Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Action Comics Annual #4 (July 1992)

I'm sure Superman's mouth is full of milk and not Billy Batson's spunk.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Action Comics Annual #4 (July 1992)
By Dan Vado, Chris Wozniak, Karl Altstaetter, Karl Kesel, Trevor Scott, Steve Mitchell, Albert De Guzman, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Edited by Dan Thorsland and Mike Carlin

The Cover
Being an art critic is so far beyond my capabilities that I'm completely stymied by the color palette. I guess there's an abundance of purple to indicate the Eclipso possession. But why the lime green background? Maybe they're fighting in a jelly mold? I do appreciate how Superman's muscles were drawn thick with sexy veins while Billy Batson retains his "I'm from a totally different comic book company universe and actually a child in a thick, veiny man's body" flat, clear, animation-style facial features. At least the sticky white residue in Superman's mouth has kept me from pondering how he's been Eclipsed being that he's full of sunlight and Eclipso's one weakness is sunlight and also he's full of somebody's semen. Not Billy's because that would be too wrong to even consider. I guess Superman's possession was pre-explained earlier when Eclipso pointed out how his power is magical in nature and we all know how susceptible Superman is to magic for some reason. Maybe they didn't have magic on Krypton? Man. Imagine a world without close-up magicians approaching your table during dinner? What a dream!

The Story So Far
A bunch of loser super heroes have been Eclipsed because they're losers. Yes, I know Wally West was Eclipsed. The king of losers. I didn't even like Barry Allen but Wally? What a piece of shit. All of you assholes who just love Wally West to death are fucking wrong. I mean, sure, I never read Flash so it's possible I'm wrong. Not likely but possible! I only know Wally West from Justice League Europe and that guy was a fucking idiotic sex pest who shouldn't have been allowed around women. The fact Power Girl never ripped his balls off is testament to how much power the Comics Code Authority had.

Also some people have started to go missing without being Eclipsed and we have to assume that Bruce Gordon has gone Ozymandias style. Bruce Gordon is missing and so is Blue Beetle. My guess is he's grabbing up all the heroes capable of making a gigantic fake sun to shine into the crater on the moon since the real sun isn't cutting the mustard. Stupid sun. Can't even shine into a fucking crater on the side of the moon that bare asses itself to it at least once a month. I don't know how space works so I'm assuming that's how often that happens.

The Story
Since Bruce, Mona, and Blue Beetle are all missing or Eclipsed, Superman and Fire's butt have gone to recruit Mona's dad for some reason. I guess he's also a solar scientist? Is that how Bruce and Mona met? Do I even care?

Even Mona's dad doesn't give a shit and it's his world that's in danger.

Every time I type "Mona's dad", I can't help thinking "Anna Madrigal". Stupid brain! You're a man and a girl!

Superman decides to leave this man alone which is great because who the fuck is he? Why is he suddenly a character in this story?! I barely know why Mona and Bruce Gordon are in this story let alone Anna Madrigal! I mean Mona's dad! Does he piss sunshine? Does he fart solar radiation? One fact about him: he's clinically depressed. At first I thought Booster was just exaggerating but Chris Wozniak made sure to draw a bottle of pills in the background of one panel. Plus that shot of him lying in bed with his knee up and his arm thrown over his face? Classic depression pose!

Booster talks like a eugenicist and Booster is from DC's future so, um, guess what, everybody? The racists apparently won!

I don't know if Booster means "them" as in academics or as in people with no powers or what but since Booster Gold is a working class guy whose whole schtick is based on stealing his gear, I suspect it's both? He's what rich racist elite Republicans would call a "real American". Which totally explains why he's also a sexist creep (as seen in the Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Justice League America Annual and pretty much every other Justice League America issue).

Superman's plan to save Mona and the people of Crater Bay (who were all Eclipsed in whatever series the last Superman annual was in. Man of Steel? Superman? Adventures of Superman?) is to give himself to Eclipso in exchange for freeing the regular people who always let Booster Gold down. Then it's up to the Justice League to stop Superman from doing whatever Eclipso wants to do with him. It seems like a bad plan in a number of ways but the worst way is that Superman must not remember the current roster of Justice League America. Who the fuck's going to stop him? Ice? Fire? Bloodwynd? Blue Beetle? Booster Gold? Doesn't he remember these are the people who couldn't even stop Doomsday from killing him? Oh wait. I guess he hasn't learned that lesson yet.

Obviously the plan would be to call Batman and borrow his Kryptonite. But since that plan is too obviously obvious, I guess they'll drag Billy Batson out of class and remind him that he's an alternate member of the League.

Did Wozniak model this shot of Superman off the Thanksgiving Day Parade float of Supes?

I'm never going to get through a full annual if I keep scrutinizing every panel but I'm glad I am because I just noticed this tiny figure of Booster Gold in the background. You know how Booster Gold usually has no indication of genitalia? Well, well, my friends. Discover the truth!

Booster Gold has a massive schlong.

Booster Gold, Fire, and Ice decide they'd better find a way to defeat Superman before he gets himself Eclipsed for the good of a few dozen yokels (and Mona). Clark's an idiot! He might be able to negotiate a deal to save a few people for a little while. But at what cost? No, his best bet is to stay unEclipsed and help Crater Bay by defeating Eclipso. Why's he acting so dumb?!

Look, that was a rhetorical question. I know why he's acting so dumb: Dan Vado is writing this.

We, the readers, being smarter than Booster Gold, Fire, and Ice combined, know that they should contact Batman and get his help. Instead, they decide to ask Hairy Lex Luthor for some advice. He and his team have developed a Solar Trap based on Bruce Gordon's solar work. But he's not sure it will work because, um, Dan Vado is writing this, I guess? Is this the the short period of time when Lex Luthor was trying to act humble because he was supposed to be his own Australian son and he didn't want anybody realizing it by whipping out his brain-dick every time he was asked to help solve a problem? Now he's all, "Man, having hair really mellows a guy out! I'm barely angry anymore! Chicks want to fuck me and I can finally masturbate again without fear that my bionic hand will rip my manhood off!" I suppose Angry Lex could have built a solar trap that definitely works but Angry Lex was also always stressed out and screaming at people. Chill Lex can barely fucking care because he's thinking about all the puss that's going to be on his face later.

Ice contacted my dick. Did that joke work? Did it make sense? Fuck it, I'm with Chill Lex now. Who cares if shit works when you've got puss on your face!

And what I mean by puss on my face is, um, cookie crumbs. They're fucking everywhere! I probably shouldn't have learned to eat cookies from Cookie Monster.

Night falls on Crater Bay and Superman heads over to throw his (and everybody on Earth's) life away. Superman doesn't even make sure Eclipso lets the hostages go before he picks up the Black Diamond and tries to get angry. What the fuck? The whole point is to save people? Why would Eclipso let them go if Superman becomes Eclipsed first? Like I said, Clark's an idiot.

It's possible Superman's learned enough about the Black Diamond to get mad at Eclipso so that when he turns, he'll have to beat the shit out of Eclipso before Eclipso can manipulate him. But probably not because I've still got a whole pile of The Darkness Within annuals to get through. And the last Superman one has Superman Eclipsed on the cover fighting Guy Gardner and Lobo at the same time. I know! I came directly into my pants when I saw that!

Superman becomes Eclipsed but we never find out what made him so angry because Eclipso just starts manipulating him immediately. Did Dan Vado not read his editorial notes for the story? It's probably because . . . no, no. You know what? Dan Vado founded the Alternative Press Expo so I'm going to give him a free pass on this. It was probably editorial's fault anyway. I'm sure Vado was all, "Yeah but in all the other stories, the character had to enact vengeance on the thing that made them mad before Eclipso could properly control them?" And Editorial was all, "Shut up, Dan Vado. Did you read the Flash Annual? He didn't enact vengeance on anybody, did he?" And Dan Vado was all, "I don't know because I didn't read it. It hasn't been published yet. Nobody sent me the script." And Editorial was all, "You think you're so smart, don't you, Dan Vado? Well just make Superman angry and Eclipsed and we'll worry about any inconsistencies!"

Also, I'm only on page 17 so any "inconsistencies" will probably be explained away and I'll feel stupid for making this stink. Anyway, did I mention that even though Chris Wozniak has been drawing a fucking awful Superman, he does a cute Ice?

You know I think she's cute because I bypassed a dozen panels of Fire's ass to scan this panel.

It's possible Ice is cute here because the inker has changed between the terrible Superman panels and this panel. It's hard to tell because what the fuck do I know about how an inker's style changes a penciller's style?! I told you right at the beginning that I'm not an art critic! Besides, there are like eighteen inkers credited for this thing!

Meanwhile, during a scene that I'm positive was going to end in Lex Luthor and Professor Emil Hamilton fucking, Bruce Gordon's Ozymandias Plan claims two more victims. You know, the two who were definitely about to fuck: Emil and Lex.

Back in Crater Bay, Captain Marvel arrives to scold Superman and also hit him a lot. "Hey man! Golly Gee Whiz, dude! Why you being so gosh-darned mean?" They beat each other senseless for many, many pages. Neither one seems to have the upper hand even if Captain Marvel's power stems from magic and, well, that's Superman's main weakness! I guess the magic that makes Billy strong and invincible doesn't mean the strength itself is magical. At one point during the fight, I'm convinced that Captain Marvel is just Martian Manhunter disguised as Captain Marvel because, um, why would fire hurt Captain Marvel?

Is he just pretending the flames hurt so the reader feels a little bit of drama and tension during this pretty spectacularly boring battle?

The only reason I knew this couldn't be Martian Manhunter is because Martian Manhunter is pretending to be Bloodwynd right now. He's too busy to pretend to be other people.

By page 35, I begin wishing instead of discussing the story, I just went through and scanned pictures of Ice and Fire's asses. Because, oh boy, are there a lot of panels highlighting them!

I've got a pretty good idea for a coffee table book!

Yeah. I stopped caring about the story and just began scanning butts. Fucking sue me.

The Ranking!
Luthor and Hamilton's solar trap works but overheats almost immediately. So everybody in Crater Bay is saved but Superman manages to get away. And Mona is nowhere to be found. On the plus side, did you see all of those butts? I'm sure there's a moon joke to be made here but I'm way too horny to think of it. I think I just figured out what's in Superman's mouth on the cover. It's my own dried semen from 34 years ago!

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Superman Annual #4 (June 1992)

All the cool kids are getting Eclipsed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Superman Annual #4 (June 1992)
By Dan Vado, Scott Benefiel, Trevor Scott, Albert De Guzman, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Edited by Dan Thorsland and Mike Carlin

The Cover!
I'm trying not to focus on Lois Lane's boob but as you can see by the way I began by mentioning Lois Lane's boob, I've already lost the battle. The male gaze more effectively possesses the mind of a man than one of Eclipso's Black Diamonds. At least I'm able to embrace it whereas many angry men want to believe the modern world will crucify them if they acknowledge their own lust and horniness. And judging by Lois's line of sight, she's currently captured by the Female Gaze as she stares straight down Superman's cock outline in his tight spandex Kryptonian briefs. Or is that still the male gaze since a male, Joe Quesada, drew this and thought, "If I were Lois Lane, I'd be thinking about sucking off Superman's steel beam right now." Which is less "horny" and more "gross" because he just drew Lois beating the shit out of Superman and he thinks she's thinking about fucking him right after? No wait. I'm thinking he's thinking that which means I'm more gross than horny. Whoops! Maybe I should stop exposing my true inner self on the Internet by writing pretend comic book reviews? Naw. What else am I going to do with the rest of my life which turned out to be way, way longer than I originally thought it would be. It's like, "Enough already!", amirite?

One more question about the cover which will probably be answered when I read the comic book so just regard most of this as a psychic form of physical masturbation. I'm asking the question for my own pleasure, I mean. "Why is Lois Lane beating up Superman after becoming Eclipsed?" It's been established that after a person is possessed by Eclipso, the God of Vengeance, they must destroy the thing that made them so angry. So what did Superman do to Lois? Not washing dishes, my man? Poor quality control in the bedroom? Did she find his Kryptonian Playboys and the red sun fleshlight in his Fortress of Solitude's Fortress of Solitude (the bathroom)? Boy howdy do I hope these questions are answered in this comic book and that the answer is that last one I suggested!

The Story So Far
Eclipso continues to sit on his moon toilet talking to Valor while his Black Diamonds scattered all over the Earth do all of the work. He doesn't have much more of a plan than "I hope some super heroes get really angry after finding and picking up one of the thousand shards of my original Black Diamond prison!" Currently he has control of Valor, Starman, The Creeper, and maybe Star Sapphire and Hal Jordan? I read that Annual so long ago that I can't remember who was still possessed when it ended.

No.

The Story!
Superman has failed to locate Eclipso because, well, he's not Batman and did Batman do it in Detective Comics? No, he fucking didn't. Although Superman, being able to fly into space and think about flying into space and having the moon be a territory within his reach that he must think about on occasion, should think, "Where would I put my base of operations if I were a being whose entire identity was based around how the moon blocks out the sun?" It's not like it's the most complicated riddle in the world. So instead of searching for Eclipso so he can attack him at the source, Superman flies around Metropolis looking for a couple of Black Diamonds that may or may not be there. Somehow he lucks onto the one person in the city who has a Black Diamond sitting in their pocket. Not because the guy is angry and smashing downtown Metropolis but because he's holding a gun to a woman's head and ranting like a paranoid schizophrenic. Superman doesn't know the guy has a Black Diamond but Bruce Gordon runs up, panting and sweating from his long sprint from Gotham, to tell Superman that the man has a Black Diamond. Bruce Gordon knows because he's got a device that can find Black Diamonds when they're in use or when the plot needs him to know where they are.

Why am I suddenly thinking about my first junior high school crush?

Bruce Gordon believes this man having the Black Diamond was an intricate trap by Eclipso to catch Superman. That's even more paranoid thinking than the guy holding the woman hostage screaming about needing a ship to go into space and fight an alien demon. Mostly because that guy's talking about Eclipso which is actually happening and Bruce Gordon's theory relies on the Black Diamonds having way more control over their own destiny than "being found in a gutter" or whatever. I guess once a person is possessed they become Eclipso on Earth which means he can use them to sort of get Superman's attention and then he can try to shove the Black Diamond up Superman's ass or however he means to possess him. So, okay, now that I've given it a little more thought, maybe Bruce Gordon isn't totally nuts. Also he's the foremost expert on Eclipso so maybe I should be trusting the experts, even if they're a fictional comic book character currently being written by Dan Vado. I should but it's hard. Where did I leave my hammer?

Superman beats up another of Eclipso's manifestations while Bruce Gordon bathes it in sunlight. Afterward, he questions the man who brought the Black Diamond to his city.

There you go! He's on the moon! Go get his ass!

Crater Bay? Was that a popular location in the DC Universe in 1992? Or is this just a city used in this story as a clue to Eclipso's location? Whatever its origin, Lois Lane is on the case! She's off to investigate the strange goings on in Crater Bay. I bet she runs into a bunch of fish looking motherfuckers who drive her insane.

No, wait, she's actually investigating a possible case of corporate corruption and illegal dumping of toxic chemicals. She also outs herself as a white supremacist.

What else could she mean by "one of the last bastions of real America"?

So fucking sick of this "common sense" idea that "the real America" lies in the exact place and time after the indigenous peoples have been run off, killed, and exiled but before the Civil Rights act and brown foreigners began coming to share the American dream. As if rural means anything at all. Or fucking "Heartland". Don't fucking mistake the metaphorical, bullshit meaning of that word for the literal reason it was coined: the area known as the heartland is simply center mass in the country. I wish the ass were thought of as the central component of the human body so we could just start calling the flyover states the Assland. Not that I think the people living there are ass (I mean, sure, some of them (maybe a lot of them!)) but it's better to be the butt of a joke than be raised up on some kind of white supremacist pedestal because of the word heart coinciding with a place where a bunch of dumb people think mostly white people reside. I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, for a few years and if it weren't for the humidity and the Huskers fans, I might still live there yet. Summer lightning storms? Yes please. Lightning bugs?! Hallelujah! Blizzards that trap you at your married friends' house so that their four year old son could tell you about how, when he was in his mommy's tummy, he wanted to be a girl? Fantastic! His father's look every single day after that as he tried to process it? Priceless!

Lois Lane finds her reception in Crater Bay to be slightly chillier than she's normally received even in places that don't want journalists poking around.

Then why is he fucking running the inn?!

The angry old man is actually Eclipsed Starman in disguise because Starman can apparently change shape which is why Eclipso's so happy to have him. Now this is an obvious Superman trap! I knew trusting the expert was the right thing to do even if I really, really, really, really didn't want to and also because I despise him and his stupid Commissioner Batman name.

Eclipso, pissed off at everything (which is why he wants to destroy everything. He kind of has to because everything is what made him so mad), monologues a little more information about his plans (unless it's not a monologue when you're kind of talking to the alien in a coma and/or trance floating nearby). Crater Bay is the headquarters for his secret possessing Superman headquarters. The people of Crater Bay network with other possessed people around the world to distribute Black Diamonds to where Eclipso can manipulate leaders, heroes, and even the economy (probably. Maybe he doesn't care about money so much). See? The name of the town is a clue to is location! What an idiot. If I lived in a crater on the moon, I would name my Earth city base of operations, Venusville. It's like how my banking password is "IVENEVERSUCKEDADICKBEFORE".

An Eclipso monster confronts Superman, Bruce Gordon, and Mona (and Mona's amazing ass) on the road to Crater Bay and Superman has to smash the creature into a greenhouse that uses solar power to heat the place. It destroys the creature whose soul goes screaming to the moon.

So let me get this straight: any power generated from the sun can destroy Eclipso. Solar Lance toys. A flashlight powered by solar energy. Batteries charged by solar panels. If this is the case, can't anything destroy Eclipso since the source of all power on Earth — all of it! — comes from the sun? Couldn't Superman just smash a tree into Eclipso? Throw coal at him? How many degrees of separation must there be between "direct solar energy" and pretty much anything on Earth before it has no effect on Eclipso? Isn't he just basically safe from, um, rocks?

The fight destroys Gordon's Black Diamond Detector and almost destroys his Solar Flashlight. That just means it broke but he fixed it but it's also probably down to a negligible charge. Superman will probably have to defeat Eclipsed Lois Lane by spunking on her. "Gordon! Mona! Hold Lois down so I can titty fuck her! My semen's loaded with yellow sun juice and a facial seems like just the cure!"

The developer whose wife is being held hostage by Eclipso so that he'll help lure Superman into town spends all night trying to get Lois angry so she'll turn be Eclipsed. He spills two cups of coffee on her and tries to put his hands on her to sop up the spilled beverage but none of it gets her needle moving. No, to get her angry, things have to be personal.

Oh, of course! Condescension's the thing! That's so Lois.

So Superman kills Lois and saves the day. Next annual!

The Ranking!
Okay, maybe Lois Lane wasn't killed. Who can tell? Somebody would have to finish reading this comic book and did you know? It's 60 pages long! DC knows the kind of stupid dumb idiots who read comic books, right? They expect us to read sixty whole pages in one sitting?! Fucking hell. It's just too much. I can't do it. I won't do it! Unless the next page I read expresses how Woke Lois Lane is, I'm just not going to continue and assume she died. Or should I assume she was cured by that facial idea? Hmm. I wonder if I can commission Scott Benefiel to draw that scene so I can staple it into my Annual?

Yield means Yield, you cretin!

Okay fine! I'll finish! I hope Lois goes off on how terrible Reagan was after she's cured!

The story simply ends when the sun rises. Superman does the thing where he distracts the vampires and/or trolls and/or Eclipsos so that they lose track of time and get destroyed by the rising sun. But Mona winds up Eclipsed and hides in the houses in Crater Bay with all the rest of the Eclipsed inhabitants. Superman decides he'll have to come back with some "Marvel"ous help to save the residents later. He still doesn't even contemplate checking out the moon. Maybe he's decided that guy who wasn't actually crazy was crazy in just that one small detail of Eclipso living on the moon?

For some reason, I didn't find this issue as good as Detective Comics Annual #5. Come to think of it, I haven't read any comic book as good as that one. And yet why am I having trouble remembering any of it?

Justice League America #83 (December 1993)

Corbett. Corbett is next. How can you forget his name?! It was only said 18,000 times across the last three issues.

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.

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 The Galactic Hero Corps at the first Alternative Press Expo in San Jose and hanging out with Too Much Coffee Man.

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 Milk & Cheese.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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?

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!

See?! See?! The legs akimbo thing! What's wrong with everybody? Do they all have juicy loads in their pants?

This is the final issue of Justice League America 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 Transmetropolitan 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 Justice League Europe!" 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.

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!

Is Dan Vado trying to make me hate every member of the League?

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.

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.

Oh no! The B Story is rearing its head too soon. Shoo! Shoo! Get back!

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 Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League 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!

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.

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 Sailor Moon! 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!"

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.

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.

I hope the next series I read is Guy Gardner, Warrior!

Justice League America #83 Rating: C. 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 Justice League America 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 Guy Gardner, Warrior #15 which might be where this story finishes. So I might learn how it resolves some day! Maybe Guy Gardner, Warrior will be the next comic I read! I think I only have 17 issues of that because whenever it became simply Warrior, 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.

Overall, I can see why people disliked this volume of Justice League America. 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 Guy Gardner, Warrior 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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Justice League America #82 (November 1993)

Kevin has levelled up his '90s Image style to include loads of lines on male faces, no pupils, and scads of teeth.

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.

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!"

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.

If you're going to advertise the new Robin comic this way, I'm going to expect Robin to masturbate every issue.

"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."

New readers to this series are greeted by the always useful trope of a newscaster explaining the situation from last issue.

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.

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.

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."

Hey! That's pretty much exactly what I said! You didn't raise no illiterate here, Momma!

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 Ru Paul's Drag Race Season 8. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Justice League America during their first appearance. Hopefully the other appearances were where they were killed in battle.

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!

Every garbage human being thinks "just following orders" is an adequate explanation for doing whatever the fuck they want.

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.

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.

At least Fire finally put some pants on.

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.

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!

"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!"

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?!

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!"

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!

Look at Guy using the third person pronoun even when it's not necessary. So considerate of others and their possibilities!

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.

Well, maybe Diana can apply her theories to Corbett.

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.

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.

Justice League America #82 Rating: C-. 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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Justice League America #81 (October 1993)

I'm not an artist and even I can tell The Ray's right foot has been ripped from his body.

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.

This issue begins with Wonder Woman somehow keeping her shit together even though her leg has grown inordinately long.

I don't know. Is that too long? It's not like I'm an anatomy expert.

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.

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 Gen-13 covers and Mary Jane bending over on the cover of Spider-man (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).

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.

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."

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.

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 Sailor Moon 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.

This is the 3rd scan from the 1st page. I have nothing to say about it except I love her.

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.

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.

What this group looks like is my dream orgy.

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.

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 Pig and then welcome to snotty time weepsville, Mr. Macho!

The fight breaks out and immediately everybody uses the worst tactics possible.

Look at this mess! Only one person doing the right thing!

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!

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.

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.

"IKEA"? How cute. He must be thinking about Tora.

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."

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:

Yeah but why are they incoming? Why did they outgo earlier when they were already incomed?

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.

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.

See? 13-year-old girl face.

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."

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.

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.

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.

Meanwhile somewhere in the Arctic, Tora's brother kills their father before their father can declare Tora the rightful heir. So boring.

Back at JLA Headquarters, Wonder Woman tries to make the political space refugees at home.

Why isn't Fire wearing any pants? And why is she standing like she just cindered herself?

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?

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?"

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.

Justice League America #81 Rating: 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!

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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Bluesky

Justice League America #80 (September 1993)

Oh no! It's happening. Wonder Woman has '90s Image face!

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.

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.

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.

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?!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"?

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.

See? This kid agrees with me.

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.

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.

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?

Oh shit. I mentioned the too long legs thing so I should probably give an example of that.

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?!

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Oh, there we go. Immediately as he appears in the comic for the first time.

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!

Yeah, he has gotten more annoying! Fucking Dan Vado.

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?

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.

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.

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!"

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.

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.

Their names are probably Deathkiller, Gunpistol, and Murderbang.

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?

Justice League America #80 Rating: 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 Justice League over the last few years. I look forward to reading something entirely different in a week or two!

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