Justice League America #34 (1990)

I'm slightly disappointed Beetle and Booster's nickname was "Blue and Gold" instead of "Hairy and Smooth."

You thought I was going to mention Fire's huge tits, didn't you? Well I did. Just there. You're so fucking smart, aren't you?

You might think Batman is just wearing his normal outfit on the beach but it's his beach outfit which is treated to repel sand and also has cut outs on the ass cheeks. It also probably constantly excretes sun tan lotion because can you imagine how pale that guy must be? Or should be, anyway, in a realistic comic book universe where Bruce Wayne can't go from beating up criminals all night to actually having a working day life where he goes out in the sun and fucks tons of women in the evening. He probably sleeps in some kind of Bat-tanning machine which also jerks him off during the night.

Speaking of being jerked off in the middle of the night, I had a weird sex dream last night. I was back in my home town and ran into Amy Ginger whom I'm certain was in my graduating class but I only really remember her from elementary school. We ended up back in the apartment in my mother's basement making out when things turned to oral and manual manipulation. At some point, I saw that I ejaculated but didn't feel anything and commented on it. Amy treated it as if I were apologizing for jizzing too quickly but I was actively concerned that there was something medically wrong with me. Then I realized part of the ceiling was missing and sky was showing through because a tornado had smashed the house while we were fooling around. And my cats Gravy and Pelafina (who died about four years ago) had been in the house so I got really worried and ran upstairs to look for them. I found them almost immediately which was kind of my brain to allow or I would have woken up super sad. Not that I didn't wake up super sad anyway because of my stupid non-wet sex dream!

It feels good to be revealing too much during my comic book reviews again! I hope Amy Ginger isn't in the habit of Googling her name! Although if she does, she'll be in a real quandary about which of her elementary school classmates this is! I'll give her one hint: it's not Simon Raines!

Oh man, what if Simon is big on Googling himself?! I wonder if he remembers the time I was supposed to stay over his house but I didn't bring pajamas so his mom let me borrow a pair of his but they were too tight because I was a little fatty and I got super nervous and embarrassed and asked to go home? Man, I bet that was the moment my life changed for the worst forever! I probably could have been a popular kid, getting in on the ground floor with Simon! It would have opened up all kinds of friendship avenues!

The issue begins with Major Disaster lamenting his life in which he refuses to take responsibility for his failures and instead blames the idiotic members of his gang, the Injustice League. He also blames the Justice League for his failure. Then why name your dumb villain group after the Justice League? The Injustice League is a pretty shit name for a gang. Oh no! They're against justice! Look out!

Major Disaster sees an ad for Beetle and Booster's resort casino on Kooey Kooey Kooey Island and decides it would be a good place to rob. A place run by members of the Justice League seems like the kind of place you'd avoid pulling a heist but then Major Disaster has already shown he's blind to his own flaws and shortcomings.

Booster and Beetle pull off their own heist against the Justice League!

This is what happens when there's no social safety net and you don't pay your employees a living wage. They're going to wind up robbing you blind and/or sleeping with two women at once and/or burning the whole place to the ground.

Major Disaster and Big Sir, like Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, have also failed at being responsible adults which is why they've spent the last of their money on tickets to Kooey Kooey Kooey Island. I'm not sure if their plan is to rob the place or make a fortune gambling or maybe just retire on the island as a beach bum (the only sensible choice, really). I just know that, for some reason, as soon as Major Disaster saw the Justice League had an island resort, he saw it as some kind of get-rich-quick scheme. Maybe Major Disaster realized that when they try to avoid super heroes (like when they moved to France), they always wound up running into super heroes. So if he dives right into a place full of super heroes, maybe things will finally go his way!

While Big Sir and Major Disaster somehow cheat at Black Jack in the casino, Aquaman washes up on the beach to yell at Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. He finds them immediately after they get the news that Big Sir and Major Disaster have cleaned out the casino.

Aquaman showing up always makes everything worse.

Aquaman has come to warn Beetle and Booster that Kooey Kooey Kooey is a living organism and that creating a casino resort on its back will surely wake it up. Which is exactly what happens! And because the Comics Code Authority demands that crime (or gambling) never pays, Major Disaster and Big Sir lose all of their casino winnings, which they took in cash and shoved in a suitcase, when an earthquake knocks the suitcase open, sending the money flying everywhere. It's a shame because it would have been a better plot seed to let them get away with the money and build an Injustice League Satellite in orbit opposite the Justice League Satellite. Did the Justice League even have a satellite in 1989? It's only been a few years since they were working out of a cave!

I hope Kooey Kooey Kooey winds up with a Green Lantern ring! Imagine G'nort, a sentient dog, living on Kooey Kooey Kooey, a sentient island, floating in an ocean on Mogo, a sentient planet. That's practically a Planetary story arc.

The issue ends with everybody trapped on the island with busted teleporter tubes and Aquaman. It's a real tragedy.

Justice League America #34 Rating: B. Once again, Adam Hughes does all of the heavy lifting. The story is silly and non-sensical but who cares when you're looking at women in bikinis drawn by Adam Hughes! And if you're not willing to admit that you read comic books for the nearly naked ladies, Adam drew some of the other stuff really well too. Like desks and trees and poker chips.

See? Just check out the cushions on that sofa!

Justice League Europe #9 (1989)

If this is what it takes to operate on Power Girl, just imagine what her vibrator looks like.

If you're wondering why Power Girl looks so different while Sears is still on the job, it's because Sears is now doing the tracing while Art Nichols is doing the drawing. To me, the art is better in a way that doesn't mean I'm happy with it. It's just the style appeals to me quite a bit more. Although in many places, it feels a bit flat and amateurish. Just look at Superman's square-cut John Romita Jr fingers! And look at how nicely manicured he is. How does Superman clip his nails?

Power Girl is dying because she got the shit slapped out of her by The Grey Man's gigantic magic hand. Now she needs an operation for vague reasons or she's going to die! But the doctor is all, "I can't operate on this woman! She is my son!" No wait, that's a dumb riddle. I think this doctor can't operate on her because she is invulnerable. I know I didn't have to explain that to 98% of you! But my mom reads this blog and the only thing she knows about Power Girl is that she would sometimes find Power Girl comics under my bathroom sink growing up. Because that's where I kept them, okay?!

If magic wounded her, magic can save her! Too bad Doctor Fate's title is only academic!

Christ how dumb are these people? If Batman has contingency plans for killing every hero in the DC Universe, surely he must also know how to save their lives! He's probably got a kryptonite guillotine that could be modded for surgery! At the very least, he'd know what to do. Is he too busy trying to assure Dick Grayson he isn't a total failure to help out this month?

Sue Dibny calls Superman to let him know his cousin-from-another-mother-Earth is dying. Hopefully somebody smarter than Superman will explain to him how he's going to save Power Girl or else he's probably just going to repeatedly punch her in the gut until he breaks through. I read the Death of Superman. I know he never has any better plans than punching things really hard.

Batman does show up but not to help out Kara, of course. If he gives them any ideas and she dies, it could count as his having killed somebody! Can't chance that!

I hope Batman has come to talk Outsiders' business! Maybe Halo is in a coma in the room next door!

Meanwhile Wally and Ralph have it out over Ralph always mentioning how Barry Allen was a much better Flash than Wally is. I know a lot of people thought Barry was boring and Wally ended up filling his shoes so well that fans hated it when Barry was brought back. But I never followed The Flash in any form so all I've got to go on is Wally West in this comic (and some appearances in Titans) and I have to say: he's a sexist pig and a fucking jerk. Maybe that's just the way DeMatteis was writing him and I'll like Wally better now that Loeb is writing this book. He's already begun his stint by having Wally confront Ralph so that maybe all that "You're not as good as The Flash I remember reading while growing up" shit DeMatteis constantly harps on is now in the past. Although while Barry really seems hurt and angry, Elongated Man just kind of shines him on with more Barry stories, ignoring the earnest and serious conversation Wally was trying to have. I guess that's just Ralph! He's demonstrating that he can't ever be serious which is why he won't stop making his fucking neck twelve feet long and twitching that disgusting nose.

Back at the hospital, Power Girl and Superman have been strapped into some medical torture devices to begin the operation.

"Okay, start punching away, Superman!"

Do you think Power Girl had to be shaved for this operation? How lush must Kryptonian pubic hair be if nothing can trim it? Do they even have pubic hair?! Oh my god! I just realized there's no reason their genitals shouldn't be something completely alien to humans! I bet it's a fucking M.C. Escher print down there!

Kilowog, having just recently been remembered by Keith Giffen while plotting the last Justice League America issue, makes an appearance in order to build the Superman-heat-vision-head-stabilizer. I'm not sure how it's supposed to hold his head steady when he's the strongest man in the universe and just moving his head slightly probably produces more kinetic energy than when Power Girl orgasms but then I'm not a genius at building machines like Kilowog. My only genius ability is knowing how much potential energy resides in Power Girl's clit. The answer is a shit-ton.

Batman takes Metamorpho onto the roof to explain to him that Metamorpho might have brain damage after his near death and bout of amnesia. Metamorpho thinks Batman has come by because he felt guilty when he heard Metamorpho regained his memory and was all, "Oh Betsy! I better get in there and spin the fact that I didn't give a shit about him while he was lying in a coma! The same way I still haven't given a shit about Halo!" But really, I think Batman is just checking to see if Rex remembers that Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne.

"Also, do you like the eyebrows I drew on my cowl? Too much, you think?"

Metamorpho gets pissed at Batman, turns into a fart, and leaves before Batman can ask him, "Hey, do you remember that scumbag billionaire, um, Bruce Wayans I think it was, from Gotham? What a dumb jerk, right? So dumb! Although I hear he has a huge cock. So huge. I wonder if Clark Kent would do a story on it? Maybe I'll ask him after he's done punching Power Girl's stomach open. I mean, um, when I'm next in Metropolis!"

After Superman punches open Power Girl, the doctor goes in to, um, I don't know. Unsuccessfully try to move her organs around? Break a punch of needles trying to sew up her guts? Look confusedly at her alien insides even though the big fat liar said they x-rayed her earlier?

Yep, the third one. I also think this is proof that her vagina looks like a recursive stairway.

I wonder what text book the doctor is talking about? The Physiology of Atlanteans Who Are, SPOILER ALERT, Still Actually Kryptonians?

The surgery takes six hours after which the doctor emerges to explain how he's a garbage doctor and a total hack and how he was lying about there being any kind of text book at all.

"How much of her we salvaged"?! Are the words for "hospital" and "auto shop" nearly identical in French and the JLE seriously fucked up on this one?

When the doctor says "we," does he mean him and Superman or him and the nurses? Shouldn't Superman have been some help in identifying Kryptonian organs? Maybe that's why the doctor uses the word "salvage"? Superman was probably all, "You can lose that bumpy green thing and maybe throw out half of the leathery thing that keeps trying to bite you. And that bit that seems to have exploded from magic? Just get rid of it although I think it might be the 'super powers' organ. Oh well!"

Maybe the French doctor just messed up his English and didn't mean to use the word "salvage." But then again, judging by Catherine's expression in that final panel, I think she just realized they've been sitting in a Jiffy Lube waiting room.

A week later, Power Girl sits in the auto parts lunch room thinking about how many of her powers she's lost. She's snuck out a few times to test them and found that she still has her super speed and super strength. But she's lost her "cosmic" powers. I don't know what those entail other than the exploding vagina thing.

Justice League Europe #9 Rating: B-. This comic dealt with a bunch of down time issues in the group and, when done well, I usually enjoy those installments. And I did enjoy this one! I think Ralph and Barry working out their issues was resolved nicely, so now Ralph can still tease Barry but Barry knows it's coming from a loving place where they can both bond over their old, dead friend. Metamorpho was able to deal with trauma resulting from his old team not giving a fuck about him after he came back from death. Not that he really dealt with it. He just sat on a church, felt some self-pity (which he's a master of), and then went off to apologize to Batman for calling him a jerk and turning into a fart in front of him. I like that Rex is the bigger man because I like Rex better than Batman but I still think he should just punch him in the face and be done with him. And finally, the main story, Power Girl went through all of this to have some of her powers taken away. That's always pretty weak but I'm glad that handled the science and medicine so realistically! I'm pretty sure when most doctors operate, they simply shove their hand in your guts and root around with the other hand over their eyes like they're fishing out a ticket for a prize at the fair. The issue loses a full grade because you can't have a doctor exclaim, "Is that her liver?!", and then not show what he's looking at! I bet it was fucking sexy.

Justice League America #33 (1989)

This might look like a smart tactic by Guy Gardner until you realize that horrendous mug is about to sneeze right in his face.

Judging by the liquid dripping off Gardner's face, Kilowog may have already sneezed on him and Guy, with his obsession to be the best, easily worked through it.

How many of those protrusions on Kilowog's lips do you think are penises? At least one, right? Man, imagine having a penis right on your face! It would be so attractive! I saw video footage of that guy with his penis on his arm and I was so envious! Although in that case, you'd really be limited to how many hands you can jerk off with. Oh! But I just realized your mouth is now an option! But not if it's on your face. That would be so frustrating! I bet you could lick it though!

This comic book review has lost its way immediately. I'm so sorry.

This issue is called, "Nitwits, Knuckleheads & Poozers!" So even if Kilowog wasn't on the cover, we'd all know he'd be making an appearance. "If you know, you know," as the biggest nerds I know in my life seem to love saying. Remember when there was a time that you'd drop some reference and just let people either understand it or not without making them immediately feel left out? Imagine if I went and got plastic surgery to stick a penis on my face, everybody would think, "Well, that's a weird choice." But what if I did that and whenever anybody looked at me, I'd be all, "If you know, you know!" That would send them down a serious pop culture spiral trying to figure out what I was referencing! Hmm, it might also get them to find my blog googling "face penises."

On second thought and not after having Googled "face penises," I realized that a search with those parameters almost certainly wouldn't lead to my blog. At least not on the first 5,000 pages of search results.

Guy Gardner: King of the Internet!

After the Teasdale Incident in which the Justice League did absolutely nothing when it's arguable they could have saved hundreds of lives instead of watching them electrocute themselves (I know Teasdale kept saying the toxin was fatal but the Justice League has super tech and magic on their side! Fucking save a life, Batman!), Guy Gardner has become bored. So he's off to visit the recently mostly abandoned Green Lantern Corps Headquarters on Earth. Abandoned because they thought it was a good idea to imprison Sinestro in the thing that powers all of their rings and Sinestro was all, "Oh, look, the off switch is right here on the inside!" Currently Kilowog putters around the empty headquarters getting occasional visits from Hal Jordan's underage girlfriend. Today he's getting a visit from an asshole.

This is how I'm going to greet my mom next time I'm in Santa Clara.

Whoops! I just gave out assassination coordinates for my mom! None of you better take advantage of that! *wink, wink*

That was a joke, mom! Sheesh! Maybe don't read my Internet stuff and also get out of my room!

My first thought upon seeing Gardner's surprise attack on Kilowog was to reference Inspector Clouseau and Cato but that reference is older than all of Giffen and DeMatteis's references were in the 80s. Mostly because they'll probably reference the Pink Panther movies themselves and I'm 30 years past when this was written. That's how time works. Has nobody ever explained the concept of time to you?!

This is the panel that made me think, "Fuck. I guess I need to read the stupid annual first."

The two JLAers arriving at the island are, disappointingly, Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. I'm disappointed because they are going to look terrible in bikinis.

How were Giffen and DeMatteis not embarrassed by these fucking old time references?! Is Blue Beetle actually 52?

I used "52" because it's a good DC Universe number and also because I'm not quite that old yet! But next year, I'll definitely refer to every blue I see as "Jack Benn's eyes."

Sorry for posting so many panels in a row (all from the same page, by the way), but look at this! Another reference that was already old timey in 1989:

I suppose Nick at Nite was doing the job of the Internet back in the 80s: keeping us all refreshed on past pop culture zeitgeist.

Blue Beetle and Booster Gold head off to speak with the leader of the Kooey Kooey Kooey tribe to discuss Blue Beetle's great idea which he doesn't elaborate on. I hope he wants to start a White Lotus franchise out here. Mike White should sell actual White Lotus franchises but to other entertainment properties. I just want to see various casts of characters from different shows interacting at a White Lotus. Like, which one of Gilligan's cruise mates would wind up dead?! Probably Mr. Howell.

Fucking old references. I need to stop reading Giffen and DeMatteis comic books.

Blue Beetle wants to build a casino resort on KooeyKooeyKooey Island. So basically a White Lotus! The chief of the tribe isn't convinced though because the tribe doesn't need money and they don't want Western Society tramping all over their paradise. Until Blue Beetle sweetens the pot with two culturally relevant 80s celebrities: the captain of the Love Boat, the greatest rock singer of all time, and one future wannabe autocrat.

Finally a reference that's only a couple of years off from 1989!

Imagine an episode of The Love Boat starring Jon Bon Jovi and Donald Trump! Oh what a whirlwind romance that would have been! But then Bon Jovi's heart would be broken when he realized Trump was just scamming him out of his cash. But in the final scene, Jon would unveil his new song written on the back of his heartbreak: "You Give Love a Bad Name." It brings down the house at the final night captain's dinner and Trump is humiliated as he falls in the potato salad trying to run away crying because he realized he really did love Jon but now it's too late!

I'm sorry. Occasionally I lapse into bad fan fiction writing prompts.

Back on the mainland (or wherever Green Lantern Corps Earth Headquarters is located), Guy and Kilowog have completely trashed the headquarters. But they end their fighting with a great big bro hug and then Guy lets Kilowog slip on his ring to rebuild the headquarters. I think that means they're now Green Lantern Married. So, being Green Lantern Married, Kilowog goes back to New York with Guy to join the Justice League as the Technology Engineer. They'll never lose Animal Man's luggage again!

Is the house falling in on her when she gets the head injury that returns her to her 13-year-old state of mind?

This is Arisia. She was 13 when she began dating Hal Jordan. Then she aged her mind and her body to look like this so it wouldn't be weird. Which is when Hal dumped her. I'm not saying Hal Jordan is a pedophile. I don't have to. It's all in the comic books!

I hope all the Hal Jordan fans don't get mad at me for pointing out the weird shit Hal got up to without also referencing all the retcon garbage that tried to make it acceptable, like how 13 on Arisia's home planet is actually like 215 or something on Earth. I think Hal Jordan fans probably get that some writers made some really shitty decisions for the character. I expect them to be more rational of my jokey criticism than Deathstroke fans who constantly freak the fuck out when I point out he's definitely a pedophile! Boy do those jerks get angry! Something there is in a Deathstroke fan that doesn't love a pedophilia critique.

Beetle and Booster convince Kilowog to build their casino because Kilowog has been so bored lately. But standing in their way (although they don't know it yet) is Aquaman! For some reason he has plans for this island and they're going to screw them all up.

Boring!

Justice League America #33 Rating: B+. Most of this issue was Kilowog and Guy fighting while Beetle and Booster consult with the KooeyKooeyKooeyans. That doesn't sound like a B+ comic book but Adam Hughes' art is doing a lot of the grade raising in this comic book. While Mike McKone's tribesman looked like lost white people in the Annual, Hughes actually, for the most part, look like Pacific Islanders. Or, at least, so much more so than McKone's that I was willing to accept them as actual islanders. And I don't mind many pages of a fight that doesn't mean shit when Hughes is drawing it. It all just looks so gorgeous!

Justice League International Annual #3 (1989)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ugh. So gross.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice League Europe #8 (1989)

Bart Sears is the proto-Rob Liefeld: "Gonna add all these soap bubbles so I don't have to get the feet right! Genius!"

Also don't look at Ice's waist because you might think thoughts critical of Bart Sears' drawing skills. And I'd hate for anybody to think critical thoughts on the Internet, especially if they can't draw a better Ice than Bart Sears drew! Fucking scumbags! Get out of here with your negative thoughts, you huge motherfucking pieces of shit who probably kick puppies right into the sides of kittens! Assholes.

Do you think some male artists think it's gay when they have to draw Captain Atom's ass? I bet David Finch has to draw eight female superheroes in towels coming out of the shower for every one man ass he draws. And I bet he pepper sprays himself in the face after drawing that ass.

The issue begins with Doctor Fate having just been expelled from the Realm of Order and ready to face what she needs to do. Emphasis on the "face."

Did nobody tell Bart Sears that Doctor Fate wears a golden helmet and that isn't just her face?

It's weird that earlier I identified Bart Sears as the proto-Rob Liefeld but here I'm just proven completely wrong. Bart Sears can draw a character emoting even while they're wearing a helmet while all of Rob's characters simply look like they're wearing helmets full of gritted teeth.

The Justice League arrive at Stagg's factory to find it surrounded by an army of the things they are now calling "zombie-vampires." Boring. I would have made a toxin that turned people into Werewolf-Mr. Hydes. You might think that's redundant but what I'm really saying is I'm a pretty lazy worker and that seems like the easiest kind of toxin to make.

Wait what? How does everybody just lose their suits they were wearing? How does Beetle not know how it happened?!

Notes Bart Sears didn't get before he finished the art on this comic book: 1. Doctor Fate wears a helmet. 2. The Justice League were all wearing HazMat suits.

Unless the Justice League is ready to just let Captain Atom and Fire unleash a swath of fire and radiation to melt the horde of infected villagers, I can't see how the Justice League is going to help out here. You'd think they'd at least evacuate the plant instead of standing around discussing what to do. Then let the creatures in and have Guy Gardner make a huge green prison around the place. And if they can't find a cure, Guy can just make the prison airtight so that they all suffocate! Man, I should be leading the team!

The Grey Man and Teasdale approach the Justice League themselves instead of using their army of monsters to destroy them. I'm sure that will be cleared up better than what happened to the HazMat suits. I mean, their whole objective is to kill as many people as possible. Why would they approach for a parley?

I was going to complain about The Flash repeating himself but then I saw Elongated Man and his stretched out neck and now I'm fuming that Ralph Dibny exists.

Has there ever been a more disgusting and useless superhero than Elongated Man? He can't go one minute with his neck the correct size. He never stops twitching that fucking nose. And he's somehow banging one of the hottest women in the DC Universe! Fucking man, I wish Jean Loring had accidentally killed him instead of Sue! Then Sue could have pretended to be upset, giving her the chance to cry on Captain Atom's cock and seduce him. Jesus Christ now I'm imagining what kind of damage Captain Atom's hot load could do to a person!

Teasdale and The Grey Man want to recover the vats full of Teasdale's toxin and the Justice League just lets them waltz on by because The Batman is afraid of The Grey Man. I'm pretty sure this is the second time in this story that he pisses himself, especially since Kevin Smith made it canon that Batman sometimes pisses himself. Man, we're so lucky to have Kevin Smith!

The vats are huge so I don't know how Teasdale and The Grey Man expect to remove them. Oh wait. I keep forgetting this is a comic book and The Grey Man can probably just teleport shit wherever he wants.

Doctor Fate arrives to stop The Grey Man and Teasdale since the rest of the League have decided to stand around picking their noses with Guy Gardner.

At least Guy has never admitted to pissing himself!

I'll never stop talking about Kevin Smith writing a story in which Batman describes pissing himself in his early years as the Caped Crusader simply because it pissed off so many comic book nerds.

Teasdale finally commands his army to attack as he gets ready to release enough toxin to infect the entire world. But when they walked through those electrified fences earlier that they walked through? Well, they're still up and electrified. So the army of zombie-vampires simply marches straight into it, frying themselves to death.

Quick quiz: Is Batman responsible for all of these deaths?! Of course not! He just stood around doing nothing. You can't blame a person for doing nothing! Sheesh!

The Grey Man grows more and more powerful with each death as he absorbs their dream essence (his job) and their souls (not his job at all). Teasdale just stands around with his dick in his hands.

I know sometimes you don't believe the things I write but I urge you to believe me more often than not. Dick. Hands.

Okay, fine. I admit I altered the color of the microphone he's holding. But it makes more sense that his dick is in that location and not a microphone. What is a microphone hooked up to the outside sound system doing set up right alongside the toxic vats? Oh, probably an emergency warning system in case there happens to be a critical failure and also happens to be an employee who would rather die while alerting everybody instead of running for their life.

The Grey Man sucks up so many souls that he grows to 100 feet in height. The Lords of Order look on, yawn, and say, "Not our fault, right, Batman?"

Why? God I hate him.

I don't think I've ever realized just how much unbridled fury toward Elongated Man I was full of until re-reading Justice League Europe. I hope King Shark eats him so that Ralph can live in his tummy as Yo-yo's roommate.

Oh! You know who is good at becoming super big and fighting other super big threats? The Spectre! Is The Spectre finally going to save the day instead of just making sure somebody who murdered somebody else winds up murdered?

The Spectre, continuing to sit on the sidelines until probably the last minute, leaves this magical fight up to Doctor Fate. Doctor Fate uses an absolutely brand new power, to which the old Doctor Fate in no way had access, to knock The Gray Man to the ground.

She flashes her vagina at him.

The Grey Man engages in one of those bits of dialogue where he has to say, surprised, "You hurt me!" That's so the reader can understand that Doctor Fate's vagina is muy powerful. He then decides to wrap up some loose ends by stepping on Teasdale in a panel that I simply can't believe got past the Comics Code Authority. I mean, if they're not censoring this gory mess, what the fuck are they up to? You know what, don't answer that. I bet 80% of the stuff they were censoring were story arcs Christians would simply lose their shit over, like gay couples and interracial drug-users.

You didn't think I was going to mention the panel and not scan it, did you?!

To save the day, The Spectre arrives with the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos in tow. Apparently The Grey Man was a big enough threat that the Lords of Chaos decided to get involved and then the Lords of Order, not to be out done, decided to stop pouting and help out. Together, they drain The Grey Man of his dream essence, turn him into a walking vegetable, and set him back to work. So with The Grey Man lobotomized and back on the job, and Teasdale turned into jam, and all the zombie-vampires fried to a crisp, the Justice League has nothing left to do but go home. Except for Power Girl who has to go to the hospital because she was swatted by The Grey Man and he's comprised mostly of magic and magic really hurts Kryptonians. I know she's not supposed to be Kryptonian and you'd think her new post-Crisis identity as an Atlantean would have made her less vulnerable to magic, but as I mentioned in a previous entry, we know she was never Atlantean! So even if it was accidental, J.M. DeMatteis gets the lore right in this story! Anyway, she's dying and Wally West is at her bedside practically showing her his dick.

Did DeMatteis think this scene would be touching?! I mean emotionally touching because it's obviously Wally doing sleep-creep touching!

Justice League #8 Rating: C. The Justice League were about as useful here as the Titans were in their Wolfman-Perez run. They stood around watching a bunch of villagers die while The Spectre ran off and got help. The Spectre was on the case from the beginning and I don't see how anything would have been different if the Justice League had just stayed home. Maybe Doctor Fate helped out a little bit but is she even really part of the team yet? She was basically going in for an interview when this whole mess fell in their laps. Back in the day, I didn't give a shit if the heroes I was reading about were actually heroes or not. I just wanted to see some action and maybe some jokes and hopefully Supergirl's and or Lobo's ass. Nowadays I think it's important that heroes act like heroes, mostly so GamerGate incels lose their shit and expose themselves for the rotten arseholes they truly are. "What the fuck?! Why does Superman care so much about racism all of a sudden?! Fucking woke bullshit man! Just do stories where he smashes aliens in the face and don't make the alien a stand-in for racism because we'll all know! And even if we don't know, we'll accuse you of it if you introduce two Black characters!"

Justice League America #32 (1989)

Fingers crossed we get to see Batman punch a little girl in the face this issue.

Last issue, everybody but Batman realized they were fighting three villages worth of vampires. Batman, using the kind of logic that should exist outside of comic books but shouldn't actually exist in the world of comic books, knows better. Batman knows so much better that he actually knows what's wrong with these people who definitely are not vampires. But being Batman, and being that last issue was only the second part of a four part story, he couldn't elaborate.

This issue is called "Breaking Point!" which is strange because it's not an obvious pun or reference to a movie from the 1930s. Giffen and DeMatteis are losing their edge.

This issue begins with the Secondary Bad Guy (the nerdy little scientist freak who hates Simon Stagg and is being bossed around by the Main Bad Guy, The Gray Man) launching a can of toxic vampire gas into the Justice League bivouac.

I'd hate to get hit in the face with one of those cans. You know what cans I'm talking about.

You might be thinking, "No way! Please slap me in the face with two out of three of the cans in those panels!" But may I remind you that they are Kryptonian cans? They'll crush your skull! You might now be thinking, "No way! She's not Kryptonian! She's Atlantean or some such shit. Whatever." But may I remind you that would mean growing up under high pressure which probably means those cans will still crush your skull? Also, she finds out later that she always was Kryptonian so you can ignore that other shit. Fucking Crisis on Infinite Earths. It broke way more than it fixed.

The gas explodes all over the UN Peacekeepers, none of whom are wearing protective gear, probably because the Justice League are hogging it all. Batman is all, "Oh, yeah. That's the shit turning everybody into so-called vampires." Nobody says, "How is that any more rational than believing they're actually vampires? A bio-weapon that turns people into the undead? Next you're going to ask me to believe Nightwing can ride his motorcycle straight up a skyscraper!" And Batman is all, "He is pretty good on that thing. He was in the circus, remember?" And then Rocket Red is all, "Stupid American saying nobody actually says!" which causes him to miss Ice's cute tush.

I don't know for sure that is Ice's butt. It's also possible I want to do anal with Blue Beetle.

If you're just now finding out that I want to fuck cartoon characters then all I can say is, "Thank God you haven't found my blog about Erin Esurance."

Batman panics in the opposite of the way that fans will write all over Kevin Smith's View Askew message board to say that Batman would never piss himself ever.

Hopefully these HazMat suits come with built-in diapers.

This probably could have been avoided if Batman didn't have to be so mysterious and keep all of his information close to his bat-chest. But I guess if Batman couldn't expect that unprotected peacekeepers could suddenly be victims of the toxin that already victimized three villages, who could?!

Martian Manhunter doesn't need a suit because even though he doesn't know what is causing the vampirism, he makes the assumption that it won't affect Martians. He'd know better than I would! Like, do Martians even have blood? I think their bodies are just full of Sculpy. Guy Gardner also doesn't need a suit because his costume is the best costume in the DC Universe in 1989 and also his ring probably protects him. Captain Atom also doesn't need a suit because radiation?

This is definitely Ice and that's definitely the same butt as earlier so I almost certainly don't want to fuck Blue Beetle.

Fire doesn't need a HazMat suit either even though she's completely naked. I don't know why her nipples don't turn into little candle flames. I guess it's the same reason Captain Atom doesn't apparently have a penis. Stupid Comics Code! Did America really need to be saved from teenaged boners?

Fire has been roasting the vampire villagers alive with her new powers which probably means they're beyond hope. Or it means the follow-up story arc will be Fire on trial for international war crimes.

Doctor Teasdale watches the battle from far off, congratulating himself on defeating the Justice League until The Grey Man appears to shit all over him for not killing them. If I'd come along and heard him congratulating himself on defeating the Justice League, I would have pissed all over his joy too. Can you really consider this the Justice League when this League doesn't include Superman and Wonder Woman, and, even though I don't believe it but it would help my argument, Aquaman? Ninety-five percent of the power of Justice League America resides in Martian Manhunter and Guy Gardner! Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, Mister Miracle, Fire, and Ice share the final five percent (with a good portion of that being Fire now that she has new powers).

The teams regroup miles away from danger to argue about what to do next. Except for Wally West who tries to fuck Ice. Poor Ice. Just a bunch of garbage men hitting on her at every opportunity. I mean, if I were Ice, I'd have already fucked Guy Gardner. But The Flash? Get out of here with that Speed Force Dick! I wouldn't want friction burns on the inside of my vagina.

Simon Stagg arrives by helicopter to shed some light on the undead horde that was created to destroy him. As soon as the League sees him, Metamorpho is all, "Oh, that's why the army of undead was created. To kill this smug asshole. Figures." Stagg confesses that the gas was developed by his plant just down the road. Right to Batman's face! Stagg might have bigger balls than Lex Luthor! Definitely hairier balls anyway!

Teasdale decides the reader has been kept in the dark long enough (because there's only one and half issues left and we can't go into the last issue still not understanding what's happening) and begins his explication of all the events that transpired to move the story to this point. Teasdale worked for Stagg Industries developing bio-weapons. He made a vampire bio-weapon which worked so well that Simon Stagg was going to have him killed to keep all the credit for himself. But while they were testing it on humans in a remote village, Teasdale's life was saved by The Grey Man who saw what was happening and realized he could earn so much dream stuff from all the people this toxin killed that he could rival the Lords of Order themselves! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

The Spectre and Doctor Fate learn almost nothing from their visit with the Lords of Order. That little bit which kept them from learning absolutely nothing was that the Lords of Order have decided to sit around doing nothing for the next several thousand or million or billions years. They're pouting because it's currently not their turn at the top of the karmic wheel. So basically The Grey Man has gone rogue and it's up to the Justice League and their magic pals to stop him. Or just the magic pals. DeMatteis and Giffen seem to be trying their hardest to let the reader know that the Justice League is useless. Mostly by having various members of the Justice League say things like, "We're useless!" and "Hey! If you look up 'us' in the dictionary, there's a picture of 'us' a few entries later under 'useless'!"

Yeah! Imagine if it began killing people who mattered!

I know that's not what The Flash is saying but it's really fun to be cynical and contrary at times! But just sometimes! I wouldn't recommend it all the time or else you'll become a fifty year old loser whose major hobby is reading comic books he apparently hates and, according to my blog stats, telling around twenty people about them. I swear I'm more joyful in my Newsletter discussing Genesis!

One of the best things about Adam Hughes' art is how he approaches it like a director. His storyboarding of scenes and choice of camera angles are always imaginative and inventive. Really good stuff!

Stagg convinces the Justice League that he's the victim and it's some lunatic disgruntled scientist from his lab attacking him. They don't really believe him but they were planning on stopping the vampires anyway. Only an idiot or a conservative (redundant!) would choose to change what they were already doing because somebody else (a liberal!) said it was a good idea. I suppose this whole story arc where the billionaire industrialist is portrayed as a monster willing to kill thousands of innocent lives for pure profit is too fucking woke for them anyway. Too bad DC Comics went woke in 1989 and have been broke for the last 30 years. Idiots!

Justice League America #32 Rating: A: Adam Hughes is carrying a lot of the weight on that grade. His art is gorgeous to look at but his layouts are fucking genius. Sometimes the story distracts from simply marveling at his choices when laying out panels and pages. Just top of the line shit here. Fantastic! The story was a few strokes over par while playing on sodden greens. Not bad enough to ruin the day but sort of annoying knowing it could have been better. I don't know why I just made a golf analogy. I've only played like two or three times!

Justice League Europe #7 (1989)

"The Teasdale Imperative"? Isn't Teasdale the woman who faints at tea because Cerebus's tail busts out of the crotch of his pants like a massive boner?

I don't know what's going on on this cover so I just ignored it and brought up a comic book that has nothing to do with this one. Although I do need to get back to re-reading Cerebus eventually! My problem is that I'm too lazy to complete one project and yet I'm currently working on at least five. I will say this about Bart Sears' cover: for a guy who draws overly muscled people, sort of a pre-cursor of the 90s wave of new talent with a penchant for muscles, silly poses, and pouches, at least Bart Sears can draw a decent gun. Maybe. It's not like I know what guns should look like. But I do know they don't look like pieces of wood carved by a 7th Grader the night before their final project was due.

This issue begins in the unnamed Eastern European town being invaded by a mysterious and aggressive force of people. Justice League Europe is about to be overrun by the mob while...wait a second. Is that a nipple?!

I see Bart Sears was on the forefront of 90s odd anatomy and silly poses!

What could possibly get a nearly-invulnerable being's nipple hard? Surely nothing physical, like the fabric of her outfit or the temperatures. So it must be that Power Girl finds battling huge mobs somewhat erotic. Is that how nipples work? Or do they sometimes just get hard. I know penises work in that way where sometimes they just get hard and you're like, "What's going on, penis? What is it this time? A stiff breeze? Dew on a peach? A sudden remembrance of that dream you once had where you were fucking a vampire lady and holding her down as the sun came up and she exploded into dust and ash just as you blew your load?" Ha ha! I've got such a good imagination that I totally make up stuff instead of pulling dreams that I really had from my disturbing life!

The Justice League are having a tough time defending themselves because they're being attacked by regular people driven mad by an unknown cause. As a superhero, in that situation, you're supposed to not kill everybody, even if your life is in danger. From that definition, you can tell cops aren't superheroes. Luckily, Captain Atom notices that the lunatics are clawing and biting like vampires. Which probably means they can be fucked to death as the sun rises. I mean they can be punched a little harder than usual. Unless Captain Atom is just saying that because he's a military man and he knows that othering people is easiest way to excuse yourself from killing them. I think yelling, "They're vampires!", is like a conservative with a gun being owned by a Costco manager and yelling, "I'm feeling threatened!"

Justice League America arrives to save the day but there's something they don't know: vampirism is catching so they're all going to need stupid baggy hazmat suits. To warn them, Power Girl throws The Flash at them.

Yes, there is a more immediate reason: Power Girl fucking hates Wally West.

The evidence that the people infected are more than human begins to mount: Ice can freeze them in ice walls with no seeming harm; they can run through Fire's green flames, becoming engulfed, with no harm done; and Guy Gardner's ring, the most powerful weapon in the universe wielded by the most aggressive male on Earth, doesn't immediately kill all of them. Oh, and when the sun comes up, they all flee into basements and hidey-holes.

Blue Beetle mentions that he and Booster recently encountered a vampire and Batman is all, "You're an idiot because vampires don't exist." Look, Batman, I know you don't realize you're in a comic book but you do have the ability to observe the comic book universe all around you. To rule out vampires after all the weird crap you've seen, from magic to angels to aliens to Gods, how the fuck are you going to rule out vampires?! I'm pretty sure you've been a vampire a few times! Maybe Crisis wiped his memory of them.

This is proof that Power Girl is smarter than Batman. Probably why she winds up fucking Mister Terrific. Although that logical jerk wouldn't believe in vampires either, probably!

There's a page of interaction between The Gray Man and The Spectre but it's mostly to remind the reader that they're hanging out just outside of town. The Spectre still has no idea why he's there and The Gray Man is still drooling over the coming meal of corpse dreams. See, he has to collect the dream essence from the dead so he can feed it to The Lords of Order. Why do they feed on dead people's dreams? What can dead people possibly dream about?! Being alive? Fucking vampires as they burst into flames from the coming dawn?

Speaking of dreams, does everybody still vividly remember their first wet dream? What about all of their wet dreams?! At this point, I think at least 10% of my brain's memory is taken up by remembered wet dreams.

Martian Manhunter and Captain Atom discuss ways to defeat the vampiric hordes. Since the creatures would rather die than be caught alive, Captain Atom shares his plan with J'onn.

Being a shapeshifter, J'onn can't hide the fact that he thinks Captain Atom is a total dickhead.

Captain Atom engages in two pages of flashback detailing how Justice League Europe got involved. It's all information the reader could have filled in themselves although I know a lot of comic book readers hate not being told every little thing, so much so that many hate comic books if they don't have the character Narration Boxing all of their thoughts and intentions. But I think the two pages of flashback are just running interference between Captain Atom saying "They're innocent victims! We need to contain them!" to "Our only recourse might be to kill them all!" It's times like these that I think some comic book writers just see characters as the thing that the speech bubble comes out of. Perhaps it would have been better, seeing as how Captain Atom is the military guy, to have had him suggest the vampires might need to be killed initially and to have Martian Manhunter express that they're innocent. That's what happens after the flashback. Would have been nice to have that same ethical consistency before the flashback, seeing as how it's what anybody paying attention would have expected. I think J.M. felt he needed Captain Atom to fill in the innocent victim part early on when it would have been just as easy, and better, to have had J'onn bring that up.

Seriously, nobody believes the military man's first instinct wasn't to kill them all.

The real military guy, the head of the United Nations Peacekeeping force brought in to restore order, believes that order means killing all of the civilians to protect his soldiers. Insert into your imagination the meme of the anime guy and the butterfly saying, "Is this conflict of interest?"

Batman goes on to prove that he really does believe the creatures are vampires! He and Ralph hunt down some sleepers after which Batman orders Ralph to pull one into the sunlight. You could say Batman asks Ralph because he has long bendy arms capable of reaching into the vampire's den and easily pulling one out into the sunlight. Or you could say Batman was pretty sure that the sunlight would explode the vampire into a sexy cloud of ash and dust. And Batman doesn't kill. Therefore Batman knew the person would likely explode into hot ash (hot in that it's sexy) thus proving Batman believes in vampires. Also proving Batman is a huge liar.

After witnessing this, Batman pretends he's even more convinced they're not vampires.

I guess pulling the "vampire" into the sun was one of those "A-ha!" moments you'd get in some Sherlock Holmes mystery where some piece of evidence is uncovered and Watson is all, "Look at this trash that means nothing," but then Holmes is all, "Oh you're so stupid. Such an imbecile. Was your doctorate honorary? Pass me my opium pipe while I contemplate your ignorance!" Because whatever Batman just saw, it's given him the answer to the mystery. But he's unwilling to share it with Ralph because we're only in Issue #2 of a four issue story. Readers can't be informed as to what's going on this early or they won't want to stick around for the end! At least that's the way average comic book writers and editors think. I believe the more you reveal, the more interested the reader becomes and the more willing they are to stick it through to the story's conclusion. But then I'm just a big dumb critic who can't make anything himself! That's probably an actual critique I've received from Tumblr.

And then we finally get to meet Teasdale! He's a wimpy little wimp wimping all over himself in his effort to get revenge on Simon Stagg. I'm guessing they went to college together and Simon Stagg got Teasdale kicked out of the Quantum Physics Club by . . . dammit, I don't know! I wish I were smarter so I could have come up with a quantum physics joke right there. What even is quantum physics? Is it like little physics? Oh! So regular physics is all about big regular stuff! And quantum physics is about little stuff! I bet Stagg made a joke about Teasdale's quantum penis in front of the entire chess club when Teasdale tried to . . . dammit, I don't know! I wish I were smarter so I could have come up with a chess joke right there! But no! All my brain could come up with was that one of the chess pieces is a horse and horse's are best known for having a huge cock.

Teasdale doesn't reveal why he wants revenge against Stagg or what his plan is other than turning a bunch of people into vampires to attack somewhere twenty miles from where they're currently attacking the Justice Leagues. He's working with The Gray Man because The Grey Man probably wants a whole bunch of dream essence all for himself. Maybe that's why The Spectre has been compelled to visit this tragedy. He's meant to stop this jerk from getting out of order.

"You wanted me to do it! What if I just stayed here and ruined your ambition? Christ you deserve it!"

We learn that Buddy Baker isn't just useless but he also misses his kids. Rocket Red tries to console him and reminds him of the most important thing ever learned from 80s pop songs: the Russians love their kids too. They walk off into the sunset together so you know what 18 year old me thought seeing that panel.

The issue ends with Doctor Fate locating The Spectre which helps The Spectre realize what he's supposed to be doing: confronting the Lords of Order! The two of them disappear in a mystic portal as The Grey Man laughs maniacally nearby revealing his plan to rule the world!

Justice League Europe #7 Rating: B. Bart Sears' art is way too harsh and realistic for me. I've been saying how it feels, to me, like the beginning of the 90s Image art trend but I just realized what it actually looks like to me: if Neal Adams attempted to be more like Todd McFarlane or Whilce Portacio. He's the Missing Link! As for the story, it was okay. Not a lot of substance that wasn't either filling in stuff I didn't need filled in because I can make connections and heroes arguing about whether or not the bad guys might be vampires. If you put all the panels together that discussed vampires, it was probably eight pages of this comic. That's probably too much! Giffen and DeMatteis know I'm reading a comic book about aliens and people with super powers, right?! My suspension of disbelief isn't going to crack over a bunch of vampires! I don't need Batman to give me a logical explanation for them! Did they forget Metamorpho is one of the heroes in Justice League Europe?! A guy made out of whatever element he wants to be made out of? A guy who probably never shits and pisses although I have to assume he fucks or why would Sapphire want to leave a caveman for him? Because you know the caveman fucks! What else would a caveman know how to do?! Zugzug all day, baby!

Hey, did you know I had a Newsletter where I basically do this same shit but about Genesis? Give it a follow!