Justice League International #51 (June 1993)

This looks shit, mate.

I don't want to hurt Ron Randall's feelings by defecating, eating my defecation, and then vomiting it back up all over this cover because I've been absolutely satisfied with most of his work on Justice League Europe.. But this cover looks like something some pizza farting weirdo incel would back on Kickstarter after listening to 13 hours of Ethan Van Sciver YouTube rants. I know, I know. It's not that bad and it isn't chock full of half-naked women with watermelon-sized breasts or a cybernetic frog. But it does look like Ron spent about two hours on it while hopped up on Vicodin and Red Bull. The coloring is flat (which might not be his problem but that doesn't change my critique. It just shifts it over to Gene D'Angelo or somebody), the characters all posed roughly the same way (arms out, stumbling down stairs) and the grimaces have caused me to flash back to staring at the New Comics rack in my local comic books store circa the early '90s. I guess this comic was from the early '90s but reading this series didn't mean I wanted to be reminded of existing in that place and time. It just feels so amateurish. Which would be a great excuse for why this was the final Justice League Europe comic I ever bought. But I can't use that excuse. I'm sure 21 year old me would have felt this cover was exciting. My reason for dropping the series was probably way more pathetic, like the change in title, or Crimson Fox's new outfit, or I'd had all I could stand of Hal Jordan, or I was spending more and more of my comic book money on Vertigo books. I say probably because I can't remember any of the dumb shit I was thinking at 21, except maybe, "I want to fuck Lobo so hard."

Whatever the reasons, Justice League International #51 was the end of the road for me and the European crew. Hopefully the reason was that I was getting laid regularly by this point in my life and just forgot all about picking up this book, especially with the name change. I kept picking up Justice League America for about another ten months which really boggles my mind. Why one and not the other? If I were offered the opportunity to time travel right now, I just might waste it on going back and asking my younger self why he stopped picking up this title. Except that might cause some kind of catastrophic paradox where younger me would be all, "What? Oh! I just forgot about it! I'd better go get the issues I missed and keep buying it!" Then I'd return to the present with even more shitty Justice League International books added to my re-read stack. Good thing time travel doesn't exist! I just dodged that bullet and also the bullet where I'd cause a paradox by having sex with my grandmother.

This issue begins with Sue Dibny being just as adorkable as usual. That's adorable while also being a complete dork. The definition of dork is "somebody who wears a nerdy hat." The definition of adorable is "somebody who can pull off wearing a nerdy hat." You usually see the first definition all over the place at Magic the Gathering tournaments but you never, ever see the second one there.

As far as Disneyland rides go, this isn't the worst.

The worst Disneyland ride is obviously the Teacups. Pointless and vomit inducing. I'd rather fly in the tiny Dumbo cars or listen to the foreign children sing happily. As a kid of the '70s, those were your main choices, along with the dark rides like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Peter Pan, and Alice in Wonderland. That's because your parents weren't about to spend their hard earned cash on an E Ticket for you when you were probably too small to go on any roller coasters anyway. Those fucking teacups, man. How many times did I get hornswoggled into going in those when I would have been more than happy to go to Hell with Mr. Toad again.

Justice League International aren't actually in Disney if you actually thought that I was being serious for one actual minute, actually. They're in Xochimilco, Mexico, for some kind of international security summit but they seem to be mostly doing tourist stuff. Sue decided to go on the "Get Pulled Under the Water by a Bunch of Ancient Aztec Ghosts" boat ride. I like how annoyed the woman next to Sue looks. "Can't that nerd get kidnapped by ancient underwater zombies a little more quieter? I'm trying to have a romantic boat ride here!"

Ralph freaks out for a few pages wondering where Sue is before he finds a ransom letter back in the hotel room. To get Sue back, Justice League Europe must go to a specified location. That's about it. So the plan is for Justice League Europe to head into Sue's kidnapper's trap while the members of Justice League International hang back and scope out the situation. That's Maya, Tasmanian Devil, and probably Metamorpho. The location turns out to be some modern ancient pyramids full of half-naked dudes in loin cloths.

Sue's cell structure was modified to interact with her cell's structure.

Sue has lost her cute little hat and Power Girl is wearing a thermal underneath her outfit. In the jungle! Maybe it's a sign of the trauma she's experiencing from her intimate encounter with Hal Jordan. He forgot they fucked because he had amnesia when they fucked which is totally how amnesia works. So she's trying to cover up as much as possible, feeling insecure and used. Or the colorist just fucked up.

The person who kidnapped Sue claims to be Montezuma the 189th. Do you think Gerard Jones did the generational math on that? I was ready to believe it but then I looked up Montezuma II and when he ruled and it was the 16th Century! How the fuck do you get 187 more generations in about 500 years? That's fucking crazy, man. The Justice League should have smelled a rat immediately! Instead, they take him at his word that he's trying to peacefully and politically return Mexico to the Aztec people. But his guards are off sneaking about and discussing how Montezuma is actually up to no good! Ralph is the guy who solves mysteries so let's hope he's all, "Wait. The 189th Montezuma? How the fuck does that math work?!"

Little do the guards know that they're revealing all of their plans right in front of Metamorpho who was pretending to be a wall with a big dumb face on it. Rex decides that's enough sneaking about even if it puts Sue in harm's way because Montezuma the 189th's plan is to nuke Mexico City. I don't know how nuking Mexico City will bring back the old Aztec Gods but then I grew up areligious. I don't understand how any of that shit works. Aside from that none of it actually does work. Montezuma the 189th is just another deluded fool who believes faith is actually some kind of righteous attribute rather than a tool to manipulate and control.

The team begin to scour the city looking for where the nuclear bomb is hidden before it goes off. They decide it's probably been planted in a building that symbolizes the European conquest of the region and begin splitting up to search various sites that match that description. Although they forgot the site that Maya mentioned earlier out of the blue, interrupting Ralph just to point it out. I was wondering why the fuck she did that! It's like a thriller where they introduce the killer sometime in the first half of the movie but just in passing so you don't really notice him but later, when he's revealed, the writer and director can be all, "We played fair! The killer was part of the cast, see?!"

Later when they're discussing where the bomb might be, this church is just sitting there like a non-red herring in the background stinking up the narrative.


"Do you think we should have listened to that nonsense Maya and Ralph were discussing earlier? Nah! Fuck those jerks!"

Dropping clues like this was the kind of thing DC's writers did in that 12 issue Maxi-series, DC Challenge, where a new creative team took over the story after each issue and was supposed to continue the story and follow the clues left by previous writers. But they never did figure them out from month to month. I remember one clue was a number 517713 173 which flipped and turned into letters was Eli Ellis, exposing some guy as the culprit or something. The clue was so obvious that even I noticed it! Just like I noticed this church clue! So while it seems hilariously obvious, it's actually pretty good, based on how terrible DC's writers are at figuring shit out. I know nobody had to "figure out" Jones and Jacobs' clues! I was just pointing out that it reminded me of DC Challenge.

Ralph, Taz, and Maya find Sue and carry her out in her cell which they can't open because its structure is tied to her cell structure. Rex figures out the clue and tells the others that the bomb is probably hidden in the church. Wally finds it and Tasmanian Devil risks everybody's life by convincing them he knows how to deal with it when he really just guesses at defusing it. That means that in an infinite amount of parallel universes minus one (this one), the nuclear bomb blows up the Justice League and Mexico City. Good work, Justice League!

At the celebration later, Kara, who has been getting sick regularly, gets sick smelling food. So I guess she's pregnant with Hal Jordan and/or Arthur Curry's baby/babies. Everybody also learns that they have more countries to visit to let everybody across the world know Justice League International is in business. And since these Aztecs weren't really Aztecs but some highly technological gang, probably Intergang, that means the Justice League will be facing more threats all over the world. But luckily I don't have to read about those threats because this is my final issue of Justice League Europe! Yay!

Justice League International #51 Rating: C. So this is what it feels like to read a comic book story that begins and concludes in one issue. Yes, I know that it technically has more parts to this story as Intergang (or whomever) fuck with the Justice League all across the world. But in this one, they went to Mexico, Sue got kidnapped, they found her, they were threatened as a distracting ploy, they stopped the real plot, and they all had a nice dinner in celebration. That feeling, the one of reading a complete story, was not a good one. Every bit seemed too contrived or rushed. And what was with the veneer of an Aztec plot wallpapered over some plot about high-tech baddies trying to blow up Mexico City for no logical reason? Blowing up Mexico City makes sense if the Aztec plot isn't just a means to conceal the bad guys' real plan. But since they have another plan and they don't mean to take back Mexico for the Aztecs and bring back the Aztec Gods, what are they destroying Mexico City for? To rob all the banks? They don't need money if they have the means to build a whole technological Aztec pyramidal landscape and purchase a small nuclear bomb. And they're not just trying to get the Justice League to go back to Europe since that was just part of the distraction? I guess if I read the following issues, I'd come to understand Intergang's plan. Also I don't know if it's Intergang but if not, it's some other DC clone of Intergang. I understand why I never picked up Justice League International #52 now. Maybe. I've read worse issues and still picked up the next issue. So who the fuck will ever know until I can get my hands on that time machine.

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Justice League International Special #2: Featuring The Huntress (1991)

The Huntress wasn't even supposed to be here today.

Not only was The Huntress not meant to be at work on the day dozens of old fashioned gangsters attacked the Justice League, she wasn't meant to be on the team at all! Flipping Maxwell Lord used his psychic mind control powers to get her to join which I could describe as rape but nobody wants to hear me discuss rape! First and foremost, I'm too facetious to write about anything that other people hold as profane or sacred, like The Bible or The Koran or rape. Second and almost more foremost than the first, nobody wants to read any serious and intelligent essays on rape, especially from an emotionally immature male dufus. But still! We all know mind control is a rape metaphor so this entire book emits the grossest vibes possible. It could only be worse if it were written by Gerard Jones. No wait! It could also have been drawn by David Finch! He'd have The Huntress getting out of the shower at least three times!

Just to clarify, I don't think women taking showers is gross. I think it's the opposite of that in that it's pure and clean! It's also quite sexy if you happen to live beneath the bootheel of the male gaze (which I do!). And nobody wants to be thinking "sexy" and "rape" at the same time! Therefore, grosser than gross. And if you don't know why it would be super grosser than gross if Gerard Jones were writing this book, just go read his Wikipedia page. I'll wait.

This issue was written by Joey Cavalieri. I've written thousands of these "reviews" and I don't have an extant tag for Joey Cavalieri (meaning I've reviewed no books written by him!). But that doesn't mean I don't know who he is! You should also know who he is because he wrote The Oz-Wonderland War starring Captain Carrot and the Amazing Zoo Crew! That's one of the first comic book series that I ever owned, second only to Crisis on Infinite Earths (which really catapulted me into the world of comic books). I don't remember if what Joey wrote was really any good but the books of Oz and Wonderland were some of my favorites in elementary school. So I remember the series fondly even if I don't totally remember the series.

This issue begins by lubing up my male gaze with a shot of Helena relaxing in her yard while reading a book and minding her own business.

Now I'm all raring to tube the esopus!

Helena is living in upstate New York with the child genius James and his robot invention. She recently gave him The Wizard of Oz to read but he was all, "Why was that interesting?" And Helena was all, "I never read it." That's probably something writers do called "building character." We now know that Helena is illiterate and the Brainiac child she lives with has no childhood sense of whimsy. Later a young white man is introduced but I don't know if he lives with Helena and James. I think Helena is Catholic so it would probably be a sin to live with a man outside of marriage. He probably just drops by for anal on the weekends.

Turns out the guy is The Huntress's sidekick but I don't know who used to kick the side of The Huntress. He probably thinks of himself as her partner but if I don't know who the fuck he is, he was definitely a sidekick. Plus he's got Dick and Jason vibes all over him.

Helena sees some giant Robocop dude in the papers and decides she needs to go back to New York and alert the Justice League. I guess it was a picture of Robo-Mob. That's the opposite of Robo-Cop, at least on the East Coast.

Oh, sorry. She doesn't want their help; she just needs a babysitter.

The Robo dude is some guy named The Hunter and he's killing cops and high level mob bosses while working for some other mob guy named Angelo "The Brick Wall" Brancati. So it's a mob story. I never liked comic book mob stories. That's probably why I didn't read The Huntress comics much and I tended to be wary of Batman comics. Some writers of Batman didn't seem aware that he has dozens of crazy and off-the-wall villains to battle and would usually just have Batman fighting plain old regular mob bosses. I couldn't stand any story that starred Falcone, even if he were battling Penguin or The Black Mask. Unless it was that New 52 run of Catwoman and then it was okay for a variety of non-mob-boss-related reasons (the number one reason of which was "no longer being written by Ann Nocenti").

I'm not familiar with The Huntress and her various cast of characters so while Huntress fans might have been excited to see a couple of pages of some Jimmy Olsen looking motherfucker telling his wife about cop stuff, I almost put the book down to go do something more interesting. Like maybe go in the other room to grab the shredder and see if it can take a full annual in one go. This cop tells his wife that some vigilante is killing cops and she takes the news pretty calmly. Probably because it wouldn't be much of a loss to lose a Jimmy Olsen looking motherfucking husband.

I always keep a sense of humor when it comes to cops being killed!

That caption was a leftist joke. I just want to point that out in case Elon Musk is reading this because he thinks humor is outlawed on the left. But he's wrong. We actually have all the really funny and insightful jokes! The only reason Elon Musk and his idiot fans think humor on the left is dead is because nobody on the left looks at a skinny kid on a playground and calls him a fag. Those are the only real jokes they have: playground bullying. It's all they find funny! And while I admit that some playground humor is funny, like when you fart on your friend's face and catch him with his mouth open, the really mean stuff that's the foundation for racism and hate crimes isn't particularly humorous to me. If you make a well-crafted joke that calls me fat, I'll probably laugh and then go cry in the bathroom in private for five minutes. But if you just call me fat and turn to your friends and high five them as they laugh their asses off (not because "You're fat!" was a good joke but because you just hurt somebody's feelings (which is the only thing they seem to find funny)), I'll just cry right there in front of everybody for even longer then five minutes because he'll probably punch me in the mouth for quickly replying, "Your mother is fat!"

Violence and mean-spirited humor is all the right thinks is funny. Sometimes I also think those things are funny. But I also find loads of other things funny too! Like that speech in Hamlet where he's all, "I'm so sad! Should I kill myself?! Boo hoo! Nobody's ever felt worse than me right now!"

The Huntress comes into the cop's apartment through the window leaving her shampoo and body lotion smell all over the room so when the cop's wife comes in and asks, "Who are you talking to?", she'll smell Huntress all over this guy and stop trusting him. She just ruined this guy's marriage. Unless I'm supposed to believe The Huntress is completely without smell! I guess that's not the most important part of the scene to the writer. The writer just wants to give The Huntress all the information the cops have on this Hunter guy so she can begin her investigation.

I'll skip her investigation and get right to the part where she catches The Hunter and unmasks him!

Who the fuck is this guy?

Oh! That's the guy from the beginning. I didn't know who he was then either. Then I put the comic book down for several days and didn't recognize that it was the guy I didn't recognize earlier. Man. Who the fuck is he?! Dick Grayson's stand-in?

A bunch of mob guys descend on Huntress and Hunter after Huntress saves the cop Hunter tries to kill. Then the NYPD rush in shooting anything that moves. One of the things that moves which they shoot is The Hunter. Huntress is all, "I'll get you to a hospital and dump you off in the lobby before skedaddling so I don't have to answer any questions that might cause me trouble. I hope you survive!" But Hunter is all, "No time! I'm dead!" Then he dies and The Huntress thinks, "Fuck this investigative shit. I know whose ass needs kicking and I'm just going to go kick it." The ass she's talking about belongs to Angelo "The Brick Wall" Brancati, mob boss.

I get why you made that whole "brick wall" metaphor, Angelo. But that part where people are lining up behind it doesn't really make sense. This is sounding like Nocenti dialogue.

Angelo's metaphor is messed up in a number of ways but that's what happens when somebody fixates on something to this degree. The Brick Wall is his whole identity! So begins by talking about a structure which has a brick wall on top. Doesn't make any sense, buddy. He's the cement that holds the entire structure together (or just the brick wall) but then he's also the brick wall itself. I suppose it's a minor quibble to say "cement" over "mortar" since mortar uses cement but a brick wall isn't just stuck together with cement itself. I'll let that pass. But to stand there acting tough and explaining how he's the cement and the brick wall one sentence after the other? He's a fucking lunatic! Then he finishes off by saying how when there's a brick wall, people either line up behind it or get shot up against it. It's like he worked the entire metaphor out just to get to the point where he can say, "If you're against the brick wall, you're about to be shot!" Which is a fucking good line! That I wrote! He should have just said that! But no! He has to say you're either against the wall getting shot or lining up behind it. But who lines up behind a brick wall?! A bunch of guys who need to pee?

Meanwhile, the Justice League (because this is a Justice League comic book, remember) has been spying on her and they figure maybe they should help her out of this mess. They probably also want to protect some cops but I don't like that part as much so let's forget about it.

Blue Beetle's bug comes flying in to the rescue just as The Brick Wall drops that line about The Huntress being on her own. It's like this thing were written by a writer who has never learned the word subtlety. The mob guys, also never having learned the word subtlety, beginning firing all of their tommy gun bullets into Beetle's flying bug. Beetle decides a hail of bullets is the best thing to jump into and heads to the ground in the middle of one. Ice clings to his chest because I guess she hasn't learned that thing that Iceman does where he just constantly builds ice ramps to slide all over the place. I know civilians hating the X-men was a metaphor for racism but thinking about how Iceman probably flooded so many buildings just so he could swoop around on ice ramps has me hating the X-men too.

The battle takes place on a bridge already falling apart due to New York's infrastructure completely falling apart (it's been a theme of this issue that I haven't commented on because it was boring and too close to the truth). The battle makes the bridge fall apart even more.

The cover shows Fire and Martian Manhunter taking place in this fight because DC's covers are constantly full of lies.

Is this the scene where The Huntress lets the mob boss fall to his death to show how different she is from Batman? I hope so! Even though Batman could let somebody fall to their death during a fight in which he took part that helped weaken the bridge that collapsed under the person falling to their death and still pretend like he didn't kill that person. Batman likes to pretend his no-kill policy is black and white but his no-kill policy is actually all kinds of gray. It's just nobody wants to argue with Batman about it because he debates like a fucking dick and wins most arguments because people just get so frustrated and annoyed while arguing with him that they give up.

It's also possible that this is just an easy way to end this conflict. The Brick Wall dies through no fault of The Huntress and thus she can't be hounded by the law for killing a guy. And The Huntress doesn't have to worry about this jerk making her life a living hell because he's been killed. But he'll also have fallen into a river so is he dead? Will he come back for a new mini-series? If this issue sold well, I'm sure he did.

The Brick Wall plummets into the river and his body is never found. Nobody tries to save him because he's a gigantic asshole. You know Ice could have done something if the writer had wanted her to. And J'onn wasn't in the fight but he was flying the Bug so he could have done something too. I don't think Beetle could have saved the guy though because Beetle is useless.

The issue ends with The Huntress throwing her costume into the incinerator. Does that mean this was the final story with Helena Bertinelli? At least until The New 52? Did a new woman take over being The Huntress? I have no idea because I never really read many of her comics.

Justice League International Special #2: Featuring The Huntress Rating: C. It's lucky to get a C! The Justice League was hardly in it. The antagonist was hardly in it. The Huntress was hardly in it. How did I even just read 38 pages of comic book when every single character that made up the plot was barely even in it? I think most of the pages were taken up by Helena which I don't count as The Huntress. And the Justice League didn't do a single thing worthy of their name. That one panel I scanned where Beetle and Ice are battling mobsters is the only action they took part in! The Huntress threw maybe two punches and one kick before the bridge collapses under The Brick Wall and kills him. Her partner who caused this entire story to unfold never even gets identified as anything but some guy she was working with! I'm probably wrong but I don't think he even got a name! And why was she living with some genius orphan? Oh, probably because DC has genius orphans coming out of their buttholes. Every main character needs at least one. This comic should have been called The Huntress Special Barely Featuring The Justice League because only The Huntress fans would recognize any of the bit players in the story. I sure didn't know who any of them were! I wonder if I can sue DC thirty years later for the blatant false advertisement that this was a Justice League comic book? I'm so angry now! Why did I fucking re-read this?!

I just realized the first special was exactly like this but using Mister Miracle instead of The Huntress. That one also wasn't a Justice League comic book! It was more of an offshoot of Mister Miracle's monthly book. And now they did the same thing with The Huntress. Wait a fucking second. This wasn't false advertisement at all. It was simply an advertisement! These fuckwits at DC convinced young me to pay $2.95 for a fucking commercial for a different one of their comic books! At least this fucking advert ended with The Huntress throwing her costume away so I didn't think, "I should read more The Huntress comics!" Instead I probably thought, "Good riddance!"

Justice League International Special #1 (1990)

This looks as shitty as an annual.

How was younger me so bamboozled by comic book continuity that he kept purchasing all of these extra issues that invariably had nothing to do with continuity? Okay, I know how that sounds. "How was younger you bamboozled by continuity if he kept buying books that had nothing to do with continuity?" I see where you're confused. Younger me didn't know they weren't going to have anything to do with continuity. That might sound stupid and naïve but I really thought, "If I don't get every comic book labeled 'Justice League,' I'm going to miss out on something important!" I remember my main concern with death as a teenager was that I'd never find out what happened in my comic book stories! Imagine that! I was so young and dumb that I thought the stories would culminate in some kind of satisfying resolution instead of just going on and on and on with characters never actually changing or growing! At least my grandmother's soap operas actually had characters aging along with their actors so there was some illusion of movement in their lives! But with comic books, I was afraid to miss out on the next eighteen times Batman battled The Joker only to throw him in Arkham where he eventually escapes for a story slightly altered from previous issues.

Anyway, that's how I wound up with this stupid Mister Miracle World Tour. What the fuck is this shit? Why should I care?! Don't the Justice League ever do anything that has to do with justice in any way?! They're nearly as bad as The Titans who never once helped New York City and almost always destroyed part of it while fighting evil family members bent on revenge. Remember Councilwoman Alderman and how Marv Wolfman tried to portray her as the bad guy for wanting to shut down the Titans and send them packing from her city? Remember how every time she'd point out how dangerous they were to her city, we, the readers, would think, "She's really got a good point! They never do anything but fight their mothers and fathers! What good are they?!" Councilwoman Alderman was the true hero of that book!

The story begins with Manga Khan headed back to Earth. He's the guy who talks to himself a lot, has an assistant named L-Ron, and runs an intergalactic home shopping network. Apparently somebody on Earth has purchased something without reading the fine print so he's on his way to, I don't know, blow it up or something.

Kilowog is going to be pretty pissed off when he finds the monitor full of crossbow bolts.

See? My joke was riffing on The Huntress explaining that she has talents better suited to something else but those talents are mostly just shooting crossbow bolts! I needed to explain that because people who read comic books and comic book "reviews" are kind of dumb. I mean, have you read comic book reviews sites?! They're fucking boring (especially those guys at my nemesis site! I'd link the site but I fucking forgot who they were. My only clue to their identity was that they somehow loved Scott Lobdell and would often blow Neal Adams' post-New-52 stuff (which was frankly unreadable)). And have you read comic books? Holy shit do they suck!

The Huntress points out that the JLI monitor is fully automated and Oberon responds with, "Suck it, toots!" Then he stomps off thinking, "What a dumb whore! Thinking a fully-automated system could actually do monitor duty itself!" I mean, yeah, fucknuts. Perhaps if it can't, stop telling everybody it's fully automated. Sounds like maybe it's partially automated, or not-at-all automated. Fucking bald bureaucratic piece of shit.

I just wanted to add this as proof that Oberon thought the things he thought (okay, maybe not "dumb whore") and that Fire looks hot in her ripped-up jeans.

Fire picks up Oberon and kisses him goodbye so I can only assume that his underpants are now caked in semen.

Oberon laments that Funky Flashman is helping run Mister Miracle's World Tour. I guess that means this issue is going to be full of jabs at Stan Lee because Funky Flashman is based on Stan Lee. I think. I don't do research; I just rely on whatever my brain thinks it knows. It works out about 60% of the time!

Beetle convinces Booster to go on a date with him to "Medison Square Gardens" to see the start of Mister Miracle's World Tour. It's definitely a date because Booster Gold feels the need to point out that he's only after romance. No dick tonight.

At least I think that's what he's saying here. I can't fucking figure out any other interpretation.

Luckily The Huntress is on monitor duty so that she can see the alert about Manga Khan's ship approaching Earth. An alert that apparently couldn't have been automated to alert individual members of the Justice League via their Justice League Alert Thingamabobs. She informs Martian Manhunter of Manga Khan's approach and he sighs and rolls his eyes and contemplates suicide.

Fire and Ice agreed to be Booster and Beetle's beards.

Hoo boy. I feel a quick summation of the rest of the comic coming followed by a low rating and a slight depression ruining the rest of my night as I contemplate how shitty my life turned out. This special is just so fucking dumb. No wonder it's taken me over a week to read this thing. My subconscious probably remembered how terrible it was and kept forcing me to do other things, like play X-Com 2 or masturbate.

Anyway, everybody winds up on Manga Khan's ship wondering whether they should be kicking his ass or not. Except Guy, of course. He kicks the asses of a bunch of robots before somebody calms his dumb ass down. Because Manga Khan isn't here to fight! He's here to insist that Mister Miracle fulfill the contract Funky Flashman got him to sign where Scott agrees to tour the universe promoting "The Miracle Mister," a cleaning appliance. If you don't get it, that's okay because it's fucking stupid.

Did I mention Oberon was dressed up like a clown for the performance? Probably because Funky Flashman demanded it and nobody goes against Funky Flashman's demands or else they spend the next fifty years of their lives watching the corporation they worked for make billions of dollars off off of their imagination. Oh, even if they didn't go against his demands, I think that happened too. Not like DC was ever any better (because Funky Flashman is Stan Lee, remember? So I'm talking about Marvel here, and Jack Kirby!). But since DC has a character based on Stan Lee, they can write a comic book that says, "Careful about the contract you sign with Stan Lee! He's just going to use you to get rich and promote himself while also taking as much of the credit as possible! Not like us here at DC! You'll notice Marvel doesn't have a character based on any of our editorial management and that's not because we're all boring pricks!"

Since Mister Miracle has been Shanghai'd by Manga Khan and Funky Flashman, a robot Mister Miracle has been created to take his place in the pages of Justice League America. Which means this entire "Special" was created simply to explain how Mister Miracle is in space on tour with Manga Khan in the pages of his own comic book and still goofing around in the Justice League comic book. So all that bullshit about how I was always buying all the Specials and Annuals even though they were never much for continuity was completely wrong. This comic book exists simply for continuity's sake! And it shows because it's fucking terrible! And boring! Although Fire has a few good cleavage shots so it wasn't a total waste of my time.

Justice League International Special #1 Rating: D-. I hated every minute I spent reading this comic book. And now I have to live with the knowledge that I read it fucking twice.

Justice League International Annual #3 (1989)

Fire, Ice, Beetle, and Booster in Season Three of White Lotus. Spoiler: the dead body was Blue Beetle.

I fucking hate Annuals but here I am reading them because stupid 18 year old me decided to buy them. I think DC knew fans hated Annuals which is why they eventually decided to have big summer crossover events that took place in the Annuals. The editors were all, "Nobody is buying the fucking Annuals. How do we force them to buy the Annuals? If only Paul Dini would hurry up and create Harley Quinn, we could stick her on the cover of every Annual and people would snatch them up like they were acid tabs with Harley Quinn printed on them. But no! The fucking lazy bastard. I guess we'll have to tie all of the Annuals into a huge crossover event and then tie the event into one or two of the monthly issues. That'll teach the bastards to not buy Annuals! Or will it teach them to buy Annuals? Can somebody explain to me the difference between those two statements and which one I should be using?"

Despising annuals is like having a phantom limb. I used to hate them because they didn't fit into continuity very well, and often could just be ignored, and yet I bought them anyway, just in case! Now I don't read comics for any universal continuity and so I should just enjoy the stories told within annuals. But I can't shake the memory of my intense hatred of them. Maybe it's just that I don't really enjoy comic books the way I want to enjoy comic books. I think the only things I truly love earnestly are Sailor Moon and Lazy Town.

The first story is about a Pacific Islander tribe who have a problem: their location makes them a strategic foothold for both the Soviets and the Americans but they just want to be left alone. One of the tribe has a less-than-brilliant idea: give the island to Justice League International so it basically becomes neutral territory. What inspired Giffen and DeMatteis to think up this story? Was it the plot of a Marx Brothers' movie? Or did the artist, Mike McKone, approach them over lunch in the commissary one day and say, "Hey, can you write a story so that I can draw Fire and Ice in bikinis?" Then they were all, "Oh boy can we!" Then he turned in some concept art and they were all, "Maybe we'll keep their clothes on for this one."

What the fuck is going on with The Flash's lower torso? Is that The Flash's schlong?! How does he run so fast with that thing flapping between his legs?!

Max is sending various members of the Justice League to various embassies around the world. I'm afraid this story is going to be just as boring as it sounds. Unless it's full of 80s stereotypes! Then I might get a few rough chuckles out of it.

Ten pages in and there's little story but DeMatteis has dropped a joke about Brooklyn College not being a great school five times already. My initial thought was, "I bet Keith Giffen went there!" But it turns out DeMatteis went there and this is a bit of the old self-abasement. The tribe member from Kooey Kooey Kooey Island looks pretty white as well so maybe he's based on entirely on J.M. DeMatteis. It's hard to tell if the character looks like DeMatteis as I didn't do a lot of digging and 60+ year old DeMatties, bald and graying, doesn't look anything like the young guy in this issue. The character really just looks like Max Lord with a blonde wig.

Herb, the Kooey Kooey Kooey liaison whom I'm assuming is a J.M. DeMatteis stand-in, arrives in Tokyo but is sent on to New York via the Justice League teleporters known for destroying luggage (as we were reminded in the panel with The Flash's horse penis). The rest of the team has moved on to check out the inactive embassy in Brazil, so Martian Manhunter and Oberon will have to deal with the Kooey Kooey Kooey delegate (KKK? Really, DeMatteis?).

Go woke, go get shot in the face by Maxwell Lord. Is that how the Incel Gamergate saying goes?

Just to make sure everybody feels as disgusted as I do, there hasn't been a single panel starring Ralph Dibny where his neck wasn't at least 20 feet long.

Ugh. So gross.

Imagine if you had some big, long extremity. Would you go flashing it all...oh, never mind. I see why he does it.

Meanwhile, The Rising Sun, one of the Global Guardians who was brainwashed by Queen Bee to convince Europe that the Justice League were Nazis but then fell into a coma, has been transferred to the Justice League Japanese Embassy. It's not because Europeans don't know how to treat Japanese like you probably thought because you're almost certainly a huge racist! It's because Doctor Light, who is also Japanese, wants to have a look at him. Not because he's Japanese and she can only work on Japanese patients like you probably thought because you're almost certainly a huge racist! It's because they both have light powers! Unless it's because of the Japanese thing which is what I first thought because I'm apparently almost certainly a huge racist.

But at least I'm not a transphobe like Animal Man! Probably.

I say things like "I'm almost certainly a huge racist" and "I'm probably not a transphobe" because I'm not a perfect human being and I'm going to make mistakes. And if you think of yourself as perfect and not racist or biased in anyway, you close yourself off to accepting criticism and changing. Because if you view yourself as perfect and blameless, any criticism against you will be seen as a malicious attack! I prefer to think of myself as a terribly slow moving work-in-progress! Also, I know I'm a dinosaur and nothing I say or do matters. I'm content to let the kids change the world into whatever they think it should be! Why the fuck should I have negative opinions about it? In my day, we played a game called Smear the Queer and used the word "gay" to denote anything that was lame. Why would I think the version of the world I grew up in should never be lost?! Good riddance!

Martian Manhunter has been saddled with leading the Kooey Kooey Kooey delegation from embassy to embassy trying to catch up to Maxwell Lord. But they keep managing to stay one embassy ahead of him.

They don't stock a lighter or a book of matches at the Tokyo Embassy?

Max Lord and the others arrive at the London Embassy where they find it run by John Cleese's character from Fawlty Towers. It's mostly forgettable but I mention it because it leads to a really rare unicorn Elongated Man panel:

I guess when his neck is normal sized, his dick hangs down to his knees. No wonder he keeps his neck so long! It's less embarrassing.

Eventually Martian Manhunter catches up to everybody else in Paris where Max Lord makes a deal to create an embassy on Kooey Kooey Kooey Island. Which is why I dug up this annual to read while in the middle of reading Justice League America #33 and learning, via a note from the editor, that this comic had apparently been published before that issue. That's another reason I hate Annuals! Shouldn't this have been published after JLA Issue #36?!

That's the first story coming in at 32 pages. And according to the cover, the second story is also going to be 32 pages. Another reason I hate Annuals! Why do they have to be so long to tell the dumbest stories?!

In the second story, Martian Manhunter teams up with Batman to investigate the murder of a Gotham cop whom J'onn worked with when he first came to Earth. Turns out the cop's death was a random killing by some drugged up kid and not some huge conspiracy planned by a mob boss. Batman is all, "I'm sorry to report that his death was random and there is already a Batman so I don't know how you're going to deal with it." And Martian Manhunter is all, "Everything happens for a reason. That's Martian wisdom! Y'all don't have wisdom like that on Earth apparently or else you wouldn't be so fucking insane, Batman." Then Martian Manhunter flashes a few people in his true form and it makes him feel better. Batman continues to never feel better. The end!

The issue finishes with several Who's Who entries on the Embassy Chiefs and an assortment of other employees. I read them all because they were sort of funny and Keith Giffen did the art for the character portraits. The Russian bodyguards, twin sisters, keep a running total on all of the men they've fucked. Numbers were not given.

Justice League International Annual #3 Rating: I don't rate Annuals! It wasn't terrible but the cover was the best part. That means I could have looked at it on the rack back in 1989 and been satisfied but instead I decided to blow a buck seventy-five on it, read it, forget everything in it, wait thirty years, and read it again. Future plans: forget everything in it.

Justice League International #25 (1989)

Kevin Maguire nails the "I just shit myself" facial expression.

Twenty-five issues in and I just noticed that the "J" and the "U" in the title stand alone as the JLI abbreviation. Pretty sneaky, sis.

Ty Templeton pencils only fours pages of this issue and I think I know why.

He spent most of the month perfecting Ice's ass.

I'm only now just realizing that I read comic books for the butts.

Apparently Booster Gold and Blue Beetle are still working for that vehicle repossessing company because a call comes in for a big job. You would think Batman would put up some money to pay the Justice League a livable wage so that they can be ready to act when a crisis hits Earth. Didn't the recent alien invasion teach Batman anything? The world was almost conquered because Booster and Beetle were busy repossessing some drunk's minivan and Fire was at a modelling audition and Ice was filming a commercial and Mister Miracle was performing at a ten year old's birthday party and John Jones was investigating the possible infidelity of a wayward husband. Pretty sure superheroes shouldn't be moonlighting.

Beetle decides to fly the Bug to the job which seems like a weird choice if he's bankrupt. The fuel to fly that thing has got to cost more than they're going to make on this job.

These speech bubbles are coming out of the wrong mouths.

Is their a bigger sin in comic books than when the letterer places speech bubbles on the incorrect characters? I mean other than the sin of letting Scott Lobdell write the comic or Rob Liefeld draw it or Howard Mackie on punctuation.

This must have been the story arc where Batman went into therapy. Ha ha! Just kidding! He probably wound up having to fight a class action lawsuit in court for assault on half of Gotham's underworld.

Booster and Beetle have been hired to repossess a vampire. That must mean somebody owns the vampire. Which means Booster and Beetle are working for a slaver. Is this what Comicsgate means when they want to return to old fashioned comics? "I've had it up to here with inclusivity! Make mine comic books where heroes are involved in human (and vampire) trafficking!"

Booster doubts that vampires actually exist which simply makes the entire situation worse. Because that means they're simply kidnapping a regular old human and bringing them back into captivity! And here I thought Booster Gold and Blue Beetle were just a couple of fun loving dimwits. I had no idea they were also inhuman monsters.

Keep telling yourself whatever lies you need to to keep from actually caring, Beetle.

It might look like Booster Gold is having an attack of conscious in that last panel but I think he's just calling Beetle disgusting because he's planning on buying a bunch of Bob Dylan CDs.

The man who hired Booster and Beetle directs them to an abandoned sewage plant where the vampire has apparently taken up residence. The two of them treat it as a huge joke right up until they wander into a chamber full of human bones. I'm sure there's a rational explanation that doesn't have anything to do with an escaped hostage eating a bunch of other people.

Examining the bones more closely, Beetle realizes they're not human because they all have large fangs. Which totally means that no crime has been committed here. Pretty sure anything that isn't actually human can be killed and the law can't do anything about it. At least in the DC Universe.

The duo are subsequently attacked by the vampire they were sent to hunt although he seems less intent on eating them and more focused on getting them to just leave him alone. Which was kind of my point from the beginning. Why would these idiots take a repo job from some corporate CEO to hunt down a sentient being?! They're not bounty hunters hunting down somebody who skipped out on their bail! They're supposed to be out nabbing cars from people who have missed a few payments (which, look, I'm not totally on board with either, actually!).

He asks some fair questions.

This vampire sounds like me that time Jimmy Arthur chased me into a 7-Eleven and punched me in the face. My guess is this vampire is just about to smash Blue Arthur and Jimmy Gold over the head with his skateboard, causing him to bleed so badly that the cops who come by to investigate the fight will tell him, "You really fucked those guys up."

The vampire's name is Caitiff and he lets Booster and Beetle know it every time he makes a statement about himself. During his fearful rant, he admits that "This one can kill!" Yes, he speaks like a Khajiit. Anyway, that statement is all Booster and Beetle need to justify beating the shit out of him, kidnapping him, and taking him back to his captor. If I wanted to defend their actions, I suppose I could believe that they're too terrified by the idea of a vampire on the loose to reflect on their situation. Although shouldn't heroes be better than regular people who never, ever reflect on their situations and simply follow their instinctual drives based on selfish desires and irrational fears? Maybe this is why this Justice League never seemed very heroic. They were all just regular people doing stupid shit for selfish reasons.

Uh oh. This is beginning to sound like some kind of historical analogy. My Social Justice Warrior sense is tingling!

I was on the vampire's side until he got all judgmental about eating animals and then tried to defend his diet by saying he eats to survive. Welcome to the club, dickweed. Sure, humans don't have to eat meat to survive. But what else are cows going to do?! Survive in the wild on their own?! Good luck, dumb-dumbs!

Based on the whole "we eat meat to survive" defense, and based on the evidence that humans pen animals to slaughter them, do Booster and Beetle have to let the vampire go if they discover a bunch of people locked up in cages down in the sewer? They wouldn't want to be hypocrites, would they?

The main reason Booster and Beetle stop punching the vampire in the face is that he exclaims that they killed his wife and kids. So Beetle is all, "Whoa! This vampire fucks?! Who would have thought! He's hideous!" And Booster is all, "Yeah, but you never saw his wife, right? Probably a real vampire dog!" Although when is the last time a female vampire was ugly?! They're always super hot.

You cutting into a medium-rare steak versus Caitiff with his teeth stuck into the neck of a limp baby. Who looks worse?!

This is intolerable! I don't mind when super-heroes stop bank robberies and punch madmen in the face! But calling out eating meat?! Outrageous! I wish I was still a vegetarian so I could also look down on meat eaters right now! "Take that, you artery-clogged scumbags!" is probably what I would say while bathing in my feelings of superiority and righteousness! God, I miss those heady days! Totally worth not eating meat!

In the end, because the ethics of the situation just got way too complicated for Booster and Beetle to deal with, Caitiff falls in a pit while running from them and is pierced through the heart by a stalagmite. That's probably good enough to kill a vampire, right? Stake? Stalagmite? Practically the same thing.

Booster Gold believes Caitiff killed himself but Blue Beetle is all, "I don't want that on my conscious so I'm going to argue it was an accident!" Either way, they feel pretty shitty for causing this guy grief after all the grief he's already suffered at the hands of white Europeans. I mean men in general, probably.

Letters this issue were from Commander Anthony Gallagher of Melbourne, Australia; Charlie Harris of Tucson, Arizona; Sylvain Mallette of Spring Harbor, Michigan; Charles J. Sperling of Flushing, New York; Kip Talbot of Dayton, Virginia; Chris Gladis of Farmington, Connecticut; Tom Longfellow of Elkridge, Maryland; Jody Hamby of Robbins, Tennessee; and DJ of Clairton, Pennsylvania. Not a single one of them praised the Letterer. Not even a polite "and the letters were really clear and easy to read" after extolling lavish praise on the inker and penciller and writer and colorist. How sad must Bob Lappan have been for his whole career?

Just kidding! We have a first this issue! Charlie Harris doesn't praise any of the other people on the book and simply ends his letter with "By the way, Bob Lappan is a GREAT letterer in my opinion and I just wanted to say so." Who let that letter through?! Was Bob Lappan in charge of the letter column this month?! Seems pretty suspicious that somebody would just praise the letterer out of nowhere. Is Charlie Harris actually Bob's mom?!

Hey! I like all of those too! Why didn't I write this guy?! Probably because he didn't mention Halo.

Justice League International #25 Rating: B+. My favorite part of this issue was how Giffen and DeMatteis present an ethical quandary but decide it's too hard to come to some sort of conclusion so they just kill the guy who is making everybody start to feel bad about themselves. And afterward, Beetle and Booster just go off to have a beer to forget about the poor dead vampire guy. He was just the last of his kind and all, the rest having been genocided by humans. No need to worry about it anymore though! And it's not like Booster and Beetle ever dissected a vampire! Why should they feel bad that they just harangued the last of the vampire race into committing suicide?! That was his choice! They were just trying to help by punching him in the face a lot and then threatening to take him to STAR Labs where they totally wouldn't have exploited him and experimented on him cruelly! They're, like, good guys and shit!

Bonus Book! #13 (Justice League International #24) (1989)

Simon Bisley got in trouble for drawing a penis in Lobo's arm musculature but this Haspiel guy can just draw a penis right on Maxwell Lord's penis?

I'm judging this Bonus Book by the cover and this is my judgment. You know how you have that friend that's always talking shit and causing trouble? And you know how sometimes somebody reacts violently toward your friend being an unbearable prick to strangers? You know how you just shrug instead of having their back and thinking, "Yeah, well, what did they think was going to happen?" That's what I think just happened to Maxwell Lord. He's a fucking prick and the Justice League are probably kicking back at headquarters shrugging and saying, "What did Max think was going to happen?!"

See?! They're just watching dumb old sci-fi movies which Giffen and DeMatteis probably stole plots and quotes from.

Actually, this takes place before Max Lord is kidnapped. He's in the panel to the right, just after the spot where I cut off the scan. You can just make out his briefcase because I did a sloppy job!

I'm really not the person to complain about this but every single sentence of dialogue in this story ends in an exclamation point! At first I was all, "Why is this story about Booster and Beetle talking about television shows and movies so exciting?!" And then I was all, "Hey...I recognize this trick!" Half of my novels use an exclamation point at the end of every sentence to trick movie studios into optioning the rights!

This is the part where I might sometimes critique the art but fuck if I complain about any artist that worked with Harvey Pekar. He may have passed on but he still scares the shit out of me. Also I think Max Lord's nose is another penis.

The only sentences that don't end in an exclamation point end in ellipsis or a question. That means these characters are either shouting, questioning somebody, or questioning themselves. Fuck. I think I just described the way I talk.

I almost questioned how this robot, in 1989, could sound this animated with all the exclamation points. But then I remembered the Wizard of Wor arcade cabinet constantly laughing at me.

Max Lord was just kidnapped by that robot pretending to be a chauffeur. I'm less curious about who kidnapped him and why then I am about this robot's personal life. Is he only programmed to imitate chauffeurs? I'd like to imagine he has a rich and vibrant life on his off hours where he's married to a toaster oven that pretends to be a lawyer and has three electric pencil sharpener children.

While in the back of the limousine, Maxwell Lord thinks his first calm sentence: "Might as well get comfortable." Man, that's the only one I would have exclamated!

It was the time of the Romans!

Never mind that last caption. It was for me and like two other people.

I've matured so much over the last ten years that I'm not going to write an entire paragraph on this woman's ass. But I haven't matured enough not to be proud of my maturity.

Imagine being so wealthy that you didn't immediately have this thought when a fucking robot driving a limo kidnapped you.

"Oh, I'm being kidnapped by a robot! Must be run of the mill blue collar super villains! How embarrassing!"

The kidnappers, being so well-funded, have kidnapped Max Lord to become, um, even betterly well funded! They want half a billion dollars for his return. Who's going to pay it? I don't know. Superman? Does he have that kind of money? I bet he makes diamonds up his butthole while he works out on Dr. Shay Veritas's bench press she invented that lets Superman press the equivalent of five Earths so that he can drip one single drop of sweat and then refuse to towel off the machine.

As an aside that has nothing to do with this comic but does sort of involve Superman and one of my least favorite writers on his book, Scott Lobdell, I've now seen enough examples online where Scott Lobdell comments on a person's review of one of his books (usually when they're complementary (which is something that actually happens? I know, I was floored too!)) to be convinced he's read my reviews. So, because I'm maturing, I'm sorry for being such a huge hilarious jerk to you, Mr. Lobdell!

The kidnappers cannot convince anybody to pay them 500 million dollars so the people who hired them (and paid for the headquarters and the robot driver) fire them for not being able to get the money. Sure, I guess. But how is it the fault of the mercenaries if the amount you wanted for Max Lord is just too high? They didn't come up with the figures! And when the ransom isn't going to make a profit, they fire the mercenaries and probably stiff them too! Who works like that?!

Because the originator of the kidnapping pulls all funding, the mercenaries accept paying jobs from Maxwell Lord and he frees himself. So let me get this straight. A criminal organization spent a shit-ton of money to kidnap Max Lord in the hopes that they could make an even bigger shit-ton of money. But when nobody can get enough money together in 24 hours, they get cold feet and bail on the people they hired to kidnap Max. It's a good thing the story never reveals who the criminal mastermind of this plan was because their reputation would have been in tatters. They'd never get another gig as an antagonist in the DC Universe!

Here's a quote from the writer of this story:

I hope you finally got a chance to write your new story because this one where the hostage winds up being too much trouble for the kidnappers so they eventually pay to get rid of him was old when I first read this in 1989!

This was the final Bonus Book in DC's Bonus Book project. I'm sad that I don't have the Bonus Book with art by Rob Liefeld. But then that one was in Warlord and I never read that series.

Justice League International #24 (1989)

Seriously surprised Editorial allowed the X-men reference. Maybe they just didn't notice it?

How fucking disgusting is Ralph Dibny? You don't see Fire taking a group photo with her face on fire. You don't see Metamorpho turning his eyeballs into potassium cyanide. Martian Manhunter, who could also do that nasty neck thing, chooses to remain dignified. But fucking Ralph Dibny?! You gotta question how many unsolicited dick pics this guy sends when he can't just take a normal fucking group photo without making his neck four feet long. Ugh. Gross.

Why do they all look so fucking unhappy? Did Batman fart? Only Ice seems to be having a pleasant time. I bet Dmitri isn't even in the armor. And you can't even see Power Girl's boob window. Plus Animal Man seems like a weird choice but then this is still a couple of years before Grant Morrison gets his hands on him. So he's still a vaguely normal super hero here.

This issue begins with Maxwell Lord contemplating how he has the Metal-Gene. Excuse me! Meta-gene! We haven't gotten to the point where Snyder rocks the fucking shit out of the meta-gene idea. I'd forgotten that the whole meta-bomb/meta-gene thing was part of Invasion. Does that mean Bloodlines is right around the corner?! When we'll get such great characters as Gunfire who can make a gun out of anything and Loose Cannon who's an ex-cop (big surprise) whose power is to get angry when he's disrespected. I might have embellished that one a bit. But not by much. Anyway, Max Lord will eventually find out he can manipulate people with his mind. But then his nose bleeds because that's the only way for the audience to know mind control is happening. I believe Scanners was the first movie to use this visual clue but it wasn't officially a trope until Firestarter decided to use it as well. For most of my life, I thought Firestarter invented it. But that's because I wasn't allowed to watch people's heads blow up when Scanners was being shown for the first time on Showtime.

Oh! Maybe Editorial thought the X-men reference was just a meta-gene reference now that DC Comics suddenly has mutants as well!

Hmm. I guess I just forgot that DC was mostly just references to Marvel in the 80s.

The alien invasion has left Max Lord dealing with some unresolved existential terrors, mostly related to the computer that tried to control his mind and then murder him and the rest of the Justice League. Now he's worried and having stupid thoughts like, "Can a computer really die?" I mean, when you put it like that Max, no. A computer isn't alive so, sure, it can't "really" die. But I think what he's getting at, in 1989, is this: what if information in a computer could be uploaded into some nebulous floating storage, extant outside of the parameters of the original system, before the computer is smashed to bits? What a paranoid idea, Max!

Max decides to go searching for the computer where it first took control of him: in some cave high up in a mountain. You know, the usual places you find abandoned technology like TRS-80s and Commodore Vic-20s. Max had planned to kill his boss in a spelunking accident. You know, the second main reason anybody goes spelunking. The first is complete and utter boredom. But Max's boss, like a huge idiot, falls and dies before Max can kill him. And Max apparently just left the body there and nobody questioned Max about this guy's death? No, they probably did but the entire investigation into Max's boss's disappearance was probably too boring to base an issue of a comic book around.

Max finds the computer, obliterated in a cave-in, and questions what he's doing. But he's been questioning what he's doing the entire time, probably because the Giffen and DeMatteis know the audience is questioning what he's doing. Fairly certain therapy doesn't exist in the DC Universe. The whole "Max is questioning his actions" bit probably means Max is still possessed by the computer. It did basically bring him back to life after the Manhunters killed him so it probably installed some cheeky software during Max's downtime.

The computer comes back online long enough to throw some pop culture references at Max before admitting it knew about Max's meta-gene and then pulling one of those radioactive wombat bites on a nuclear testing range bits in order to activate Max's meta-gene. Is that irony?

"Yeah, no harm done. I was just once again manipulated by an artificial intelligence which knew about my meta-gene and now just nearly killed me in exactly the kind of accident that activates that meta-gene. This all worked out perfectly. Gonna go home now and forget all about the robot again for a year or two."

We soon learn that Max's meta-gene was activated when he thinks about Blue Beetle's ugly face and then yells for help. This sends a psychic message to Blue Beetle, revealing to Beetle where Max is and what's happened to him. When I first read this, I probably thought, "Wow! What a coincidence that Blue Beetle would have a small stroke causing him to hallucinate Max Lord's current situation!" But then I didn't know Max Lord would become psychic and also I was just a dumb teenager. Not that I'm not dumb now. But now I'm a dumb middle-aged man.

Ice and Beetle head down to Metron's cave to help Max while Oberon stays back at headquarters to leer disgustingly at Fire.

Oh hold on. Even in 1989, I knew about psychic nosebleeds. I didn't spend all those years reading The Fortean Times and not learn a little something about psychic nosebleeds.

In 1989, I probably had yet to read an issue of The Fortean Times because I'm an American. But I had read a lot of the sadly-not-really-equivalent-but-the-best-we-had Weekly World News!

Some of you may have noticed that I keep stealing that Dungeons and Dragons quote from The X-Files episode, "Jose Chung's From Outer Space." That's because 50% of my brain's processing power constantly thinks about every Darin Morgan episode of the show. I didn't spend all those Friday nights watching The X-Files alone in a dark room and not learn a little something about The X-Files.

Max has reached the point where a person knows they're going to die so they begin having imaginary conversations with an imaginary genie who will offer them one final wish that isn't "I wish not to die."

"Co-ed" is code for "I want to fuck as young a person as the law will allow me to get away with." Playboy invented that code.

Blue Beetle saves Max Lord's life and how does he repay him?

Max Lord, 2005. Still being manipulated by machines.

That's basically the end of the first story other than Oberon sneaking peeks at Fire in her nightie as he serves her some tea in bed. Although her nightie actually covers up more of her body than her superhero outfit. I guess it's just sexier to see a woman in her nightgown! I don't know why though. Apparently it's a huge secret. And you can't find out the secret because the clerks at the store will call mall security on you when you try to find out by touching all of the underwear and giggling like Beavis and Muttley had a horrible fuck baby.

The second story involves the Justice League throwing a party. You can see some of the people who were invited on the cover! Some of those you can't see because they refused to be on an ancillary Justice League in another country are Hal Jordan, The Atom, Starman, and Firestorm. At least I think none of those guys join.

Who's in charge of the JLI Human Resources Department? Because I'm sick of Wonder Woman not giving Blue Beetle a chance.

The party is another recruitment drive. It's been two years and the League still isn't confident in the members they have. Unless this is the recruitment drive for heroes who are willing to work in other countries. That's probably the main point because Justice League Europe starts up pretty soon and I think Power Girl and Wonder Woman wind up on that team, probably to get as far away from Blue Beetle's harassment as possible.

That's timely! Unless you're reading this at a point in the future that isn't the week immediately following the 94th Academy Awards.

I have only one take on Will Smith smacking Chris Rock. America fucking sucks. Everybody in America had to view the entire thing uncensored via Japan or Australian television. We're treated like fucking children in this country and yet we have all these gigantic assholes who won't shut up about how awesome and free this country is. This country is bullshit in so many fucking ways but if you point it out in any public forum, you'll get shouted down by a bunch of people choosing to ignore the country's faults by screaming about freedom not being free or some other stupid crap. I would like to be free to hear the word "fuck" on television. And that's just the icing on the iceberg! We're fucking coddled in this country. Nobody thinks anybody can handle fucking anything. So many asshole citizens trying to force everybody to live a life as if there's a four year old in every room. And you know why this is, right?! Because religious people think we all need to follow their stupid fucking immature bullshit rules. And yet those same religious people freak the fuck out when somebody points out how some other country might be forcing their religious beliefs on other people through the nation's laws. Fucking get out of here, you hypocritical babies. I'm so sick of hearing about Jesus and God and all your other imaginary friends. Grow the fuck up.

The worst part about living in America and seeing all of its flaws and all of the advantages of living in various other countries is that people will scream at you to leave if you don't love it and, well, I fucking wish I could afford to! But guess what else America sucks at?! Living wages!

Although, hmm, I mean, I guess I should probably be mad at myself for that one since I own my own business. The problem with suffering from Imposter Syndrome when you run the business is that you don't know your own self-worth and don't increase the costs to clients enough. I mean, no price increases in eleven years is probably not enough, right?!

Man that take really got away from me. What I meant to say is Chris Rock and Will Smith are both grown-ass adults. They dealt with the situation and if either one is unsatisfied with the results, they'll just live with the regrets, I guess. That's fucking life!

I suppose, one other small take, is that this physical assault happened on the Academy Awards' watch. So they could have done something other than just hand out a huge award to the guy who committed assault just previously on the same stage. I mean, they could have, if they gave a shit.

Hawkman nearly has a stroke deriding the new Justice League but nobody seems to take him seriously. They all know he's got a stick the size of a Thanagarian mace up his butthole.

Fire is missing out on the party because she's sick from meta-gene overload. She needs some time to recuperate so she can start turning into a human-shaped ball of green fire. Is that more effective than just shooting green flames? Is blasting fire all over the place even a good power for a super-hero? It seems really dangerous and destructive and costly. I guess that's why she's teamed with Ice so that Ice can just put an ice dome over every fire Bea starts.

Oberon goes about the party asking interview questions of all the guests.

Is this where Gail Simone got the idea to make Firestorm gay in The New 52?

Some people might now be thinking, "Wait. Firestorm was gay in The New 52?" And, well, yes. At least all of the clues were there for Grandmaster Comic Book Readers to find. If you're interested, I lay it all out in my early reviews of the series when The New 52 began (just search "Firestorm" in the blogger search bar). But what I didn't realize at the time was that Ethan Van Sciver, working on the book with Gail Simone, would flip the fuck out and go full Comicsgate on everybody. Am I saying Gail Simone writing a gay Firestorm set him off? Well, yes, I think I am! But that's why it's never revealed that he's gay! Because things fell apart and Gail left the book after Issue #6. My bet is Gail was all, "Wait. You didn't realize we were writing a gay Firestorm?" And Ethan was all, "What the fuck?! Get that Social Justice crap away from me, you girl!" And Gail was all, "Hey, um, DC? Can I not work with this dude?" And Ethan was all, "Where will it stop?! A disabled Batgirl?! A feminist Wonder Woman?! A Batman who goes to therapy?! A bisexual Superman?!"

Let me explain some of the jokes there because comic book fans only know one debate tactic: to say "Actually" after any bit of facetiousness or whimsy. See, there was already a disabled Batgirl and almost always a feminist Wonder Woman (except when she was wearing bicycle shorts. I don't know what she was going through during those years). But Comicsgate people don't remember anything from the past that might be Social Justice-y (which, let's face it, is pretty much fucking everything. They're fucking superheroes, assholes). So that's that joke. Then the other joke is that, well, DC didn't stop until Superman (well, the son of!) was revealed to be bisexual. And then the last joke was the really funny one: can you imagine Batman in therapy?! Ever?! Ha ha!

Hawkman tries to explain to Blue Beetle that he's being a disgusting chauvinistic jerk and, well, for once I'm on Hawkman's side! What a weird time 1989 was! This was when a whole bunch of people still believed that "conservative" and "Republican" meant decent and chivalrous and mature. But what it really meant was virtue signaling all of those things. It's why they've finally settled on the idea that people who actually care about shit are simply "virtue signaling." Because it's how they convinced all of their neighbors they weren't actually philandering xenophobic bigots!

The Khundian invaders Oberon stuffed into Roach Motels finally revert back to normal size and—wouldn't you know it?!—they didn't die from poison at all! They suspect their people have taken over Earth so they storm out of the kitchen to get some pillaging in when they run into about forty super-heroes. Hell, they couldn't even defeat Oberon so I guess they're just dead now?

Oh, wait, wait! Forget all that stuff about being chauvinistic and sexist and stuff because I have something I want to say outside of the space and time where judging happens!

Oh yeah. Power Girl is definitely on the team.

During the chase scene where the entire room full of party-goers chase the Khunds toward the JLI teleporters, Hawkman decides to quit. Good riddance! I wonder if Hawkman was ever a good character? I have to admit this series was probably my real introduction to him and he's not really painted out to be a great guy. Also, my Hawkman Super Powers figure lost his wings in a Batmobile off the back porch accident so that probably soured me toward him too.

The Khunds escape through the teleporters but since the teleporters are currently attuned to the Australian Embassy teleporters and the Australian Embassy teleporters no longer exist, Mister Miracle points out that the Khund have just killed themselves. Aren't there any safety settings on these death traps?! I'm already pretty sure teleportation machines, like the transporter used in Star Trek, are inherently suicide machines. They kill the person who steps in and then reforms a clone of them on the other side. And I believed that well before seeing the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "Second Chances," where they basically just prove my theory. If the transporter transports an individual through, I don't know, some kind of magic miracle, then it would only ever create that individual at the destination. But if the transporter disintegrates a person and creates a clone on the other side then it could easily make more than one clone. Which is how we got Thomas Riker in that episode. I fucking knew it. And Barkley knew it too! And so did Doctor Pulaski! It pisses me off that people eventually convinced both Barkley and Pulaski to finally kill themselves.

By the end of the party, Max Lord has his new Justice League Europe: Power Girl, The Flash, Animal Man, Elongated Man, Wonder Woman (part-time!), Metamorpho, Rocket Red, and Captain Atom. It actually kind of sounds like a better version of Justice League International! Although I was hoping The Creeper would make the cut.

Letters this month were from Chris Connelly of Dearborn, Michigan; Paul Decker of Burbank, California; Stephen Reischman of Langley, British Columbia; Greg Hoffman of North Brunswick, New Jersey; Lawrence of Batu Pahat, Malaysia; Tom French of Syracuse, New York; Irwin Lowe or Avondale Heights, Australia; Tom Pechtel of Country Club Hills, Illinois; and Gerard Morvan of Coignieres, France. Wow! What an international letters column! And not a single one praises the poor letterer, old what's-his-name!

Justice League International #24 Rating: A. I still look on this comic book fondly even if it seems far cheesier and immature looking back on it thirty years later. But by 1989, I had only really been reading comic books for four years (not counting Elfquest which I discovered in 1982 in 5th grade), really picking them up regularly during Crisis on Infinite Earths. So most of my "DC History" is post-Crisis. And I think this book (and Ostrander's Suicide Squad) is the shining example of what DC was about after Crisis. I believe, after killing off Supergirl and Barry Allen, they began talking about making comics fun again. As if they weren't the ones to make it not fun in the first place! The fucking jerks.