Justice League America Annual #5 (1991)

Guy Gardner looks like if Burgess Meredith, as an old man, was one of the Little Rascals.

Jesus Christ that caption! I'm sorry for every time I complained about your super fucking old references, Giffen and DeMatteis!

Based on Max Lord being hooked up to oxygen on this cover, and being that I'm as smart as Sherlock Holmes, I'm guessing this Annual took place during "Breakdowns." I'm reading it after finishing "Breakdowns" because I've been averse to re-reading the Annuals and the Quarterlies. They just contain too many pages! Plus this should really be read with all the other Armageddon books. I have Past Me to thank for none of the big event books ever being stored together. They're just scattered all over, some with the series they belong with and others just in random places because I never read the series they go with in the first place. I hate that I bought into this shit every summer! It was so expensive! Two whole dollars for this book! Outrageous!

I'm pretending I can see the faces of the younger generation right now who pay sometimes up to six whole dollars per book. That's not outrageous. That's fucking criminal. You can be reading a whole damn used book for that price! Sure, it doesn't have all the pretty pictures but you get way more value out of it. People always like to compare modern prices with prices from the past by running them through some sort of inflation calculator but let me tell you: no matter what an inflation calculator says $2.00 from 1992 is worth now in 2023, it was still way easier to buy a $2.00 comic than a $6.00 comic. Plus there were more pages: twenty-four versus the twenty you get now. Unless you get less? I have no idea. During The New 52, each comic was 20 pages which pissed me off at first. But then when I realized I had to write about every single one of them, I was glad for the lighter load of work.

If I remember Armageddon 2001 correctly (and I suspect I don't, memory being what it is and LSD doing what it does), the story was that some evil despot named Monarch was going to take over the world and murder all of the other heroes by 2001. That despot was an unknown superhero from 1991. A being named Waverider came back in time ten years to ferret out who the culprit would be and to stop them before they turned villainous. I won't spoil who Monarch turned out to be here because Waverider won't find him in this group of heroes. But it was Captain Atom. Just kidding! It was actually somebody else. Just kidding again! It was definitely Captain Atom except DC changed it part way through the story because all of the fans were casually discussing how Monarch was obviously Captain Atom. So I was kidding?

Anyway, how Waverider would discover who was probably Monarch was to divine their futures. But he was only divining possible futures so it wasn't really that effective. What it was effective for was creating a whole bunch of Elseworlds stories and What-Ifs! So much fun! Let's see what Waverider learned about these chowderheads.

Dramatic ironically, Waverider takes the form of Captain Atom so he can touch all the other heroes without raising their suspicions. No wait. It would only be "dramatic irony" if everybody reading the comic already knew Captain Atom was Monarch but nobody in the comic book did. Oh wait! It was dramatic irony because everybody reading this comic book had already figured out Captain Atom was Monarch! Unless the dramatic irony only rears its dramatic head now in 2023 as I read this knowing that Captain Atom didn't become Monarch which means I knew something the audience at the time thought they knew but ultimately did not (because DC editors cheated).

I'm confused. Let's just see what happens when Waverider touches J'onn J'onzz. Not like that, you pervs. They just shake hands!

In 2001, Martian Manhunter has become a guru high up in the Himalayas where he doles out wisdom to those who sacrifice everything in the attempt to reach him. One man, in Waverider's vision, ascends to the temple and asks J'onn the meaning of life.

I buy it.

J'onn obviously isn't Monarch and nobody would have expected him to be anyway. He's pretty much the only decent hero on Earth, aside from maybe Wonder Woman and Halo.

The next member of the League Waverider comes in contact with is Guy Gardner. Now there's a good candidate for Monarch! He's angry and filled with issues that he never confronts. Surely some day all of his trauma that he keeps bottle up inside will explode outward and he'll become an inhuman monster. Or more of an inhuman monster, I mean.

Guy's a girl?

That isn't really Guy, just a member of his cult. But it could have been Guy if Waverider missed the mark by 1000 years and was seeing the year 3001!

Guy's a girl!

In 2001, Guy has thousands of followers who all act like him and get their hair cut like him. He also loves fucking women who look just like him. Hey, I get that! I always knew Guy and I had a lot in common! At the big Guy Gardner rally (whose purpose isn't expressed. I guess to feed Guy's ego?), he's hit in the head with a sandbag from the rafters, cut by some mysterious person! This obviously turns him into Nice Guy Guy Gardner who his fans despise. His downfall is swift and I assume he's killed at the rally. So it must have been Monarch who cut the sandbag.

Waverider touches Blue Beetle next. Instead of seeing nothing at all since Blue Beetle has been murdered by Maxwell Lord by 2001, he sees a fat, balding Blue Beetle sitting in a tiny apartment watching television. As if Blue Beetle could ever be Monarch! He doesn't even have any super powers! How is he going to kill all the other heroes? I mean, Batman doesn't have any powers either and I wouldn't assume Batman couldn't be Monarch. But then I respect Batman.

I never thought I had what it takes to be a super hero until reading this panel.

Blue Beetle's life has gone to shit. He lost the rights to his own super hero name, tried to become the Stupendous Silverfish, and was laughed at by criminals due to his stupid costume and his flab. Bold call in 1992 by Keith and J.M. to know you could still laugh at fat people in ten years time. They probably assumed that would never change having spent their entire lives immersed in American pop culture where anytime a fat character was on screen, they were double fisting high calorie snacks and had chocolate smeared on their faces. Ha ha! What a great joke! What a time to be alive!

After realizing Beetle becomes too much of a loser to be Monarch, he moves over and touches Ice's inner thigh. Isn't Waverider worried that this inappropriate touch could be what sets everything in motion for Captain Atom to become Monarch?! He should be more careful! By the time he touches Captain Atom, he's going to see how his life fell apart when Ice sued him for sexual harassment and then Sue Dibny arranges to kill herself by having Jean Loring stomp all over her brain so that nobody finds out she's dying of cancer after fucking Captain Atom but that plan falls apart too because Waverider messed with the timeline! People say even the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can create a hurricane so why can't touching the inner thigh of an ice goddess bring about the destruction of every DC hero?

In 2001, Ice is living alone in a small cottage with a dozen cats. So she made it! She's living the dream! The only problem is she hears about Guy's accident and how he was struck on the head. She rushes out to find him, knowing he'll be sweet and kind and asexual Guy Gardner. Why she loves that one, I can't fucking guess.

I wish this were a scene between Batman and Superman.

Waverider's vision is broken because Ice reacts to his forwardness.

Oh, I know what you felt! The same thing I feel when I get a boner!

Darn. Waverider probably learned he shouldn't touch the heroes so close to their no-no zones. That's too bad because I was hoping he was going to read Bea's future via contact with the inside of her butthole! Finger or tongue. Hell, I'd take a toe even!

Waverider approaches Fire next thinking about how beautiful she is and how that translates to her being the hero he most admired. Sounds like it's butthole exploration time!

Fire touches Waverider's chest and he sees her future. She's at Tora and Guy's wedding with her date, Oberon. Oberon asks her to marry him just as Ted Kord comes barging into the church to kick Bea's ass. It was her company who bought the rights to Blue Beetle and sued him to keep from using the name. He's so angry that he just might be Monarch! Except he's still just a powerless loser so nobody reading this comic book was thinking anything other than, "Monarch is Captain Atom. I fucking know it. All the clues point directly at him!"

Booster Gold arrives and Waverider reads his future next. But he shoots way past 2001 and reads Booster's future when he returned to the 25th century (or whatever time he's from) after he lost everything going into business with Ted. But while looking at all the displays in the super hero museum's 20th Century exhibit, he realizes something terrible happens to Blue Beetle in 2001. It's not revealed because Keith and J.M. want the readers to think Ted might be Monarch but instead of thinking that, we're all thinking, "I wonder if Ice and Fire every kiss while naked?"

Booster decides he has to go back in time to save Ted and realizes only Maxwell Lord can help him. Oh man! Maybe he read how Maxwell Lord shoots Blue Beetle in the face!

Sorry, no scans for Booster's future. We've got to move along quickly here! Chop chop!

Scott Free, Mister Miracle, is next although does anybody really care about that? He's retiring and passing on the mantle in 1991. Shouldn't Waverider be touching his protégé, Shilo Norman? Maybe it doesn't matter since Shilo Norman and half a dozen other Mister Miracles appear in Waverider's vision. Maybe because Waverider's abilities causes him to focus on the hero that is most likely to become Monarch, Scott's future vision is mostly about Blue Beetle and the trouble he's causing. He's been arrested for attacking Fire at Ice's wedding and now everybody thinks they're responsible for rescuing him. Sure would have been nice if they thought about rescuing their friend when he was down on his luck, lonely, and depressed.

Next up is General Glory. Why? Won't his alias, Joe Jones, be dead in ten years?

Well, he's ready to die but stupid Max convinces him to become General Glory again.

The General Glory vision becomes a Justice League vision as it's mostly about Maxwell Lord getting the Justice League back together and working for the United Nations again. The new team consists of General Glory as the leader and his sidekicks Guy Gardner, Ice, Aquaman, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and two women I don't recognize. Beetle is still fat but I guess he didn't become Monarch or kill himself? Whatever was happening with him, I guess Booster Gold, Mister Miracle, Oberon, and Big Barda saved him.

Oh wait! There's one vision left: Maxwell Lord! This vision fills in the gaps of the effort to save Blue Beetle. Booster talks Max into mind controlling Bea to drop the charges and then he figures he might as well force her to hand over part of her business and then he decides to convince General Glory to lead the new JLA and then he almost certainly uses his power to get all of the new members to cut their hair like Guy Gardner. What I'm saying is that Waverider learned Maxwell Lord is still a controlling jerk ten years later.

The next chapter in Armageddon 2001 takes place in the Hawk and Dove Annual but I won't spoil what Waverider discovers there. I mean, he discovers nothing because Hawk isn't Monarch at all. At least not yet!

Justice League America Annual #5 Rating: I don't rate these things! The thing I find most interesting about this Annual is how Booster Gold never mentions what Blue Beetle is going to do if Maxwell Lord doesn't help him out. It shines an interesting light on what eventually became DC continuity. What if Blue Beetle was going to do something even worse than become Monarch? What if Booster Gold knew Beetle needed to be stopped by any means necessary? And what if minor things can change in continuity but major things are much harder to change. So at some point in the future, Maxwell Lord learns he must stop Blue Beetle but many other events have transpired and he can't get General Glory back. Fire isn't running a corporation that bankrupted Beetle. Ice and Guy aren't married. What if the only resource at Lord's disposal was a gun? And Beetle absolutely had to be stopped? Maybe Max Lord teamed up with Brother Eye not to become all-powerful and a Monarch of his own sorts. Maybe it was all a ploy to kill Blue Beetle before he does the horrible thing Booster Gold saw he would do! I'm pretty sure that's what happened and Max Lord saved everybody by being a huge manipulative fascist dick!

Justice League America #60 (March 1992)

Due to the coloring error, I thought Blue Beetle and Fire were holding hands.

It took Giffen and DeMatteis five years to get to this point in the series. It took me three and a half years to review them. I should probably speed this shit up. I've got so many comic book boxes to get through! Maybe, just maybe, I should stop reading comic books from my youth and actually live my adult life? Unless I am living my adult life and that's why it's taken me so long to write all of these reviews? I don't really know what's happening! It was so much easier when I was in college watching Red Dwarf on Sunday nights and feeling nostalgic about high school crushes while watching Sailor Moon and going to the local comic book store to play Magic the Gathering on Wednesday nights!

I just realized I could still be living my life that way! I think I just had a huge breakthrough!

This issue is called "Swan Song" because this is the final issue by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. Oh, that's kind of what the phrase "swan song" means: a final performance before death or quitting a comic book run of five years. It's also probably called "Swan Song" because it's the end of a version of Justice League America without Superman. They tried it and it was just as abysmal and weak as everybody knew it would be. You could argue that Martian Manhunter is more powerful than Superman (although with a greater weakness (Oreos! I mean fire!)) but then I'd argue back by saying, "Are you a fucking donkey lover? I think you might be a donkey lover! What a stupid opinion!" That argument might not win in court and it might not prove that Superman was stronger but it would satisfy me and a lot of people would start asking questions about how many donkeys you've fucked.

The issue begins with Max's lover lying in bed almost showing her vagina.

I wish this were vertically lenticulated so you could tilt it and see what's going on under that blanket!

I'm just kidding! I don't actually get horny looking at cartoon images! I just like to pretend I do! Like how I pretend I want to get Erin Esurance naked and rub auto collision claims all over her her body! That's just one of my running jokes that isn't true at all and also you should know lying about it on the Internet isn't breaking my parole no matter how often my parole officer sighs when she hears me talk about how I don't actually want to do Erin Esurance.

Wanda and Max have a discussion about how he wasn't in bed when she thought he was in bed. During the climax of this scintillating dialogue, Max reveals that he's lost his Firestarter powers. I don't mean the power to start fires! I mean the other power from that book where a person "pushes" somebody else to do something with their mind and then their nose bleeds. So instead of celebrating by licking Wanda's butthole, he goes for a walk in the dark where he's harassed by a nosey cop. He's okay though because he's a white man in a suit. Cops know if they shoot a white guy in a suit they might actually have to face consequences.

Back at the Justice League Cave, Martian Manhunter tells Catherine he quits and Catherine's eye slides off the side of her head.

"Oh come on, Tess! It's not that bad!" "You got something to say to me, Donkey Lover?"

General Glory comes along to try to cheer up Catherine by mentioning how much he loved Al Jolson when the General was a kid. Catherine interrupts him before he can say what he loved about Al Jolson's act specifically which is probably a good thing. Although we all know General Glory, being a seventy or eighty year old American in 1992, probably had some pretty sketchy ideas about society. Hopefully that's not why Guy likes him so much!

J'onn goes off to make sure Max Lord doesn't leave the League because readers are going to need a few familiar threads linking this issue with the next one. Max acts reticent at first but who does he think he's kidding? Not the readers and certainly not the Martian telepath. He'll still be the leader even if he's only able to convince Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner to stick around.

Meanwhile Blue Jay looks at a photo of Silver Sorceress, Wandjina, and himself and cries. Not like you expect a Blue Jay to cry where it's all, "Rawk! Rawk! Rawk! Rawk! Rawk!", and it won't shut up because your cat keeps looking at it and then it starts dive bombing your cat because Blue Jays can be angry little jerks. He cries like a big human baby cries when people they've loved have died tragically.

Might get what? A boner?

Oh right! Silver Sorceress just died. Sue is asking if Ralph ever thinks he might be killed during battle. Ralph answers, "Yeah, I think about it a lot," which, coincidentally, is how often I think about him dying in battle too!

Guy Gardner and Power Girl argue over who will become team leader because they don't realize Superman will be team leader. Unless Batman is always the team leader. Sometimes he's Shadow Team Leader and pretends he isn't on the team. But he's always watching, just in case! At one point during the fight, Guy says Power Girl has an "oversized butt" and he means it as an insult and it might be the first time I've ever lost a tiny bit of respect for him. He's lucky Ice didn't hear that comment because her butt is pretty juicy too! Mmm, Ice's juicy butt.

Metamorpho and Rocket Red discuss fatherhood while Blue Beetle engages in a fascinating talk with Rocket Red's daughter Tanya.

Why is it cute when a six year old asks this but I keep getting punched in the nose?

I bet Blue Beetle wishes he owned a goat right about now! That's because goats love knocking children on their asses and, being a goat, they can get away with it. If Blue Beetle were to shove Tanya on her ass, he'd get arrested. But if you own a goat and the goat does it for you, it's just funny! And if you get it on video, you could win $10,000! Or you used to be able to win $10,000. Does America's Funniest Home Videos still exist? I can't remember the last time I watched actual network television.

Fire flies around New York contemplating the meaning of being a superhero. She discovers it when a bunch of guys catcall her from the ground. Actually, they praise her and the Justice League's efforts to keep the city safe. But we all know what really would have been shouted if a naked green woman flew over a bunch of male New Yorker's heads. I won't even speculate on that filth! So filthy what with saying where their tongues are going to go and what orifices they're going to put their corncobs and how long they can do the act of doing it. Gross!

The final member to catch up with is Crimson Fox. She offers to help support the League while it transitions to whatever it's going to transition to. See, she has loads and loads of perfume money. Although it was almost stolen by a cult that worshiped giant worms. Everybody thanks her for the offer and they're probably getting ready to accept her check when Max Lord and Oberon walk in and declare they're back in charge! They're figure out how to finance the League and how many people they'll have to fire to afford Superman.

Justice League America #60 Rating: B+. This was a transitional issue full of character-driven scenes to lay the groundwork for whatever's going to happen in the next issue. I'm sure a bunch of people will leave and a bunch of people will be hired. Then a few issues after that, a bunch of the people hired will have to leave the League because DC needs them in another comic book and they'll have to have an issue discussing membership. But eventually the League will be full of characters that DC doesn't mind being in two places at once or don't actually have any other monthly home to appear in. Dan Jurgens will be the new writer and since my biggest problem with Dan Jurgen's stories is that they're all written like they take place in the '80s, I shouldn't have too much of a problem with him seeing as how he's writing these comics in 1992!

Rest in peace, Keith Giffen! You've given me more entertainment than probably any other artist I can point to (other than Johnette Napolitano and Traci Lords!). You created two of my all-time favorite characters: Lobo and Ambush Bug. I remember the first time I saw Ambush Bug on the cover of a comic book lying on the floor of Philip Newby's living room. And I remember him excitedly telling me how hilarious it was. And I trusted Phil's word when it came to funny because he was always laughing at all sort of stuff that I barely understood in elementary school, like Monty Python and Tom Lehrer! I like to imagine Ambush Bug and Lobo sitting around crying and exchanging stories until they move in for a warm, consoling hug and begin kissing passionately only to wind up jerking each other off. I should have begun that last sentence with "I really like to imagine (and often do)"!

Justice League America #59 (February 1992)

Well, here's another old man reference . . .

This reference feels incomprehensibly older now than it actually did in 1991 because of how fast media and culture move in the digital age (don't get me wrong: the reference was fucking old already when this came out). This comic is from 1991; Laurel and Hardy were at the height of their fame through the 1920s to the 1950s. That makes this a 40-70 year old reference. Fucking old! But growing up in the '70s and early '80s when cable television was just making its foothold in homes all across America, children were at the whim of watching whatever local television stations were willing to pay for on a Sunday afternoon. Most weren't willing to pay much. But at least we hadn't quite gotten to the era where they realized they didn't have to pay anything and could actually make money by showing infomercials! So what we got growing up was repeated viewings of old black and white movies starring Shirley Temple, Abbot and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, and a bunch of other old stuff my memory has chosen not to hang on to. Occasionally you'd get something exciting because it was in color, like Pippi Longstockings or The Yellow Submarine or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But because we grew up on reruns of really old television and movies, old ass references like this in 1991 didn't seem as old as they actually were. I've been giving Giffen and DeMatteis a hard time about their out-of-date references because it makes me happy to do so. This is the first time I'm telling the truth about these things: if you were old enough to be reading Justice League America in 1991, you probably understood a healthy smattering of their half-a-century or older references.

That doesn't get them off the hook for all the more obscure ones that I didn't get or that were referencing films too sophisticated for a young person to watch in the '70s or '80s. But rereading these issues now, I have the Internet to help me understand their jokes that are actually just references to old popular media. It's not like I'm reading Pynchon here but I do occasionally need to look something up.

Also this cover views native peoples through the eyes of colonizers and imperialists and is absolutely racist. But nobody wants to hear that because in the Internet age the cover could be practically anything and some tumblr demagogue would get their followers up in arms about it, probably leading them to send a bunch of shitty direct messages to Wil Wheaton.

J'onn's talking about Dreamslayer and three alternate dimensional Disney automatons.

J'onn, being a mind reader, realizes this is the climactic battle of "Breakdowns" so he's playing up the danger of a fight between the Justice League and Dreamslayer in Max's body backed by three inactive robot villains. Queen Bee and Jack the Lantern were a bigger threat than this current one. Except that this is a written work and the writers are going to write it in such a way that the remnants of The Extremists will put up a thrilling fight right until the end. That end will probably be Max Lord's consciousness wresting control of Dreamslayer just when things seem bleakest and the Justice League are all about to die.

I suppose the biggest hurdle in this fight will be the Kooey Kooey Kooeyans. The League won't want to harm any of them because they're being mind-controlled. That's probably why they wind up being prepared for a native feast on the cover. And just because I said "native feast," it doesn't mean I agree with this cannibalistic depiction of island natives! So racist!

Dreamslayer does his villain monologue describing how he succeeded up until now unless it's a soliloquy because he's the only one in the room but then he addresses his speech to Silver Sorceress so maybe it's a one-sided dialogue? He explains how he used Max Lord's power to remote-control Wally West into stealing the Extremists from the London wax museum. I wonder if Wally ever found out how he was manipulated so easily? Was this one of the reasons he attended Sanctuary where he accidentally kills Blue Jay and a bunch of others?

I should pay special attention to how Blue Jay and The Flash get along in this series. Maybe the whole debacle at Sanctuary was really just a bunch of blood-spattered legerdemain so Wally could murder Blue Jay!

One day, Ted, you're going to wish you had killed Max.

There's a lot of pre-murdered characters in this issue!

The Justice League, scared and imitated by some disembodied sorcerer who has taken over the mind of their boss, land on the island. J'onn orders Blue Jay to scout around because he's not really useful for anything else.

Bart Sears was probably hoping Blue Beetle acting like an imperialist pig would distract readers from his depiction of Metamorpho's shoulder.

The Kooey Kooey Kooeyans attack but they're being mind-controlled so the Justice League has to avoid harming them, no matter what they do. They also can't be convicted of murder if they manage to kill one of the Justice League because they weren't in control. I've discussed before how the existence of mind-control would destroy the global system of justice because it would become the defense of every defendant ever all the time. "Innocent until proven they weren't mind-controlled" would be the new slogan of everybody defending the absolute worst people committing the absolute worst atrocities.

See? J.M. DeMatteis and Power Girl both understand exactly what assholes would get up to if mind-control existed!

Has a grabbed titty ever appeared in a Comics Code Authority approved comic book before? My guess is it hasn't! Which proves the whole mind-control destroying justice thing! Because even a mind-controlled character grabbing a titty has an exemption under the Comics Code!

The Justice League fly over the Kooey Kooey Kooeyans defending their island from this invasion and encounter Dreamslayer just a little ways off. Before Dreamslayer reveals his unstoppable plan, Silver Sorceress is shot in the gut by an arrow. That's good because using her magic against Dreamslayer would be too easy. So now she's helpless to cast any spells while Dreamslayer explains that all of the Kooey Kooey Kooeyans will kill themselves with one small push from his mind if they don't surrender. Of course, J'onn surrenders. What a wimp!

Dreamslayer takes over the minds of the Justice League members who infiltrated Kooey Kooey Kooey and forces them to dress up in coconuts and palm fronds. He then sends them out to kill the rest of the Justice League left behind: Catherine, Sue, Elongated Man, Guy Gardner, Ice, and Crimson Fox (possibly others. Am I supposed to keep them all straight?!). Luckily Batman had stopped in for a visit so the really powerful mind-controlled members are fucked. Nobody plans on The Batman!

Justice League America #59 Rating: B. Too bad Lobo wasn't in this one. He'd be a real asset to the "B" team back at headquarters, even more so than Batman. Silver Sorceress was left bleeding to death on the island because she's in too much pain to be mind-controlled. Maybe that's a clue as to how to free people from Dreamslayer's mental assault! Also a clue to free people: Max Lord's consciousness still exists. It sucks but he just might save the day. Nobody wants to read a comic book where the boring suit wearing boss saves his employees! Did Giffen and DeMatteis write this to suck Helfer and Dooley's dicks?! "Look, guys! The dumb boring boss saved the day! Bosses aren't totally useless pricks!" Or maybe the point of the story is that in every seemingly well-meaning boss there hides a fascist Dreamslayer who will, um, slay all of their, um, dreams! Ha ha! Take that, bosses all over the world!

Justice League America #58 (January 1992)

Lobo + Despero = Sexually satisfied and exhausted.

Rocket Red has been reduced to his helmet. That's usually a bad sign for Rocket Reds because it means it's time for the new Rocket Red to join the League. They've tried to establish Dmitri as a personality that stands apart from just the Rocket Red character but mostly he's just a guy with a Russian accent who gets English idioms wrong. That means he's easily replaced by the next stereotypical Russian in armor. Sorry, Dmitri, but there's just no room for a solidly fleshed out non-American character! Especially in 1992! We were still a very young country then and could only handle, intellectually, foreign stereotypes. Anything more complex and the American readers would think, "Is this character Canadian?" That's because the only complex characters we ever saw on television growing up were on Degrassi Junior High.

This issue begins with the most confusing line I've ever read in literature and that includes all of the things I've read by Gertrude Stein.

"Ugly one"?! "UGLY ONE"?! How fucking dare they!

I don't know what television would air a debate between a 70+ year old man and a penis but my penis has now challenged J.M. DeMatteis to debate about Lobo's handsomeness. My penis will fucking destroy DeMatteis!

I'm not sure I can stand this blatant disrespect for The Main Man. Certainly some level of subjective reasoning must be taken into account when we discuss aesthetics. But I also think we must acknowledge the objective truth when dealing with certain things and one of those things is the sexiness and attractiveness of Lobo. Some might consider his general look that of Space Clown or Glam Assassin. But we must also understand that even while they mock his general appearance, the gears are moving in their front bottoms to prepare for the Objective Truth they refuse to acknowledge in a public forum. I suppose I could agree that somebody finding Lobo ugly and yet still wanting to fuck him does not mean Lobo is not ugly. It just means that raw sex appeal is raw sex appeal and it cannot be denied. But even so, I will not forgive DeMatteis for trying to canonically label Lobo as "the ugly one." Even if Lobo is being drawn by Bart Sears this month.

The cover is by Chris Sprouse and it is subjectively gorgeous. I love me some bright comic book colors on stark white backgrounds.

I think I found the ugliest one: Bart Sears' Guy Gardner.

For some reason, Guy Gardner decides that leaving Lobo to beat up Despero wasn't the most obvious best plan. Instead, he decided pissing off Lobo so that the Justice League would have to fight Lobo and Despero was the way to go. Maybe it's just because I'm really lazy but I would love to have a Glam Assassin come down from space and do my job for me. Get to floor polishing, you stupid Space Clown!

While Guy Gardner distracts the greatest weapon the Justice League have against Despero, Martian Manhunter proves that Ralph Dibny is a fucking jerk.

Look at that! A hero who can stretch who has never once made their neck 20 feet long!

Technically Martian Manhunter can "shape change" but as I pointed out when I said "technically," he's really just a stretchy guy. Plastic Man might as well be called a shape changer. But maybe Ralph can't quite do the same things a "shape changer" can so the neck thing is all he really has. Oh, and the gross twitchy nose.

While Guy Gardner distracts Lobo and Rocket Red tries to lead Despero out of New York to prevent more destruction (although Major Disaster sort of took care of that already by destroying everything so that no more can be destroyed), Lord Havok teleports into the Justice League Cave to murder the Silver Sorceress. This is where I'd usually say something trite like "Luckily other members of the League are there to protect her" except the only members of the League still in the cave are Blue Jay, Elongated Man, Crimson Fox, Sue Dibny, and Catherine Cobert. Also there are the Injustice League which are barely worth mentioning and General Glory whom I wanted to leave out because he actually could be of some use in defending her.

Catherine radios for help when she realizes Ralph Dibny might currently be their only hope.

Jesus, Catherine. I thought you were the diplomatic one!

Catherine makes peace with her Lord when she realizes the only help coming is Blue Beetle. I understand that they're only battling one lousy Disney automaton but the "they" battling the automaton are the left over bits that the cat licks off your plate when you're done eating your Justice League International taco.

I can't know for sure if I filled my pants with baby mayo back when this issue was hot off the stands but if there was a time traveling betting shop that took odds on the various things that made me come in my underwear throughout my life, I'd probably put money on it having happened due to this page.

Guy Gardner and Lobo fist fighting in a trademark Giffen nine-square Brady Bunch layout? Yes please.

Other than Guy's ego and DeMatteis's need to increase the level of conflict and draw out the battle across more than one issue, it makes no sense that Guy Gardner tries to stop Lobo from defeating Despero. Lobo hasn't even caused any destruction in his fight with Despero. All of the buildings were already rubble thanks to Major Disaster! Lobo is a gift horse and Guy is all, "How are his teeth?"

That shield that saved Guy's life was projected by Booster Gold. Lobo turns his attention to Booster Gold and so I'm just going to assume that Booster Gold is dead now. I don't remember him dying but then he probably just got resurrected almost immediately, comic books being what they are.

DeMatteis finally reveals where Kilowog and L'ron will get the parts to create the control mechanism to shut Despero down using the collar around his neck: L'ron's innards! The little guy must sacrifice his life to save his adopted home planet and all his new friends. This is the part where I'd probably tear up a little bit if I had a heart or if I felt any emotional connection to L'ron or if my dick wasn't so Goddamned hard after several pages of Lobo beating people into pulp. DeMatteis should have timed the reveal better.

The middle of the comic book just seems like two pages of various panels with the Justice Leagues battling Lord Havok and Despero but actually it's a double-page spread highlighting how cowardly and weak the Injustice League are. The pages feel redundant because hasn't that been what 25% of the total stories in this series have been?

Aw shit. Cullen Bunn's tumblr catchphrase for metrosexual Lobo, "Sorry not sorry," has some support in regular continuity.

Guy Gardner returns the favor and saves Booster's life by punching Lobo into the bay. Coincidentally, that's where the rest of the Justice League are now battling Despero (and by "battling," I mean "getting killed by").

It's embarrassing for the rest of the characters in the story when Lobo is the voice of reason.

Oh wait. I just found a way for the Justice League characters to be even more embarrassed.

I can't read minds but I imagine Despero is currently thinking either "Yes" or "Who?"

Back at the cave, Lord Havok has Catherine and Silver Sorceress cornered and is about to kill them when reinforcements (of a kind) arrive.

Even in the middle of a life threatening situation, there's always time to call out sexism.

Take a look at Beetle's face in the above panel. Now you know why I scoff loudly so the people around me in the coffee shop where I'm reading my comic book can hear whenever I read a letter praising Bart Sears as the best artist working for DC (or even just a competent artist). I don't know what kind of bullshit aesthetics rule the mind of comic book fans and J.M. DeMatteis, but how is the narrator not butting in at this point to say, "Sorry, the truly ugly one is Blue Beetle or any regular human drawn by Bart Sears. And don't get me started on their hair! Although Lobo's hair seems to work really well with his style."

Blue Beetle quickly turns the ship around in the space between panels and blasts Lord Havok with the engines, reducing him to a pile of ash and burnt robot bits. It's the kind of heroic move I'd love to see more often. Like maybe in Detective Comics except with Batman in the Batplane doing it to The Joker.

Dammit! It's too late to get me to like Ralph Dibny, guys. But this almost worked!

Based on that last panel and the earlier bit in the "Breakdowns" arc when the Ex-Leaguers were adventuring together, I think DC missed the mark by continuing to have Blue Beetle and Booster Gold pal around as best friends. I might like Ralph and Ted's interactions even better! Sure, some would say it's the same banter and Giffen and DeMatteis don't really care which characters are speaking which parts. But there's definitely a subtle difference with the Ted/Ralph banter over the Ted/Michael Jon banter.

Lobo finally decides to stop going easy on the Justice League and just destroy them so he can get around to his real job of catching Despero. They should feel honored! Lobo is going to kill them all for free! That doesn't happen often, what with his solid work ethic and all.

I wonder why nobody has ever paid for Lobo to come by my place on my birthday and beat the shit out of me? I guess my friends just don't really care.

Justice League America #58 Rating: A+. Not only did this issue receive an "A+" because Lobo was in it but it also received that grade because Lobo was fantastic in it. He beat up several people and he had some good lines and he looked downright sexy doing it too! It's got me wondering: why am I reading these old Justice League comic books when I have a whole self-titled series starring Lobo?! I should read one issue every week or so, as a treat.

Justice League America #57 (December 1991)

I have no idea what the "Extremities!" above the title means.

"Extremities!" seems to be an interjection of some kind based on my detective work that discovered the clue of the exclamation point. But what is it trying to convey? This was the era of Bill and Ted with the release of the second movie this same year so it feels like it it's parodying their use of "Excellent!" Maybe it's just their cleaned up version of yelling, "Shit!" Either because Max Lord, a terrible person, has woken up from his coma or because he's been taken hostage by The Extremists. Take your poison, I guess.

I never do this but you know what? We have access to creators so easily via the Internet these days, I'm simply going to ask J.M. DeMatteis if he remembers the reason for this cover design. This is a good excuse to not have to work on this review while I await a reply! I can now go play some Starfield without thinking about all the other shit I should be doing!

*One Day Later*
Well, I asked him and my levels of clarification are now at a whopping -100%!

This answer feels like a personal insult! How dumb and unobservant does DeMatteis take me to be?!

Don't answer that question! He probably hasn't read all of my reviews which prove me to be a hyper-intelligent, astute, insightful critic of the comic book medium and not a dolt like some of you readers with no reading comprehension think they prove me to be! But wait! There's more helpful information!

I've truly never been more insulted regarding somebody's perception of my intelligence ever before!

"A play on words," he says! He really does think I'm a huge idiot! I did manage to figure out it was a play on words, Mark. My problem was I didn't understand what the play was! What does it MEAN?! I suppose I could have replied asking for more clarification but I didn't want to bother him anymore and he was trying to be truly helpful and I absolutely appreciate his responding to a question asking about some dumb comic book cover that he might not even have had anything to do with from over thirty years ago! You'll also note I didn't post my question to him because it was probably confusing and unclear and the main reason DeMatteis didn't quite understand how to answer the question and we've already spent too much time on my mental and writing limitations so maybe we should just move on!

Shit! I think I just figured it out! It was a play on Stan Lee's "Excelsior!" Sorry, J.M., for bothering you and I wasn't being mean about your response here! Just whimsical and hyperbolic. I really should have been more clear about my confusion when asking about the cover.

This issue is called "The Descent of . . . Despero!" With a title like that, I'm expecting something on the scale of a Shakespearian tragedy like King Lear or As You Like It.

The story begins as grand as some of the greatest novels in Western literature with a memorable opener that can't be denied. Maybe even greater! It outdoes "A screaming comes across the sky" by a million miles and two tight cheeks! It stands gorgeously quaffed hair and broad shoulders above "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." It's clown make-up better painted on than "All this happened, more or less."

Jesus Christ, look at that ass.

I'm glad Lobo wore clown make-up and was so pumped full of sexual charisma that he could never quite become a right wing symbol of over-the-top violence in the name of justice like The Punisher. Also Lobo fucks space dolphins and might be a bit too tied to planetary genocide to represent American justice (not that that doesn't represent Amercan justice quite well! It's just people wouldn't want to signal that part of America's virtue). Although most of them are so stupid they really can't see much past their love of violence as a response to any disagreement with their bigoted views or overly aggressive attitudes. I mean, cops are too dumb to realize that The Punisher has killed as many cops as bad guys in his Memento-like impossible quest to bring back his family masquerading as a war on crime. He's just Batman with bullets, really.

Lobo is so much better than Batman and The Punisher! The universe doesn't need more sad toxic males maiming and murdering whomever they see as a stand-in for the person who killed their loved ones (again, Memento-like!); the universe needs a nihilistic clown with a tight ass who doesn't care who he kills or why but also always keeps his word for some reason. I guess a character should have at least one flaw to round them out.

Lobo has been hired to hunt Despero and bring him back to Manga Khan. Not because Manga Khan is worried about the destruction Despero is apt to cause while loose but because Despero is unpaid for merchandise.

Every night I dream Lobo will say these words to me.

Well, that's the best part of the issue done! I'll probably have to wait until the next issue of the "Breakdowns" story arc in Justice League Europe #33 for more of my Main Man and his Main Ass.

Back in London, Inspector Camus teams up with The Beefeater to go on a mission to tell the Justice League that somebody has stolen The Extremists from Tussaud's Wax Museum. "Extremities!"

Max Lord attends a Coming Out of a Coma Party at the Justice League's old cave. He's acting so weird that maybe I've just figured out the whole "Extremities!" bit! What if Mitch Wacky took the Extremists from the Museum to use their parts to make a Max Lord automaton? That would mean each of the Extremists could have been used as one of Max's extremities. Did I figure it out?! Maybe that's why J.M. DeMatteis was so vague about the "play on words." Because saying too much would have been a spoiler!

Lord's head begins to hurt, probably because he has robot brains or he's using too much concentration to make everybody party in a way many of them never would (like J'onn and Kara and, well, that might be it, actually), so he leaves the party. Inspector Camus and Beefeater also leave, heading to the old UN headquarters to look up Mitch Wacky's address. While there, Despero crashes through the ceiling to begin a brawl with The Beefeater. How this wasn't the cover done in a mirror image style of the Lobo vs. Despero cover for Justice League Europe #33, I can't imagine. Those two comic books on the shelves next to each other would have sold so many more copies! I know a comic book with Lobo on the cover would already completely sell out so what I'm saying is more copies of this issue would have sold if they'd done a Beefeater vs. Despero cover matching the Lobo vs. Despero cover.

Despero makes quick work of The Beefeater and Inspector Camus which is probably why Beefeater didn't make the cover. But he did act heroically which is probably important for him getting a little respect in the future even though he's been played as a complete joke up until now.

Chris Wozniak working on the composition of this panel: "I think it needs a little more woman ass."

Before I noticed the woman's ass in that panel, I was going to comment on Despero's lack of genitals. So let's do that one too.

Despero's hate is a manifestation of his NDE.

Max Lord tells Catherine he's going to Kooey Kooey Kooey Island to recover for a week or so but in actuality he's headed there to make sure Uncle Mitch Wacky gets the Extremists back up and running. Because Max Lord's body has been taken over by Dreamslayer! "Extremities!" for real!

Justice League America #57 Rating: A+. Every comic book review is somebody's first comic book review so I'll explain why this issue received an A+: because Lobo was in it. You see, I don't really review comic books. I just read them and write some nonsense about them and then give them a rating that means nothing depending on how I remember being entertained while writing about the comic book (not how entertained I was reading it! And not how entertained I was writing about it! Always just a vague emotional memory of how I think I felt while writing about it!). I love when Lobo makes an appearance because then I don't even have to pretend to care about the reasons for my rating! It just automatically gets an A+ because every issue with an appearance by Lobo is one of the best comic books ever created. I would say the same thing for Ambush Bug but I don't think I have yet to review a comic book with Ambush Bug in it.

Justice League America #56 (November 1991)

This cover is genuinely creepy.

The cover or pull date on this issue is November 1991. That means the comic book probably hit store shelves in September of 1991, exactly ten years before the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists in 2001. Happening concurrently to this issue in the DC Universe (or just finished) was DC's series called Armageddon 2001. Martian Manhunter, being a telepath, must be contemplating the future tragedy. He probably read the mind of Monarch who was from 2001 and learned what was going to happen ten years from now. So he's taking a time out to contemplate life and love and existence. He's also probably thinking, "I know we just changed the future by defeating Monarch but I don't think I should change the future that much! The towers are just going to have to come down." I bet he put a mental block in his memory to make himself forget so that he wouldn't be tempted to interfere with the time line.

This issue is called "Look Homeward, Leaguers." That's probably a Thomas Wolfe reference but since Giffen and DeMatteis use references with no context, it's hard to tell. Just like Blue Beetle doing a Joan Rivers impression on the cover of the previous issue. Does it make sense? Does it add any layers to the meaning of the piece? Do most people not even realize it's a reference? No, no, and yes. Unless that yes should be "No, they don't." I probably shouldn't have asked a question with a negating bit in it. I never know how to answer those.

The credits have an added thank you bit for this issue:

Yeesh. I wonder how old Mark Badger was?

Justice League America are informed that their United Nations charter has been revoked so they're now as homeless as Justice League Europe. That must be why they're returning to the old Justice League cave headquarters where the Doom Patrol are possibly squatting right now. Or maybe it's just Joshua Clay from the Doom Patrol that's hiding away in the cave? J'onn seems upset because the Justice League has helped save the world multiple times (his words, not mine) and they don't deserve to have their easy paycheck and free living quarters taken away from them. Isn't that all the benefits they get from having a United Nations charter? Supposedly the charter makes it easier to save the world but it really just causes a huge bureaucratic headache. As an independent contractor, the Justice League can go anywhere and create any kind of international incident they feel like without anybody telling them boo! Oh, sure, some political leaders will scream at them and condemn their actions. But who gives a fuck? They're the Justice League! Let's see some non-super humans try to stop them!

Whoops! Sorry. I stole Guy's thunder. Here he is saying basically the same thing.

Blue Beetle agrees with me and Guy. He decides to abandon the League to go join The Conglomerate while Guy Gardner goes back to doing the job he's been slacking on: guardian of Sector 2814. Fire and Ice quit and go their separate ways as well. But the biggest surprise is when these two leave:

Just kidding! I already forgot they were on the team!

Why did Giffen and DeMatteis even bother to bring them on the team?! They didn't do shit! Tasmanian Devil punched Guy in the face but that's about the extent of their accomplishments as Leaguers. And if Doctor Light didn't want the job, why did she sign up? This smacks of some kind of meta-publishing bullshit. Does DC need to make sure every single one of their characters makes an appearance every two or three years or else they lose the right to not pay royalties to the creators? It's just fucking weird. Half of the time I've been reading this comic book, it feels like the creative team has been adding new members who leave just as quickly or suddenly losing long-term members out of nowhere in an editorial note. It feels less like an ongoing story and more like a storage cabinet for barely used DC characters.

The Conglomerate doesn't hire Blue Beetle because he's too fat. The news devastates Booster Gold who now has to live with Ted as his filthy roommate because Ted can't afford to move out. I guess Blue Beetle takes the news badly as well although without the job, he gets to hang around Booster's sweet apartment eating pizza and watching game shows all day. I'd be Booster's wife for that gig. And I wouldn't mind keeping the place clean and tidy! Or maybe throwing him a handy every now and again. Not leaving the house while eating junk food and watching game shows all day has been my dream since 1st grade. I'd do some pretty degrading bedroom shit to maintain that lifestyle.

Bea and Tora have decided to do modeling for a living because remember that scene where they were battling Norse Gods? That was the top picture in their portfolio. But the agency that had been courting Bea for months tells her they're not interested if she doesn't have a connection to the Justice League. Which seems like bad business to me because she did have a connection to the Justice League and just because she left them doesn't mean that she suddenly lost all of that cultural cachet or her hot ass. Only two reasons can exist as to why this guy is passing on the opportunity to hire Fire (and Ice): 1. He's bad at business. 2. Hiring Bea was his plan to get an in with the Justice League so he could meet and fuck Martian Manhunter.

Imagine using these two adorable faces so you can suck a Martian's dick.

Dammit. Now I'm imagining sucking a Martian's dick.

Bea doesn't let this one dropped job offer stop her quest to become the hottest model since sliced bread. And Tora goes with her because she's bad at finances. At one point she says, "Our credit cards are only going to hold out another few days—and I don't want to blow what little savings I have." How does she think credit cards work? She's blowing her current and future savings by maxing out her credit cards! Fucking Goddesses and their inability to understand human monetary bullshit.

Guy Gardner acknowledges in a soliloquy that he's only a super hero so that he can beat the shit out of people and still feel righteous. I've defended him a lot because I loved him so much in the '80s and '90s and I was desperate not to acknowledge how wrong I was to feel that way but now his conservative values have really come to the forefront and I have to rethink my love for him.

Like all conservatives, Guy wants to murder homeless people.

Why do all conservatives desperately want to commit violence and murder? So much so that they "other" everybody possible to lay the foundation of the excuse they'll use the day they finally feel justified in taking another person's life. To them, every manufactured offense can be met with deadly violence. Disrespect a cop? You should die. Fall through society's cracks and lose everything so that you're living on the street? You should die. Shopping while Black and being incorrectly reported to the cops as being a shoplifter? You should die. Live your life as a gender different than what's on your birth certificate? You should die. Enjoying a carefree and humanist life unrestricted by religious dogma? You should die. I could probably go on and on with the examples because they fucking despise anybody who wants to make the world a better place for everybody (a better world they would reap the benefits of, by the way). They're small-minded, petty people who need to control everybody else's lives while also feeling like they're some kind of victim. Don't they realize nobody would have a problem with them living their life of conservative values if those values weren't all tied up in not letting anybody else live their lives?

Dammit. Now I hate Guy Gardner.

Guy comes home to the apartment he shares with General Glory to discover the General has invited all of the homeless people in the area in to have a nice meal.

General Glory's values come from a time when the United States was at its most socialist which is why he believes compassion is The American Way.

It should also be noted that General Glory's values come from a time before the Civil Rights Era where "socialism" meant "the government helps white people." Once it became clear that the government legally needed to help all people, "America" suddenly decided that maybe the government shouldn't be helping anybody at all. At least General Glory didn't pick up on the dog whistles of American mid-century socialism so he's genuinely trying to be compassionate to anybody who needs a little help. Guy, on the other hand, is a fucking prick.

J'onn tries to live a quiet, meditative life in a house he's rented but makes the mistake of taking L'ron on as his roommate. And since J'onn can't get any peace and quiet with the subservient, fawning little droid hanging about, he decides to try to fix the Justice League. Besides, the League has been his family for comic book decades. He doesn't know anything else. Also Despero is coming to Earth to start trying to kill them all again so J'onn will need some help dealing with that problem.

J'onn isn't the only one suddenly desperate to fix the League. Blue Beetle decides to get in shape and save the group. Fire decides to abandon her modeling career and get the League back. And General Glory talks Guy through his feelings for Ice and his teammates so that Guy also believes the League needs to be reformed. So basically the Justice League didn't exist for about six pages. This is what happens when you don't have Batman on the active roster. One day you lose funding and everything descends into chaos for a while (a very short while) because you don't have a super rich guy to buy a satellite headquarters for you.

The entire team wind up meeting outside the old cave headquarters and agree on the thing they should have agreed on immediately instead of all running off in a huff: keep the team together. It was so obvious! Even when they had a United Nations charter, they still kept sneaking into Bialya to cause trouble. Now they can do that whenever they want without anybody threatening to cut off funding!

Once they enter the cave, they realize somebody has recently been there. Like Joshua Clay!

See? I remember some stuff! But only if it's traumatic and reading Morrison's Doom Patrol was exactly that.

All memory is trauma in some form or another. It's why it's memory! If you didn't suffer some form of trauma, you wouldn't form a memory of the event. On some level, pure joy can be just as distressing to our mental state as terror. So while trauma can be defined as a physical injury, I think it's also a mental injury—a scar—caused by the power of the event. A memory is a scar.

I have a scar on my left arm, just beneath the inside of the elbow. It's a long cat scratch made by my poor, long-dead, best friend Judas. It's about two inches long and was caused when you was jumping up on the arm of a couch to jump up to a higher location and didn't realize my arm was there. I got the full brunt of one of this back claws just digging through my flesh as he propelled his fifteen pound body high into the air. It instantly welled with blood and I looked at it, got really emotional, and began to cry. Not because it hurt but because I knew it would scar and I would have a lasting memory of my favorite boy ripped into my flesh. It still makes me tear up when I look at it. That's what I think of memory.

Turns out the people currently living in the cave are the jobless, homeless Justice League Europe. Everybody vomits when they see them because Ralph's neck is fifty feet long. But I think everything goes smoothly after that.

Justice League America #56 Rating: B. The individual scenes of the Leaguers trying to live their non-League lives was entertaining enough to support the stupid premise that the League completely broke down as soon as the United Nations kicked them out of the Embassy. If I were more cynical than I am, I'd say the whole break-up was just an easy way to fire Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. Or I suppose if I were more charitable and less cynical, I wouldn't even have mentioned how silly it seemed for them to break up for a day or two before realizing the League didn't have to die without the United Nations backing it. Emotionally, they all needed time to settle down and re-evaluate their lives without the other Leaguers breathing down their necks. Every one of them needed to come to their own conclusion that being a member of the League was actually what they wanted. Except Guy. He needed help from his surrogate father and therapist, General Glory. And Ice knew all along but she had to support her best friend in her decision to leave. The only real problem now is that they have to live in a cave with Ralph Dibny.

Justice League America #55 (October 1991)

This was published in 1991 so was this a riff on Joan Rivers?

If your first thought is, "Why would they allude to Joan Rivers on the cover?", just remember the writers of this comic book are Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. No reference is beneath them! At least a Joan Rivers' reference would have been timely in 1991! They usually love referencing pop culture from the '50s. Plus it's Blue Beetle saying it, so you know he did the voice and everything.

The Justice League has been tasked with entering Bialya and arresting their ex-teammates for the murder of Mermaid. "Who?" you ask but I ignore the question because what do I look like? Jonni DC sitting on a stack of Who's Who comic books? Oh wait. I do have a stack of Who's Who comics! Mermaid doesn't have her own entry but she's included in The Global Guardians entry along with Icemaiden and Green Fury. Little Mermaid (as she's called in this entry) "is a mutant born in Atlantis able to change her legs to a fish tail and fly." That's a stupid fucking power. So she could only fly when she had a fish tail? Oh, but that's not all: "But, as she could only live 30 hours underwater, she had to be raised on land." What the fuck? Born in Atlantis and able to turn into a mermaid but can't live underwater? And why 30 hours? What must her physiology be like that she's okay for 30 hours but any more and she's done for? Is it a gill and lung thing? Does it have to do with pressure? Too much salt? Oh, wait. I'm forgetting that most of this is arbitrary shit written by writers scribbling out as much pulp as possible while dreaming about writing something meaningful. After reading this entry, I'm glad Mermaid was murdered.

Fire's entry says her powers, as Green Fury, were the ability to breathe "hot or cold" flame and "shoot sparks from her eyes to create illusions." Why cold flames? What's the point? And how did the sparks into illusions out of the eyes thing work? This all smacks of a writer merely collecting a paycheck and realizing that the idiot kids reading this tripe were never going to question any of it. Frankly, it's reminding me of that time Cullen Bunn wrote Aquaman but he obviously just had a John Carpenter on Mars script lying around and he sold it to DC as an Aquaman script for some easy cash. Fucking tell me I'm wrong, Cullen!

Here's Ice's entry: "Icemaiden has absolute power over ice and snow." Classic. So I'm as powerful as she is because fuck if ice or snow has ever bested me in any competition.

And since I've got the comic book open to The Global Guardians, let's check Tasmanian Devil and Jack the Lantern. Tasmanian Devil: "In emergencies, grows to great size, increasing his strength and speed." Do they mean he can only transform in emergencies or that he's responsible with his powers and he never uses them in non-emergency situations like when he fucks Extraño? Seems boring. "Jack O'Lantern has a magical lantern given to him by the fairy queen Maev." No way that's his real origin. Does Who's Who not do any research into the claims of the heroes it spotlights? Because there's no way Jack's Lantern isn't just some laser gun tarted up to look like a stupid bowling ball with eyes. The fairy queen story has got to be a lie. I bet Jack's not even Irish.

The Global Guardians was first called "The Global Guardians" in DC Comics Presents #46. I think I used to own that comic book but I gave away a bunch of my DC Comics Presents in a fit of madness a number of years ago. I did keep a few but there's no way I kept one starring these jerks.

How do I break it to my boner that this woman is dead?

Obviously the Justice League didn't kill Mermaid but they also should absolutely surrender so that things can be straightened out with minimal violence. But this is a comic book and that isn't going to happen, even if Blue Beetle agrees with me. Captain Atom, a military man, decides forcing the situation to devolve further out of control is the best tactic. And by "tactic," I mean "reactionary decision because he's been disrespected by Bialya for far too long and he believes all the propaganda fed to him by people wanting him to create a violent international incident." I think this is what is commonly referred to as a "Win/Win Situation." I mean, the Justice League are obviously going to lose in so many ways but it's a win for Captain Atom because he gets to punch people who won't respect his authority and it's a win for Jack and Sumaan because this will cause the international incident. I don't know what it means for Queen Bee and Bialya. Probably less of a win and more of a raging headache and a coup ending in her murder.

How are the Guardians going to do that? Do they have VHS footage of the old Justice League battling Amazo?

That was a pretty easy dig at the Global Guardians but what does Rising Sun expect, teeing up a comment like that?! At the team meeting later when they discuss how this battle went so wrong for them, somebody should suggest never putting "real heroes" and "Global Guardians" in the same sentence because it's just asking for the kind of lame, low hanging fruit retort I made in the caption. It's good advice. And I know good advice because I live by the best advice which is this: "Never say something will be worth it 'in the long run' to an old person."

Captain Atom being against surrender sadly did not mean he wanted to battle the Guardians. Instead, the Ex-Justice League leader orders a strategic retreat where Ice puts up a 0/7 Wall of Ice which falls immediately to Jack's fairy gift. But it gives the Ex-League enough time to escape the Guardians' meeting room. They wind up in a hall full of people in tanks being turned into the Queen's puppets. Weird place to keep the one room in the country that could destroy the Queen Bee by revealing her insane human rights violations. She probably just housed the lab in The Dome because the Guardians spend all of their time in a trance in the meeting hall. Putting your renters in a trance frees up a lot of space that would normally be used for bedrooms and bathrooms.

For reasons beyond knowing, Owl-woman has just become my favorite character.

I always have a surfeit of choices when it comes to panels I can scan and I always choose the ones with the juicy asses. Some people might think I'm a creepy comic book reading asshole but other people know that's just a character I play on the Internet. I'm actually more into animated characters.

The Justice League arrives to drag their ex-employees out of Bialya by their ears, hopefully without any nosy Jimmy Olsens around to record it when the entire Dome collapses into the hidden sub-basement.

Lesson learned about places to keep your international war crimes hidden from the public eye, I guess.

The similarity between my speculation about Queen Bee's choice of locale for her puppet making and her "I'm fucked" monologue might make you think I had read ahead before writing my bit. But I assure you that this is just the kind of foresight a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader lives with every day. Usually I only need to read three or four pages of a comic book and then I can set it down because my mind is like Midnighter's except that where he can see every possibility in an upcoming battle and make all the right choices to end it quickly, I can see exactly what a writer is getting at in a dopey funny book. I'm also like Midnighter in that my ass, too, is a playground.

Here is an aside that's only an aside in my comic book reviews and wouldn't be an aside in a normal, rational, actual review of a comic book: I'm loving Chris Wozniak's art in this issue. For a "reviewer" reviewing a medium where art and words come together to create the experience, I give an unbelievably short amount of shrift to the art. It's incredible, really. As if I barely notice the art until Owl-woman's thick ass is staring me right in the face.

Rather than face an international trial for crimes against humanity, Queen Bee attempts to flee Bialya. It's too bad because she made sense as the leader of DC's obviously evil country. You don't have to wonder how the overall populace puts up with their country's constant evil if they're all brainwashed drones.

Back in New York, Inspector Camus confronts Herr Heimlich about his love of robots. I don't know what he's getting at but I suppose Heimlich is either a Nazi robot or Camus has footage of Heimlich fucking a vacuum cleaner. Either way, I think he's trying to blackmail him. Most people wouldn't want video of themselves fucking a vacuum cleaner out in the public but for me, that's just a great Tik Tok channel.

Cleaning up the devastation in Bialya, the Global Guardians learn that Doctor Mist was a robot (unless he was a vacuum cleaner), Jack the Lantern isn't the Jack they knew, and that mind control doesn't stop bowel movements. For the first time in a long time, they've got their own minds back. Mermaid's body is missing and judging by the way the Guardians are acting, they might not have any memory of her death. I mean, they seem sad and all but that might be because they've all shat themselves silly.

This is Ice suddenly realizing Breakdowns needs another plot thread.

Ice "flies" off screaming something about her family and her people being in trouble. I put "flies" in quotation marks because what she actually does is build an ice ramp and run up it. Is she going to run along an ice bridge all the way back to Scandinavia? How long is that going to fucking take? She doesn't even do that flying slide thing that Iceman loves to do. She just runs away up an ice bridge like she's actually going to get anywhere that way. Fire flies after her and you'll notice I didn't put that "flies" in quotation marks because Fire actually has useful powers.

Sumaan murders Queen Bee before she can fully make her escape and takes up the mantle as leader of Bialya. I'm sure the citizens of the country will eagerly accept him as their leader seeing as how he's so much more ruthless and underhanded as their old leader, his brother. It's an evil country! They don't have to brainwashed to love despots!

See? Weary, confused, and evil.

Due to L-ron and Inspector Camus's uncovering Heimlich's association with Queen Bee and vacuum cleaners, he is removed from his leadership role with the League. Being that it was never revealed that he was a former Nazi, I'm sure he'll be back so that it can be revealed that he was a former Nazi. With his removal, I guess all the fired heroes have got their jobs back? But will Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light still be welcome on the team? They only appeared in one or two panels this issue so it's not looking good for them. Again.

Justice League America #55 Rating: B+. "Breakdowns" is so good that Giffen and DeMatteis should have begun their Justice League run with it! 'nuff said. Excelsior!