice League. What kind of guilt is buried deep in The Atom's subconscious to make him the most vile person in his own dreams and Batman the most righteous? He's probably suffered so much gaslighting from Jean Loring that he doesn't know what's real and what isn't. Which is also why he was the perfect tool for Doctor Destiny!<br /><br />
Batman, Bloodwynd, and Wizard decide to work together to infiltrate Hawkman's Torture Barn in the desert.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74i.jpg" /><br />
<b>Come on, Wizard! You don't ask another magician their secrets!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">As you can see, Bloodwynd feels the best time to drop change shape is once they've entered the compound. I guess he is a telepath so he knows better than I if the place is safe to drop your guard. But since I'm not a telepath and I'm an over-critical reader of pulp bullshit, I'm going to judge his choice anyway.<br /><br />
Running about the complex, the trio stumble upon a room of death. They find Blockbuster, Captain Cold, and Chronos dead and strapped to torture devices.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74j.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh, look who's suddenly the arbiter of moral righteousness! If I were Batman, I'd karate chop his throat.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Batman here reminds me of Neil Gaiman on tumblr. Constantly being asked about and confronted on the stupidest bullshit and he always answers so pleasantly and diplomatically. I've really wanted to start a What If Neil Gaiman Were An Asshole tumblr where I just re-answer all of the asks he gets. I never would! If Neil Gaiman wanted to be an asshole, he's sure to do it himself someday.<br /><br />
The non-dream Justice League have been captured and placed in torture devices similar to the ones Captain Cold and Blockbuster died in. Maxima and Wonder Woman apparently surrendered rather than see Black Condor die which seems like something Wonder Woman would do but Maxima? What fucking mind game is she playing? She's obviously using her mental powers to subvert Hawkman's plans. Or else she's getting real soft around these dumb jerks. Guy Gardner has also been captured but that fight wasn't shown in the pages of any comic book. I'm sure the editor figured it would be too ludicrous to see Guy lose to Hal Jordan yet again.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74k.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hawkman almost inventing the drinking liberal tears insult.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I'm beginning to wonder if this comic book would be too triggering for a conservative to read? It's portraying the bad guys as those who want to prevent "crime" at any cost! "Crime" being in quotes because it's not actually crime. It's just any excuse to beat the shit out of somebody you don't like for whatever reason you can justify. Although I think comic book readers just like seeing the good guys written as bad guys sometimes and they don't give it much more thought than that. Plus the only guy with a gun is on the good side! So that's one thing they can appreciate. Although he was bested by a liberal.<br /><br />
Bloodwynd interrupts before Hawkman and Green Arrow come to blows leading to some great moments between J'onn and Bloodwynd.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA74l.jpg" /><br />
<b>I mean great moments for anybody who reread this issue after learning Bloodwynd's secret. For first time readers, they're just normal fucking panels.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Oh, two pages later, Bloodwynd turns into Martian Manhunter with Wonder Woman yelling, "What can it mean?!" So I guess readers didn't have to re-read the comic. They could have just turned the page back while gobsmacked over the revelation. And then they'd be, "Wow! Those are some terrific panels! Look at them fly in parallel! Like a mirror universe or something!" Hopefully, Martian Manhunter can defeat dream Martian Manhunter. Although that depends entirely on what The Atom thinks of him. If he thinks he's some undefeatable God from Mars, the real J'onn could be in trouble. Hopefully he just thinks of him as a fat Oreo eating immigrant who burns even easier than we humans do.<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #74 Rating: A!</b> This entire story arc has been a lot of fun. And I mean that in the most biased, least critical way imaginable. I know what I fucking like, whether it's good or not. Give me these mirror universe match-ups any new comic book day and I'll be satisfied. Also, I think this whole Doctor Destiny actually has been written really well. And Dan Jurgens is a really great comic book artist (aside from his withered baby legs on foreshortened flyers). Plus how can you not like a lousy old villain turned up to ten on the danger meter? Sometimes it's done with no explanation at all, like how Sonar is somehow the new DC Doctor Doom in <i>Justice League Europe</i>. But Doctor Destiny got his grim dial turned up to eleven in the pages of <i>Sandman</i> and he's come back to the mainstream universe to spray dirty Vertigo diarrhea all over the walls. That's just the kind of thing I love! Um, not literally. Unless Steve-O did it in one of the <i>Jackass</i> movies. Then I probably laughed until I was sick.
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</div>Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-52947235096387193492024-02-29T02:14:00.000-08:002024-02-29T02:14:35.800-08:00Justice League Europe #49 (April 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49.jpg" /><br />
<b>Just in case readers forgot this was a battle against Russia, Randall added some penis-looking onion domes in the background.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't mean the onion domes literally look like a penis. I've seen penises before and if I saw one that looked like that, after I'd sucked it, I'd be all, "You need to get this thing checked out and thanks for dinner." Adding those onion domed towers is to a story that takes place in Russia as the Eifel Tower is to a story that takes place in Paris. That's just basic comic book math. Comic book math is to comic books as analogies are to the SATS, in case you were confused.<br /><br />
Hopefully Power Girl has such control of her power levels (which I assume she does, being that it's right there in her name) that she can manage to punch a helmet to smithereens right off a Russian's face without severely maiming the Russian wearing it. Unless she just doesn't give a shit that these dudes have been brainwashed by Sonar and they don't really want to be invading other countries and killing innocent people. According to Billy Joel, they just want to make children laugh. According to Sting, they may or may not love those children.<br /><br />
The comic opens with the ghost who has been unliving in the Justice League's new castle headquarters (because when he was alive, he lived in it. And owned it) discovering that he is a ghost and his consciousness transported to some future which he can hardly comprehend. I can't see how an incorporeal man in an ancient armor suit who's startled by every electronic beep he hears or moving metal object bigger than a badger will be any help to Justice League Europe but I'm assuming he's part of the team now. His first job is to alert Justice League America that Justice League Europe and the Justice League Reserves have all been defeated by Sonar. Luckily he doesn't know how embarrassing that revelation is, so he should have no problem delivering the news.<br /><br />
Kara's cat returns to team up with Ghost Knight (after he insults it in fifteen different Shakespearian ways).<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Was every knight of England this fucking dramatic?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't remember every knight in the movie <i>Excalibur</i> speechifying like this. Then again, all I really remember about that movie are the dozens of uncovered boobies. I watched it when I was like twelve! If there was an exposed nipple on the screen at that age, it was all I was concentrating on. I've grown up now. Now I can also concentrate on naked asses if they're sharing screen time with the nipple. I love to believe we're all capable of that kind of growth. It's called maturity.<br /><br />
With everybody else brainwashed, lost, defeated by Rocket Reds, or stuck in some bureaucratic meeting under the sea, Power Girl is the only non-ghost member of the Justice League left to battle Sonar. Which mature readers would have learned from the cover. I only mention it again because the scene shifted from Kara's cat's team up with a ghost to Power Girl flying into Mosco intent on causing an international crisis. I'm not going to scan that moment because it looks exactly like the cover. No wait. I just looked at the cover again and remembered Power Girl was murdering Rocket Reds while she's just flying peacefully in the panel. I guess I'm not as mature as I thought since I figured both the cover and this panel show a ton of Power Girl's cleavage and therefore they were identical.<br /><br />
The Russians on the street argue over which side they want to come out on top: Sonar who seems to be helping feed everybody or the American superhero with the huge American tits because, well, I mentioned the tits, right?<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49b.jpg" /><br />
<b>How did they know Hal was an American? He's not wearing jeans or singing a Beatles song.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">It's weird that the one guy thinks America has been shipping its homeless to Russia. Not that I can't see America doing that! Spending millions of dollars to kidnap American citizens the general population find irritating to ship them out of the country instead of spending millions of dollars on economic safety nets and social programs that help people. I guess it isn't so weird being that I just admitted that I could see our government doing that. But it's still weird that he instantly recognized Hal as an American without first hearing him talk or showing off the wad of cash in his pocket.<br /><br />
Hal suffers from amnesia caused by The Flash's supersonic yellow foot connecting with his unprotected head. After that, I suppose Hal's ring teleported him to the safest place it knew: underneath some stairs in the freezing cold in Moscow. Maybe the ring knew Power Girl would be flying by soon and Hal would recognize her. When he does, the ring senses his wishes to communicate with her and flies him to her. Not realizing he can fly, Hal probably shits himself.<br /><br />
Since Hal isn't allowed to fight alongside Power Girl because the cover said Power Girl fights alone, Hal's ring teleports them somewhere to discuss who the fuck Hal is and what they should do once Hal remembers.<br /><br />
Back in Modora, Elongated Man wakes up for three seconds and manages to hear a nearby Rocket Red detail Sonar's entire plan to some other guy. So Elongated Man, being instantly caught up on what's happening, puts on his stretchy pants and wades out into battle too. It's starting to feel like Power Girl isn't going to be fighting alone for long. I think maybe her fight already happened even though she didn't actually fight anybody. She just got blasted by a bunch of Rocket Reds, fell into Hal's arms, and disappeared.<br /><br />
Elongated Man arrives in Moscow just in time to see Aquaman immediately get his ass kicked after saying, "I'm on a diplomatic mission." Isn't there some law against arresting diplomats? Didn't I learn that from <i>Lethal Weapon 2</i>? Or was I supposed to learn the opposite lesson? That you can commit any kind of violence you want to a diplomat if you're crazy enough?<br /><br />
Doctor Light intercepts Elongated Man, pretending to not be brainwashed by Sonar, and leads him into a trap.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Look out, Ralph! There's one empty space! Who do you think that's for?!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">DC should have released this Sonar superhero restraint machine as a sturdy carrying case of their Super Power action figure line (with an extra compartment to shove Hawkman, of course).<br /><br />
Normally I'd wonder how Sonar and the Rocket Reds managed to capture these heroes, many of whom have greater powers than Sonar and the whole Rocket Red Brigade combined. But The Flash helped catch them and this is one of those things in the DC Universe that I harp on all the time: The Flash should be the most powerful hero on Earth. Even together, none of these heroes could stand up to a guy who can just go so fast everybody would basically be in stasis. Except Jay Garrick, of course. But he's old and you can't expect his reaction times to be anywhere near Wally's.<br /><br />
Finding the Justice Society and Justice League Reserves captured isn't the most surprising thing Ralph's twitchy nose has led him to. He also learns that Sue Dibny has left him for Sonar!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Some people might think she's faking or under mind control. But I like to believe she's finally realized Ralph is a disgusting monster with a weird dick.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Even if Sue is faking to help bring down Sonar, she had to have fucked him, right? No way he instantly trusts her this much without a little proof in her pudding.<br /><br />
Justice League America arrives via the teleporter in the Justice League Europe's castle. The team is composed of Wonder Woman, Maxima, Guy Gardner, Agent Liberty, Bloodwynd, Fire, and Booster Gold. Did Gerard Jones and Ron Randall not get the memo that Booster Gold and Fire had lost their powers? Or did they just suit up because they needed something to do and heading over to London isn't exactly dangerous. They discover The Flash still trying to recover from his mind control. They soon learn from The Flash and from the traitorous tailor that Sonar is behind it all.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Guy's speech might sound familiar here because it's what I've been saying through this entire story arc.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Fire poses like she knows Agent Liberty is staring at her ass in that panel. But then maybe that's the only reason she's here? To look good? She certainly can't turn into flame anymore for some reason. Maybe this story takes place after the "Destiny's Hand" story arc where Fire gets her powers back, Booster fixes his suit, and Black Condor has long ago fled back into the Pine Barrens.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Well, I guess Fire's fine now. But Bloodwynd specifically mentions that Booster has lost his technology. He's their emotional support hero.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I only have two more issues left before I stopped reading <i>Justice League Europe</i> back in 1993 and this might be why. Why keep reading both comics when Justice League America has to come over to this comic to save the day? Might as well just read the book with the real heroes in it!<br /><br />
Crimson Fox shows back up after ditching her suit, having realized Sonar's tailor had put listening devices in them all. "That means she's running around naked," you're probably thinking while logging in to the Mile High Comics website to look for some back issues of this comic book. But she isn't. She's got a jacket on that somehow covers everything. I mean, you can tell it isn't covering her ass when she's facing the reader. But it seems to cover her ass when she's not facing the reader. It's the most magical jacket I've ever seen and I hate it.<br /><br />
She stumbles upon Sonar meeting up with a bunch of hired mercenaries who are willing to help him take over all of Russia and its former Soviet Republics. I don't know why they're meeting out in the wilderness. Probably so Crimson Fox could stumble upon them!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE49g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Weren't Eurocrime defeated by Ralph and Sue Dibny? Why would you ever give them a second chance?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><b>Justice League Europe #49 Rating: B.</b> If you bought this comic book in 1993 because you were excited to see Power Girl fight alone, you were left severely blue-balled. Also, young people on tumblr, being blue-balled is an actual thing that can cause nausea, pain, and intense discomfort. But it is never an excuse for a guy to pressure somebody into a sexual act! They probably have at least one hand! They can take care of themselves! Also, once you wind up blue-balled, I don't think an orgasm really helps. I mean, it still feels good! But you're still going to feel the sick effects of the blue balls. I haven't had enough experience with blue balls but they seem to be pretty rare. You don't automatically get blue balls because your dick has been hard for an extended period without ending up in an orgasm. If that were the case, do you think Sting would be so into that Tantric shit? He'd be the most blue-balled man that ever lived! Or maybe he's into nausea, pain, and discomfort? Maybe that's how that sicko gets off! So that's my rating! This comic book somehow made me think of blue balls. Maybe it was all the near ass and poonanny shots of Crimson Fox in her magic jacket! Ow my lower tummy hurts!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-26246463442377451182024-02-28T04:32:00.000-08:002024-02-28T04:32:38.156-08:00Justice League America #73 (April 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73.jpg" /><br />
<b>Are Maxima and Wonder Woman scissoring?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Whenever I'm on the freeway and a lane is closed ahead and people begin to merge over into the unblocked lanes, the first thing my mind thinks is, "The traffic is scissoring!" Then my brain blushes and corrects itself and thinks, "You mean zippering! Scissoring is the sexy thing, dumby!" I don't know who my brain is calling a dumby since it's the one that brought up the sexy lesbian wrestling move.<br /><br />
One time in junior high, I was sitting on the floor against my cousin's bed and her friend was sitting behind me and she suddenly grabbed my head and pushed the back of it against her crotch and I instantly fell in love for like ten years. My brain just thought about that and it was all, "Oh! Oh! Tell the people reading this stupid blog about that incident! Maybe it will be helpful advice for some woman who doesn't know how to get a guy to notice her!" Here are some other people with whom I fell in love in junior high and helpful advice on how they accomplished it: a girl leaned across my back pressing her boobies against me at the skating rink; Marilyn Mendoza by acknowledging my existence when I didn't think any girl ever really would (and also her smile!); a girl with Robert Smith hair would wear an Elfquest shirt to school; Midori Moody once pulled her sweater off in class and her shirt underneath lifted up with it exposing her bra; Grace Bamberger simply by existing in my Algebra class; a girl playfully sat on my lap at the bowling alley on New Years Eve; at a party in somebody's parents' garage, this girl Dessa put her head on my lap while I was sitting on a bench drinking a soda; a couple of girls were willing to play Spin the Bottle while I was a potential kissee at the Moffett Field military base in Mountain View although the game never actually got underway which was the most disappointing moment of my young life; the girls at the Manteca RV park who let me touch their legs up their inner thighs as we played some game called "Do You Trust Me?" I'm sure there were more but none of them involve Superman and the Justice League so I should probably shut up about them.<br /><br />
Man, falling in love was pretty awesome when it wasn't mixed up with relationships and sex! Is that the best part about being young? I think it might be. Also having a body that isn't betraying you at every turn was pretty cool too!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73a.jpg" /><br />
<b>This is how this issue begins and I'm surprised I didn't take it back to the comic book store to get my $1.25 back for it.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">If Junior High School Me were Ray in this picture, I probably would have instantly fallen in love with Destiny and her hand. It's almost touching his crotch!<br /><br />
The Ray's next line doesn't make me put my dick back in my pants either: "If you want impressive, I can jack it up a little more." What do you call it when you're sitting down but you're also swooning? Switting? Because that's what I'm doing right now. And Guy Gardner isn't helping matters.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh yeah? He's young and full of juice, is he, Guy?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Don't think my brain is the only one suddenly engorged with horny chemicals due to all of this jacking up the juices talk. Maxima's cup seems to runneth over too. If you actually pictured a cup in your mind when I said that, you're probably too young and shouldn't be reading my comic book reviews.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73c.jpg" /><br />
<b>How was this dialogue approved by the Comics Code Authority?! Apparently they don't read the scripts; they just look for nipples, vampires, and injuries to eyes.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">No wonder I've never been able to hold down a real job and had to invent my own business to make a living. DC Comics taught me that this was appropriate workplace banter!<br /><br />
Black Condor stands in the background and thinks about how joining the Justice League was a huge mistake and a waste of his time and he should be flying around the Pine Barrens doing absolutely nothing. He's my kind of hero! Which is why I was so disappointed with his comic book when he actually did fight villains and stop robberies and shit. Apparently if you're a half-naked guy with wings, you're expected to save some days and stop some crimes, even if you don't want to be bothered with other people's shit. He didn't even join to ogle Wonder Woman all day because she only joined after he did. Hmm. Did she join to ogle Black Condor? He is pretty fit.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Mind your own fucking business, Bloodwynd.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The Ray thinks everybody hates him because they don't want to see him go to full power. He couldn't hear them in the observation booth talking about how much they all wanted to fuck him. But I heard it. Or read it. And even wrote some of it!<br /><br />
The Justice League is contacted by the American military asking about their satellite that suddenly returned to orbit. Bloodwynd is all, "But that was destroyed! I mean, what is that? A space station? A small moon? Noah's ark? I am completely ignorant of this!" Guy Gardner, Bloodwynd, and The Ray are sent into space to investigate. I guess that means Doctor Destiny has somehow created a fascist dream team. But have they actually killed Star Sapphire? Or was all of that his dream which he had to build up in his mind for it to become real? That's my suspicion because nobody on Earth has been pointing out how awful Hawkman is. I mean no more than they previously were.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA73e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Is Firestorm's head actually on fire or does he just have wild, unkempt ginger hair?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Firestorm blasts everybody with a nuclear explosion which fries all of the military satellites. So Oberon contacts NASA and NASA, who aren't completely inept, are all, "Um, guys? There's nothing up there. That satellite isn't real. It's, like, totally obvious." But what does NASA know about hallucinations and materioptikons? Practically nothing! So they don't have any explanation for why Guy, The Ray, and Bloodwynd disappear along with the satellite after Firestorm blows the shit out of everything. But I do! They were blasted back to Doctor Destiny's dream Earth where China has been obliterated by The Atom and the Justice League rule the world. Somehow. I don't know all the details but I'm sure it all has to do with Doctor Destiny's power he siphoned from Morpheus's jewel.<br /><br />
After the satellite and their team members disappear, Oberon traces an energy reading similar to that of the satellite in the Nevada desert. So the rest of the Justice League decide to go investigate because if their team members have been disintegrated, what can they do about that? It's not like they were smart enough to hire Zatanna so she could be all, "Etargetnisidnu!" Out in the desert, they find The Lightning Squad's Super Villain Rehabilitation Clinic. That's the place run by that psychopath Hawkman where he tore off Sinestro's arms and stole his ring.<br /><br />
Speaking of Sinestro, Black Condor discovers him fleeing from the compound, stumbling through the desert with no arms. He rescues him just before a security ship blasts him into dust. But Hawkman is close behind! I hope Black Condor has more powers than just his stupid wings. Because Hawkman has a mace, a power ring, and a hard-on for extreme violence. Also, he kills Sinestro before Black Condor knows what's happening and then turns on Condor.<br /><br />
Back in Doctor Destiny's version of New York, Martian Manhunter knocks out Guy Gardner and The Ray so that he can face Bloodwynd one-on-one. Bloodwynd realizes this is impossible because, well, you know. He's the real Martian Manhunter! But how could Doctor Destiny know that?! Only Blue Beetle knows his secret and Blue Beetle was killed by Doomsday! I mean he should have been killed by Doomsday. His skull should have popped like an overripe corpse's distended belly run over by a monster truck. Or a grape, maybe, if the whole analogy was to help you think of something that wasn't quite as gross as Blue Beetle's head popping.<br /><br />
As all this other strange bullshit is going on, Doctor Destiny escapes Arkham. I don't know where he thinks he's headed. I guess he runs the world now so he can do whatever he wants. Although as he's making his way out of Gotham, The Atom collapses in the real Justice League headquarters, mumbling something about having not slept for days. So is that how this works? Doctor Destiny is inside The Atom's head, keeping him from dreaming so that his dreams infect the real world? Did I figure it out?<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #73 Rating: A+.</b> Why do I love this kind of shit? This is the kind of comic book story I live for! I don't care that Doctor Destiny is fucking with the Justice League because it's all part of his plan to rule the world of his dreams. And it's not like he's totally in control, I bet. He's probably limited by the nightmares inside The Atom's head. Like The Atom's nightmare that he and the Justice League might one day overstep their bounds and become authoritarian oppressors of the entire world. Although even in his darkest nightmares, he can't picture Green Arrow becoming a conservative fascist asshole! Green Arrow is clearheaded even in somebody else's fantasy! Of course, Hawkman is a right asshole. That's just math.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-21557063460249043342024-02-27T05:54:00.000-08:002024-02-27T05:54:31.308-08:00Justice League Europe #48 (March 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48.jpg"><br>
<b>Even with (perhaps especially because of) Super Speed, I would not choose to punch a man in power armor in the helmet.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">The focal point of this cover is Alan Scott's groin. Other less crotch-obsessed people might suggest the focal point is some other part of the cover, like Alan's head or the Rocket Red's helmet. But Alan Scott's groin, being surrounded by the only negative space that isn't the sky around the title, stands out far more than anything else. Perhaps Ron Randall wanted us to take particular note of Alan's package. Or maybe Ron did it to distract from the fact he forgot that Alan Scott wears, and often utilizes, a power ring. Although if that were Ron's reasoning, he probably would have just drawn the ring on Scott's finger at that point.<br><br>
The issue begins with Sonar hovering over Russia describing the problems of all the people he can hear. He calls himself "The Master of Sound," as if eavesdropping on a bunch of people just living their life is some kind of over-the-top superpower. He thinks he's a major villain because he has Superman's least useful skill? This asshole will probably wind up being defeated by a kid with a trumpet.<br><br>
Sonar goes on to brag how all of his technology does the work of sifting through the various noises for specific human voices and discarding the rest. So I guess a kid blasting a trumpet as loud as he can right in Sonar's face will just never reach Sonar's attention? Apparently Sonar doesn't even have the least useful of Superman's skills anyway. His whole "Master of Sound" thing is a result of technology he's created. So, sure, he's the master of making technology which can make somebody the Master of Sound. But that also means The Atom can shrink down, pull a few wires in his suit, and cause him to go deaf. But The Atom is currently over in <i>Justice League America</i> genociding the Chinese. So maybe Metamorpho or Elongated Man will have to squeeze into Sonar's suit to short it out.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48a.jpg"><br>
<b>Okay, maybe just Metamorpho.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I used to think that if Sue Dibny were a real person, I wouldn't stand a chance with her. But now that I've seen she wears high-waisted, belted and cuffed jean shorts with long socks, she might be exactly in my league.<br><br>
Sonar's trying to get into Susan's undergarments by pointing out how lame her husband is and how awesome he is. Why do guys spend so much time trying to convince women who obviously loathe them that they're somehow the perfect partner for them? If men are so logical, why do they think women would be into exactly the sort of person they're definitely not into?<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48b.jpg"><br>
<b>How can this man be the Master of Sound if he can't even appreciate <i>Rubber Soul</i>?</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Looking at Sue Dibny's outfit as she fends off Sonar's mediocre incel advances, I just realized why I think she's so super cute. This comic book came out in 1992! This is what all the women in my high school class were basically wearing in 1989. I'm not in love with Sue Dibny! I'm in love with my lost youth!<br><br>
Sonar, getting nowhere with bragging about himself and shitting all over Ralph, tries a different tactic: pity! He's all, "I am the man you see before you because of the...the...the <i>silence of my childhood</i>!" He throws one arm over his forehead and glances askance at Sue who, seeing the shadow of a poor, lost child, makes a huge mistake and shows interest in the pain of his past. Later, when she turns Sonar down again, he'll probably invoke this moment and be all, "Why'd you lead me on by acting like you wanted to fuck me by listening to me?!"<br><br>
Sonar blathers on about his origin. How his parents were deaf which meant they were spawns of Satan in Modoran culture, and he an idiot spawn of the spawn of Satan. Since silence was his pain and punishment, he studied the technology of sound, so he could use it to prove he was smarter than everybody else on the Internet. I mean in the world. Eventually, after Green Lantern spanked him publicly multiple times, he returned to Modora to overthrow its dictator and become a new dictator. But a better dictator! One with science behind him!<br><br>
Sue Dibny is not impressed and Ron Randall draws an expression on her face that I'm fairly certain means "My butthole has never been shut tighter."<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48c.jpg"><br>
<b>Ain't no science in the world loosening that sphincter.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Some people might quibble with me as to what that expression on Sue's face actually means but I doubt anybody has as much experience as I do at seeing the moment a woman thinks, "No way this guy gets anywhere near my butthole."<br><br>
Sonar flies off when he gets exasperated with Sue's rejections and also because the scene had already gone on for eight pages of exposition and really needed a reason to end. Mostly so readers could find out what's happening with the Justice Society! They aren't being drawn by Ron Randall in this issue. Instead, they're drawn by Mike Parobeck, artist of the <i>Justice Society</i> comic book that was running concurrently to this one.<br><br>
First thing on the JSA's itinerary is to extract Doctor Light from Metamorpho.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48d.jpg"><br>
<b>I thought Doctor Mid-Nite was going to say, "I'd have brought my eyesight!" Because Doctor Light is hot is why.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Somehow, Doctor Mid-Nite and Doctor Light do not implode and cease to exist on contact. I would theorize on why that is but I'm too hypnotized by the way Atom is parting Metamorpho's metal labia to help birth Doctor Light. Hmm. This might wind up being the weirdest picture I've ever jerked off to.<br><br>
Instead of immediately defeating the Rocket Reds and kicking Sonar's ass all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the members of the Justice Society stand around like old men and debate politics. Being that they are old men, they're really, really good at it. And slow. And, as you'd expect, boil it all down to "The Communists are the worst!"<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48e.jpg"><br>
<b>Jesus, Alan! Still not over the McCarthy-era propaganda? You know what other group McCarthy really fucking cracked down on, don't you?!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Wildcat steps in to point out that the Rocket Reds just beat up a bunch of heroes so why can't the Justice Society just use that as an excuse to beat up a bunch of Rocket Reds? Why discuss politics when you can just defend yourself now and apologize to the international community later?<br><br>
Doctor Mid-Nite also expresses his wishes to battle and defeat the Rocket Reds but he uses a really fucking horrible analogy.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48f.jpg"><br>
<b>Comparing saving the world to choking a baby in its crib isn't fucking weird at all!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">The Rocket Reds arrive to put an end to the discussion. Green Lantern is all, "I am the most powerful person in the world! I will defeat them in mere seconds!" But then a tree explodes and he's knocked unconscious by some wooden shrapnel. It may be the most humiliating moment in his entire seventy years on Earth.<br><br>
Jay Garrick, being one of the fastest men alive, which means he can reason things out pretty quickly, realizes trees don't usually explode and deduces somebody must have made that tree explode! And somebody did! Using sound! Which is a clue as to who is behind it all! But Jay Garrick doesn't have time to think the problem through because Jay Garrick must not have access to the Speed Force or something because he can't see somebody else moving super fast. He deserves to have his skull caved in by The Flash which is what happens point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero two nanoseconds after Jay thinks, "What?! Someone moving even faster than--" Faster than what?! FASTER THAN WHAT?!<br><br>
Before Jay Garrick's skull gets completely smashed, he does some reverse brainwashing on Wally by running alongside him super fast and going, "You're brainwashed, dumb-dumb! You're brainwashed, dumb-dumb! Snap out of it, idiot! Barry and I are faster than you!" It seems to work because The Flash concocts a plan to get away from Sonar by flinging the unconscious (and maybe dead?) Blue Jay across the frozen tundra so he can pretend to go after the escaping hero.<br><br>
Back in London, a super duper twist takes place at JLE headquarters.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48g.jpg"><br>
<b>What?! The new tailor outfitting everybody in those horrible new costumes was a spy for Sonar all along?! No way!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I haven't mentioned over the last half dozen issues or so how suspicious everybody has been about the new tailor because I just assumed they all hated him for putting Elongated Man in that terrible outfit and Power Girl in hers. And even though I wrote that caption as if I had known all along, I really hadn't known all along. And I've read this before! I just thought he was acting nervous and guilty because he knew how terrible his fucking designs were.<br><br>
The superpowered Indian girl from last issue breaks into JLE Headquarters and finds the tailor there. One of the two is all, "You shouldn't be here!", and it's not the one you think. Unless you thought it was Chandi Gupta, the Indian lass. Because, yeah, she said it. As if she knows who should be in the castle and who shouldn't? She obviously doesn't know or she would have yelled that at herself. The tailor, instead of saying, "Oh, I'm the official Justice League Europe tailor! I made Power Girl and Elongated Man's amazing new costumes!" Instead he says, "I'd like to see what a little punk like you is going to do about it." Which kind of blows his cover, no? He could have just repeated what she said and threatened to call the cops on her.<br><br>
Chandi has a magic bow but I guess the tailor is already in melee range so she chooses not to use it with negative modifiers. That's when the suit of armor reveals itself as the lord of the castle and nearly kills the tailor. But Chandi stops it from murder so that she can tell it her origin story.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE48h.jpg"><br>
<b>Yeah, but you left out the most important detail: your superhero name!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">The Flash arrives to interrupt the nice chat between the mystic girl and the armored ghost. He pleads with them to contact Justice League America to save the day. I guess he doesn't know Superman is dead and Blue Beetle is in a coma and Fire has lost her powers and Ice quit and Booster Gold's technology has been demolished and Bloodwynd is actually Martian Manhunter. I don't think they're in any condition to save anybody's day. I guess, unbelievably, Sonar and the Rocket Reds are going to take over the world!<br><br>
<b>Justice League Europe #48 Rating: C.</b> The story and art weren't as mediocre as the C rating might indicate. What the C rating indicates is how unbelievable — even in a stupid comic book that mainly deals with the unbelievable — it is that Sonar and the fucking Rocket Reds have not only defeated Justice League Europe but the Justice Society as well! And, I suppose, the Justice League Reserves! This wouldn't have happened if Batman had stuck around to lead the team.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-49730030455448123642024-02-25T01:35:00.000-08:002024-02-25T01:35:42.562-08:00Justice League America #72 (March 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72.jpg" /><br />
<b>I had to double check the date to make sure this wasn't from ten years earlier.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Why is Flash in a black outfit? Is this The Flash from that evil numbered world (three being the evilest number)? Reverse-Flash, Doctor Zoom, PhD? Or, having gotten used to the terrible lighting in modern movies, I can just assume it's Flash in his red outfit but somebody fucked up on the lighting rig. I really don't know why all these old timers are suddenly on the cover of my 1993 Justice League comic book. I could speculate but there are so many comic book reasons for this that I might as well just read the stupid thing and let Jurgens tell me. But it's probably a dimensional cross-over story that won't make any sense because they'll tie in time travel somehow as well and didn't all the other worlds get destroyed in Crisis?<br /><br />
The story begins with Star Sapphire and Wizard breaking into a museum to steal a mysterious and powerful Egyptian scepter. They believe they've got time before the cops catch them because they left some friends on lookout. But as soon as they reveal that information, Martian Manhunter strides in dragging the unconscious bodies of Blockbuster and the Floronic Man. J'onn has a weird belt buckle that represents the American flag with a lightning bolt through it. Which must mean this is happening in one of those five thousand dimensions or Elseworld titles where the Justice League have become fascist assholes. The Secret Society of Super-Villains have a history of traveling between Earths so this might be one of those things.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Jonn's also rockin' hard cock-eyed nipples.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Wizard refers to the Floronic Man as "Plantmaster," probably because Floronic Man is an incomprehensible name that nobody has ever liked. Still, it's better than "Plantmaster." Wizard gives a whistle and Sinestro ambushes Martian Manhunter from the shadows. J'onn breaks his arm and then disintegrates Star Sapphire with his disintegration vision which is a thing I didn't know he had. I guess it's just heat vision dialed up to "murder." Green Lantern arrives just in time to see Carol Ferris slain and he's all, "Oh well. Hate to see good pussy put down but what can you do?"<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Like the average gun owner, Hal only keeps from killing because there are rules against it. But he's all for doing it if attitudes and laws change. Big Stand Your Ground energy here.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">You might infer from what I've written and the panels I've chosen to scan that Hal's interpretation of "Necessary Force" means murdering anybody trying to steal some old as fuck stick. But Sinestro and Star Sapphire did initiate violence against them, so I guess, with the new rules, that justifies the killing. But then again, with the new rules where the Justice League can use lethal force, I'd probably jump to the conclusion upon seeing Martian Manhunter that I needed to defend myself as quickly as possible. And while I might be dead afterward, I'm pretty sure my now being dead justifies my initial reaction to violence. Because even if I didn't try to defend myself, righteous "law abiders" like these pricks would just as soon kill me because they believe their guts and suspicions are always correct (not the suspicion that Star Sapphire is criming but that she's going to attempt "necessary force" first, is the meaning). And also they want to kill somebody. Remember that! Every cop actually wants to murder somebody! It's one of the main perks of the job!<br /><br />
What I'm saying is all police are sociopaths, if not psychopaths. The fact that so many comic book writers all have the "What if Superhero X Was Corrupted by Their Power?" says everything that needs to be said on that subject. I mean, it doesn't, but I'm gonna go back to reading the comic book now.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Not like this is much different from Superman sending villains to the Phantom Zone and Batman locking somebody up in Arkham without any due process.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I assume the villains Batman catch get a trial before being sent to Arkham for an indefinite period. But Superman has definitely been known to toss some asshole into the Phantom Zone without a second thought. And doesn't Green Lantern stick people in a prison on Oa based only on his word that he caught them committing unlawful acts? Aquaman probably feeds people to sharks. I think these alternate dimension stories where DC's heroes are fascists aren't meant to be "What if?" stories but stories which say, "See how terrible are heroes could be? Luckily, they're far less terrible than this!"<br /><br />
Green Arrow and Black Canary try to catch Sinestro before Hawkman does because they're liberal goody-two-shoes from the West Coast. They think Sinestro has rights and shit! What are they? Me?! But they fail to catch him and the Savage Hawkman smashes him in the face with his mace before taking him to the rehabilitation center in Nevada to have both arms amputated. That's not a usual punishment but Hawkman runs the outfit and is also a brutal asshole. Oh, so maybe, um, that is the usual punishment.<br /><br />
Commissioner Gordon, upset with how the federal government is using the Justice League to terrorize the world, decides to cry to Batman.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Two years and two months? Two-Face is behind this!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Batman informs Commissioner Gordon that he's fine with the Justice League killing super villains. Remember, Batman doesn't kill. But he sort of kills in that he lets death happen all the time. Not literally but definitely in semantic ways where a righteous asshole like me can twist the perception on a story to argue how Batman was responsible for some death or another. Somebody doesn't even have to die to prove that Batman kills. Often he'll commit such violence on a villain that if the story wasn't written the way it was, there's every possibility the villain could have suffered some mortal wound. I'm pretty sure he's run the Batmobile into multiple villains over his career. It only takes one that doesn't quite have the level of invulnerability Batman was expecting for Batman to wind up a killer. Unless he puts deaths like that in the "accident" column. That's what I did. I mean would do.<br /><br />
China, rather than be oppressed by American super heroes, decides to launch nuclear missiles at America. But The Flash and Atom show up to stop them just after the nick of time. The Flash, being an authoritarian jerk now, wears the black costume like on the cover. It's not a good sign when a hero changes their colors to black. Even Batman usually wears gray or dark blue and his costume is meant to keep him hidden in the shadows. You'd think black, like the Burton movie, would be his ideal choice. Maybe Batman saves his black outfit as formal wear.<br /><br />
Oh yeah. I said "just after the nick of time" and then didn't explain myself. The Chinese military press the ignition on their missiles so it's too late for Atom and Flash to stop the launch. But The Atom does manage to fuck up the wires in their computer console so that the silos close and the missiles explode within the Chinese base.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Atom means "another example." I guess he forgot what we did to Japan for some End of the War LOLs.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Back on the JLA satellite, everybody but Green Arrow have completely lost their minds. That's easy enough to understand. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and Green Arrow is a powerless loser. So how could he become corrupted? Hawkman points out that it's China's fault because "they rejected our plans for financial reorganization" and because of that, "they made the choice to fight." Unless he just means they made the choice to fight by trying to launch nuclear missiles at America. That's fair but his statement is patently unclear basing the second clause I quoted on the first one. Anyway, Green Arrow thinks maybe the Justice League went a little overboard by allowing a bunch of nuclear missiles to explode in China. Everybody else seems to have a super power I wasn't aware of until now: shrugging off massive deaths.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72h.jpg" /><br />
<b>So naïve, Green Arrow!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Come on, Ollie! Nobody ever resorts to violence to teach somebody else right and wrong, or to convince somebody over to your way of thinking! They choose violence because it's the easiest and most effective way to get what they fucking want. And if you're arguing the pro-violence side by going straight to self-defense, realize that every asshole's idea of "self-defense" is finding some way to justify using violence for your own ends. Every time a gun nut has ever angrily tried to debate me when I pointed out gun owners are first and foremost cowards, they always want to bring up women using guns for self-defense. But that's mostly an imaginary tale! Usually women are killed by the gun owning men in their lives. And when a woman does shoot a man whom she's been abused by or terrified of, she's usually tried for murder. Because men are still mostly in control and men don't want to see women rising up and blowing their chauvinist heads off!<br /><br />
I can't fucking believe Green Arrow is my favorite character in this story. When did I become a beta cuck? I mean in my comic book reading and not my real life. I know exactly when I became a beta cuck in real life! Thanks a lot, American junior high school educational system!<br /><br />
Apparently, in this topsy-turvy world where Superman and Wonder Woman must have been put down almost instantly for things to get this bad, Hal Jordan is the vice president of the United States.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Hal Jordan in a political position? That's like teaching a honey badger to read fucking Shakespeare.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hmm, there's something wrong with my analogy in that caption. I'm pretty sure Hal Jordan wouldn't have the attention span for politics because you don't use your fist enough in the legislature. But a honey badger probably is smart enough to read Shakespeare.<br /><br />
After 21 pages of this alternate timeline without any ties to the regular series, the 22nd page introduces the antagonist. The main antagonist? The bad guy that's bad in a different way from this evil Justice League?<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA72g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Fresh from the pages of <i>The Sandman</i> (when <i>The Sandman</i> was still in DC's mainstream continuity).</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Doctor Destiny lost his materioptikon to Dream recently but a lot of Morpheus's powers had leeched into his being (which is probably why he looks like a lich now). So even though he has ended up in Arkham Asylum where everybody thinks he's safe and sound, he still has tremendous power. So while I thought this was possibly an alternate Earth (even though they were all destroyed about eight years prior to this), it looks like it's the regular old Earth-2 (or is the newer, non-JSA Earth "Earth-1" at this time? I can't keep this shit straight) but warped via Doctor Destiny's power over people's dreams. That makes sense because of course Hawkman would be a huge massive power-hungry dictator! It's always the guys who fear crime so much that they believe anything they do to stop crime cannot be construed as a crime itself. The ends justify the means, so says libertarians when they're talking about a situation in which they prosper. But if somebody else is justifying some shit means to make the world better, like taxing the rich, then the ends no longer justify the means at all!<br /><br />
I'm really highlighting the kinds of people I loathe in this entry, aren't I?! It's something I have to do every now and then so that they know exactly where I stand and that I don't want them reading anything I write. If you don't say it pointedly and outright, they'll find a way to enjoy things that are absolutely shitting all over their ideology and beliefs. The best part about knowing my Catholic friend Soy Rakelson throughout high school was learning how they could warp any bit of media to make it seem like it supported their way of thinking, just because they liked it in some way. Being a Catholic, I don't know why Soy loved Rush's song "Roll the Bones" so much when the refrain is "Why are we here? Because we're here. Roll the bones. Why does it happen? Because it happens. Roll the bones." I think he just loved the rapping skeleton in the video because it said so many big words and it wasn't Black. Probably wasn't Black, anyway.<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #72 Rating: A.</b> I don't know what else to say except "I love a good Elseworlds' story!" And this one gets to not just be an Elseworlds' style story but it gets to be in canon too! I also love Doctor Destiny. The Sandman story "24 Hours" is right up there as one of my favorite ever issues of a comic book (right alongside the issue of Seagle's <i>House of Secrets</i> about the Juris member Plyck and "The White Sheep on the Green Hill" from Peter Milligan's <i>Shade the Changing Man</i>). Hopefully the heroes are all dreaming this story and not actually committing all of these atrocities like the patrons in the diner in <i>The Sandman</i> story! Because if so, bye-bye China, I guess! Oh, and Star Sapphire. And Sinestro. And probably Superman and Wonder Woman! I mean, they're conspicuously absent! You know they wouldn't have condoned this Hawkman running the world shit. Who actually would?! I'm so disappointed in everybody except Commissioner Gordon, Green Arrow, and Black Canary!
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</div>Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-32553392201912806612024-02-22T05:20:00.000-08:002024-02-22T05:20:43.893-08:00Justice League Europe #47 (February 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47.jpg" /><br />
<b>Sonar added orange dye to his sonic bolts for a better visual spectacle.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I'm ignoring the pun, "The Sound of Slaughter," because it kills a tiny piece of my brain every time I try to read it due to my brain trying to pronounce slaughter as it should be pronounced and also as rhyming with "laughter" at the same time. It physically hurts to read it which is probably why I shouldn't have mentioned it at all. Let's go back to the idea that Sonar's sonic blasts can be observed. Which I'm entirely thankful for because picture this cover, in your mind's eye, without the orange-yellow blasts. It's fucking ridiculous, innit? People picking up this comic book in 1993 would think, "Do his balls smell that bad?"<br /><br />
Hal Jordan has returned from his mission on Oa when this issue begins and, in typical Hal Jordan fashion (which I've documented time and time again so I don't know why anybody else doesn't feel the same way about Hal that I do), instead of investigating what's happened to his teammates, he struts right up to the entire Rocket Red Brigade and begins punching them in their vodka-soaked Russian faces. Dammit. I apologize for the obvious ethnic insult but I lived through the '80s and even though I didn't much think about it, some of Reagan's propaganda soaked into the wee corners of my mind. Luckily most of my attitude toward Russians was formed by pop music so I figured the Russians loved their children and also all became clowns after they served in the Russian military. But we're probably at a point where a few pointedly Russian insults can make it into my writing because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine (which is kind of echoed in this "Red Winter" story arc!). Don't get me wrong! I don't hate Russians because of what their leader is doing. I'm American! I know how awful it is to be blamed for the stupid violent imperialist shit our leaders do! But I think the atmosphere is a little bit okay for some vodka and potato and big concrete blocks making up the bulk of their architecture jokes! Sure it's low hanging potatoes! But that's the kind of thing people reading this blog believe I dabble in because they don't truly understand the subtlety of most of my jokes! Not that "vodka-soaked Russian faces" has any subtlety in it. But that's just the camouflage to hide all the really great lines that two or three readers will ever notice!<br /><br />
Hal attacks the Rocket Reds while spouting a load of allegations about what they're up to and expecting them to explain themselves while he beats the shit out of their vodka-soaked Russian faces.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Of course they don't answer, Hal. How much English do you think they know?!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Hal pulls the helmet off one Rocket Red's head and, hokey smokes, it's Dmitri! What are the odds?! Unless all the Rocket Reds will be revealed to be clones of Dmitri, like how all the Empire's clones turned out to be Boba Fett's dad! Hal tries to make Dmitri feel guilty but that doesn't work against brainwashed people so Dmitri just blasts Hal with his Apokolyptian gauntlet blasters. Hal, showing no remorse, blasts Dmitri full in his uncovered face with his ring, thinking, "It's much easier to murder you when I never actually worked with you!" Or something to that effect. I'm not the most reliable re-teller of stories. Once Hal takes out Dmitri, what other Rocket Red can stand up to him? None of them have armor forged on Apokolips. They just have rusted-out, Cold War technology that wasn't even great before the dissolution of the Soviet Union! But that's when brainwashed Flash appears!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47b.jpg" /><br />
<b>I love this panel although I suspect Barry had used his yellow boot into Hal's face trick more than once in the past.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Do you think Batman gives pointers to all the other Justice League members about how to defeat every other Justice League member? When Batman learned Hal was going to be in charge of Justice League Europe, he probably took Wally aside and was all, "He's defenseless against yellow. If you ever have to take him down, just judo kick him right in the brain. He'll literally never see it coming. Also, stop sexually harassing Power Girl, you sex pest."<br /><br />
It turns out Wally learned the yellow boot move from Sonar. I knew he had to have learned it from somebody because it's too advanced a tactic for Wally West to have come up with himself. Actually learning about somebody else's weaknesses to use to his advantage? Why bother! He's super fast and can do anything! Would be his thoughts on the subject, I mean. Also, you know what? They're my thoughts on the subject too! How is The Flash ever defeated at all?! I'm going to stop suspending my disbelief in this fictional DC Universe if they don't start getting more realistic with how super speed would work! Maybe have The Flash accidentally run into a few buildings here and there because he runs faster than he can think or see. Hmm, I've re-thunk my thoughts on the subject! DC is doing just fine. I don't want them to think too hard about all the reasons super speed would be a terrible, uncontrollable curse. Let's just pretend he runs fast enough when he needs to and people can also hear him say everything he says while running around super fast.<br /><br />
Back in London, the last available member of Justice League Europe, Crimson Fox, pretends she's up to the task of rescuing the others. She probably can stop the Rocket Red Brigade all by herself unless the suits are hermetically sealed, making the Russians within immune to her pheromones. Also in London, an Indian girl who can make electric arrows has run away from her aunt and uncle, deciding that the only safe place for her to flee is to the Justice League castle. I don't know remember who she is but she feels like somebody who will wind up on the Titans.<br /><br />
Catherine, like me, doesn't believe Crimson Fox has what it takes to help the other members of the League. So she calls in the reserves!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Why is this the reserve team? Get them their own continent immediately!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Crimson Fox and her new underlings (I'm assuming Fox is the new leader) have no idea what they're even doing because nobody can communicate with the rest of the League. They'll probably have to wait until they hear a news story about the Rocket Reds invading Romania. Green Lantern somehow gets away, probably some auto-protect setting on his ring which really pisses off Sonar because now he has to save Ralph's life just to get another brainwashed Justice League soldier. Luckily Sue is willing to make a deal with Sonar, giving him whatever he wants if he'll save Ralph from the trap he set that nearly killed him.<br /><br />
Rocket Reds force the JLE Reserve's plane to make a crash landing as it tries to enter Russian airspace. That's when Black Canary is all, "I guess it's up to Aquaman and his bureaucratic nonsense!" Oh yeah! I forgot about Aquaman and Power Girl! What have they been up to since we left them about to kiss?<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Notice how Aquaman specifies, in this melodramatic act, how he can't be with another "woman." He's definitely fucking dolphins.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Power Girl doesn't take rejection well but they must not have diet soda in Atlantis because she doesn't smash up the joint. She just leaves Aquaman to his lonely boner and his boring paperwork and his moist, succulent dolphins. She heads back to the surface with only an Atlantean headband to show for her journey back "home." It's kind of depressing and I don't give three shits about Power Girl. I'm not sure if not giving more or less shits shows greater apathy.<br /><br />
While Sonar's plan seemed to really be falling into place a few pages ago, it quickly begins to fall apart when Power Girl ditches Aquaman and Sonar loses the ability to listen in on either one.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Why are we checking in on Sonar if Crimson Fox is out there naked somewhere?!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Sonar suits up because it's time for the C-list villain to take matters into his own hands. This constitutes an expected failure on his part, right? His Rocket Red invasion plan gets stymied on a number of fronts in conflict with the Justice League when he should have been ruling several countries by now. I guess Gerard Jones actually thought Russia invading other countries would be difficult because the rest of the world wouldn't stand for it. Instead, we've learned most of the world barely cares. It's probably why Israel decided to finally go ahead with their longtime plans of killing and driving out the Palestinians. And they were right to move forward! The UK and the USA have decided, in this case, genocide probably isn't a war crime. Gerard Jones must be rolling over in his prison cell thinking about how he fucked up this story so bad! Oh, no, excuse me. He's out of jail now. I hope somebody checks his hard drive regularly to make sure he hasn't downloaded any more Oopsie! Pictures.<br /><br />
While sitting in a crashed airplane in the snow doing nothing, The Huntress spends a few minutes listening to World News on her transistor.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh? Latveria exists in the DC Universe? That's fucking news to me.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">If I were Gerard Jones, I wouldn't jokingly be making reference to Doctor Doom in this story. It only reminds the readers that Sonar is a two-bit Doctor Doom, at best. If I owned any Marvel Comics, I would immediately be thinking about re-reading some <i>Fantastic Four</i> right now.<br /><br />
Oh, come on! I do own some Marvel comics! But they're mostly Ultimate editions of them! And Punishers by Garth Ennis! And maybe that series Gaiman did where they're all old timey pirates and shit. The main reason I don't drop this dumb Sonar story and read those comics is that I have no idea how I've organized my comic books. They're in one of the dozens of short boxes stacked up against a wall in the bedroom. You think I'm organized? I'm re-reading my old comics by random draw. Whatever's in the next box under <i>Justice League</i> will be what I read next!<br /><br />
Doctor Light arrives to help the Rocket Reds capture the Justice League Reservists. She does a half-assed job of it, getting trapped inside a lead Metamorpho ball while Metamorpho falls unconscious, unable to let her out. So she's suffocating, The Huntress was knocked out, Blue Jay was electrocuted, and Tasmanian Devil got his ass beat for talking like a pirate. Only Mister Miracle and Black Canary are left standing and they aren't exactly powerhouses able to take on a whole bunch of armored soldiers, even if the armor is of Soviet design. But just when all is darkest before the darkest night, they're saved by Green Lantern! No, not Hal. The gay one.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE47g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Is The Atom wearing a snow camo outfit or did the colorist just forget to fill him in?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left"><b>Justice League Europe #47 Rating: B.</b> The Justice Society don't answer to anybody anymore because no government wants to work with a bunch of old has-beens. So they have no problem creating an international incident by invading Russia to slap the young Rocket Reds on their backsides and give them what for. Also, we didn't actually know Alan Scott was gay in 1992 because nobody had told us yet. But there were hints! Like that majestic cape he's wearing. And his weakness being wood. You know, because he would get all turned on by boners which would expose his secret, closeted life and ruin his marriage. But his son Todd would probably have been, "What?! I'm gay too dad! Let's hit the clubs!" Then Jade probably would have taken a naked shower while they were out, really lathering up her secret bits and causing me to get some serious Green Lantern weakness in my pants. Um, anyway, this was a pretty decent issue! Except for the part where they refused to show Crimson Fox getting naked. That was disappointing.
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</div>Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-24132274235491942172024-02-20T18:45:00.000-08:002024-02-20T18:45:23.138-08:00Justice League America #71 (February 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71.jpg" /><br />
<b>Judging by what I can see, the new members are Liberace, a gun, and Wonder Woman's tits.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This fake cover over the real cover must have been conceived before the invention of covers with cutaways that reveal the real cover underneath. You'd think that technology would have already been invented by 1993 because remember how that book everybody read in junior high, <i>Flowers in the Attic</i>, had a peekaboo cover? That book came out in 1979 and had a little window on the cover showing a girl's face and then you opened the cover to reveal that she was fucking her brother. V.C. Andrews' books were the junior high equivalent of Judy Blume's books in elementary school. Unless you were one of the freaks reading Stephen King. <i>It</i> came out in 1986 and while most people were all, "Big deal, you read horror!", those of us reading Stephen King in junior high and high school were all, "Do you know a bunch of twelve year olds have a gang bang in the sewer in this? And have you read 'The Lawnmower Man'? Not a hint of virtual reality in that thing! It's just a naked guy slithering around eating grass leavings! And don't get me started on the existentialist torture porn of <i>Gerald's Game</i>!"<br /><br />
Let's check out who's really joining the JLA (according to the cover which probably won't wind up being reality because Black Condor ain't the kind of guy to join a team like this and we know Wonder Woman never fucking finds the time for this shit, no matter how many times the creative team hints at her joining). I wouldn't mind the new roster being the one I wrote in the caption but some would suspect that it's quite improbable.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Holy shit! Underneath the fake cover is a cover where the team is breaking through the cover!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This cover, in an effort to minimize the usually fraud perpetrated by lying comic book covers, adds the question, "Is this the new Justice League America?" Because the answer to that question is, "No, it is not. It never will be. It's more a reminder to readers that The Freedom Fighters have recently had some legacy versions of those old heroes pop up in their own monthlies. But where is the new Phantom Lady? Va-va-va-voom!<br /><br />
This issue begins with Maxima, realizing the Justice League are now seen as huge pathetic losers, rebranding her image. She decides her costume needs less flesh showing and should maybe be purple instead of green. Nobody will recognize her as one of those Justice League failures now! She acts like she's honoring Superman by not giving up after losing one battle but she's acting like an electronics corporation that was recently found to be selling the organs of Chinese children which wants to continue to do business without a bunch of pesky liberals judging them. She's not planning on changing her name though so my analogy is imperfect. My analogy is also imperfect because a lot of people now be thinking, "Wait. What electronics corporation was found selling the organs of Chinese children? Did I miss that story?" Look, I just made that up. The analogy works because people wouldn't be surprised to find out that's something Apple was doing. My guess is one of the major components of the iPhone uses the ACL from toddlers but that's just speculation backed up by evidence. Not evidence that there's an organic component in the iPhone or that there are an inordinate number of crippled Chinese children near iPhone factories! The evidence is simply that Apple is just as evil as every other corporation and if something would make them a profit, they'd engage in that practice.<br /><br />
Maxwell Lord comes by to talk to Lady Maxima. He does call her "Lady M" at one point so I think Dan Jurgens is trying to make sure the readers note that two characters in this comic book basically have the same name. Was that intended? To portray Maxima and Maxwell Lord as two sides of the same person? They're both arrogant jerks who must control every situation. Also they're both villains but they don't really know it.<br /><br />
While Max whines at Maxima that his League might be dead without Superman (forgetting that Superman has only been a part of it for about ten issues), Oberon tells Booster Gold that his suit cannot be fixed with the Justice League's limited technology (limited in that it's 20th Century technology and not 25th Century technology). So obviously Booster Gold blames Oberon in the most offensive but it's the '90s so this is actually a joke, I guess, way!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71b.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oberon is watching . . . Booster's ass as he leaves.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Booster realizes he's a huge ass who shouldn't have attacked Oberon the way he did in the very next panel but there aren't any panels of Booster actually apologizing to Oberon. Blue Beetle continues to "slip deeper into his coma" which is that a thing? Do comas have levels? I just figured our position in the universe was always either coma or not coma, not near a coma or deep in a coma or hanging out in a very shallow coma listening to people talk about you. That could just be my ignorance though. Maybe by "slip deeper," the doctor just meant "another day has gone by and the longer Beetle remains in a coma, the worse his odds of recovery are"?<br /><br />
I just remembered that website where an actual doctor would review episodes of <i>House</i>! What the fuck was <a href="https://www.politedissent.com/house_pd.html">that site</a>? He was also a big comic book fan so he'd sometimes review medical emergencies in comic books as well. I haven't thought about that site in years. Probably since <i>House</i> ended!<br /><br />
Maxwell Lord's plan to hire new members for the League is to send out current members to hunt down heroes instead of inviting them all to a huge recruitment party. That should go about as well as the draft in America during the invasion of Vietnam.<br /><br />
Guy Gardner has been sent to collect The Ray. Hopefully nobody blames Guy Gardner when he beats the shit out of the kid and they realize Max is at fault for sending fucking Guy Gardner to recruit somebody. Of course it's going to wind up in a fight! Even when Guy isn't looking for a fight, he winds up in a fight. He's just one of those guys. We've all known a guy like that! Either they start some shit for no fucking reason or somebody starts something with them because guys who start shit can smell their own. I was still pretty young when I got tired of being friends with guys like that. Can I even call a guy like that a friend? A friend is somebody whose back you'd have if some kind of fight broke out but with this kind of guy, when you suddenly realize he's engaged in fisticuffs with some other jerk, you just shrug and think, "Enh, I'm sure he deserves whatever beating he's about to get." I was doing a disservice to them calling them my friend when really I was just another bystander watching them get their ass beat. But then, another kind of awful guy is the kind of guy who backs up a shitheel like that! The kind of guy who is all, "My friend just started some shit with some guy just standing around doing nothing! I'd better back him up and help beat the shit out of that guy!"<br /><br />
Anyway, why the fuck do I like the character of Guy Gardner?! I guess I'm like Ice. I know better but I just can't help myself! Also I feel compassion for him due to his brain damage and the way everybody treats him like shit without considering the brain damage!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71c.jpg" /><br />
<b>1993 wasn't that far away and enough of us felt like The Ray here and still had the correct attitude toward cops: fuck 'em.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">People hated cops for a century or more (and any "rules enforcer" since civilizations began). But then all the cop shows trying to portray them as the first line of defense against having your VCR stolen or the only people keeping the public space safe began flooding the airwaves. And then 9/11 happened and somehow cops were entangled with all the real heroic first responders and people began to worship their fascist asses. The split where people began to worship cops probably really began to take place in the Reagan era '80s though. By the '90s, you could see it writ large during something like the OJ trial where people actually existed who couldn't even conceive that Mark Furhman was obviously a huge sexist, racist who might have planted evidence. For decades prior to this, most people would have been, "A racist cop who hates dames planting evidence? Which one did it?" There were probably a lot of racists who hated cops but suddenly found themselves siding with cops when they fiercely wanted OJ found guilty. I remember my cousin's girlfriend at the time saying, "I'm not racist but this trial might make me one." As if rich men weren't getting away with murder constantly! But suddenly a rich black man has the means to hire lawyers that would stop at nothing to keep him out of jail was the unjust straw that broke your racist camel's back? Please. Any time you blame some other event that has shit-all to do with you for making you racist, you were already fucking racist, fam.<br /><br />
Even though The Ray flees, Guy doesn't shoot him in the back and then tell everybody that he thought he had a gun, forcing the Justice League to cover up his murder like they've covered up all of the other murders by cops. I mean heroes. Guy just grabs him with gigantic yellow tweezers and asks him to join the League. The Ray probably jumps at the chance. But meanwhile in New Jersey, Bloodwynd is hunting Black Condor who definitely does not want to join the Justice League. He doesn't even want to stop crime. Ever! He just wants to live in the Pine Barrens and pretend to be the Jersey Devil to lost hikers.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71d.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Shirk your duties"? Fuck you, Bloodwynd, you arrogant conservative asshole Martian.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">This is why <i>The X-men</i> could tell a wide variety of stories and retain a semblance of narrative reality that DC often had trouble with. Somebody in the DC Universe who can fly should be obligated to fight crime? What the fuck is that about? In the Marvel Universe, people with powers aren't expected to fight crime specifically. They even have a place to go where they can learn about their powers and be accepted for who they are. I never really read <i>The X-men</i> so maybe Professor X was a lot like Bloodwynd here and constantly pressured the kids at his school to join up with The X-men. I mean the ones with useful powers! Not like those jerks in the special class that Grant Morrison created. Although I sort of loved that beaked kid.<br /><br />
Maxima hunts down Agent Liberty. He's the guy with the gun on the cover because we all know liberty only exists because a guy with a gun kills people. Obviously he kills all the right people some how, even though one aspect of "liberty" is living your life without the fear of some coward with a gun blowing your head off because they've convicted you of some imaginary bullshit on the spur of the moment that demands the death penalty, even if it's just shoplifting (or the belief that you were shoplifting, most likely). I guess he's DC's '90s version of The Punisher but worse because he's tarted himself up to look like a patriotic good guy while The Punisher was all, "I'm going to name myself The Punisher and wear a skull on my chest so that nobody thinks, 'Oh, this guy loves America and is killing for all the right reasons!'" The Punisher just kills who thinks needs to be killed without having to polish his murder turd. The problem with this guy is his righteousness. Oh, and his patriotism! Fuck this guy.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71e.jpg" /><br />
<b>This is how dumb this character is.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Just like every gun wielding asshole who thinks they're protecting freedom and loves America and worships cops and the military, he can't wait to shoot a cop in the face if the cop tries to constrain his liberty (his liberty being murdering people). I'm sure DC wants readers to see Agent Liberty as a real hero though so he probably won't shoot at the cops. But if he did, he wouldn't think he was in the wrong at all! Liberty to these assholes generally means "I get to do whatever I want at everybody else's expense." If they do something horrible to you, it's liberty and freedom. But if you try to do what they're doing to you, it's oppression and deserves a death sentence.<br /><br />
Not that I'm defending the cops in that panel! Their first instinct is to shoot the fuck out of Agent Liberty when they see him. Every fucking asshole with a gun (even cops who are supposed to be trained and, you know, brave) automatically assumes every other asshole has a gun and so they think self-defense means being the first person to shoot the other person in any sort of conflict. And you have to make sure to kill them so they can't get on the stand in court and testify to not having had any kind of weapon on them at all nor were they even thinking of escalating the situation to violence.<br /><br />
Only with Superman dead would somebody like Agent Liberty be asked to join the Justice League. Now, if he acted out of righteousness in stopping crimes but refused to kill people, he'd be Batman. I guess that's why he kills. And also why he loves America?<br /><br />
Back at JLA headquarters, Booster Gold continues to search for a solution for his destroyed suit from the future. Fire arrives to show him the final product on the 12 Months of Naked Fire calendar they "collaborated" on.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71f.jpg" /><br />
<b>What the fuck is Fire wearing?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">You know Dan Jurgens drew this picturing Fire simply in one of Ice's half-tops and her underwear. But the colorist, Gene D'Angelo, probably got a late night call from Assistant Editor Ruben Diaz screaming, "Augustyn let the shot of an obvious naked Maxima go because we knew the coloring of her suit would make it seem like she had clothes on! But what the fuck is Fire supposed to be wearing?! She's practically naked here! The Comics Code people will shoot my Augustyn's dog if we try to publish this! Color her fucking green so it looks like she has something covering her legs and tits!" You know the call went straight to D'Angelo because nobody drew any lines to show where her "green clothing" ends. Because of artist unions, I don't think colorists are allowed to draw black lines.<br /><br />
Fire informs Booster that she burned the calendars. She claims it's because Booster printed them without her permission and yet she was happy to be paid for provocative photos for a calendar before she knew Booster was behind it. I'm not sure she can argue consent in this case. She's just sorry that she was helping a sexist asshole who makes her sick get rich. If I were Booster, I'd sue the fuck out her.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA71g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Oh wait. He's threatening to murder her? I guess I'm back on Fire's side now. Mostly because of the underboob.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Booster Gold digs Skeets out of a box in the basement so Skeets can repair his super suit. No wonder Skeets wound up getting worms in its head and nearly destroying the entire DC Universe. Booster Gold should have taken better care of the poor little thing! Anybody else in that situation probably would have made friends with the first nerd caterpillar to come along as well.<br /><br />
The last new member is the new leader: Wonder Woman! Was that a surprise? Had you forgotten the cover by now? Seeing as how she appears 19 pages into the issue, I think Jurgens was hoping the reader would have forgotten by then too.<br /><br />
Superman is dead. Blue Beetle is in a very deep and getting deeper coma. Fire has lost her powers. Booster Gold has lost his powers (meaning his suit broke). And Ice decides to quit. That leaves Maxima, Bloodwynd, and Guy Gardner as the only remaining members of the League. Which is why they've hired, for a limited time anyway, Black Condor (who doesn't want to be there because he's not a hero), The Ray (who doesn't want to be there because he's so young), Agent Liberty (who doesn't want to be there because they're all Narcs), and Wonder Woman (who doesn't want to be there because she never seems to actually want to be there and always disappears after only a few issues). So that's the new League! A bunch of dumb jerks who don't even want to be in the League! I can't wait to see how they work together!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #71 Rating: C+.</b> I know Justice League recruitment drives always rely on spotlighting characters that need more support for their monthly comic books (or perhaps editorial is interested in having a monthly and gauging interest), but this feels even worse than usual. Max Lord has gone after three "heroes" who have no reason to be on the League and nobody in their right mind would have tried recruiting them in the first place. How long does this shit last? I guess all the DC fans who couldn't fucking stand the goofy Justice League finally got their wish! Now they have a useless Justice League with a non-hero, a murderer, a rank amateur, the villain Maxima, Martian Manhunter faking diversity, an apathetic Wonder Woman, and fucking Guy Gardner. I must have continued reading because I love watching things fall apart and centers not holding!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-15809394547919292902024-02-18T01:59:00.000-08:002024-02-18T01:59:26.189-08:00Justice League Europe #46 (January 1993)<div align="center"><img src="http://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46.jpg" /><br />
<b>Why does Sonar have three front teeth?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">You know I'm seriously perplexed by Sonar's teeth when I fail to first mention how Power Girl's ass is the focal point of this cover. I wanted to say something like, "Hasn't Ron Randall ever seen a person wearing pants?" but I quickly realized it's 2024, not 1992, and women go everywhere in yoga pants meaning that Power Girl's ass in clothing looking just like an ass out of clothing is just common life these days. And thank God it is, by the way! I'm not judging! I'm anti-judging! Women might not wear enough yoga pants in public if I were being truthful and disgusting! Sure, sure! It's just about comfort! I get that. But the male gaze lives and breathes and refuses to die no matter the intent of women! We will leer and drool and think horrendously filthy thoughts even though you just want to get your coffee without somebody thinking about your butthole. I'm just here to say that it can't be helped! What can be helped is making a righteous, disgusting dick of yourself, guys. Keep those thoughts in your head. Don't think your disgusting imagination is reality! Leave women alone! You know what? Leave men alone too! Leave everybody alone in public aside from some minor niceties and politenesses! But also, women, wear more yoga pants! And sun dresses! Especially on breezy days!<br /><br />
You may have noticed that I embrace my perverse male gaze. But that's because I'm writing about it on a stupid blog that nobody has to visit and read. I'm not out in public waving my male gaze for everybody to see and be irritated by and possibly fearful of! I'm a comic book reader! We're gross and disgusting! And I'm not just talking about the guys!<br /><br />
This issue begins with John Belushi in Russia standing on a bread line.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Do young people even know who John Belushi is anymore?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I remember right around the time I would have been reading this comic book, I was volunteering back stage at the local junior theater to help move the bigger sets between scenes. I mentioned John Belushi to a couple of the kids as we were hanging out back stage and one of them said, "You mean Jim Belushi's brother?" That may have been the first time I felt old. Not even 21 yet! I think I fake angrily replied, "What? No, no! Jim Belushi is John Belushi's brother! Not the other way around!" Then I punched him in the face and threw his body in the creek behind the building and I felt young again.<br /><br />
Catherine discovers some intel about how the Rocket Reds might be invading Ukraine and other former Soviet republics to reform the USSR from twin Meat Loafs.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46b.jpg" /><br />
<b>They would do anything for the re-integration of the former Soviet republics into a grand, sprawling collection of Communist states again but they won't do that.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Catherine has been unsuccessful at getting in touch with Justice League Europe to let them know her new intel. She's been keeping tabs on the entire League but can't figure out what happened to The Flash and Doctor Light. She also doesn't know where Crimson Fox is but she sort of shrugs over that information and thinks, "Do any of us ever really know where Crimson Fox is?" That's because Flash and Doctor Light have actually been kidnapped by the bad guys. Catherine searching for them makes sense in advancing the plot. But if she were to search for Crimson Fox, it would just waste everybody's time, especially mine. We know she's out fucking Rex Mason.<br /><br />
The Flash and Doctor Light have not only been kidnapped by Sonar's men, they've been strapped into a sonic brainwashing machine to make them loyal to Sonar. The Rocket Reds have already undergone the treatment and fallen to Sonar's clutches. Being that a test I took about forty years ago told me that I have the reading comprehension of an American senior high school student, I think that means Sonar is actually the one invading Ukraine!<br /><br />
Meanwhile, Power Girl and Aquaman arrive in Atlantis to the cheers of Atlantean throngs.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46c.jpg" /><br />
<b>Isn't this just an old Sea Monkey advert?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Instead of getting to their diplomatic business, Power Girl moans about her fake Kryptonian memories and the loss of whoever she was while Aquaman cries about his dead wife and child. It's all so sexy that they wind up kissing. Sonar, being all about sound and shit, has all the heroes wiretapped so his men are all, "They gonna fuck! No need to worry about those two! Let's see if the Dibnys are fucking too!"<br /><br />
The Dibnys are not fucking. They are getting a celebratory welcome from the people of Modora whom they believe they saved from Sonar but they really just kicked the C-list villain down the road. And not that far down the road either since Sonar has already stolen all of his sonic technology back from the Modoran government and left a trap for Ralph in the newly opened Elongated Man Museum, the one place Sonar knew the trap would be sprung. Ralph is zapped by a sonic wand and, I don't know, dies, I guess?<br /><br />
Crimson Fox meets up with her sister to have some scones over coffee and also to brag about how much elemental ass she's been getting.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Sapphire Stagg probably believed the "he's not flesh" line too and then she wound up pregnant. At least one small part of him is definitely flesh.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Ralph isn't dead but the doctor proclaims that he's on the brink of death! So I was close enough, especially since I knew he wasn't dead. He outlives Sue, remember? Ah, <i>Identity Crisis</i>! You made so many friends!<br /><br />
Sue knows who nearly killed Ralph not because she's a genius but because it's fucking obvious. The trap was placed in Sonar's sonic staff! And no super villain would pretend to be Sonar because that would be fucking embarrassing. Even Crazy Quilt and Kite Man wouldn't stoop to pretending to be fucking Sonar.<br /><br />
Sonar doesn't think he's nearly the worst DC super villain of all time, probably because he knows Black Hand is still out there somewhere. He really believes he's become the Doctor Doom of the DC Universe! And that he's helping everybody by taking over the world!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE46e.jpg" /><br />
<b>I mean, he might be helping people. His technology certainly could be used compassionately. At the right price.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The problem with people who have the money, power, or technology to help the world is that they don't want to help the world unless it's on their terms. It's always selfishness over philanthropy. They're all basically Napoleon! Unless I meant somebody else?<br /><br />
<b>Justice League Europe #46 Rating: B.</b> I loved this issue! But I don't actually know what love is so it gets a B.
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</div>Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-57249638051895336042024-02-15T17:28:00.000-08:002024-02-15T17:28:01.745-08:00Justice League America #70 (January 1993)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Superman is dead. But we can't help making a stupid pun to show how much we don't fucking give a shit."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The best part of this cover is hidden by the special Superman is dead flap. I'm going to show it to you now but I suggest you prepare for boners and/or pelvic moistness.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70a.jpg" /><br />
<b>"The Mourning After" pun probably applies to the pill Beetle's going to have to take after his wild night with Booster.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I just realized I have a newsstand copy of this issue! What the fuck?! Was my comic book store sold out so I had to pick this up at 7-Eleven?! Aside from that question, my other main question has to do with how Booster Gold had a Superman armband prepared to acknowledge Superman's death before even getting Beetle to the hospital after Doomsday kicked the shit out of him. No wait! My brain just answered that question. Booster Gold is from the future. He knew what this day was and had the armband underneath the outfit Doomsday tore off of him.<br /><br />
Maybe everything after last issue kicked off so quickly that nobody had time to get Blue Beetle to the hospital. But that seems weird because there's no way Blue Beetle wasn't on the brink of death after what Doomsday did to him. Even if it was 1% of what he did to Superman, Blue Beetle's entire fucking head should be paste.<br /><br />
The issue begins with the Narrator explaining how people always remember where they were when they heard great leaders were dead to force the reader into trying to remember the moment they read <i>Superman #75</i>. Apparently, the story was a momentous epic.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70b.jpg" /><br />
<b>I guess it was epic if you're a boring twat who thinks long, drawn-out fist fights done in 22 splash pages is epic.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't care if you're Superman or Apollo Creed. Dying in a fist fight isn't fucking epic. It's tragic but not in the way "Oh, somebody just died unexpectedly!" is tragic. It's tragic like in "Wait. Somebody got punched in the face a bunch of times and then died? Hilarious." I'm sure plenty of people have had loved ones die from being punched in the face and what I would say to them is this: "Don't tell me the story unless you want me to offend your sensibilities by giggling at the traumatic tale."<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70c.jpg" /><br />
<b>"How am I going to look people in the eye when I have to tell them you died from a couple of haymakers? It'd be easier to explain if Lex had done you in with a Kryptonite strap-on!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Ice makes a huge speech about Superman's sacrifice and how the Justice League failed him while Lois cradles her dead boyfriend in a pile of rubble. Later, Lois will think, "Why was that Ice woman so upset? Was she fucking my dude?!" But that comic book only exists in my dreams. You know how Dream of The Endless has the library of books that never actually existed? My section of DC Comics that I wished had been made would be the most entertaining wing of Dream's fucking domicile.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Welp. There's a couple more never-to-be-published DC comics that I just created in my head. Namely one where Ice was killed by Doomsday and this shot was reversed with Supes crying and Ice's tit out. And also one where Ice falls on his dead body and starts sucking on that nipple like a rapid vampire bat.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Oh shit. I'm supposed to find this shit emotional, right?! I know it's thirty years past the peak emotion of the event and that's probably why I can't take any of Superman's death earnestly or emotionally. But I was probably laughing at this shit 30 years ago as well because I do not have the ability to treat anything as sacred. As far as I can tell, having never had therapy, it stems from one of several possible events: the death of my cat Bozo in which I actually did the thing where I cried for three days straight and swore that I would never love anything again like a fucking cliché character in the worst melodrama imaginable; my mother raising me on horror movies so that I had to bury every single one of my emotions deep enough that I wouldn't be terrified every single minute of every single day; or my father leaving when I was two and being mostly out of my life with rare appearances where he tried to act like a father and, being starved of fatherly affection, I tried to appreciate it until around my 18th birthday when he sobered up because he'd hit rock bottom and, alcoholism being what it is according to AA, cured himself when he was ready, I seethed, unconsciously, for years that "rock bottom" wasn't when he lost his relationship with his children, wasn't enough of a moment for him to "cure" himself by stopping drinking.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70e.jpg" /><br />
<b>Look, I said I haven't had therapy! Saying these things is my therapy!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Guy Gardner shows up to be a sexist jerk to Maxima and she decides it's time to kill him. But shirtless Booster Gold (the best Booster Gold?) breaks up the fight because they need to fly Blue Beetle back to Justice League headquarters in New York and stare at him for three weeks before somebody, probably Bloodwynd, mercifully pulls the plug. Unless Bloodwynd pulls the plug because Blue Beetle knows his secret! Man, that's another comic for the DC dream long box.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70f.jpg" /><br />
<b>Um, Superman?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The doctor declares that Blue Beetle isn't just in a coma, he's in a "very deep coma." The deepest he's ever seen! Practically Stygian! But not only does Beetle suffer from very deep comatitus and swelling of the brain. One of his kidneys has shut down as well! And his liver has been damaged! And all of his bones have been shattered! I'm assuming that last one after seeing what Doomsday did to him combined with the knowledge that Doomsday killed Superman. It's the only thing that makes sense. Somehow Blue Beetle's skin remained intact while everything inside of him was jellified. This may be a comic book but my disbelief can only be suspended so far before the rope snaps, whip-cracking back up into my face and putting me in a very deep coma.<br /><br />
Booster Gold points out he's now powerless since all of his powers came from the futuristic technology built into the suit that Doomsday shredded. His only power now is flight unless Doomsday broke the Legion flight ring as well. But Oberon has some words of wisdom to help Booster get through this crisis!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70g.jpg" /><br />
<b>Um, what? Hopefully he'll expand on how he reached this moral to the tale.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Oberon does not expound on his thoughts and nobody questions his wisdom so I guess I must be the dumb one who doesn't understand how Superman's death teaches us not to quit. I think Superman's death teaches us to think our problems through instead of resorting to violence. Why would Superman have to punch this creature to death? Superman loves throwing things into The Phantom Zone. Superman has a genius "friend" who always has a solution that isn't "kill the son of a bitch" (although that would mean having to deal with that smug Gotham bastard). Superman knows a slew of magic heroes who could have, at the very least, teleported Doomsday to the moon where he could be dealt with after some consultation with other heroes. Superman may have felt pressured into beating the shit out Doomsday but that doesn't mean I have to learn a lesson from the dead jerk's refusal to find another way to stop the rampaging creature. With all of his powers, seems to me like Superman just wasn't thinking!<br /><br />
Just in case, as a reader, you're not on the same page as DC about how important Superman has been to our culture, let Wally West explain it to you:<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70h.jpg" /><br />
<b>"Look at all the Earth flags at half-mast. This has affected the universe!" is a thing a great big dumb piece of shit thinks.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Dan Jurgens really doesn't want anybody missing out on how big DC thinks this event should be. Assassination of JFK? As big if not bigger! Death of FDR? Please! So much bigger! This is the kind of fictional event that shakes the very foundations of existence is what DC wants every reader to believe and they have hired Dan Jurgens to write as many hammer-like scenes as he needs to until the reader's head has been so battered about that the reader puts the issue down, concussed by DC propaganda, to weep inconsolably.<br /><br />
I fucking hate my 21 year old self for wanting this event to mean something, for buying into it as some once-in-a-lifetime moment that would rock the way I viewed the world. I thought a boundary was being set up, as great a boundary as the death of the frontier to American history: Superman-time and post-Superman time! I may have lost my innocence some years earlier to a woman who desperately needed to fuck me after she saw me take charge when a tire needed changing and helped to lift a car up enough so a jack could be slid underneath the low frame and then changed the tire as fast as a pit crew at Daytona. But this was even bigger than that! This was huge! Enormous! The Death of Superman! It would affect the entire universe!<br /><br />
At least that's how I felt with all the DC PR leading up to the event. But then I read this shit where Dan Jurgens used the death of Superman as an excuse to jerk off all the readers. My cynicism grew like a cancer! It overtook the earnest innocence existence had yet to strip me of and I exploded into the raging bitter Hulk that I've had to live as ever since. Maybe that's the reason I can't feel anything! It's this fucking comic book! My bitterness and rage have finally come home!<br /><br />
Wally meets up with Booster to rend their garments and gnash their teeth. Aquaman soon joins to point out how his son died and that was nearly as bad. Then Batman and Robin swing in because they lost their parents too! Unless this Robin is Tim Drake (which it totally is. What do you think I am? A comic book newbie?). That bastard has yet to learn anything about grief! And then Hal Jordan arrives! And then Hawkman! Then Starfire and Nightwing!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70i.jpg" /><br />
<b>Yeah, Dick, we know. Are you once again going to tell the story about how you took the name Nightwing from some creature from Krypton Superman told you about?</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">So many heroes have gathered that it's suddenly like an Irish wake. Or, I mean, any old wake, I guess. Why do the Irish make funerals and wakes more romantic?! I wouldn't even know what a French wake looks like! Except that it probably takes place in a brothel, I'd wager?<br /><br />
Next to show up are Alan Scott, Jay Garrick, Ralph Dibny, and Power Girl. I don't know what name she was using in 1992 other than Kara. Kara El? Karen Starr? Kara Arion? After that, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and Black Canary stop by. I wonder how many have come to pay their respects and how many were forced to show by their agents? Even Etrigan shows up!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70j.jpg" /><br />
<b>Read the fucking room, Etrigan!</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Etrigan! What a fucking Chad! Shows up to a gathering to mourn Superman and is all, "I want to mourn Doomsday!" I'm going to read it that way even if Etrigan meant it another way. I can't tell if he's being earnest, cryptic, or Dan Jurgens didn't control his thoughts well enough and spent all of his poetic import on the rhyme.<br /><br />
Oberon arrives to pass out black armbands with Superman's logo on them as if he were prepared for this eventuality. My guess is that before Batman arrived, he stopped by to give the box of armbands to Oberon. Alfred had certainly been commissioned to create these for the eventuality that Batman would have to kill Superman.<br /><br />
Everybody puts on their Superman armbands and looks sad while Batman is all, "A gesture more eloquent than any words could ever be, Oberon." Oh yeah. That proves it. These were Batman's armbands.<br /><br />
Being that Brian Augustyn is the editor of this comic, he has his monthly character fly by to judge the heroes.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA70k.jpg" /><br />
<b>Black Condor has learned the real lesson of Superman's death: don't fucking put yourself in harm's way, Goddammit.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">The issue ends with Booster Gold crying on Blue Beetle's squishy chest. I mean, there's also a moment where Guy Gardner gives in, puts on an armband, and admits that Superman was maybe a little better at heroing than he was. But I like to think that was some delusion of Blue Beetle's, maybe a death dream or something. The real Guy Gardner would have flown over the ice sculpture Superman Ice created and piss on it until it melted. Hmm, that's one more dream comic book for the dream library!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League America #70 Rating: A.</b> It was melodramatic at times but, overall, it was an emotionally well-handled wake for Superman. I think. What do I know about emotion? One page had Fire, in her new skimpy costume, consoling Ice and I didn't think, "Oh, this is so sweet and heartbreaking! They're such good friends!" Instead, I just thought, "Kiss!" But worse! Not one cup worse! Less vulgar than that but maybe a bit more vulgar than a Skinimax flick. I also thought the same thing in the final scene where Booster Gold was basically lying on top of Blue Beetle! Anyway, Superman is dead. Long live Superman! Or something. Who cares? Fuck Kal-El.
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-53537913819506073582024-02-15T00:39:00.000-08:002024-02-15T00:39:42.064-08:00Justice League Europe #45 (December 1992)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE45.jpg" /><br />
<b>Ha ha ha! Rocket Red taking out The Flash. Fucking comic books, man.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">We are solidly in the early '90s era of the Justice League that I have absolutely no memory of. After Breakdowns, my interest levels for the series plummeted exponentially. Or whatever the opposite of that is. Logarithmically? Being that it's still 1992, I can't blame my flagging interest on having been overtaken by my other '90s obsessions, <i>Sailor Moon</i> and Magic the Gathering. My guess is that the comics that would eventually turn into the DC Vertigo line at the beginning of 1993 were taking over my brain and evicting any stories with Blue Beetle or Arsenal. You have to marvel at the brain's ability to defend itself from intense trauma that could cause considerable pain lasting for decades. My inability to remember any Arsenal story I read in the past has saved me so much grief. Also, I stopped reading <i>The Titans</i> when Arsenal became the leader so my brain wasn't working at just a subconscious back-up level. It was advising me to take the necessary steps to improve my life as well as blocking out the stuff I didn't act on fast enough. That explains why this "Red Winter" story arc pretty much ends my run with <i>Justice League Europe</i> and also why I have completely forgotten it.<br /><br />
I don't know Cyrillic and can't speak Russian but Gerard Jones knows both even less than I do. Maybe I shouldn't blame Gerard Jones for the "Я" on the cover. That would be like blaming the script writer every time an artist places the pips on a die wrong, or a colorist fucks up the American flag (they probably fuck up other flags all the time too but, being American, how would I know when another flag has been colored wrong?!). And, sure, I get that it's a design choice and nobody expects me to read "ЯED WINTER" by pronouncing the "Я" in Russian and the rest of the word in English! If they did want me to pronounce "Red Winter" as it would be pronounced in English but begin with basically the correct phonetic sound, the cover would read "РED WINTER" and that wouldn't suggest anything to anybody! It would just look like somebody completely fucked up. So maybe I should stop trying to sound smart and acting like a Goddamned pedant and just realize that the whole "Я" thing was a shortcut for readers to go, "Oh! Backwards R! That's like Communist crap, right?!"<br /><br />
The story begins with the Яocket Яed Brigade attacking and taking over an old Soviet base located in Ukraine. Is this where Putin got his idea for his shit invasion?! I mean, of course it isn't! But any time I read or watch something that reminds me of something that happened in the real world, I don't automatically think it's predictive programming like all the hoople-headed conspiracy theorists who somehow don't understand how fiction, especially science fiction, works. But I do remember the time I saw <i>The Matrix</i> in the theaters and a woman next to me exploded into tears when Neo, in his leather trench coat, stormed that office building by killing loads and loads of people with guns. She was all, "Is this where they got the idea?!" "They" being Dylan Klebold and that other dumb dumb, the Columbine massacre jerks. Often times, lady from 25 years ago, things happen in fiction that remind you of things that happened in reality and vice versa. Most of the time, they have no connection to each other. Bajillions of interactions are happening on this planet every fucking minute. We can only take note of a scant few of those interactions. And sometimes, two of those interactions seem suspiciously reminiscent of each other. But just think if you could perceives all of the interactions! Maybe coincidences would be less spooky if every time something happened, you would be all, "Ho hum. That reminds me of ten million other things that happened thirty seconds ago."<br /><br />
Justice League Europe can't help with the situation because Russia is all, "A-ha! You are Justice League <i>Europe</i>! And Russia is only partially in Europe! So even though Justice League America pokes their noses into everybody's business all over the world, we don't think you should! So stay out of Ukraine, buddy! Or, being 1992, should I say, 'Stay out of The Ukraine, buuuuuuuu-dddy!'?"<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE45a.jpg" /><br />
<b>Aquaman steeples his fingers and says, "Bureaucracy makes the world go round."</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I don't remember this version of Aquaman. I remember when they gave him long hair and a hook for a hand and a rage he couldn't control to try to make him more appealing. But I don't remember when DC thought, "You know who everybody finds really boring and sad? Aquaman! Do you think he'd be more appealing if he were a fan of pushing pencils and slowing down progress?" I don't know why they never went with my idea to make Aquaman more interesting: a guy who fucks dolphins and loves to brag about how many dolphins he's fucked.<br /><br />
Oh, I just realized why I find my version of Aquaman so appealing: it's basically Lobo and his space dolphins!<br /><br />
Power Girl angrily suggests they don't have to just sit around. Still hitting the Diet Coke, I see. She slams the table to emphasize her point and it doesn't break because it's haunted. She suggests they contact Dmitri, their Яocket Яed friend. Since he's Ukrainian, they figure he must know what's going on! Which is perfect Aristotelian logic! Obviously a citizen of a country being invaded by another country must know the reasons why they're being invaded! I can't even counter that kind of perfect argument!<br /><br />
Hal figures the only problem might be breaching international law by going into a sovereign country as the Justice League without permission. But one member of the crew has a solution!<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE45b.jpg" /><br />
<b>"This mission will involve so much paperwork, I might sire a new Atlantean prince with my pants!"</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I apologize to anybody who only reads my reviews for the pictures. Two panels scanned and both with mediocre drawings of Aquaman being more boring than usual.<br /><br />
Being a bureaucratic solution, Aquaman's plan will take a few weeks to get going. He has to go back to Atlantis, send out communications to Russia, hire aids, book travel, fuck some dolphins. At least he'll have Power Girl's help because he's asked her to come along as his partner, being that she's Atlantean and she has big tits.<br /><br />
After that's settled, some Modorans crash their sonic ship on the roof of the castle and are nearly killed by Power Girl. Partially because she's hopped up on Diet soda but more partially because they interrupted Aquaman complimenting her on her heroic abilities and big tits. Modora is the DC equivalent to Marvel's Latveria if you've taken a huge blow to the head and believe Sonar is as powerful or interesting as Doctor Doom.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE45c.jpg" /><br />
<b>We also learn Doctor Light gets high but she doesn't finish telling us what strain of weed makes her so giddy.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">I would probably smoke weed except I can't stand people who smoke weed. Personally, I can't stand anybody who decides one activity they love should become their entire personality. We get it. You get stoned constantly. Wow. Maybe they instantly make friends with other people who smoke weed because they realize nobody else wants to hear them talk about all the weed they smoked lately. The only two groups of people who are worse are vapers and dog owners. Poor fucking dogs. Being loved by the absolutely worst people.<br /><br />
My apologies to my friends and family who own and love dogs. I'm sorry you had to hear how awful you are through this medium. Who am I kidding? The last people who would read this blog are my friends and family!<br /><br />
The Modorans have come to ask Sue and Ralph to come back with them for a visit to their newly free Modora, since Sue and Ralph helped kick Sonar out of the country in a 1992 Elongated Man mini-series. It's weird that I own that series because I don't like Ralph Dibny at all. It's also not weird that I own that series because I think Sue Dibny is adorable.<br /><br />
Unbeknownst to anybody but Sonar and a Яocket Яed, a trap has been set for Sue and Ralph. Apparently Sonar wasn't as defeated as everybody thought he was.<br /><br /></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLE45d.jpg" /><br />
<b>Crimson Fox hates this new outfit but I'm guessing the letters pages will soon be full of angry nerds despondent over her not choosing it.</b><br /><br /></div>
<div align="left">Crimson Fox chooses not to wear the sexiest outfit to her date with Metamorpho for some reason. Perhaps she's a little bit scared of giving him an erection. He might ejaculate mustard gas.<br /><br />
Later that evening, just Flash and Doctor Light are left in the castle. Hal went to Oa, Aquaman and Power Girl are busy triplicating diplomatic forms, Crimson Fox has gone on a date, and Sue and Ralph have been politely kidnapped by the Modorans. Dmitri wanders in without setting off any alarms or dealing with any kind of security at all. Which you're probably thinking, "Why would he? He's their friend!" But don't you remember the cover?! That wasn't any old Яocket Яed! That was Dmitri! And he's become a huge fucking dick! Unless he's just being mind-controlled by Sonar because that sounds like the kind of thing you can explain with sound waves in a comic book. Whatever the case, he knocks Doctor Light and The Flash unconscious. But what he's going to do with them will have to wait until next month. Or the month after. Or the month after that. This is a six part story remember!<br /><br />
<b>Justice League Europe #45 Rating: B.</b> Everything moved along at just the right pace for the first part of a six issue story. The reader has been left in the dark for the most part which is fair since even the Justice League doesn't quite know what's happening. And then there's the big twist surprise ending that was only really a twist surprise ending if you managed to read the story without ever glancing at the cover! Readers are left thinking, "What?! Another traitorous Яocket Яed?! Is Dmitri another Manhunter?! Is this yet another derivative Gerard Jones story that's sort of been told before?! Am I really going to have to read six full issues where the antagonists are Sonar and Яocket Яed?!" If I had been smarter at 21 years old, I also would have asked, and answered in the affirmative, "Should I just stop reading this comic book now instead of wasting my money on five more issues of a Sonar/Яocket Яed team-up?!" Instead, that stupid 21 year old me finished out this story before dropping this book. What a naïve idiot I was!
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Lizardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08934202466921935801noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8372237977102197236.post-889123972073282562024-02-10T19:09:00.000-08:002024-02-10T19:09:01.650-08:00Justice League America #69 (December 1992)<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69.jpg"><br>
<b>Nice!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I don't mind so much that Doomsday has just punched Blue Beetle to death on this cover even though that never happens. What I really mind is Bloodwynd's atrophied baby legs due to Dan Jurgens' particular foreshortening style. He just can't stop with that one leg bent so the thigh looks huge but everything below the knee sort of trails off into a withered appendage thing. Fire's butt and feet look so great though that I don't even care what happened to Booster's bottom half. My guess is Doomsday ripped him in two just before this cover was drawn.<br><br>
The first page begins in the middle of the story with a helpful sales pitch from the editor.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69a.jpg"><br>
<b>Fuck you.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Sure, I act tough now, 30 years later! But I bet back in 1992, I was all, "Yes sir! Right away sir! I don't want to miss any of this spectacular story about the space man who punches Superman to death!" It would suck to get this comic book home, sit down to read it, and then see this message. Then you'd have to haul your ass all the way back to the comic book store and hope they still had a copy of <i>Man of Steel</i> #18. The clerk at my local comic book store at the time (Jeff of Brian's Books, probably on El Camino at the time in Santa Clara (don't dox me with all of this pertinent yet out of date information!) probably informed me that I should get <i>Man of Steel</i> #18 if I wanted the whole Death of Superman thing. I know he held a copy of the Death of Superman without me even asking! I think he idolized me. I miss him so much!<br><br>
Too bad I don't know how to organize my comic books or else I would be reading <i>Man of Steel</i> #18 instead of replying, "Fuck you," to a comic book. If I had to guess, I'd say I didn't own <i>Man of Steel</i> #18 because I've already done a review of <a href="https://tessatechaitea.blogspot.com/2019/07/superman-man-of-steel-30.html"><i>Man of Steel</i> #30</a>. And any rational being would assume that all of my <i>Man of Steel</i> comic books would have been packed away together. There's still some hope that eventually I'll read the first part of this story because my comic book organizing skills have nothing at all to do with rationality.<br><br>
The Justice League are currently in Ohio putting out fires and rescuing people from the rampage of some space monster.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69b.jpg"><br>
<b>Outside their jurisdiction? I thought Ohio was in America? I'm fucking suing my elementary school.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I'm not actually going to sue my elementary school. Not because I don't think I have a case but because my elementary school was run by Satanists and I fear them. I could repeat all of my evidence here and risk awaking their wrath or, if you're curious, just search my blog for Haman Elementary. Your mind will be blown! Or not. I'm kind of an unreliable narrator.<br><br>
Cat Grant has a nationally televised talk show which must air live because while the Justice League begin tracking Doomsday, Superman is busy appearing on the show.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69c.jpg"><br>
<b>That's a fucking dig at Batman, isn't it?</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Maxima reaches out with her mind to find the creature and makes contact. She says, "He's hate, death, and blood lust personified. Nothing more." Also, let's assume she realizes its name is Doomsday so I can just start calling it Doomsday for the rest of this post, even if it's still just dressed in a body bag with goggles.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69d.jpg"><br>
<b>Nothing more? He's laughing joyfully here!</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I guess if you're hate, death, and blood lust personified, those are the three things that bring you joy. So you probably wouldn't ever be called joyful or happy just because killing something or destroying a small town makes you laugh uproariously. But still. Some people never find the kind of joy that Doomsday experiences while breaking the neck of a deer! I'm a little bit envious.<br><br>
Doomsday notices Beetle's bug following his trail of death and destruction and hurls a massive tree at it. The tree demolishes the Bug, sending everybody hurtling to the ground. The non-flyers are saved by the people who most want to fuck them.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69e.jpg"><br>
<b>This shot of Ice's half-top riding up exemplifies why Ice's costume is one of my favorites.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Meanwhile on Cat Grant's show, Superman spends three-quarters of the interview denying that he's the leader of the Justice League. "We're all equal!" he lies through his fat alien teeth. "They were an experienced and successful team long before I joined," he says, grimacing from the pain of becoming a liar on national television. "Can we please talk about something less embarrassing?" he says, "Like Lex Luthor's massive dong?"<br><br>
Back in Ohio:<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69f.jpg"><br>
<b>How can I find rekindle this kind of pure joy in my life?! Fucking Doomsday lives, loves, and laughs better than I do.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">I can't remember the last time I experienced the kind of joy Doomsday has experienced twice in this comic book. To be fair to me, I have never tried strangling a deer with my bare hands or causing a multi-car pile-up on the freeway. There might be some hidden joys yet lurking in the depths of my being!<br><br>
Guy Gardner's the first Leaguer to catch up to Doomsday and gets his ass handed to him in five panels. He's only saved because Fire comes to his rescue to distract Doomsday. If Guy were still a Green Lantern, the ring would have protected him from the brunt of Doomsday's physical assault. But the yellow ring from Qward has a more Libertarian attitude. Why the fuck should it protect Guy when he gets in over his head? Fucker brought it on himself! If Guy chose some stupid cowboy boots without bootstraps to pull himself up by, that's his own damn lazy-ass fault.<br><br>
Bloodwynd punches Doomsday and Doomsday doesn't even say, "I actually felt that!" Instead he just punches the fuck out of Bloodwynd and laughs and laughs and laughs. He's having such a good time here on Earth! For once in his life, he's feeling the joy of living! Why would the Justice League and Superman want to take that away from him? Do you think Superman got killed by Doomsday on purpose? Because Superman is just that good? He just wanted Doomsday to experience one brief moment of all-consuming joy before Doomsday also died from his injuries?<br><br>
Back at the television studio, some high schoolers in the audience get to ask Superman some questions.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69g.jpg"><br>
<b>That's a fucking super villain question. Even Cat thinks she's sus. Somebody arrest this girl.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Bloodwynd gets knocked into a storage vat full of oil which ignites all around him. Blue Beetle rushes in to help him without realizing that Bloodwynd actually needs fucking help this time. He comes upon Bloodwynd and thinks, "Of course! That's who Bloodwynd really is!" But before he can let the readers see who Bloodwynd actually is, Doomsday tears off his head, killing him.<br><br></div>
<div align="center"><img src="https://www.placesandpredators.com/older3/JLA69h.jpg"><br>
<b>I heard you can say up to nine words once you're decapitated. Mine would be, "Hey body! I'm over here! Put me back on!" But my body wouldn't because it doesn't have any ears.</b><br><br></div>
<div align="left">Obviously Blue Beetle didn't really get decapitated. But who cares? Look at what Doomsday just did to a person without any super powers at all! The fucker might as well have had his head torn off. He's definitely only got seconds left to live anyway!<br><br>
Bloodwynd somehow makes it out of the fire and back in his proper disguise just in time for Doomsday to grab his ankle and slam him into Maxima. Ice reports that Blue Beetle is probably dead and Booster Gold loses his shit. Back at the studio, Superman is all, "Violence is the price we pay to accomplish a greater good!" Sounds like fascist talk to me! But at least Superman means the heroes must pay the price and, sometimes, even lose their lives due to the violence. That sentiment is way better than when some leader demanding civilians pay the price for some abstract bullshit behind-the-scenes goal to make them and their buddies even richer than they already are! And Superman is about to prove his point in a month or two! Good for him, dying like he promised! Fucking Jesus, he is.<br><br>
Superman hears news reports of the battle and flies off to get his ass killed. I know I have that issue somewhere but, once again, I'll have to read it out of order whenever I dig it out of a short box. Just know, if you hadn't heard, Doomsday kicks his ass and kills him by the time the next issue of <i>Justice League America</i> came out.<br><br>
<b>Justice League America #69 Rating: B.</b> Doomsday really just does what ever other super villain does at the beginning of any story arc: he kicks major ass and the heroes are left bewildered and confused. But Jurgens wants readers to know it's different this time! So everybody who hits Doomsday says something like, "How is he still standing after my most powerful shot?!" And everybody who gets hit by Doomsday says, "I'm dead and/or close to dead! Owie!" Plus the DC Comics PR machine was really ramped up around this time and everybody knew the Death of Superman was on the way. So I guess it felt different even though it was just some weirdo in a green space suit with sharp bony knuckles on his fist. A lot of people were all, "Wait. This idiot is going to kill Superman?" But then I bet once he lost the suit and became the Doomsday everybody pictures, readers were all, "Holy shit! That guy looks almost as cool and dangerous as Lobo! Superman is in trouble!"<br><br>
Remember when Hitman defeated Lobo by getting him drunk and then having Bueno Excellente rape him and they took photos to blackmail Lobo to leave Earth? They should have used that plan for Doomsday! I bet Bueno Excellente would have been all in on that!
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