Justice League Europe Annual #2 (1991)

Is this an early version of Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory? (Obviously the three Legionnaires count as one soldier.)

Oh, this could also be an early version of Demon Knights! With the proper writer (and Moritat as artist again? Yeah?), that could be a fantastic book, although I wouldn't mind General Glory being replaced by somebody, maybe John Constantine, or if they need to be more of a one-to-one replacement for a Lawful Good goody-two-shoes, maybe Stargirl? And obviously Elongated Man needs to be replaced by Detective Chimp. I wrote "obviously" but if there's a much stronger word that means the same thing, you can replace "obviously" with that. Maybe that word is saying, "Obviously! Duh! What are you? A moron?!" Some of you might be thinking, "What about that '50s era Dick Van Dyke lookin' cowboy?" And I'd have to say, "Oh, we keep Bat Lash! If for nothing else then I've read his Who's Who entry about six hundred times (which, coincidentally, is also why we're keeping Anthro!)" Other than this annual and the "B" issue of Who's Who, I'm not sure I've ever read a Bat Lash comic book. Unless he had a Secret Origins issue.

This issue begins with Justice League Europe and Justice League America all crammed into the little room where Justice League America were all touched by Waverider in their annual. But Waverider is off fucking around somewhere else. Which is super convenient for anybody who has been paying attention to Armageddon 2001 because Captain Atom is at this meeting. But before Justice League Europe head back to the London Embassy where Superman brings Waverider to touch everybody, Captain Atom fucks off. Yeah! Imagine that! The guy who turns out not to be Monarch just happens to avoid getting his future read by Waverider! What I mean to say is the guy who was supposed to be Monarch but winds up not being Monarch due to non-story-related issues but who probably would have been found out to be Monarch at the beginning of this annual if Waverider had only managed to infiltrate this room while both teams were there (assuming the editors hadn't already changed their mind about Captain Atom being Monarch at this point, is what I mean).

You know what? I'm just confusing everybody who was too young to read this "Summer Event" off the shelves. But all y'all who were there, you know what I'm talking about! We all fucking knew Monarch was Captain Atom! You couldn't fool us, DC! At least not until you fooled us by saying, "Surprise! Hawk is Monarch! I bet none of you idiots guessed that because none of the clues pointed to Hawk because it wasn't supposed to be him! Ha ha! Got you, you fucking tools! Thanks for blowing all your summer job money on this garbage! Choads!"

I'm finally in the right mood to read this comic book and that mood is "apoplectic at DC." How dare I imagine them talking to me that way?!

Waverider has learned a little thing called "consent" since the Justice League America annual.

Some of the heroes are a bit concerned about learning their futures. For good reasons because the two characters the creative team choose to show their concern are Crimson Fox and Blue Jay. Giffen and Jones probably chose them because they realized they were the two characters with the least chance at any future success in the DC Universe.

I don't know what eventually happens to Crimson Fox but Blue Jay, you're killed by that jerk standing behind Crimson Fox in twenty-five years or so.

Look at Wally's smirk in that caption. It's like he remembers killing Blue Jay at the Recovery Center For Sad Heroes in a few decades from now. And knowing how mixed up The Flash is in time travel nonsense, he probably does remember it!

The first person Waverider touches is Catherine Cobert even though she's not a hero. My guess at Catherine's future is that she fucked Captain Atom a ton and eventually developed super powers from all the radioactive cream pies she received.

Catherine's life hasn't changed much in ten years which is probably the most realistic story DC has ever done. She's still at the same job, still moaning about taking care of a bunch of arrestedly developed heroes, and wishing her sex life were better. One of DC's clues as to who Monarch was should have been Catherine thinking about how much she wanted to fuck him.

Speaking of Monarch, he wasn't a factor in any of the Justice League America futures. Shouldn't the heroes who didn't turn out to be Monarch at least be complaining about the new fascist hero making authoritarian waves? But not one word! Does he come out of absolutely nowhere in 2001? If I'd recently read Armageddon 2001, I'd probably know the answer to that.

Silver Sorceress is in Waverider's vision so he's apparently not very good at predicting the future.

Kara's cat is still alive in 2001 so that's some good news. Although Silver Sorceress is as well so I shouldn't get too excited about seeing the cat alive. Waverider's vision ends when Catherine witnesses the Justice League London Embassy disappear in a puff of smoke. He cuts contact from Catherine while acting really concerned about what he saw but then offers her no explanation about his reaction. So now she has to assume she's dying of Captain Atom Cream Pie Cancer in ten years.

Next up is Rocket Red. Waverider's vision of Rocket Red begins as Rocket Red suddenly appears in Camelot. Which isn't ten years ago but I suppose Waverider's power, attuned to the person he touches, simply displays where they're at ten years from now. And so what if that happens to be a fictionalized version of Great Britain thousands of years ago? I say "fictionalized" but this entire DC Universe is "fictionalized" and Camelot actually exists within it. King Arthur mistakes Rocket Red for the greatest knight he has ever seen. Merlin is super jealous although I think, judging by the tent in Arthur's royal robes, Gwenhwyfar should be the jealous one.

I used one of the Welsh spellings for the Queen and since I had to look up how to spell any version of her name anyway, I chose the one I liked best. Also King Arthur wasn't depicted with a boner. If he was, I'd have scanned in the panel for proof. Although if I weren't reading an annual which is already going to take me longer than it's worth, I'd have Photoshopped a boner onto King Arthur to prove he had one anyway. I'm not saying you can't trust anything I say but, well, just don't. I'm a fucking liar. So I guess I am saying that. You can't trust anything I say.

You might wonder why I would lie for no reason about a thirty year old comic book I'm reading. But I'll tell you exactly why: because I often admit really embarrassing stuff about myself on this blog and if I cultivate a facetious, whimsical, and exaggerative personality, you won't know when I'm actually admitting to something true!

Is this an example of what the kids mean when they call me "salty"?

Not only do the tumblr kids call me salty, they also say I'm a pathetic edgelord! But I'll show them that I'm not an edgelord! I won't make a single dead baby joke in this entire review!

Dmitri has loads of Round Table adventures until Merlin, consumed with CAYKE, summoned Etrigan to have him killed.

No wait. CAYKE doesn't make any sense. Does that say ENVYE?

One less Rocket Red in the DC Universe won't bother anybody except the super nerds who somehow name Dmitri as their favorite character. Although if they're that super at being nerds, their favorite character is probably Rocket Red #7, the one that winds up being a Manhunter.

Power Girl is next. By now, the reader has probably realized that when the Embassy disappeared, Justice League Europe was scattered throughout time. Power Girl winds up in London during the blitz. Judging by the missiles crashing down around her, Slothrop fucked somebody right where Kara appears.

Power Girl runs into General Glory and his sidekick, Eddie. A building falls on Eddie, killing him, probably because he kept having impure thoughts about Power Girl's powers. For some reason, Power Girl winds up becoming General Glory's new sidekick, with the Guy Gardner haircut and everything. At this point, I'm seriously doubting Waverider's ability to see into the future. Pretty sure when he touches somebody, a random piece of fan-fiction about that character loads into his brain, deluding him into believing he's seeing the future. No wonder this idiot figures out Hank is Monarch when it's obvious Captain Atom was!

Metamorpho winds up in the future getting a drink with Jonah Hex. Remember when Jonah Hex wound up in the future post-Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths in a comic book called Hex? Now why didn't I read that series? I guess I didn't know how much I loved Jonah Hex in 1985.

Next, Waverider touches Silver Sorceress resulting in three blank pages. Because she's dead in 2001. Hell, she's dead in 1991. She just doesn't know it yet!

Remember how I lie all the time? Apparently Giffen and Jones didn't know Silver Sorceress would be dead well before 2001 also. She actually winds up back in prehistoric times being hit on by a cave woman.

"Nima alunda Sorceress. Zug zug?"

Crimson Fox goes next and winds up in the American Frontier with Bat Lash. I sense some hot sex coming up. Pages and pages of it. So many dirty, filthy pages. Except Waverider doesn't tune in to my Crimson Fox/Bat Lash fan-fiction and instead they just run around getting shot at. Boring.

Blue Jay is up next but we all know his future so let's skip ahead a few pages.

Ralph Dibny winds up in Victorian London, teleporting right on top of Moriarty and pissing Sherlock Holmes right off. So much so that he doubles down on his heroin use. But the rest of the social elite love the way his neck grows. Finally, an audience that isn't sick to death of looking at his grotesque displays of elongation.

Just as Waverider is wrapping up his terribly thought out investigation, Captain Atom wanders in. Oh boy! Time for Waverider to discover the identity of Monarch! But before he can touch Captain Atom, the cat rubs up on Waverider's ankles and he sees the cat's future. Kara's cat's future explains why everybody wound up in various places throughout time. Waverider also realizes that Elongated Man, with the help of H.G. Wells' time machine, is able to hunt them all down and return them to 2001. So Waverider, realizing the whole adventure amounts to absolutely nothing, scares Mr. Big into shutting down his spy electronics in the cat's eye which will prevent any of this time travel nonsense from ever happening. After all that's figured out, Waverider touches Captain Atom and the story ends to be concluded in Armageddon 2001 #2! Because he's going to find out that Captain Atom is Monarch! Or that Captain Atom is the only person who can stop Monarch or who knows who Monarch is or whatever. Imagine how much of Armageddon 2001 #2 the writers and artists had to change after editorial began running around DC's offices screaming, "Everybody knows! We need to surprise them! Make up something else that doesn't make any sense! Step on it, you assholes!"

Justice League Europe Annual #2 Rating: No rating. I don't rate annuals. I don't even talk intelligently about comic books! I readily admit these aren't actually "reviews"! They're just read-alongs where I make snotty comments about terrible art and awful writing! And I rarely praise any of the creators who deserve to be praised because I'm a stingy, self-hating, low self-esteem piece of shit who offers nothing valuable to society at all. Are you happy now, Cullen Bunn?! You were right! I fucking suck!

That was more lying! If anything, I love myself too much, probably!

Justice League America Annual #5 (1991)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I buy it.

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

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

Guy's a girl?

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

Guy's a girl!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wish this were a scene between Batman and Superman.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice League America #50 (May 1991)

The secret Nazi weapon: a giant eyeball that shoots orgasm lasers.

Whenever a comic book announces a double-sized issue, they make it sound like they're doing the reader a favor. But they're really just doing themselves a favor by charging more for a comic book Justice League fans were going to buy anyway. Give me a double-sized issue for the same price as a regular issue and maybe I'll read "Double-sized 50th issue!" with the proper emotion implied by the exclamation point. Or be truthful with your audience and print "Double-priced 50th Issue?!" on the cover!

I know it's not exactly double the price. But it's got double ads in it so DC is making even more money than usual!

The issue begins with Schmidt and his Evil Eye attacking General Glory at the military prison where Sidekick Ernie is stationed. Nearly the entire Justice League is also here to battle the Evil Eye which doesn't make Schmidt rethink his tactics at all. I assume this Evil Eye was defeated by General Glory alone back in the '40s (okay, with a little help from Ernie, I suppose); now it's going up against General Glory, Martian Manhunter, Guy Gardner, Orion, Lightray, Fire, Ice, and Blue Beetle (I don't know why I even mentioned Blue Beetle. That's like correcting somebody who answers a math question with "five million" and you're all, "Unh-unh. Five million and ONE-HALF!"). The New Mister Miracle sits by and watches because the Old Mister Miracle won't let him join the battle. I bet he joins the battle anyway. I was about to quote Dirty Dancing but having never seen Dirty Dancing, I didn't think it was appropriate. If you've seen Dirty Dancing, you can say the thing you know I was going to say yourself.

Prisoners aren't even allowed to defend themselves?

Shilo, the new Mister Miracle, freaks the fuck out because he's never really been in the middle of a battle before. I suppose I would freak the fuck out as well because what is he even capable of? Scott Free was raised on Apokolips so he had some skills and he was still practically useless. Isn't this Shilo kid just a regular human being that can maybe do a card trick or two? What the fuck was Scott Free thinking?

Granted, I never read the late '80s, early '90s Mister Miracle comic book so I don't really know what I'm talking about. Perhaps Shilo has invulnerability or something. Why would Scott Free pick some nobody with no powers to continue his legacy? Just because he wants to stay home and fuck Barda more often, it doesn't mean he needs a replacement to run around in his shitty, ugly, useless superhero outfit.

Schmidt drops his Anti-Glory Bomb on General Glory. It doesn't kill him or make him disappear so I don't know why he named it that. Maybe it just erases General Glory's glory, making him a disgrace to his uniform, name, and country. But then, he's already a disgrace to those things. I guess that's why the bomb didn't have any effect. Or maybe it was one of those bombs that affects the past! But judging by the way Schmidt popped a huge boner about it, I thought it was going to be the end of General Glory. I know I'm only on page five but a person can hope, can't they?

General Glory manages to convince Eddie to fight side-by-side with him because The Evil Eye is a problem they should have taken care of fifty years ago.

Yeesh. Really glad General Glory is a white man at this moment.

With a little teamwork between the members of the Justice League while Ernie fires a few impotent bullets in the Eye's direction and General Glory lathers his bum with compliments, the Evil Eye crashes to the ground, pinning Schmidt in the rubble. Blue Beetle wants to help him but the old man would rather die and tell a rambling story about how he discovered General Glory wasn't dead after the war. Even dying can't stop an old man from telling a long, boring story.

Schmidt's dying words were that Sharp, General Glory's handler, destroyed General Glory's reputation and memory because Sharp was in love with the woman who was in love with General Glory. It's a tale as boring as time. Ernie doesn't think, "That Nazi must be lying!" Mostly because Ernie seems to believe whatever bullshit the last person told him. Maybe that's what makes him such a good soldier? Ernie is all, "That Nazi must be telling the truth! But he's a Nazi so he must be lying! I don't know who to believe! Why am I such a credulous piece of shit?!" And General Glory is all, "Don't worry, credulous piece of shit. We'll get to the bottom of this."

The perfect murder! Killing a man in your military office who just walked past your secretary!

Obviously he's not really dead. You can see Guy Gardner's force field around him in the second panel. But Ernie, being a credulous piece of shit, believes he was just shot and probably dies anyway.

Martian Manhunter walks in and lets Sharp know that he's being arrested for attempted murder and whatever law he broke when he framed a national hero fifty years prior. Treason, maybe? And, at fifteen pages, that's the end of the story. Double issue my asshole! Sure there's more comic! But judging by the cover, you'd have thought the huge climactic final battle was going to need forty pages! But the battle, and the resurrection of General Glory's reputation, were both easily handled in less than a full length comic book.

The story that follows is the top secret final comic book of General Glory that was never published and somehow clears his name. So I guess that's sort of part of the story although Schmidt just told us everything we needed to know to accept General Glory was innocent. I'm tempted to not even read it but who am I kidding? I'm a sucker for wasting my life doing things I'm not really passionate about.

The General Glory comic is only three pages long! It tells how Sharp simply lied to Louise about General Glory murdering everybody in a POW camp and Louise going, "Gosh, I guess he did. Oh well! But I'm still not going to fuck you." Then they force General Glory to say his magic oath backwards and he loses all of his powers and his memory too! The issue ends with a "Watch your newstands for future issues of General Glory!" Were they expecting kids to wait eagerly for the next issue of General Glory where he gets a boring job and goes grocery shopping? I suppose if it was only three pages, I'd read that regularly.

Oh, and the story didn't actually end on page fifteen. It was just interrupted by the old General Glory comic book that supposedly proves his innocence but really just explains how he's a traitor to the United States. It's a good thing Schmidt confessed before he died!

Once back at the Embassy, Orion and Lightray quit the Justice League. I haven't been keeping track but they're at least the 5th and 6th member of the League (America or Europe) to join and quit without really adding to the dynamic of the team or playing any kind of important role in a story arc. When they do leave, there's an editor's note to see what they'll be getting up to in New Gods #1. I think that explains why they were in the League for a few issues. That probably explains why all the other ultimately useless members of the League were on the roster as well. Just an advertisement for their solo monthlies!

Some people might think that's a cynical take but that's because those people didn't read the page after the page where Orion and Lightray quit.

Oh? Shilo isn't going to be in the League? I wonder where he will be? Oh? In the Mister Miracle monthly, you say?

I know I was fooled earlier by a fake ending but I think this story does end on page 21 just before the 22nd page where Guy Gardner calls up DC Comics to try to get the old General Glory artist a job drawing super hero comic books. They hang up when they realize he's a Golden Age artist and not a modern artist who understands how to draw dynamic poses and overly cross-hatched faces.

That makes the main story 21 pages. In other words, a "Single-Sized 50th Issue!" The rest of the issue is a comic book drawn by Kyle Baker which probably doesn't fall into actual continuity (being that it's called "KTRROGARRX! An Imaginary Tale"). It's just a way to satirize the creators of Justice League America and make them look like a bunch of fools.

Of the three DC employees in the scene, the only one I'm sure of is Keith Giffen. One of them is a writer named Mark and the other is a large, angry, curly-headed, bearded man. He seems to be the editor of the Justice League so whoever the editor was at the time? Andy Helfer, I guess. I suppose the other guy, being that I'm so smart at figuring shit out, is J.M. DeMatteis being that the "M" stands for "Marc" (not Mark, Kyle!). Anyway, Guy Gardner intrudes to convince them to hire Joe, the 80 year old comic book artist who hasn't worked since the 40s.

Judging by the look of Keith Giffen, Kyle Baker draws hyper-realistic.

The entire back-up story (1/2 of the Double-Sized 50th Issue!) simply exists to make a few employees at DC laugh. It doesn't add anything to Justice League America at all. And yet it's fully one-half of the comic book. A comic book fans paid nearly twice as much for. I'm going to have to start reading the letters pages again just to see people's reactions to this stunt. I can't see anybody giving a shit about this story unless their names are Kyle, Keith, Andy, and Marc! Guy Gardner does murder a giant Godzilla-like creature but that's only so the comic book professionals can criticize his look, his actions, his dialogue, and the monster's paper-thin motivations. I'm glad it was subtitled "An Imaginary Tale" so I don't have to constantly think about Keith Giffen being part of the actual (fictional?) DC Continuity. Or Gerard Jones! Eep! I'm really glad this back-up story didn't take place in Justice League Europe!

Justice League America #50 Rating: F. This issue was a scam. A con. A fraud. A way to steal money out of the pockets of young and impressionable comic book fans who didn't know how shitty comic book publishers could be. Although I am a bit glad that the General Glory finale wasn't twice as long. General Glory fucking sucks and I really hope Max doesn't allow him to join the team. He can fuck off back to obscurity. Although his dog is kind of cute so maybe he can stick around and sidekick for Guy Gardner.

Justice League America #49 (April 1991)

Why are the Justice League outside the cell looking down at a green-fisted baby?

I have a theory that sometime in the late '70s or early '80s, the Comics Code Authority simply abandoned their post. Like God, they simply established the rules and then fucked off. By the late '70s, I'm not even sure the current editors and writers at the major publishers even really knew what the rules were anymore. Because it didn't matter! Nobody was checking up on them anymore. As long as they had the stupid little "Approved" stamp on the cover, everybody was happy. Not that anybody even really noticed it. Nobody was checking to make sure a comic had the stamp before buying it. It mostly went unnoticed. The only time anybody noticed it was when it wasn't there! And that probably encouraged people to buy a comic book! I bring this up because it was almost certainly against the rules to put a fucking toilet on the cover of a comic book!

Here are some rules that I know Justice League (America or Europe) has broken in this current series:

"(1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals." In Justice League Quarterly #2, I felt sympathy for Fire and Ice who were arrested for bullshit crimes which made me distrust the NYPD. Also Captain Cold always inspires me to do crime.

Me ready to do crimes.

"(3) Policemen, judges, Government officials and respected institutions shall never be presented in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority." The cop in Justice League Quarterly #2 was a huge bastard that not only arrested Fire and Ice for no reason but fined Ice for various reasons simply because he felt disrespected by her and Fire. Also I think he felt emasculated. You know, the two main reasons cops love to shoot and kill innocent people.

"(4) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity." I just checked to make sure Justice League Quarterly #2 was approved by the Comics Code Authority because it broke every single one of these rules so far. It was. I thought I was going to have to remember all of the previous issues I'd read to come up with examples of when DC broke all of these rules but apparently I only needed to remember the last issue I read! Because I don't remember Captain Cold and Heatwave making their jewelry heist sordid or unpleasant. It was the exact opposite! They were reminiscing about the days when criminals were gentlemen and non-violent! They really made it a pleasant experience for the clerks working behind the counter.

General Glory would never put up with breaking any of these rules! There are loads of rules and suggestions but they're all idiotic '50s nonsense about how prudes thought the world should work. It was just more ways to lie to kids about the truth of the world by portraying unrealistic bullshit at the expense of exciting and fantastic tales of science fiction and horror. Why is it always boring people who want to control the actions of other people to make them more boring and who crave power and authority so they can force that control? I guess it's because they're also fearful schmucks who think everybody else is going to succumb to propaganda and cause chaos. Why can't they just live their boring lives while also being brave enough not to worry about how everybody else is living their lives? If I want to drop LSD and go to Disneyland, let me! I let you go to church and not have pre-marital sex or drink or do drugs and instead just live a boring ass life, don't I?!

Why wasn't "horribly rendered facial expressions" against the rules, Comics Code?!

Some FBI agents arrest General Glory in the middle of the street for war crimes. Since he's a walking, talking embodiment of the Comics Code Authority, this must be some kind of allegory. General Glory constantly tries to control everybody's language, defends the FBI Agents so that they aren't treated in a way that promotes distrust of law and justice, and kills the fuck out of Nazis. Guy Gardner, being an example of a character that mostly defies the Comics Code Authority, constantly gets put in his place by General Glory. Giffen and DeMatteis must have still been reeling from five years earlier when they read Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns and thought, "Remember when comic books used to have real heroes who didn't swear and actually saved the world and didn't mention dead dogs and also put pre-pubescent kids in physical danger because it would have seemed even more gay to have a male adult sidekick?"

The Hitlerbot's live feed still works even after it was smashed to pieces within 20 seconds of arriving at the Justice League Embassy, so Schmidt manages to see General Glory's arrest by the government of the United States.

Shmidt is so desperate to get credit for his work that he misses how he could use this to destroy General Glory.

Look, I get it! I would push my own mother into a sewer drain to make sure I got proper credit for something I wrote! I'm fairly certain that when I die and my life flashes before my eyes, I will have the exact same expression as Schmidt in the lower left panel for 85% of it. Only in 20% will I be screaming "Gott in Himmel" though.

I wonder what Schmidt's Evil Eye is going to be? I was truly hoping that he'd break out the Nazi War Wheel. What a weapon of staggering genius! Did some Nazi engineer once visit a fair where the Ferris Wheel broke free and went rampaging through town in a straight line causing a very narrow area of death and destruction before it ran out of steam and fell over on its side while thinking, "An unstoppable weapon!"?

Turns out the Evil Eye powers the Nazi Retirement Center in the Amazon forest so Schmidt won't be able to use it. Ha ha! Just kidding! He's going to fuck over all of his Nazi cohorts to get his revenge on General Glory! I guess not only is there no honor among thieves, but there's also no honor among Nazis. Who could have guessed?!

Guy Gardner tries to escape the feds with General Glory but General Glory, having vacuumed up all that honor left behind by the thieves and Nazis, refuses to run from justice.

General Glory? More like General Naivete!

General Glory doesn't remember anything from the last 45 years so he's a little bit ignorant on the history of justice and civil rights in the United States. These patriots are always so blind to the truth in their rabid need to defend everything about the United States. Criticizing and fixing your country should be seen as much more patriotic than blindly extolling its non-existent virtues. Also everybody should hate cops. It's actually more of an American tradition to hate cops and understand they're fascist morons than it is to praise and support them. Pretty much the entire 20th Century was spent pointing out how ridiculous and corrupt they were! That's the one American tradition I'd like to start up again!

Somehow, Guy being Guy, the attempted escape with General Glory turns into a mid-air fight with Lightray and Orion. It's the battle nobody wanted but everybody knew was going to happen sooner or later! Unless I'm wrong. Apparently comic book fans love it when good guys battle each other. I always think it's a waste of time, energy, and pages that I paid for! Especially since I already know Guy Gardner can beat the shit out of Orion but Orion will actually beat the shit out of Guy Gardner because all writers hate Guy Gardner. At least they did until Charles Soule took over Red Lanterns during The New 52. It was like Soule understood the Guy Gardner I always knew existed and proved to me that every other writer handling Guy was just being an asshole.

Anyway, eventually all the fighting between League members stops and General Glory is hauled off by the federal government.

Up until this week, nobody even knew General Glory was real!

Why the fuck is Perry White giving the green light on that article? "Breaking news: comic book character that nobody actually believed in might have committed mass murder!" I suppose I have to do that thing where the fan makes up excuses for the poor plotting of the writers yet again! My theory is that the previous day's paper had an article written by Lois Lane uncovering the truth about General Glory and how the United States kept him top secret by dosing all American witnesses with LSD and disappearing all foreign witnesses. She also probably uncovered his supposed war crime and hinted at General Glory being not all that he appeared since she knew he was going to be arrested. But then she allowed Daryl Polomus to write that story because she knew General Glory would eventually be cleared and she didn't want her name on such a click-baity article.

Okay fine. This is just about as ridiculous as the War Wheel.

Technically the Evil Eye was living just fine under the Amazon forest hooked up to the respirators and EKG monitors of the Nazi old folks home. Also it's a machine so it doesn't live at all. Am I getting too didactic? Or do I mean pedantic? If only there were a didactic pedant reading this who could put me straight.

I was just kidding! Didactic pedants can fuck off out of the comment section! And I didn't even hurt my own feelings saying that!

Ripping the Evil Eye out of the Nazi retirement home is the most heroic thing Schmidt will ever have done because he just killed dozens of Nazis. The entire place collapses so no future writers have to be concerned with it (unless they're Geoff Johns or Grant Morrison and they've got a way of retconning a really cool idea out of it).

General Glory's sidekick Ernie seems to have been bamboozled by Newkirk Sharp (the military handler of General Glory back in the day) who set up General Glory as a patsy for the slaughter of the POW camp. It's probably because General Glory stole the woman Sharp loved. Or he's a Nazi. Or, well, I don't know. It doesn't matter, right? There's always some dick in the military trying to fuck over heroic dicks in the military. Luckily the comic book artist who chronicled all of General Glory's adventures wrote a story about the POW slaughter that was never published. He says it's a factual account of the incident which the military kept from being published. But he's sure the comic book still exists somewhere! It's not like they would have instantly shredded or burned a document that could expose their traitorous actions, right?! But just in case they weren't smart enough to do that, the comic book artist has teamed up with the Justice League to find the truth!

Ernie, so hopped up on propaganda and lies, enters the General's cell intent on shooting him dead. But he can't do it because he's ultimately not a bad person. The Justice League arrives with the cartoonist Joe Mason to explain how they can prove General Glory didn't murder a bunch of American soldiers. But before any truth can be handled, Schmidt and his Evil Eye bust in to do some Nazi murdering of their own.

Justice League America #49 Rating: B. If the Comics Code Authority had still been paying attention to comic books in 1991, they probably wouldn't have given their support of this story arc. That's because it paints the American military as just as bad as Nazis! Both want to destroy General Glory for their own selfish reasons. I mean, sure, it's really just one person in each organization who wants to kill him so I guess that's how DC can get away with having Americans trying to achieve the same goal as Nazis. It really is just Nazi Schmidt and American Military-man Newkirk who want General Glory dead for their own reasons and they're using and destroying the organizations they work for (or used to work for, really) to accomplish their selfish desires. I hope Ernie kills himself out of shame for having doubted General Glory's honor for the last forty-five years. What kind of an asshole believes military reports over the word of their friends?! Sure, sure. I burn bridges at the snap of a finger but I'm also not declaring that I'm not an asshole! And I don't burn bridges because of idle gossip and rumor from other people! I burn bridges because I can't stand one single opinion somebody close to me once espoused! If I haven't made it clear, I've never engaged in any kind of therapy.

Justice League America #48 (March 1991)

This should probably be "der Überbot."

I don't know German and my research skills are shit but the German word for robot uses the masculine form of "the" so my guess is that the word "Überbot" which basically means "Aryan Robot" (fuck you, I know what it really means which is why I added "basically means," you fun vampire) would be a masculine noun. I could ask the Non-Certified Spouse who is basically fluent in German but she's sleeping because I always wind up reading comic books before the sun comes up. Also, the Überbot looks like Hitler so it should be masculine (yes, I know masculine and feminine nouns don't actually have anything to do with real gender, you constantly interrupting fun vampire).

I'd accept that you could probably use Über to mean "super" in benign situations that don't evoke anything German. But if you call something German "Über" than I'm going to have to assume you're a Nazi and your version of "Über" translates to "Aryan" which probably 100% translates to "white supremacist."

Out of all the words people on the Internet get angry at people on the Internet for using, I only really have a complaint with one of them: "kitler." Man, I love a cute little kitler!

This issue begins with the old German man who hates General Glory trekking through a South American rainforest (is the Amazon the only one down there? If so, he's in the Amazon! But while I often don't mind making huge and ignorant assumptions, I didn't want to assume this time!). The comic book says "South American jungle" but is that really the same thing? I don't think it is and I think the image of the old man running practically unimpeded along the forest floor indicates that he's in a rainforest and not a jungle!

Look, if I get anything wrong, just leave it, okay? You should know the main thing about me is that I never really know what I'm talking about but I'm still super smart somehow.

The old man is searching for a secret Nazi base that he hasn't been to in, at most, 24 years.

The security rock must have been installed sometime after 1967 when the term PIN (Personal Identification Number) began to be used after the invention of ATMs (Ass-to-Mouths).

Deep beneath the floor of the rainforest, the old man enters an old folks home for Nazis. Swastikas are everywhere so I can't scan any of the pictures lest I make tumblr cry. Although the Hitler robot on the front cover probably already made them faint.

Schmidt, the old man who hates General Glory, wants the old Nazis to activate "Weapon H" (which must be the Hitler bot) and take over the world. For some reason, he decided now that General Glory was back would be the best time for this plan. But wouldn't the best time for this plan been when General Glory was nowhere to be found?! Schmidt feels like having their old enemy back in the public eye will rally all of the Nazis together again. But what he doesn't plan on is that all the old Nazis are old and just want to enjoy their prune breakfasts in the safety of their jungle hideout where they don't have to worry about being found guilty of war crimes. What Schmidt also doesn't realize is that the GOP has been really building the framework for a new Nazi takeover for the last eleven years (his time! Because of Reagan and his cohorts!). Yes, yes, by all means: defend Reagan in the comments! Any defense of Reagan just proves you live in an alternate reality that refuses to accept true things.

The old Nazis, being comfortable in their secret hideaway, tell Schmidt he can activate Weapon H if he wants but to leave them out of it. That doesn't seem like a good plan. A good plan, if they don't want their secret lair discovered, would be to put a pullet in Schmidt's head and toss his corpse out into the jungle.

While Schmidt travels to South America to plan his new Third Reich (so, um, a Fourth Reich?), the United States Government gets wind of the return of General Glory and freaks the fuck out. I don't know why. I guess because they realize super-duper patriotism could cause a lot of fucking trouble?

Oh how naïve we were in 1991 to think this might actually be "The Last Giant Nazi Robot Story"!

This is off the record but Weapon H is kind of adorable. Can something I write and post on the Internet be "off the record"? Well, I'm making it possible right now through sheer force of will!

Imagine if Weapon H had been released as a Shogun Warrior? I mean, they had the Godzilla Shogun Warrior! Why not Nazi Robot Adolf Hitler?! Now imagine being the kid who got Weapon H Shogun Warrior for Christmas! I'm still always proud when I see Gaiking anywhere on the Internet. It would suck to have to be ashamed of the awesome robot toy you had as a kid!

Weapon H appears in Berlin so Justice League Europe gets the call first. But Sue Dibny, stuck on monitor duty, is all, "All of our members are currently busy. You'll have to call Justice League America to stop the Hitler robot." What the fuck are Justice League Europe so busy with?! The Tremor worms? Pretty sure only like four or five of them were dealing with that. Elongated Man and Metamorpho could probably help out with Hitlerbot.

Why is Sue delivering this mundane information so dramatically?!

I think Sue's original dialogue for that panel was, "He just won't fucking stop stretching his neck and wriggling his nose! It never fucking ends! Help me, Catherine! Send him on a suicide mission! Anything! I can't be banged that monstrosity anymore!"

Back at the JLA's New York Embassy, General Glory continues to have to prove to Martian Manhunter that he's a real person and not just a comic book character. To do so, he has Martian Manhunter read his origin story in a comic book.

The comic book also gives us the origin of Guy Gardner's stupid haircut. Which is just a really genius thing to include. Good job, Giffen and DeMatteis.

The comic book was a way for General Glory to remain top secret. It made any eyewitness accounts of General Glory seem laughable. And so everybody believed he was fictional for decades. Except Guy Gardner, of course. But I'm not sure Guy can distinguish between fiction and reality anyway.

General Glory recounts the last mission he remembers going on when asked about what happened to his sidekick. But his sidekick isn't even in the story so I'm not sure how it's applicable! Anyway, he was frozen in ice like some other super hero you may have heard of and the next thing he knew, he was just his normal civilian self again. And he grew old barely remembering any of his past until recently. Martian Manhunter suggests probing his mind to find out more information but at just that moment, Weapon H attacks!

And is destroyed in three pages. Martian Manhunter tears its arm off and Green Lantern crushes it in one blow. And that's the end of the huge Nazi robot threat! But it's not the end of the comic book because the feds have to show up to arrest General Glory. I bet it's because appearing in public means he's leaking top secret information!

Justice League America #48 Rating: B+. I might have given this issue an A but the art across the last few pages was incredibly amateurish. I think it was "way late and almost past the deadline no time for the inker to do a pass over the art" draft. It felt like the artist was drawing the comic book the way I review comic books. Put a lot of effort into the first two-thirds and then just summed up the last third in one paragraph. Exactly like I did here! But I only did it this time so I could compare my review style to the art in this issue. Normally I just do it out of laziness and growing boredom.

Justice League America #47 (February 1991)

Fingers crossed General Glory gets a deal with Whole Foods to sell General Glory Whole Foods' Frozen Meals.

It's weird that I have vague memories of disliking this story arc because General Glory was a totally made-up hero who didn't actually exist. You see the problem with that logic, right? But when I was a young, ignorant comic book fan who thought canon and continuity were the be-all and end-all of comic book stories, you can sort of see how having a hero come out of nowhere and use up five months worth of Justice League stories all to himself could be anything but a traumatic event. Five fucking months of my life?! At 18, that was nearly 5% of it if I'm doing the math correctly (and by correctly, I mean guesstimating and making shit up). Who wants to read about this old fart for that long?! There's a reason I was buying Justice League and not Justice Society, DC! It's the same reason I would buy The Outsiders and laugh at my friend Sal who kept collecting old issues of The All-Star Squadron! I mean, sure, those were the young guys at the time those comics were published! But they were old fart comic books by the time Sal was collecting them! No wonder he became a Trump lover!

Yeah, you heard me! I just brought politics into this! I like to make it clear how much I despise the conservative view so that conservatives feel really uncomfortable reading the rest of the review. Or do they simply stop reading when they realize I just used "Trump lover" to mean "an old friend who became a gigantic fucking idiot"?! I don't know! I also don't care! Whee!

I'd just like to clarify that I fucking hate the idea of "canon" now. It's so fucking limiting. Who cares if Blue Beetle is circumcised "in canon"?! If a story needs him to be circumcised one month and not circumcised the next month, who fucking cares?! The discussion of what is and isn't canon is the most irritating thing about young people on tumblr! And they're irritating in so many other ways! Yeah, I said it! Who's the old guy now?! That's right! Me!

Oh, I can't stay mad at you, young people of tumblr! Except that one tumblr user who used to constantly chastise me for using "Superboy" tags in my Superboy comic book reviews because I was "using tumblr wrong" and the tag was for roleplay only! Fucking idiot! What's wrong with young people thinking there are correct ways to use certain sites?! The great thing about the Internet is that it is supposed to be a lawless frontier! But now if I'm on tumblr, I'm supposed to drive off celebrities. Or if I'm on Twitter, I have to be a right-wing troll who loves that dumb-dumb Elon Musk. Or, apparently, if I'm on Spoutible, I have to be a boring old leftist oldie. Oh, wait! I am that! Good work, me!

I was playing around one day pushing the edgelord limits of Spoutible and I finally hit the mark with this Twee...uh, Spout: "My local pet store is having a sweet deal. If you can kick a guinea pig over the roof, you get it for free." As if that wasn't obviously facetious hyperbole. Who'd even want a free guinea pig?!

This issue begins by wasting several pages re-introducing Mister Miracle to the pages of the comic book as he performs a stunt in Washington Square Park for a crowd that simply despises everything. The entire scene is only saved by one bit:

Ice being absolutely adorable.

This is the problem with appeasing canon and continuity! Far too much time has been spent in this series on replacing Scott with a robot because Scott was going on an interstellar tour in his own comic book. Then he came back so he could be back in the League but, due to his own comic book, he refused so he could spend more time with Barda. And now, just an issue or two after Oberon was all, "I'm out of here," the idiots are back! I never even read the monthly Mister Miracle comic book so all of this shit was wasted space as far as I was concerned. Either let him stay in the League and just fucking ignore what was happening in his comic book or kick him out immediately! I don't have time for this shit! I don't have time for any shit! I'm old, remember?!

Six pages later, Beetle, Fire, and Ice discover that Scott isn't even in the safe. It's some other guy in the Mister Miracle costume. Did Scott Free tool around with training a new Mister Miracle in his comic book? You know what? I don't care. I never bought it and I don't want to know. Although I'm angry that six pages of my Justice League comic book were taken up by this noob!

Back at the JLA Embassy, Guy Gardner is absolutely fan-boying his jeans over General Glory.

On one hand, I'm sad I haven't fan-boyed my jeans in decades. On the other, it's pretty gross and uncomfortable.

Martian Manhunter doesn't believe in comic book characters until Guy Gardner begins apologizing to the General for his language and temper. Is General Glory the only person in the DC Universe whom Guy Gardner respects?! Other than maybe Kilowog?

Mister Miracle arrives to make sure nobody beats up his protégé (whom I'm vaguely beginning to remember after seeing that hair on his head) just before Max Lord comes back from his trip to find everybody freaking out about General Glory, Mister Miracle, and . . . well, that's it, actually. The conflict about Mister Miracle not being Scott and General Glory being a comic book character goes on for so many pages, I actually thought maybe a ton of shit was happening all at once. I guess that's what Giffen and DeMatteis were going for: complete and utter chaos. But when you get right down to the bottom of it, there's really no need for the chaos. It's so contrived to make it seem like just another day of madness with the League! But at least a real threat happens while they're all arguing so that the story can move forward.

Oh boy! An emergency! Too bad it took 14 pages to happen.

The emergency is a fire started by General Glory's Nazi rival who had an accident while building a Nazi Death Weapon or a Nazi Doombot or something. The fire broke out near an oil refinery so the Justice League rush in to keep the place from exploding. General Glory rushes into the burning building to save some houseless people. But instead of finding anybody to save, he finds this:

Oops! Not that! That scan was meant for my personal collection!


Twitter Blue already defending this robot's right to free speech.

The Nazi-bot topples onto General Glory because what else is it going to do? Look at it! It definitely wasn't made for graceful movements. Or any movements for that matter. It's less articulated than a Gobot.

The robot and General Glory crash into the basement of the burning building. And since the rest of the Justice League believe he's just some crazy lunatic pretending to be a comic book super hero, they all assume he's just died. But instead, he comes walking out of the inferno clutching a poor puppy. The press eats it up and Max Lord, who loves nothing more than good press, gives him a spot on the team. And General Glory keeps the dog for a mascot. How long before it and the Justice League Europe cat get into a brawl? That'll probably happen in the huge Breakdowns event, right?!

Justice League America #47 Rating: B+. I know I whined about all the wasted space but even wasted space can be entertaining character work! My real main issue was I don't give a shit about the characters being worked! General Glory? Stop wasting my time! And the new Mister Miracle? Get the fuck out of here! I barely gave a shit about the current one and you think I'm going to care about a new, younger one?! Although I did enjoy the character work on Ice's butthole in that one panel. Nice work, Linda Medley!

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?!

Justice League Europe #14 (May 1990)

Every month, The Elongated Man discovers new ways to be absolutely disgusting.

In a way, I'm glad Elongated Man has made his eyeballs protrude like he did on the cover because it gives the reader some insight into his powers. Can he do the same with his rectum, creating a kind of xenomorph butthole that can engulf a bad guys head? Why yes he can! Can he extend his belly button (if he's an outie) to give Sue a little DVDA pleasure (the other three members being Ralph's penis and two of whatever the fuck else he wants (including his rectum, I guess!))? You bet he can! The Elongated Man is less a wacky super-hero and more a living nightmare of body horror and I hate him for it.

Like most issues involving Keith Giffen on "plot and breakdowns," this issue took two writers to write it: Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones. I guess "plot and breakdowns" are the meat of the story and probably the story boarding and page layout aspect which really seems like most of the work. All Gerard Jones had to do was come up with all the stupid words coming out of the heads of the characters. That would have left him with a lot of free time which he probably spent scouring CompuServe for child pornography. That's not a tasteless joke; it's just a logical assumption based on existing evidence (that evidence mostly being how Gerard Jones was convicted of distributing and possessing child pornography!). But my main question doesn't have anything to do with Gerard's criminal activities; my main question is this: why the fuck can't Keith Giffen write dialogue?!

Some of you may be answering that question right now (if you're not currently Googling Gerard Jones) and, believe me, I don't really need an answer to it. I've read Giffen books where he did the dialogue and it can ranges from "nearly incomprehensible banter" to "could have come right out of a Marx Brothers' movie." I have a feeling that DC editors perhaps didn't appreciate how often Giffen's dialogue roamed into "nearly incomprehensible banter." But for me, I love it when I have to read a full page Giffen dialogue between several characters eight times before I fully understand it!

The issue begins with a self-proclaimed smelly nerd enjoying some alone time at home. Technically all of his time is alone and he probably "enjoys" most of it.

Um. Oh no.

This is Gerard Jones as a self-insert, right? Or, at least, a Giffen/Medley insert! But Jones wrote the dialogue so if it is him (which it totally is!), he was in on the joke that he's a smelly gross pervert with a huge collection of pornography! I'm assuming that this character's pornography isn't super-duper illegal though!

You might be thinking, "Come on, Tess! How do you know that smelly nerd who has no friends (all evidence expressed in the dialogue!) is going to watch pornography?!" Well I'll be think-answering that question (being that I'm a Level 12 Clairvoyant), "The subsequent panels are all the proof you need, my cynical Internet friend! May I call you a friend? It sure would be nice to have some!"

Hopefully he was going to end that sentence with "woman" and not "small child."

See? You don't get excited about where the movie was last paused unless it's paused at a graphic sex scene you're all hyped up to jerk it to! This is obviously a porn parody of Gone With the Wind. I'd think up a clever porn parody title for that movie but one doesn't exist. It's parody proof! I'd just call it I Left My Muff at Home which is probably the sexiest line from the actual movie.

The smelly little nerd nearly dies when his VCR electrocutes the shit out of him (probably because it's full of jizz). In that moment, his consciousness transfers to the character in the movie and he climbs out of the television.

No, YOU'RE relieved to see the romantic lead is old enough to have breasts!

I'm confused. Who prepares to jerk it to porn with their belt still on? That fucker should already be pre-tightened around the neck.

I am not *wink* advocating that people *wink* participate in *wink* auto-*wink*-erotic asphyx*wink*iation. *wank* I mean wink.

Apparently this happened seven years ago because the scene shifts to a caption that says "Brooklyn. Now." with this loser lamenting how his super power has gotten him nowhere.

Duh! Who is looking to book a Harold Ramis impersonator?!

Oh, actually he's being Woody Allen. Gross. But fitting, I suppose!

The poor Gerard Jones Mary Sue has discovered that he can't even enjoy his movies anymore because he had an irresistible urge to become Marilyn Monroe while watching The Misfits. What's wrong with that? One of the first things I would have done if I'd had this super power was pop in Heathers, become Winona Ryder and just go to town on my pussy! Heck, I'd probably just fuck myself seeing as how my actual body still exists while I've become somebody else (as you can see from one of the previously scanned panels). This guy's main problem is that he's weirded out by wanting to become a woman?! Dude, you should be so lucky!

Instead of becoming a woman and fucking himself like any rational person with this power would do almost immediately (after first seeing if they could become Alf and then checking out Alf's junk), he decides to become a male movie star who simply gets a lot of ass.

Funt Cuntwood is definitely my next gnome character in Dungeons and Dragons.

Meanwhile in Cannes, France, Wally, Kara, Ralph, and Sue have been invited to the film festival. Ralph can't go two minutes without embarrassing Sue by elongating his neck to grotesque proportions. She's also embarrassed because he's stretching his neck to get a closer look at a picture of cleavage on a nearby billboard. That's probably less prurient than Wally taking pictures of women passing by in bikinis. There's so much tit and ass in this panel that I break out my dainty paper fan to fan myself down. Plus Sue has a Band-aid on her knee and you know what that means! Ooh la la!

While Ralph and Wally try to convince the women that being horny on main is what France is all about, they run into Fire and Ice.

Get it?! He's really talking about Fire's ass!

That panel is basically the distracted boyfriend meme!

Nearby, phony Funt Cuntwood gets it on with the ladies.

His legs are crossed because he blew his load as soon as he smelled these women.

What the fuck is Funt Cuntwood drinking? Charcoal?

For some reason I can't put my finger on, Gerard Jones chooses to have characters say "Funt Cuntwood" in nearly every panel. I mean "Flint Clintwood," of course! But you know Jones knew it was going to read as "Funt Cuntwood" in at least 50% of the panels. I guess the unwritten rule that you never name a character "Clint" should have been a written rule! Especially over at Marvel!

Funt Cuntwood gets arrested for no other reason than that the manager of the hotel believes he's not really Funt Cuntwood. It's France so I don't know what kind of proof is needed before you're hauled off by the police. According to other Americans who believe that America is the only free country in the world, I'm guessing anybody can be arrested by a French cop at any time and for any reason! So unbelievable! Not like the most free country in the world where they'd never arrest you without proof because they can just kill you on a whim and never face any repercussions.

To escape the police, Funt Cuntwood (I don't know the character's real name and that one is so entertaining, I'll just keep using it) escapes the police by turning into Godzilla which is playing on a nearby massive television. What luck! I mean what bad luck because the Justice League are just around the corner.

Maybe if you wanted to meet women, begin with showering and not magically turning into Funt Cuntwood to trick them into fucking you.

Cunt Funtwood manages to evade the Justice League by turning into Winki the Dog and just walking away. Since none of the Justice League have any clue as to who they're chasing or what he can do, it works. The world is once again safe from a man who can't get laid. For now!

Justice League Europe #14 Rating: B+. I found it entertaining! Probably because it was so stupid and also I'm willing to believe it was mocking Comicsgaters. Take that, youse guys! Stop being so angry that you can't get laid! It's probably the biggest obstacle to you getting laid! Just pay for it already so that the pressure is off. Maybe multiple times! Once you're not obsessed about getting laid, you can, maybe, be somewhat normal! I'm going to have to pay attention to the letters in future issues to see how many fans felt they were being laughed at by this story!