Justice League International #51 (June 1993)

This looks shit, mate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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Bluesky

Justice League Europe Annual #3 (1992)

If I were Eclipso, I wouldn't have bothered possessing Aquaman either.

For a number of years, DC Comics decided to hold huge events every summer which took place across all of their annuals. It's possible this was an attempt to make their universe more exciting by involving all of the current monthly books in big Crisis-type stories. But it's also possible some bigwig was all, "How can we sell more annuals? Even people who buy the monthly rarely buy the dumb things! Could it be because we often use them to test out new talent and the quality is generally sub-par? Perhaps it's because we never really tie them into regular continuity and the stories are just extra pages of boring fluff?" Then somebody got the bright idea to tie them all together so that completionists would feel the need to buy every single annual put out every summer. It was a pretty good marketing idea because I always hated annuals and yet I now own every Bloodlines annual and Eclipso: the Darkness Within annual and every Armageddon 2001 annual. It's possible I began to realize how terrible these things were and how you never actually needed to read all the annuals by the time the Elseworlds event was released. And I almost certainly missed out on the Year One event. I don't think I even heard of the Legends of the Dead Earth summer blockbuster but then I was traveling America in a VW Volkswagen that summer, so you can't blame me for missing out on what sounds like a great marketing ploy! I totally want to read those annuals now even though I know, from experience, how truly shit most of them probably were.

Anyway, it was a waste of my time reading this in 1992 and I'm now going to repeat wasting my time by reading it again. It's like I have absolutely no respect for my limited mortality!

"Eclipso's head looks like a condom" is what the cover caption would have been if I'd ever had sex. Remember: no respect for my limited mortality!

The issue begins with Hal Jordan and Wally West already possessed by Eclipso. And yet, for some reason, Eclipso still wants to possess more members of Justice League Europe? I get the annual needs a reason for existing but it should be a tad bit believable! He's already got Green Lantern and The Flash! Why bother with anybody else?!

I know that was a dumb question! I actually did look at the cover when I scanned it! I see that he wants Power Girl too. She really is the only one left worth possessing.

Plus Eclipso needs somebody full of rage and nobody is more perfect than that diet soda swilling jerk!

Hal and Wally have to quit their plans as they're immediately surprised by the rising of the sun. Normally I'd think that's idiotic because they just began their search and night lasts like eight hours or something! But Hal probably forgot about London being eight hours ahead of Coast City (six hours ahead of Wally's Central City!). Apparently Eclipso's biggest weakness is the sun. That might be why he's imprisoned on the dark side of the moon! Because the sun bathes it in light all the time. And maybe that's why he'll be all powerful during the lunar eclipse because not only will the dark side of the moon be facing as away from the sun as possible but the Earth will also block out the sun's light and he'll be able to break free! And if that's the case (which makes a lot of sense!), shouldn't this huge event happen about every six months in the DC Universe?

Power Girl and Aquaman begin talking about the sexual mores of Atlantis and Crimson Fox screams. She says it's because she's tired of boring conversation but I think it's because, with her superior fox smelling power, she got a whiff of Power Girl's sex juices and a little bit of Aquaman's pre-cum. That leads to Crimson Fox and Power Girl getting in a fight and Ralph wrapping himself all around their boobies and under parts to keep them from pummeling each other.

What do you think goes through a sex pest like Gerard Jones' head when he writes dialogue like this? Is he confessing?

Kara flies out the window so that everybody can discuss her personality problems behind her back. Ralph says, "It's a weird kind of philosophical issue that would drive you to pound your coworkers." Philosophically speaking, or maybe literally speaking, Kara didn't touch anybody until Ralph put his hands all over her and Crimson Fox. Crimson Fox also fought back against his grabby rubber mitts but nobody decided to stand around afterward and call her a violent psycho with a diet soda problem. Anyway, what I'm trying to point out is that Power Girl did not touch anybody. But Ralph felt the need to physically restrain two women who were simply having a disagreement. And afterward, he acted like he came in his pants from touching them. But the person everybody has a problem with is Power Girl? Echidna the mother of monsters was right! Everybody is a sexist fuck!

Crimson Fox runs off to her sister to pout because Aquaman doesn't want to fuck her and The Flash now has Linda and Hal Jordan just wants to punch stuff and Captain Atom is dead leaving her with lady blue balls. She wants to quit the League. But then she sees their company is sponsoring a film festival and she remembers how she was going to fuck Metamorpho in Greece! So she calls him up, invites him to London, and manicures her downstairs area (both sides because she's a modern French lady!).

Power Girl, upset that everybody keeps trying to control her, goes on a Diet Soda binge. If the doctor who wrote the sexist paper theorizing how diet soda makes super women hysterical wasn't completely insane (yeah, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt because this is a comic book full of stupid shit), then Eclipso will find possessing a diet-soda-filled Power Girl the easiest thing in the moon. He probably won't even need to corrupt her with a black diamond. She'll just join Team Eclipse for kicks.

Have I mentioned how terrible the art is? I'll give the artist the benefit of the doubt and choose to believe that the truly terrible panels which are boring, flat, and depict strange looking faces were because of a time deadline for such a long book. Because some of the art wouldn't have made my art critic sirens go off at all. That's usually the case because I'm a terrible comic book reader who reads comic books more for the story than the art. Weird, right? I should just read John Steinbeck over and over.

Some times when I say some art sucks, I get blowback from people who think it's not right to ever express an opinion that isn't full of unicorn piss and sunshine. Then they'll say things like, "Let's see how good you could draw the comic!" Which is the best argument to use if you want me to absolutely discount your opinion about anything. Because how dare you criticize my ability to criticize! Let's see you criticize the art of a comic book!

Kilowog barges into Justice League Europe Headquarters to warn everybody about Eclipso but apparently he's a huge liar.

He did not beat Justice League America and he didn't possess Superman!

See that art? That's not bad at all! It doesn't spike the meter on either my love it or hate it meter. I think there were just portions of the script that Tim Hamilton found so boring that he couldn't be bothered caring about drawing them. He probably left them for last and then whipped them out in an hour or two.

Getting back to the plot, Superman probably got possessed in one of his own title's annuals, just like Hal and Wally. But that doesn't mean Eclipso beat the Justice League! Unless, I guess, it happened in The Demon or Valor annual. This is what happens when some idiot comic book collector doesn't store all of the "big event" comic books in one place! Now the idiot comic book collector several decades later has to deal with this shit!

Possessing Superman doesn't seem like the best idea because Superman needs the light of the yellow sun to retain his power but the light of the yellow sun will force Eclipso from his body. So how the fuck does that work then? How long can Superman's light reserves keep him strong? And also, shouldn't the solar light reserves within his body actively work against Eclipso's ability to possess him? Who the fuck was the editor on this event?! Can somebody go back in time and fire them?

Ralph phones Justice League America's headquarters to ask them why they didn't tell them about this. I'm assuming their answer will be, "Why weren't you watching CNN like us? Do we have to call you every single time something terrible happens?! Aren't you some kind of super detective, you bloody stretchy wanker?!"

Normally I'd just stare at Fire's tits in a panel like this but that portrait of J'onn is creeping me the fuck out.

I wonder if that's even a picture of J'onn? Maybe he's hiding in the wall pretending to be a picture so he can watch Fire change.

The artist, Tim Hamilton, was only 26 when this comic book was published so I can understand some of the amateurish bits. I should also apologize for negatively criticizing his art because, based on the next panel I'm going to scan, he definitely knew what it took to become a solid, long-term professional in the business.

Only a true comic book artist knows what fans really want: women in towels fresh out of the shower!

Previous to this panel, there's a full-blown panel of Ice butt-ass naked in the shower! Some of you might be upset that I use the term "butt naked" instead of "buck naked" but if you wanted to argue the point, you'd lose the argument and also I'd call you racist because there's some evidence that "buck" was an early slur for Native Americans and African slaves. Both "butt naked" and "buck naked" are generally acceptable anyway so I choose, when adding the word "ass" to the mix, to use "butt-ass naked" because that's funny! Two butts in a row! Ha ha!

Oh wait. My point was that the naked picture of Ice would have been the better panel to scan. But I didn't because I often discuss how artists like David Finch and Tony Daniels (and many, many others) just love to draw a naked woman in a towel. Which is why I point out Tim Hamilton knows what he's doing. I couldn't tie all of that together if I was all, "Tim Hamilton sure knows what he's doing!", and scanned in the shower scene! Then I'd just look like a pervert and I already looked like a pervert earlier in the review when I mentioned staring at Fire's tits! I don't want people reading this to think I'm actually a creep!

I'm sure some of you are currently saying, "You can't mention the naked ice panel and not scan it now!" But it's too late. I already tore it out of my comic book and taped it up in my "office."

I know Jones wrote this but I can still love Tim Hamilton for drawing it. I bet Finch and Daniels would have been all, "No way I'm drawing that. I ain't gay, bro!"

Also, see what I mean about Hamilton's art? I didn't scan any of the panels where it was obvious he didn't give a shit so you can't compare it to this panel. But look at how good naked Aquaman looks! Tim definitely cared about getting that right!

Kilowog says the nudity is distributed fairly but there's a big difference between Kilowog projecting his eyeballs into Ice's shower using his Green Lantern ring and Aquaman striding out in front of Doctor Light in the thinnest and smallest towel he can possibly find so that she can see the outline of his dong against the material. On Kilowog's home planet, "distributed fairly" means the victim in a peeping incident is equal to the perpetrator of a flashing incident. What a dick culture. Um, literally?

Realizing trouble is coming as soon as night falls, Doctor Light and Kilowog send up the Justice League International symbol (just like the bat signal but boring) to bring back all of their teammates who stormed off in a huff earlier. Crimson Fox returns first.

Jesus Christ. I'd kill to have a woman enter my window like this!

Right now there are people reading this thinking, "What? You've never had a woman fling herself into your window spread-eagled? Sucks to be you!" And to those people, I say, "Eat S-H-I-T, buddy!"

Hal Jordan and Wally West follow Crimson Fox into the room. Except they don't sexily use the window; they just crash through the entire wall. They are still eclipsed, of course. And also of course, Doctor Light, who shoots bolts of fucking light, doesn't affect Eclipso's possession at all. Sure, Blue Beetle made a flashlight that doesn't have one-hundredth of Doctor Light's power which can un-eclipse a person but Doctor Light's light blasts simply bounce off of Hal Jordan's face.

Eclipso realizes he can't make any of these boring turds get angry so The Flash tosses a bunch of black diamonds in the room and he flees with Green Lantern. That's when Power Girl arrives fresh off a diet soda binge, pissed off, angry, and hysterical, just like that scientist's theory said would happen if she kept drinking that swill. Remember, it was the scientist that said female super heroes would get hysterical if they drank diet soda. That wasn't my term!

Power Girl picks up some black diamonds and wham bam thank you diet soda, Eclipso possesses her. He does not immediately feel himself up which, I think, proves Eclipso should have been as huge a gay icon in the '90s as the Babadook was last decade.

Kara puts up a meager fight before being imprisoned in a green cage by Kilowog's ring. At about the same time, a mysterious figure (Bruce Gordon?) arrives to kidnap Doctor Light the same way he kidnapped Blue Beetle earlier. He's putting Team Solar Extraction together! Oh, Kilowog is also teleported away by the shadowy figure behind the blast of light. I really want it to be John Constantine but I'm pretty sure, in 1992, he was contained in the Vertigo universe. It's probably just Bruce Gordon.

Power Girl escapes the cage after Doctor Light and Kilowog disappear. She grabs Aquaman and flies high above London, with Ralph grabbing her ankle and Crimson Fox climbing on Ralph's back. Whatever their plan to save Aquaman works so much as in Power Girl lets them all drop from hundreds of feet in the air. She then flies off believing she killed them rather than watch the satisfying splat as they hit the ground. Unless Aquaman doesn't make a splat because he's so dense and instead smashes a huge hole in the ground and survives. And Ralph turns into a hang glider which Crimson Fox uses to safely get to the ground. I mean, there were so many ways for them not to die between being dropped and Power Girl flying off that it makes no sense that she simply assumes they're dead. Oh, I guess she didn't assume that! Eclipso did and he's a narcissist so he believes whatever he wants to believe no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.

Anyway, they do all live but only because Metamorpho suddenly appears to catch them in himself. Crimson Fox practically fucks him before he can turn back into a human shape. But by then, all the eclipsed heroes have flown off, headed to Meteor Crater in Arizona for peak viewing of the future lunar eclipse. I've been there! But I wasn't eclipsed. I was just, you know, interested! I also went to Roswell on the same VW Bus trip. I was sad to skip visiting the Trinity site while I was in the general area. Maybe some day!

Justice League Europe Annual #3 Rating: C. Solid mediocre comic book material! That's actually pretty good praise for an annual! Most of the time, they just fucking suck. But this one had Ice naked in the shower so it may be one of the best annuals ever drawn. And the plot! So mediocre! "Eclipso possesses Power Girl because she's hysterical from drinking diet soda in an attempt to appease the male gaze!" Riveting! But why did Eclipso need Hal Jordan and The Flash to deliver a bunch of black diamonds to the Justice League? What a waste of talent!

Justice League Quarterly #4 (Autumn 1991)

I have never been more attracted to Ice.

Time for another fucking Quarterly! I know why I purchased the Quarterlies thirty years ago: because I was young, dumb, and definitely whatever the third thing is supposed to be. Also because I loved the Justice League. Although I am surprised I had an extra three dollars to purchase a quarterly issue every three months. Money was tight because I was fucking lazy. And now, thirty years later, I'm cursing my 19 year old self because my even dumber 51 year old self has decided to re-read all of my old comic books and write about them. If two aspects of myself at two different points of time were both morons, does the fact I'm a moron become a scientific certainty? Luckily that's probably not enough data points to draw a conclusion. So until more data comes in, I am, scientifically, not yet a moron.

The first story in this way-too-long comic book stars The Injustice League and is called "The Sunnie Caper" and makes me want to fuck Robin the Boy Wonder.

Well, not any of the boy wonders you're probably thinking of but this Carrie Kelley look-a-like.

The Injustice League hang out at a bar in New York that only serves super villains. The wait staff all dress like sexy versions of super heroes like Robin, Wonder Woman, and Martian Manhunter. Probably Martian Manhunter. What server would look sexier than a woman in Martian Manhunter's crossed suspenders and speedos? If one of the wait staff winds up being dressed like J'onn, believe me, I'll scan that panel in immediately and then take a short swoon break. Never you mind how I define "swoon."

Major Disaster, Clock King, Cluemaster, Big Sir, and Multi-man are discussing whether they're good guys or bad guys. They were bad guys but it didn't pay because they were terrible at it. But then instead of getting their asses sued by the Justice League because they promoted themselves as the Injustice League, the Justice League hired them to work in Antarctica. But that fell apart when they had their asses handed to them by a bunch of vampiric penguins. Now they spend their time collecting unemployment checks and hanging around a bar debating their alignment.

Bruce, the member of the team who has no powers and does nothing and maybe is only a member because he rents the apartment where they all crash, turns the group on to a great opportunity: he's joined a cult and there's room for the rest of them too! For some reason, they don't leap at the opportunity to join the the Cult of Minister Sun. You'd think a bunch of unemployed losers all struggling with identity crises would jump at the chance to pester strangers at airports and malls for a place to live and a vocation which comes with a sense of meaning and well being. But instead, they decide to rob the cult because the heads of cults are always rich and also because robbing a cult would make them good guys and also because it would give them a sense of purpose. Robbing Minister Sun would solve all of their problems, the main problem being that they're broke assholes. I guess it wouldn't solve their being assholes but I also don't think they believe that's one of their problems. So fair play.

One of the main attributes of the Injustice League is that they can never succeed in anything they do. So they're about to get their asses handed to them by a group of weak-minded adults who can't function in society without somebody else telling them exactly what to do. That's me just lost all of my cult member and military readers.

"This is an 80-page comic book," I calmly explain to myself because I was just about to lose my shit about how boring the first fifteen pages are. "Sure, the writer could have skipped most of the scenes where the Injustice League discuss the heist and stake out the cult's compound. But he was probably told to pad out his story to fill another useless Justice League Quarterly," I whisper softly to myself as I stroke my hair and try to keep myself from screaming a final, existential scream into the void which my mind will never recover from. Panting, sweaty, heart beating too fast, I growl, "He could have at least made those extra pages funny."

These guys just turned up on page 15 which is the start of their story, making them way more interesting than the Injustice League with their 15 page set up.

Who are these guys? I don't know but I'll find out during the rest of the story! This is why that ancient old dude always said to start everything in the middle of the story. Because the beginning is all boring set up that the audience can extrapolate from the rest of the story. Like how Star Wars began in the middle because, as we saw years later, the beginning was all about some boring import tariffs being voted on by a Galactic Senate or something. I'd be more specific or correct but it was so boring that the only thing I really remember about going to see The Phantom Menace was the trailer for Fight Club before the movie. Star Wars was much better when viewers didn't know exactly what led up to the Clone Wars or what the Clone Wars even were, actually. All the soldiers were clones of Boba Fett's dad? Why?!

It seems some other villains have also decided to rob the cult. I hope those two guys are The Penguin and The Riddler! Unless they're FBI agents meant to be watching the cult to make sure they're not dangerous and have discovered the cult has tons of loot and intend to steal it themselves. Which is exactly what they are because I read ahead.

According to this story, the only power any of the Injustice League possess is the ability to throw knock-out gas capsules. And that's something just Cluemaster does. I know Major Disaster can cause terrible disasters which is a great super power but limits the situations where it can be used. Clock King creates schedules, Multi-man has mood swings, and Big Sir, while being strong, is just too stupid to be any use. If I were Cluemaster, I'd throw my capsule at my teammates and slit their throats at the end of this heist.

Fair enough. Cluemaster is shit as well.

This story is awful. The Injustice League fuck up but then things work out but then they get fucked in some other way but then things work out but then they get fucked again but then things really seem to have worked out only for them to get fucked super hard and the story ends leaving them where they were at the start: broke and starving. It's hard to judge exactly how original a story was when you're reading it 30 years into the future but I have to assume that this was trite, derivative garbage even in 1991. According to his Wikipedia, Will Jacobs, the writer, left writing soon after this to start a used book service or something. Good choice, Will. Except in 2014, he joined with his writing partner, Gerard Jones (uh-oh), to write a sequel to some book that made fun of Leave it to Beaver. Timely, that! I mean timely sarcastically in the sense that nobody in 2014 probably knew anything about Leave it to Beaver and also literally in that Gerard Jones was soon after arrested for possession of images of child sexual abuse. I'm sure Will Jacobs, his long-time writing partner, knew nothing about that at all. Wink, wink.

Saying "wink, wink" after a statement like that won't open me up to a libel lawsuit, will it? I just had something in my eye as I was typing and was trying to get it out!

After reading that story, I'm seriously thinking about taking my copies of Justice League Quarterly numbers 5-10 into the backyard and burning them so that I don't feel forced to read them. Maybe since they have nothing to do with Justice League continuity, I'll just leave them for after I'm done with the monthly issues. They really interrupt the flow of my other blog entries because they sit on my scanner waiting for me to continue reading them because I can only really read four to five pages at a time before I'm completely demoralized by the life my choices have led me to living.

It's strange insulting Will Jacobs' writing when I'm sure I was writing stupid super hero shit just like this Injustice League story at the same time. I suppose the difference is that I was 20 years old and not trying to publish my stories through anything but 'zines and Will was 36 and sold this garbage to DC. Perhaps the moral of the story is that I wasn't confident enough in my talent! And also that I wasn't the friend and writing partner of Gerard Jones who was currently working at DC.

The second story is called "Cracked Ice." It's written by J.M. DeMatteis and drawn by Darick Robertson so I'm expecting it to be average at worst. It begins with a double date at a New Age open-air market.

Fire's personality is quickly being reduced to "blow job queen."

Ice probably doesn't actually want to hear the end of Guy's sentence. "It's amazin' the things a man'll stoop to when he's into sucking ice cubes out of a goddess's asshole."

Guy Gardner bullies a guy selling pyramids containing the spirit of an ancient astral guide because nobody ever stops him from using his power ring to be a huge dickbag. How the fuck does Guy get to keep his ring (or his job with the Justice League) after all the bullshit terror acts he commits on regular people he personally despises? Shouldn't the Guardians be monitoring abuses of the universe's most powerful weapon? Or are they too busy fucking Zamorans and scolding Hal Jordan? At the very least, J'onn should fire his ass. Oh wait. J'onn did fire Guy's ass. But only after he turned his vitriol and abuse on one his teammates. Seems like it's okay for Guy to throw citizens around in the air using his ring whenever they espouse an opinion that goes against Guy's beliefs but sucker punch Ted Kord and everybody freaks out. Maybe if y'all had come down on Guy when he was treating regular people like shit he never would have turned on Ted. Besides, Blue Beetle probably needed to get sucker punched. It's all fun and games while Despero is destroying New York right up until Guy Gardner calls you fat, I guess.

Even Fire gets in on the bullying using her powers.

Why did they even come to this New Age fair if none of them believe in this shit?

Oh, right. Tora believes in it. Or she wants to believe in it. Or she will totally believe in it when she's suddenly possessed by the astral spirit guide later which will hopefully kick Guy, Fire, and Oberon's asses for not believing in this bullshit. Look, we all know it's bullshit in our reality. But this is comic books! Stop pretending demons, angels, and Ice Goddesses don't exist! Atheists are the delusional people in the DC Universe.

Hopefully you deconstructed the phrase "Atheists are the delusional people in the DC Universe" so you understand I only said that to not say the thing I didn't say there.

Only kittens and people I'm fucking ever look at me the way Oberon is looking at Guy here. And Oberon is not a kitten.

The spirit in Ice's cracked crystal possesses her, turning her into a huge silver naked lizard lady. Lizards don't have breasts though so even though Ice's lizard form has breasts, it wouldn't make any sense to include the best part: the nipples. Maybe other reasons exist why Darick Robertson didn't draw nipples, probably the same reason he didn't draw any labia.

Editorial probably forced Darick to add the tail so I wouldn't jerk off to this. Not that it's a deal killer.

Luckily my memory sucks so I really have no idea whether or not I masturbated to that panel. But knowing my history of jerking off, well, I mean, there's a good possibility. Also, I didn't mean to suggest that the tail would somehow dissuade me from jerking it to this panel. You should see all of the weird monsters in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual that I used as porn. I just mean that without the tail, that shot of Ice from that angle would more than do it for me. The only thing better would be if the shot were from behind!

Gross. Enough about my unbelievable sexual history. Is self-gratification included in a person's sexual history? It should be just so it would take more than a Post-it note to archive mine.

Coming along to help the Justice League are two characters from Giffen's Dr. Fate run: some guy and a demon. They have a book that tells them how to defeat every single demon from Hell. They just have to figure out what kind of demon Ice has become by reading the entire book before Ice destroys New York. My guess is that Ice will be saved by somebody chanting the words of the reading Ice received earlier from the channeler whom Fire scared the shit out of. If only the Justice League had remembered that they live in a fantasy comic book world maybe they would have taken the New Age street vendors more seriously.

It turns out I'm wrong! The demon, Petey, from Dr. Fate recognizes Demon Ice's language and talks the demon into leaving Ice and going back to Hell. I sure hope the anonymous commenter from my Justice League International Annual #1 review wasn't reading this. I'd hate for him to get apoplectic about me speculating on where the comic book was going instead of somehow knowing before reading it where it was going because people being ignorant online makes him so fucking angry! I don't hate may people but boy do I hate that dude! I made an erroneous bit of speculation at the beginning of the review which I called myself on for being wrong at the end of the review and this twat gets pissed that I would even speculate on something that I should have already known by reading the solicits for every comic book DC publishes. What a fucking piece of shit wanker! Why would I read solicits and spoil the whole concept of my blog where, as a Grand Master Comic Book Reader, I attempt to (and almost always succeed) at guessing which direction plots are headed! Man, I feel sorry for the friends of that guy!

Holy shit! This moment really should have been in the regular series! Imagine all the cheapskates who missed out on it because they didn't purchase this issue or read the solicits!

The issue ends with several short "Cat Tales" stories about Power Girl's cat. One is about how picky cats are with their food. The other is about how cats break everything when a mouse gets in the house. One is about how dangerous it is to bathe a cat. And the final one ends with the cat falling asleep with its face in a stinky shoe which was the most realistic out of all the cute stories. The cat still doesn't have a name though.

Mr. Bigger's crew obviously didn't know much about cats when they came up with there plan.

Justice League Quarterly #4 Rating: A. Please, this rating surprised the fuck out of me too but I thoroughly enjoyed half of this book. I hear what you're saying: "Shouldn't that mean the comic gets no better than a 'C'?" Maybe if your letter grades aren't entirely arbitrary the way mine are. Plus, this issue was the issue where Guy and Ice officially become a couple! Also it has four stories about Power Girl's cat! And even though they're all based on cartoon premises, they're still pretty true to the nature of cats! I loved them all very much! Plus Darick Robertson drew that pornographic image of Ice as a naked demon! Plus I ripped out the Injustice League story and burned it! So the rating of 'A' only applies to my personal copy.