Justice League Quarterly #10 (Spring 1993)

Booster Gold after spending some years on the Phantasm planet.

Maybe this will just become a Phantasm blog. There may only be five movies but I bet I could discuss them for at least a few months. Except I don't think I'm sensitive enough to discuss the scene in the graveyard where The Tall Man is all, "Look at my tits! You're totally gonna put your pee pee in my hoo-ha!" And then he's all, "Ha ha! I probably have a penis!" Canonically, I can't say whether the Tall Man has a pee pee or a hoo-ha because we've never seen it. But we have seen his tits so, well, you know. The Tall Man has tits.

I wonder if the Phantasm franchise has the record for having the most uncharismatic leads of any movie franchise ever? I hope I don't offend the Boy or Reggie by saying that! Hmm, maybe I shouldn't have singled them out after that comment, right? Um, also Angus Scrimm. Boy howdy! He's so ugly! I mean, he's supposed to be ugly and creepy unlike the protagonists Reggie and the Boy. Um, I mean Mike. Don't assume I'm actually the Tall Man because I like to call Mike "Boy" and I have tits.

This issue begins with Booster Gold waking up full of shame and self-loathing after having a dream about his mother. I would describe the dream but you can probably make out what kind of dream it was due to my use of the adjectives "shame" and "self-loathing". Are those adjectives? Anyway, as you might have thought, he was dreaming about being arrested in front of his mother after having committed all the horrible future crimes he chose to commit. Crying on the steps nearby is a woman cradling a child. Did Booster Gold have a wife and child? Or is that his sister and niece? Or were they part of the reason he was being arrested in the dream?! I know dreams usually aren't non-fiction. I recently had a dream where the Non-Certified Spouse had an online friend who made their own flavors of Moon Pies. She made one flavor especially for me: Murdered Baby's Soul. That was definitely fiction because now I go to sleep every night wondering what Murdered Baby's Soul tastes like.

Oh wait. She's not cradling a child. Nor is she on steps.

I blame the colorist's terrible color guide which must have read, "The sofa should be purple but bluier. The woman on the sofa should be purplier. The wall should be purple but different. Outside the window? More purple." How is my mind supposed to differentiate all of those purples and blues?! It's also possible my eyes glanced at the picture and my mind, detecting patterns that I'm used to seeing, just went, "Oh, okay. Booster Gold is being busted for beating his woman on the street while their child watched." I don't mean I'm used to seeing that because I've ever acted out anything like that! I just grew up at a time when everything on fucking television was Jerry Springer or Cops!

While Booster Gold's memories of his future make him weep the way Ted Kord weeps whenever Guy Gardner kicks him in the dick, some bald guy whose color separation guide was just "Yellow!" invents online gambling.

"Sos what yer sayin' is I jus' put all my bankin' infermation into this magic betting box and bada boom bada bing, I'm like super rich and shit?"

Seeing the screen that reads "Place Wager from Savings" should be everything a person needs to understand about gambling. Everybody knows gambling ruins lives but the main obstacle in the way of gambling ruining way, way more lives was that you had to make an effort to gamble. You had to plan a trip to someplace that allows it. You had to get off your ass to buy a scratch card. You had to go to the horse or greyhound track or, if you really wanted to get depressed and see how you've taken even the fun of going on a day trip out to watch animals get abused, the off-track betting parlor. But now with B.O.O.K.I.E., you can walk down to the corner, tap directly into your bank account, and feel the excitement of standing around waiting to see the results of the race! Or, if we're talking about reality, online casinos! Online poker! Apps that let you buy scratch-its and lottery tickets without getting your cheese-dust covered ass off of the sofa! It's bread and circuses all day, especially now that we've got Caligula in office here in America with his little pet Nazi gremlin, Tesla Wyrmtooth.

Luckily for the people about to lose all of their life savings to B.O.O.K.I.E., a young hero comes along to hack the system, bleed it dry, and report them to the feds! A roller blade wearing Nirvana fan who maybe isn't as good at hacking as he thought he was.

I take back my use of the word "luckily".

That's not a Justice League Teleporter Tube Toby has found himself trapped within. That's a B.O.O.K.I.E. automated kiosk with its security sensors tripped after he tried to hack it. Loser!

Some goons pull up ready to crack Toby's skull but he's still in the system so he sends a message to their pagers to distract them while he hacks his way out and roller blades to freedom! The goons, being so reliant on orders from up above and so attached to their pagers like big stupid '90s idiots, fall for the ruse and immediately check their pagers once they start vibrating. Can you imagine how dumb people were in the '90s?! So fucking attached to a small piece of electronics that constantly demanded their attention! Fucking idiots.

Usually that would be me being self-deprecating but this time it's me being smug because I don't fucking have a smart phone and never will. All y'all look like pager checking criminal goons getting outsmarted by the worst dressed hacker in history!

Um, ha ha! Just kidding! I was just kidding! Really! Not about not owning a phone. That's true. But I don't think everybody is a pager checking goon. At least not in the 21st Century where you don't have to check your pager and then go find a phone and then call the person who paged you or maybe even page them to let you know you got the page while sending some stupid weird code y'all had made up instead of sending a phone number. And I don't think you could ever play games on your pager! Why would anybody ever want one?! I understand having a smart phone because you can play games or use apps or browse the Internet. Staying in contact with other people is like the 8th or 9th best thing to do with a phone. But that's all a pager was good for! Who wanted other people to have constant access to you?! That was the best part about living in an age without cell phones! You'd leave the house and theoretically cease to exist until you got back! Oh, it was glorious!

Anyway, Toby decides to hack his way into Justice League Headquarters to hide out from the goons chasing him. I think the only person currently awake inside is Booster Gold in a shame spiral.

I guess Booster's weeping woke everybody up.

I'm pretty sure you can see Fire's bush in the above panel!

Guy Gardner pantses the poor kid because he gives a fake name. Ice stops him before Guy gets arrested for whatever crime you can be arrested for just because you pulled some kid's pants down. Probably something like Overly Aggressive Manhandling of a Minor which might not be a felony but it would definitely get you shanked in prison if somebody heard that was what you were in for. "What? Sicko perv? No no no! You've got it wrong! I JUST PRANKED THE KID!" Then you'd get stabbed in the liver because "pranked" is probably prison slang for consensual surprise shower sex. You're probably wondering how that's consensual, right? Well, you know, most prisoners probably don't want to be thought of as rapists but still want to have some sexy fun times while in prison. So you get a group together who sign a consent form that at any time they have their butthole all nice and soaped up, it's an invitation for a surprise quickie. The surprise just makes it a fun game!

Toby was caught just after he sent out a BBS message on the Justice League computer system so Blue Beetle notices that the kid isn't a threat. The message was to some guy named Jack Marshall, a hacker wearing an anarchist t-shirt. I don't remember him at all. Was he from Bloodlines? No, this was probably a smidge too early for Bloodlines, right? Anyway, Jack explains that Toby has discovered a bunch of illegal shit being perpetrated by the B.O.O.K.IE machines (I was apparently punctuating it wrong earlier. I will not fix my previous mistakes!). So now the Justice League are involved because they can't turn their backs on something illegal taking place.

I bet Fire fucks Jack Marshall. He looks a like Jesse Custer if somebody other than Steve Dillon were drawing him but they were trying to approximate Dillon's look while also making him handsome.

If Fire isn't eating out this guy's asshole by the end of the story, I'll lose all respect for her.

Jack Marshall wears a blazer over a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He's slightly unshaven and his hair's about an inch longer than your grandmother would find respectable. No wait. Your great grandmother, probably. Great-great grandmother? Fucking shit, I just looked at a calendar and some adults were born in the 21st Century? I'll judge by the age my mother was when I was born (22!) to calculate when somebody who is 18 now's mother was born. That means their mother was born in 1985. So their grandmother would have been born in 1964. They certainly wouldn't have had a problem with long hair. Hell, my grandmother was born in 1921 and she never had a problem with my long hair. Hell, that beautiful, sweet lady thought Gene Simmons was a looker! For the record, I never thought anything but positive thoughts for that woman other than the day we were watching Donahue together and she looked at Gene Simmons and said, "That's a really handsome man." Fine, let me change my hair description of Jack Marshall. His hair looked like the kind of hair you'd find on any man or woman across the country in 1993 and I'm not sure how it's supposed to show how anarchic he is.

Jack Marshall explains away all the morally gray aspects of what he and Toby are doing with a couple of super definitive "no"s.

The B.O.O.K.IE machines are just corporate skimmers stealing your information to make money on it and also sometimes just stealing your money and also letting you gamble so that they can sort of legally steal your money as well. So it really is the Internet. Minus the games and porn. Although the B.O.O.K.IE booth looks like a nice little masturbation way station.

Jack Marshall says the name Rubenico, the man behind the B.O.O.K.IE stations, and Booster Gold loses his mind. He explains that in the future, the Rubenico Syndicate runs half the eastern seaboard. So ATM gambling gave a man enough power to control the east coast of America for 500 years. Why didn't I read this at 22 and go into online gambling?! I should have realized that this comic book I really didn't like buying was actually a deliverer of prophetic news. Oh, Cassandra, how did I not believe?!

Oh, I know how! Booster Gold goes on to explain how the other thing that ruled America in 2462 was college football. And he was the best there ever was at it. What kind of Al Bundy shitty ass brag is that? I understand that a lot of people take college football seriously. It's just that I don't take those people seriously. If college football commands everybody's attention in five hundred years, I'll probably kill myself. Except if I'm still alive in five hundred years it will probably mean death has been eradicated and I physically wouldn't be able to kill myself so I'd have to find contentment in just sneering at all the Huskers and Huskies fans who crossed my path. "My path" meaning wherever my 500 year old sack of melting organic material has been tossed by the side of the road.

Booster Gold explains how his mother got sick and he needed money to pay for her care and since college football doesn't pay anything unless you're playing for a corrupt school system, he had to begin throwing games for the Rubenico Syndicate's gambling ring. He was eventually arrested and shamed in front of his mother. He had become addicted to money and fame and it was his downfall. Which is why he traveled back to the past to start over at earning money and fame.

Fresh off the high of changing the future for a model and her sister, Booster's ready to go whole hog and really cause a major paradox.

How come everything in Booster's future of 2462 somehow had its beginnings in 1992? Weird!

Booster still hasn't coped with his addiction to money and fame which is why he still believes that Rubenico ruined his life instead of understanding who really made the choices that led to his ruined life. He's like Jack Torrance up at the Overlook still blaming everybody else and the alcohol for his rage problem. Except Booster Gold doesn't have an out of control boiler in the basement acting as the metaphor for his lust for power and money.

Why yes, I did just recently finish a re-read of The Shining. Why do you ask?

Booster Gold's about to ruin Jack and Toby's hacker plan to bring down Rubenico by crashing straight into the currently not that corrupt home office of the corporation behind the B.O.O.K.IE machines. Blue Beetle, Fire, and Ice rush off to stop him while Guy Gardner remains behind to make sure these anarchists don't piss on the coffee table or leave rings on the toilet seat.

Here's Beetle, Fire, and Ice hustling into an elevator because I thought it looked charmingly goofy and old timey.

The goons from earlier have followed a trail of Toby's roller blade tracks and 3-D Doritos crumbs straight to Justice League Headquarters. They just happened to have brought their SCUBA gear along because everybody knows about the underwater airlock that connects to Beetle's stupid bug ship. And what luck! The Bug flies off after Booster just as the goons are ready to dive into the river! But nothing ever comes of this so forget I mentioned it. It's just page filler and another chance to humiliate Guy Gardner! I'll take no part in that!

No, ladies. It's far more likely Booster will be the cause of the future he so badly wants to change. That's just how time would have to work in a world with actual backwards time travel.

I specify backwards time travel because nobody is concerned with forward time travel. That's already how naturally do it!

Booster breaks into Rubenico's penthouse suite over his office complex intending to kill him. He only ever uses the last name because Booster doesn't even know this guy's name. He had nothing to do with the college football cheating scandal of 2462! But Booster thinks killing him will destroy the Rubenico's entire family history and save Booster Gold from ruining his past sometime in the future. There's only one major problem with his plan.

You're going to have to kill little girl Rubenico too, buddy.

Blue Beetle tells Booster Gold that everything he did in his past is his fault and everybody lives happily ever after. Except for the little girl who looks at Booster in rage and is probably thinking, "I will dedicate all of my family's lives until the Rubenicos are no more to destroy this man, this Booster Gold!" So, see? He just created his shitty future with his shitty attempt at changing the future. Too many people have Back to the Future brain.

The story ends with Guy Gardner giving Toby a thumbs up for hacking the Justice League elevator and trapping Beetle inside yelling, "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!" I don't get the 1993 or earlier reference which also makes no sense because the "crazy thing" is already stopped.

Can you tell I lost interest in this story right about the time it surpassed the length of a regular comic book? That's why I hate Annuals and Quarterlies and Specials. My attention span was molded in the flames of 24 page comic books. After that, I either need a new comic book, a snack, a nap, or six hours of video games. I definitely don't need three more short stories in the same comic book as the 38 page story! Fuck my life.

The next story stars Wally West and, I'm assuming, the human resources department of Justice League Europe.

Fucking pig.

The Flash winds up at a police convention because it's 1992, peak pro-cop era (it's the top of the mountain on a graph where the left descends back into a century of people hating cops and the right descends into hopefully a century or more of people, once again, hating cops). He's supposed to be giving a guest talk about who the fuck knows what. He's just a guy who accidentally got super powers. What does he know about policing? Is he going to give a lecture on how to beat a perp to within an inch of his life? On the best ways to obscure your body camera while you fist bump a Nazi? How to not worry about killing anybody at anytime because the District Attorney of every city is in the pocket of the police union and they'd never put a cop on trial (unless the incident was too public and then they'd be all, "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Please keep providing witnesses for my non-police involved shooting trials!")? On the way in the building, one of the cops asks him if he'll investigate a death threat against the District Attorney and instead of saying, "Fuck the District Attorney," like a good citizen, he says, "Sure, I'll check it out in the morning." Little does he know, the morning will be too late!

While on the glass elevator up to his room, he happens to witness the assassination just outside the hotel. Or starts to witness it because he lives life so quickly that it looks like everything moves at slow motion to him which would be a really difficult way to live. He sees a muzzle flash in slow motion but what can he do? He's a prisoner of real time because he's in an elevator! Not like he'd ever smash through the glass side of the elevator to save a life. A normal window? Sure! He's done that dozens of times. But this is a classy joint's glass elevator! I guess he's just going to have to watch the DA's brains splatter across the face of his cop escort in super slow motion. I wonder what it's like to vomit at super speed?

Gross. He sweats super fast too.

Flash decides not to smash through the window because he thinks it'll cut him to ribbons. He can't vibrate through the glass because he lost that power after Crisis or Zero Hour or something. So now he can just sweat and watch the guy die. At least, that's what I'd do. Wally decides to spin like a tornado and blow the glass outward so that it cuts the people below him to ribbons while he runs around the shrapnel and then shoves the DA out of the way so fast that he's killed instantly from the shock of it.

The bullet got this close. How hard and fast does Wally have to push the man for the bullet to miss him? Fatally hard, no?

There I am arguing with comic book physics again! It's especially bad since I don't even know the real world physics of something like this and Mythbusters went off the air years ago. Wally has to outrun the bullet and then push the DA out of the way while still running that fast. He'd explode right through the guy, wouldn't he? It'd be The Boys all over again!

I suppose this conundrum of The Flash interacting with regular people at supersonic speeds was the reason for all the Speed Force shit. Just a cozy explanation for why super speedsters aren't harmed by the friction caused by their speed but especially why people they carry who have no super powered defenses against it can survive a superspeed trip down the road or across the ocean. I don't know anything about "the Speed Force" because I think it was invented while I wasn't reading comic books. At least it was invented while I wasn't reading The Flash comic books and I've always not been reading The Flash!

That was the whole story. What happens if The Flash gets stuck in an elevator? We all knew the answer was going to be he smashes his way out but I guess Mark Waid had to make it seem like it was a bit tougher than that. Good job, I guess.

The 3rd story stars Fire and Ice trapped in Bestwig, a new and imaginary nation formed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, after a modeling job gone wrong. Their luggage was lost and the promoter didn't pay them so now they're stuck with no money and no clothes and no friends and no knowledge of the language of Bestwig. I know what you're thinking: "No clothes! Scan a picture, asshole!"

Well, they have almost no clothes.

I personally don't think Ice should be allowed to show so much lower belly because I have a schedule to keep this morning and I don't think I can move anything around to find time for a quick one off at the wrist.

Instead of getting the cash they need by fucking some rando like Fire almost does but realizes she'd never hear the end of it from Ice, the two sign up for a beauty contest judged by Great Old Ones where the prize is getting to fuck the Great Old Ones. They don't know that's the prize when they sign up for the contest or else Ice probably would have just let Fire fuck that rando. Ice wins but when she hears the prize, she decides she doesn't really want it. Not because she's a prude but because to mate with the Great Old Ones, a human must be shredded and ingested. So the whole thing goes Bea's tits up and Ice and Fire realize they need to figure out a new plan. I think that plan should be Fire flies them home with her ability to, you know, fly. But Fire thinks maybe the next plan is a wet t-shirt contest at a seedy bar. Unfortunately, the story ends before that can happen. Imagine how rock hard Ice's nipples would be as the water froze to her t-shirt and torso!

Hmm, maybe I can rearrange my schedule a little.

The final story stars Ted Kord on a blind date while Booster, Fire, and Wally stalk him. It's charming and fun and silly and the kind of comic book story I actually prefer. Sometimes I wonder why I read super hero comic books at all? I should simply stick to Love and Rockets and Elfquest and Box Office Poison and Strangers in Paradise and Cerebus. I much prefer the drama of daily life and complicated relationships and naked elves and jealous friends and lesbians kissing. But here I am reading hundreds and hundreds of super hero comic books. Has anybody ever thought, "I hate my life"? Is that an original thought I just had? I probably shouldn't even joke about that seeing as how I have a not-zero total of friends who have killed themselves. Sometimes it's funny to be all, "I wish I could die!" And then I think of Mark and Larry and Philip and my Uncle Dan and I get super sad. What's even sadder is that I'm probably forgetting some people!

Ted's date is super cute and she has a super fun job!

The date doesn't work out for a variety of reasons, one of which is that Ted's date's ex proposes to her at the end of it. But that's okay because Ted winds up going home with the waitress. Also Booster gets his comeuppance for being a terrible friend and spying on Ted just to make fun of him when Booster's car is totaled due to Wally smashing into it at super speed. Also Fire gets a date too. I think.

Does this mean she's happy this guy bought her drinks all night or disgusted?

Seriously, I'm really bad at signals. One time the girl I had a huge crush on in junior high passed me a note that said something about me being weird. I don't remember what I wrote on the note in response when I passed it back. But then she passed the note back and it said, "I love you anyways." And I just completely shut down and freaked out and, well, that never went anywhere. Also, I know that wasn't a signal but a blatant communication so I guess I'm terrible at all of it. Just everything that has to do with romantic shit. Surprise!

Justice League Quarterly #10 Rating: I did it! I'm through with these Quarterlies! I never have to read another 80 page comic book in my life! Um, what. The director just commented in my ear piece. Green Lantern Corps Quarterly? Are you sure?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Justice League America #67 (October 1992)

Blue Beetle quoting twelve-year-old me waking up after my first becoming-a-man dream.

Is the greatest draw of this cover the "Alien terror," Beetle digging through green cum, or Fire's heaving bosom? I find them all about equal. Although I'd be more excited if Booster Gold were looking into Blue Beetle's butthole the way he was on the cover of the Eclipso Annual. The draw for 21 year old me was probably that I thought they were spelunking through a gigantic butthole.

This issue is called "Transitions, Transmissions, and Transactions" and begins with a splash page that's going to really make for a creepy letters page in a few months.

"Yowza! My boner nearly split my chin after seeing that Fire pin-up!" -- Uncle Elvis or T.M. Maple, probably in three months

I don't yet know who's yelling, "Beatriz!", off-panel but I imagine it's Ice as she shoves four or five more sticks up her frigid ass.

Whattya know? It was Ice! She doesn't think it's appropriate for Fire to get practically naked twelve different times for a calendar. I think Ice should just shut up! She should be encouraging Fire to take off more clothes! Doesn't Fire want to sell as many calendars as possible? For 1992, taking sexy pictures in lingerie was less titillating than showing an ankle in 1890. Nobody's going to buy a calendar this tame unless October shows some taint and half a butthole.

Meanwhile, Blue Beetle is implanting a fake nipple into Booster Gold's outfit.

Blogger probably gonna censor this review due to this picture.

I recently realized one of my Catwoman reviews from The New 52 had been unlisted by Blogger for breaking the rules. Most of the time that shit happens due to automation and so I just put it back up for review and get an email saying it's been relisted. I'd been re-reading them to see why Blogger was censoring my posts but this time, knowing it's just the automated system, I sent it in for review and it was put back up almost immediately. That's when I read it and, ho boy, I'm fucking surprised it actually got reinstated! It's the issue where Ann Nocenti wrote in a dildo heist. Actual dildos (abstract, none really looking too penis-y) are drawn in the background in some panels, not to mention the double-sided diamond studded one that Catwoman uses to bribe some guard. Plus I photoshopped an actual dildo that looks like a penis into one of the panels! Blogger might have problems with automation but I think when I send a post in for review so a real person can look at it, nobody actually wants to read some nerdy comic book post so they just think, "Oh fuck. This isn't porn. It's just a virgin nerd's comic book blog. Reinstated!"

Booster's fake nipples are trackers and radio receivers so Booster Gold can keep in touch with the League and they can track him down if he gets into trouble. If I were Booster, I would have asked for a tracker that looks like a penis and had it installed in my pants. Who cares if a guy's nipples poke through his shirt? Do women like that? Is that a turn on for women? Do I have my stupid inverted nipples to blame for women not being instantly attracted to me in my tight disco shirts?

The Atom quits the League before he even joins which is one of my favorite traditions of this comic book. Some hero gets recruited or drops in and hangs around as if they're going to be a part of the team for a month or two and then they're never seen again in the pages of Justice League. Maybe with the cancellation of The Power of the Atom a few years ago, DC was trying to gauge reader's interest in the character. Pretty sure they were greeted with absolute crickets. Did DC really think somebody might send an Atom fan letter after seeing Fire nearly naked at the beginning of the comic book? All the letters for months were certainly just variations on "When is Dan Jurgens going to do an actual Girls of the DC Universe Pin-up calendar?!" You know they said "girls" rather than "women." And if the letters were sent today, they'd all say "females" instead.

Speaking of readers splooging in their undergarments over Fire's nearly naked body, here's another picture of Fire's nearly naked body.

Her new costume even comes with a string of anal beads.

I cut Ice's response out of that last panel because nobody wants to see her shoving more sticks up her ass about Fire showing some cleavage. I mean metaphorically! Obviously all most of us want is a panel of Ice shoving sticks up her ass.

Beetle and Booster pull a prank that backfires, probably so Dan Jurgens can remind people that these two are goofy assholes even if Dan has mostly forgotten. It's not worth talking about.

Fire learns that the person behind the publishing of her erotic calendars is Booster Gold and suddenly being sexually manipulated by a faceless company for some cold hard cash becomes less faceless. And the face Fire sees is one she now wants to punch. Personally, I don't get why she's mad. Because Booster will be making money off of her body? She knew somebody was making money off the pictures! Why is it any different if it's that creep Booster Gold?! Did she not realize the guy behind the empire that grew from photos of naked women is always a huge fucking creep?! People knew this in 1992, right?!

Halfway through the comic book, the Justice League gets a mission! They have to save one of NASA's space shuttles which disappeared for a bit and then reappeared in a nose dive! Booster, Beetle, Fire, and Bloodwynd need to stop it from crashing. In other words, Bloodwynd needs to stop it from crashing. Maybe Booster's force field can help somehow. But Fire and Beetle are absolutely useless in this situation. Even Ice would have been better because she could have made a huge slide like Bobby Drake always does when he needs to save crashing space planes.

The team manages to save the shuttle with Fire doing something that sort of sounds scientific and Beetle's bug humping it to a safe landing. Booster and Bloodwynd merely get the landing gear down. It's not down because there are no astronauts on board to have put it down. The only thing on board is green goo (which you'll remember from the cover). But the mystery of the missing astronauts is soon solved as another ship enters the atmosphere. This one is not one of NASA's. It's piloted by an alien who evolved to survive every fight against a cannon or a shotgun.

If I hadn't seen my own dick, I'd say this alien has the weirdest genitals I've ever seen.

Oh no! Who did this alien purchase the Sol System from?! The astronauts? Do they have the authority? Are they now rich? And will being rich mean anything to people trapped in alien fish tanks? Find out in next month's story, "Is That A Third Arm or Am I Happy to See You?"

Justice League America #67 Rating: C. I bet this was the issue where I mostly lost interest in this comic book but kept on purchasing it due to collection momentum. Beetle and Booster's "prank" was stupid and served no purpose because it didn't even do what it was supposed to do: show that these two have fun together. And who wants to read a comic book where Ice, acting like a prude, winds up having had the correct opinion about Fire's erotic photo shoot? That's not a world I want to live in! I wanted Fire to prove Ice wrong and become so rich that Ice also decided to do a naked calendar! But no! Instead we wind up with an alien invasion but the alien has receipts so it's not really an invasion but a collection and the alien either has a penis on its chest that looks like an arm or a vagina on its belly that looks like an ACME cannonball blasted through it. Also, the green goo wasn't explained. Does this alien just shit and piss all over its ship? Or does that goo leak out of the hole in its stomach? Double also, doesn't this feel like a derivative Manga Khan story?

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Bluesky

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Justice League America Annual #6 (1992)

I'm not saying Dan Jurgens shouldn't have made Booster Gold staring into Beetle's butthole but I am saying editorial should have sent the cover back with a note saying, "Can Booster Gold be looking somewhere else, please?"

This issue is called "Maximum Eclipse." I don't understand that title so much that I can't even make fun of it. Was it just that in the '90s, every piece of media was getting "Maximum" added to the title to show how super-duper exciting it was? This book isn't about your mother's eclipse! That eclipse was all minimum and shit. This eclipse is going to be as eclipsy as possible! The most eclipse ever! Like, the whole entire moon is going to be blocked by the shadow of the Earth! But even more so than usual! Just the maximum amount, baby!

You don't need special glasses to look at a lunar eclipse because you're actually looking at less sun than usual. But you probably should wear special glasses to gaze into Blue Beetle's butthole. Like the pair Booster is wearing on the cover.

Eclipso has been busy possessing some small time heroes like Valor and Hal Jordan. But he feels like his plan won't really be set in motion until he has the telepathic powers of Martian Manhunter! Ha ha! Good luck capturing him, Eclipso! He doesn't exist in the DC Universe right now because he's pretending to be Bloodwynd! And nobody knows that secret at all! I'm not even sure Dan Jurgens knows it! Although it was hinted at in the letters pages of Justice League Europe #42. Not that J'onn was Bloodwynd but that there will be a big surprise twist involving J'onn sometime in the future. And since I'm currently way in the future, I know the surprise is that J'onn is Bloodwynd!

Eclipso also wants to possess J'onn so he can do the hand jive.

Back on Earth, Guy Gardner fished his Green Lantern gear out of his apartment's incinerator because he's been rehired by the Guardians of the Universe. Probably because he's the greatest Green Lantern and not because Hal Jordan has been possessed by Eclipso. Although those two things are really kind of the same thing because you notice how Guy Gardner isn't currently possessed by Eclipso? Hal is a loser. I'm not sure why Guy didn't just keep his Warrior outfit on though. It's not like his regular Green Lantern outfit with the turtle neck and the Nazi styling and the big boots is any more regulation than his Warrior outfit. I guess he just wanted to stick it in stupid old Hal Jordan's dumb mug.

I have no idea why Guy is exclaiming, "Twinkies!"

Guy doesn't usually scream the name of Hostess products as an alternative to swearing so when he shows up to JLA headquarters and yells, "Twinkies!", it doesn't make any sense. Later he calls Bruce Gordon a "Twinkie" which I guess is supposed to explain it but why would he make it plural in the first panel he appears? Also I don't know if the blonde Twinkie is Bruce Gordon or not but I'm making an educated guess. Twinkie has come to the League to explain how they need to defeat Eclipso but he can't explain that until Superman arrives so Superman can say, "Listen to this man!" Because otherwise nobody is going to do anything on "this Twinkie's say-so."

(The quotes around that last section in that last paragraph were there to indicate that that was the phrase Guy Gardner used when he called Bruce a Twinkie. I'm only pointing that out in this parenthetical paragraph so that I don't get accused of plagiarism by Hbomberguy.)

Superman is late to the meeting because he's trying to recruit Wonder Woman to the battle. Wonder Woman says she isn't ready for a team even though she just recently teamed up with Justice League Europe. But that was in Greece to fight some mythological titans so really Justice League Europe was sidekicking for Wonder Woman. I guess she only fights Greek Gods. She has no interest in battling the God of Vengeance if it's not Nemesis. Although her disembodied head is on the cover so she might change her mind when the shit really hits the Acropolis.

After Superman leaves, some Boston cop starts shooting up a crowd and Wonder Woman gets drawn into the story.

As if a cop needs to be possessed by Eclipso to murder innocent civilians.

Wonder Woman subdues the cop so Eclipso sets him free. Then he's all, "Oh no! What happened? I didn't discharge my weapon and harm any innocent civilians, did I?!"

Yeah. Evil. As in "Boston Police Officer."

Comic books are way better than reality because this cop probably won't be charged for murdering all of those people due to being mind-controlled and not being responsible for his actions rather than if this happened in reality, the cop wouldn't be charged due to "qualified immunity" and the excuse that he feared for his safety. Why is it always the person with the gun who "feared for their safety"? It's so much easier to plead self-defense in court when you've murdered the other person and they can't testify against you! And it's obvious people with guns fear for their safety. That's why they have a gun! And it's also why they shouldn't have a gun because they're fucking scared of everything! And since their first thought is to use the gun in a conflict, they figure if the other person has a gun, they're going to use it on them! So they just start shooting like a maniac and then plead self-defense later. Regular citizens shouldn't be allowed to plead self-defense against a murder charge simply because they felt scared or threatened. And cops especially shouldn't be able to since they're supposed to be protecting citizens at the risk of their own lives! Not at the risk of all of our lives! This is why people love firemen and hate policemen. Because firemen actually do risk their lives to save people and policemen won't fucking risk a single hair on their fat mustache to save even children.

Anyway, Wonder Woman is convinced that evil must be stopped. But for some reason, she doesn't head down to the Boston Police Station and burn it to the ground. She heads off to Justice League Headquarters to join Superman and the others.

Guy's absolutely right and he'll be proven correct five thousand times over in the next few years.

When Wonder Woman shows up, all the women lose their shit. Apparently Wonder Woman is so gorgeous and upstanding and confident that every other woman in the room feels like slitting their wrists. I totally get that. I've had so many friends commit suicide over the years, I can only imagine it was due to my confidence, charm, and incredible wit. They could only look at me and think, "I'm living at such a low level compared to this master of life. Why should I even bother?"

Maxima flies off in a huff because Wonder Woman is so obviously superior to her. And while flying around angry, Starman appears and hands her a black diamond. Eclipso takes her over and realizes he never needed J'onn at all. Maxima's mind powers are equitable to J'onn's and she doesn't cower when somebody lights a cigarette.

Bloodwynd says he smells a rat and holds his nose while pointing at Metamorpho. So Metamorpho, pretending that his feelings are hurt, rushes off before people figure out what's wrong with him. Jurgens probably wants the readers to think Metamorpho is possessed but I bet Rex just can't stop thinking about all the ways Crimson Fox has fucked him in the last week and J'onn (who is Bloodwynd but also still a Martian!) is simply confused by kinky human sex acts.

Meanwhile, the Justice League has obviously still not invested in a human resources department.

Poor women of the DC Universe. Booster's from the future where men, apparently, have still never learned not to pull this shit.

The Justice League discover that some hero turned Eclipsed-villain has been attacking a nuclear waste storage facility when Max Lord calls them to turn on CNN. You'd think the Justice League would have some means of learning about villains attacking places that would be more prompt than sitting in front of a 24-hour news channel. But what do I know?! I'm not a comic book writer! I don't get how any of this shit works. Although most comic book writers have no idea either which is why the heroes are usually battling some villain who is attacking them directly. It's easier than coming up with some system to have the heroes know when shit is about to go down or has just begun to go down.

Redouble their efforts? Is math different on Krypton? Can you actually double zero there?

Bloodwynd flies off with the rest of the League to stop a future radioactive disaster while Beetle and Bruce Gordon remain behind to create flashlights. That means Metamorpho is safe to return without Bloodwynd being all, "The dead tell me you are a traitor!" Bruce Gordon rushes off too to do something mysterious leaving Blue Beetle not full of suspicion at all. Was it a big mystery in 1992 that Bruce Gordon was the main human host for Eclipso? Could he be working for him still?!

Maxima turns out to be the culprit blasting containers full of spent fuel rods. Weird that she would go after nuclear waste when there are so many actual nuclear power reactors all across the world. It's like Eclipso is just toying with the League! Guy Gardner and Superman collect a bunch of radioactive rubble and fly it out into space where it will be "harmless." Why doesn't Superman do this on a monthly basis? Just fly all the radioactive waste out to Uranus and toss it in? That wouldn't cause any trouble, right? Fucking around with Earth's environment can cause long-lasting problems but not fucking around with Uranus's! Who cares what happens to that planet, right?!

Back at Justice League headquarters, Eclipso himself attacks Blue Beetle! "What?! How did that happen?!" the readers of 1992 were wondering. Maybe that's why Bloodwynd had to voice his suspicions of Metamorpho. So that it wasn't so obvious that Bruce Gordon was Eclipso! Readers would be all, "Bloodwynd was right! Metamorpho was up to something!" Even if Bruce Gordon suddenly going, "Um, uh, I forgot I needed to do a thing!", wasn't the most suspicious part of the whole comic book. Although maybe that's the red herring! Because long time DC Comics readers would know Bruce Gordon was Eclipso. And DC doesn't like making their big event twists easy to guess! So much so that they'll change their entire plotted event at the last minute so that it doesn't make any sense. Imagine, Hawk was Monarch! Ha ha! So dumb!

Blue Beetle causes an explosion as he tries to contain Eclipso and that's when the first big twist takes place!

What is going on?! I'm so confused by this twist! Maybe Bruce Gordon really did have diarrhea!

If only Bloodwynd didn't have to appear so mysterious so his cover isn't blown, this could easily have been avoided! And I wouldn't be so confused!

Maxima tries to take control of Wonder Woman but that only works for a few minutes before Superman outwits her. Then everybody beats the shit out of her until she's unconscious and safe to transport back to headquarters where Blue Beetle can shine his flashlight on her. Except they don't realize Beetle's flashlight has been turned into slag! And Beetle's about to be!

Oh, um, also, Maxima doesn't stay out for long. The fight starts all over again and then Fire does this thing with her butt that, um, well, take a look for yourself!

Maxima isn't the only thing about to be beaten!

Maxima flies off while everybody is distracted by Fire's ass. And Beetle manages to defeat Eclipso by bluffing that all the lights were somehow going to start blasting solar energy into the building because they were running on Beetle's bug's solar charger. Except that's not how solar power works. Good thing Eclipso is just a big dumb old God who doesn't know anything about technology and science. When Eclipso flies away, he turns back into Starman whose body he was using. I guess Starman has shape-changing abilities?

Before the rest of the League return to find the headquarters in shambles, Blue Beetle does one of those cinematic movie mystery things where somebody approaches him from behind and he's all, "Oh, it's you!" Then he's blasted by a flash of light and kidnapped! Was it Rex? Was it Bruce?! Was it Eclipso himself?! I may never know because who knows where my Eclipso: The Darkness Within comic books are stored! Stupid past me deciding to organize the annuals by title instead of by event! What was I thinking?!

I bet Blue Beetle was "recruited" by Bruce Gordon to assault Eclipso's base/prison on the dark side of the moon. That might be my memory being useful or it might just be my insightful comic book reading abilities! And it could also be wrong so, you know, shut up.

The issue ends with Maxima taken, Blue Beetle missing, and Eclipso sitting on his throne pretending he's doing a good job taking over the world. I mean, a powerless guy in a stupid costume just beat one of his most powerful henchmen but I can see how, if I were a narcissistic loon, I'd convince myself I was doing a good job too. The next part of the story takes place in The Demon annual! I would have had that one even if I hadn't purchased all the Eclipso annuals! Too bad I don't have my comic book boxes organized in any coherent way or I'd dig it out and read it.

Justice League America Annual #6 Rating: B Tier. That wasn't too bad for an annual! Even the art was okay which surprises me because I first began reading Justice League Europe Annual #3 and let me tell you: the art in that is horrific! It was as if I just solved a weird cube puzzle and my eyes turned into a home for horny worms. That's something Clive Barker would have written, right? Maybe DC actually tried to put a little more effort into these event annuals than the tiny amount of effort they used to put into regular annuals. Why did annuals have to be twice as long but also four times as boring and eight times as ugly? It's like some kind of fourth dimensional equation. Have annuals gotten better over the years? I don't really remember any when I was reading The New 52. But then maybe that's because DC kept doing annual September events in lieu of annuals. Those were sort of the same thing in that they often didn't really have much to do with actual continuity while at the same time pretending that they were some crazy, can't-miss event tied in to every single title. Why do we comic book fans always fall for that shit?!

Comic Book & Other Media Reviews Mason & Dixon. One Line at a Time.
Against the Day. One Line at a Time.
Text Adventure Reviews
Bluesky

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 Europe #22 (January 1991)

I stole this comic book, just in case.

DC: "Here's a cover with a man putting a gun to a cat's head and threatening to blow its brains out if fans buy the comic book!"
Comics Code Authority: "Approved! Good, traditional, old-fashioned entertainment that everybody can enjoy!"

Fuck the people who think everybody needs their individual approval to live and act a certain way, especially when their "approval" accepts threatening the lives of cats! What the fuck, Comics Code?! I mean, sure, I know nobody is going to harm an actual cat and almost certainly nobody is going to harm even a fictional cat! But that's my point about how useless the Comics Code Authority is! It's a fucking comic book, assholes! If you think it needs to be regulated because you don't want kids seeing disturbing things than you also can't "approve" of a cover where a man has a gun shoved inside a cat's ear and promising to kill the cat if somebody buys the comic book! You're making the reader complicit in violence! I bet the original cover showed the cat's asshole in exquisite detail but the Comics Code Authority was all, "Unh-uh! No way, José! Take it out!" (Also you know they pronounced the "J" in José.)

95% of angry Twitter is just people upset that other people are enjoying their life in a way that they don't think those people should be enjoying their lives. How about spending that time enjoying your life and stop bothering everybody who isn't bothering you at all? Is it because the life you signed up for isn't any fun? Is it because all the things you want to do are frowned upon by other people in your tribe and your pretend God? Why think, "If I can't live that way, nobody should be able to live that way?" Instead think, "Other people are living their lives the way they want, why shouldn't I?!" Free yourselves from your mental shackles, you uptight prigs! Get out there and enjoy yourselves! Unless what you enjoy is pedophilia. Then maybe just keep being angry at the world. Just maybe stop projecting your disgusting desires on everybody else and making YouTube videos explaining how everybody is into pedophilia but you can't explain exactly how you know this (being that "how you know it" is that you're projecting your own terrible desires on everybody else) and instead need to make up insane proofs like the names of wardrobes sold online or the kinds of toppings mentioned on a pizza menu.

Take a look at that cover I scanned one more time. Don't look at the art. Look at the edges. This might be the wonkiest cut comic book that I own. That scan was with the top of the comic book level with the edge of the scanner and the bottom corner shifts at least a quarter of an inch! Maybe I should have stolen a better copy!

Oh! I forgot Gerard Jones wrote this comic book when I mentioned the pedophilia! Ha ha! What a coincidence!

This issue is called "Catnap" because, as we all saw by the cover, Kara's cat is going to be kidnapped and held for ransom. Except we've all read this story (probably even before this comic was published in 1991) where somebody kidnaps somebody, usually a kid, and the victim winds up being way more trouble than the ransom is worth so the kidnappers eventually admit defeat and return the victim, sometimes even paying to make sure the victim is taken back. And being that nobody likes this fucking cat, why would anybody pay a ransom for it?

Okay, Power Girl likes the cat. But that just means the kidnappers are in even bigger trouble because in Kara's hierarchy of actions, Kara punches first, explodes her vagina second, and "paying the ransom" never shows up on her list ever!

The two British guys who stole the cat (still unnamed, I think?) lounge around imagining how many crisps and lagers they're going to buy with their windfall when suddenly they hear a crash from the back room where they've stashed the cat.

I'm sorry. I can't believe two British guys are fans of the Grateful Dead. I also don't believe fans of the Grateful Dead would kidnap a cat.

The closest I ever came to seeing the Dead was this time they were playing at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, and I stopped by the parking lot to score some LSD. At the time, I didn't understand the concept of a miracle in relation to the Dead so when I saw people walking around with their fingers in a peace sign, I knew it must have been some sort of signal and began doing the same thing! I thought the signal meant, "I need LSD," but it actually meant, "I need tickets to the show." Nobody approached me either way. I eventually noticed two people obviously involved in a drug transaction behind a tent and I walked right up to them, pulled out my money, and asked, "Can I get some acid?" The guy selling really didn't know what to think with this bold maneuver but since I didn't look like a cop, he sold me a couple of hits. I think that's the only time in my life I ever personally bought drugs! At least from a stranger! An ex's sister sold LSD for a bit and I definitely purchased from her.

Kara flips the fuck out when she discovers her cat is being ransomed. Most every other member of the Justice League couldn't give a shit but Rocket Red's son seems concerned so now he's my second favorite member of Justice League Europe (right after Kara, of course. Cat lovers unite!). The two catnappers, oblivious to their imminent beatdowns, consider their next options in garnering the ransom money.

"Why would they even want the cat back?" is a terrible realization to have this deep into your criminal activity.

This story is a good lesson in sunk costs. One of the catnappers is all, "Why don't we just give the cat back? This is getting out of hand!" And the main catnapper is all, "I've already received a broken arm and all of my possessions were destroyed and my room is covered in hairballs. I'm not giving up now!" Those things have already been paid for in the past. He shouldn't be considering them as part of the overall payoff! What he should be thinking is, "Within how many inches of my life will Power Girl beat the shit out of me?" Maybe I'm thinking about this too much like an American! Thanks to the NHS, his broken arm hasn't cost him anything, really! And getting beaten nearly to death also won't cost him anything! So all he sees are pound signs in his eyes from the ransom, even if he has to enjoy it from a hospital bed drinking out of a straw and shitting in a bag taped to his belly. Also, I know he's in a story and he doesn't! So for him, this story can totally work out in his benefit. But I know who the real heroes are and the demeanor of the cat and the violent temper of the heroine, so I see exactly what's about to happen to this poor bloke. Maybe I should be less cynical and try to read my comic books with a fresh and naive perspective. Like when I first read Pet Sematary and only realized Gage was going to die when the family was having the best day ever on a picnic so, so close to the highway.

I would like to point out that I was pretty young when I first read Pet Sematary and not a thirty-four year old who still didn't understand how stories work.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bigger, the guy who wanted Tortolini's notes on the Justice League, takes an interest in the catnapping story. He seems to be running a Super Villain Help Line where villains call in to find information about heroes in their area and how to best avoid them or defeat them. Mr. Bigger seems to think there's an opportunity for his organization in this pet scandal. Maybe he wants to ransom the cat for extra information about the Justice League which he can use for his 1-900 number that all the terrible C-list super villains are using! Well, he's only mentioned Clue Master so far. But he's firmly a C-list character in 1991 so that's enough evidence for me! I don't see Eclipso or Amazo or Starro or any of the other villains whose name ends with an "o" calling! Oh, Despero!

Power Girl insists that Catherine bother Batman about this mystery and Batman, upon learning it is a cat that needs rescuing, hangs up on Catherine. What the fuck is wrong with that asshole?! Would he not spend every resource to save Ace? Or Bat-Cow?! Or Jason Todd?! Doesn't he understand that the most heroic thing a hero can do, so much so that it's the name of the trope, is to rescue a fucking cat?! I always wondered why I hated Batman so much and I bet this comic book was the origin story for that hate! Help save the fucking cat, you piece of shit! You know, if Catwoman hears about this, you're never getting the finger in the butthole as you come treatment ever again!

Okay, fine, I've reconsidered and there's ample evidence that Batman did not use every resource at his disposal to save Jason Todd. But you can't really blame him for that! What control does Batman have over the DC readers, especially that one guy who called hundreds of times to vote "Yes, please, please, please kill Robin"?

What the fuck is Catherine on about?!

Does Catherine think the months are different in the southern hemisphere just because the seasons are flipped?! Or should I say, "Does Gerard Jones think that?!" People like to say they're happy with whatever their kids are reading just as long as they're reading but fuck that nonsense. If everything I learned about the world, I learned from DC Comics, I'd be the biggest fucking dolt on the Internet.

Hey! I heard that! Fuck you!

Mr. Bigger discovers the location of the cat and sends his men to break in, tranquilize the cat, and pay the catnappers 16,000 quid. While that isn't what I predicted would happen at the start, they were ready to just surrender the cat back to the Justice League. They even went so far as to call a local tabloid station to arrange a drop-off, which Crimson Fox, being super powerful in the publishing world, learned about before the television media. So now Mr. Bigger has the cat, the catnappers have their ransom, and the Justice League are off to beat the shit out of whoever drops off a cat at the local tabloid's offices.

Mr. Bigger's plan is to implant a camera and microphone into the eye of the cat so that it can be returned and they can learn all of the Justice League's secrets and also spy on Power Girl changing. Now that live feed would really make Mr. Bigger some cash! If, you know, there was any real semblance of the Internet in 1991. And, um, also if it wasn't a totally gross and problematic idea! Although even if they did have a live stream fed from out of the cat's eye to spy on Power Girl showering and changing, most members would probably lose their boners when the cat stopped watching Power Girl and started licking its butthole. Notice I said "most members"! You know some people would pay premium for that.

Mr. Bigger has the two catnappers drop off the cat so, of course, Power Girl catches them and beats the shit out of them. But they still made their 16,000 pounds! And with the NHS taking care of their bodily injuries for free, they've come out ahead! I guess criminals are sometimes successful, even in a Comics Code Authority approved comic book! Which I think is against their Code so what the fuck, Comics Code Authority?! I'm pretty sure they were just phoning it in by the mid-80s, let alone 1991. Not that I give a shit! Fuck the Comics Code Authority! Just more bullshit where people give in to a minority of thought police simply to keep from having to sit through any more congressional trials about the state of today's youth!

Justice League Europe #22 Rating: B. This issue didn't have the Justice League saving anybody at all but at least it set some future plots into motion with the whole Mr. Bigger and his 1-900 superhero information hotline story and the cat with the camera eye. I'm mostly surprised that the cat doesn't have a name yet. How lazy are these writers?! I think Power Girl was considering names a few issues ago but if she settled on one, I'm sure it would have been used at some point in this issue. Usually my favorite part of any issue is a really nice butt shot of Sue Dibny or Crimson Fox but this time my favorite part was where Catherine thinks the southern hemisphere does months differently. She's so fucking dumb.

Justice League America #46 (January 1991)

Guy Gardner is so into this comic book that he's giving it oral.

"Virtue signaling" is the dumbest phrase thought up by the dumbest people in the world. A bunch of sociopaths needed a way to express how they don't believe other people can feel empathy or compassion. They don't believe it because they don't feel those things themselves. Therefore those things, they believe, don't exist. So if somebody shows compassion for another human being because we live in a communal society and the only way for that kind of society to be successful is if we take care of our most vulnerable members, they think, "Nobody actually feels compassion so that liar just wants other people to believe they feel those things for clout." It's the same thing that's happening when a Christian wonders how an atheist knows right from wrong without being told. The atheist knows because they can feel empathy and compassion. You don't need The Bible to tell you how to behave in a community unless you're a sociopath. The biggest sociopath I ever knew was a Catholic and a Republican and he ended every debate with me with "Where's your faith, Tess?" As if "faith" were somehow some virtuous attribute and not just a means to control other people (like "loyalty").

I bring this up because Guy Gardner is reading a patriotic comic book. What "virtue signaling" actually is is just outward expressions to impress the tribe you feel you are a part of or want to be included in. Anybody who endured teenage educational systems understands "virtue signaling." While not all outward expressions are "virtue signaling" (most are just expressions of your inner self, and celebrations of the things you actually love), many wind up being that. And the people most involved in "virtue signaling" are those who want to belong to tribes who most closely control your thoughts, beliefs, and desires. American conservatives are the biggest virtue signalers of all. They expect members to be super patriotic which causes them to fly as many flags as possible. They have to express pro-military stances. They must treat the national anthem as a religious rite. They must constantly voice their discontent for anything and everything their tribe has deemed liberal or woke. They must express their belief in and love of God as often as possible because it's expected of them, even if they're not even close to righteous or God-fearing. They will be kicked out of their tribe the moment they express any view that might be contrary to the tribe's philosophy. They often complain about cancel culture but they are the first to cancel anybody or anything who voices an opinion contrary to their view of reality.

One of conservatives biggest complaints is people online putting pronouns into their social media bios. They'll call that virtue signaling when it's actually just a useful tool. We are people interacting online! Why should anybody know the gender of anybody else? It's helpful to be all, "Yeah, just use he/him for me since my name is ValorousChipmunk88 and there's no way you'd know my gender if I didn't mention it." And, yes, it helps normalize a world in which we accept people for who they say they are instead of forcing our beliefs onto them. But conservatives see any suggestion to be helpful toward the community as a whole, or to be more inclusive in general, as an authoritarian move equal to, as they too often say, being labeled and put in a concentration camp. How dare anybody suggest they do take any action they weren't already going to take?! All of what I've just written would be seen, by them, as virtue signaling to increase clout rather than logical and rational facts about the world based on lived experience and observation. They're so deep in their delusional reality that they don't even believe mirrors exist so how can they ever get a really good look at themselves (that's a metaphor for looking inward!).

Imagine being such a touchy cuck that you can't even drink your favorite pisswater beer because they made one can with a rainbow on it. Hell, imagine being unable to enjoy rainbows, God's actual covenant with man to never again destroy them by flood, because it represents gay pride in certain circumstances. If it's virtue signaling to wear a rainbow shirt then what would you call it when you make a Tik Tok video in the middle of Walmart raging at rainbows on kid's shirts to the point that the teenage employees have to call the police on you? I know which one sounds more like virtue signaling to me! But then I'm just a guy with Trump Derangement Syndrome, if you listen to some idiotic comments on past posts.

I know I've already gone on quite a bit without talking about the comic book I'm ostensibly supposed to be talking about but now that I've mentioned Trump Derangement Syndrome, maybe I should say something about that too! American conservatives (and probably other foreign ones but I'm American so let me talk about the psychos I know) need to put derogatory, all-encompassing labels on people who see things for what they are and speak them plainly and rationally because they refuse to see those things rationally. Anybody who believes Trump is intelligent or a good leader or not a con man are the ones viewing reality through a distorting lens. Any person without right or left bias (if that even exists in the sense that the right has politicized any opinion at all, mostly to maintain their belief that people who want a better world simply say those things to appear a certain way rather than, you know, actually wanting a better world) who was forced to view Trump speak about anything would immediately determine he was a fucking idiot with language skills on par with a seventh grader. So the people with a "syndrome" are those who somehow see Trump as some charismatic genius who only speaks the truth. The problem with American conservatives is the same problem with people who believe in an afterlife: they'll never know they're wrong because they can't see past their own need to believe the things that justify their desires and the way they live their lives.

Okay, sorry, I'll get back to this woke comic book now. I'm assuming it's woke because it's about General Glory, a comic book character who beat the shit out of Adolf Hitler.

The issue begins with an old German man trying to murder an old American man.

Being the online Brainiac that I am who has achieved nothing but still points out his huge IQ test score from kindergarten, my speculation is that the old man is General Glory. No, no! I don't need laurels and ticker tape parades to celebrate my ability to comprehend the simplest of narratives! My father's love, which I assume I have although I don't talk to him anymore because conversations with him were intolerable, is all I need! Re-reading that previous sentence makes me think maybe I don't even need that! Am I free from the desperate need to make my father proud of me?! No, wait. I just remembered I never had that which is almost certainly why I'm such a slacker!

I don't know who the old guy is trying to kill old General Glory (even though he said his name. Knowing somebody's name doesn't mean you know who they are, you know?) but I'm really hoping it's Adolf Hitler using an alias! Oh no! I just typed out "Adolf Hitler" in my blog! The automated security systems might flag this review with a warning! I've already had about thirty old reviews flagged recently for containing the phrases "hand job," "blow job," and "glory hole"! Oops! Now when this review gets flagged, I won't be able to blame it on typing "Adolf Hitler"!

The one time I received a warning on Facebook and had a status update flagged was when I posted a quote by Adolf Hitler. I posted it for two reasons. The first reason was that I found the quote at the end of a Vision and the Scarlet Witch comic book from the 80s. Which was fucking weird because it wasn't used ironically or in a way to show how terrible Hitler was! The quote was used, I think, to explain how awesome comic books are! The second reason I posted it was because it summed up meme culture. It was Adolf Hitler pointing out how memes are the best way to manufacture propaganda and to capture the minds of the dimwit masses. So the quote just seemed perfect because rightwing idiots online pretty much gather all of their information and debate points through memes. My point was rightwing idiots are falling for the Adolf Hitler playbook! And Facebook was all, "Nope! You're going to get banned for this post!" Sort of a weird thing to ban somebody over if you don't want people thinking you're sympathetic to Nazis and Adolf Hitler!

"Dear Facebook: I am writing this criticism of the right-wing online playbook by showing that it's exactly the same as the way Adolf Hitler used propaganda to manipulate the masses and 'other' his enemies. It's an apt and intriguing viewpoint."

"Dear Tess: You have been warned. Do not ever post this kind of terrible argument. Are you against free speech?"

Anyway, that's why I only use Facebook to ostracize my conservative friends and family and to remember the hilarious things I said on that date from every year in the past. The "Memories" feature is the only good part of Facebook because I'm the only one of my friends who makes Facebook fun!

Oh shit. I forgot I was reading a comic book! This comic book review site is terrible! Might I recommend the Weird Science Comic Book Review Blog? It's even worse but at least they stick to talking about comic books!

General Glory pulls a Ghost World so that he doesn't hurt any more friends and family.

Speaking of Ghost World and Facebook, one of my status messages for which I didn't get nearly banned went like this: "My only regret when I die will be never wandering away from my home town on a mystery bus, leaving everything in the past forever." My best friend from high school Paul replied, "Didn't you do just that in your Volkswagen bus?" This revelation that I actually had pulled an Enid without realizing it myself was a moment of pure joy! Yes, I know the ending of Ghost World isn't supposed to be uplifting but then we're all made differently, aren't we? And while I didn't use public transportation to disappear into the urban wilds, I did hop on a bus and leave my hometown forever on a cross-country journey in my VW. Thanks for seeing that, Paul!

According to that panel where General Glory is lighting out for the territories, he must need a special phrase to transform into General Glory. But he's so old that he's forgotten it. This is why you should always write down your passwords and keep them somewhere safe! Like page 113 of Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein. I mean somewhere else that I just made up and didn't pull from my life! I don't even know who Gertrude Stein is or how to count to 113!

Max Lord heads to Russia to oversee the changing of the guard at the Moscow Embassy because the world was changing like crazy in 1990! Russians are finally able to freely listen to more Western music than just Billy Joel! Great times for the Russian people! Although terrible times for Billy Joel. The failure of the U.S.S.R. was the beginning of the end for him! Although he probably still had his fans working on fishing boats. "Did you hear the new Billy Joel song?! He mentioned the Beaufort Scale! I screamed my fucking head off!"

While Max is away, J'onn sits in his room eating Oreos while Guy Gardner makes plans to sexually harass a television news anchor.

If DC doesn't want me absolutely thinking it's canon that Guy Gardner was checking out this woman's nipples, maybe they should think twice about their scripts and what will happen to certain words due to smudgy ink on newsprint.

Apparently there was an old rule to never use the word "flick" or to name a character "Clint" but then comic book publishers got cocky and were all, "The printing process is way better now! Use whatever words you want!" But the printing process never really got better until Baxter paper but then Baxter paper was ultimately shit and now comics are printed on something else that mostly doesn't turn "flick" into "fuck" and "Clint" into "cunt." I suppose using fonts that don't simply use all capital letters would help but comic book companies seem to avoid that for other reasons that I can't be bothered to look up. Probably readability or something.

It's also possible whoever created Hawkeye just thought, "I hate this character. I am naming him Clint so that nobody ever dares use him after this."

Guy Gardner learns that the 1942 comic book General Glory #1 is being auctioned off, the only extant copy! It's projected to sell for ten thousand dollars! We know, being there is only one copy, that the issue is rare and it's from 1942. That means the $10,000 price tag means it's an unpopular comic book that nobody fucking cares about. Except, of course, Guy Gardner!

Old Man General Glory also wants to get his hands on the issue because it contains the magic words needed to transform himself. Oh, now I see why the rarity and price seem to have nothing to do with each other. The comic has to be the only extant copy left so it's the only way General Glory can get the magic words. But that also means it has to be at a reasonable auction price so he (and all his rivals) can potentially get their hands on it. If the comic sold for millions, this whole situation would just be too ludicrous to believe!

The auction takes place at a comic convention so that the Giffen and DeMatteis can make fun of comic book nerds through Guy Gardner's voice. At least at first. Guy begins to come around to loving these dorks because he realizes that he was one of those young dorks once, finding an escape and joy in comic books when his home and school life were terrible. But that only lasts until some kid gives him a comic book reminder of a past humiliation.

This counts as a Lobo appearance.

An announcement that the auction is going to begin causes Guy Gardner and General Glory (Oh! GGs! Like me: Grunion Guy! (That's my real fake name! Tess is just what some people call me even though the name of the website is all about the phonetic sounds and not about a real person named Tess drinking redundant tea!)) to bump into each other. They exchange pleasantries in that way that Guy Gardner exchanges pleasantries which means Guy treats his hero like shit.

Hey General, I wouldn't be making light of other people's haircuts when you're sporting the "hair island".

The bidding begins for "the rarest comic book in existence" and Guy bids ten dollars and an ass beating for anybody who bids against him. The only person who challenges him is General Glory himself! The old man forces Guy to buy the comic book for five thousand dollars so at least that's some justice for whoever was selling the rarest comic book in existence that should have garnered a full ten thousand dollars! The Nazi attacks the auction after Guy gets his comic book but fails, disappearing into the crowd before Guy can kill him.

Later, the old man follows Guy back to the JLA Embassy and offers to give Guy five thousand dollars to get a glimpse of the comic book. Guy relents and General Glory finds the stupid patriotic saying that turns him into General Glory.

Totally unrealistic. After all those years as an old man and suddenly finding myself young again, I'd definitely have a major boner trying to bust out of that spandex.

Justice League America #46 Rating: B-. Why the fuck should I care about some old geezer superhero that was just invented by Giffen and DeMatteis in this issue?! I don't even give a shit about the Justice Society of America and they're characters with a long history in the DC Universe. It's surprising because I'm fifty and you'd think I'd really be into geriatric super heroes by now! I was probably more into the Justice Society of America when I was five except I wasn't reading comics when I was five. I was too busy hanging out with my super old neighbors or watching any movie starring Art Carney or Scatman Crothers! I totally had an old man fetish when I was a little tyke. I'm pretty lucky none of them were total pervs!

One thing I hate re-reading these old Giffen/DeMatteis Guy Gardner stories is the way they characterize him. I get if they want to make him arrogant and abrasive and intimidating. But why make him amount to little more than a petty super villain? For a guy (Guy!) who was actually chosen by the Guardians of the Universe to be a space cop, meaning he has an inherent goodness to keep justice in the world, he's portrayed as nothing more than a person who doesn't give a shit what kinds of laws he breaks as long as he's satisfying his own desires. Why would Guy Gardner basically try to steal through intimidation a rare comic book he wanted? And why would he manhandle an old man who is just as interested in General Glory as he is? Giffen and DeMatteis take the joke that Guy is an asshole too far. He is a Green Lantern! At the very least, Guy should be just and lawful within the parameters of being an arrogant jerk. Is that too much to ask?!