Justice League Quarterly #2 (Spring 1991)

DC's version of Galactus is just an interior decorator.

If I were asked, "What character do you never want to read another story about ever?", I'd probably say, "Arsenal. Especially Lobdell's version." But then if you'd said, "Remember there is a character called Mister Nebula," I would punch you in the throat and yell, "Thanks for reminding me, asshole! Fine. That's my answer!" Although if you dodged my punch and rapidly shouted, "But it's written by Ann Nocenti!", I would have totally chilled the fuck out, dropped some LSD, and thoroughly enjoyed the comic book. Not that this issue is written by Ann Nocenti. But just imagine if it were! If I could liquify the schadenfreude I experience from reading an Ann Nocenti comic book and sell it as a street drug, I'd probably quickly get arrested for killing a bunch of drug addicts because no way anybody can survive a full dose of that much schadenfreude and nonsense. Mmm, so good! And lethal!

Behold! Eighty pages of terrible fashion jokes!

Mister Nebula finds fulfillment in flying about the universe and redesigning worlds. Like an over-the-top episode of Changing Rooms, this intergalactic Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen heeds nobody's advice and ignores the wishes of anybody who actually has to live in the space, turning mundane yet livable worlds into hideously tacky neo-gothic landscapes covered in pastel prints and fake furs. Afterward, when everybody complains about the state of the new space and how awful their lives will be living in it, Mister Nebula flies off in a petulant pout, wondering why nobody ever thanks him for his artistic flair and wild imagination. At least Galactus just eats everybody and never has to deal with their complaints. I think Mister Nebula should seriously consider genocide as a sub-hobby. Just redesign the planet, kill everybody on it, and fly off to the next planet feeling fulfilled! Maybe he needs to team up with Lobo. Then, at least, Lobo would be in this issue.

Like Galactus (because he's a parody of Galactus), Mister Nebula also has a herald who flies ahead of him, searching out planets that need a makeover. Mister Nebula's herald is the Scarlet Skier who has been befriended on Earth by G'nort, possibly becoming his roommate in the Justice League Antarctica Embassy. Mister Nebula realizes his herald is missing when he's unsure where the next redesign on his list will take place. So he sends out a probe to find the Scarlet Skier which will simply give Mister Nebula a reason to visit Earth. And oh boy what a mess he's going to find that planet in! Fucking brutalism.

Oh, my bad. They're roommates at the Embassy in Brazil.

G'nort might be in love with Scarlet Skier but the Scarlet Skier knows only a bountiful, endless love of the stars. He's dying to get back to skiing through space (the second most ridiculous form of space travel). But he's stuck on Earth living with the creature that destroyed his skis and stranded him on Earth. So he really, really hates G'nort. I know everybody hates G'nort. But the Scarlet Skier actually has a non-bigoted reason for hating him. Even Martian Manhunter can't say the same. J'onn is just a fucking hater who spews constant dog slurs at G'nort just like everybody else.

Mister Nebula's probe appears and even though the Scarlet Skier wants to get back to his life of flying amongst the stars, he doesn't want to work for that flamboyant monster. Also he knows that if Mister Nebula comes to Earth, he will utterly destroy it. Not literally! He'll just redesign it so that nobody will find it livable anymore and everybody will constantly be stressed out and angry having to look at whatever tacky bullshit Mister Nebula comes up with. Although it can't be any worse than brutalism, right?! So many fucking boring downtowns in major cities! They could use a little space flair!

G'nort fails to stop the probe which escapes back into space. This causes the Scarlet Skier to lose his patience with G'nort and now, finally, every single being on Earth wants to kill G'nort.

Real baller decision by Tom Artis to put a bird in that first panel when he's apparently never actually seen a bird before.

Scarlet Skier, being convinced that Mister Nebula is now coming to destroy him and the Earth (he is, by the way), appeals to the Justice League to save him (and the Earth). Having never heard of Mister Nebula, Ice requests an origin story. Scarlet Skier is more than happy to tell it, having spent so many years at the Manga Khan School of Melodrama. That's one of Giffen and DeMatteis's running jokes! Thirty years later and I still haven't had enough of it!

The origin story boils down to (and this isn't me being facetious and insensitive!) "These two powerful Jewish Lords of Order named Stan and Jack came to this planet of Gentile Non-Lords of Order to get drunk and have sex with some Shiksas (the actual name of the beings living on the planet Kvetch (I told you! I'm not making this shit up!))."

If any of this origin story is anti-Semitic, try to remember I'm just the messenger!

Jack and Stan meet a man building a temple to worship the Lords of Order. But he's a right tacky twat so Stan sends him straight to Hell. Then Stan and Jack go off to create the Marvel Universe. So Scarlet Skier tells their story so he can get to Mister Nebula's story. That's the story of the guy sent to Hell. Seems like he added a lot of unnecessary details to the Stan and Jack part of the story when he maybe could have just begun the story with them visiting a mortal temple dedicated to the Lords of Order. It seems, to me, that he could have avoided painting Stan Lee to be a sexist, gropey asshole with anger issues and drinking problems. Or maybe that was actually the important part of the story! At least to Giffen and DeMatteis!

The man sent to Hell was named Kirtan-Rodd. I guess that's a joke although I don't know how or why. If you're going to name your alien something that winds up being an inanimate object on Earth, why not Septick-Tanck? Oh, I guess because Curtain Rods are a staple of interior design? Although it's so tangential to interior design, picking out curtain rods, that they could have used Septick-Tanck. I suppose it doesn't matter, being that it doesn't even qualify as a joke. But here I am writing a paragraph about it anyway.

In Hell, Kirtan-Rodd gazes at a dizzying mixture of shapes and colors, so gaudy, awful, and tacky that it would drive any mortal crazy, especially if they have to look at it for eternity. The Hell of the Lords of Order is basically being on Changing Rooms, having Laurence redecorate your room, and spending the rest of eternity having to experience the horror of the reveal over and over again. Except there was a spanner in the works: Kirtan-Rodd loved the look of Hell! He became a new alien living eons among the distorted landscape and clashing colors. And eventually, he found his way back to the regular universe where he decided things were too boring to believe. He knew what he must do! He knew what he had to become!

The guy on his belt is "Elvez," apparently his style guru.

And that's his origin! He was just a tacky designer who went to tacky design Hell where it made him a super tacky designer after which he escaped Hell and became a terrible cosmic decorator! Was that similar to Galactus's origin?

Batman arrives to eavesdrop on the conversation with Scarlet Skier, learns that Earth is about to be redecorated by a cosmic God, and heads back to Gotham to help The Joker escape so he'll be too busy to help fight Mister Nebula. That leaves only J'onn, G'nort, Scarlet Skier, and Ice to deal with the problem. Maybe also L'ron.

How dare the fucking Letterer block Ice's rump with that word balloon?! Was it even necessary?!

Obviously J'onn hasn't been paying attention to the Doom Patrol during these years if he thinks they're not up to Crazy Jane's asshole in weird shit to deal with. Remember, Grant Morrison was writing them at this time. Also, I say "Crazy Jane's asshole" because she's the only one on the team with an extant asshole. Maybe sixty assholes even.

Mister Nebula creates a base in the Norwegian Sea so that Giffen and DeMatteis would have an excuse to send most of the heroes there to stop some tidal waves caused by a sudden new land mass. That leaves J'onn, Ice, and G'nort (Scarlet Skier winds up sedated for now) to handle Mister Nebula himself. Justice League Europe manages to spare Crimson Fox and Blue Jay as well. I'd say this is a pretty weak team but Crimson Fox knows all about fashion and style! So she'll probably defeat him in a fashion show.

It doesn't take long for G'nort to fuck up everything, cause another massive tidal wave, and then lose consciousness due to the strain of using his power ring to keep his new tidal wave from destroying New York. He collapses into the sea while Martian Manhunter finally acts like Martian Manhunter should have been fucking acting since he met G'nort.

I get why everybody treats G'nort like shit (because G'nort is annoying and everybody else is an asshole). But J'onn should always have shown him some compassion.

Is there a reason I expect Martian Manhunter to be the grown-up in the room? Is that historically accurate for the character? I can't tell anymore! I've read too much of the Giffen/DeMatteis version of the character!

G'nort mentions getting a JLA beeper in that last panel and I feel like I don't need to explain what beepers are to young readers because 30 Rock is a thing that exists. And certainly everybody has seen 30 Rock, right?

J'onn flies back to read the Scarlet Skier's mind to find out if Mister Nebula has any weaknesses while Crimson Fox and Ice climb up the side of Mister Nebula and into his ear. Ice uses her powers to give Mister Nebula vertigo. And even though everybody screamed at G'nort for causing Mister Nebula to fall into the bay, nobody is around to yell at Ice and Fox for making Mister Nebula fall in the middle of New York. I'm sure he only crushed, at most, 200 people.

Knocking Mister Nebula on his ass won't keep him out for long, so Martian Manhunter has a little chat with him while Mister Nebula is still woozy from the vertigo.

I guess when J'onn scanned Scarlet Skier's brain, he learned Mister Nebula was a narcissist.

To convince Mister Nebula that the Earth is following in his decorating footsteps, J'onn shows him Las Vegas. Mister Nebula finds the place a fantastic example of his work. He promises to leave Earth, thinking it's in tacky hands. Is this the way J'onn defeats every bad guy? He gives them exactly what they want so that they'll go away? So far it's worked with Despero and Mister Nebula. I bet if he just gave G'nort a nice big bowl of food covered in gravy and some belly rubs, G'nort would stop being so annoying as well.

Before Mister Nebula leaves the solar system, he teleports the Scarlet Skier back on board his ship. The Scarlet Skier takes back his job and, hopefully, that's the last we'll ever see of those two!

But wait! There's more: a back-up Fire and Ice story called "Running Hot and Cold!" I've just read 60 pages of comic book (and, as usual, really treated the last 30 pages pretty shabbily) so I'm almost certainly going to describe the action of this story in one or two lines. The story begins with Captain Cold and Heatwave in mufti, drunk off their asses and feeling sorry for themselves.

Now that I know these two are in this story, the title has exploded into new dimensions of punning!

To understand comic book history and the amount of "power creep" that crawled in over the years, all you need do is remember how The Flash's biggest enemies in the early days were a couple of guys with fancy pistols and they somehow always gave him a "run" for his money. You might think children reading comics in the Golden and Silver Age were great big ignorant chowderheads but they must have read every Flash comic book yelling to nobody, "Just take their weapons! Run really fast and take their weapons! You great big ignorant chowderhead Barry! What are you doing?!" I mention power creep over the years because The Flash probably wasn't fast enough to outrun flames and ice being shot out of a gun back then. Or the writers just didn't really give a shit. Maybe the editors shackled them to boring stories of The Flash battling guys with hand-held weapons. "What do you mean you wrote a story where The Flash disarmed the entire Rogues Gallery in one panel!? How the fuck are you going to follow up that story next month, you idiot?! Once The Flash shows he can do that, Captain Cold and Heatwave are fucking useless, man! The kids will expect that every month! Bah!" And then Broome and Infantino were all, "Don't worry! Next month, The Flash will battle hyper-intelligent gorillas!" And the editor was all, "How is that any more believable?!" And Broome was all, "They're telepaths! And nothing is faster than the speed of thought!" And then John Broome got a 20 cent raise!

Really, though, power creep is such a huge part of The Flash's history. First he could just run fast. Then he could vibrate into parallel worlds. Then he could time travel. Then his power became a super magic ability that could do almost anything called the Speed Force. And then he broke the entire DC Universe multiple times. But there was once a time when he could barely even defeat a guy with an ice gun and a guy with a fire gun and a guy with a mirror and a guy who did pranks.

Captain Cold currently works in a bookstore and Heatwave works for the Parks Department. And yet somehow they're unsatisfied with their lives?! Those both sound like fucking dream jobs! But I guess their dicks don't get hard anymore because they're out of the super villain game. Man, I know how that is! Not being out of the super villain game! The other one!

They decide to commit a robbery and get some cash together so they can bail on their awesome jobs. It's not a great idea except that they're going to meet Fire and Ice! And because they're doing crime, their dicks will be hard when they meet them! I smell a meet cute coming up!

Captain Cold and Heatwave decide to rob a jewelry store just as Fire and Ice pass by. They notice the robbery and, after a slightly-too-lengthy debate, decide to stop it.

The woman who can't stop catching everything in the room on fire when she transforms has a problem with a little extra ice.

Captain Cold and Heatwave wind up escaping out the back door which seems unlikely because I thought New York jewelry stores were death traps with only one way in and out! And that one exit can be sealed shut with a push of a button! Maybe things were different in 1991's New York. Or maybe things aren't actually the way I decide to believe they are?

Fire and Ice chase Cold and Heat down into the subways where they ultimately catch them. And then the NYPD arrive and arrest Fire and Ice for, I don't know, being rude to them and showing them up. Fucking cops are turds.

The issue ends with Martian Manhunter stress eating a shit-ton of Oreos. I get it, J'onn. I fucking get it.

Justice League Quarterly #2 Rating: B. Better than I expected but it's still 80 pages of comic book and I have a tough time concentrating on that much comic book at one time. In 1991, I probably loved getting a lengthy comic book to sit and read. But it's 2023 now and nobody has any idea what time is anymore. It's like the entire world is turned up to 10 and our attention is pinging around so many things trying to get that attention that we ultimately have little time for anything at all. I can barely sit down and watch a full length movie anymore! And I don't even own a smart phone so don't think I'm blaming this on phones! It's just the world, baby!

Justice League America #36 (March 1990)

Some people can't look at this cover without feeling aroused.

I didn't mean to suggest I'm "some people." I absolutely do not get off on crushing small animals. I'm one of those absolutely cynical assholes who finds nothing sacred but who also can't stand to see any animals come to harm. So, you know, a sociopath. The other day I was talking about the movie Pig with the Non-Certified Spouse and my voice began shaking and I began tearing up. That same day, somebody I follow on Twitter linked to the Seamus Heaney poem, "The Early Purges", and by the very first line, I was fucking sobbing. It's an incredible poem and I absolutely hate it and you should never read it if you haven't and I'm sorry for even mentioning it here. And Pig may be the best movie I saw in 2021 while also being the most traumatic thing to happen to me that year. Recommending a movie like Pig, I take the same stance I did when friends asked me if they should try LSD: "Look. I love it but I can't recommend it to you because I don't know how you'd react to the experience." Is part of being a sociopath also finding extreme value in art that completely fucks you up? Maybe it's just my age. I'm so inured to the constant yet mundane daily violences of life that I need terrible and catastrophic experiences through art to even feel anything at all. You put a trigger warning on something, and I'm all over it! Except that the trigger warning is like Kevlar, encasing me in a protective vest so that my mind can soften the impact of whatever the warning suggests. I find more value in a work of art if I'm not warned about what that art might do to me. Let me in raw! Not only am I asking to not be wrapped in a protective layer, I'm asking for my skin to be peeled away and my raw nerve endings exposed! I need to fucking feel something! And boy howdy did Pig sucker punch the fuck out of my heart!

Fuck. I re-read that poem and now I'm snotting all over the place. Maybe this story about G'nort will be diametrically opposite in the way it makes me feel so I can balance my emotions back to "constantly numb." What is the opposite of horrific grief? Hopefully it's inexplicable rage because that's usually what most comic books make me feel. And the odds of feeling that with G'nort as the protagonist are pretty fucking good.

If you think my rage explodes because of the character, you've got that other proverbial think coming. I fucking hate how writers, especially Giffen and DeMatties, treat the poor guy.

Rude.

Let's not pretend I've never called G'nort an idiot (and the implied subject of that sentence is "I" as in "I shouldn't pretend" because I know anybody who has read any of my bullshit wasn't pretending I've never called G'nort (and every single other character in the DC Universe) an idiot). But sometimes I need to let a cloud of clarity drift down around my brain which forces me to realize G'nort has been treated unfairly. As Jessica Rabbit once said something of the sort in reference to her huge tits or something: "I blame the fucking artist!" Nailed that quote. Anyway, poor G'nort gets treated like shit by the writers who wrote him in a way that allows them to feel justified in treating him like shit. Hopefully this issue will be that issue where they're all, "You know what? Maybe we're being dicks. Let's maybe stop being dicks. Let's allow G'nort to save the day for once without treating him as if he's just a stupid mutt!"

Never mind. Let's just keep the status quo.

Granted, that was how G'nort is first introduced in this comic. I guess if they're possibly going to change their attitude toward him this issue, the writers have got to establish the vulgarly low base line, even going so far as to show G'nort has been driven to a point where he's accepted his "Earth dog" status. Maybe he'll re-appropriate the slur (although why we, as humans, have decided calling somebody a "dog" is an insult makes absolutely no sense. If I had a loyal, excited friend full of wonder and energy, why would it be an insult to call them a dog?! Oh wait. I just remembered dogs eat their own shit. Never mind).

G'nort has been wandering Earth because Martian Manhunter is apparently a much bigger dick than I thought. For some reason, I had it in my head that he was the calm, cool, logical Justice League member who kept everything running smoothly. But he's really an easily annoyed, quick-tempered, gluttonous asshole. I should have been keeping track of how many times he's snapped at his colleagues. He even snapped at G'nort, according to G'nort here, telling G'nort to "Take a hike, G'nort. A very long hike." But G'nort has grown bored and it's time to test J'onn's patience again!

Meanwhile somewhere in deep space, a being known as The Scarlet Skier (who is probably a parody of Black Racer and Silver Surfer but whom I'm going to take seriously, just in case. It's like when you see somebody playing an instrument on a street corner and you stand around pretending to be super into it just in case they're a famous person. You don't want to be one of those people who get caught not appreciating amazing music! And I don't want to be the kind of person who gets caught not finding value in intelligently written comic book characters) has been let out of L.E.G.I.O.N. jail. The first thing on his list of things to do after getting out of jail is to get revenge on the Green Lantern who put him in jail. I would probably choose something less strenuous but then I've never been in prison. Maybe you just get so angry sitting there you can't think of anything except eventually punching the do-gooder jerk who put you there right in their smug face. Also their stupid and ugly face in this case because G'nort was the Green Lantern that put him there.

I should apologize to G'nort for that comment. That comment was more aimed at the jerks drawing G'nort who have decided he should look like the kind of dog only 3 out of 10 people "Ooh!" and "Aww!" over (like a Pug or a Chihuahua) or the writers who have decided he should be the dumbest Green Lantern in existence (after Guy and Hal, of course). I truly have empathy for G'nort but also I can't stand the character G'nort that these jerks have made him into. I'm complicated!

See?! Everybody is so mean to him! I feel terrible that I joined in!

The Scarlet Skier crashes to Earth and begins a fight with G'nort across the city. I wonder if this comic book is where Dan Jurgens got the idea for the Superman/Doomsday battle? Reports begin coming in to the Justice League Embassy that a mangy dog is battling a man in bright red armor.

Sometimes when I criticize art in a comic book, people will get mad at me and defend the artist by replying, "Let's see you do better!" Well, let's see them try that when I say these panels are shit because you better fucking believe I could do better than this!

I think the entire Mister Miracle page was drawn by an intern and shoved into the middle of the G'nort fight because editorial realized they were one page short just before going to print. The art is crazily mediocre (if not downright amateurish) compared to the rest of the issue. It's so blatant that I'd put money on it if Vegas were taking odds on it (which they probably would do if I just brought it to their attention).

Remember that part where I said maybe the writers were going to try to redeem themselves by making G'nort a more likable, smarter, stronger, and interesting character? It's possible I was right or it's also possible J.M. DeMatteis didn't realize how fucking great this joke was:

G'nort killing it with the banter. Beetle and Booster should take notes.

Portrayed more fairly than they should be, the NYPD arrive on the scene to arrest G'nort (the Scarlet Skier having been pounded into the subway system by then, disappearing on top of a train) and don't try to kill him. G'nort even cracks a few jokes, being totally disrespectful, and they don't even sodomize him with a broom. Instead, the NYPD freely give G'nort over to Mister Miracle and Fire when they arrive. The joke is that even though the NYPD feel it's their duty to take him back to a jail cell and beat the shit out of him, G'nort is just too annoying. So he flies back to the Justice League Embassy cracking even more good jokes at other people's expense.

Good for you, G'nort!

Back at the Embassy, G'nort begins to describe his arch-nemesis and, well, whattya know? He's a Silver Surfer parody. Don't I feel stupid treating him seriously! Anyway, the point being, the Skier is just the guy who flies around looking for worlds for the Galactus parody coming up (you know, that hand on the cover!). And that Galactus parody is Mister Nebula, Planetary Designer! So he doesn't so much consume planets as redecorate them (which can be quite traumatic in its own way. Have you ever seen Changing Rooms?!).

Instead of calling Mister Nebula to Earth for a really ridiculous issue, the Scarlet Skier, having run out of power somehow, decides to end it all by diving off the top of the World Trade Center. But his life is saved by G'nort which just makes him feel even worse. The only space criminal to ever be arrested by G'nort, beat up by G'nort, and had his life saved by G'nort. And so he becomes the most humiliated character in the entire DC Universe (up until Lobo gets married to and ass fucked by Bueno Excellente in Hitman (I know, I know! Garth Ennis using date rape as a means of "besting" the most dangerous villain in the DC Universe is hilarious. I mean super problematic!)). Unless it's after G'nort asks him to be his sidekick that he really hits rock bottom.

Justice League America #36 Rating: C. Not only do the Justice League not save anybody at all in this comic book, it's not even about them! It's about G'nort, an acquaintance of the Justice League! Get your own comic book, you dumb space dog! Fuck, I can't stand you! You stupid piece of shit! At best, G'nort is worth a two issue Giffen mini-series that he'd stretch into six issues! He's the fucking Heckler of Green Lanterns! Maybe if he'd get some dignity, I wouldn't hate him so much! I mean, I don't hate him. Remember how I said I don't hate him! I hate the people who drew and wrote him so incompetently! He can't help the way he was created! Poor dumb, ugly, stupid space dog.