Eclipso: The Darkness Within: L.E.G.I.O.N. '92 Annual #3 (August 1992)

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: L.E.G.I.O.N. '92 Annual #3 (August 1992)
By Barry Kitson, Mike McKone, John Dell, Jack Torrance, Peter Gross, Bob Smith, Jimmy Palmiotti, Gaspar, and Lovern Kindzierski
Cover by Mike McKone and Jan Harpes
Edited by Frank Pittarese and Dan Raspler

• Should I make a list of the top ten comic book characters I'd like to fuck or would that make me sound too much like a huge anti-social nerd who too often thinks about having sex with fictional creations? Would a list of fuckable comic book characters be more or less weird than a list of animated insurance characters I'd like to fuck? Maybe if I actually fucked a real person, I'd stop thinking about fucking fictional characters that have no agency? Or would I just become the protagonist of Boxing Helena II: The Boxening?

• Shit! I meant the antagonist! Fuck! Did I just expose too much of my interior squidgy being by accidentally expressing that the main character of Boxing Helena was the guy who cut off Sherilyn Fenn's limbs and not Sherilyn Fenn?! I mean, I was joking! Ha ha! It was a joke! I totally understood Boxing Helena! Probably more than you did because I'm an introvert pervert who has only ever loved women whom I've projected my own thoughts and beliefs onto instead of actually getting to know them. Yuck!

• Anyway, that top ten list of comic book characters I'd like to fuck would include Lobo like seven times so it's probably not worth writing. Lobo drawn by Simon Bisley. Lobo drawn by Val Semeiks. Lobo drawn by Keith Giffen¹. Lobo drawn by Jorge Corona².

• Halo would have made that list when I was in my mid to late teens but now it would be just weird. Also, is she still in a coma? Because that would make it less weird. I mean more weird. Stupid squidgy interior being!

• Also, obviously if I made a list of Insurance Company cartoons, it would be Erin Esurance. I would fuck, marry, and kill her! Wait. Goddammit.

• Are there insurance company cartoons other than Erin Esurance? If they are, are they hot? Should I search them out on Deviant Art?

• The issue sort of begins³ with L.E.G.I.O.N. waiting outside the United Nations for a meeting. Maybe the reason was revealed in the monthly title. Maybe it'll be revealed here. For some reason, even though Lobo was in this series, I never fucking read it.

I don't know who this member is but she's wearing Brother Blood's belt slash loin cover-up.

• How many pages until Lobo defeats everybody and wins at comic books? I'm not sure why there's another annual after this and a final bookend Eclipso issue to finish the story. Once Lobo becomes possessed, Eclipso should have all the power he needs to accomplish whatever he wants to accomplish. Destroying the sun, I'm guessing?

• Lobo had to remain behind because, as you can see on the cover, he's missing a sleeve on his jacket and you can't go in front of the United Nations in a leather jacket missing a sleeve! Also he might kill everybody.

• Back at the hotel room where Vril Dox decided Lobo couldn't cause any trouble other than throwing the television out of the window like any Earth rock star might, Lobo decides to drink himself silly with L.E.G.I.O.N. member Scrawny. Is that her name? Scrawny? It's what Lobo calls her so probably.

Oh, no. It must be Stutters!

• Stutters isn't offering to fuck Lobo. That's just the conclusion that he and all the comic book readers leapt to. She wants to play Settlers of Catan Or whatever the equivalent to Catan was in 1992. Probably Trivial Pursuit.

• Lobo drawn by Mike McKone isn't on my list of Top Ten Comic Book Characters I'd Like to Fuck because it looks like he was using Brett Michaels as a reference. No thank you.

• Oh, Ice would be on my list! Also Supergirl's bum drawn by Mahmud Asrar. That might be on the list twice. I wonder if Mahmud has ever drawn Lobo's bum? Hmm. Be right back. Gotta see if Mahmud does commissions!

• Fire wouldn't have been on my list even before she wasn't being transphobic in this issue.

I don't think it's up to you to decide, Fire.

• I have no idea which member of L.E.G.I.O.N. is Strata she's got to be either the caterpillar, the shiny bald one with the massive shoulder pads, or the red Schmoo. None of them are on my Top Ten List of Comic Book Characters I'd Like to Fuck.

• Vril Dox didn't make it to the United Nations thing because he's out on the town looking to buy a Black Diamond. I'm going to assume he has a solid reason for buying one because he's one of them Brainiacs.

• The guy who has the diamond tells Vril Dox "No" when Vril asks him if he can buy the Black Diamond. Afterward, Vril Dox and his partner beat the shit out of the guy's henchmen.

Um, what? It's you guys who didn't understand the word "No" and then resorted to violence. Am I losing my mind here?!

• Fascism to fascists is when they don't get their way. If other people's agency stands in the way of them getting something they want, they believe their freedoms are being crushed and think that violence against the person not giving them what they want is righteous violence against the oppressor. God, I hate fascists. I know! I can't believe I've gone out on such a long, scrawny, stuttering, dangerous limb to declare such an extreme opinion!

• Also I hate libertarians. They're just authoritarians who don't have the balls to do their own violence. The only State anything they like is State violence. But only if that State violence allows them to keep doing whatever stupid fucking thing they believe they have a right to do without anybody complaining. Creeps.

• Here's a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's Mother Night (1961) that has aged like the finest wine⁴:

"There are plenty of good reasons for fighting," I said, "but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive. "It's that part of an imbecile," I said, "that punishes and vilifies and makes war gladly."

• Mother Night isn't one of Vonnegut's most memorable works but it should be. I hardly remembered it after reading it in my 20s. But then I just re-read it a few years ago when I turned 50 and it quickly became one of my favorites. Especially in our modern era of fucking Fox News. The thing Mother Night most taught me was that Sean Hannity should be first against the wall in the coming revolution.

• The game Lobo plays with Stutters is Scrabble. Lobo plays "fragulate". Lobo is so smart!

• Vril Dox and his helper (Lady Quark in a wig, maybe?) retrieve the Black Diamond and then leave it in the same hotel room as Lobo. Even without having seen the cover, I know that's a bad idea! Lobo's anger, rage, and violent libido can probably activate the Black Diamond from several feet away! That wasn't a length of Lobo's dick joke but it could be?

• The first page after everybody leaves Lobo and Lady Quark alone with the Black Diamond makes me laugh out loud. Probably because I'm giddy from all the love chemicals spiking through my brain right now. If I knew how to make heart emojis in HTML, every time I typed L♥B♥, the Os would be hearts. Oh look! I do know how!

1992 and Lobo has mastered the manspread.

• Vril Dox was intelligent enough to somehow beat Lobo in one-on-one combat⁵ so we've got to assume that Vril Dox wanted Lobo to get his hands on the Black Diamond and become Eclipsed. He's already said as much by admitting to Lady Quark that their visit to the United Nations is a sham and that if they really wanted to visit Earth peacefully, they wouldn't have brought Lobo. So why bring Lobo? Why pretend to negotiate an Intergalactic peace summit? Because Vril Dox wants to experiment with making Lobo into super weapon!

• Lobo trashes the hotel trying to kill Lady Quark and Stutters. I mean Zena. Apparently her name is Zena. She can absorb light to make things dark and, this is the important bit, release the light she's absorbed. When Eclipso begins bragging about how darkness is his friend and darkness can't stop the God of Vengeance and "I love Darkness's dick, baby!", Zena thinks light might save the day and blasts Lobo in the face with a million, um, Kelvin? Moles? Parsecs? of light!

• Lobo left the diamond upstairs so once Eclipso's been forced out of him, he returns to plain old regular violent Lobo.

• The rest of L.E.G.I.O.N. returns in time to miss all the action. But when Vril Dox patronizes Lady Quark while she's holding the Black Diamond, she gets super pissed and Eclipses. Or she just saw an opportunity to gain a free beatdown and slapped some make-up on so she could blame it on Eclipso.

• Lady Quark easily defeats all of L.E.G.I.O.N. leaving Lobo to save the day. But not because he wants to save the day. Because he wants to get vengeance on the God of Vengeance for using him to get vengeance on Lady Quark who is currently the God of Vengeance. No matter what happens, Vengeance shall be venged this day. Unless the Justice League shows up to fuck it all up.⁶

How could this team manage to constantly out-fail a team made of Vibe, Gypsy, and Aquaman?!

• English isn't Lobo's first language so he probably thinks "buttheads" is a lot filthier than it actually is. I mean, it sounds pretty filthy! A butt? For a head? Gross! Or is that sexy? Damn, I think it might be sexy.

• Lady Quark gets away and Zena goes missing. She was kidnapped by Bruce Gordon and his Ozymandias gang. Nobody apologizes to Lobo for assuming he was the bad guy because he'd beat the shit out of them if they tried.

• Finally having an intelligent person on the side of the good guys means somebody finally comes up with the idea to take the fight to Eclipso on the moon. It took a fucking Coluan to think up that plan!

The Ranking!
This was the best annual yet! That's a weird thing to say because it surmises that I actually likes some of the annuals and then this one was of even superior quality to those. And I hate annuals! Sure, sure. You can't really know if I liked this annual or not because Lobo was in it and I love everything Lobo is in even if it's terrible. I'll never admit to a Lobo comic being bad. You can't make me! Because, um, I don't believe any Lobo comics are bad! If I ever admitted to a Lobo comic not being the best comic, I'd be lying and that would be wrong. Plus this one had a really fucking great ending where it was all, "Only one more annual left and then the conclusion! You're almost done, baby! Celebrate by eating an entire cake!" And I was all, "Rmffleplumfgrr?"⁷


__________________________________________________________________________________
¹ Weird, sure. But intriguing!
² I mean, probably. We'll find out on Wednesday, March 18th, if I want to fuck that Lobo!
³ If you ignore the actual beginning.
⁴ Most of Vonnegut's quote age that way because when you can see reality clearly and have no agenda other than to communicate the truth of how things are, your words will always sound prophetic and modern. When you're speaking lies to manipulate people toward a selfish agenda, your words will die over time, if they don't immediately fall out of your mouth stillborn.
⁵ Which is why Lobo works for L.E.G.I.O.N. Keeping his word and being honorable is Lobo's biggest flaw!
⁶ I'm pretty sure fucking things up is in their charter.
⁷ That's "Yes, sir! Right on it, sir!" with my mouth full of half of a cake.

Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 (November 2007)

Take one look at this cover and you can instantly guess why I bought it. Yep! Dwayne McDuffie!

When I first found this issue at a garage sale a few weeks back, I first thought this was a wedding between Wonder Woman and Black Canary. Okay, maybe "thought" is the wrong word; "hoped" is more like it. But then I was wondering, "Why is Superman the only guy on the cover?" But now I've just noticed the cake and am assuming this is the Hen Do (or as my boring country call it: a bachelorette party) and Superman is the stripper. Wonder Woman's almost certainly not getting married so this must be a big Green Arrow/Black Canary affair. Or maybe Babs is marrying Dick? I have no idea who was fucking whom in the DC Universe in 2007.

This issue is also marked as "Countdown 33" along the UPC symbol so I guess it's part of the lead up to, um, something? Infinite Crisis? 52? Oh wait. Final Crisis, right? What happened in that one? Did Geoff Johns appear on panel and say, "I think we've had enough of these crises. Let's never do anything like this again." And then the final page was a close up of his face as he's winking.

The issue begins at some kind of anti-wedding where The Joker has a definite in-canon boner.

We can't see it but if a heterosexual man is staring at a large feline's tits with the possibility that it could lead to getting his throat slashed, he's got a boner.

Sometimes I make sweeping generalizations about men because I assume we all think alike. I probably shouldn't do that because it makes me sound like a fucking Men's Right Activist who thinks just because he has the most horrible misogynistic thoughts that every male has them. Although I think I'll stand by the assumption I made in that caption. No way does it just describe me and my boners!

I wonder which Joker this is? It's important to my concept of the stupid fucking idea that there have always been three Jokers and the small things that differentiate them. Which one uses the term "funbags" when referring to women?

Yes, I understand that when this was written, only one Joker existed. But if DC wants me to be a huge continuity nerd, they need to allow me to retcon all of their retcons into every single thing I read by them. Also, I don't know about all of their retcons so is there only one Joker now? Maybe six Jokers? I don't know! I'm working with limited knowledge here, funbags!

Dwayne McDuffie may be dead but he still has the power to get me slapped when I go out into the world tomorrow and start liberally calling women "funbags". Does The Joker consider women "funbags" because they're just flesh bags of blood and guts waiting for him to slice up? Or is it because they're "fun" in sleeping "bags"? Oh no! I just realized he meant Cheetah's tits!

Lex, The Joker, and Cheetah are discussing members for a new Injustice League. Lex suggests Dr. Light and Cheetah responds with "He's a rapist and a murderer." Also a pedophile, no? But Lex has a rejoinder to that:

This is why he's the smartest man on Earth.

Cheetah is so won over by Lex's argument that she excitedly adds Dr. Light's photo to the recruitment folder.

I know I just scanned in a pic but she looks so adorable when she's excited about letting a child murdering rapist on the team!

I just noticed something else so forgive another scan so soon. Or does this many scans with far less of my rambling bullshit make for a better review? No, no! Don't tell me!

Lex has an Infinity Gauntlet?

Well now that I've scanned nearly every bit of art from the first three pages, I should turn the page and maybe scan all the other pages in? Would you want that? Just have me shut up and just pirate the entire comic? Hmm. I bet you would.

Cheetah adds Dr. Light's picture to a pile of villains that I'm assuming they're going to try to recruit: Prankster, Eclipso, Atrocitus or the Anti-Monitor or, um, fuck if I know. Some guy with a big red angry face.

Fuck it. Fine! Here's page four as well without any lewd commentary from me since Dwayne and Mike have done all the lewd commentary themselves by making the strippers Marvel characters.

Who's the broke-ass guy unable to pay the strippers? Blue Beetle?

The guy who thought Ollie would love a bunch of Marvel strippers only to learn at the last second that Ollie is super gay is Hal Jordan. The other guy helping to prepare the party is Speedy so you know it's going to get fucking wild. Or is everybody fucked up on heroin in a hotel room the opposite of wild? Everyone just sort of passes out blissfully and then can't shit for eight days, right?

Roy points out that the hotel is surrounded by paparazzi who have been tipped off about Oliver Queen's bachelor party. Probably by Lex Luthor. Nobody can attend without risking their secret identities being exposed so they move the party to the Hall of Justice where Batman and John Stewart are already preparing the spiked punch and sex-toy-filled piñata. Because Batman already knew this was going to happen. Hal's annoyed that Batman's so smart and he's so stupid but then again Hal's always fucking annoyed with something. That's probably why Parallax was able to make a nice cushy home in his head for so long.

Later at the party, Ollie's a dick and John's stupid.

John's stupid because even though he did do the decorations, Ollie's compliment has to be sarcastic being that the only fucking decoration is a banner that reads, "Congratulations Ollie You Gay Bro Where Are The Strippers?"

Sorry, I take back everything I said. There seem to be a smattering of green and white balloons. About seven in total across the entire fucking Hall of Justice. Maybe Ollie really loves a minimalist look. He does shoot arrows, after all. How much more minimalist can a hero get?

As the party really gets rocking with exciting stuff like Red Tornado listening to Guy Gardner brag about who the fuck knows what and Oberon trying to avoid Plastic Man, Oliver Queen gets called gay by somebody other than me.

Try to ignore that the letterer fucked up and made Ollie say Roy's dialogue. Just pay attention to 2007's Connor Hawke's '80s insult using a scale from the '40s.

Pretty sure if McDuffie had wanted to write Connor's dialogue more realistically and less hilariously and academically and intelligently, he should have had him just say, "You gay, bro." Like on the banner!

For some reason there's a "meanwhile" that doesn't concern Black Canary or Green Arrow's party. Instead it's about Firestorm walking into a trap set by Killer Frost.

Killer Frost is all, "Fuck the funbags window. I'm going for an outer thigh window! And maybe a large hunk of my ass to boot!"

This comic came out in 2007. At that time, it's been four years since I'd read a DC comic book. So I have no idea why Jason Rusch is Firestorm with a woman named Gehenna in his head. Lex Luthor, The Joker, and Cheetah interrupt Firestorm and Killer Frost's fight. They do this by killing Firestorm. I'll assume he's actually dead because I don't have any comics after this to prove me wrong even though he's got Gehenna in his head and she's probably alive and she can probably still use Jason's powers when he's dead. The Injustice League recruit Killer Frost and head back to their Darth Vader head in the swamp where their other recent recruits await.

They've been busy!

How good can this Legion of Doom be without Lobo? I'm not even interested in them anymore.

And then the comic book finally moves on to the reason I bought it: Dinah Lance's hen do! Oh! Maybe that's where Lobo is! Can you think of a better stripper?

I'm going to assume that's Lobo on the dance floor dancing with Vixen.

One of the strippers informs Wonder Woman that his sister's a nurse and just let him know that Firestorm showed up in the ER and is about to die. Wonder Woman ignores him and paws at his loin cloth and saying, "Show me your mortal organ, Dance Boy!" No, wait. Wonder Woman is more responsible than that. As a reviewer, I should learn to concentrate on what's in the story and stop wishing for what I want it to be. Instead, Wonder Woman alerts Batman and hopes he doesn't show up to the ER covered in glitter and lubricant from the genitals of a sexy woman smeared all over his cowl.

Batman takes Speedy with him to investigate the scene of the crime. But this was all in Lex's plan! They know Batman will go investigate. They know Wonder Woman will go to the hospital to check on Firestorm. So they send attack squads to both places to ambush the heroes. The Joker and Fatality arrive to defeat Batman and Speedy (also Geoforce who, I guess, got there before Batman somehow. Maybe in a different comic?). Cheetah, Killer Frost, and Doctor Light arrive at the hospital to defeat Wonder Woman and Hawkwoman. But they let Hawkwoman get away to go lure the rest of the League in to battle. Hawkwoman crashes Ollie's bachelor party and says, "Lex and Cheetah and The Joker and Killer Frost and Doctor Light are all working together. And where are the strippers? You gay, bro?"

Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 Rating: A. This was a lot of fun with a lot of heroes and villains (my weakness!). Is this how much fun DC Comics were as a whole in the Two Thousand Oughts? I missed out on the best stuff DC was doing in the last forty years, didn't I? Should I go back and buy all of the comics that I missed?! Who wants to loan my a few million dollars?

Justice League Quarterly #5 (Winter 1991)

80 pages?! Dear God in Heaven, why? WHY DID YOU LET ME BUY THIS 33 YEARS AGO?!

I should probably do a little research into where the Justice League were in the winter of 1991. Judging by the cover, Silver Sorceress was still alive. Or was she? I don't know. Does it matter? Aren't these quarterlies just any old Justice League tale that never got told but some editor somewhere thought, "That's good enough to gouge readers for another $2.95 every three months!" That's barely hyperbole! Look at the roster down the side. A General Glory story? Who gives a shit? The Global Guardians? Nobody fucking cares! Fire and Ice? Well, okay, I'm here for that one. And also it reminds me I need to read their Smallville series that came out not too long ago that my friend JT keeps punching me in the balls about. That means he keeps telling me I need to read it because I will fucking love it and I believe him but I just haven't made it a priority in my life yet! Maybe in 2025! Life's goal in 2025: read a very specific comic book. I think I can do that!

The first story is by Mark Waid so it can't be too bad, can it? Not that I've read enough by Mark Waid to really have any opinion on his writing but I've heard good things! Although, to be fair, I've also heard people say good things about Scott Lobdell's writing. So I either have to admit that sometimes bad writers write something decent, or maybe other people aren't trustworthy enough to have their own opinions. Having never read anything decent by Scott Lobdell, I'm suspecting the latter half of the previous statement is true. Y'all just don't know what you're fucking talking about. Guys, maybe just leave the observations about reality to me, an expert. I don't want to hear about how you remember some of Lobdell's X-men run fondly. You were probably a stupid kid with an incomplete brain and a hot mom. Just try to forget those obviously false memories and listen to your Uncle (or Aunt? I don't know) Tess. I'll tell you just how terrible Lobdell is. And also how hot your mom is. Does she have an email?

Who is this kid? Why should I care about him? He's a robot, isn't he?

That's how the story begins. The mailman is definitely a robot. I saw the other half of his face and it's like a broken toaster. The cool thing about a broken toaster is that it's like every other mechanical device you can think of: they don't make toast. But there's a downside there somewhere. Also, I could be wrong. Can a Cybertruck make toast? I mean on purpose?

I know everybody is different but I've never had a conversation this long with my mailman. The longest conversation was probably some years back when my good feline buddy Judas was still alive. I had gone two houses down to bring him in from the yard he decided he loved to hang out in as an old man. As I was walking past the neighbor's house between, the mailman was coming down the walk. He saw me carrying Judas lovingly, smiled, and said, "Oh! He hissed at me!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, he doesn't like people." Re-telling that story, I probably should have just hissed at the mailman too.

Something Twilight Zone-esque is taking place in this town as those guys in the suits and crew cuts on the cover go marching down the street to remove somebody from the town. But that's all we get! Time to learn our days of the week! Thanks, Mark Waid! I've been having some trouble with Blurtsday!

Even if I could figure out the memory trick Waid is using to remember the days of the week, how do I remember Thursday?!

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all collapse, falling into a coma after an encounter with one of the crew cutted men in suits. That's okay though because even by 1991, nobody gave a shit about Geoforce, Valor, and Red Star. Sure, Valor was about to start his own ongoing book that would last for two years. But nobody gave a shit about it. Double sure, I bought it too. But I didn't care about Valor! I was just into buying new comic books! Okay, maybe my assessment of Valor's popularity was wrong. But even if Geoforce wasn't universally regarded as the most boring member of The Outsiders, Red Star was definitely a three hour trip to Snoozeville. Even in Wolfman's Titans, Red Star was more boring than Cyborg when Cyborg lost his personality and was left a broken toaster.

Hey! I know a cool fact about broken toasters!

Back to Thursday, it stars Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner reading DC's version of Weekly World News until they discover the weekday mnemonic for Thursday.

Thursday: Rebis.

No wait. I stand corrected. This is from the Weekly World News (see? It's teaching us about the week!) so I bet Rebis was Sunday. Thursday actually turns out to be Starman who nearly crashes on top of Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner which totally would have killed Blue Beetle. They take him to J'onn so he can examine him and see if he can get his dick hard. Hmm, well, he does examine Starman but he doesn't do the thing where he tries to get his dick hard. Isn't that a standard part in a physical examination?

Oh no. I think I just had a breakthrough.

J'onn believes the culprit behind heroes having their powers stolen is Professor Ivo, the jerk who built Amazo. He calls together a team to investigate: Blue Beetle, Guy Gardner, Elongated Man, Silver Sorceress, Power Girl, Rocket Red, The Flash, Ice, and Metamorpho. So basically Justice League Europe, really. And Blue Beetle winds up being useless because the plan is to use their various super-powered members as bait to lure Amazo's power stealing, suit wearing robots.

Everybody partners up so that nobody gets taken unawares and poor Ice and Power Girl wind up with Guy Gardner. They walk right into one of Amazo's robots who instantly steals Power Girl's power. I guess he probably can't steal Guy's power since it comes from the ring and why would he want Ice's power?

You know what? I feel bad for saying that! One of the main themes of this story that I just skipped over because I thought it was Ice just feeling sorry for herself was how she's decided to head home because nobody respects her power. She's the Aquaman of the current League. J'onn tried to give her a pep talk that was actually a bit insulting because instead of saying, "No, no! Your powers are amazing!", he kept saying things like, "You give the League heart!" and "You give the League soul!" She's not the League's cheerleader, J'onn! I guess you can't expect a Martian to understand how to cheer up a human.

You definitely can't expect Guy Gardner to understand how to cheer up a human. What an asshole!

Ice is the only person on the League who can stand you, you stupid fucking ragehole! Treat her with respect! How the hell did I ever like this guy?! No, no. Don't say that, me! I know exactly why I liked him: because comic books are written by various writers and they all write the characters in slightly different ways. You can't expect every writer to write a character in the manner that you would like! Some writers see Guy Gardner and treat him with respect, trying to understand his anger issues and his brain trauma, like when Charles Soule wrote Guy in Red Lanterns. And some writers see Guy as the raging fucking monster he is and turn him into an abusive boyfriend who should have had his dick torn off by Batman instead of just punched in the face. Like, um, Mark Waid here! When Dan Vado was writing him (that's in the future as far as this issue is concerned!), I hated it because he just made Guy a major sex pest who wouldn't leave any of the women alone. Later, it turned out it was a Guy Gardner robot but I think editorial was all, "Dude. That's not the way Guy is an asshole. Yes, he acts like a womanizer. But he doesn't go around grabbing pussies and hinting that he can't wait to do anal to an Amazon." (I just made that last one up. Don't go looking for it. Although, hell, it might be in there somewhere!) But this might be the worst Guy's ever been Guy'd! The way he shits on Ice here is pure domestic abuse! It's awful! It's so extreme! If Guy's various attitudes were data sets to determine just how much of a dick he is, this one would have to be ignored as an outlier. I'm going to forget I ever read it even!

Guy gets smashed in the back of the head by a hunk of ice when the Amazo robot breaks out of the block. Maybe he'll be nice again when he gains consciousness!

The robot ignores Ice because, well, you know. We don't have to keep saying it. She already feels as bad as she can feel about her shitty powers. Instead of trying to follow the robot by making an ice slide because DC might get sued by Marvel, Ice decides to steal Guy's ring and become a Green Lantern for the day. She can't outright steal it but she does wish she could use it and Guy hears her wish as he passes out and passes the ring on to her. See? Guy's nice again!

This might sound sexist because it is but does Ice really need to be useful with an ass like that? Um, asking for my super sexist friend.

Using the ring when she could have used an ice slide, Ice follows Ivo's robot to an island far off the coast. There she discovers Ivo's home: an idyllic little village full of robots trying to be human and not making any toast at all. Being that Ice has no willpower because she's full of self-loathing exacerbated by people like Guy and Beetle and Booster and even Fire (who is often patronizing), she can't do anything to stop Ivo or his robots. She does manage to make the ring disappear so that Ivo doesn't take it but that's probably because that's kind of a self-loathing power. She winds up getting thrown in a cell and forgotten about.

Meanwhile, Guy Gardner points out that he can track his ring with his power battery which enables the League to follow Ice to Ivo's hideout. See? Ice is helpful! Plus she psychoanalyzes Ivo while the rest of the League bumble around the island.

Ivo wants to kill himself?! But there wasn't a self-harm warning on the cover!

I hope this story ends with J'onn J'onzz speaking directly to the reader and saying, "If you or anybody you know feels like eating a shotgun, please call the Suicide Prevention Hotline at the following number! Remember, it gets slightly better! Sometimes."

Basically, if the League hadn't gotten involved, Ivo's robots would simply kill him and nobody would have to worry about Ivo ever again. But I guess the world would lose Geoforce, Red Star, Valor, Rebis, Starman, and Power Girl as well. I'd like to say it's worth it but I can't accept the loss of Rebis. So I guess this story did need to be told and the League did need to get involved. So that Rebis can live! Also so that Ice can gain some self-confidence when she saves the day and everybody exclaims, "Yay! Ice's ass is super fantastic!"

The huge battle depicted on the cover finally breaks out which I almost praised as being a cover that didn't lie about the story inside. But I can't do that, can I, friends? Can you see where the cover artist made a mistake? Hmm? Can you? That's right. Guy has his ring on the cover and is using it! Shame on you, DC! Lying to your fans once again. I only purchased this comic book to see Guy use his ring like on the cover and he doesn't even have it.

During the battle, Silver Sorceress and Elongated Man share a joke that I actually enjoy. But then immediately following that humorous moment, Professor Ivo tells Ice all about how his mother died when he was in college and he never visited her because he was afraid of death and now he was so more afraid of death than the average everybody, he became immortal but now because he looks ugly and his organs hurt, he's not afraid of death anymore and he wants mommy. Who hurt you, Mark Waid? Was it your mother? When you were in college? And she died? And you became immortal?

That was my impression of a reader who doesn't understand how fiction writing works! Thank you, thank you! Instead of throwing roses, you can just send cash!

During the fight, Martian Manhunter takes the absolute piss out of Blue Beetle for no fucking reason at all.

Cut to Blue Beetle watching on a monitor in the Bug, tears silently filling up his goggles.

Why would Ivo's Man-in-Black Amazo want to go after Blue Beetle in particular? He has no powers to steal so why focus on him? Martian Manhunter going this hard on a ploy that shouldn't have actually worked just seems cruel. My guess is that Blue Beetle ate so many of J'onn's Oreos when Ted was fat that J'onn still resents him for it.

This story only has seven pages left so I'm going to assume that smashing Ivo's robot with a train destroyed it. Another one gets taken out in an even weaker way by Silver Sorceress, Elongated Man, and Guy Gardner.

Since when does Guy aim to please? Have I been reading the wrong Guy Gardner appearances?

Silver Sorceress could have sent the robot to her old homeworld but I guess she's trying to be more responsible about sending automata to different worlds. So she just teleports it a dozen meters away so that it crashes through a power line and, I guess, shorts out. That's two down! I hope the third one gets taken out by Blue Beetle scrunching up his face and hunching up his back and slicing his dick down the middle while yelling, "Look at me! I'm a Martian freak! Don't you want my power to beat everything except a Bic Lighter and a Toaster Oven!"

I'm assuming J'onn's Martian penis is bifurcated. I don't have any proof of it. It doesn't explicitly describe J'onn's penis in the Who's Who for some reason.

Meanwhile, Immortan Ivo continues his tale of woe to Ice. He explains that he's becoming a living statue and that scares him more than becoming a decaying corpse. Weird. Neither seems ideal but I think I'd try the statue thing for a few million years, see how it pans out.

Ivo jams a screwdriver into his urethra to prove he's hard as iron. Ice fails her Sanity saving throw and now she has a new kink.

Blue Beetle fails to stop a robot which isn't surprising and I'm not even sure why I mentioned it. At least he doesn't die. But I shouldn't be too hard on Beetle because, actually, everybody failed to stop the robots. Hitting them with a train didn't do it. Teleporting them into a power line didn't do it. Capturing them in a lead ball didn't do it. Screaming like a dying rabbit while one pushes a house on top of you didn't do it. They're as immortal as Professor Ivo!

Ivo decides he's had enough explaining why he wants to die and he orders the robots back to him to kill him. The Justice League have to watch them walk away because now they need to save the powerless Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner from the civilian robots about to slaughter them.

The doctors told his mother that? As she was killed by six super-powered robots?!

When somebody's dying of cancer, do people often glibly point out to them that nobody should have to die like that? It's true, I guess. But it presupposes there are ways that people should have to die. But wait! Hear me out! What if nobody ever had to die? Has anybody thought of that yet (aside from Professor Ivo and Victor Frankenstein)?! I bet death already has been cured but probably by racists. So they're all, "If we put this out on the market, we can't just sell it to white people! Every race will become immortal!" And all the racists were all, "We'd rather die." Jerks!

Ivo's plan doesn't work. The robots just wind up killing themselves while he still lives. Ice's prison is destroyed in the blast and she comes out to comfort the man. That's when she accidentally cures him of his immortality with the Green Lantern ring. She doesn't kill him! She just releases him from the pain of his organs hardening. Guy Gardner assures everybody that what she did was impossible and he's never been able to make his ring heal afflictions. Maybe he should let Ice keep the ring? The team needs a Green Lantern bashing heads far less than somebody who could constantly provide medical aid during a fight!

Professor Ivo gladly goes to prison where he'll probably die before getting out again. How is that better than living forever?! Ivo really is nuts. Although I am ignoring the massive amount of pain that he's constantly in. I hear that'll drive people to wish for death. It would drive me to wish for a way to stop feeling pain that also kept me alive though. Like Ice making a wish on a Green Lantern ring. Then I'd be all, "I didn't cause all the trouble! My robots did that on their own! See this community I made? It's gentle and loving and idyllic! Those stupid business robots went crazy the way business people do! I'm innocent!" Then J'onn would have read my mind and been all, "You're coming with me, you monster."

The next story is a Fire and Ice story and it looks like, um, it might be about suicide as well? What the fuck, Justice League Quarterly?!

Or misogynist incel murder. But that probably ends in suicide anyway.

This story asks the burning question of our time: can an old man become a spree killing incel? Bill Loebs seems to think the answer is "Of course! Who wouldn't go nuts with a pistol if Ice refused to fuck you?!"

This issue is really going hard on the idea that Ice has to support everybody emotionally. Stop trauma dumping on my girl!

In this story, we learn that Fire flames on when she orgasms.

I guess editor Brian Augustyn doesn't perform oral sex on women or he never would have let this joke through.

We also learn that Ice's main super power is stopping people from killing themselves.

Are the winter issues always this dark?

What we don't learn is that Ice is irritatingly nice because we already knew that. We aren't reminded that she has a great ass because she's wearing big old shorts the entire time.

Do I even need to mention the final two stories and what we learned from them? Does anybody even want to learn anything more about General Glory and the Global Guardians? Maybe I should just pretend that I read them and scan a few panels and bullshit my way through explaining them! No, no! That wouldn't be right. I'm certainly not going to do that at all.

The main conflict in the Global Guardians is Godiva's front wedgie.

Why would she shave her pubic hair and deny herself the extra fighting power?

After Tuatara helps Godiva pull out the front wedgie, disaster strikes!

A wild back wedgie appears!

Realizing she can't tackle this problem along, Godiva forms a group for Constant Wedgie Sufferers.

With the help of a woman in loose clothing and conversation bashing males, Godiva's wedgies are cured! The End!

I mean Godiva's problem is cured later! She's still suffering from wedgies at that first meeting depicted above.

Does anybody even care about the General Glory story? No? You all hate him too? Okay, good, because he was killed in this story.

Is there any reason I can't adopt "Heil Hitler, suckers!" as my new catch phrase when I cropdust somebody at a Con?

Justice League Quarterly #5 Rating: --. When I was younger, I loved getting an 80 page comic book! But now I pick one up and sigh. They're too long. They're usually some kind of collection of throwaway stories that don't matter at all to canon or the characters themselves. Often they're full of stories written or drawn by newbies to the company and it shows. And these quarterlies always feel they need to highlight characters that don't get as much attention in the pages of Justice League, or were just side characters in various stories that nobody needed a chance to catch up with. I guess they can be fun and these probably were fun the first time I read them when I was eager to read as much comic book shit as possible. But now I just want to pretend I don't have five more Quarterlies to go! I think I'll space them out so I don't completely burn out and stop reading, writing, thinking, and enjoying stuff for the next few years. It's happened before! Why do you think I barely wrote anything on and off for the last few years? I was burned out and also I got addicted to watching gambling streams on Twitch. I guess that's better than being addicted to gambling itself but thinking about the time I spent watching hurts my soul. Man, just mentioning them makes me want to go check some out! Maybe just for a few minutes!

Justice League Quarterly #3 (Summer 1991)

Why does this team always stand so close together?

I recently learned that this series is actually called "Justice League International Quarterly." It says it right on the spine. But whoever designed the logo for the cover knew what they were doing when they shortened it. I only mention this for the nerds bristling with apoplectic rage at my incorrect labeling of it. I wouldn't want any heads to burst loudly and messily in some poor parent's unfinished basement.

I myself lived in my mom's basement from 18 to 25 so I think I'm allowed to poke fun at basement dwelling nerds who loved to play Magic the Gathering and jerk off to Sailor Moon hentai. Man. Now I wish Magic the Gathering had a Sailor Moon Hentai set! Imagine how awesome that would be!?

Nerd One: "I tap my creature, 'Sailor Moon Licking a Stalk of Asparagus.'
Nerd Two: "I react by casting 'Sailor Mars Shows Sailor Mercury How To Do Cunnilingus in the School Shower.'
Nerd One: "Darn. That gives My 'Tuxedo Mask' creature 3 Ruined Underwear counters. He's out of commission for three turns!"
Nerd Two: "I play the enchantment "Infatuation of Chibi Moon" on your Tuxedo Mask which causes ..."
Censors Kicking Down the Door: "Break this story up, you disgusting perverts! What are you trying to do?! Entertain Gerard Jones?!"

Okay maybe it wouldn't be that awesome and would actually be massively disturbing. I would be so ethically against this set that I totally would not own a full play set at all. Especially the artifact card "Upskirt Camera."

The issue begins several pages before this but I didn't give a shit about any of it until this panel of a Justice League conference put together by Max and Catherine.

It's like a shot of Busytown from a Richard Scarry book.

At first I thought the weirdest thing about this panel was how the Elongated Man was posing as a table and some chairs (presumably to feel Fire's ass on his chest and Silver Sorceress's bottom on his flattened groin?) but then I saw Guy's boots. Is this where the idea that Guy wears cartoonishly massive boots began? I can't lie: I'm really into big boots. I know I already adored Guy Gardner well before this issue so I'm assuming that, subconsciously, this was the moment when I fell completely in love with him.

Batman and Crimson Fox engage in conversation in the corner of the room, probably because they're the most sexually active characters in the DC Universe. Maybe not Batman so much because he's all about withholding his bat penis from Catwoman's cat pussy. But as Bruce Wayne? Hoo boy! Just imagine how many lovers he's had! He's probably fucked like ten, maybe twelve women! I bet his pick-up line at this party was, "Let me guess: you got the name Crimson Fox when a fox crashed through a window in your stately rural manor?" And then Crimson Fox was all, "Have you ever fucked twins at the same time?" And Bruce was all, "Have I?! Let me tell you about this adult-oriented Two-Face caper I investigated last year!"

Batman's penis and Crimson Fox's vagina isn't the only cute meet about to happen at this party. Kilowog and Uncle Mitch discover they're perfect matches. Both of them are really into building weird sci-fi shit because they can while not considering whether they should. Uncle Mitch mentions he had nearly completed a time machine back on his homeworld but didn't have access to all the amazing alien gizmos Kilowog owns. Kilowog takes the bait and they wander off to make beautiful paradoxes together.

The Silver Sorceress mentions to Blue Beetle that Mitch has been acting weird and hanging out with Kilowog which causes Blue Beetle to thank Christ he purchased the implosion insurance on the New York Embassy. They hear some weird noises in Kilowog's basement lab and break down the door to investigate.

So this is why Max Lord eventually shoots Beetle in the head!

If I were Max Lord, I simply wouldn't have obsessed over a broken basement door for ten years before finally murdering the son of a bitch who kicked it in. My friend Paul once through my other friend Roy through the wall in my basement, leaving a large Roy-sized hole in the wall. Luckily Roy was just a little guy. But I haven't killed Paul over that! Yet, I guess? People lie and say that you get more conservative with age so, if that is true (and it isn't but I'm working on a bit here), then maybe I'll be really into guns and the idea that I can shoot whoever I want as long as I kill them so that they can't be an eye witness against my self defense testimony. What I'm trying to say is, "Paul, you'd better invest in a bulletproof vest, buddy!"

Uncle Mitch and Kilowog disappear as Blue and Silver enter the room. Silver Sorceress shows off some incredible detective skills to determine what happened to them.

A clue!

At first I thought, "Why the fuck would they need to program in the minutes and seconds? And how would Uncle Mitch know, to that specificity, the exact time to go back?" And then I remembered that making calculations when traveling through space must be as exact as possible. And what's the difference when traveling through time? Semantics, really! Uncle Mitch probably knew the point he'd like to go back to fix his world but then Kilowog had to do all the calculations for traveling through space and time and dimensions which meant he needed to really pinpoint a single point in all three variables so they wouldn't wind up somewhere in the past where the planet wasn't. But the monitor only shows his work on the time coordinates because if it had the space coordinates or the dimensional coordinates, Silver Sorceress wouldn't have been able to interpret that clue. She wouldn't have thought, "A-ha! A time machine!" She would have thought, "A-ha! A calculator!"

Uncle Mitch and Kilowog wind up on Angor in the year -10 years, 6 months, 5 days, 4 hours, 3 minutes, and 32 seconds. But they're really small. Just teeny versions of themselves, like the characters on the cover. When I was a wee small boy, I had a theory that as things moved through time, they grew bigger. So not only was the universe expanding, everything in it was expanding. I think most people hear about the expansion of the universe and think of something like a puddle where the edges are moving outward to take up more territory as opposed to how the universe is really expanding more like the skin of a balloon where every point is racing away from every other point. As a kid, I figured every piece of matter in the universe was also expanding. Which meant that dinosaurs would have been smaller than we think but their fossil remains have expanded along with the universe. As a kid, I couldn't quite grasp the immense lengths of time between things so I also sort of thought that modern people being statistically taller than ancient people was also evidence of this. And I never considered that everything would be expanding in a relative way to each other which would simply negate the effect. I bring this up because I'm an idiot and what just happened in the comic book is exactly opposite my theory! Everything in Angor's past was much bigger! Or, if we accept Occam's Razor as our lord and savior, Kilowog fucked it.

Martian Manhunter comes up with a spectacular waste of time.

Why would J'onn travel back in time to try to stop these guys? People need to stop thinking that time happens and changes depending on where their consciousness resides within the time line at any particular moment. If Kilowog and Uncle Mitch went back in time then they were present in the year -10 when it happened the first time. Because it only happens the one time! So there's no need to go back and stop them because whatever they did, they already did ten years ago! If J'onn goes back to stop them then that's what happened the first time and it's why everything is the way it currently is. If he didn't go back, same thing! So guess what? Just don't go back in time! Go eat some Oreos and relax, man! Trust in reality's anti-paradox technology!

Silver Sorceress agrees to helping the JLI stop Uncle Mitch although she really doesn't want to. She also doesn't understand that they won't be able to change anything! But it's understandable in her case because why should a magic-user care about anything scientific?! "Oh, the universe is subject to certain immutable laws? Hold my potion!"

Silver Sorceress tells the Justice League about her world's titties.

"The stronger you are, the more responsibilities you get!" What a motto! Imagine turning Uncle Ben's words of cautionary advice into a teenager's lament.

The date to which Uncle Mitch and Kilowog have traveled is the day The Extremists came into existence when they were accidentally blasted by Angor's version of a meta[l]-bomb. This turned them into Doctor Doom, Magneto, Doctor Octopus, Sabretooth, and Dormammu. The destruction of Angor stemmed from that event which is why Uncle Mitch wants to stop it. But J'onn knows better! They must stop the stopping or else the entire fabric of reality might be torn asunder! I mean, it won't, obviously.

Max Lord gives the okay for the team to step into Kilowog's "time machine" and go back to retrieve them. It's weird how Kilowog's most recent attempts to fix technological issues have resulted in the implosion the JLE Embassy and destruction of Starro's ship but everybody is willing to step into his time machine as if it works flawlessly. For all they know — and remember: Occam's Razor is our current lord and savior — Kilowog and Uncle Mitch were simply disintegrated and their atoms scattered across the atmosphere.

While I'm glad one of them thinks like I do, I'm disappointed that it was Blue Beetle.

Uncle Mitch and Kilowog build a regular human-sized robot at Wacky World as a means to get around without being noticed or stepped on. Once they have their massive Pacific Rim style vehicle, they seek out The Avengers to let them know how to stop The Extremists' origin story. The Avengers, meanwhile, are engaged in angsty dialogue

Ha ha! Imagine being a fan of characters full of angst and real-life problems who discuss philosophical quandaries and deal with existential issues! Marvel fans are such choads!

DC making fun of Marvel's writing is like when Fox News complains about progressive policies. They're all, "Look at the dumb shit Marvel characters deal with!" And readers are all, "That looks entertaining! Why am I reading DC?!"

Wait. Maybe after the initial statement of that last paragraph, I was supposed to give an example of Fox News complaining about progressive policies! They're all, "These jerks want to give poor kids free lunch meals and stop cops from executing people! And don't even get me started on the universal health care!" And listeners are all, "Yeah! I hate those fucking communist socialist fucks who wipe their asses with the flag!" You see, only brainwashed idiots who would rather see their "enemies" hurt than live in a better world watch Fox News. Otherwise they'd be all, "Hmm, I should look into this progressive stuff! Sounds wonderful!"

The couple of pages satirizing Marvel Comics entertain me far more than Wally West trying to fuck everything that moves and Elongated Man's — this is hard for me to type without the quotes which indicate I don't actually mean what I'm saying but I'm going to do it anyway — "witty repartee." Hmm. I couldn't do it. I almost added something about the hot winds and severe drought happening in Power Girl's pants but then I thought that might be sexist and also if I were Power Girl, I would be angry and dry as well having to live in 1991 where a woman's career would suffer if she punched the fuck out of the guy at work who constantly treated her like a potential fuck doll. I'm surprised half of Tom King's Heroes in Crisis wasn't Wally expressing his guilt for the way he treated the women in the Justice League for years.

Team Marvel beat the shit out of Uncle Mitch's robot Uncle Mitch, completely destroying it. That's probably some kind of commentary on Marvel too although isn't it just commentary on DC as well? I don't remember Batman solving problems in a way that doesn't involve somebody being beaten so hard that their bowels express themselves artistically. Remember how Batman tried to solve the Guy Gardner problem by punching him in the face?! I wonder if that's why Batman wasn't around much in later issues. Do you think Human Resources had a chat with him and put him on paid leave?

Tiny Justice League arrive at Justifiers' Headquarters just in time to hear Uncle Mitch's automaton learn about great responsibility.

Based on this panel, Blue Beetle and Ice would be forced to marry in some countries.

Did I love Guy Gardner because of his huge boots or did my love for cartoonishly large boots come from Guy Gardner? I suppose I fell in love with big boots due to various experiences in my formative years. To this day, I still sing "Doctor Martens Boots" by Alexei Sayle. I suppose I could point to The Young Ones for nearly half of the things I still love to this day.

Based on what happened in my pants while looking at this panel, Ice and I would be forced to marry in some countries.

The Justifier with the huge tits and costume that not only accentuates her boob cleavage but her labia cleavage as well is referred to as "T.A." Is her hero name Tits 'n' Ass?

This isn't a joke until you realize Gerard Jones wrote it and was probably giggling to himself, "Hee hee! Touching a child! Titillating!"

Do you think Jones asked the letterer to emphasize "child" or do you think John Costanza did that himself? Because maybe Costanza realized how creepy Jones was? Do you think Gerard Jones' case was similar to Jimmy Savile's? Where everybody basically knew what kind of perverse creep he was and just didn't do anything about it? Knowing what we now know about Gerard Jones, I'm a little bit afraid to revisit one of my favorite comics from the '90s, Green Lantern: Mosaic.

The Justifiers spend too much time discussing their therapy to be any use to Uncle Mitch. Great responsibility isn't the only thing to come with great power, I suppose. Uncle Mitch and Kilowog steal one of Iron Man's boots to fly to the site where the Extremists will be created. The Justice League notice the boot fly away and decide to pursue it.

At the bomb site where the non-powered Extremists are busy stealing the bomb, Mitch accidentally jumps on the detonation button, causing the accident that he came back in time to prevent. Well, duh! I tried to point out to everybody involved that this was the case! Not that Mitch and Kilowog could have done anything to stop themselves from going back in time since that's what they did and it's what they always did and this is how it happened before and now and in the future. But as I pointed out to J'onn, it was a waste of everybody's time to follow them back in time! They could have simply relaxed in the future eating Oreos and making fun of Guy's haircut. I wish Batman had been around to explain how it was a waste of time to follow them through time, mostly so that when they got back, he could smugly tell them, "I told you so." You know, the way I'm doing that now!

I'm not a scientist and "super-speed vision" isn't actually a thing, but I'm pretty sure that's not how it would fucking work.

Only two things remain for the Justice League to do: get back to their proper place and time, and stop Uncle Mitch from killing himself. He did just become the catalyst for destroying his home world. So unless Lobo quickly becomes his best friend because they now have something in common, he's probably going to be pretty depressed about it.

Kilowog's plan to get back to the present was that he and Mitch would simply cease to exist after they changed the past. Back to the Future has a lot to answer for for giving so many people the worst possible theoretical time travel possible! Man, I wish Primer had been the huge mainstream time travel movie that taught everybody how time travel works! Or, for an equally decent explanation of time travel (and more fitting than Primer for this story arc): Los Cronocrímenes (or Timecrimes).

Kilowog knowingly went on a suicide mission with Uncle Mitch and didn't give two fucks the entire time. He just thought, "I'll help this guy save the world and then I'll wink out of existence and I'm so fucking fine with that that I'll be in the most chipper and carefree mood during the entire mission. What a lark!" I don't know if that means Kilowog has been the most thoroughly depressed character in the DC Universe for years or he's so heroic and noble that he's ripping the biggest heroic death boner knowing that he's going to save an entire world. My money is he's depressed as all hell.

Kilowog tells everybody they're screwed and the average reaction among the group is, "Of course we are."

What sexist shit was he going to say? "Big alien tits"?

I know around this time in DC continuity, Power Girl was revealed to be Atlantean. But Blue Beetle probably doesn't know that! Nobody really bought into that shit anyway which is why Power Girl's Atlantean heritage never stuck. Her tits are definitely alien.

Silver Sorceress comes to the rescue and transports the team back to their home dimension. But she doesn't know any time travel spells so they wind up back on Earth in 1981. The only reason they realize this immediately is because Silver Sorceress's travel destination is the Embassy of Rhodesia. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in April of 1980. This story takes place in Summer of 1991. They went back in time ten years and six months. So either Silver Sorceress can time travel a little bit or somebody forgot to update this script from when it was written to when it finally saw publication. Anyway, they're back home but not back to the future!

Kilowog needs to build a time machine or borrow Barry Allen's Cosmic Treadmill. Maybe they're going to be the catalyst for Crisis on Infinite Earths now! That would be awesome. They'd go from being responsible for the death of one world to the death of countless worlds! I doubt that happens though because it seems like something that I'd remember.

They don't get the Cosmic Treadmill but they do sneak around an old Justice League meeting stealing parts to make a tiny time machine. Wally gets all teary-eyed seeing Barry Allen but not one person remarks, "Now this is a Justice League!" Probably because Superman and Batman aren't around but Aquaman is.

The rest of the story was probably tacked on at the last minute to fill an 80 page comic book. I mean, obviously they had to get back to their time and regain their proper size no matter how long the story was. But it seems awfully padded, especially the part where Wally West is all, "We can save Barry!" after just experiencing that they can't actually change the past. It just proves how dumb Wally is! Not the part about him not learning time travel is ineffective at changing history but the part where he doesn't realize the death of Barry Allen was the best thing to ever happen to him! The padding mostly has to do with Guy Gardner being swallowed alive by Liberty the Wonder Dog and Oberon being super fucking excited to watch a dog shit out Guy Gardner. I hope that aspect of Oberon's personality was added to his Who's Who Entry. "Fecal freak who loves whatever the opposite of vore is."

Justice League Quarterly #3 Rating: C. Have I come to terms with comic books that are this long? No, of course I haven't. The further we travel into the future, the worse my problem with them becomes for several reasons. The first is that every moment in my increasingly finite life becomes ever more precious! The second is that we, as a society, spend so much time online and with technology that promises to make every experience as fast and efficient as possible means that reading an 80 page comic book feels like building the Great Wall of China. It's interminable! The third thing is, I don't know, it's a Justice League comic book from the '90s? I'd probably enjoy a more modern comic book at 80 pages, especially if it was full of naked people and/or profound philosophical situations. It doesn't even have to be modern! I'd be happy to read Rogan Gosh (in its collected form. Does that even count as an 80 page comic book? Probably not. Never mind). As far as the story goes, I am glad to see a time travel story that not only doesn't rely on the Back to the Future trope that time can be changed resulting in abrupt changes to the entire future timeline but also points out how believing that to be the case is dumb and shortsighted. It's weird how this creative team has set up G'nort as the dumb and shortsighted character but it winds up being Kilowog who really is. Are Giffen, DeMatteis, and Jones just anti-alien? Do they want readers to believe they're all impulsive fuck-ups? I'd say I'd hate to see how they write Superman but I think they're mostly anti-aliens who don't look human. They probably don't even think of Superman as an alien because he's like the best looking human being ever.

Justice League America #42 (September 1990)

Why is 80s High School Bully so angry about being invited to apply to the Justice League?

Don't think I didn't look at Dove's ass just because I didn't mention it in the caption! I think her costume might be tattooed on her body. I'm not sure I recognize the two heroes who aren't Hawk and Dove. If I had to guess, I'd say the masked guy is El Toro and the angry guy with no pupils is Maximum Carnage. Are those DC heroes?

Why are they all refusing to join? What did Max Lord say they must do to become a member?! I hope he gets fucking arrested for whatever it was. I'll be surprised if he doesn't get his ass beat asking Hawk, Toro, and Maximum Carnage to do whatever sexual act he just asked them to do. Dove is peaceful so obviously she wouldn't kick his ass. Unless kicking the ass of some perv is actually in line with order? Okay, you know what? She'll probably kick his ass too.

I wonder if Justice League America is going to have a recruitment issue every 15-20 issues? Can't they just do these things behind the scenes and spend two panels in the middle of an exciting story to have Max Lord introduce the new recruits? An awful lot of space is being taken up by these silly "the recruitment drive goes tits up" issues.

The issue begins with a lesser version of Gandalf explaining to Frodo why they have no right to kill Gollum philosophy.

Kilowog definitely drinks out of Despero's tank.

The first candidate who decides not to join is Gypsy. Not that she's a real candidate. J'onn just thinks she shouldn't be alone because her entire family and town was recently killed by Despero. That part is pretty painful but the part where it happened in the silliest and jokiest DC comic was the cherry on the pain scale. Plus now she can't go anywhere without somebody feeling the need to point out how insensitive her name is. She'll probably need to change it to Chameleon (which is a much better name anyhow!).

Blue Beetle and Fire are off in Beetle's flying Bug to recruit more people across the country. While flying there, Beetle discusses the possibility of a movie about him. Too bad he died and now the Blue Beetle movie is about Jaime Reyes instead. Obviously a Ted Kord Blue Beetle movie would have been a boring piece of shit about a rich white guy with no super powers who tells terrible jokes. Which is why one never happened! But Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle is super exciting because he's a young Latinx kid with an alien parasite that implants tons of advanced technology into his body! I hope there's a scene where Jaime is all, "What is this technology doing to my body now?!" And then Traci Thirteen will be all, "You're just getting a boner, estupido." And then they'll do it! And when Jaime cums, he'll shoot a rocket into Traci's face but she'll teleport away but he'll think he's killed her and then he'll drink poison and die after which she'll come back and see he's killed himself and then she'll stab herself to death.

I had to watch six different versions of Romeo and Juliet in 8th Grade English and I've yet to recover. Fuck you, Mr. Sousa!

Blue Beetle said "Cum"!

I've had some time to reflect on my attitude as I was typing the code for that last image and I'd like to apologize to Mr. Sousa. Obviously he was just excited to share something he found truly wondrous and beautiful in the world when he showed us the Romeo and Juliet ballet, so much so that he forgot he was showing it to a bunch of ill-cultured thirteen-year-olds who couldn't stop giggling at Juliet's nipples and Romeo's massive bulge.

Beetle and Fire attempt to recruit El Toro who is actually El Diablo. So you can see what my brain did there! It was close enough to correct for my tastes considering how terrible it is at actually remembering things. The only thing my brain is good at anymore is making me feel like nothing is worthwhile and life has nothing more for me.

Guy Gardner tries to recruit Maximum Carnage who is actually Starman and I have no idea what my brain was doing with that one. To be fair, even after the revelation, I don't fucking remember this version of Starman at all! Why did he choose an upside down star for his emblem and why didn't I read his comic book because he's obviously a Satanist? Guy Gardner, not understanding what "recruit" means, decides to capture Starman and try to force him to join the Justice League.

Bea knows Spanish?

Sometimes I think, "I know quite a bit of Spanish so I know Portuguese too!" And then I hear Portuguese and I think, "Hey! Portuguese and Spanish are like two different languages!" Although the simple fact that Bea is Brazilian, and not American, probably means she knows quite a few more languages than just one. It's weird how Americans think they're so fucking great and barely any of them can speak more than one language. If they can manage two, they're a fucking genius! I, myself, barely know English. Sometimes I'm surprised at how many books I've read over my lifetime and then I remember how many of them were Xanth books and Choose Your Own Adventure titles.

Ice and The Huntress extend the offer to join the JLA to Hawk and Dove which seems weird since The Huntress doesn't even really want to be a member. Surprisingly, her pitch is not, "You guys probably have no desire to join right now but if you'll just allow me to strand you on an ice floe with our boss, Maxwell Lord, I think you'll see things quite differently!" Also surprising, Hawk doesn't punch anybody in the face.

During the recruitment drive, Mister Miracle arrives to Earth orbit with Manga Khan and The Cluster.

Somebody forgot to color in the Earth.

Mister Miracle returns to find out he's dead and his wife is probably lying naked in the arms of Orion for consolation. So he should probably go get that sorted out in his own comic book. It's not like his return to the team was anything but a waste of pages spent on maintaining continuity with his self-titled comic. The readers knew he was alive the whole time and didn't need three pages of Manga Khan doing the same old joke where he talks to himself in a melodramatic fashion until L-Ron puts a stop to it.

Martian Manhunter tries to get Batman to come back full time and lead the team because he's tired of dealing with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold and Guy Gardner and G'nort and Max Lord. But Batman is all, "Stop being a whiny quitter!" and swings away on a Bat-rope.

Yeah, Ice! They're lovers! I wish I could I understand that!

The only problem with pretending to read the previous panel wrong is that I'm posting this on the Internet which means I have to also write this line where I point out that I was pretending to have read that line wrong so nobody corrects me in the comments.

Before leaving, Manga Khan trades L-Ron to Maxwell Lord in exchange for Fetal Despero. Now Manga Khan has to do all of his soliloquies in front of his new right-hand robot, K-Dik.

Mister Miracle might be back on Earth but he's decided to take a long vacation while the world thinks he's dead. And Martian Manhunter decides to go on a sabbatical as well. That leaves the Justice League with only one person who can kick any ass: Guy Gardner. The only problem is that Gardner kicks all of the wrong asses, all of the time. But do not despair, loyal reader! Because just as things look darker than they've ever looked (meaning a Justice League with worse power issues than that one with Vibe, Gypsy, and Aquaman in it), Orion and Lightray show up at the door begging to join! I give it four pages before Gardner and Orion are beating the stuffing out of each other.

Justice League America #42 Rating: D+. I have grown to fucking hate these recruitment issues and I blame DC's desperate need to constantly keep continuity straight. At this point, I'd rather just have editorial notes informing me that some member has left suddenly for reasons that can be understood if you pick up the particular issue of their own comic book where they find they can't continue on with the League. I suppose the entire purpose of this issue was to show readers that there were these other heroes named Starman, El Diablo, and Hawk and Dove who (probably?) have their own comic books currently. This issue was more of a bake sale than a Justice League America comic book. "Hey kids! Maybe try giving some of our other monthlies a go!" No thank you, DC! At least that's what I'm saying now. Yeesh, I sure hope I don't find any Starman, El Diablo, or Hawk and Dove comic books in my collection as I continue to re-read all of my old books!