Justice League Europe Annual #2 (1991)

Is this an early version of Morrison's Seven Soldiers of Victory? (Obviously the three Legionnaires count as one soldier.)

Oh, this could also be an early version of Demon Knights! With the proper writer (and Moritat as artist again? Yeah?), that could be a fantastic book, although I wouldn't mind General Glory being replaced by somebody, maybe John Constantine, or if they need to be more of a one-to-one replacement for a Lawful Good goody-two-shoes, maybe Stargirl? And obviously Elongated Man needs to be replaced by Detective Chimp. I wrote "obviously" but if there's a much stronger word that means the same thing, you can replace "obviously" with that. Maybe that word is saying, "Obviously! Duh! What are you? A moron?!" Some of you might be thinking, "What about that '50s era Dick Van Dyke lookin' cowboy?" And I'd have to say, "Oh, we keep Bat Lash! If for nothing else then I've read his Who's Who entry about six hundred times (which, coincidentally, is also why we're keeping Anthro!)" Other than this annual and the "B" issue of Who's Who, I'm not sure I've ever read a Bat Lash comic book. Unless he had a Secret Origins issue.

This issue begins with Justice League Europe and Justice League America all crammed into the little room where Justice League America were all touched by Waverider in their annual. But Waverider is off fucking around somewhere else. Which is super convenient for anybody who has been paying attention to Armageddon 2001 because Captain Atom is at this meeting. But before Justice League Europe head back to the London Embassy where Superman brings Waverider to touch everybody, Captain Atom fucks off. Yeah! Imagine that! The guy who turns out not to be Monarch just happens to avoid getting his future read by Waverider! What I mean to say is the guy who was supposed to be Monarch but winds up not being Monarch due to non-story-related issues but who probably would have been found out to be Monarch at the beginning of this annual if Waverider had only managed to infiltrate this room while both teams were there (assuming the editors hadn't already changed their mind about Captain Atom being Monarch at this point, is what I mean).

You know what? I'm just confusing everybody who was too young to read this "Summer Event" off the shelves. But all y'all who were there, you know what I'm talking about! We all fucking knew Monarch was Captain Atom! You couldn't fool us, DC! At least not until you fooled us by saying, "Surprise! Hawk is Monarch! I bet none of you idiots guessed that because none of the clues pointed to Hawk because it wasn't supposed to be him! Ha ha! Got you, you fucking tools! Thanks for blowing all your summer job money on this garbage! Choads!"

I'm finally in the right mood to read this comic book and that mood is "apoplectic at DC." How dare I imagine them talking to me that way?!

Waverider has learned a little thing called "consent" since the Justice League America annual.

Some of the heroes are a bit concerned about learning their futures. For good reasons because the two characters the creative team choose to show their concern are Crimson Fox and Blue Jay. Giffen and Jones probably chose them because they realized they were the two characters with the least chance at any future success in the DC Universe.

I don't know what eventually happens to Crimson Fox but Blue Jay, you're killed by that jerk standing behind Crimson Fox in twenty-five years or so.

Look at Wally's smirk in that caption. It's like he remembers killing Blue Jay at the Recovery Center For Sad Heroes in a few decades from now. And knowing how mixed up The Flash is in time travel nonsense, he probably does remember it!

The first person Waverider touches is Catherine Cobert even though she's not a hero. My guess at Catherine's future is that she fucked Captain Atom a ton and eventually developed super powers from all the radioactive cream pies she received.

Catherine's life hasn't changed much in ten years which is probably the most realistic story DC has ever done. She's still at the same job, still moaning about taking care of a bunch of arrestedly developed heroes, and wishing her sex life were better. One of DC's clues as to who Monarch was should have been Catherine thinking about how much she wanted to fuck him.

Speaking of Monarch, he wasn't a factor in any of the Justice League America futures. Shouldn't the heroes who didn't turn out to be Monarch at least be complaining about the new fascist hero making authoritarian waves? But not one word! Does he come out of absolutely nowhere in 2001? If I'd recently read Armageddon 2001, I'd probably know the answer to that.

Silver Sorceress is in Waverider's vision so he's apparently not very good at predicting the future.

Kara's cat is still alive in 2001 so that's some good news. Although Silver Sorceress is as well so I shouldn't get too excited about seeing the cat alive. Waverider's vision ends when Catherine witnesses the Justice League London Embassy disappear in a puff of smoke. He cuts contact from Catherine while acting really concerned about what he saw but then offers her no explanation about his reaction. So now she has to assume she's dying of Captain Atom Cream Pie Cancer in ten years.

Next up is Rocket Red. Waverider's vision of Rocket Red begins as Rocket Red suddenly appears in Camelot. Which isn't ten years ago but I suppose Waverider's power, attuned to the person he touches, simply displays where they're at ten years from now. And so what if that happens to be a fictionalized version of Great Britain thousands of years ago? I say "fictionalized" but this entire DC Universe is "fictionalized" and Camelot actually exists within it. King Arthur mistakes Rocket Red for the greatest knight he has ever seen. Merlin is super jealous although I think, judging by the tent in Arthur's royal robes, Gwenhwyfar should be the jealous one.

I used one of the Welsh spellings for the Queen and since I had to look up how to spell any version of her name anyway, I chose the one I liked best. Also King Arthur wasn't depicted with a boner. If he was, I'd have scanned in the panel for proof. Although if I weren't reading an annual which is already going to take me longer than it's worth, I'd have Photoshopped a boner onto King Arthur to prove he had one anyway. I'm not saying you can't trust anything I say but, well, just don't. I'm a fucking liar. So I guess I am saying that. You can't trust anything I say.

You might wonder why I would lie for no reason about a thirty year old comic book I'm reading. But I'll tell you exactly why: because I often admit really embarrassing stuff about myself on this blog and if I cultivate a facetious, whimsical, and exaggerative personality, you won't know when I'm actually admitting to something true!

Is this an example of what the kids mean when they call me "salty"?

Not only do the tumblr kids call me salty, they also say I'm a pathetic edgelord! But I'll show them that I'm not an edgelord! I won't make a single dead baby joke in this entire review!

Dmitri has loads of Round Table adventures until Merlin, consumed with CAYKE, summoned Etrigan to have him killed.

No wait. CAYKE doesn't make any sense. Does that say ENVYE?

One less Rocket Red in the DC Universe won't bother anybody except the super nerds who somehow name Dmitri as their favorite character. Although if they're that super at being nerds, their favorite character is probably Rocket Red #7, the one that winds up being a Manhunter.

Power Girl is next. By now, the reader has probably realized that when the Embassy disappeared, Justice League Europe was scattered throughout time. Power Girl winds up in London during the blitz. Judging by the missiles crashing down around her, Slothrop fucked somebody right where Kara appears.

Power Girl runs into General Glory and his sidekick, Eddie. A building falls on Eddie, killing him, probably because he kept having impure thoughts about Power Girl's powers. For some reason, Power Girl winds up becoming General Glory's new sidekick, with the Guy Gardner haircut and everything. At this point, I'm seriously doubting Waverider's ability to see into the future. Pretty sure when he touches somebody, a random piece of fan-fiction about that character loads into his brain, deluding him into believing he's seeing the future. No wonder this idiot figures out Hank is Monarch when it's obvious Captain Atom was!

Metamorpho winds up in the future getting a drink with Jonah Hex. Remember when Jonah Hex wound up in the future post-Crisis-on-Infinite-Earths in a comic book called Hex? Now why didn't I read that series? I guess I didn't know how much I loved Jonah Hex in 1985.

Next, Waverider touches Silver Sorceress resulting in three blank pages. Because she's dead in 2001. Hell, she's dead in 1991. She just doesn't know it yet!

Remember how I lie all the time? Apparently Giffen and Jones didn't know Silver Sorceress would be dead well before 2001 also. She actually winds up back in prehistoric times being hit on by a cave woman.

"Nima alunda Sorceress. Zug zug?"

Crimson Fox goes next and winds up in the American Frontier with Bat Lash. I sense some hot sex coming up. Pages and pages of it. So many dirty, filthy pages. Except Waverider doesn't tune in to my Crimson Fox/Bat Lash fan-fiction and instead they just run around getting shot at. Boring.

Blue Jay is up next but we all know his future so let's skip ahead a few pages.

Ralph Dibny winds up in Victorian London, teleporting right on top of Moriarty and pissing Sherlock Holmes right off. So much so that he doubles down on his heroin use. But the rest of the social elite love the way his neck grows. Finally, an audience that isn't sick to death of looking at his grotesque displays of elongation.

Just as Waverider is wrapping up his terribly thought out investigation, Captain Atom wanders in. Oh boy! Time for Waverider to discover the identity of Monarch! But before he can touch Captain Atom, the cat rubs up on Waverider's ankles and he sees the cat's future. Kara's cat's future explains why everybody wound up in various places throughout time. Waverider also realizes that Elongated Man, with the help of H.G. Wells' time machine, is able to hunt them all down and return them to 2001. So Waverider, realizing the whole adventure amounts to absolutely nothing, scares Mr. Big into shutting down his spy electronics in the cat's eye which will prevent any of this time travel nonsense from ever happening. After all that's figured out, Waverider touches Captain Atom and the story ends to be concluded in Armageddon 2001 #2! Because he's going to find out that Captain Atom is Monarch! Or that Captain Atom is the only person who can stop Monarch or who knows who Monarch is or whatever. Imagine how much of Armageddon 2001 #2 the writers and artists had to change after editorial began running around DC's offices screaming, "Everybody knows! We need to surprise them! Make up something else that doesn't make any sense! Step on it, you assholes!"

Justice League Europe Annual #2 Rating: No rating. I don't rate annuals. I don't even talk intelligently about comic books! I readily admit these aren't actually "reviews"! They're just read-alongs where I make snotty comments about terrible art and awful writing! And I rarely praise any of the creators who deserve to be praised because I'm a stingy, self-hating, low self-esteem piece of shit who offers nothing valuable to society at all. Are you happy now, Cullen Bunn?! You were right! I fucking suck!

That was more lying! If anything, I love myself too much, probably!

Justice League America Annual #5 (1991)

Guy Gardner looks like if Burgess Meredith, as an old man, was one of the Little Rascals.

Jesus Christ that caption! I'm sorry for every time I complained about your super fucking old references, Giffen and DeMatteis!

Based on Max Lord being hooked up to oxygen on this cover, and being that I'm as smart as Sherlock Holmes, I'm guessing this Annual took place during "Breakdowns." I'm reading it after finishing "Breakdowns" because I've been averse to re-reading the Annuals and the Quarterlies. They just contain too many pages! Plus this should really be read with all the other Armageddon books. I have Past Me to thank for none of the big event books ever being stored together. They're just scattered all over, some with the series they belong with and others just in random places because I never read the series they go with in the first place. I hate that I bought into this shit every summer! It was so expensive! Two whole dollars for this book! Outrageous!

I'm pretending I can see the faces of the younger generation right now who pay sometimes up to six whole dollars per book. That's not outrageous. That's fucking criminal. You can be reading a whole damn used book for that price! Sure, it doesn't have all the pretty pictures but you get way more value out of it. People always like to compare modern prices with prices from the past by running them through some sort of inflation calculator but let me tell you: no matter what an inflation calculator says $2.00 from 1992 is worth now in 2023, it was still way easier to buy a $2.00 comic than a $6.00 comic. Plus there were more pages: twenty-four versus the twenty you get now. Unless you get less? I have no idea. During The New 52, each comic was 20 pages which pissed me off at first. But then when I realized I had to write about every single one of them, I was glad for the lighter load of work.

If I remember Armageddon 2001 correctly (and I suspect I don't, memory being what it is and LSD doing what it does), the story was that some evil despot named Monarch was going to take over the world and murder all of the other heroes by 2001. That despot was an unknown superhero from 1991. A being named Waverider came back in time ten years to ferret out who the culprit would be and to stop them before they turned villainous. I won't spoil who Monarch turned out to be here because Waverider won't find him in this group of heroes. But it was Captain Atom. Just kidding! It was actually somebody else. Just kidding again! It was definitely Captain Atom except DC changed it part way through the story because all of the fans were casually discussing how Monarch was obviously Captain Atom. So I was kidding?

Anyway, how Waverider would discover who was probably Monarch was to divine their futures. But he was only divining possible futures so it wasn't really that effective. What it was effective for was creating a whole bunch of Elseworlds stories and What-Ifs! So much fun! Let's see what Waverider learned about these chowderheads.

Dramatic ironically, Waverider takes the form of Captain Atom so he can touch all the other heroes without raising their suspicions. No wait. It would only be "dramatic irony" if everybody reading the comic already knew Captain Atom was Monarch but nobody in the comic book did. Oh wait! It was dramatic irony because everybody reading this comic book had already figured out Captain Atom was Monarch! Unless the dramatic irony only rears its dramatic head now in 2023 as I read this knowing that Captain Atom didn't become Monarch which means I knew something the audience at the time thought they knew but ultimately did not (because DC editors cheated).

I'm confused. Let's just see what happens when Waverider touches J'onn J'onzz. Not like that, you pervs. They just shake hands!

In 2001, Martian Manhunter has become a guru high up in the Himalayas where he doles out wisdom to those who sacrifice everything in the attempt to reach him. One man, in Waverider's vision, ascends to the temple and asks J'onn the meaning of life.

I buy it.

J'onn obviously isn't Monarch and nobody would have expected him to be anyway. He's pretty much the only decent hero on Earth, aside from maybe Wonder Woman and Halo.

The next member of the League Waverider comes in contact with is Guy Gardner. Now there's a good candidate for Monarch! He's angry and filled with issues that he never confronts. Surely some day all of his trauma that he keeps bottle up inside will explode outward and he'll become an inhuman monster. Or more of an inhuman monster, I mean.

Guy's a girl?

That isn't really Guy, just a member of his cult. But it could have been Guy if Waverider missed the mark by 1000 years and was seeing the year 3001!

Guy's a girl!

In 2001, Guy has thousands of followers who all act like him and get their hair cut like him. He also loves fucking women who look just like him. Hey, I get that! I always knew Guy and I had a lot in common! At the big Guy Gardner rally (whose purpose isn't expressed. I guess to feed Guy's ego?), he's hit in the head with a sandbag from the rafters, cut by some mysterious person! This obviously turns him into Nice Guy Guy Gardner who his fans despise. His downfall is swift and I assume he's killed at the rally. So it must have been Monarch who cut the sandbag.

Waverider touches Blue Beetle next. Instead of seeing nothing at all since Blue Beetle has been murdered by Maxwell Lord by 2001, he sees a fat, balding Blue Beetle sitting in a tiny apartment watching television. As if Blue Beetle could ever be Monarch! He doesn't even have any super powers! How is he going to kill all the other heroes? I mean, Batman doesn't have any powers either and I wouldn't assume Batman couldn't be Monarch. But then I respect Batman.

I never thought I had what it takes to be a super hero until reading this panel.

Blue Beetle's life has gone to shit. He lost the rights to his own super hero name, tried to become the Stupendous Silverfish, and was laughed at by criminals due to his stupid costume and his flab. Bold call in 1992 by Keith and J.M. to know you could still laugh at fat people in ten years time. They probably assumed that would never change having spent their entire lives immersed in American pop culture where anytime a fat character was on screen, they were double fisting high calorie snacks and had chocolate smeared on their faces. Ha ha! What a great joke! What a time to be alive!

After realizing Beetle becomes too much of a loser to be Monarch, he moves over and touches Ice's inner thigh. Isn't Waverider worried that this inappropriate touch could be what sets everything in motion for Captain Atom to become Monarch?! He should be more careful! By the time he touches Captain Atom, he's going to see how his life fell apart when Ice sued him for sexual harassment and then Sue Dibny arranges to kill herself by having Jean Loring stomp all over her brain so that nobody finds out she's dying of cancer after fucking Captain Atom but that plan falls apart too because Waverider messed with the timeline! People say even the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can create a hurricane so why can't touching the inner thigh of an ice goddess bring about the destruction of every DC hero?

In 2001, Ice is living alone in a small cottage with a dozen cats. So she made it! She's living the dream! The only problem is she hears about Guy's accident and how he was struck on the head. She rushes out to find him, knowing he'll be sweet and kind and asexual Guy Gardner. Why she loves that one, I can't fucking guess.

I wish this were a scene between Batman and Superman.

Waverider's vision is broken because Ice reacts to his forwardness.

Oh, I know what you felt! The same thing I feel when I get a boner!

Darn. Waverider probably learned he shouldn't touch the heroes so close to their no-no zones. That's too bad because I was hoping he was going to read Bea's future via contact with the inside of her butthole! Finger or tongue. Hell, I'd take a toe even!

Waverider approaches Fire next thinking about how beautiful she is and how that translates to her being the hero he most admired. Sounds like it's butthole exploration time!

Fire touches Waverider's chest and he sees her future. She's at Tora and Guy's wedding with her date, Oberon. Oberon asks her to marry him just as Ted Kord comes barging into the church to kick Bea's ass. It was her company who bought the rights to Blue Beetle and sued him to keep from using the name. He's so angry that he just might be Monarch! Except he's still just a powerless loser so nobody reading this comic book was thinking anything other than, "Monarch is Captain Atom. I fucking know it. All the clues point directly at him!"

Booster Gold arrives and Waverider reads his future next. But he shoots way past 2001 and reads Booster's future when he returned to the 25th century (or whatever time he's from) after he lost everything going into business with Ted. But while looking at all the displays in the super hero museum's 20th Century exhibit, he realizes something terrible happens to Blue Beetle in 2001. It's not revealed because Keith and J.M. want the readers to think Ted might be Monarch but instead of thinking that, we're all thinking, "I wonder if Ice and Fire every kiss while naked?"

Booster decides he has to go back in time to save Ted and realizes only Maxwell Lord can help him. Oh man! Maybe he read how Maxwell Lord shoots Blue Beetle in the face!

Sorry, no scans for Booster's future. We've got to move along quickly here! Chop chop!

Scott Free, Mister Miracle, is next although does anybody really care about that? He's retiring and passing on the mantle in 1991. Shouldn't Waverider be touching his protégé, Shilo Norman? Maybe it doesn't matter since Shilo Norman and half a dozen other Mister Miracles appear in Waverider's vision. Maybe because Waverider's abilities causes him to focus on the hero that is most likely to become Monarch, Scott's future vision is mostly about Blue Beetle and the trouble he's causing. He's been arrested for attacking Fire at Ice's wedding and now everybody thinks they're responsible for rescuing him. Sure would have been nice if they thought about rescuing their friend when he was down on his luck, lonely, and depressed.

Next up is General Glory. Why? Won't his alias, Joe Jones, be dead in ten years?

Well, he's ready to die but stupid Max convinces him to become General Glory again.

The General Glory vision becomes a Justice League vision as it's mostly about Maxwell Lord getting the Justice League back together and working for the United Nations again. The new team consists of General Glory as the leader and his sidekicks Guy Gardner, Ice, Aquaman, Booster Gold, Blue Beetle, and two women I don't recognize. Beetle is still fat but I guess he didn't become Monarch or kill himself? Whatever was happening with him, I guess Booster Gold, Mister Miracle, Oberon, and Big Barda saved him.

Oh wait! There's one vision left: Maxwell Lord! This vision fills in the gaps of the effort to save Blue Beetle. Booster talks Max into mind controlling Bea to drop the charges and then he figures he might as well force her to hand over part of her business and then he decides to convince General Glory to lead the new JLA and then he almost certainly uses his power to get all of the new members to cut their hair like Guy Gardner. What I'm saying is that Waverider learned Maxwell Lord is still a controlling jerk ten years later.

The next chapter in Armageddon 2001 takes place in the Hawk and Dove Annual but I won't spoil what Waverider discovers there. I mean, he discovers nothing because Hawk isn't Monarch at all. At least not yet!

Justice League America Annual #5 Rating: I don't rate these things! The thing I find most interesting about this Annual is how Booster Gold never mentions what Blue Beetle is going to do if Maxwell Lord doesn't help him out. It shines an interesting light on what eventually became DC continuity. What if Blue Beetle was going to do something even worse than become Monarch? What if Booster Gold knew Beetle needed to be stopped by any means necessary? And what if minor things can change in continuity but major things are much harder to change. So at some point in the future, Maxwell Lord learns he must stop Blue Beetle but many other events have transpired and he can't get General Glory back. Fire isn't running a corporation that bankrupted Beetle. Ice and Guy aren't married. What if the only resource at Lord's disposal was a gun? And Beetle absolutely had to be stopped? Maybe Max Lord teamed up with Brother Eye not to become all-powerful and a Monarch of his own sorts. Maybe it was all a ploy to kill Blue Beetle before he does the horrible thing Booster Gold saw he would do! I'm pretty sure that's what happened and Max Lord saved everybody by being a huge manipulative fascist dick!

Justice League America #62 (May 1992)

Covering Maxima's mouth when it's her eyes that shoot her psionic beams reeks of misogyny.

On the cover, Weapons Master uses the Green Lantern ring to cover Superman's eyes so he can't be blasted by heat vision. That makes sense. But he should then cover Superman's mouth to protect against his cold breath. Being that Weapons Master doesn't do that and instead chooses to cover Maxima's mouth, which is harmless, hints at a darker reason for what he's doing. If I only had one gag for these three people, I wouldn't even choose to put it on Superman. It's Guy Gardner whose mouth you want to shut up so you don't have to listen to his empty bravado! But this asshole chooses to stop the woman from speaking. I don't want to boil everything down to some guy being angry because he has a small penis because having a small penis makes a person a victim of "mainstream" society for nothing they had any control of. But it is a handy metaphor for a guy with low self-esteem who hates women because he fears rejection based on society's idea of what makes a man (i.e., the penis). Also, when a man says that a man who demonstrates some behavior he doesn't like has a small penis, he's actually proclaiming, "My penis is satisfactory." I don't want anybody making any assumptions about the size of my satisfactory penis so I won't blame Weapons Master's misogyny on having a small penis. If I did, it would just be as a metaphor anyway. But I feel that specific metaphor is harmful. Which is why I choose to use a different metaphor and say, "Weapons Master has a tiny empathic ability." Although that's not a metaphor; it's just a statement. Maybe our world needs to express things less in metaphor! Why lump nice guys with small dicks into the same category as the biggest jerk-offs on the planet? There are plenty of jerks out there with humongous penises and tight buttholes they don't deserve!

Wait. What was the tight butthole a metaphor for again? Oh, that's right! Being a prude! Never mind. I'm mixing my metaphors now! Let's just get directly to the point: Weapons Master, in choosing to gag the only member of this group that he has no reason to gag, makes a loud and clear statement about what he thinks of women. Unless it's just what he thinks of Maxima. She really gave him an ego drubbing in their previous encounter when she was all, "I'm the queen of everything and you're no Superman, you little dicked asshole!" That was Maxima using that disgusting metaphor! Not me! You can't blame me for writing character-driven dialogue!

When we last left the Justice League, they were being used as pawns in a "game" created by Weapons Master (unless the game was created by the three-eyed red alien from Justice League of America #1). I put the word "game" in quotes because it wasn't much of a game. Blue Beetle just had to put figures of the Justice League on a chessboard and hope he put them on Freedom Squares instead of Danger Squares. Pretty shit game, actually. So far Ice was placed on the game board in a Danger Square which transported her to a planet of lava where she's sure to die. Blue Beetle was pretty upset about this, according to the art.

He should have had a V-8.

Having taken Ice off the board in a failed effort to bring her back, Blue Beetle decides to place Superman on the square Ice's figure had been on. Superman is transported to lava world too and saves Ice's life. Then they fuck. Probably. It's what I'd do if I were Ice. For survival, I mean! Like when you're camping and a blizzard hits, you're supposed to get naked and cuddle up with your friends to conserve body heat. Well isn't the opposite also true in a total-lava environment? Ice and Superman need to get naked and cuddle so that Ice can keep their body temperatures down! Fucking is the only logical way to survive.

Look, you can try to convince me that two people can get naked together and not fuck but I won't be listening because I'll be imagining the two naked people fucking.

Weird. I thought Ice's vagina would have a lateral lisp.

Weapons Master gets upset with Beetle about the little stunt he just pulled. Maybe stick to guns and electrified nets, Weapons Master. I bet Games Master wouldn't have made this error!

Blue Beetle's next move is to put Booster Gold on one corner of the board and Maxima on another. In his head, he's experimenting to figure out more information about the board. In reality, he's just randomly placing his teammates on a dangerous device. I guess he figures if he gets the information he wants from this move, he'll be able to place Guy Gardner in the perfect spot to save the day. Or to make sure Guy dies? It's hard to guess at Beetle's motivations. Guy doesn't have his ring right now so it's the perfect time to get him out of everybody's hair forever.

Back in New York, Bloodwynd the absolutely, totally human magic-user confronts Maxwell Lord and Oberon. They're all, "How do you know so much about us? Are you telepathic like our old member, J'onn?" Bloodwynd is all, "I cannot say but I did find a clue telepathically from one of Weapons Master's weapons!" The clue points toward a mysterious yacht that probably hides a Dominator and Weapon Master's hot girlfriend. Sorry, young people, I don't know either of their names and resorted to reducing them to their race and gender!

The panels depicting Superman and Ice on the lava planet lead me to only one conclusion: Dan Jurgens is as hot for Ice as I am! I mean as I pretend to be! I'm going to show you two panels from this comic book and you are going to have to take a cold shower and try not to think about ice, no matter your sexuality.

I just have one thing to say: "Pudendum."

Booster Gold would kill to have that much of a bulge!

I've maintained for years that Ice has the sexiest outfit. Because it can do things like this!

Another huge plus of Ice's costume: extremely large fuzzy boot cuffs!

Superman tells Ice she needs to help herself stay cool because he somehow conveniently forgot about his frost breath. Unless he lost that power after Crisis. I can't keep any of that shit straight this many years out.

Ice makes a few "ice pebbles" which is cute if you like to picture them dribbling out of her butt like a farmyard goat (which I do). As she's dying in the heat, she asks Superman if he's married and then tells him her secret identity. This lava planet is making Ice one thirsty ho! Lois gonna have to beat the horndog out of her.

Back in the game room, it turns out that Blue Beetle's assumption that the opposite of the corners of the board would have some kind of connection is correct as Maxima and Booster Gold wind up on a strange planet together. To Maxima's dismay, really.

"The men of the Justice League are lucky Max Lord doesn't have a Human Resources Department," writes the guy who has been ogling Ice for the last five pages.

To be fair to myself (which we should all try to be extremely fair to because I'm a sensitive boy), I'd be ogling Booster Gold's crotch too if anybody would ever draw any kind of bulge down there. I'm guessing Dan will be the guy to do it. You can almost think he's attempting it in the above panels but it's really just the shine of Booster's glossy outfit and not a penis.

Maxima shoves Booster away and he gets angry and annoyed, yelling, "Hey! What gives, Maxima?" Maybe she doesn't need you constantly expressing how much you want to fuck her? At least not to her face. Save that shit for your LiveJournal, buddy.

No wonder all the women want to fuck Superman. The rest are a bunch of lechers.

Wally West has been nothing but a sex pest in Justice League Europe for the last three years. Blue Beetle and Booster Gold often fall all over each other hitting on any woman in their proximity (both have been pestering Maxima since she arrived). Even Ralph Dibny has been getting into the act. And Max Lord and Oberon can't be looked to as role models either! The only guys not sexually harassing their teammates on a near constant basis are Rocket Red (who is married (not that marriage matters, seeing as how Ralph is acting)) and Metamorpho (who is absolutely in love with Sapphire). Oh, and J'onn but if he were attracted to an Earth woman it would be weird. Like if I wanted to fuck the raccoons that come by my backyard at night. I do not want to fuck them, by the way. Just read my t-shirt that says, "I am not attracted to sexy raccoons."

I realize I didn't mention Guy Gardner because did I really need to mention that chauvinist? He's a given in this matter, right?

You know what? It's not only the men who have a problem in this League and a reason to get an HR Department set up posthaste. Crimson Fox and Catherine Cobert wouldn't get off Captain Atom's jock while he was still alive! I'm pretty sure Sue Dibny even fucked him in the janitor's closet in Issue #6 (and #7. And #3. And #13. Hell, every issue where Sue and Captain Atom aren't currently on-panel, really).

Weapons Master isn't much better as you'll see in the next panel. When do I stop attributing all of this pent-up sexual aggression to the characters and just start accepting, like everybody else already has, that comic book writers and artists are horny and lonely and can only gratify their sexual urges through their "art"? Like Weapons Master in that panel I mentioned!

"Light show," Beetle? Weapons Master is using the ring to create a stag film.

I can't believe I used the phrase "stag film." Where did I learn about pornography? From Happy Days?!

Maybe I shouldn't blame comic book artists for all of this weird expression of sexuality. I can't say that if I got a Green Lantern ring, I wouldn't first use it to make a bunch of naked women to have sex with. It's pretty much what The Fermata is all about! Nicholson Baker writes the most pornographic and rapey book he can imagine and yet it's maybe the best book about writing I've ever read. "Oh, I'm a writer who suddenly has the ability to stop time! I can get all the writing I want done at any moment! Except I'm mostly going to use all of this extra time jerking off."

Some of you might be pointing out he does quite a bit more than jerking off, like sexual molestation and assault. But that's just the metaphor! I was being literal about what keeps a writer from writing. I know the Internet itself is one of those things but The Fermata was written in 1994. At that time the two biggest distractions from getting your novel written were the urge to jerk off and your stupid cat demanding constant attention.

I just went to Goodreads to see what people are saying about The Fermata because it's full of sexual assault. I never thought it's main point was erotic fantasy. It's obviously a man taking advantage of women! But I always maintained it's a great book about writing. But on Goodreads, I didn't read one review that even mentioned it's a metaphor about writing. Did I not read enough reviews (probably?)? Everybody just seems to think either it's a gross book about sexual assault (it is!) or it's an awesome sexy fantasy about assaulting women (all the guys, probably!). Am I wrong that it's a metaphor about writers and how they allow themselves to be distracted so that, even if they could stop time, they'd still have excuses not to get to the writing? Was I super smart when I first read it back in the mid-90s or was I super dumb?!

You might also think, "Sounds like a pretty thin premise to justify a book full of sexual assault." But that's also kind of the point? Pages and pages and pages of Baker's writing are just him "jerking off." He's writing the most detailed descriptions he can of these sexual assaults, spending far too much time, using far too much of his writing ability, to describe page after page of these encounters. It's like an artist putting all of their effort in doodles because they're refusing to look at the real work set before them.

Weapons Master also makes himself a martini so I see he knows how to have a good time. He mentions Blue Beetle has two more pieces to move and that's when I finally remember Fire exists. Whoops! Sorry, Fire! I was too busy looking at Ice's underboobs to remember you!

Blue Beetle realized that when he placed a person's piece on the board, that person was able to interact with the environment for a few seconds before disappearing. So he plays Guy's piece hoping Guy has noticed too. Guy wakes up and calls his ring back to his finger. Guy doesn't warp to a strange planet but I don't know if that's because Beetle played his piece on a Freedom Square or the ring protected Guy. Whatever the case, Guy attacks Weapons Master who warps away only to return seconds later with a weapon that I presume can defeat Guy Gardner. Just like back in the JLA cave!

I'm supposed to believe Weapons Master doesn't have any weapons which shoot yellow bullets? Please.

Weapons Master retreats to his yacht where he has to kill the Dominator before it returns to Dominaria and reports to its superiors that Weapons Master sucks at fencing Green Lantern rings. I don't know if "Dominaria" is the name of the Dominion home planet. I do know it's the home of Prodigal Sorcerers, Grizzly Bears, and Savannah Lions.

Green Lantern's ring saves the other Justice League members by tracking their quantum particles or something. It's all done off-panel during the scene where Bloodwynd, having tracked down Weapons Master to his girlfriend's yacht, attacks.

"You may be fast but are you fast enough to interrupt this sentence with an amazingly long-winded threat somehow spoken in the instantaneous moment in which you warp away from me? Oh, you are."

Don't ask about Guy Gardner on the computer screen. I have no idea what's going on with that. Maybe Weapons Master has CCTV installed across all of his various pocket dimensions and lava planets.

Bloodwynd can't rescue the Justice League because J'onn J'onzz doesn't actually have magic powers. But he is able to disassemble Weapons Master's computer system, take it back to the Justice League Headquarters, plug it into their teleportation system, hire some hackers to write a program to communicate between the hardware, and eventually use the system to warp the team back home.

When the adventure is over, Max Lord announces that the Justice League have not only succeeded in their first mission which was really just the League defending Guy's ring from a thief but that they've gained two new members!

Max Lord telegraphing that these are diversity hires with, "They're certain to widen the group's appeal."

If they truly are diversity hires, that means Martian Manhunter is stealing the job that should have gone to Cyborg all these years ago! Fucking dick.

One last pic just to prove that Dan Jurgens is a professional comic book artist using the proof I mentioned in my Justice League Europe #37 review.

See? It took Dan until the last page but he got one of the female characters into a towel!

Justice League America #62 Rating: B. This two part story was satisfactory for introducing the new members of the League. It had all the usual beats of a team comic book. First they get defeated by the bad guy because they didn't work together and then they come together later, all using their particular talents, to defeat the villain. Aside from Fire who never moved from the table during the entire conflict. I guess Ice didn't do much but need saving. And Booster didn't do much but annoy Maxima with his crude suggestions. But Maxima helped because she cussed out Beetle when he put her piece on the game board! That helped Beetle realize that his teammates could act for a few seconds before being sent to some dangerous dimension. And because this wasn't a real mission and just a minor assault by Weapons Master that took place just before the League ever appeared all in one place together, I won't fault it for being a story where the villain attacks the League directly meaning no real "Justice" was served. So instead of the Justice League saving the world 0 out of 2 comics, I'll give them a pass on this one and start the tally next issue.

Justice League Europe #37 (April 1992)

Why does Europe get the better Leaguers?! Probably to make up for Aquaman.

April must have been "Parody Old Covers Month" at DC this year because this cover is a parody of Issue #9 of the original Justice League of America series. We've seen this cover referenced before in this comic book just six months ago in Issue #31 when Justice League International gets turned into trees by Loki. Here they're not exactly turning into trees. They seem to be turning into mutants or various instances of Edward Sextoyhands. The thing that strikes me most about this cover though is Kara's headband. Why did she add a headband to her costume?! Did she think it might distract from how terrible the rest of her new costume is? At least she's back to sporting a boob window. But everything else about it sucks a big fat Crimson Fox's left hand.

I don't know who Deconstructo is. Sounds like he should be battling Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol.

This issue is called "Changing" which is really clever because the first page shows all the women changing and also the entire team will later be changed into statues with toys that can pleasure even the most insatiable of nymphomaniacs. It also makes me think about how the artist has changed from Bart Sears to Ron Randall and I'm not happy about it at all. Not because I liked Bart Sears' art! I just liked it better than Ron Randall's!

Bart Sears would have had Kara's suit zip up from the front!

I don't actually dislike Ron's art more than Bart Sears. That was a joke which painted me as a pervert who prefers artists who love to draw their characters mostly naked. And I can't fault Ron on that when he drew Doctor Light in a towel. You're not a professional comic book artist if you can't figure out a way to get at least one female character in just a towel during an issue. Ron knocked it out of the park on this issue! I do think the colors are making his work seem a bit flat here. Hopefully Ron has seen what all those new kids at Marvel are doing with their terrible but kinetic art and he'll be inspired to liven this shit up. Or maybe it's just Randy Elliott's boring inks and Gene D'Angelo's flat colors?

Kara isn't being postmodern and speaking to the reader. She's talking to Ralph Dibny whom we learned was a total peeping peeper last issue when he was agog at Power Girl's back left shoulder. And now he's trying to get a peek at her naked back left shoulder! What a cad!

Sue nearly catches Ralph being the new sex pest in the League (since Wally declared he's giving that up last issue, I guess) when she hunts him down to remind him he's getting a new costume too. Unlike Power Girl, I don't think Elongated Man's new costume can be any worse than his current one.

Justice League Europe have moved back into the London Embassy for a few weeks as they figure out what to do next. While Sue was getting it ready for the team, she and Doctor Light stumbled on a vandal spraying graffiti all over the downstairs walls. Things like "Meaning is dead" and "A menu is as good as a myth" and "Going going gone!" and "No Art" and "No Heros" (his spelling!). Sounds like a right terrible nihilist and a villain from the Doom Patrol comic! Um, like I said earlier!

The vandal manages to steal a piece of alien technology Doctor Light brought by and uses it to teleport away. Unless he disintegrated himself. But probably not since he's now definitely Deconstructo.

Meanwhile, Crimson Fox questions Power Girl's reasons for the new costume that displays her tits.

If I wasn't so busy staring and drooling and tripping over myself, I might feel insulted.

I wonder what kind of window Ralph will have in his costume to show he's a healthy, strong man!

I'd be more convinced of Kara's reasons for the boob window if I didn't know men were writing and drawing this issue. The exchange between Kara and Doctor Light about her "mood swings" on the next page really doesn't come off well knowing that thing about men writing and drawing this issue.

What's the condition called, Doctor Light? Bossy Bitch Syndrome?

The only condition Kara is suffering from is Idiotic Coworker Syndrome. Of course she's going to seem like she has mood swings because Wally is constantly trying to fuck her, Ralph is constantly eye fucking her, Metamorpho is a gruff weird fucker, and Max Lord has almost certainly used his mind control powers to get her to flash him. It's a wonder she's been as calm as she has!

Mr. Paul, the new Justice League tailor, makes sure to casually ask the one member of the team that desperately needs a costume change.

It's not about vanity, Arthur. It's about the horrid orange and green combination.

Mr. Paul suggests a blue costume for Aquaman which Aquaman immediately shoots down because he tried it and it was somehow worse than this orange and green atrocity. Aquaman finally convinces Mister Paul that he doesn't need a new costume and Mr. Paul leaves the room steepling his hands and saying, "I'm sure you know best," in a really suspicious manner, almost as if he were in a Doom Patrol comic book and was creating underwear that eats the souls through the asshole of whoever wears them. Don't steal that, Grant Morrison!

Meanwhile, the "Deconstructionist" artist goes rampaging around London, upset that no gallery would display his art. If his graffiti is indicative of his artistic talent, I'm not surprised. He also goes around spouting bullshit that Ann Nocenti would have been proud to have written.

He ends his rant saying, "Language is a lie!" Which I would totally agree with if he had used a means other than language to communicate the sentiment.

Deconstructo seems to think saying things that don't mean anything means something. But since it can't mean anything, why even bother trying to communicate anything? He's like a young person on tumblr who once smelled a dictionary with a definition of "deconstruction" in it and now believes they're really good at deconstructing things but what they're actually really good at is stating the obvious and hating things for subtext they've projected into the art. Miscommunication may be at the center of what deconstructionism tries to express but simply misunderstanding things doesn't make you a deconstructionist.

Bruce Wayne happens to be at the United Nations fundraiser that the Justice League are helping with so that they can live at the embassy a little while longer. He acts like he doesn't understand deconstructionism so nobody will guess he's The Batman who knows everything. Mr. Rushkin, the man in charge of the event, totally falls for it, the dope! Bruce Wayne is all, "I'm fairly uneducated but I love superheroes! I just find them so fascinating because I could never be one. Ever! Not even The Batman! Boy, that would be funny, right? If Bruce Wayne were Batman! I'm not though! Don't deconstruct my dialogue and think you've discovered what I'm really saying in the words I'm not saying because the words I'm saying are perfectly clear: I am not The Batman!"

As Bruce waffles in side, Deconstructo stands outside shouting, "I'll show you the meaning of no meaning," which obviously makes no sense therefore it must be deconstructionism and/or written by Ann Nocenti. Obviously it makes sense that you can show somebody the meaning of no meaning. But his entire belief is that nothing means anything which means he can't prove that no meaning means any more than meaning. Because that would prove that meaning communicates something valuable in the fact that nothing of value can be discerned via the meaning of things! Better yet, deconstructionism is actually an attempt to better understand things by taking apart and studying the way language and words work within the context they're written or spoken in. So it isn't just that there's an ideal form of which we see only the shadow of it because the "ideal form" constantly shifts and changes meaning and definition based on the interplay of other shadows! It was never meant to be nihilistic, Deconstructo!

Deconstructo is hurting my head! I can't wait until Batman punches him in the nose and makes a clever Derrida pun. I am not Batman and not clever so I cannot think of one that doesn't sound embarrassing. Also I don't understand Derrida and Deconstruction no matter how much I've studied it in college! I can only pretend to understand it by pretending that I also understand Foucault, Nietzsche, Plato, and Saussure!

Sue, having taken Catherine Cobert's job as JLE liaison, introduces the new Justice League Europe at the fancy gala. The new roster is made up of Doctor Light, Aquaman, Power Girl, The Flash, Crimson Fox, and The Elongated Man. Two people in the crowd seem marginally impressed. Bruce Wayne is not one of them.

Sue took Catherine's job because Catherine was promoted.

Sue blabs to Bruce Wayne that Justice League Europe needs a leader and Bruce Wayne is all, "Oh, they do, do they? Like somebody who is resolute, unquestioning of his own purpose, nearly instinctive in his decisions, constantly alert, dresses like a bat?" And Sue simply thinks, "I want to fuck this man."

Deconstructo attacks by turning everybody and everything in the gala into nonsensical weirdness. So he's more Dada than Deconstruction, I'd think. But the word "Deconstruction" is nice because of its connotation of taking apart something that has previously been constructed. Did that sound smart? No? Fuck you.

Every member of Justice League Europe have no understanding of art and/or nonsense, so they fall to the ground and go, "Duh! What do we do? How is art?!" And then Batman arrives and he's all, "Use your mind, idiots. You can just understand things by using your mind. So dumb! The lot of you! Idiots!" Sue Dibny watches this happen and thinks, "I am fucking soaked!" I mean, "There's our new fuck buddy!" I mean, "The leader we've been dreaming of fucking!" Yeah, close enough.

Justice League Europe #37 Rating: B+. It was enjoyable and employed an antagonist who wasn't specifically going after the Justice League. Yes, he became a super villain because Doctor Light didn't secure her alien technology very well. So that's on them. But at least he took out his anger and frustration at the entire world because they could not understand his art. Hopefully he'll be defeated when Batman says, "Dude. Your art sucked. Just keep practicing, buddy. You'll find your message! You'll develop your style! Everybody's first sculpture of a sieve with melted action figures in winds up being a bitter disappointment! Just remember that your art has to say something on its own! If it can't stand alone and needs a manifesto to explain it to the audience, it's not fucking art. It's just a prop to sit next to your written message!" And then the kid will be all, "Yeah, you're right Batman! I'll keep at it and one day, I bet I'll have a piece hanging in Wayne Manor!" And then Batman will be all, "Don't fucking bet on it, you hack."

Justice League America #61 (April 1992)

They must be playing checkers because these pieces don't make sense for chess.

What do they mean by "The World's Greatest Heroes are back!"? The Justice League never went anywhere! This must be in reference to Superman meaning whoever wrote the copy on this cover doesn't think the members of the Justice League for the last 60 issues were too good. Or maybe it's a dig at Giffen and DeMatteis? Maybe this statement is supposed to convince readers that all that silly nonsense in the previous five dozen issues is over and this comic book is getting back to serious business! Or maybe it just means, "Look! We're recycling an old cover!" Fuck. I hope that doesn't mean Dan Jurgens is targeting the old fans in 1992 who grew up loving the ridiculous adventures of the '60s and '70s! Man, maybe I was wrong about Dan Jurgens. Maybe he doesn't write every story like it takes place in the '80s. Maybe he writes every story as if it takes place 20 to 30 years prior to the year he's writing it!

This issue is called "Born Once Again" which totally makes sense because the Justice League changes its line-up about every twelve to fifteen issues.

Guy Gardner sits around the JLA Cave fantasizing about how everybody will be taking orders from him from now on. The cave has been smashed to pieces behind him by the fight with Despero. It's a metaphor! The headquarters are in the same condition that the actual League is in. And the metaphor extends to Guy Gardner and his posture. While he sits around pouting and pretending he's in charge, he actually does nothing to put the League (or the cave!) back together.

A couple of non-greatest heroes arrive for the first meeting of the new League: Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. After that, Maxima flies in and the sexual harassment ramps back up. None of the male members of the Justice League can look at a woman and not think about fucking her. I mean, the thinking part isn't really the problem! Everybody sometimes sees somebody they're attracted to and has a little fantasy. But the guys in the Justice League can't keep their horny thoughts in their heads.

I suppose Maxima isn't helping when the first words out of her mouth are, "I must find a man to breed me!"

It looks like Maxima is going to be doing her own workplace harassment as soon as Superman arrives. Maxima has a bit of a Red Sonja vibe. Do all red headed women only fuck men who can beat the shit out of them? I should have asked Gail Simone's husband the last time I talked to him! Although the way she looked at him to shut the fuck up when he was saying to me, "You know Gail is friends with a lot of the people you write about. Although a lot of what you say is totally true!", I think I know who is brandishing the sexy whip in that bedroom. Also, that quote might not be verbatim. But the look was!

Elsewhere because, I'm assuming (I love to assume! Mmm, mmm! That's good u ass!), everybody got their wires crossed about where the first new Justice League meeting was taking place, Max, Oberon, Fire, and Ice meet with Superman.

I thought he was being a righteous scold here but according to Ice's panties, he's being super sexy, I guess.

I can't believe I keep typing "panties" on this blog! You know you can say "underwear" or "knickers" or just plain old "pants," right Tess? "Fuck you! I love panties!" my brain screams at me so loudly that I need to go lie down for a bit.

Ice and Fire ditch Max Lord and follow Superman to wherever he's going. They don't fucking care. I mean, they do care! That's why they're following him. Because Superman believes in the League and justice and helping people while Max believes in Max and Max and more Max. Judging by Max's dialogue, he seems to have reverted back to Justice League International #1 Max Lord. That makes sense since the story in Justice League Spectacular #1 was basically the same story as in the early Justice League International where Max hired the Royal Flush Gang to cause trouble while cameras rolled nearby and caught the heroes beating their asses. Although in Spectacular, it was Weapons Master who manipulated the Royal Flush Gang, I guess. I think the point I'm trying to make is that the Royal Flush Gang are a bunch of gullible nitwits.

Currently, the Weapons Master has accepted a job to steal Guy Gardner's Green Lantern Ring for a Dominator. So right off the bat, the Justice League will not be serving justice but simply protecting themselves from another super villain.

Using the information he gathered from sicking the Royal Flush Gang on the Justice League and spying on the ensuing battle, Weapons Master prepares his arsenal and attacks the Leaguers in the JLA Cave. He's not prepared for Maxima so he's momentarily thrown by her psionic powers. He recovers quickly seeing as how he has access to virtually any weapon or defensive item the writer needs him to have. He just warps the item out of some interdimensional storage bin as he battles.

Judging by Guy Gardner's pathetic attack, the entire universe save for Guy Gardner is aware of the ring's one flaw.

Booster Gold falls to some blades that send feedback through his force field. Blue Beetle falls because he has no powers at all and is practically useless. And Maxima simply gets punched in the face and knocked out. But not before Maxima's left outer labia maxima falls out of her costume.

Being an expert on female anatomy, I absolutely know what I'm looking at and have described it perfectly as her "left outer labia maxima".

Weapons Master gloats over his fallen foes long enough for Superman to walk in and paste him right in the face. Ice's panties take another hit while watching. I don't know what happens in Fire's nether regions. Do they steam and hiss when she gets sexually aroused?

I think I need to get out of the house and meet some real women because I absolutely thought Fire was going to say, "Maybe we should just change our panties."

I would apologize that my male gaze has seemingly taken control of this review but since my male gaze has taken control of this review, it wants me to tell you to suck it. I have a feeling I know what it wants you to suck but I am not going to ask outright.

Weapons Master gets beat up by Superman for a little bit as Superman pulls his punches trying to find the exact amount of force that will knock out Weapons Master but not kill him. This is the only reason Superman ever has trouble in a fight. Because he never knows how hard he can hit somebody without killing them. So he has to throw about a dozen punches to calibrate what strength to use. In the meantime, his opponent is absolutely just trying to obliterate him. So while Superman calibrates, Weapons Master manages to warp Superman out of the cave and, presumably, into Weapons Master's interdimensional storage container? After that, it's just a simply matter of throwing a net on Fire so that her fire goes out and presumably she winds up lying naked on the floor of the cave but the panel never shows her again because, well, presumably she's lying naked on the floor of the cave.

The last Leaguer standing is Ice! Surely she can come through where the others failed and save the day, right?! Ha ha! No, no. She gets knocked out easily. But before Weapons Master can retrieve Guy's ring, a brand new hero enters the cave! One that nobody has ever seen before and is totally not a Martian at all!

No, he just turned intangible and invisible and moved behind you. Might I suggest warping in a Zippo?

Does Dan Jurgens get creator credits on a character that is simply another character in disguise? I also wonder if Martian Manhunter got in trouble with the Magic Hero Union for scabbing as a magical hero?

Um, I mean, the new guy reveals his name is Bloodwynd and he's a sorcerer who channels the "plasma energies of the dead." Gross! Although I think it's really just heat vision.

I think this panel is where Brett Booth learned to draw legs.

Man, I'm such a professional! Look at me dissing Brett Booth and he isn't anywhere near this comic book! Take that, Booth! And learn to draw legs already!

Weapons Master warps himself and the entire Justice League (minus Bloodwynd who technically isn't in the Justice League yet) to one of his pocket dimensions where he props them up like dolls at a long table. The only one allowed to move is Blue Beetle who begins speaking like Batman from a '60s comic book. Is my theory about Dan Jurgens correct?!

The Comics Code Authority probably needed a few cynical youths on the team to point out how hilarious and filthy "You pulled a big boner" actually is.

So Weapons Master pulled Blue Beetle's big boner and now Blue Beetle is going to take care of Weapons Master. That's the kind of give and take that makes a good relationship!

Weapons Master challenges Blue Beetle to his weird game of chess. The rules are simple. Blue Beetle doesn't get to understand the game at all but must place the pieces on the board with no indication as to what any square will do. Some squares are freedom squares and some squares are danger squares. Beetle refuses to play which prompts Weapons Master to put Ice's piece on a danger square. She warps out of the room and onto a planet of fire and lava! Oh no! I think this game is rigged!

Be with us next time where we find out if Blue Beetle is a Chess Master or a Major Disaster!

Justice League America #61 Rating: B. Maybe I should start keeping a tally of how often the Justice League actually help the world in each issue now that they're starting over. We'll make this tally "0 out of 1." They haven't even actually formed as a group and they're already being attacked by super villains rather than helping to save the world. Good thing Superman had that speech earlier about how the world needs them! Which I guess was a decent Superman speech but his attitude when saying it was pretty fucked up. Ma Kent would not have liked to see her son being such a condescending jerk, even if it was toward Maxwell Lord. Plus he's already suffering from Writing Superman Syndrome. That's where a writer takes the character of Superman and instead of portraying Superman as an inspiration who is utterly invulnerable and thus can actually avoid violence in most cases, chooses to have Superman wade into battle with his fists flying and spouting off about how he's on the side of right simply because he's Superman. I guess I shouldn't expect much more from Dan Jurgens when he's the writer who is going to kill Superman by the end of this year via a cosmic fist fight. I mean, really? That's how Superman is killed? Via a brawl? Lex Luthor must have been so pissed off.

Justice League Europe #36 (March 1992)

Max Lord looks insane.

Oberon might be saying, "Hey Max! Everybody is leaving!" Or he could be saying, "Okay Max, Justice League America have left now. Let's get Justice League Europe's shot now! Metamorpho, you idiot, get back here!" Oberon doesn't yell at Crimson Fox to come back because she'd scratch his eyes out if he raised his voice to her. And nobody wants Ralph around anyway.

It's also possible that's a wax figure of Max Lord that the teams were admiring and then Blue Beetle farted.

This is the final part of "Breakdowns" (as you can see by the cover) but it's the first issue that Giffen and DeMatteis had no hand in writing. This one is all convicted sex pest, Gerard Jones! He does not pull the name of this story from "The Second Coming." Unless "Breakdowns: Postscript" is one of the lines I don't remember. I don't have the whole thing memorized like all the nerds who have glamourized that particular poem of his. I get that it's a cool poem with a big monster in it and a couple of lines that can be interpreted in your favor even when you're the passionately intense worst person.

Speaking of the worst person, here's a scan of part of Maxwell Lord's body by the current artist Chris Wozniak.

Calm down, ladies. It's just his finger. I think.

I just noticed there are online reviews of Yeats' "The Second Coming." Christ, the Internet is so fucking broken. "Five stars! Would read again. Makes it quite apparent that something is coming for a second time! Scary!"

I know I sound super old when I rant about this shit but the Internet has fucking sucked for so many years now. Like five sites that people visit (all social media shit), search engines that don't fucking work, and sites having to be designed for people looking at them on the tiniest screen imaginable. Everybody is using the greatest technology of our lives incorrectly. They "keep in touch" with friends via Facebook, they "share their lives" on Instagram, they get their "news" on Twitter, bully "celebrities" on tumblr, and "jerk off" to Pornhub. I don't know why I put "jerk off" in quotes. It just needed to fit the pattern, I guess. The way we're all supposed to be using the Internet is checking in on ten to twenty of our favorite websites on a daily basis to see if they've updated and then emailing our friends pictures of goatse via Squirrelmail. And those websites were pretty fucking specific! Bad Candy. Fat Chicks in Party Hats. Brunching Shuttlecocks's Ratings. Future Retard. Photoshop Phridays. Rotten.com.

Ugh. You know what? I never went to Rotten.com. My existentiality couldn't take it, man. I used to read random entries on Encyclopedia Dramatica (basically an Edgelord Wikipedia) until I stumbled across a gif of that guy who shot himself in the head over Björk (at least I think it was that guy). I won't describe what the gif showed although I'm assuming it was a low caliber pistol because blood and brains were not part of the gif. But I watched that gif run over and over again I don't know how many times, feeling sicker and sicker but unable to look away, somehow trying to capture the moment in his face where he simply stopped existing. tumblr likes to have a good laugh over online cursed images but they're usually talking about a paused scene in Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers where Dale's tail looks like a penis for a moment or some Make Me Cute photoshop creepy pasta. But I have seen a cursed image and it haunts me still to this day. I absolutely stopped reading Encyclopedia Dramatica after that. Like I said: my existentiality couldn't fucking take that shit.

Guy Gardner, General Glory, and Kilowog all quit the League. That leaves Max Lord with the lowest power levels the League has ever had (excluding that time Aquaman was leader and got half the team killed (or was J'onn leader then? Nah, better to blame it on Aquaman)). But they have one secret member nobody knows about yet!

Aww! Little L'ron has learned how to feel!

By the end of Max's little meeting to catch up with his team, he has nearly no team left. Despero in L'ron's body looks like his heavy hitter at this point as Metamorpho and Rocket Red also quit.

"Happily married man ogles big-breasted woman's back left shoulder."

I don't get the artistic choice in the above panel. Why have Elongated Man act like a teenage boy seeing a naked pair of tits for the first time in his life? Why does he look even more insane than Max Lord on the cover? Power Girl is fully clothed and even if she wasn't, Ralph is checking out the back of her head. The only part I understand is Wally looking on admirably at Ralph trying to piss off Sue.

It's also possible that's a wax figure of Max Lord that the teams are admiring and Power Girl just farted. Oh, and Ralph, with his twitchy nose, loves sniffing farts. You knew that, right?

Power Girl also decides to quit, saying that she doesn't want to work with a bunch of cowardly quitters. Yes, some of the team point out the contradiction but none of them go into depth about how stupid her statement sounds being that she won't be working with the people who quit. Her brain must be rattled from not knowing if she's Atlantean or Kryptonian. Or is that just my brain? I imagine her real reason for quitting, seeing as how she nearly cracks Wally's skull with the can of Diet Mr. Pibb she's drinking, that she's just sick and tired of these men trying to get a glimpse of her underwater treats. Unless they're outer space treats. Where were we on the status of Kara's origin in March of 1992?!

Max continues to try to convince everybody not to make like a rat on a sinking ship. Why are rats the go-to creature we see as smart enough to flee a sinking ship? Shouldn't the go-to creature be humans?! And isn't that saying used to indicate a kind of cowardice or disloyalty? Who wouldn't flee a sinking ship?! Who are these dumbasses who think something like that is noble?!

I'm glad Max points out how the Justice League were the only reason these threats attacked but I'm disappointed he credits their defeat as teamwork. It was all L'ron, Kilowog, and Silver Sorceress, baby!

Finally, Catherine, not having Captain Atom to flirt with anymore, fakes a call from the United Nations and tells Max she's been re-assigned. The only members left are Blue Jay, Fire, Ice, Beetle, Crimson Fox, The Flash, The Elongated Man, and Sue Dibny. Not a lot of power there. Although if I were to act like a major comic book nerd, I could probably wax philosophic about how The Flash is the only member of the team needed to stop most super villains. But only if you treat his super power as the nearly god-like power it is. Unless his opponent was also a speedster, The Flash should be able to best any other person on the planet. And if his opponent is a speedster then it would basically amount to a fist fight in a parking lot. Just one that's over really fast to all the bar patrons that have spilled outside to watch. Also, if The Flash were the only member, this comic book would be called The Flash and I wouldn't buy it.

Oh wait. Crimson Fox quits as well. She fakes her reason too! She says it's because she won't work under a boorish American male (good reason!) but really it's because of the exact reason I made up for Catherine leaving: Captain Atom isn't around to fuck! Holy shit! Is it bad that I think like a convicted sex pest writer?!

Crimson Fox sounds like Aqualad! If she doesn't get wet every 24 hours, she'll die!

Get it? Crimson Fox's suit is as brown as the Silver Sorceress's suit! I guess the editors were tired of receiving letters complaining about characters with colors in their names that don't match their superhero outfits. But now they can't complain at all! Because this whole colorblind thing is such infallible logic! Ha ha! Nerds! Get fucked!

Sue convinces Max to let everybody take lunch so they can think through their decisions to stay with the League. While Sue and Ralph go off to fuck in the kitchen, Hate Robot L'ron stomps off to find some Justice League members to kill. I hope he begins in the kitchen! Not because I want Sue to die. I just want him to walk in just in time to see her slipping her panties off! please please please please please

L'ron doesn't walk in on Ralph and Sue but Wally West does! Unfortunately, being The Flash, he walks in way too soon while Sue and Ralph are still fully clothed. They let Wally know that they're quitting the League as well because they have a mini-series to star in! That prompts The Flash to quit as well! He says it's because he's tired of being the butt of everybody's jokes and playing into the "Mister Sweaty-Palmed Sex Fiend" game. But I don't know how much he was playing. I haven't seen any evidence that Wally isn't a sweaty-palmed sex fiend. But then I never read his monthly comic book. Maybe he was respected more by the writer of that series.

How did Blue Beetle lose fifty pounds between comics?! He was getting called fat by Tanya just a few hours ago!

The creature yelling, "JUSTICE LEAGUE!", is L'ron. I mean Despero. He promptly kicks the new and not-at-all-improved Justice League's asses in just a couple of pages.

It's not Sue slightly raising her skirt so she can tug her panties down to her ankles as Ralph's rubber dick grows fat but it's a nice surprise!

Let's see . . . in March of 1992, I was 20 years old? Yeah, I'm sure I jerked off to this. I didn't find any pubes stuck between the pages though. So maybe I wasn't as gross as I like to imagine!

I'm not saying jerking off is gross! I'm saying the frequency off with which I used to jerk, the places I off in which I used to jerk, and the subject matter off to which I used to jerk were gross! Man, that mangled grammar is really turning me on! BRB!

Despero'ron defeats the Justice League but then is blasted apart by a duck hunter wandering around outside the Justice League Cave. That ridiculousness is enough to send even Blue Beetle to the unemployment line. He can only be upstaged by so many people before he realizes he has no dignity. And being bested by a duck hunter seems to be that final upstaging.

After Beetle quits, Blue Jay follows his lead. And then Fire and Ice. So I guess that's why the cover showed just Max and Oberon! That's it! They're the new Jusice League! And yet I kept buying this for 40 more issues?! Egads, I was dumb!

Justice League Europe #36 Rating: A. It was fun! I liked seeing everybody lose hope, one by one realizing that they never really did save the world in any meaningful manner because every threat was actually caused by something they did (or their mere existence). The entire team has walked away and yet the next issue of Justice League America shows the new League! Where do I go to read about the formation of the new group?! Oh! It's a comic book I've already reviewed: Justice League Spectacular #1! I guess I'll re-read that before I continue on to JLA Issue #61. You should go read the review of that one too! You just passed over the link!

Justice League America #60 (March 1992)

Due to the coloring error, I thought Blue Beetle and Fire were holding hands.

It took Giffen and DeMatteis five years to get to this point in the series. It took me three and a half years to review them. I should probably speed this shit up. I've got so many comic book boxes to get through! Maybe, just maybe, I should stop reading comic books from my youth and actually live my adult life? Unless I am living my adult life and that's why it's taken me so long to write all of these reviews? I don't really know what's happening! It was so much easier when I was in college watching Red Dwarf on Sunday nights and feeling nostalgic about high school crushes while watching Sailor Moon and going to the local comic book store to play Magic the Gathering on Wednesday nights!

I just realized I could still be living my life that way! I think I just had a huge breakthrough!

This issue is called "Swan Song" because this is the final issue by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis. Oh, that's kind of what the phrase "swan song" means: a final performance before death or quitting a comic book run of five years. It's also probably called "Swan Song" because it's the end of a version of Justice League America without Superman. They tried it and it was just as abysmal and weak as everybody knew it would be. You could argue that Martian Manhunter is more powerful than Superman (although with a greater weakness (Oreos! I mean fire!)) but then I'd argue back by saying, "Are you a fucking donkey lover? I think you might be a donkey lover! What a stupid opinion!" That argument might not win in court and it might not prove that Superman was stronger but it would satisfy me and a lot of people would start asking questions about how many donkeys you've fucked.

The issue begins with Max's lover lying in bed almost showing her vagina.

I wish this were vertically lenticulated so you could tilt it and see what's going on under that blanket!

I'm just kidding! I don't actually get horny looking at cartoon images! I just like to pretend I do! Like how I pretend I want to get Erin Esurance naked and rub auto collision claims all over her her body! That's just one of my running jokes that isn't true at all and also you should know lying about it on the Internet isn't breaking my parole no matter how often my parole officer sighs when she hears me talk about how I don't actually want to do Erin Esurance.

Wanda and Max have a discussion about how he wasn't in bed when she thought he was in bed. During the climax of this scintillating dialogue, Max reveals that he's lost his Firestarter powers. I don't mean the power to start fires! I mean the other power from that book where a person "pushes" somebody else to do something with their mind and then their nose bleeds. So instead of celebrating by licking Wanda's butthole, he goes for a walk in the dark where he's harassed by a nosey cop. He's okay though because he's a white man in a suit. Cops know if they shoot a white guy in a suit they might actually have to face consequences.

Back at the Justice League Cave, Martian Manhunter tells Catherine he quits and Catherine's eye slides off the side of her head.

"Oh come on, Tess! It's not that bad!" "You got something to say to me, Donkey Lover?"

General Glory comes along to try to cheer up Catherine by mentioning how much he loved Al Jolson when the General was a kid. Catherine interrupts him before he can say what he loved about Al Jolson's act specifically which is probably a good thing. Although we all know General Glory, being a seventy or eighty year old American in 1992, probably had some pretty sketchy ideas about society. Hopefully that's not why Guy likes him so much!

J'onn goes off to make sure Max Lord doesn't leave the League because readers are going to need a few familiar threads linking this issue with the next one. Max acts reticent at first but who does he think he's kidding? Not the readers and certainly not the Martian telepath. He'll still be the leader even if he's only able to convince Blue Beetle and Guy Gardner to stick around.

Meanwhile Blue Jay looks at a photo of Silver Sorceress, Wandjina, and himself and cries. Not like you expect a Blue Jay to cry where it's all, "Rawk! Rawk! Rawk! Rawk! Rawk!", and it won't shut up because your cat keeps looking at it and then it starts dive bombing your cat because Blue Jays can be angry little jerks. He cries like a big human baby cries when people they've loved have died tragically.

Might get what? A boner?

Oh right! Silver Sorceress just died. Sue is asking if Ralph ever thinks he might be killed during battle. Ralph answers, "Yeah, I think about it a lot," which, coincidentally, is how often I think about him dying in battle too!

Guy Gardner and Power Girl argue over who will become team leader because they don't realize Superman will be team leader. Unless Batman is always the team leader. Sometimes he's Shadow Team Leader and pretends he isn't on the team. But he's always watching, just in case! At one point during the fight, Guy says Power Girl has an "oversized butt" and he means it as an insult and it might be the first time I've ever lost a tiny bit of respect for him. He's lucky Ice didn't hear that comment because her butt is pretty juicy too! Mmm, Ice's juicy butt.

Metamorpho and Rocket Red discuss fatherhood while Blue Beetle engages in a fascinating talk with Rocket Red's daughter Tanya.

Why is it cute when a six year old asks this but I keep getting punched in the nose?

I bet Blue Beetle wishes he owned a goat right about now! That's because goats love knocking children on their asses and, being a goat, they can get away with it. If Blue Beetle were to shove Tanya on her ass, he'd get arrested. But if you own a goat and the goat does it for you, it's just funny! And if you get it on video, you could win $10,000! Or you used to be able to win $10,000. Does America's Funniest Home Videos still exist? I can't remember the last time I watched actual network television.

Fire flies around New York contemplating the meaning of being a superhero. She discovers it when a bunch of guys catcall her from the ground. Actually, they praise her and the Justice League's efforts to keep the city safe. But we all know what really would have been shouted if a naked green woman flew over a bunch of male New Yorker's heads. I won't even speculate on that filth! So filthy what with saying where their tongues are going to go and what orifices they're going to put their corncobs and how long they can do the act of doing it. Gross!

The final member to catch up with is Crimson Fox. She offers to help support the League while it transitions to whatever it's going to transition to. See, she has loads and loads of perfume money. Although it was almost stolen by a cult that worshiped giant worms. Everybody thanks her for the offer and they're probably getting ready to accept her check when Max Lord and Oberon walk in and declare they're back in charge! They're figure out how to finance the League and how many people they'll have to fire to afford Superman.

Justice League America #60 Rating: B+. This was a transitional issue full of character-driven scenes to lay the groundwork for whatever's going to happen in the next issue. I'm sure a bunch of people will leave and a bunch of people will be hired. Then a few issues after that, a bunch of the people hired will have to leave the League because DC needs them in another comic book and they'll have to have an issue discussing membership. But eventually the League will be full of characters that DC doesn't mind being in two places at once or don't actually have any other monthly home to appear in. Dan Jurgens will be the new writer and since my biggest problem with Dan Jurgen's stories is that they're all written like they take place in the '80s, I shouldn't have too much of a problem with him seeing as how he's writing these comics in 1992!

Rest in peace, Keith Giffen! You've given me more entertainment than probably any other artist I can point to (other than Johnette Napolitano and Traci Lords!). You created two of my all-time favorite characters: Lobo and Ambush Bug. I remember the first time I saw Ambush Bug on the cover of a comic book lying on the floor of Philip Newby's living room. And I remember him excitedly telling me how hilarious it was. And I trusted Phil's word when it came to funny because he was always laughing at all sort of stuff that I barely understood in elementary school, like Monty Python and Tom Lehrer! I like to imagine Ambush Bug and Lobo sitting around crying and exchanging stories until they move in for a warm, consoling hug and begin kissing passionately only to wind up jerking each other off. I should have begun that last sentence with "I really like to imagine (and often do)"!