Justice League Europe #21 (December 1990)

I was going to critique this cover but I looked up Marshall Rogers, discovered he died in 2007, and now I'm not in the mood. So, um, this is the greatest cover ever!

I should say to myself, "Marshall Rogers did the art in the last issue and I liked it much better than Bart Sears so even if I point out the failings in this cover, it doesn't mean I'm shitting all over Marshall Rogers' art entirely! I complimented him in the last issue for the way he remained true to Bart Sears' versions of the Justice League but he didn't make them look like they were shooting up five kinds of steroids." What's really weird is that I looked up Marshall Rogers to see if he were still alive because I didn't want to hurt his feelings when I shit all over this cover and then I found out he was dead and I couldn't bring myself to shit all over his cover! So now I don't know what my brain expects me to do! How about a personal anecdote?!

Marshall Rogers lived in Fremont, California. That's where my Aunt Lol and Uncle John lived. Their house was the first place I remember going for huge family Christmases. When you walked into their house, just to the right was a conversation pit which was a truly magnificent room that Americans have forgotten about but which still remains the greatest room of any house which has one. By the end of the night, with so many family members opening presents (my great grandmother on my grandmother's side had nine children and all of them and their kids and their kids' kids were at these Christmas Eve celebrations), the house looked exactly like the cover of this comic book (minus the weird guy with the long neck). Also, our Christmases looked about five thousand times better than this.

Last issue ended with the Justice League's French Embassy imploding from one of Kilowog's dangerous contraptions. This resulted in this issue beginning with the news that the Justice League has been transferred to London. That could never happen today because there are these gigantic idiots called Brexiteers who decided to fuck their country in the face based entirely on their xenophobia. Sure, the United Kingdom is still technically part of Europe but they've made the bold stand to strengthen their borders and make it a huge aggravation for their citizens to do any sort of work abroad as well. Why can't old people just die in piece and let young people control the world that's going to be theirs for so much longer? And I'm saying that as a 51-year-old man! Why would I want to limit the freedoms of young people? I don't! I wish people older than fifty couldn't vote or participate in jury selection! Mostly because I'm too lazy and want an excuse to stop doing those things. I mean, I don't do jury duty but I would love to do it, especially if I could help convict a cop! But I'm the only employee of my own service business who works nights and jury duty would absolutely fuck my life and kill my business. But I still dream about helping to put a cop in jail! Oh if only I could have been a resident on that island where they built the Wicker Man every spring!

After getting to page two and seeing Catherine's hair which is way too much like Bart Sears' version of her hair and not at all like last issue Catherine's hair, I notice that the inker of this issue is different than the inker of last issue. Mostly, I ignore how inkers make or break a penciller's work. But I have come to the conclusion, based on this issue's cover and Catherine's hair, that Bob Smith inks Marshall Rogers way better than Joe Rubenstein does. I don't know how it all works or who is improving or hurting whose art. I just know Rogers and Smith is greater than Rogers and Rubenstein.

Inker and Penciller math was always my worst subject in comic book review school.

I don't fucking get it. This isn't anything like the art from last issue. Do pencillers have any control at all?! Should I have been praising inkers all of this time?!

What is this ache in the center of my chest? What are these strange electric impulses firing through my brain? Do I . . . Do I miss Bart Sears' art?! It may have been terrible but at least it felt like a professional doing terrible work. This feels like a 7th grade art student doing their best work (which isn't very good)! How vague are Rogers' pencils if they can be interpreted so differently by two different inkers?! What the fuck is going on?!

I really don't know why I still read comic books.

Max Lord relieves Captain Atom of leadership over Embassy matters and promotes Catherine to the position and putting her job in line with what all the readers assumed was her job already anyway. Captain Atom just leads the team in matters of beating the pulp out of bad guys, a job he's much more suited to. The rest of the team go shopping for new everythings seeing that everything they owned was destroyed in the implosion of the Paris Embassy. And Max Lord is paying the bill!

Kara's bikini having been mentioned last issue, Rogers and Rubenstein decide they needed to draw what that would have looked like.

I've stopped reading the letter pages so I won't have to read comic book fans verbally jerking off to this panel in a month or two.

Is it weird that I'm glad I don't have to read comic book fans verbally jerking off to cheesecake superhero shots when it's practically all I do in my commentaries?! I don't think it's weird because that's the joke! That I'm one of those inappropriately horny comic book nerds who just want as much tits and ass as possible in their comic books. Another joke is when I'm passionately angry about something trivial! Another joke is that I've never had sex! It's all stage magic, man! You know when I write that I want to fuck Lobo? Spoiler alert: I don't really want to fuck Lobo! It's a bit I'm doing! An extremely online character! I'm always amazed when people can't parse the idea that most of what I write is facetious and hyperbolic. But then again, when people treat what I've written as gospel, I don't get upset about it because what was I expecting?! Not to be taken at my word?! That might also be why I have such a tiny audience. Most people are looking for earnest, easily parsed mediocrity. They don't want to read things that make them instantly feel one way and then have to recalibrate their feelings when they discover whatever dumb thing I truly meant! It's also why so many people online get so angry when they've misinterpreted something. Usually they stick to their guns and decide that you're being disingenuous when you point out how they're read something incorrectly. It's why I don't argue on the Internet! I limit my responses to one time clarifications and if the person still wants to argue after that, it's just not worth it. They obviously don't want to communicate at that point; they simply don't want to have been wrong.

I once had somebody on Tumblr ask me if I was okay with sexual assault or domestic violence or something. I responded with, "I am not. If you thought that was what I was saying, read it again but with the realization that I didn't say that. That should fix it." They then responded with the exact thing I wrote which was obviously a critique of Meredith Finch's writing style. So just remember: if I say something you find egregious, I didn't. The problem is all on your end!

French people cuddle baguettes when they sleep.

This issue revolves around all the heroes getting settled in London. Wally goes out to buy a bunch of new clothes using the Justice League expense card for The Flash which means he has to reveal his secret identity to all the haberdashers in London. Blue Jay hangs out with the pigeons in Trafalgar Square. And the Justice League's cat kills some guy's dog.

Good kitty.

In the mid-90s, my cat Smaug beat the shit out of woman's Chihuahua as she walked it past my house. Animal control was called and they were going to take Smaug away to quarantine for a week but, luckily, I was able to vouch for my cat and quarantine him in my room in the basement. He fucking loved it. I'm surprised he didn't attack more dogs more often after realizing he would get 24/7 access to drooling all over me as I tried to sleep. I didn't blame Smaug for attacking a Chihuahua since everybody agrees they look like rats. He was just doing what he was born to do!

If a cat and a dog get into a fight and the cat is killed, it's a tragedy. If the dog is killed, it's a comedy. That's just facts.

See? Captain Atom gets it. So proud of his little kitty!

Silver Sorceress spends her time flirting with Kilowog but he's not interested in her because he doesn't know where to stick his spanner. Blue Jay arrives and begins to flirt with Kilowog as well and now I wish this had developed into a full blown throuple. Throuples existed in the 70s but then Reagan banned them in the 80s, probably because Nancy kept asking to get more dicks into their bedroom and Reagan felt threatened. But then in the 90s, indie rock and Janeane Garofalo movies almost brought throuples back but they were still finding their way so they mostly turned into "one person gets their heart completely broken when the other two people fall in love only with each other but imagine if they'd been open to throupling!"

I feel like the majority of throuples are composed of one person who loves another person so much that they don't complain that the person they love wants to fuck some other hotter person as well. I imagine there's quite a bit of three-way action happening where one person is thinking, "At least I get to fuck the person I love!" while the other two are just passionately going at it like crazy and treating the third person as a large sex toy. I mean, I'm all for people loving and being intimate with more than one other person! Monogamy just seems like such a waste and definitely a kind of prison cell for those who don't think that way. Why are we allowed to passionately hate as many people as we want but we're only supposed to truly love one single person at any one time? I can see monogamy being great for introverts like me because I really don't want to interact with that many other people, especially if it means intimate touching! I don't even want to hug more than one person in my lifetime! But I still think it's rare to find three people who all really do find more positives in being in a throuple than a throuple where one of the members is just barely hanging on for dear life because they so desperately love one of the other members!

Who the fuck is Mitch?!

Oh yeah! Uncle Mitch from Angor! I completely forgot about that asshole! I just assumed he died from his influenza. Uncle Mitch has decided to visit Disney World. He's acting pretty weird about it too.

What does that mean? Is he planning on sticking as much of it as he can up his ass?

What is wrong with that ticket person? Who buys a one-way trip to Orlando to go to Disney World?!

Ever since Captain Atom was relieved of the stress of managing the League, he's simply ignored all of the fires Catherine has had to put out. Kara convinces him to apologize and she buys a gift for him to give to Catherine. The gift turns out to be a négligée. You can practically hear Catherine's underwear getting ruined when she opens it. She kisses Captain Atom on the cheek and expresses how glad she is to see Captain Atom making an advance on her. So of course when she leaves the room, Captain Atom curses Kara and swears revenge for this mean-spirited prank! You know, before this scene, I didn't realize Captain Atom was gay.

The mysterious group who tried to get the Justice League notes from Wally Tortolini a couple of issues back in Justice League America close out this issue by realizing they have to move their operation to London now. Some guy named Mr. Bigger has been plotting some evil scheme against the League in Paris but now they've got to go back to the drawing board and stake out the London Embassy. I guess that means we'll finally be getting another Justice League story that actually involves some bad guys? After The Extremists, Justice League Europe has spent two issues on down time! The only member who has done any fighting is Kara's cat!

Justice League Europe #21 Rating: B. One of my favorite comic books of all-time is Box Office Poison which was many, many issues of pretty much nothing happening except mundane daily life. Oh, sure, there was a lot of emotional stuff going on as a bookstore clerk who thought of himself as a writer becomes bitter and jealous as he watches his friend become successful as an artist. He also ruins his intimate relationship over being an angry jerk as well. Anyway, what that admission is meant to convey is that I can handle reading loads of issues where basically nothing happens. Another great story arc in a comic where pretty much nothing happens: "Guys" from Cerebus. I loved Strangers in Paradise too but Terry Moore obviously thought his audience wanted more than just Francine and Katchoo hanging out which is why he introduced the whole Parker Girls stuff. But seriously, I didn't need all of that action and violence! I was happy reading about Francine and Katchoo hanging out on the couch! Oh, that was another 90s throuple: David, Francie, and Katchoo! Maybe that's where I got the whole idea that one member really would rather not have to share! David was such a miserable, pouty, lovesick puppy for Katchoo! Um, oh yeah, this was an okay issue! Maybe great because a cat killed a dog in it! Ha ha! That video would easily have won $10,000 on that ABC video show!

Justice League America #45 (December 1990)

I'd be afraid Ice would accidentally freeze my dick off when she has an orgasm.

Ha ha! I can hear you all saying, "I doubt you'd have to worry about that!" Let me tell you something about my sexual skills: they're probably awesome! Is that a good Tinder bio? "My sex skills are probably awesome! If you're into that kind of thing. We can also just hold hands during couple's skate at the local ice rink after sharing a strawberry shake with two straws."

If I lived in the DC Universe, I know the Guardians would never choose me to wield a Green Lantern Ring because I would mostly use it to create ass dildos during sex (for all participants). I don't know for sure that everything is better while wearing a butt plug but I have a strong suspicion that it is true. That guy cheating at chess with anal beads only confirmed my theory which is why I'm finally going public with it (unless I already went public with the theory several times in several different past reviews. That's a strong possibility). I will test this theory the next time I go to Disneyland although I don't think I'll manage to get photographic proof from Splash Mountain's final drop camera. I will try though! And I know they're closing Splash Mountain but I'm sure when it turns into Tiana's Bayou Adventure, it'll just be the same ride with non-racist animatronics.

Speaking of butt plugs, I hope Lobo is in this issue!

The first two pages of this issue look like Adam Hughes drew them but third page definitely isn't Adam Hughes. Looking at the credits, the main art credit goes to Russell Braun with inks by John Beatty. A follow-up credit for "Assisting and Abetting" goes to Adam Hughes and Jose Marzan Jr and Malcolm Jones III. So that's fucking weird, right?

Wait. After taking her to a porno and battling Black Hand, Ice went on a second date with Guy to a cockfight?!

At the end of their last date, Ice made it clear she would never again go out with Guy and then went to take a week-long bath. But unless I'm somehow missing the "two roosters pecking each other to death" reference, she must have relented and gone on a second date with him that's not mentioned! Unless the porno took place at a cockfight. Or maybe Ice was describing the porno and meant "two peckers roosting each other to death." Is that a thing? Should I look up "roosting" on Urban Dictionary?! Maybe it'll be explained on the next page!

So she did give him another chance that wasn't documented in a comic book!

Guy offers to let her choose and Ice somehow finds that enticing. But where else can they go?! They've already done the porn theater and a cockfight! What else is there? Mud wrestling, I suppose? It's possible this is a recurring event where Ice relents and Guy chooses a terrible place to go and Ice screams at him for the rest of the week. It all happens between issues which is why all of this cockfighting nonsense is news to readers. But Ice eventually gives in because she desperately wants to fuck him for some reason only to have him ruin the entire thing with his masculine idiocy. This time (or once again?), Ice jumps at the chance to go on another date when Guy gives her control of the date's location so I'm guessing she must be dying to taste his dick. I can't see any other reason to date him unless she's got a thing for guys with serious brain damage and unresolved issues stemming from the brain injury and a high propensity for complete and utter violence.

Fire loses her fucking mind (again?) when Ice tells her she's going out on another date with Guy Gardner.

Guy Gardner is going to compare Tora to a couch, isn't he?

Ice has decided that Guy Gardner will be a good boy and pretend to enjoy himself at the Ice Capades in the hopes of scoring. Well, at least Ice will have a good time. Plus she must want to fuck Guy or she wouldn't keep enduring these humiliating dates with him. But then, Guy must actually really like Ice if he's willing to go to the Ice Capades with her even though he feels it threatens his masculinity, especially because Lightray laughs at him just before he and Ice leave on their date.

That's right, Guy! It is one way of putting it! You're being very respectful and charitable in your totally normal and innocuous response to the extravagant gaiety of the performance!

Blue Beetle learns that Guy Gardner has gone to the Ice Capades to share an activity which Ice enjoys and he decides it's the perfect thing to bust Guy's balls over. What a fucking dick. Guy is showing a second layer, trying to be a decent bloke, and all Blue Beetle can think is to make fun of him for it. It doesn't occur on-panel but I'm sure Blue Beetle did the cat meowing/whip noise at some point. Fire tries to stop his stupid prank but he is unstoppable in his fervor to humiliate Guy (and Ice! He's going to completely ruin Ice's night and embarrass her on her first enjoyable date with Guy!) so she relents and decides to go with him to the Ice Capades. I'm sure Fire has only gone to make sure Ice isn't hurt but she should have held out and demanded Blue Beetle knock off this childish behavior. Of course Ice is going to be hurt! She sees something in Guy which she'd like to pursue and everybody else around her just gives her unending shit about dating him. And now they're going to try to fuck it up because they want to emasculate Guy for going to the Ice Capades? That's directly shitting on something that Ice adores! Maybe this is why I became such a Guy Gardner fan! Because everybody around him treats him like shit! Ice is the only one willing to reach out to him and break through the tough guy wall that's almost certainly been built up due to a lasting brain injury and crippling insecurity for being the "replacement Green Lantern." I believe there's also deep wells of anger due to knowing that he's only the replacement Green Lantern because Hal Jordan happened to be closer to Abin Sur's crash landing!

I'm not saying Guy still doesn't need therapy and anger management courses!

Blue Beetle has Kilowog build a big-headed Guy Gardner robot (or it's just a simple Ice Capades costume. But why bother Kilowog if it wasn't something high tech?) and convinces the Ice Capades manager to let it go on in celebration of members of the Justice League being in the audience. The scheme works to humiliate Guy, especially when the robot skater's trousers drop to expose his boxers with hearts on them (pretty sure those are canon pants for Guy, by the way). Guy's anger and embarrassment build until he lets out a tremendous scream and then goes practically catatonic. Like after his mishap with Hal's Green Lantern battery that gave him the brain damage! I don't mean he falls into a coma which is why I said "practically catatonic." His face just remains twisted in anger, his fists permanently in claws, and he stops speaking.

There were some previous panels which really highlighted Guy's traumatic state but those didn't have Fire's tits in them.

J'onn should boot Blue Beetle from the team after this. He endangered everybody in Madison Square Garden for his dumb prank. I'm amazed Guy didn't use the most powerful weapon in the universe to wipe the minds of everybody in the arena! Hell, I'm surprised he didn't accidentally kill them all in a huge anger explosion. You might think, "Isn't that reason to suspend Guy from the team? The fact you think he's capable of that?" But then every powerful hero is capable of losing their shit and causing trouble! It's like the main plot of every Superman Elseworld story (and every other Superman story in current continuity!). But Guy is a real hero and keeps his shit calm. Blue Beetle should be kicked off the team for creating a hostile work environment (especially since he's doing it out of work hours!).

At the end of the night, Kilowog and Beetle go a bit too far and stash the big-headed Guy Gardner in Guy's bed. Already in the mood to kill, Guy gets pushed over the edge. His ring lets him know who created this thing and so he goes to beat the shit out of both of them. Nobody comes to his defense because everybody knows Guy is the hot-headed asshole. Orion even heads up to beat the shit out of Guy because, well, obviously Guy is the problem. He's an arrogant hot-tempered narcissist who talks a lot of shit. I get why Blue Beetle would like to knock him down a peg. And I get why Orion would simply assume Guy is the issue. But ultimately, if this is the way the League acts when they're not on a mission, maybe it's time to call the whole thing quits.

Oberon, who had been considering leaving although Max begged him to reconsider, ultimately decides to leave the Justice League for good due to the chaos. He also blames Guy. I can't say this Justice League would be better off without Guy's personality in the mix but they still need his power. That's why Blue Beetle, the ineffectual twat, should be kicked off the team! Nobody needs stupid pranks, especially when they're targeted at the most violent person on the team. Max and J'onn really should understand that Guy needs some serious therapy to deal with his past trauma. It's sad that we won't see a really good handling of Guy Gardner for another 25 years when Charles Soule will show how great a character he can be in Red Lanterns.

I guess if Oberon is leaving then that means Mister Miracle isn't coming back either. So they've replaced Booster Gold and Mister Miracle with Lightray and Orion. Who will replace the New Gods when the joke of a couple of New Gods being on the Justice League runs out of steam? Because I don't see them being on the team for the long haul. Anyway, a decent issue where not much happens which seems to be the state of things in Justice League comic books recently.

Justice League America #45 Rating: B. I don't know who did what art because I ultimately didn't pay that much attention to the differences because Russell Braun and John Beatty's art was more than satisfactory (some of the males could be a bit jowly with weirdly proportioned faces but overall it was pleasant to look at). Unlike the first date in a previous issue, this date ends with Ice and Guy having gotten much closer (even if Guy finally loses his temper at the end of the night. I'm pretty sure the date is officially over by then so Ice has to forgive him for killing Ted Kord and Kilowog).

Justice League Europe #20 (November 1990)

In 1990, at the age of eighteen, I definitely wouldn't have known what the fuck a Beefeater was.

Even now, at 51, I only know they're weirdos who guard the Tower of London and/or the mascot for a Gin company. Back in 1990, I would have had to have gone to a library to find out what a Beefeater was so I remained ignorant because the only thing I was doing at the library was getting a blow job on the grounds late at night during one of Chris Humphrey's parties. I suppose I could have asked the young lady sucking me off, "Hey, what's a Beefeater?" But instead I was just going, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh. Oh no." Also, it probably would have sounded like I was telling a rude joke about the woman willing to put my cock in her mouth.

You know what? Forget that story! It makes me sound ignorant! Instead of believing that bullshit, maybe you should believe how awesome I was at borrowing books and then reading them and then quite often returning them! I would get a book and read it and say, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh. Oh no." Then I'd clean myself up and totally remember to return the book the next day! But now I have the Internet so I don't borrow books or read them anymore! So instead of wondering why the guards of the Tower of London are called Beefeaters, I can look it up on the Internet, read the first search result I come to, and then assume that's all there is to the story! So here is what the Internet told me about the origins of the name, "Beefeater": British people couldn't pronounce French words which meant "somebody who guards the king's buffet from peasants who aren't willing to eat cake" so they just said, "Beefeater." Yeah, that seems plausible enough that I won't look more into it to find that it's almost certainly not the reason they're called that. I trust my search engines and AI to deliver proper information to me immediately and without any skepticism on my part! And by "proper," I mean any fucking thing that lets me imagine that I just learned an indisputable fact without feeling the need to do actual research!

This cover is cool because it's like the November 1990's Justice League America cover.

Well, I thought it was cool, anyway. And who would know cool better than a guy who does the things I do after hours on library grounds?! Like reading The Hobbit, I mean.

Careful readers would now realize that when I read The Hobbit, my reaction was, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh. Oh. Ohhhhhhhhh. Oh no." Non-careful readers will now know that because I explained the joke.

This issue begins with the Basil Fawlty emulating head of the London Embassy of Justice League International, Michael, digging up his father's old Battle Staff and Beefeater costume. If the reader believes him, The Beefeater was a hero during World War II. But if the reader believes his wife, The Beefeater was captured early on in the war and only ever used his Battle Staff to win bar bets. Michael doesn't want to listen to his wife because he's a conservative man who will brook no insult against his father or a war hero of his country! Some people find it's easier to believe lies than to open yourself up to the truth. Most of those people are called Twitter Blue users. But this Michael believes Justice League United Kingdom needs at least one active hero in the embassy and if it has to be him (which it doesn't), by God and Queen, he's going to do it! This was written in 1990 so he would think "By God and Queen" instead of what we're supposed to think as of May 6th, 2023, "By God and King!" Although who can actually think of Charles as King and Camilla as Queen? If one didn't realize the monarchy was a silly, outdated waste of everything before this moment, surely they'll see through the illusion now!

Oh, I guess I misunderstood. He's abandoning the UK to go be a part of the Paris team. Well, Brexit will put a stop to this free-movement nonsense in twenty-five years time!

Living in ignorance of the Beefeater threat bearing down their throat, Catherine's tits enjoy the Paris summer sun.

Not pictured here: all the topless men. Especially not pictured here: topless Elongated Man.

Remember how I said there was no Internet in 1990 (I think I said that. Did I? Anyway, it's mostly true! (That "mostly" was for all you Internet Actually Nerds. Fuck off, okay? We're light-hearted and glib here when we're not telling Scott Lobdell to retire at the earliest convenience))? Because of that, this panel of Catherine's nipples would have been desperately needed wank material. Not for me, of course! I'm talking younger kids in 1990. Remember, I was spending all that quality time down at the library and had no need of these perky muffins. Plus I think Metamorpho's scaly skin in the background would keep making me too sick to finish.

The guys are playing topless football which is even more sexy and stimulating than you can imagine.

Nowhere in the rules does it say you can't make a tackle with your penis.

Sue and Catherine and Mrs. Rocket Red are hanging out in the yard sunbathing. Power Girl was probably nixed by editorial after seeing the way Marshall Rogers drew Catherine's nipples. Judging by Power Girl's style, her one piece would probably have a crotch window.

In a page or two, I discover why Power Girl wasn't enjoying the sun with the others. They needed a full page reveal of her tits. I mean suit. It's actually pretty modest!

Let's see Ralph make any tackles with an erect penis!

I'm glad Marshall Rogers was doing art on this issue. I'm actively trying to keep my brain from picturing what this page would look like if left to Bart Sears. I'd forgotten how attractive Power Girl actually was after so many issues with Bart at the helm. I mean, that hair he kept giving her?! It was enough to make me hate the art of Bart Sears! Oh, but anybody reading this knew that. I probably should have come up with something pithy. Enh, I can't be bothered.

You can see Marshall Rogers is doing a competent impression of Kara's hairstyle which Bart Sears had given her. It's basically the same but with far, far less muscles in it. Catherine's hair is the same way. When Bart drew Catherine's head, the hair was 90% of the mass.

The person speaking off-panel was Wally. You can tell because he came so fast.

The Beefeater shows up to apply for a job just as Kilowog puts the finishing touches on an alarm to detect intruders. Kilowog, being an alien, doesn't realize that the embassy shouldn't have an alarm for every single person walking through the front door. Especially one who uses his official Justice League Embassy employee card to unlock the front gate.

I can think of worse ways to die than Power Girl half-naked smashing my skull in. Like Ralph strangling me with his penis.

If you're into guys and not women, just replace the previous caption with this one: "I can think of worse ways to die than Elongated Man strangling me with his penis. Like half-naked Power Girl smashing my skull in." If you're sexually attracted to men and women, I don't have any advice for your caption. Make it up yourself! If you're asexual, you're probably used to being erased so why get on my case about it now?!

Apparently the embassy is soundproof so nobody in the yard hears the alarms or all the traps going off or The Beefeater's peculiar British swearing. I do find it odd that Kilowog set up a system of over-the-top booby traps to murder anybody who sets off the alarm. I assume it will murder regular people or else it's going to be useless against any invader with super powers.

Kilowog uses the most dangerous device he can find to power the security system and The Beefeater manages to crack its case which causes it to self-destruct in a matter of seconds.

At least it didn't take all of France with it.

Um, that's it! Except for one more page of everybody looking angrily at The Beefeater and one more page of Silver Sorceress and Blue Jay wearing too many clothes.

Justice League Europe #20 Rating: A. Yes, nothing happens in this issue. But I like issues where the heroes aren't drawn by Bart Sears and engage in some down time. If I've said the opposite in a previous review, I was probably lying to make a joke because I do like when the heroes do absolutely nothing in almost no clothing. Hmm, maybe it's the fact they were all so naked that made this issue so enjoyable. It's too bad The Beefeater was just a one-issue joke because he'd probably fit in nicely with this team. He packs more power than The Elongated Man! I figure he's a one-issue joke because what artist wants to draw that costume twenty to thirty times per issue?! Certainly not Bart Sears! You can't see a single muscle through it!

Justice League America #44 (November 1990)

Probably?

Over in Justice League Europe, they just had the fight of their entire careers against theme park automatons. Here in Justice League America, they're about to get their asses kicked by a failed journalist using a bunch of weapons with which he's never practiced. I'm beginning to think that maybe these heroes are fucking terrible at their jobs.

Is being a super hero a job? How much does Max Lord pay them? Do they have every kind of insurance imaginable? Do they get time off? Are they on call 24/7 in case of a dire threat from space? Couldn't Superman just do all of their jobs for them? Does the JLA have a lawyer to sue the Titans for ruining the reputations of every other hero by destroying New York once a month in a familial dispute? I'm probably the only one who would pay for a comic book that answers these questions which is why there are no comic books that answer these questions.

This issue is called "Pastiche." That's a word that means "I don't have my own style as an artist so I'll use some other artist's style which the audience will appreciate because they're familiar with it and thus they'll give me all the lauds and moneys imaginable." In the context of this story, it means Tortolini will be using the villainous items of several other C-list super-villains to become a C-list super-villain of his own.

Now that I've learned the word "pastiche," I'm beginning to realize that I wasted the last ten years blogging in my own style which isn't easily consumed by an Internet audience who mostly just appreciate memes and gifs of things they've seen before. People appreciate familiarity so much that they all love catch phrases and gifs of Jim looking into the camera. When a person reads something new, they can't tell if they like it until they find out if other people like it. And since other people can't know if they like it until a majority of people like it, it's really hard for something to wind up likable by a general audience. Which is to say, I fucked up! My blog should have been all "That's what she saids!" and "Ay carambas!" I'm such an idiot! D'ohf!

See?! Wally and J.M. DeMatteis know what's what! This is hilarious because it's an iconic line from that movie that everybody knows!

Hopefully all of Wally's lines will be as iconic as that previous line by that really famous actor! So famous! So iconic! It's really pulled me into the story because I feel comfortable with art that I've previously consumed!

Yes! Yes! Oh my God! I know that line too!

This must be why AI-written material goes over so well with everybody! Because it's all sourced from previously written human sources! So when you read something by AI, your brain is going, "Oh yes! The sweet familiarity of recycled material!" Even when it's written much more poorly, it still feeds that part of the brain which loves to know that it knows things! Most of the brain hates when it encounters something it isn't familiar with because that means learning is about to happen and learning can mean change! And change is so scary! Better to just hear the same joke repeated over and over again! Brozinga!

All this talk of people who like dumb things repeated constantly who think AI will replace artists has made me think of Twitter Blue subscribers. Holy fuck they must be the dumbest people in the entire world! And I'm not saying that because I'm biased! I'm saying that based on the evidence! Go into the comment section of any trending tweet on Twitter and read all of the top replies. Then come back here and apologize to me for thinking that I was just hating on people subscribing to Twitter Blue! They all say the same dumb fucking joke (if they say anything at all other than a one to three word comment acknowledging that they read the tweet). You won't find one hilarious or witty reply in the Blue Check replies! Not one! I'd stake my mother's life on it!

Ha ha! Now he's referencing an old science fiction television show that everybody knows!

Anybody who doesn't say Picard was the best captain of all the Star Trek shows obviously aren't judging it by whose voice they'd want to hear say, "Make it so," when you say to them, "I need to suck your dick so badly!" And, yes, I'd probably say that to Janeway too! She'd know what I meant because it's the future and everybody is super cool in the future. I'd say that and she'd just whip out her vagina and say, "I'm not familiar with anything Captain Janeway says."

Oh! Oh! My God, my brain can hardly handle any more of these references! He was going to say, "That's the ticket!"

As he leaves his apartment, Wally gets jumped by the men in black who followed him from The Dark Side bar at the end of the previous issue. At first he tries to surrender, believing they're FBI. But once they reveal they're just a bunch of bad guys trying to get the secrets in his JLA notebook, he flips the fuck out and beats the shit out of them with his new gadgets. The old, bald, white guy who sent them decides Wally isn't worth going after a second time and heads over to Justice League Europe #22 to start some shit in the old world. I only know that because of an editor's note and not because I remember who this asshole is from reading this thirty years ago.

Meanwhile, day drinking at The Dark Side because they're terrible at crime and gambling sit the villains who basically lost their gadgets to Wally.

How come I, the reader, was the only one to know it was a bad idea to bet the gadgets that comprise their entire identities?

The villains hear a news report stating that they've all been identified as combatants in a nearby riot which doesn't actually make any sense but what do I care? I'm used to making up details to explain away things that don't make a lot of sense. It's the main thing reading comic books teaches you! Here, I suppose, some fan of C-list villains was passing by when he heard the sounds made by all the gadgets of those villains without actually witnessing the battle and instantly ran to a pay phone to phone the local news and report all of the villains who he identified by noise! Yeah, that'll do.

The Justice League aren't currently watching the news which is the way they usually learn about a crime being committed. Instead, they're just sitting around playing games. Guy Gardner and Lightray are playing chess (although I suspect Lightray will soon find out Guy has mixed up chess with checkers). Blue Beetle and Fire are playing "Billiards but with your left tit hanging out."

Most sports are just sex simulators where you use a stick to get an object into a hole.

Chess simulates war and billiards simulates sex which is why I love watching snooker so much! It's like two guys going at it in a fancy room on a velvet-lined bed of debauchery! Plus all the cigars! So much oral!

Of course, Guy does think he's playing checkers which would really offend me if I were a professional checkers player because it's not the kid's game everybody thinks it is. I mean, it is a game you can teach kids because it's such a simple concept. I guess that's the point then! Guy is simple! Also he's uncultured because only uncouth simpletons don't know how to play chess! Or they kind of know how to play chess but call the knight "the horsey" and the bishop "the pointy guy."

Guy storms off when the rules are explained to him, spouting a bunch of xenophobic nonsense as he goes. He heads into the monitor room to tattle on Lightray and Orion when he discovers the news that there are a bunch of criminals to beat up.

How could the computer know the Cavalier was one of the rioters?! His sword isn't magical or composed of any technology?! Did it just analyze the sound of the swishing blade?!

I'm sorry! I lost my mind for a second there. Obviously the Justice League computer was fed the information from police scanners that a disturbance was taking place on a particular block in the city. The satellite then scanned the area and discovered through a spectrum analysis of materials in the area signatures for the different super-villain gadgets on file in the Justice League databanks. Easy peasy!

Because so many super-villains seem to be at the scene of the disturbance, Martian Manhunter sends the entire Justice League to put a stop to it. But before the Justice League can get there, the super-villains whose gadgets Wally won in the poker game turn up. Because watching the local news always trumps having a super computer spew out information. The JLA computer must rely on second-hand information from local broadcasts.

The super-villains take all of their gadgets from Wally just in time for the Justice League to arrive and believe they were correct in their assessment of the situation. And since they're the good guys, why would they ever believe they were wrong about anything? Plus, their computer told them what was happening and the great thing about technology is that it only makes things better and tells things like they are without bias! Obviously these super-villains were rioting and now they must pay the price! That price is getting elbowed in the throat while a hero says a quote the readers can recognize from popular culture!

That's the line! The one from the movie where Butch Cassidy eats all the eggs!

The villains are all easily captured, probably because they didn't expect to have the Justice League drop down on them the moment they reclaimed their gadgets. Martian Manhunter takes care of Sonar all by himself this time by approaching from above (probably while invisible because, remember, J'onn has every super power except fire-resistance) and using his telekinesis to take Sonar's magnet gun. None of the Justice League wind up knocked out like on the cover because comic book covers are totally fucking lies.

Tortolini, witnessing the beating, decides to give J'onn his notebook full of secrets and change the direction of his life by becoming a comic book writer. Was this whole arc just Keith Giffen's origin story?

Justice League America #44 Rating: B. Now that I've been re-introduced to Adam Hughes' art, I just want all of my comic books to be drawn by Adam Hughes. Well, not all of them, I guess. I don't want his art to replace Val Semeiks or Darik Robertson or Moritat or Chris Bachalo. I wonder if I can commission Adam Hughes to just redraw all the old comic books I'm going to review in the future with art that I don't find pleasing? I should do a GoFundMe campaign! And while I'm at it, maybe I can pay Alan Moore to rewrite all of The New 52 Red Hood comics! Or even better, pay Ann Nocenti to rewrite everything so that I can enjoy reviewing her complete and utter nonsense! How do billionaires not do shit like this?! Don't they realize how much fun they could have with their money?! Why must they all insist on using it to purchase gaudy material items and to buy rare collectibles and to influence powerful people and to buy islands where they can do human trafficking for other rich assholes?! I don't doubt I would do weird shit with my money if I had that much but it certainly wouldn't be all the typical bullshit unimaginative rich people tend to spend it on. A garden full of statues of evil dictators? Um, no way. Welcome to my garden of 24 hour live action Sailor Scouts making vanilla pudding!

Justice League Europe #19 (October 1990)

Some people on the Internet might ask, "Why would you want to read a comic book written by a man who was convicted of possessing photographs of child sexual abuse?" And some people who might just actually be me might respond, "Because I'm entertained by reading the comic book through that lens. Knowing the writer was into child pornography often makes specific moments in the comic book mean something I never would have thought they meant when I initially read the comic book over thirty years ago. It's fucking hilarious!" That might lead the Internet people to say something like, "You're gross!" I probably wouldn't respond to that because, I mean, yeah, I am!

I should clarify, for those who don't know, that Gerard Jones was the one convicted and not Keith Giffen! Keith Giffen almost certainly didn't know that Jones was a collector of disgusting photos. But I'm willing to believe that when Giffen's coworker stuck his head in Giffen's office and said, "Did you hear?! Gerard Jones was arrested for possessing images of child sexual abuse!", Giffen probably tilted his head to one side, thought about his time working with Jones, and said, "That checks out."

The colorist nails Power Girl's costume.

Based on Power Girl's history of a costume that shows off as much of her body as possible, I feel like the white sections were originally meant to be just more of her flesh. Especially with that zipper pull hanging just above her pubis as if her costume is unzipped most of the way. But somebody at DC had one single moment of clarity while looking at the new design and sent out a memo to the artists, "I think we went too far. Add some white so it looks like a second layer!"

The issue begins with Uncle Mitch Wacky emerging from his cryo-chamber because he was smart enough to freeze more than just his head unlike our dumb version of Uncle Mitch. Silver Sorceress recognizes him which is when Metamorpho is all, "Oh shit! Um, I totally and accidentally forgot to save you from the blast also I probably knew you'd survive!" Uncle Mitch learns that everybody on Angor is dead and his theme park has been destroyed so he goes running out of the room yelling, "What's gone wrong?" He's probably still confused from being in stasis for so long because didn't he just hear how everybody was dead? The only people going to answer his question are in the room he just ran out of!

Uncle Mitch races to his secret amusement park headquarters (like the one that exists under the Matterhorn in Disneyland. Unless it's under Space Mountain. It's certainly not under Sleeping Beauty's castle because that's where the cryogenic lab is) to access his computer which was programmed to download all the current events of the world from the time he went into stasis to the time he woke up so he wouldn't be like the Revivals in Transmetropolitan (Oh man. I need to read that series next!). His computer informs him that Silver Sorceress was correct: everybody has been killed! Nobody will ever again visit Wackyland! Uncle Mitch is ruined!

I'm assuming the worst part about the end of the world, for a businessman, is that there's nobody left to pay for your product.

Back on Earth, the world leaders have decided to surrender in the hopes The Extremists will remove the nuclear weapons from orbit and not start murdering whomever they want and to not start looting everything and to not do anything horrible ever again and the world will just go back to normal because The Extremists will just suddenly be nice guys.

Fucking hell, J'onn! Read the room! Put your holier-than-thou Martian dick back in your booty shorts!

Flash recovers Carny's head so that Uncle Mitch can hook it up to the computer and discover what the crazy asshole has been up to since the end of the world. He also reveals that he put himself in stasis because he had the flu. I'm assuming the flu is deadly on Angor and he wasn't simply exhausted from shitting and vomiting for hours. At the same time. I haven't had the real flu since I was in my late twenties (so two decades ago?) and even that may have been a serious tooth infection that nearly killed me. It's hard to say which it was because, as an American, why would I choose to go into debt finding out for sure what had me at death's door?! I survived and I kept all of my money! Yay me for rolling the dice and not dying!

I bet on Angor, the flu is deadly but they have a cure for it which the government gives out to anybody who needs it. But that cure got politicized and Uncle Mitch was all, "No way I'm taking that Satanic liberal Communist and/or Socialist anti-freedom malarkey! I'd rather spend all of my money to build a cryogenic chamber, allowing me to head into the far-flung future where a nice, expensive, privatized, for-profit cure has been created for real patriots like me!"

Shut your hole, Crimson Fox! Uncle Mitch doesn't want to listen to your liberal propaganda!

Uncle Mitch re-activates Carny's brain and the first words out of his mouth are creepy because of that thing I mentioned right at the beginning of this "review" where the words ring differently because of the personal tendencies we now know about the writer.

Unless you're in a seriously terrible situation, you would never use the words "I'm coming" and "Uncle" in the same sentence.

Carny explains to Uncle Mitch and the Justice League that The Extremists who are now taking over Earth are just robots made by Uncle Mitch's robot factory. They were made to resemble the villains so well that they took over Wacky World, killed all the robotic "heroes", and then headed to Earth to kill more people. The Flash discovers a pit where all the destroyed robots were tossed and, although he and the rest don't notice it, one of the bodies looks like Dreamslayer! Which means Dreamslayer must have survived! What a twist!

Captain Atom formulates a plan to bring Uncle Mitch back to Earth so he can chastise his robots and shut them down with his emergency shut-down button he invented in case a robot ever got too handsy with an unwilling park visitor (I added unwilling because my immediate thought was, "I wish Alice would put her hands on me!" Although adding "unwillingly" doesn't change that because I'd like that too. Maybe even more so!). That will probably work except in the case of Dreamslayer who will get away via interdimensional travel so that I can continue to read Justice League Europe thinking, "I wonder when Dreamslayer will be back?"

Alice is always played by a woman at Disneyland, you stupid perverts! Don't go twisting my words with whatever the fuck you want to believe simply because you think you're so smart! It's like how I don't want Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz books to ravage me! But I absolutely want Dorothy from the Blues Traveler "Runaround" video to ravage me! See the difference?!

At the risk of destroying the entire world, the Justice League attack The Extremists so that Uncle Mitch can dramatically take his time waiting to be seen at the top of a sand dune with the sun behind him. Luckily Doctor Diehard doesn't detonate the nukes before they notice him. Extra lucky, Doctor Diehard doesn't detonate the nukes after Uncle Mitch makes his appearance. Super extra luckily, Doctor Diehard doesn't detonate the nukes before Uncle Mitch shuts them down with his super secret special button.

Is it just me? Wouldn't anybody rather be a donkey than dead? How are they lucky?!

Uncle Mitch is blown to bits by Dreamslayer who, as we saw earlier, was the only real donkey of the group. But the Silver Sorceress kills him. It's that easy but only because she was disguised as Crimson Fox, I think. If she hadn't been disguised, there would be no reason to explain how she finally beat him in a fight when she couldn't ever do it before. And I guess Uncle Mitch survives so he can make more Extremists later.

Justice League Europe #19 Rating: A. This was a fine ending to the story even if you have to believe that theme park automatons are the worst threat the Justice League has faced in a long time. Imagine if the story was flipped and Earth was destroyed. The only survivors would be from Disneyland's Hall of Presidents! Angor would be invaded by Abe Lincoln and George Washington and an automaton of Donald Trump that looks suspiciously like a re-worked Hillary Clinton. Or maybe Trump would be the only real person and he'd be all, "We're all so real. Nobody has ever seen more realer people than these presidents! We've got this one with the beard, Avril. And this one with the white wig, good old Chuck Washington. Greatest president which is why he was the first one. And of course your favorite and most real president! You know which one that is!" And then somebody would blow his head off and everybody would cheer! "Angor is saved!" they would yell as they danced around his bloated corpse, combover blowing in the winds of his defeat. What a beautiful dream!

Justice League America #43 (October 1990)

Why is the cyborg agent from Appleseed in the background?

I would not sit down to play poker at a table with a guy wearing that headgear. He's obviously reading minds. Unless it's a bluff and he's trying to throw me off my game by not thinking about the cards in my hand! Or he is reading minds, knows that I'll try to not think about my cards by thinking sexy thoughts, and he's only here to jerk off to my sexy thoughts! Whatever the case, I'd never play poker against that pervert.

This issue begins with Sonar robbing a bank instead of trying to take over the world or get revenge against Green Lantern. Those are the thoughts he's having because he gets it! Why would a super-villain invite trouble by actively attacking super heroes? Why would a super-villain commit war crimes trying to gain power when they live in the same world as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aqua...no, no. I named all the powerful heroes already. This must be the comic book all those Comics-Gaters keep talking about when they talk about how comic books used to not be woke. This one, single comic book. See? The villain is robbing banks and that's something no Comics-Gater would ever do so it doesn't make it seem like the Comics-Gaters are the equivalent of bad guys! Not like that fucking Spotlight on Teen Titans: Starfire comic book that was all, "Apartheid is bad! Look at how mean the white colonialists are being to the native Africans!" And the would-be Comics-Gaters of the 80s who couldn't get on the Internet and instead had to write terrible letters exposing their true selves were all, "How dare you politically correct comics creators judge people by the color of their white skin and also by their racism?! That person could be me and I'm not a bad guy!" Of course, modern complaints that comic books are now woke when comic books have always been about social justice simply exposes what they really mean: "There are too many POC and women heroes these days!" Obviously they wouldn't say "POC" and they'd say "female heroes" instead of "women heroes." But you understand what I'm saying!

Okay, now that all the Comics-Gaters have left the chat, I can stop being serious and start telling some really hilarious dick jokes! You have to clear the room of the cockroaches before you can enjoy yourself because who wants a cockroach hearing one of your great dick jokes?! I hate when I accidentally entertain a conservative or a bigot (I know, I know. I'm repeating myself. I already said, "Cockroach.").

Good thing I noticed that his gun was a tuning fork before I wrote an angry three-page essay asking why Sonar uses a magnet as a gun.

I've been really, really, really, really, really slowly reading Pynchon's Against the Day and learning all sorts of things about waves although, being stupid, I don't understand most of it. But I think a magnet and a tuning fork essentially do the same thing but different somehow. Just like light and electricity! It's all waves, baby!

Sonar, being a terrible C-list villain because Geoff Johns hasn't thought of a creative way to make him the most powerful villain ever yet (at least, I don't think he has?), walks out of the bank directly into Orion because there was a silent alarm. That's pretty funny, right? Sonar is the master of sound and so he's caught by something that can't be heard! That should have been one of the lines in Alanis's song.

Sonar does manage to drop Orion, Lightray, and Martian Manhunter with his sonic gun because have you ever had vertigo? I haven't but I have been drunk so that's probably the same thing and, let me tell you, I certainly couldn't punch a guy in the face while suffering from the spins. I'm not sure why Martian Manhunter, upon seeing Sonar was the villain, didn't change the shape of his inner ear immediately but I guess that's why nobody ever says, "Martian Manhunter is my favorite hero!" Unless you're one of those ultra-nerds who claims Wedge Antilles is your favorite Star Wars character. I'd like to say that I'm smarter than Martian Manhunter because I thought up the "change the shape of the inner ear" trick but actually I'm just smarter than Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. And that's nothing to brag about! Unless it is? Those guys are probably pretty smart. They probably realized Martian Manhunter could do that as well but were all, "That wouldn't work for the story we're telling! But we're writing to comic book fans so they won't even realize J'onn made a tactical blunder here!"

Anyway, Sonar manages to evade being instantly captured thanks to his Sonic Wave Gun disabling two New Gods and one of the most powerful characters in the DC Universe. Did Geoff Johns write this?

Now I just feel sorry for Sonar, the little band-uniform wearing nerd.

Imagine your self-confidence being this non-existent and yet still being able to leave your house to rob a bank. If only Sonar could see himself through my eyes! He's to be admired! He just wants to do an honest day's work robbing one single bank so that he can retire and not cause anybody any more anguish. He didn't even harm anybody at the bank (unless he made them all deaf. I don't know exactly how his magnet gun works).

The Justice League chase Sonar past Wally Tortolini, the man who wrote the article revealing all of their secret identities that no magazine would print because Crimson Fox (being a major publisher in her secret identity) blackballed him. Hoping that a different story about the Justice League (like maybe one where he witnesses them beat the shit out of some poor C-list villain) might turn his career around (and blaming the Justice League for his current woes), he chases after the chase to get the scoop.

Martian Manhunter bringing the Don Draper energy.

Was J'onn J'onzz a big shot advertising agent on Mars? "It takes us to a place where we ache to go again. Oreos."

Martian Manhunter gets stunned by Sonar's sonic gun again! Again, J'onn?! How the fuck did you not change the shape of your inner ear after the first time?! You're putting citizens at risk being this terrible at fighting villains! And because Martian Manhunter fucks up, Sonar gets a chance to fire his gun at full power, shattering all the windows along the block and sending down a deadly rain of razor sharp glass! Everybody is sure to die now unless Giffen and DeMatteis know what the fuck Lightray's powers are.

That's it? Fucking useless.

Fire mostly saves the day with an assist from Orion. Martian Manhunter does fuck all. Possibly because he finally did that inner ear thing and couldn't hear the shattering glass or the warnings about the deadly shrapnel. Or he just doesn't give a fuck if two dozen humans die, the giant green prick.

Sonar's rain of glass distraction enables him to get away with the help of Wally Tortolini. That Tortolini guy really has it in for the Justice League for some reason. He should be angry at the magazines who won't publish his article, not angry at the subject of that article. The guy is dumb enough to become a C-list super villain. Hint, hint!

Back at the Justice League Embassy, Blue Beetle laughs in Martian Manhunter, Orion, and Lightray's faces. That's because he's not yet familiar with Orion's penchant for punching people in the face at the slightest provocation.

See?! See?! Change the fucking shape of it, you shapeshifter you!

Blue Beetle quickly regrets his mocking laughter when he learns about Orion's penchant for punching people in the face at the slightest provocation. Except this time, Orion decides to choke the shit out of the provocateur. Nobody moves in to stop him, probably because Blue Beetle deserved it a little bit. But not only does nobody point out that maybe the new member of the League shouldn't be committing attempted murder against an old member of the League, Guy Gardner applauds Orion's efforts. For some reason, even that pisses off Orion but at least it stops him from killing Beetle. Hopefully Beetle remembers that Guy just saved his life.

Sonar takes Wally to a place called The Dark Side. It's like a Hooters for super-villains. Wally suggests writing an article from the super-villains' point of view but I suspect Sonar just wants to use him for his notebook full of the secret identities of the Justice League. Not that it would be any more difficult to kill Ted Kord as Blue Beetle! But I suppose the notepad with all the secret knowledge has its uses. Like matching the bets of all the super-villains when they throw in the items that give them their super powers during a game of poker! Which Wally wins, allowing him to walk away with The Cavalier's sword, Crowbar's crowbar, Blackrock's power stone, Black Mass's wristbands, Sonar's tuning-fork gun, and Brainstorm's helmet. C-list super-villains are idiots! They all just lost their livelihoods!

Wally takes his haul and goes off to figure out what to call himself when he uses his winnings to become another C-list super-villain. He's followed out of The Dark Side by a mysterious figure who wants to get their hands on the secrets of the Justice League. Which means Wally should wind up dead in an alley at the start of next issue but that's obviously not going to happen. We need a ridiculous story where this guy nearly defeats the Justice League with his new toys first!

Justice League America #43 Rating: A-. The story was average as far as superhero stories go but it was fun and entertaining as far as Laurel and Hardy movies go. Plus Adam Hughes' art raises the overall grade by at least one letter grade, if not two. I might have to read the issue again just to immunize myself against looking at Bart Sears' art in the next Justice League Europe comic book.

Justice League Europe #18 (September 1990)

Why is Elongated Man fucking Rocket Red in the ass in the tiny picture in the issue number box?

I don't know what I find most disgusting on this cover. Is it Ralph's twitchy nose in the tiny anal sex picture? Is it Ralph's elongated neck in both pictures? Is it Metamorpho's about-to-explode left leg? Is it the length of Captain Atom's leg, assuming that's his foot by Metamorpho's right arm (which it is so I probably used the word "assuming" incorrectly)? Hmm, what could it be? Oh, I know!

Of course her tits are great but what is happening to her stomach?!

I'm a victim of the puritanical American educational system (which is often thought of as lousy mainly because Republicans keep trying to make it as shit as possible in the effort to prove that it is shit so that they can trash the entire thing and turn education over to their for-profit buddies which will obviously just make it even worse because the only text book at that point will be a version of The Bible that they've edited the shit out of, probably by adding loads of Ronald Reagan quotes) so forgive me if my anatomical questions sound stupid here but is that Power Girl's clitoris? Ha ha! I'm just joking, of course! I may not know where or what the clitoris actually is but I do know what an outie belly button looks like (Do those even exist anymore? I don't think I've seen one since the 70s? Maybe that's just because kids loved comparing belly buttons on school playgrounds and sort of stopped doing that past elementary school)! My problem is that we've never seen Power Girl's belly button through her skin tight outfit before. So that makes me think she just herniated and blew out her belly button from the strain of this battle! I hope her uterus didn't also drop out of her vagina (Is that a thing that can happen from too much strain? See the note about my education and also I'm an American male so I know practically nothing about women's bodies. Although I am a long-time Dungeons and Dragons player so if you make a map to the clitoris, I'll find it easy! Please send me your photorealistic maps, preferably of you from the back while bending forward slightly!).

This issue is called "The Happy Place" which makes me nervous because it was written by well-known pedophile art lover Gerard Jones. I know I keep going on and on about Gerard Jones having been convicted of owning and distributing images of child sexual abuse but that's kind of a memorable thing about him, right? If somebody were to ask me, "Why do you keep defining Gerard Jones by the worst thing he's ever done?", I would say to them, "What the fuck did you do that you're so worried about somebody being defined by the worst thing they ever did, hmm?" One notable thing about me is that I'm terrible at conversation unless you enjoy a constant barrage of brusque and insulting rejoinders. Although wouldn't you all want to respond that way? We know the main reason conservatives have such a problem with so-called "Cancel Culture" is that they're can't stop thinking about how their life is going to blow apart when their disgusting secret comes out!

As a hypothetical aside, just how "career ending" would jerking off the side of a skyscraper be?

According to the title "The Happy Place," my guess is they're in Reno, Nevada.

Before The Simpsons did the "Happiest Place on Earth" being Tijuana joke, my cousins and I used to call Reno the happiest place on Earth. That's because our family vacations were more often to Reno than to Disneyland. I figure at least half of my childhood vacation stories revolve around being in Reno. One of my favorites was when my Grandfather came wandering back to the Keno sitting area from the casino floor with a huge grin on his face because he'd found a $1 chip lying on the ground. He was so ecstatic! Later, he wandered off again only to return downtrodden and sad because he'd be this $1 chip at the Craps table and lost it. "I should have quit while I was ahead," he lamented. On a side note, I learned everything about managing money from that man!

Like our Earth, the first thing the reluctant interdimensional travelers are met with on their road trip is advertising. A missile explodes over their head advertising a place called Wacky World with big bright arrows lighting up and leading them to it. I've gone cross country in a Volkswagen bus and the exploding missile advertisement seems slightly more subtle than Wall Drug's advertising campaign. But it's just as effective because like my inability to resist Wall Drug, the Leaguers wind up in Wacky World.

I suppose to Gerard Jones, a theme park is the playboy mansion.

Do you think Gerard Jones was trying to signal help here for his sick (his very sick!) mind? It's got to be weird going through your adult life with these thoughts and compulsions that you probably feel are natural but you know society will absolutely crucify you for having. I imagine that's why so many people who accuse so many other people of pedophilia wind up being pedophiles themselves. They probably think the compulsion, since they feel it, is probably natural and everybody else feels it too. They probably think everybody is in a constant battle against breaching social norms and, since they've fallen to temptation, it stands to reason that somebody they blame has also fallen to the temptation and their accusation will be proven true while distracting people from their crime. I used to think the poetic use of a dramatic monologue where the speaker exposes some hidden secret through their too casual speech was rare and often hard to ferret out. But I live in a time where every accusation is a confession, so now if I were introduced to "My Last Duchess," I'd probably be bored by it.

Before the League can investigate, a parade comes strolling past them, full of, apparently, living people. Which is weird because they were told the only people left alive on this planet were The Extremists! (Although not that weird once you realize The Extremists are just as "organic" ("organic" is a word here that means "living") as these theme park employees.)

Oh Gerard! "Every line of Flash dialogue, a confession."

The Silver Sorceress lies beaten on the front of one of the parade floats driven by a fat man with suspenders in a crown and calling himself Carny. He may be the only person other than Dreamslayer who survived but he might also be an automaton himself. I can't remember that much detail! What this reminds me of is Fables where The Adversary (don't read the rest of this sentence if you don't want the first major story arc of Fables spoiled!) winds up being Gepetto and he's built all of the armies that took over the world. Now I want to re-read Fables! Eventually, I guess, if I live that long.

I don't mean to imply that I'm currently living with an expiration date (other than the normal, unknown one called "mortality" ("mortality" is a word here that means "fucking bullshit, man"))! What I was implying is that I'm doing these comic book re-read reviews so slowly that I'll never get through them all. If only I'd purchased fewer comic books when I was younger!

Carny's float releases a gas that knocks out the entire Justice League Europe, even Rocket Red who I assumed was in some kind of hermetically sealed space suit and Metamorpho who I assumed didn't actually need to breathe anymore. You can't tell me he has working organs inside that fucked up body!

The team wakes up strapped into a roller coaster being managed by beautiful women with no noses. I don't think the lack of a nose bit is part of the plot. I just think Bart drew them with anime noses. You know, all nostril, no bridge. Captain Atom orders everybody to remain calm in their roller coaster seats which is a good thing because I was going to start complaining about how Metamorpho and the Elongated Man could easily slip free. But now Ralph's been ordered to keep his neck within the car and Metamorpho turning into a gas cloud has been shut down by Captain's orders. Whew! I love when I don't have to make up reasons to close plot holes because the comic book is shoddily written!

Ralph! I'm certain at least one of the casualties of Disneyland's Matterhorn ride was due to this behavior!

The roller coaster attraction teaches the parkgoers the history of Angor. Or at least the last few weeks of Angor's history where The Extremists steal all of the nukes, the world leaders cry, and then the world is blown to bits. Even though that final "Goooooood bye!" feels like it means to plunge the coaster into a flaming abyss, it's simply the ride coming to an end where everybody calmly exits the coaster to head for the nearby exits. Except for Metamorpho who tears the head off of a custodian for some reason.

Somebody has passionate thoughts against picking up litter!

By my calculations, Rex meant to murder that custodian because it would take less force to tear off a human head than to tear off a robot head. Rex has Angor Management Issues! Ha ha ha!

Oh, I guess that thing on Power Girl's stomach is a zipper pull? And her outfit is always just zipped down 95% of the way?

Captain Atom realizes that every robot in the place just wants to make their stay enjoyable so he asks them politely to take the League to their leader. They send them off to one of those boring rides that's really just a movie where they strap you into your seat for safety reasons. It's called "The Great Visionary" and it's entirely empty. If the locals don't choose to go on this ride, it must be fucking shit.

Mr. Patience?! He just ripped the head off of a janitor for no reason!

I left that previous scan larger than I normally would because it looked really nice at that size for whatever scientific reason I'm too dumb to understand. Pixel Color Distribution or Dot Matrix Density or something.

The ride teaches the Leaguers that Wacky World and its automatons were created by The Great Visionary, the Walt Disney/Geppetto of Angor. But all the people of the world died and so the automatons had nobody to make happy anymore. But now they have the Justice League to play with forever! Carny offers them free rides, free refreshments, and half-off t-shirts. Captain Atom hears the half-off t-shirts deal and goes ballistic, attempting to kill Carny. But Carny winds up being a holographic projection and Captain Atom is forced to be drawn terribly while kneeling on stage in humiliation.

This was a really tiny picture of Captain Atom but that didn't stop me from wanting to complain about the size of that leg!

Silver Sorceress reaches out telepathically to Wally to lead Justice League Europe to Carny's headquarters. He realizes they're on his way and freaks out, hitting the self-destruct button. This blows up him, the automatons, and the entire park. It also releases The Great Visionary, Uncle Mitch, from his cryogenic chamber (at least that's my guess as to the person's identity). So Carny was also a robot. But whoever was released must be the last living person on Angor. The Justice League survive the explosion because Metamorpho covers them with his body. Silver Sorceress doesn't get invited to the Metamorpho Safety Dome so she probably dies. Except she can't die because they need her magic to return them to Earth. So let me revise my assumption: she survives somehow. Magic, probably!

Justice League Europe #18 Rating: A+. This was a nice coherent little bit of the overall story. It didn't fully explain what's happening but it added some nice back story in a bit of an offshoot from the main plot where the League must battle their way back to the main plot while also saving the Silver Sorceress at the same time. I suppose it could also have been a boring issue for the types of people who don't want more story and character moments during the middle of a story that's supposed to be pitting The Extremists directly against the Justice League. But those are the kinds of people who actually hate stories so fuck them. They're the ones who probably couldn't stand Lost because every episode concentrated on somebody who wasn't actually battling the Smoke Monster for forty minutes. Carny sucked as an enemy but he fulfilled his role, I guess. Being a weird ass weirdo running a place called Wacky World and then throwing a tantrum when things didn't completely go his way. Also, and I know I didn't scan any panels with it, but Silver Sorceress's ass was just primo excellente. Five stars. Would stare at again.

I just realized that I might be a little bit troubled by Carny because I see so much of myself in him. He didn't really offer much to the story except trying to lighten the mood in a really shitty world. And then when nobody appreciated his jovial and whimsical attitude, he went and killed himself. I'm not saying I've reached the point of hitting the self-destruct button but I do get pretty moody at times with the lack of appreciation! So, yeah, I see myself in Carny: an idiot who thinks he's better at what he does than he is!