Justice League America #56 (November 1991)

This cover is genuinely creepy.

The cover or pull date on this issue is November 1991. That means the comic book probably hit store shelves in September of 1991, exactly ten years before the destruction of the World Trade Center by terrorists in 2001. Happening concurrently to this issue in the DC Universe (or just finished) was DC's series called Armageddon 2001. Martian Manhunter, being a telepath, must be contemplating the future tragedy. He probably read the mind of Monarch who was from 2001 and learned what was going to happen ten years from now. So he's taking a time out to contemplate life and love and existence. He's also probably thinking, "I know we just changed the future by defeating Monarch but I don't think I should change the future that much! The towers are just going to have to come down." I bet he put a mental block in his memory to make himself forget so that he wouldn't be tempted to interfere with the time line.

This issue is called "Look Homeward, Leaguers." That's probably a Thomas Wolfe reference but since Giffen and DeMatteis use references with no context, it's hard to tell. Just like Blue Beetle doing a Joan Rivers impression on the cover of the previous issue. Does it make sense? Does it add any layers to the meaning of the piece? Do most people not even realize it's a reference? No, no, and yes. Unless that yes should be "No, they don't." I probably shouldn't have asked a question with a negating bit in it. I never know how to answer those.

The credits have an added thank you bit for this issue:

Yeesh. I wonder how old Mark Badger was?

Justice League America are informed that their United Nations charter has been revoked so they're now as homeless as Justice League Europe. That must be why they're returning to the old Justice League cave headquarters where the Doom Patrol are possibly squatting right now. Or maybe it's just Joshua Clay from the Doom Patrol that's hiding away in the cave? J'onn seems upset because the Justice League has helped save the world multiple times (his words, not mine) and they don't deserve to have their easy paycheck and free living quarters taken away from them. Isn't that all the benefits they get from having a United Nations charter? Supposedly the charter makes it easier to save the world but it really just causes a huge bureaucratic headache. As an independent contractor, the Justice League can go anywhere and create any kind of international incident they feel like without anybody telling them boo! Oh, sure, some political leaders will scream at them and condemn their actions. But who gives a fuck? They're the Justice League! Let's see some non-super humans try to stop them!

Whoops! Sorry. I stole Guy's thunder. Here he is saying basically the same thing.

Blue Beetle agrees with me and Guy. He decides to abandon the League to go join The Conglomerate while Guy Gardner goes back to doing the job he's been slacking on: guardian of Sector 2814. Fire and Ice quit and go their separate ways as well. But the biggest surprise is when these two leave:

Just kidding! I already forgot they were on the team!

Why did Giffen and DeMatteis even bother to bring them on the team?! They didn't do shit! Tasmanian Devil punched Guy in the face but that's about the extent of their accomplishments as Leaguers. And if Doctor Light didn't want the job, why did she sign up? This smacks of some kind of meta-publishing bullshit. Does DC need to make sure every single one of their characters makes an appearance every two or three years or else they lose the right to not pay royalties to the creators? It's just fucking weird. Half of the time I've been reading this comic book, it feels like the creative team has been adding new members who leave just as quickly or suddenly losing long-term members out of nowhere in an editorial note. It feels less like an ongoing story and more like a storage cabinet for barely used DC characters.

The Conglomerate doesn't hire Blue Beetle because he's too fat. The news devastates Booster Gold who now has to live with Ted as his filthy roommate because Ted can't afford to move out. I guess Blue Beetle takes the news badly as well although without the job, he gets to hang around Booster's sweet apartment eating pizza and watching game shows all day. I'd be Booster's wife for that gig. And I wouldn't mind keeping the place clean and tidy! Or maybe throwing him a handy every now and again. Not leaving the house while eating junk food and watching game shows all day has been my dream since 1st grade. I'd do some pretty degrading bedroom shit to maintain that lifestyle.

Bea and Tora have decided to do modeling for a living because remember that scene where they were battling Norse Gods? That was the top picture in their portfolio. But the agency that had been courting Bea for months tells her they're not interested if she doesn't have a connection to the Justice League. Which seems like bad business to me because she did have a connection to the Justice League and just because she left them doesn't mean that she suddenly lost all of that cultural cachet or her hot ass. Only two reasons can exist as to why this guy is passing on the opportunity to hire Fire (and Ice): 1. He's bad at business. 2. Hiring Bea was his plan to get an in with the Justice League so he could meet and fuck Martian Manhunter.

Imagine using these two adorable faces so you can suck a Martian's dick.

Dammit. Now I'm imagining sucking a Martian's dick.

Bea doesn't let this one dropped job offer stop her quest to become the hottest model since sliced bread. And Tora goes with her because she's bad at finances. At one point she says, "Our credit cards are only going to hold out another few days—and I don't want to blow what little savings I have." How does she think credit cards work? She's blowing her current and future savings by maxing out her credit cards! Fucking Goddesses and their inability to understand human monetary bullshit.

Guy Gardner acknowledges in a soliloquy that he's only a super hero so that he can beat the shit out of people and still feel righteous. I've defended him a lot because I loved him so much in the '80s and '90s and I was desperate not to acknowledge how wrong I was to feel that way but now his conservative values have really come to the forefront and I have to rethink my love for him.

Like all conservatives, Guy wants to murder homeless people.

Why do all conservatives desperately want to commit violence and murder? So much so that they "other" everybody possible to lay the foundation of the excuse they'll use the day they finally feel justified in taking another person's life. To them, every manufactured offense can be met with deadly violence. Disrespect a cop? You should die. Fall through society's cracks and lose everything so that you're living on the street? You should die. Shopping while Black and being incorrectly reported to the cops as being a shoplifter? You should die. Live your life as a gender different than what's on your birth certificate? You should die. Enjoying a carefree and humanist life unrestricted by religious dogma? You should die. I could probably go on and on with the examples because they fucking despise anybody who wants to make the world a better place for everybody (a better world they would reap the benefits of, by the way). They're small-minded, petty people who need to control everybody else's lives while also feeling like they're some kind of victim. Don't they realize nobody would have a problem with them living their life of conservative values if those values weren't all tied up in not letting anybody else live their lives?

Dammit. Now I hate Guy Gardner.

Guy comes home to the apartment he shares with General Glory to discover the General has invited all of the homeless people in the area in to have a nice meal.

General Glory's values come from a time when the United States was at its most socialist which is why he believes compassion is The American Way.

It should also be noted that General Glory's values come from a time before the Civil Rights Era where "socialism" meant "the government helps white people." Once it became clear that the government legally needed to help all people, "America" suddenly decided that maybe the government shouldn't be helping anybody at all. At least General Glory didn't pick up on the dog whistles of American mid-century socialism so he's genuinely trying to be compassionate to anybody who needs a little help. Guy, on the other hand, is a fucking prick.

J'onn tries to live a quiet, meditative life in a house he's rented but makes the mistake of taking L'ron on as his roommate. And since J'onn can't get any peace and quiet with the subservient, fawning little droid hanging about, he decides to try to fix the Justice League. Besides, the League has been his family for comic book decades. He doesn't know anything else. Also Despero is coming to Earth to start trying to kill them all again so J'onn will need some help dealing with that problem.

J'onn isn't the only one suddenly desperate to fix the League. Blue Beetle decides to get in shape and save the group. Fire decides to abandon her modeling career and get the League back. And General Glory talks Guy through his feelings for Ice and his teammates so that Guy also believes the League needs to be reformed. So basically the Justice League didn't exist for about six pages. This is what happens when you don't have Batman on the active roster. One day you lose funding and everything descends into chaos for a while (a very short while) because you don't have a super rich guy to buy a satellite headquarters for you.

The entire team wind up meeting outside the old cave headquarters and agree on the thing they should have agreed on immediately instead of all running off in a huff: keep the team together. It was so obvious! Even when they had a United Nations charter, they still kept sneaking into Bialya to cause trouble. Now they can do that whenever they want without anybody threatening to cut off funding!

Once they enter the cave, they realize somebody has recently been there. Like Joshua Clay!

See? I remember some stuff! But only if it's traumatic and reading Morrison's Doom Patrol was exactly that.

All memory is trauma in some form or another. It's why it's memory! If you didn't suffer some form of trauma, you wouldn't form a memory of the event. On some level, pure joy can be just as distressing to our mental state as terror. So while trauma can be defined as a physical injury, I think it's also a mental injury—a scar—caused by the power of the event. A memory is a scar.

I have a scar on my left arm, just beneath the inside of the elbow. It's a long cat scratch made by my poor, long-dead, best friend Judas. It's about two inches long and was caused when you was jumping up on the arm of a couch to jump up to a higher location and didn't realize my arm was there. I got the full brunt of one of this back claws just digging through my flesh as he propelled his fifteen pound body high into the air. It instantly welled with blood and I looked at it, got really emotional, and began to cry. Not because it hurt but because I knew it would scar and I would have a lasting memory of my favorite boy ripped into my flesh. It still makes me tear up when I look at it. That's what I think of memory.

Turns out the people currently living in the cave are the jobless, homeless Justice League Europe. Everybody vomits when they see them because Ralph's neck is fifty feet long. But I think everything goes smoothly after that.

Justice League America #56 Rating: B. The individual scenes of the Leaguers trying to live their non-League lives was entertaining enough to support the stupid premise that the League completely broke down as soon as the United Nations kicked them out of the Embassy. If I were more cynical than I am, I'd say the whole break-up was just an easy way to fire Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. Or I suppose if I were more charitable and less cynical, I wouldn't even have mentioned how silly it seemed for them to break up for a day or two before realizing the League didn't have to die without the United Nations backing it. Emotionally, they all needed time to settle down and re-evaluate their lives without the other Leaguers breathing down their necks. Every one of them needed to come to their own conclusion that being a member of the League was actually what they wanted. Except Guy. He needed help from his surrogate father and therapist, General Glory. And Ice knew all along but she had to support her best friend in her decision to leave. The only real problem now is that they have to live in a cave with Ralph Dibny.

Justice League Europe #31 (October 1991)

Does Ralph's elasticity extend to his hair?

This issue is called "Things Fall Apart" which means it's super intelligent and artsy. I still love "The Second Coming" but I have to admit, the part in The Sopranos where Anthony Junior becomes obsessed with it seemed prescient. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time and the worst people in the world were already obsessed with it and showing their ignorance by quoting it in situations where they thought they were making a point but they were really exposing how ignorant they were. I just recently watched The Sopranos for the first time so I first began to realize loads and loads of people were quoting "The Second Coming" when that shit pile of rancid maggot shit television show Heroes used it. I've since seen it used in other various places but fuck if I can remember where. My main memory of the poem first being used by a clueless individual was when my friend Soy Rakelson, who was always full of passionate intensity, began quoting the lines about the worst people being full of the same while the best lacked all conviction. It always made my head hurt. Anyway, I'm no Yeats scholar so even though I love the poem, I know I'm missing a ton of meaning in it because that guy's entire oeuvre was basically a cypher full of his own metaphors and symbols. People love "The Second Coming" because all the words seem to make some kind of mysterious sense (plus it has some of the best poetic pull quotes in the game) whereas a fuckton of Yeats' other poems just leave your brain struggling with the sudden realization that you are the dumbest person on Earth. Also "The Second Coming" has the line, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." Fucking kick ass, man!

Look, after 4000 or so comic book blog entries, a person is going to begin repeating themselves. Usually not in such rapid succession. I mean, it was just last issue of Justice League Europe that I copy and pasted that from! I suppose next issue is going to be called "The Ceremony of Innocence is Drowned," mostly because Gerard Jones is all about drowning innocence. That could have been a much better joke if Jones had been convicted for drowning some kids instead of just collecting sexual abuse images of kids because then I could have said, "Jones is all about drowning innocents." Sure, it wouldn't actually be funny in the sense that it would make a person laugh because everything Jones has done (and also all the stuff he hasn't done which I'm pretending he has now, like drowning kids) is awful. Except Green Lantern: Mosaic. That was pretty fucking good. Not good enough to forgive what he did! But good enough to ignore that he's the writer of Green Lantern: Mosaic while I'm reading it. You know, the way people ignore the person who wrote those books about the kid magician. No, not Neil Gaiman. The British TERF. You know what hag I'm speaking of.

This issue begins with Sue Dibny having a rape fantasy dream about Captain Atom.

Look how hard she's coming.

Okay, that's probably Catherine Cobert. But I wish it were Sue. Sue wants atomic dick so badly.

Oh shit. I just reread that page and I think it was meant to be malevolent and a nightmare! I think she's crying at the end! But I don't think she's crying because the dream scared her. She's crying because Captain Atom died between "Breakdowns, Part 5" and "Breakdowns, Part 6" in the second issue of Armageddon 2001 and she'll actually never get to fuck him like she obviously wanted. Or maybe she's crying because she knows Captain Atom should be Monarch and she's upset that DC decided to take a huge swerve and make Hank Hall Monarch—a move which makes no sense upon reading the series and all the annuals. Look, DC. We all knew it was going to be Captain Atom. But you thought it would be better to publish a story that surprises the audience and makes no sense instead of publishing the story that makes sense which everybody guessed because, you know, you were successful with your foreshadowing and character development. You idiots.

"War of the Gods" as well? Christ, DC. Maybe string out your big event story arcs across the entire year instead of cramming them all into summer next time.

Some of you might be calling me a fucking moron right now because in what universe is October summer? Well, in the comic book universe, you fucking jerks! The month on the cover of a comic book was always about three months ahead of the month the book was actually published. This was some old timey publishing trick to keep magazines on newsstands longer because the seller would look at the cover and be all, "Oh, this book is still new! It says October but it's only August! That doesn't make sense but I guess I'm falling for it!"

This thing with Kara and Captain Atom not being around for the rest of "Breakdowns" is why I despise the need for absolute comic book continuity. I'm reading this years later. How the fuck would I know Kara was participating in "War of the Gods" and this comic book at the same time? I fucking wouldn't. But some asshole basement dweller's mom kept buying him stamps in the '70s and '80s so that he could send letters to DC to point out when a character was somehow appearing in two comic books in the same week. And the editors were all, "I can't read another one of these letters that smells of stale farts and Cheeto dust. We must get a tighter control on our continuity!" Anyway, that's the first five pages spent letting readers know what characters won't be available for the rest of the story due to conflicting story arcs in other comic books that most readers probably aren't even reading.

Meanwhile in deep space, Despero remembers how much he hates the Justice League. He's flying to Earth to try, one more time, to murder them all. But this time he has a fancy new collar that enables a person with the right remote to control his behavior. But that remote is floating in deep space and I don't think universal remote controls existed in 1991. So unless Kilowog invents one in a hurry, the collar will remain decorative.

I wonder why DC never made this a wall poster?

Even though this is the Justice League Europe comic book, they only appear because Justice League America needed help responding to whatever this sexy situation Fire and Ice have gotten themselves into. And before you chastise me for equating violence with eroticism, just remember that some people need to be choked during a good fuck! If Fire and Ice are battling for their lives here, I would think Darick Robertson is to blame for me thinking they're having the time of their lives. I know looking at this panel, I'm having the time of mine!

Sometimes I wish I didn't rely so thoroughly on the creepy image of the leering, sex-starved comic book nerd trope of the '80s. Or '70s. Or '90s. Or '50s. Or '60s. But probably not the '00s or later because those decades took place after the first X-men movie after which it became mainstream to like comic books. If you want proof that before that movie comic books were only for nerds and outcasts, I can't give it to you. But I was at Comicon in San Diego the year X-men came out and it would be unrecognizable to fans today. People were actually there for comic books! And Kevin Smith, I suppose. But not for Paris Themmen, poor guy. I mean, I was there for him. But absolutely nobody else was.

I feel really bad, 23 years later, that I took this picture but didn't purchase anything.

This picture was taken at the 2000 Comicon. I know this for certain because my friend Upright and I saw X-men at the theater while in San Diego. While digging out this picture, I also found badges from three earlier Comicons: '96, '97, and '98. So I've been to four Comicons? That boggles my mind. I remember one where I got super drunk at a party where they put on Trainspotting and while I can usually understand Scottish accents, I was so drunk that it just sounded like a foreign language. I remember another one where I purchased a dozen or more pirated Sailor Moon VHS tapes because they were of seasons past the Queen Beryl season that had been dubbed for North American television. And the one where we were trying to get into the Star Wars collectible card game. And the one where we had breakfast with Dan Santat and convinced him to do the art for our Alternative Press Expo Special of our Galactic Hero Corps fanzine. Also I guess we looked at comic books and shit. Oh! There was the one where we went to a tiny panel about the upcoming Elfquest movie which never did upcome. Fucking lying Marv Wolfman! I don't blame Wendy and Richard at all. They probably wanted the movie to happen nearly as much as I did.

But I was going to say before Truth broke in with all her matter-of-fact about Mike Teevee and the San Diego Comicon, Fire and Ice seem to be battling Norse Gods. The three in the sexy panel are Baldur, Thor, and Loki. I bet Marvel was just bristling at this scene and their inability to copyright myths and legends.

Goddamn. This scene just keeps getting sexier.

Baldur and Thor flex their muscles but ultimately it just takes Loki a few seconds to defeat the Justice League by turning them into trees.

J'onn still traumatized from being turned into a tree way back in 1962.

Well, that killed the sexiness of this scene really quick. Trees are only sexy to elves and that one producer who insisted the tree raping scene remained in the 2013 remake of The Evil Dead, Evil Dead. Sometimes trees grow into shapes where they look like they have boobs or dongs or buttholes but even those are only slightly sexy because I don't want a beetle going up my dickhole.

Turns out Loki just covered the heroes in a shell of wood instead of actually turning them into trees. None of them realized this because they're all dumb as fuck. Only Metamorpho figures it out and that's mostly by accident. These idiots actually thought they were wood when they had simply been encased in wood. True, I've never felt what that was like, so maybe I'm judging them too harshly. Maybe if I were encased in wood, I would think, "I'm still able to think so my guess is that I haven't actually been turned into wood. And why is my dick hard? Am I an elf?"

Guy breaks free after Metamorpho does and then Guy breaks out J'onn who could have simply phased through the wood immediately. I suspect he was too traumatized from the first time he was turned into a tree and was in shock. After J'onn is saved, he insults Ice.

Beetle was right. Nobody fucking respects Ice's powers!

Loki, Thor, and Baldur disappear leaving this plot thread either dangling or tied up. It's hard to tell because nothing fucking happened. Ice ran off to save her people in the last part of "Breakdowns" and now, after nothing was resolved, she declares they're safe. What the fuck was that about? Did somebody at DC simply want to irk somebody at Marvel by sticking Loki and Thor in their funny book?

Metamorpho feels the way I do. He basically says, "What the fuck was that about?" Everybody else is all, "Maybe we should just move on! It'll all become clear later. Maybe! Was it a 'War of the Gods' crossover? Who can tell?!"

The issue ends with the United Nations revoking the League's international charter which means all the members of Justice League Europe just got their visas cancelled. Time to move back to the states and not have a job!

Justice League Europe #31 Rating: D+. Nothing happened in this issue that wasn't spoiled by the cover. A few pages were spent explaining why Captain Atom and Kara wouldn't be in the comic (even if Kara was on the cover). A few pages were spent on a battle with Norse Gods that didn't matter. And then the League's charter was revoked which the cover already mentioned. I guess maybe Despero heading back to Earth was relevant to the chaos to ensue? I imagine Loki will return as well. That plot thread has to pay off somewhere down the line. The cat wasn't even in this issue! Did he go off to fight in the War of the Gods with Kara?

Justice League America #55 (October 1991)

This was published in 1991 so was this a riff on Joan Rivers?

If your first thought is, "Why would they allude to Joan Rivers on the cover?", just remember the writers of this comic book are Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. No reference is beneath them! At least a Joan Rivers' reference would have been timely in 1991! They usually love referencing pop culture from the '50s. Plus it's Blue Beetle saying it, so you know he did the voice and everything.

The Justice League has been tasked with entering Bialya and arresting their ex-teammates for the murder of Mermaid. "Who?" you ask but I ignore the question because what do I look like? Jonni DC sitting on a stack of Who's Who comic books? Oh wait. I do have a stack of Who's Who comics! Mermaid doesn't have her own entry but she's included in The Global Guardians entry along with Icemaiden and Green Fury. Little Mermaid (as she's called in this entry) "is a mutant born in Atlantis able to change her legs to a fish tail and fly." That's a stupid fucking power. So she could only fly when she had a fish tail? Oh, but that's not all: "But, as she could only live 30 hours underwater, she had to be raised on land." What the fuck? Born in Atlantis and able to turn into a mermaid but can't live underwater? And why 30 hours? What must her physiology be like that she's okay for 30 hours but any more and she's done for? Is it a gill and lung thing? Does it have to do with pressure? Too much salt? Oh, wait. I'm forgetting that most of this is arbitrary shit written by writers scribbling out as much pulp as possible while dreaming about writing something meaningful. After reading this entry, I'm glad Mermaid was murdered.

Fire's entry says her powers, as Green Fury, were the ability to breathe "hot or cold" flame and "shoot sparks from her eyes to create illusions." Why cold flames? What's the point? And how did the sparks into illusions out of the eyes thing work? This all smacks of a writer merely collecting a paycheck and realizing that the idiot kids reading this tripe were never going to question any of it. Frankly, it's reminding me of that time Cullen Bunn wrote Aquaman but he obviously just had a John Carpenter on Mars script lying around and he sold it to DC as an Aquaman script for some easy cash. Fucking tell me I'm wrong, Cullen!

Here's Ice's entry: "Icemaiden has absolute power over ice and snow." Classic. So I'm as powerful as she is because fuck if ice or snow has ever bested me in any competition.

And since I've got the comic book open to The Global Guardians, let's check Tasmanian Devil and Jack the Lantern. Tasmanian Devil: "In emergencies, grows to great size, increasing his strength and speed." Do they mean he can only transform in emergencies or that he's responsible with his powers and he never uses them in non-emergency situations like when he fucks Extraño? Seems boring. "Jack O'Lantern has a magical lantern given to him by the fairy queen Maev." No way that's his real origin. Does Who's Who not do any research into the claims of the heroes it spotlights? Because there's no way Jack's Lantern isn't just some laser gun tarted up to look like a stupid bowling ball with eyes. The fairy queen story has got to be a lie. I bet Jack's not even Irish.

The Global Guardians was first called "The Global Guardians" in DC Comics Presents #46. I think I used to own that comic book but I gave away a bunch of my DC Comics Presents in a fit of madness a number of years ago. I did keep a few but there's no way I kept one starring these jerks.

How do I break it to my boner that this woman is dead?

Obviously the Justice League didn't kill Mermaid but they also should absolutely surrender so that things can be straightened out with minimal violence. But this is a comic book and that isn't going to happen, even if Blue Beetle agrees with me. Captain Atom, a military man, decides forcing the situation to devolve further out of control is the best tactic. And by "tactic," I mean "reactionary decision because he's been disrespected by Bialya for far too long and he believes all the propaganda fed to him by people wanting him to create a violent international incident." I think this is what is commonly referred to as a "Win/Win Situation." I mean, the Justice League are obviously going to lose in so many ways but it's a win for Captain Atom because he gets to punch people who won't respect his authority and it's a win for Jack and Sumaan because this will cause the international incident. I don't know what it means for Queen Bee and Bialya. Probably less of a win and more of a raging headache and a coup ending in her murder.

How are the Guardians going to do that? Do they have VHS footage of the old Justice League battling Amazo?

That was a pretty easy dig at the Global Guardians but what does Rising Sun expect, teeing up a comment like that?! At the team meeting later when they discuss how this battle went so wrong for them, somebody should suggest never putting "real heroes" and "Global Guardians" in the same sentence because it's just asking for the kind of lame, low hanging fruit retort I made in the caption. It's good advice. And I know good advice because I live by the best advice which is this: "Never say something will be worth it 'in the long run' to an old person."

Captain Atom being against surrender sadly did not mean he wanted to battle the Guardians. Instead, the Ex-Justice League leader orders a strategic retreat where Ice puts up a 0/7 Wall of Ice which falls immediately to Jack's fairy gift. But it gives the Ex-League enough time to escape the Guardians' meeting room. They wind up in a hall full of people in tanks being turned into the Queen's puppets. Weird place to keep the one room in the country that could destroy the Queen Bee by revealing her insane human rights violations. She probably just housed the lab in The Dome because the Guardians spend all of their time in a trance in the meeting hall. Putting your renters in a trance frees up a lot of space that would normally be used for bedrooms and bathrooms.

For reasons beyond knowing, Owl-woman has just become my favorite character.

I always have a surfeit of choices when it comes to panels I can scan and I always choose the ones with the juicy asses. Some people might think I'm a creepy comic book reading asshole but other people know that's just a character I play on the Internet. I'm actually more into animated characters.

The Justice League arrives to drag their ex-employees out of Bialya by their ears, hopefully without any nosy Jimmy Olsens around to record it when the entire Dome collapses into the hidden sub-basement.

Lesson learned about places to keep your international war crimes hidden from the public eye, I guess.

The similarity between my speculation about Queen Bee's choice of locale for her puppet making and her "I'm fucked" monologue might make you think I had read ahead before writing my bit. But I assure you that this is just the kind of foresight a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader lives with every day. Usually I only need to read three or four pages of a comic book and then I can set it down because my mind is like Midnighter's except that where he can see every possibility in an upcoming battle and make all the right choices to end it quickly, I can see exactly what a writer is getting at in a dopey funny book. I'm also like Midnighter in that my ass, too, is a playground.

Here is an aside that's only an aside in my comic book reviews and wouldn't be an aside in a normal, rational, actual review of a comic book: I'm loving Chris Wozniak's art in this issue. For a "reviewer" reviewing a medium where art and words come together to create the experience, I give an unbelievably short amount of shrift to the art. It's incredible, really. As if I barely notice the art until Owl-woman's thick ass is staring me right in the face.

Rather than face an international trial for crimes against humanity, Queen Bee attempts to flee Bialya. It's too bad because she made sense as the leader of DC's obviously evil country. You don't have to wonder how the overall populace puts up with their country's constant evil if they're all brainwashed drones.

Back in New York, Inspector Camus confronts Herr Heimlich about his love of robots. I don't know what he's getting at but I suppose Heimlich is either a Nazi robot or Camus has footage of Heimlich fucking a vacuum cleaner. Either way, I think he's trying to blackmail him. Most people wouldn't want video of themselves fucking a vacuum cleaner out in the public but for me, that's just a great Tik Tok channel.

Cleaning up the devastation in Bialya, the Global Guardians learn that Doctor Mist was a robot (unless he was a vacuum cleaner), Jack the Lantern isn't the Jack they knew, and that mind control doesn't stop bowel movements. For the first time in a long time, they've got their own minds back. Mermaid's body is missing and judging by the way the Guardians are acting, they might not have any memory of her death. I mean, they seem sad and all but that might be because they've all shat themselves silly.

This is Ice suddenly realizing Breakdowns needs another plot thread.

Ice "flies" off screaming something about her family and her people being in trouble. I put "flies" in quotation marks because what she actually does is build an ice ramp and run up it. Is she going to run along an ice bridge all the way back to Scandinavia? How long is that going to fucking take? She doesn't even do that flying slide thing that Iceman loves to do. She just runs away up an ice bridge like she's actually going to get anywhere that way. Fire flies after her and you'll notice I didn't put that "flies" in quotation marks because Fire actually has useful powers.

Sumaan murders Queen Bee before she can fully make her escape and takes up the mantle as leader of Bialya. I'm sure the citizens of the country will eagerly accept him as their leader seeing as how he's so much more ruthless and underhanded as their old leader, his brother. It's an evil country! They don't have to brainwashed to love despots!

See? Weary, confused, and evil.

Due to L-ron and Inspector Camus's uncovering Heimlich's association with Queen Bee and vacuum cleaners, he is removed from his leadership role with the League. Being that it was never revealed that he was a former Nazi, I'm sure he'll be back so that it can be revealed that he was a former Nazi. With his removal, I guess all the fired heroes have got their jobs back? But will Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light still be welcome on the team? They only appeared in one or two panels this issue so it's not looking good for them. Again.

Justice League America #55 Rating: B+. "Breakdowns" is so good that Giffen and DeMatteis should have begun their Justice League run with it! 'nuff said. Excelsior!

Justice League Quarterly #4 (Autumn 1991)

I have never been more attracted to Ice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fair enough. Cluemaster is shit as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even Fire gets in on the bullying using her powers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice League Europe #30 (September 1991)

What is Ralph so shocked by? Jack's humongous boner?

Justice League America lost two members in the last capter of "Breakdowns" but also hired two more Looney Tunes' variants (Taz and somebody they can say, "What's up, Doc?" to). Hopefully Europe gets two more new recruits as well this issue to replace Captain Atom who is worth three heroes and The Elongated Man who is worth negative one hero. By my "how many heroes is a hero worth math," Justice League Ex has only three members (Captain Atom equals 3, Ralph equals -1, Ice equals 1, and Blue Beetle is worth 0). That means they should be able to hold their own against the Global Guardians who have a net Hero Tally of -5.

This issue is called "The Widening Gyre" which means it's super intelligent and artsy. I still love "The Second Coming" but I have to admit, the part in The Sopranos where Anthony Junior becomes obsessed with it seemed prescient. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention at the time and the worst people in the world were already obsessed with it and showing their ignorance by quoting it in situations where they thought they were making a point but they were really exposing how ignorant they were. I just recently watched The Sopranos for the first time so I first began to realize loads and loads of people were quoting "The Second Coming" when that shit pile of rancid maggot shit television show Heroes used it. I've since seen it used in other various places but fuck if I can remember where. My main memory of the poem first being used by a clueless individual was when my friend Soy Rakelson, who was always full of passionate intensity, began quoting the lines about the worst people being full of the same while the best lacked all conviction. It always made my head hurt. Anyway, I'm no Yeats scholar so even though I love the poem, I know I'm missing a ton of meaning in it because that guy's entire oeuvre was basically a cypher full of his own metaphors and symbols. People love "The Second Coming" because all the words seem to make some kind of mysterious sense (plus it has some of the best poetic pull quotes in the game) whereas a fuckton of Yeats' other poems just leave your brain struggling with the sudden realization that you are the dumbest person on Earth. Also "The Second Coming" has the line, "And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born." Fucking kick ass, man!

This issue begins with a British news correspondent describing how Max's "brain was savaged by a bullet." Take it easy there, British cowboy! He continues, refusing to take it easy, with, "His Herculean energy and personal charisma lost to a coma." Jesus fucking Christ, dude. I'm glad he's outside the JLE embassy reporting on Lord's condition rather than in Max's hospital room with his tongue up Max's comatose asshole. The correspondent continues by describing what has happened in the previous chapters of "Breakdown," making sure to remind everybody who was fired and who was hired.

Good recovery, news anchor, because you wouldn't want the public thinking the Justice League just hired a pedophile.

You know who else shouldn't want the public thinking they hire pedophiles? DC Comics. But I suppose they didn't know what Gerard Jones was into when he wrote this issue. I should give everybody who worked with him the benefit of the doubt even though it's hard to believe you can work closely with a guy writing comic books and not realize he's a creepy fucking weirdo. Oh, wait. Writing that clarified for me why nobody probably noticed being that everybody in 1991 who was into comic books was a creepy fucking weirdo. As a man, I speak only of all the fans who were men. Let women comic book fans from 1991 judge whether other women at the time were creepy weirds. My guess is they were a well-bonded sisterhood protecting each other from all the creepy dudes.

I wanted to make a Magic the Gathering joke there but Magic didn't exist in 1991. Before Magic came on the scene and all the nerds would gather at conventions in hotel lobbies and sit in parking lots playing the same card game, they would gather in hotel lobbies and parking lots playing niche board games like Fireball Island or The Dark Tower or Crossbows and Catapults. Man, us creepy weirdos really lost something with the onset of Magic the Gathering.

Back in Bialya, Queen Bee rages about Captain Atom's plane exploding. She realizes somebody is trying to frame her so that Bialya winds up on the losing side of an international incident. And by the way she screams at Jack the Lantern, I think she knows who is behind it.

That's the glare of a woman who knows you're fucking around behind her back. Not that I, the perfect person, would actually know what that looks like.

I don't mean to come off as self-righteous! It's easy to be the perfect person who never fucks around in a relationship when you're a massive hermit who avoids social situations and genuinely despises other people. Unless a woman came into my apartment and stripped me naked and made passionate love to me, preferably while I was sleeping, it would never happen. That's not just a statement of fact but a hint to seducing me!

Jack flies off thinking he's the king of the con. He believes he's got Queen Bee fooled when she gives him control of the Global Guardians to discover who is trying to frame her. Seems like the height of overconfidence. It's a good thing this isn't the original Jack the Lantern because that makes him easier to kill later in the story. Although the creative team didn't hesitate to kill the original one either. I think every single Global Guardian has become disposable chaff to increase the drama.

Justice League Ex, having fallen for Jack's con, arrive in Bialya to get to the bottom of Max's shooting. They disguise themselves as employees of Ms. D'aramis, the Crimson Fox's wealthy alter ego. This same plan to infiltrate in disguise didn't work last time when Bruce Wayne was the brains behind it so my guess is that this time they will all immediately be shot in the face while trying to get through customs.

I forgot Manga Khan was involved in "Breakdowns" as well until he gets his one page update scene. He's selling something he's calling a "World-Raper" to a bunch of sad sack aliens. I don't know what world they're considering raping but it's probably Earth. This scene doesn't identify what the "World-Raper" actually is but it's probably Despero (even though I was hoping Lobo was going to be part of this). I never thought about it before this but maybe Manga Khan is modelled on Marv Wolfman, what with his obsession with creating things that rape other things. "Manga Khan" does sort of sound like "Marv Wolfman" if you've just drunk the blood of a poet and sat on a cactus.

I love to sit on my hands!

Justice League Ex was built around dozens of faults but maybe the largest one is having to rely on Ralph Dibny. That fucker can't go thirty seconds without stretching his neck twenty feet so how is he supposed to keep up a disguise? Unless he's currently slithering around in the walls like an elongated tapeworm, he's probably been made by security and sitting in a Bialyan jail waiting to be shot in the face. While Ralph is out slithering like a disgusting wall eel, Blue Beetle surprises everybody with his technological savvy as he sets up a machine to confuse Queen Bee's listening devices, as he remembers she bugs everything in the city. Blue Beetle surprises me by misspelling his name "Ted Cord." I know it's in a speech bubble so technically he didn't misspell it. Technically Willie Schubert misspelled it. Unless Gerard Jones misspelled it and Willie Schubert simply transcribed the error and every single editor didn't notice. But I fucking noticed because I'm a petty bitch.

Eventually, Ralph returns.

This picture is now the grossest thing on the Internet and yes I know about Tub Girl and goatse.

Ralph reconnoitered the space beneath the hotel and discovered the secret tunnels Blue Beetle remembered from his first (or second?) visit. They're full of electronic eyes and ears but Blue Beetle has a gadget which can temporarily disrupt them. That way, nobody will know where Justice League Ex are headed! Unless they follow the trail made by all the gadgets being disrupted in a linear manner. Also Queen Bee probably already knows they're in the country anyway. It's only a matter of time until the face shooting begins

The team follow the tunnels until they're under The Dome, the headquarters of the Global Guardians, because Beetle's theory is that the shooter was a metahuman. When did Beetle become the master investigator? Isn't Ralph Dibny supposed to be the one who solves mysteries? Or does he just like twitching his nose at them?

Meanwhile, Inspector Camus winds up kidnapped by Mister Bigger and his hero-secret selling corporation. He gives him evidence that Queen Bee controls Heimlich with her brainwashing abilities. If that's true and Queen Bee is using the assassination attempt on Max to install one of her lackeys as the head of the Justice League, she's absolutely fucked by Jack and Sumaan's plan to frame her for the murder. Why wouldn't everybody believe she was behind the murder attempt when she's the one who benefitted the most from taking Max Lord out?

Using the secret tunnels, Justice League Ex stumble upon the Global Guardians.

Gross. No way their bodily functions stop just because they're in Queen Bee's thrall.

While investigating the Global Guardians' meeting hall, Jack Lantern and Owl-Woman wander in. A fight ensues which begins with Owl-Woman being frozen and never actually entering the fray. Jack Lantern holds his own against the +3 Hero Tally (Maybe +4 because Crimson Fox is there) which means Jack Lantern has a Hero Tally of either 3 or 4 all by himself. The rest of the Global Guardians' Hero Tallies really drag his down though to make the entire group a -5.

The battle ends when Captain Atom dodges one of Jack's blasts which winds up killing Mermaid.

At least this causes the Global Guardians' Hero Tally to go up to -2.

What did I say earlier about the drama of this story getting raised by the death of a few Global Guardians? I haven't called myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader in quite some time, mostly because I read this series thirty years ago and it would seem unfair to point out how great I am at predicting what's going to happen while reading a story I'd read before. But fuck if I can remember anything. I can barely remember personal memories. How the hell am I supposed to remember something that happened to a member of the most boring DC superteam thirty years ago?! Of course I didn't remember Mermaid dies. I didn't even remember they had somebody named Mermaid! And she was just mentioned several issues ago!

Jack Lantern, of course, reports to the Queen Bee that the Justice League Europe just murdered Mermaid. Queen Bee says, "What are you babbling about? Your up murdur mermay?" Europe murdered Mermaid is the Rural Juror of Justice League Europe, especially when spoken by an Irish guy to a Bialyan woman.

The rest of the Global Guardians come out of their trances ready to beat the shit out of Justice League Ex. I wonder if Mermaid comes out of her trance just in time to feel her life slip away? Hopefully she died instantly. With Mermaid dead and Tora in shock having seen an old friend murdered before her eyes, the fight between the Global Guardians and Justice League Ex could be a toss-up.

Queen Bee alerts Heimlich personally that he needs to send the Justice League to come collect their Justice League. L-Ron, being on monitor duty when the message comes in, becomes suspicious that Queen Bee and Heimlich are in direct communication. But being that he's only a little robot from outer space who nobody pays much attention to, L-Ron decides to keep the information to himself. Too bad nobody thought to befriend the poor little guy.

Justice League Europe #30 Rating: A-. I almost gave this issue a B+ but then I remembered, because of this issue, there was one less Global Guardian in the DC Universe and I smiled a smile I save for the most satisfying moments in life. Don't you dare try to read into that statement too much because I assure you, my life is full of satisfying moments like that! Moments where somebody else feels the brunt of a dark and uncaring universe while I manage to somehow remain unscathed once more. "At least it wasn't me!" would be my family motto if I hadn't realized at a young age just how dark and uncaring the universe is and I wasn't willing to bring another sentient being into existence to experience it. What kind of hypocrite would I be to create a life while I still harbor anger and resentment towards my own parents for creating me?! Ha ha! I just remembered the sound effect "SPLACH" and got a little boost of joy! Man, comic books are fucking awesome.

Justice League America #54 (September 1991)

Just because Blue Beetle was fired for being fat, it doesn't mean the artist had to make Ice gain weight too.

I think the cover artist assumed since Beetle lost his job with the Justice League because he became fat, Ice must have also gained weight to have been fired. He must not read the comic book because I don't think weight had anything to do with either of these heroes losing their job. I think it was because they were boring.

That's a joke! I've never once been bored by Ice or her ass. But she's terminally good-natured which, to many people, means super duper boring. So I can see why Ice might be fired if Herr Heimlich knew this was a comic book that needed to sell a certain amount of comics each month. Then by all means, fire the terminally nice woman! What kind of exciting plots are going to stem from Ice making sure everybody was always happy and comfortable? So boring! Readers want Guy Gardner telling everybody to suck his dick every five panels! Maybe if she'd played up her whole ice goddess thing and ran around the Embassy with terminally erect nipples due to her freezing cold skin and needing to fuck somebody every five panels to keep her body temperature at a proper level, she'd have stuck around. I suppose I might also fire her from the team if we extrapolate that she winds up flooding every place where she uses her ice powers. Didn't she flood a subway one time? Or was that not her fault because her ice was melted instantaneously by some jerk's fire powers (maybe Fire's?)? Anyway, it looks like she and Beetle are out. Good riddance to Blue Beetle, I say! What good is a guy with no powers who is also terminally broke so he can't even afford any materials to create his beetle gadgets?!

The issue begins with the ambassador of Bialya returning Captain Atom to Herr Heimlich, whom the ambassador addresses as "Ambassador Heimlich." What country is Heimlich an ambassador for? The United States?! As if the United States would hire a Nazi to be a prominent member of their great nation! At least in 1991, readers would understand why a Nazi was automatically the bad guy and would not have tried to defend one as a free speech enthusiast who was only professing their rational and completely logical ideology. At least I don't think there were many readers like that. I know from reading various letters pages that some readers didn't mind espousing racist opinions. So I'm sure there were a few who wrote in letters which began, "Dear Justice Log, you haven't properly shown how Mr. Heimlich meets the criteria for being a bad guy. Just because he's trying to straighten up the Justice League and thinks Kara's cat should be murdered like a, well, you know who. That doesn't mean he's not a nice guy who cares about and takes care of his own kind. Shame on you, mongrels."

"P.S. I, too, am surrounded by idiots so I don't see how this shows him to be a hateful man. Just — like all white men — exasperated!"

Jack the Lantern discusses the ongoing plan to make the Justice League believe Queen Bee shot Maxwell Lord with the person I assumed was Rumaan Harjavti in a previous issue of "Breakdowns." My mistake! The person who wants to dethrone Queen Bee and take the seat himself is Sumaan Harjavti! You can't blame me for getting it wrong when he looks nearly identical, has never said his first name until now, and dead people come back to life in comic books all the time. Sorry if that sounded a bit pissy. I can get a little defensive when a comic book tries to make my past blog posts read as if my reading comprehension were still only at a 7th grade level. I haven't had that low of a reading comprehension since 11th grade, dammit! You're now looking at a man with a 9th grade reading comprehension, baby!

As far as the return of Captain Atom to the Justice League, it turns out Captain Atom isn't allowed to turn into Captain Atom anymore. Also, the plane he and Inspector Camus travel home by has a slight mishap on the way.

Welp. They're dead.

I know they're not really dead because Captain Atom has to survive to become Monarch in the upcoming Zero Hour event. I mean he was supposed to become Monarch but every single fan guessed Monarch's identity really early in the event and DC couldn't live with that so they would eventually reveal Hank Hall (Hawk of Hawk and Dove) was Monarch. But then later, Captain Atom would become Monarch because, well, I guess they still had some post-Zero Hour scripts lying around that relied on Monarch's identity being the one they initially had planned. Since Atom and Camus obviously live (well, Atom obviously does, anyway), one of two things happened to save them (or him). Captain Atom broke his word and becomes Captain Atom to save himself (and maybe Camus and the pilot (but probably not the co-pilot or the flight attendants)). Or Camus uses his magic because I suspect he's just a French version of John Constantine. If he isn't, I'll be severely disappointed. Who wouldn't want a French John Constantine running around the DC Universe?

Herr Heimlich conducts interviews for the Justice League America team in this issue. First up is Martian Manhunter who easily keeps his position. Next up is General Glory who Heimlich seems to admire but winds up putting on probationary status. I think the joke is that General Glory goes into a long-winded story about his adventures in World War II which aggravates Heimlich. But I think the real reason is in this panel at the end of his story.

General Glory refers to Nazis as "monsters."

Based on the way Gerard Jones depicted Heimlich, I'd have thought Heimlich would have despised General Glory immediately. But Heimlich acts as if he looks up to and admires General Glory. Maybe the two writing teams didn't fully compare notes this early in "Breakdowns" and Giffen, in his story breakdowns, wasn't entirely clear on how much of a Nazi Heimlich was. Perhaps Giffen described him as a Nazi and Jones took it literally while DeMatteis thought it was more metaphorical.

I should correct something I said earlier because I would really hate it if readers actually think I only have a 9th grade reading comprehension. I don't mind if they think I love domestic violence or kick guinea pigs over buildings. Those are misinterpretations of the text that I can live with! But for readers to think I can't comprehend what I read?! I super comprehend everything! At well above a 9th grade level! I'm so good at comprehending stuff that when I read The Bible, I understand it better than anybody ever has before me! I just pick it up casually and I'm all, "Oh, this whole Onan story isn't about masturbation at all! It's about breaking contracts and disrespecting your father!" And then I'm all, "Why does the point of view of the story revolve around Abraham when Sarah seems to be the one in charge and her name means 'to rule' and later when Jacob gets renamed to "Israel," couldn't that be translated as 'to rule through God'? I think a bunch of men wrote this to destroy the matriarchy! All these religions should be called Sarahamic instead of Abrahamic!" Hmm, I don't know. Does that one make it seem like I have terrific reading comprehension or a fantastic imagination? Enh, I don't really care! This is a comic book blog, not a Bible blog! Boring!

It's also not just comic books! I saw Memento once and completely understood it on a level that most people probably still don't understand it because they just think, "Oh, I totally figured out the direction of the plot. Easy peasy!" I also understood Lost Highway after just one viewing. And "Night-Sea Journey" by John Barth? Totally realized the narrator was a sperm without anybody telling me! So much better at comprehending things than my high school friend Soy Rakelson! If you don't believe I'm as clever as I'm portraying myself to be because most of these comic book blog entries are idiotic pabulum, read my review of Ayn Rand's Anthem! It's super genius!

Even a Nazi will sometimes make some sane and rational arguments.

Heimlich fires Beetle from the League for all the reasons everybody pretty much suspected: he doesn't take anything seriously, he has no actual powers, and he's out of shape. Although check out his pectoral muscles. Me-ow! No fatty tit-tits for Ted! Just pure muscled manscape to smear mama's slippy love lube over.

Speaking of fatty tit-tits (I didn't say I didn't love them), Fire interviews next.

What the creative team implies has me thinking, "Am I a feminist if this scene gave me a boner?"

The previous page suggests that Blue Beetle could have retained his job if he'd really fucking wanted it. But not Ice. She ain't sucking no dick for an easy paycheck.

Guy Gardner walks into the chopping block next but survives. I think. Guy spends five panels bragging about his abilities and then Heimlich says, "GAKKKK." His hair flops down and he collapses on his desk. I'm not sure what that means. Perhaps during Guy's incessant self-fellatio, Heimlich was holding in the semen Fire snowballed into his mouth and he finally spit it out? The scene ends at that point so I guess he didn't die or anything. Does this scene make more sense if you're one of those idiots who doesn't like Guy Gardner? Do those people infer that Heimlich just got sick listening to Guy's honest assessment of his own abilities? I'd rather believe the semen thing.

Sorry, Guy. I'm all-in on you but even I don't get your drift.

"Marshmallow Manhunter" makes no sense but it's a great fucking line.

Up next: Ice. She used to have "Maiden" in her name but I think Guy Gardner fucked it off of her. Now that I think about it, was I supposed to think the band Iron Maiden was chaste?

Ice also loses her job for exactly the reason I mentioned earlier: she's just too nice. And I guess she doesn't suck the dick of old men just to keep her job. Maybe I'm being too disgusting and misogynist about Bea's interview. Maybe she beat the shit out of him and threatened to kill his entire family if he didn't let her keep the job. And that's why he passed out at the end of Guy's interview: internal bleeding. You know what? That's a better story and more accurately reflects Fire's personality. How dare this creative team try to make me think Fire sucked this asshole's dick! Fucking jerks!

"Stupid Six" was the alternate title for I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League.

Being that the League just lost two members, Heimlich has hired two more members: Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light. I don't want to be too critical of these choices but they're a bit underwhelming. I get that Tasmanian Devil makes sense because he's an ex-Global Guardian which will add some drama as the two teams come into conflict during this story arc. Also, he's a member of the barely mentioned and probably still mostly destroyed Justice League Australia. And Doctor Light was a member way back in the beginning but barely did anything before deciding to leave. Did a Doctor Light solo series come out around now? Why else would she be back on the team except to try to sell more comics?! Maybe she's here for plot reasons and there will be a moment where only a hero with light powers can save the day. And maybe Tasmanian Devil is here to suck the dicks that won't respond to Bea.

I would scan the panel with the introduction of Tasmanian Devil and Doctor Light but they look awful and I hate it. Although, what else am I going to do? Describe it to you with my horrendous ability to put words together in a manner that would evoke the image? I'm way too lazy and untalented to do that! Thank God for scanners!

They look like they both had to suck an old man's dick to get the job.

I've gone a little dick sucking heavy on this one. I promise that's the end of it. Unless you want more? Do you want more dick sucking? Do you?! Who's my little dick sucker lover? Is it you? Oh, you're so cute!

If you can't stand the joke about sucking an old man's dick, just replace the above caption with this one: Doctor Light looks like she just got off a log flume ride.

Ralph Dibny winds up in New York to hire Blue Beetle and Ice for his new team: The Ex-Men! Or is Justice League Ex better? Ralph's name is just Ex-Justice League. This was written in 1991 so that easily reads as "Extreme Justice League!" Now with loads of square guns, bandoliers, and pockets! Ralph takes them, via teleporter, to the Justice League London Embassy where brain-damaged Sue Dibny, wife of Elongated Man, waits for them.

I think Jean Loring has already made a few experimental forays into Sue's brain.

I'm not sure my "reviews" express how much I enjoy some aspects of this comic book when the creators get the tone right. They sometimes rely too much on shallow aspects of each character's personality for some dumb jokes. But when they go full blown whimsical with the characters having fun, I'm all in. Like these panels which made me laugh.

I find it truly adorable the way Blue Beetle easily slips into Ralph's goofiness.

Ralph and Sue take Ted and Tora to Crimson Fox's penthouse apartment in London/Paris. She's waiting there with Captain Atom and Inspector Camus who somehow survived their plane exploding. I imagine we'll be getting a quick flashback or explanation as to how this happened and I hope it involves some French magic.

If Captain Atom had a dick, Sue would definitely be sucking it.

I once dreamed that I would become a writer as respected as Vladimir Nabakov but then I remembered most of his novels didn't include dick sucking. And the one that did involved a pedophile. So then I decided to be more like John Barth. At least he had that one scene where Giles Goatboy fucks the woman in the sun dress when she bends over a desk. Weird that I can barely remember anything from that novel other than using the university system as a metaphor for the universe and the Goatboy sexually assaulting a woman in a sun dress. But I just wasn't smart enough. After that, I decided maybe I was more like Steinbeck but then I cry-laughed for five hours winding up out of breath and wiping the tears from my face as I said aloud to nobody, "Good one, Tess." Eventually I decided I was more of a masturbator and a cat owner than a writer and my life really took off from there.

It's a good thing DC Comics can't sue itself or else there'd be a huge Constantine/Camus plagiarism case involving Alan Moore and Keith Giffen. Even if DC could sue itself, Alan Moore probably wouldn't give a shit as long as he kept getting Constantine royalty checks and Giffen probably wouldn't testify out of pure terror of having a black magic spell cast at him. What I mean by "black magic spell" in the context of Alan Moore is just a long, withering look and a string of derogatory epithets hurled in Keith's direction. Being that Alan Moore believes language itself is a spell (and I fucking buy into his explanation. Probably because his explanation was a spell to make me buy into it), Keith Giffen would probably wind up killing himself after such a verbal assault. I mean black magic spell.

Back in New York, Tasmanian Devil gets to know his new team.

After that punch, I wonder what Guy's new personality will be?

I forgive Tasmanian Devil for punching a poor brain-damaged Guy Gardner because Guy really was being racist here (to the extent one can be racist against Australians. I'm not totally convinced that's a thing) and because Tasmanian Devil almost certainly doesn't know about the brain damage. Whereas Batman definitely knew what the fuck he was doing and probably planned on hitting Guy just right to make him stop being an asshole.

I know Guy's personality only changed after he banged his head on the console but most people still think it was the one-punch from Batman so can you Actually Nerds just understand how sometimes, as a writer on the Internet, I have to play to the majority of dolts out there? Just give me this one for once!

Tasmanian Devil knocking out Guy in one punch was way more satisfying than when Batman did it and nobody ever talks about it. Also check out Devil's ass. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

I have one question about Guy getting sucker punched all the time. Isn't his ring supposed to keep him safe from dangers that he's not even aware of? Shouldn't it be shielding him from these punches? Or is the ring a little snarky asshole who understands these punches won't kill Guy and also that he deserves them? Like when you're hanging out with your one friend who can be a real irritating asshole and he gets himself in a fight with a bunch of other guys and you don't help him out because you're busy shrugging and saying, "What did you think was going to happen, Larry?"

Back in London or Paris, Captain Atom tells his plan to the rest of the new Ex-Men team: they're going to invade Bialya! Again!

Justice League America #54 Rating: B+. This issue was a lot of fun and also the art was wildly inconsistent. But when it was good, it really licked my aesthetic rim. Sort of cartoony with a style that pops. One thing Chris Wozniak loved doing was the big smile full of white without the hint of individual teeth which reads a lot like animation. It's also the exact opposite of what Rob Liefeld would do which might be one reason I found it charming. I'd rather have no teeth and a big white space than ten thousand gritted molars surrounding two canines. I'm not sure how much the various plots advanced in this issue but I also didn't think about that until just now. That means I was too entertained to give a shit about plot movement and that might be my biggest compliment to anything created to distract me from thoughts of death and to, for even a small amount of the day, keep my brain from playing songs in the background. I think I might be going slightly crazy because I always have a fucking song going in my head now. Even when I'm thinking about something, it's like music playing in the background but the background is deep in my skull. I hope this doesn't end in some astonishingly ugly mental crisis situation. Or maybe I do? I could use some time off in a place where other people are paid to take care of me.