Justice League America #67 (October 1992)

Blue Beetle quoting twelve-year-old me waking up after my first becoming-a-man dream.

Is the greatest draw of this cover the "Alien terror," Beetle digging through green cum, or Fire's heaving bosom? I find them all about equal. Although I'd be more excited if Booster Gold were looking into Blue Beetle's butthole the way he was on the cover of the Eclipso Annual. The draw for 21 year old me was probably that I thought they were spelunking through a gigantic butthole.

This issue is called "Transitions, Transmissions, and Transactions" and begins with a splash page that's going to really make for a creepy letters page in a few months.

"Yowza! My boner nearly split my chin after seeing that Fire pin-up!" -- Uncle Elvis or T.M. Maple, probably in three months

I don't yet know who's yelling, "Beatriz!", off-panel but I imagine it's Ice as she shoves four or five more sticks up her frigid ass.

Whattya know? It was Ice! She doesn't think it's appropriate for Fire to get practically naked twelve different times for a calendar. I think Ice should just shut up! She should be encouraging Fire to take off more clothes! Doesn't Fire want to sell as many calendars as possible? For 1992, taking sexy pictures in lingerie was less titillating than showing an ankle in 1890. Nobody's going to buy a calendar this tame unless October shows some taint and half a butthole.

Meanwhile, Blue Beetle is implanting a fake nipple into Booster Gold's outfit.

Blogger probably gonna censor this review due to this picture.

I recently realized one of my Catwoman reviews from The New 52 had been unlisted by Blogger for breaking the rules. Most of the time that shit happens due to automation and so I just put it back up for review and get an email saying it's been relisted. I'd been re-reading them to see why Blogger was censoring my posts but this time, knowing it's just the automated system, I sent it in for review and it was put back up almost immediately. That's when I read it and, ho boy, I'm fucking surprised it actually got reinstated! It's the issue where Ann Nocenti wrote in a dildo heist. Actual dildos (abstract, none really looking too penis-y) are drawn in the background in some panels, not to mention the double-sided diamond studded one that Catwoman uses to bribe some guard. Plus I photoshopped an actual dildo that looks like a penis into one of the panels! Blogger might have problems with automation but I think when I send a post in for review so a real person can look at it, nobody actually wants to read some nerdy comic book post so they just think, "Oh fuck. This isn't porn. It's just a virgin nerd's comic book blog. Reinstated!"

Booster's fake nipples are trackers and radio receivers so Booster Gold can keep in touch with the League and they can track him down if he gets into trouble. If I were Booster, I would have asked for a tracker that looks like a penis and had it installed in my pants. Who cares if a guy's nipples poke through his shirt? Do women like that? Is that a turn on for women? Do I have my stupid inverted nipples to blame for women not being instantly attracted to me in my tight disco shirts?

The Atom quits the League before he even joins which is one of my favorite traditions of this comic book. Some hero gets recruited or drops in and hangs around as if they're going to be a part of the team for a month or two and then they're never seen again in the pages of Justice League. Maybe with the cancellation of The Power of the Atom a few years ago, DC was trying to gauge reader's interest in the character. Pretty sure they were greeted with absolute crickets. Did DC really think somebody might send an Atom fan letter after seeing Fire nearly naked at the beginning of the comic book? All the letters for months were certainly just variations on "When is Dan Jurgens going to do an actual Girls of the DC Universe Pin-up calendar?!" You know they said "girls" rather than "women." And if the letters were sent today, they'd all say "females" instead.

Speaking of readers splooging in their undergarments over Fire's nearly naked body, here's another picture of Fire's nearly naked body.

Her new costume even comes with a string of anal beads.

I cut Ice's response out of that last panel because nobody wants to see her shoving more sticks up her ass about Fire showing some cleavage. I mean metaphorically! Obviously all most of us want is a panel of Ice shoving sticks up her ass.

Beetle and Booster pull a prank that backfires, probably so Dan Jurgens can remind people that these two are goofy assholes even if Dan has mostly forgotten. It's not worth talking about.

Fire learns that the person behind the publishing of her erotic calendars is Booster Gold and suddenly being sexually manipulated by a faceless company for some cold hard cash becomes less faceless. And the face Fire sees is one she now wants to punch. Personally, I don't get why she's mad. Because Booster will be making money off of her body? She knew somebody was making money off the pictures! Why is it any different if it's that creep Booster Gold?! Did she not realize the guy behind the empire that grew from photos of naked women is always a huge fucking creep?! People knew this in 1992, right?!

Halfway through the comic book, the Justice League gets a mission! They have to save one of NASA's space shuttles which disappeared for a bit and then reappeared in a nose dive! Booster, Beetle, Fire, and Bloodwynd need to stop it from crashing. In other words, Bloodwynd needs to stop it from crashing. Maybe Booster's force field can help somehow. But Fire and Beetle are absolutely useless in this situation. Even Ice would have been better because she could have made a huge slide like Bobby Drake always does when he needs to save crashing space planes.

The team manages to save the shuttle with Fire doing something that sort of sounds scientific and Beetle's bug humping it to a safe landing. Booster and Bloodwynd merely get the landing gear down. It's not down because there are no astronauts on board to have put it down. The only thing on board is green goo (which you'll remember from the cover). But the mystery of the missing astronauts is soon solved as another ship enters the atmosphere. This one is not one of NASA's. It's piloted by an alien who evolved to survive every fight against a cannon or a shotgun.

If I hadn't seen my own dick, I'd say this alien has the weirdest genitals I've ever seen.

Oh no! Who did this alien purchase the Sol System from?! The astronauts? Do they have the authority? Are they now rich? And will being rich mean anything to people trapped in alien fish tanks? Find out in next month's story, "Is That A Third Arm or Am I Happy to See You?"

Justice League America #67 Rating: C. I bet this was the issue where I mostly lost interest in this comic book but kept on purchasing it due to collection momentum. Beetle and Booster's "prank" was stupid and served no purpose because it didn't even do what it was supposed to do: show that these two have fun together. And who wants to read a comic book where Ice, acting like a prude, winds up having had the correct opinion about Fire's erotic photo shoot? That's not a world I want to live in! I wanted Fire to prove Ice wrong and become so rich that Ice also decided to do a naked calendar! But no! Instead we wind up with an alien invasion but the alien has receipts so it's not really an invasion but a collection and the alien either has a penis on its chest that looks like an arm or a vagina on its belly that looks like an ACME cannonball blasted through it. Also, the green goo wasn't explained. Does this alien just shit and piss all over its ship? Or does that goo leak out of the hole in its stomach? Double also, doesn't this feel like a derivative Manga Khan story?

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Bluesky

Justice League Europe Annual #3 (1992)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Justice League America Annual #6 (1992)

I'm not saying Dan Jurgens shouldn't have made Booster Gold staring into Beetle's butthole but I am saying editorial should have sent the cover back with a note saying, "Can Booster Gold be looking somewhere else, please?"

This issue is called "Maximum Eclipse." I don't understand that title so much that I can't even make fun of it. Was it just that in the '90s, every piece of media was getting "Maximum" added to the title to show how super-duper exciting it was? This book isn't about your mother's eclipse! That eclipse was all minimum and shit. This eclipse is going to be as eclipsy as possible! The most eclipse ever! Like, the whole entire moon is going to be blocked by the shadow of the Earth! But even more so than usual! Just the maximum amount, baby!

You don't need special glasses to look at a lunar eclipse because you're actually looking at less sun than usual. But you probably should wear special glasses to gaze into Blue Beetle's butthole. Like the pair Booster is wearing on the cover.

Eclipso has been busy possessing some small time heroes like Valor and Hal Jordan. But he feels like his plan won't really be set in motion until he has the telepathic powers of Martian Manhunter! Ha ha! Good luck capturing him, Eclipso! He doesn't exist in the DC Universe right now because he's pretending to be Bloodwynd! And nobody knows that secret at all! I'm not even sure Dan Jurgens knows it! Although it was hinted at in the letters pages of Justice League Europe #42. Not that J'onn was Bloodwynd but that there will be a big surprise twist involving J'onn sometime in the future. And since I'm currently way in the future, I know the surprise is that J'onn is Bloodwynd!

Eclipso also wants to possess J'onn so he can do the hand jive.

Back on Earth, Guy Gardner fished his Green Lantern gear out of his apartment's incinerator because he's been rehired by the Guardians of the Universe. Probably because he's the greatest Green Lantern and not because Hal Jordan has been possessed by Eclipso. Although those two things are really kind of the same thing because you notice how Guy Gardner isn't currently possessed by Eclipso? Hal is a loser. I'm not sure why Guy didn't just keep his Warrior outfit on though. It's not like his regular Green Lantern outfit with the turtle neck and the Nazi styling and the big boots is any more regulation than his Warrior outfit. I guess he just wanted to stick it in stupid old Hal Jordan's dumb mug.

I have no idea why Guy is exclaiming, "Twinkies!"

Guy doesn't usually scream the name of Hostess products as an alternative to swearing so when he shows up to JLA headquarters and yells, "Twinkies!", it doesn't make any sense. Later he calls Bruce Gordon a "Twinkie" which I guess is supposed to explain it but why would he make it plural in the first panel he appears? Also I don't know if the blonde Twinkie is Bruce Gordon or not but I'm making an educated guess. Twinkie has come to the League to explain how they need to defeat Eclipso but he can't explain that until Superman arrives so Superman can say, "Listen to this man!" Because otherwise nobody is going to do anything on "this Twinkie's say-so."

(The quotes around that last section in that last paragraph were there to indicate that that was the phrase Guy Gardner used when he called Bruce a Twinkie. I'm only pointing that out in this parenthetical paragraph so that I don't get accused of plagiarism by Hbomberguy.)

Superman is late to the meeting because he's trying to recruit Wonder Woman to the battle. Wonder Woman says she isn't ready for a team even though she just recently teamed up with Justice League Europe. But that was in Greece to fight some mythological titans so really Justice League Europe was sidekicking for Wonder Woman. I guess she only fights Greek Gods. She has no interest in battling the God of Vengeance if it's not Nemesis. Although her disembodied head is on the cover so she might change her mind when the shit really hits the Acropolis.

After Superman leaves, some Boston cop starts shooting up a crowd and Wonder Woman gets drawn into the story.

As if a cop needs to be possessed by Eclipso to murder innocent civilians.

Wonder Woman subdues the cop so Eclipso sets him free. Then he's all, "Oh no! What happened? I didn't discharge my weapon and harm any innocent civilians, did I?!"

Yeah. Evil. As in "Boston Police Officer."

Comic books are way better than reality because this cop probably won't be charged for murdering all of those people due to being mind-controlled and not being responsible for his actions rather than if this happened in reality, the cop wouldn't be charged due to "qualified immunity" and the excuse that he feared for his safety. Why is it always the person with the gun who "feared for their safety"? It's so much easier to plead self-defense in court when you've murdered the other person and they can't testify against you! And it's obvious people with guns fear for their safety. That's why they have a gun! And it's also why they shouldn't have a gun because they're fucking scared of everything! And since their first thought is to use the gun in a conflict, they figure if the other person has a gun, they're going to use it on them! So they just start shooting like a maniac and then plead self-defense later. Regular citizens shouldn't be allowed to plead self-defense against a murder charge simply because they felt scared or threatened. And cops especially shouldn't be able to since they're supposed to be protecting citizens at the risk of their own lives! Not at the risk of all of our lives! This is why people love firemen and hate policemen. Because firemen actually do risk their lives to save people and policemen won't fucking risk a single hair on their fat mustache to save even children.

Anyway, Wonder Woman is convinced that evil must be stopped. But for some reason, she doesn't head down to the Boston Police Station and burn it to the ground. She heads off to Justice League Headquarters to join Superman and the others.

Guy's absolutely right and he'll be proven correct five thousand times over in the next few years.

When Wonder Woman shows up, all the women lose their shit. Apparently Wonder Woman is so gorgeous and upstanding and confident that every other woman in the room feels like slitting their wrists. I totally get that. I've had so many friends commit suicide over the years, I can only imagine it was due to my confidence, charm, and incredible wit. They could only look at me and think, "I'm living at such a low level compared to this master of life. Why should I even bother?"

Maxima flies off in a huff because Wonder Woman is so obviously superior to her. And while flying around angry, Starman appears and hands her a black diamond. Eclipso takes her over and realizes he never needed J'onn at all. Maxima's mind powers are equitable to J'onn's and she doesn't cower when somebody lights a cigarette.

Bloodwynd says he smells a rat and holds his nose while pointing at Metamorpho. So Metamorpho, pretending that his feelings are hurt, rushes off before people figure out what's wrong with him. Jurgens probably wants the readers to think Metamorpho is possessed but I bet Rex just can't stop thinking about all the ways Crimson Fox has fucked him in the last week and J'onn (who is Bloodwynd but also still a Martian!) is simply confused by kinky human sex acts.

Meanwhile, the Justice League has obviously still not invested in a human resources department.

Poor women of the DC Universe. Booster's from the future where men, apparently, have still never learned not to pull this shit.

The Justice League discover that some hero turned Eclipsed-villain has been attacking a nuclear waste storage facility when Max Lord calls them to turn on CNN. You'd think the Justice League would have some means of learning about villains attacking places that would be more prompt than sitting in front of a 24-hour news channel. But what do I know?! I'm not a comic book writer! I don't get how any of this shit works. Although most comic book writers have no idea either which is why the heroes are usually battling some villain who is attacking them directly. It's easier than coming up with some system to have the heroes know when shit is about to go down or has just begun to go down.

Redouble their efforts? Is math different on Krypton? Can you actually double zero there?

Bloodwynd flies off with the rest of the League to stop a future radioactive disaster while Beetle and Bruce Gordon remain behind to create flashlights. That means Metamorpho is safe to return without Bloodwynd being all, "The dead tell me you are a traitor!" Bruce Gordon rushes off too to do something mysterious leaving Blue Beetle not full of suspicion at all. Was it a big mystery in 1992 that Bruce Gordon was the main human host for Eclipso? Could he be working for him still?!

Maxima turns out to be the culprit blasting containers full of spent fuel rods. Weird that she would go after nuclear waste when there are so many actual nuclear power reactors all across the world. It's like Eclipso is just toying with the League! Guy Gardner and Superman collect a bunch of radioactive rubble and fly it out into space where it will be "harmless." Why doesn't Superman do this on a monthly basis? Just fly all the radioactive waste out to Uranus and toss it in? That wouldn't cause any trouble, right? Fucking around with Earth's environment can cause long-lasting problems but not fucking around with Uranus's! Who cares what happens to that planet, right?!

Back at Justice League headquarters, Eclipso himself attacks Blue Beetle! "What?! How did that happen?!" the readers of 1992 were wondering. Maybe that's why Bloodwynd had to voice his suspicions of Metamorpho. So that it wasn't so obvious that Bruce Gordon was Eclipso! Readers would be all, "Bloodwynd was right! Metamorpho was up to something!" Even if Bruce Gordon suddenly going, "Um, uh, I forgot I needed to do a thing!", wasn't the most suspicious part of the whole comic book. Although maybe that's the red herring! Because long time DC Comics readers would know Bruce Gordon was Eclipso. And DC doesn't like making their big event twists easy to guess! So much so that they'll change their entire plotted event at the last minute so that it doesn't make any sense. Imagine, Hawk was Monarch! Ha ha! So dumb!

Blue Beetle causes an explosion as he tries to contain Eclipso and that's when the first big twist takes place!

What is going on?! I'm so confused by this twist! Maybe Bruce Gordon really did have diarrhea!

If only Bloodwynd didn't have to appear so mysterious so his cover isn't blown, this could easily have been avoided! And I wouldn't be so confused!

Maxima tries to take control of Wonder Woman but that only works for a few minutes before Superman outwits her. Then everybody beats the shit out of her until she's unconscious and safe to transport back to headquarters where Blue Beetle can shine his flashlight on her. Except they don't realize Beetle's flashlight has been turned into slag! And Beetle's about to be!

Oh, um, also, Maxima doesn't stay out for long. The fight starts all over again and then Fire does this thing with her butt that, um, well, take a look for yourself!

Maxima isn't the only thing about to be beaten!

Maxima flies off while everybody is distracted by Fire's ass. And Beetle manages to defeat Eclipso by bluffing that all the lights were somehow going to start blasting solar energy into the building because they were running on Beetle's bug's solar charger. Except that's not how solar power works. Good thing Eclipso is just a big dumb old God who doesn't know anything about technology and science. When Eclipso flies away, he turns back into Starman whose body he was using. I guess Starman has shape-changing abilities?

Before the rest of the League return to find the headquarters in shambles, Blue Beetle does one of those cinematic movie mystery things where somebody approaches him from behind and he's all, "Oh, it's you!" Then he's blasted by a flash of light and kidnapped! Was it Rex? Was it Bruce?! Was it Eclipso himself?! I may never know because who knows where my Eclipso: The Darkness Within comic books are stored! Stupid past me deciding to organize the annuals by title instead of by event! What was I thinking?!

I bet Blue Beetle was "recruited" by Bruce Gordon to assault Eclipso's base/prison on the dark side of the moon. That might be my memory being useful or it might just be my insightful comic book reading abilities! And it could also be wrong so, you know, shut up.

The issue ends with Maxima taken, Blue Beetle missing, and Eclipso sitting on his throne pretending he's doing a good job taking over the world. I mean, a powerless guy in a stupid costume just beat one of his most powerful henchmen but I can see how, if I were a narcissistic loon, I'd convince myself I was doing a good job too. The next part of the story takes place in The Demon annual! I would have had that one even if I hadn't purchased all the Eclipso annuals! Too bad I don't have my comic book boxes organized in any coherent way or I'd dig it out and read it.

Justice League America Annual #6 Rating: B Tier. That wasn't too bad for an annual! Even the art was okay which surprises me because I first began reading Justice League Europe Annual #3 and let me tell you: the art in that is horrific! It was as if I just solved a weird cube puzzle and my eyes turned into a home for horny worms. That's something Clive Barker would have written, right? Maybe DC actually tried to put a little more effort into these event annuals than the tiny amount of effort they used to put into regular annuals. Why did annuals have to be twice as long but also four times as boring and eight times as ugly? It's like some kind of fourth dimensional equation. Have annuals gotten better over the years? I don't really remember any when I was reading The New 52. But then maybe that's because DC kept doing annual September events in lieu of annuals. Those were sort of the same thing in that they often didn't really have much to do with actual continuity while at the same time pretending that they were some crazy, can't-miss event tied in to every single title. Why do we comic book fans always fall for that shit?!

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Justice League Europe #42 (September 1992)

Wonder Woman got that jerk off hand ready to go.

Judging by the look on Diana's face, she's going to jerk off whomever she's going to jerk off fairly aggressively. I don't mind an aggressive handy because it's still a handy. And it's probably better than a passive handy which, as you get older and older, doesn't always do the job. When you're young, experiences are so new and fresh that somebody touching your penis might set it off so quick you won't know whether you should consider it a sexual experience or not. But as you get older, you've had so many different hands on your penis that you've lost that wonderful experience of the newness and uniqueness of the event. I'm pretty sure that's what Robert Frost's poem, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," is about. After having lost that golden feeling, you're not going to orgasm from somebody half-assing a handy while they make a grocery list in their head. Sometimes it takes some serious work and if that serious work includes punching me in the balls, I'm fucking ready to go, Diana! Let's do this! Also I've never had a lasso shoved up my ass. Hopefully the Lasso of Truth doesn't work while shoved up an ass or else I'm going to be admitting that, why yes, I actually have had a lasso shoved up my ass.

The Justice League, after being swallowed last issue by a massive Chthon, find themselves in Hell's foyer.

Why would Jones and Randall make me want to go to Hell by portraying it as a place full of naked women covered in snakes?

If I were a woman, I'd cosplay one of these demonesses at the next San Diego Comicon. Can you train snakes to strategically cover your nipples, butthole, and hoo-ha?

As you can see, this issue is called "Mother of Monsters" which, I'm assuming, means they're going to battle the mother of Ethan Van Sciver.

Oh wait. A naked woman spouting nonsense that almost seems logical? This battle is against Ann Nocenti's mother.

This naked chaotic woman speaks only truth. My only friend is Chaos. Order can get fucked. Order is a white dude trying to control all the parameters of reality through authoritarian means. Chaos is a naked lady telling me about sex. So maybe fuck Chaos too? But in the good way whereas I meant "Order can get fucked" in the bad way. Not in a rapey way! But in a "Get the hell out of my sight, Order! You suck dick!" way. But not the way Chaos sucks dick! That's good dick sucking! I meant Order should suck a grungy dick full of dick cheese and open sores! Maybe I should stop using sexual metaphors as insults because sex is awesome and why would you tell somebody you dislike to go do something awesome?! It's confusing too! Because I said order should get fucked but what I really want to do is fuck Chaos! Did you see how hot and naked she was? And this was approved by the Comics Code Authority! Somebody at the CCA must have been all, "Hey, do we have any rules against Hell being full of naked women wearing snakes?" And somebody else was all, "Not specifically!" And what they meant was, "Not specifically but that's definitely against the code." But the person asking the question just heard, "Not specifically so I guess we can't do anything about it!" And they got out their big red rubber stamper and and stamped "APPROVED!" on the comic book. And then I jerked off to it several months later when it hit the shelves.

I don't actually know whether or not I jerked off to these naked ladies. I probably didn't seeing as how I wasn't a virgin at the time which means an image like this is less alluring than it might have been. But I definitely jerked off to the Succubus entry in the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Manual which compares to these images. But I was way younger and totally a virgin when I did that! So I'm guessing there's probably like an 18% chance that I masturbated to this comic book.

After the naked ladies fail to tempt any of the heroes into getting their dicks or vaginas out, Cerberus attacks. But Diana chokes part of it and throws it against the wall because she's an asshole. You're supposed to pet the doggy, Diana, not maim it. It probably just wanted some kissies.

That's the Flash stuck in Hell for eternity.

Speaking of masturbation, do you think The Flash would pull his own dick off if he got carried away while jerking it? Do you think he has to clean up afterward or does his semen exit his body so fast that it burns up upon exiting his penis? Being that he's the fastest man alive, do you think he's constantly jerking off in public but so quickly that nobody ever sees him? Do you think he's ever jerked off on Gorilla Grodd's face for a laugh? I believe Wally pulled his entire penis off the first time he tried to jerk off after getting his powers and then ran back in time to stop himself from jerking off which caused The New 52. And that's why the genesis of The New 52 universe was when Chronos or Volthoom or whoever looked back in time and witnessed God jerking off to create everything.

Diana warns the men against splitting up but the men are super horny and run off in all directions to fuck demon women.

The only mystery Ralph is currently interested in solving is The Mystery of His Dick in Her Butthole.

The odds of me having jerked off to this comic book have been upgraded to 34% after seeing this naked elfin fairy demon. I also probably would have read far more Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books if they had titles like the one I made up in the caption. I bet there was at least one Trixie Belden mystery that was called, The Case of Honey's Moist Undergarments.

Aquaman springs into a leadership role with some impeccable logic.

I love when a writer understands how truly stupid Aquaman is.

Rex tries to point out to everybody that they're being tempted by tailor-made Hell temptations and they're all failing. Some more naked women appear and start saying, "You're just a big scaredy cat!" That, of course, is Hal's temptation. He's all, "I am not! You wanna see a scaredy cat? Well meet my dukes, lady!" Then he lifts up his right fist and says, "Señor Meow Meow!", and lifts up his left fist and says, "And Lady Purrtessa of the Northern Sunpatches!" Metamorpho tries to hold him back but Hal is all, "Hal Jordan ain't scared of nothin', lady! NOTHIN'! Why I outta...!" And then he flies off into the darkness hoping to get in a barroom brawl with some naked demon ladies.

For some reason, the narrative doesn't follow Hal into the darkness no matter how much that seems like the most interesting plot point to follow. I'm already used to Jones choosing to portray the most boring narrative path since we didn't get to see The Flash fuck the snake woman or Ralph do some super deep Stretch Armstrong penetration on the fairy princess.

Rex is the only male that doesn't run off to fuck a succubus because he doesn't have a dong anymore. But the other men are eventually returned to the women.

Were these forms chosen by personality or dick size?

Once the men have been taken care of, Echidna, the mother of monsters, approaches the women. Doctor Light loses her mind because she's so afraid of the dark. Wonder Woman becomes trapped in a cavern wall because she was carved into the shape of the male ideal. And Crimson Fox becomes stunned by the feminine power of Echidna. But she only sees the feminine power as it can be used to control men and not what it's truly capable of. I think what Echidna is hinting at is that feminine power is the most creative and destructive power there is because it taps into only itself. Male power always has some stupid logical motivation to gain more power or satisfy their desires (as seen by the men's failed temptations). The only woman in the group Echidna seems to respect is Power Girl because she understands anger! Unless it's just the diet soda fucking with her brain chemistry. But even if it is, what does Echidna know about modern chemicals and their effects on human systems.

Obviously Echidna has an agenda! She's pissed off that the gods locked her away for thousands of years. She thinks the men are clichés but she's currently doing her best impersonation of a woman scorned. She uses the logic of men to try to convince Power Girl to destroy civilization. But Power Girl is all, "I love too much! Have you ever tried Diet Dr. Pepper?!" And Echidna is all, "If you love life, you love me!" And Power Girl is all, "Okay, sure, I get that. I see why you're angry. But I'm not going to use my power to accomplish your revenge, you twisted monster mother fucker!" Power Girl freaks out and starts punching Echidna in her snake vagina.

"Coke is it, bitch!"

Echidna threatens to collapse the underworld and bring the entire world down around it. But Power Girl chooses to make a deal with her: if Echidna stops menacing the world, Power Girl will become her student. Once a year, she'll travel to the underworld with a case of Diet Soda and Echidna will teach her the ways of the wild women. Sounds like a plot point that was never revisited. Then again, I haven't read every comic book Grant Morrison has written. I'm sure he remembered this deal at some point and made a big thing of it. Hopefully a big sexy thing!

Justice League Europe #42 Rating: A. Some people still think that men are logical and women are emotional which is a weird bigotry to have in the year 2024. This comic book plays to that because it was still 1992 and The X-Files was just getting up and running. I'm not saying Chris Carter's show changed the landscape of gender narrative but for anybody paying attention, it was full of flipped gender roles. Scully, the woman, was the rational one while Mulder was the emotional one. But he didn't just make it that simple. The show portrayed Mulder and Scully as two hemispheres of one brain. The two main characters represented masculinity and femininity, logic and emotion, faith and cynicism (possibly the best and most striking example in that Scully, the ultimate cynic and believer of evidence also being the one that believed in God while Mulder would believe almost anything except for the Christian magic man in the sky). It was such an obvious tactic to the show that eventually, when Scully was dying of cancer, the show portrayed the brain getting thrown way out of whack. As the logical, cynical, feminine side was dying, the emotional side exploded into paranoia and fear until it was seemingly left with only one way out: the masculine choice of violent suicide. Chris Carter would have done well to have the show end with Scully dying in hospital from cancer and Mulder blowing his brains out. The fact they were one brain was also one of the main reasons they were never supposed to be involved romantically. Because that would have been masturbation!

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is equating a lot of stuff to easily digestible gender roles can seem academic but is often just lazy. It fits a bit better here in this comic book because the antagonist is an ancient goddess with old ideas. It doesn't work in that Gerard Jones was a despicable kiddy fiddler (perhaps just a voyeur who was never hands-on but that's probably just a semantic difference that I'm putting in a parenthetical reference so I can point to any upset lawyers how I clarified my position to line up with his arrest record). In my mind, a man interested in children is a man uninterested in seeing their sexual partners as autonomous human beings with beliefs, opinions, and lives of their own. That's probably why Jones gets so wrapped up in mythological ideas and broad gender theories in this story. When you've got weird ideas about the world projected through the prism of your disgusting desires, you don't write small and personal. You write broadly and what's more broad than ancient mythological shit?

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Justice League America #66 (September 1992)

Is it just me or does Batman look hot?

See Batman's legs? That's a favorite move of Dan Jurgens. It's his foreshortening when drawing a hero flying straight at the viewer. He loves to make one leg all fat thigh as if it's missing the lower half of the extremity. And then the other leg trails off into a weird anemic baby leg. I haven't been pointing it out because I figured we all know that's Dan Jurgens' biggest shortcut. If I pointed out how often Maxima looked like she'd been in a coma for seven months and her legs had become useless husks of atrophied muscle since Jurgens took over, it's all I would have been writing about. It's definitely most of what I'd been thinking about. Maybe that's why I think Batman looks so hot here. Because he has Maxima's useless legs and I'm remembering how naked Maxima's legs are all the time.

In other cover news, Superman's neck looks majorly fucked up. He's got choad throat.

Who do you think the question-marked face represents? Probably Batman, right? Or is it the person who has been sneaking around headquarters that I haven't mentioned because who gives a fuck? I wasn't curious enough to even mention it until now! Maybe it's Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt! He was poking around Justice League Europe's headquarters last issue. I didn't mention that either because boring! Nobody ever purchased a Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, comic book. Ever. DC probably sold more copies of Nathaniel Dusk!

The issue begins with Guy Gardner and Superman battling each other. Guy Gardner (as you can see by the cover) has his Guy Gardner Warrior costume on and his yellow lantern ring so I guess his big prestige comic book mini-series came out the summer of 1992. It would be interesting to read all of my comic books in the order they were published but unlike thousands of other comic book nerds, I never kept any records on which comic books I purchased and when. It's possible I attempted it at some point but those records would have been on 5 1/4" floppy disks so what good would they be to me at this point? My memory, which sucks, would be more reliable.

But that fight doesn't start until later! Like most comic books, this one begins in fake media res. It's all, "Let's start in the middle of the action!" Then by page three, it's all, "No, you know what? Let's go back and recount all the boring shit that led up to this exciting moment that you'd probably rather be reading!" By page four, I've decided I hate myself for putting up with this shit over and over again.

The mystery person recounts their day spying on the League. I was hoping Jurgens would reveal who the interloper was before I got too far into the story but it doesn't look like there's any hope in that. They'll probably only reveal themselves on the last page when they break up the fight between Guy and Superman. Until then, I have to read pages and pages of the League doing absolutely nothing interesting.

Superman gives Maxima a lift to court so she can deal with a murder charge and some parking tickets.

Batman shows up in court to ask Superman if he's surprised to see him.

Are all of their interactions this tense and full of passive aggression?

Does Batman show up in Metropolis unexpectedly often? Does he manipulate his heartbeat and sneak about in the shadows trying to fool all of Superman's super powers? I would expect Superman would just smell Batman as soon as he entered the city limits.

What do you think Batman smells like? I bet he smells like lavender, cave fungus and ball sweat.

Batman is all, "To keep Guy Gardner under control, you have to punch him in the face." And Superman is all, "I am not a violent person. I will find another way." But as we've seen, even Superman can't resist punching Guy Gardner in the face.

The person spying on the League keeps referring to the old days in the League, so it must be an old member like Green Arrow or Hawkman. If that's the case, I understand why Dan Jurgens refuses to reveal their identity. Readers might lose interest immediately upon finding out it's one of those old farts.

The spy watches Blue Beetle "invent" a tracking device to put on Bloodwynd's Justice League Signal Device and then follows up with a little more spying on Fire planning some new costume changes. The spy then decides to set off the motion sensors to test the team's readiness. But that coincides with Guy Gardner showing up. Which, for some reason, means everybody needs to attack him. I don't get it. Guy shows up, sets off the intruder alarms, is recognized by everybody as Guy Gardner, and they immediately attack him. Why?

Did Guy become a villain at some point in the last month or two?!

Fire attacks Guy because Guy proclaims he's there to take Ice away. So she's defending her girl's virtue. And then Booster attacks Guy because he thinks Fire needs defending from Guy. But mostly Guy, who showed up to talk with the woman he's been dating, has simply been forced to defend himself for no reason! And next thing you know, Superman's going to take a shot at him too!

Guy being the most rational person in this comic book.

When you think you're the most righteous person in the room, like Booster Gold here, it can often cause you to become an intolerable asshole. As soon as you believe somebody else has fallen, you can often convince yourself that they deserve to be treated like shit and attacked. You lose your clearheaded sense of heroism and kindness when you see yourself as some kind of unflawed moral warrior. Then somebody with a certain reputation shows up and you feel justified in beating the shit out of them. And you feel really good about it too! And you'd be hard-pressed to understand how you've suddenly become the asshole. But you have. All my morally indignant tumblr peeps know what I mean, right?!

Of course Guy fights back. Which is when Superman arrives to simply assume Guy Gardner started this mess. He throws Guy in the river and now Guy's pretty much accepted that he's in a major battle with the Justice League. A battle that they started! So he can finish it and not feel too bad!

Meanwhile, Batman, having arrived with Superman, seems less concerned with Guy Gardner than with the intruder alarm. He investigates and determines the League does have a teeny, tiny intruder: the Atom! Bloodwynd spots him hanging off of Batman's cape because Bloodwynd has super Martian eyesight! I mean he used the Sight of the Dead! I mean he used telepathy. With the dead!

Superman refuses to fight Guy and Batman is all, "You're a better man than I ever was, Superman!" And The Atom manages to talk Guy into calming down. Batman convinces Superman to ask Guy to rejoin the League and Superman is all, "Are you fucking nuts?" But Batman points out Guy needs a place to be controlled and Superman relents because one of his greatest hobby horses is micromanagement. The Atom also joins because why not?

Justice League America #66 Rating: C-. Is Justice League America better off now that Guy and The Atom have re-joined the team? They've got Superman! Do they really need a guy who can shrink and a Guy who needs one? Even Batman isn't willing to join up again! But Batman gets it. The worst part of any job is always your coworkers. Unless you have total control of your coworkers because they're also your ward and you can make them do whatever you want. Batman is all, "I'm not willing to work with adult individuals full to the brim of their own free will. But I will work with teenagers whom I can ground if they don't do exactly what I say!" That's probably why all the fans love Batman so much. He's the most relatable DC hero!

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Justice League Europe #41 (August 1992)

Wonder Woman finally remembered this was her part-time gig.

Why does everybody seem so shocked to see Wonder Woman? They're in Greece battling some mythological Titans of some kind. I get that this isn't the smartest group of heroes but Wonder Woman showing up to fight some Titans in Greece might be the least shocking thing to ever happen to these idiots. I'm more shocked that Crimson Fox has changed her costume and, presumably, her name to match: Baby Diarrhea Green Fox.

Just for the record: Yes, I think Hal Jordan, Wally West, and Kara are fucking morons. Two of them think with their fists and the other one with his dick. Maybe they all think with their fists and their dicks? What do I know about Atlantean physiology!?

I'm not even sure Kara remains Atlantean. I think DC tried it out for a bit, realized it was fucking stupid, and then wrote Zero Hour to fix it. Unless Zero Hour doubles down on it? I barely even remember what happens in Zero Hour! Is that when Hal Jordan becomes Extant? Why the fuck can't I remember anything?!

This issue begins in the middle of the fight with Chthon. Doctor Light tries to blind the rock monster because she thinks science will work against an ancient magical horror, The Flash runs up its arm to give it a smooch, Power Girl punches it in the outcropping with a feeble "pok," and The Elongated Man suggests that he's filled with a purplish pink goo, just like Stretch Armstrong was.

I wonder how long the average Stretch Armstrong survived after Christmas? There's only so much to do with it before a kid thinks, "Let's test its limits!"

Stretch Armstrong has survived, as a toy, for decades now. And of course there are multiple videos of him being destroyed on YouTube. But they're all newer versions of the toy and his insides are no longer the purplish-pink goo that I remember. Was I imagining things? Was my remembrance of snapping one of his limbs by stretching him too long a dream? I found one Reddit post where somebody remembered leaving their Stretch Armstrong on the radiator until it melted into purple goo. The only proof that, possibly, my memory was correct.

Having failed to defeat Chthon last issue by knocking it to the ground because it draws its power from Mother Earth, the team's plan this issue is to knock Chthon to the ground. As a leader, Hal Jordan only has two plans of action: hit the enemy and beat the enemy. Oh, sorry. One plan of action. And remember! His ring seems to be useless against it for some reason. I think that reason was "Green Lantern doesn't actually need a team because his ring is so powerful so maybe on this first fight with his new group, his ring won't work so they have to work as a team."

Tell your Titans not to walk my way!

It might look like the Titan's pants have fallen around its ankles, causing it to trip and fall backwards in that panel. But — and I totally see how this can be confusing — that underwear is actually Ralph Dibny.

The Titan shatters into pieces and everybody cheers Hal for having such a great idea. Not that it actually was a great idea! Remember, knocking it down didn't work last issue so there's no reason to believe it'll work this issue. Readers would normally understand this but there was a month between issues so most readers have forgotten how this idea didn't work last month. But don't worry! It doesn't take long before the Titan reforms and Rex is all, "It ain't never easy when it's one o' hers." Being the Elemental Man, I guess he knows a thing or two about Mother Earth's children? Unless it's because he has a degree in archaeology? However Rex gets his information, he doesn't know enough to stop the creature (which has shattered into several creatures now). But he was smart enough to contact Wonder Woman before things got out of hand.

A real leader appears!

Wonder Woman arrives with the most obvious advice on how to defeat creatures that keep yelling, "Mother! Give me power!": break their contact with the ground. Wow! Like the exact opposite of Hal's two plans (which were really just the same plan attempted twice)! Hal and the team were all, "We can't defeat this child of the Earth! We keep knocking it back down into the Earth and it just gets stronger! We're out of ideas!" And then Wonder Woman glides in, realizes Hal is leading the new team, and carefully explains to everybody how to stop Chthon by raising them into the air. All of the Justice League go, "We have no way to do that." Except for Hal Jordan who suddenly remembers he doesn't actually need a team because his ring is so powerful. He uses it to lift the creatures into the air via little green whirlwinds.

Oh man. This is so sad. It's like they're beating up toddlers now.

In my head, those two aspects of Chthon in the panel above sound like Walter and Perry from Home Movies.

Hal Jordan, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman are all reunited in this battle which is embarrassing for Aquaman who was knocked unconscious near the beginning of the fight and just lay in a useless heap the entire time. He misses out on the ending where Wonder Woman tells Power Girl and Green Lantern to beat the creatures into rubble and dump them into the ocean. I bet that would have been his plan if he hadn't choked immediately!

Justice League Europe, being just as dimwitted as I pointed out earlier, are all, "Who is this 'Mother'?! Somebody explain this to us!" So now Metamorpho has to be the smart guy in the room which has never actually happened before. He goes on and on about a bunch of Apollonian versus Dionysian claptrap, about the light and the dark, about men versus women, about rationality versus chaos. The problem seems to be that logic and reason have ruled man as a non-stumbling, undemented non-child king long enough! And now as the empire of logic crumbles, chaos and emotion will rise up as his most fitting successor! "The ol' Earth Godess [sic]" has been oppressed for thousands of years and she wants her revenge! So she's been attacking male-dominated temples and architecture recently.

Hal Jordan is all, "How do we defeat her?!" And Rex is all, "We?! Check your JLE roster again, buddy! I'm going to go get drunk!"

Earlier, Rex mentioned how sexy Wonder Woman was. So now Crimson Fox must fuck him.

Crimson Fox talks a good feminist game but, deep down, she still feels like she's competing with other women to make men pop the most boners over her. Or maybe she just wants to fuck a guy who can fill all her orifices at once. Most guys can't do that, right?

While Crimson Fox hits on Rex, Hal and Diana talk strategy. I know I've typed that but even I don't know if that's a euphemism. My mind tends to think everything is a euphemism and everybody is trying to fuck everybody else. Like how Doctor Light has gone off to shine a light down the gaping hole that Chthon left in the earth. She's all, "I must control that which I fear," which is exactly the same thing I said the day I lost my virginity. Or at least it's what I wanted to say. What I actually said was, "I must contrOOOOohooohoooOOOoh! I'm so sorry!" Then I left the woman naked and unsatisfied while I went in the bathroom to look at myself naked in the full length mirror and think, "I am a man today. A man who is terrible at sex."

Oh yeah. Also Wally still wants to fuck Power Girl.

Was Gerard Jones trying to turn this comic book into The X-men or Degrassi Junior High? I probably thought it was stupid in 1991 but I'm loving it now! Or I would be loving it if I didn't need slightly more characterization and context. Like the Rex and Crimson Fox stuff is advancing nicely. But this shit with Wally where he's always just, "Those tits make my dick hard!" gets a bit old.

You might also be curious what Aquaman is up to but I doubt it. Who the fuck cares about Aquaman?

Okay fine. This is what Aquaman is up to:

I find Aquaman so boring that this doesn't even make my dick twitch.

The huge dark thing that is coming is just Chthon again. Apparently Wonder Woman was wrong and Chthon was able to reassemble in the ocean. And because it's the realm of Proteus, Chthon manages to become even larger than anybody could have imagined. Except maybe Rex who warned Diana not to throw Chthon in the sea.

Chthon grows so large that he swallows the entire Greek island where the Justice League are staying. Or he just manages to, somehow, swallow only the Justice League. It's magic so that's probably a thing that could have happened. Chthon invites the Justice League to visit the Pillars of Unreason somewhere in the Underworld. And Hal Jordan, being the leader, is all, "That sounds awesome! Let's go!"

Justice League Europe #41 Rating: B. Gerard Jones loves to fill his stories with academic themes which you might think was admirable but then you remember all that stuff on his Wikipedia page about being convicted of possessing child sexual abuse images and all respect for his ideas go out the window. "Oh, you wrote a story about postmodernism and the inherent nonsense of language? Big fucking deal. You also had kid diddling porn." "Oh, what a treat! A mythological treatise on the balance between dark and light, reason and emotion, femininity and masculinity! No wait. You're a sick pervert. Who the fuck cares?" I guess horror stories are better when the monster represents something other than just a killer, like, say, a movie such as It Follows or The Babadook. But sometimes it's nice to not pretend that a monster is more interesting than just being a monster! It's sort of like how Gerard Jones is just a boring ass pederast but he wants you to think of him as an intellectual! It's like how when you read Frankenstein now, you might do so remembering how the creature didn't choose life and then was abandoned and you might want to feel pity for him and anger at his creator. But then when you actually read the book, you're struck at how the monster is just a huge Incel who can't stop whining and pouting about how terrible his life is and how he just wants a woman to fuck him. And that's when you start respecting Doctor Frankenstein when he's all, "Dude. Even if I make a woman out of dead parts for you, she'll still have free will and almost certainly not choose to be with you because your personality is fucking cringe, my man. No way would I do that to a woman!" And then the creature is all, "But I am owed sex and love!" And Doctor Frankenstein is all, "Ugh. You suck. Why did I even make you?"

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Justice League America #65 (August 1992)

Do cosmic vampires have a weakness to snowballs or is Ice just a deeply unserious hero?

At least Ice is trying something. Blue Beetle is just standing there thinking, "Wait. Am I just the chauffeur?"

It's times like this, when you're facing a cosmic sun vampire in deep space, elbow to elbow with a team of heroes with wonderful and myriad powers, when a man in a bug suit finally understands the true weight of his existence. And when that weight reads "Negligible" or "Miniscule," and that man in the bug suit somehow continues to battle forward, it's when true heroism shines! Or he'll just make a fart joke in a moment of true enlightenment as to his ultimate purpose.

Starbreaker breaks Almerac to pieces even though that only makes him a planetbreaker. He knows the power of branding. Besides, if he called himself Planetbreaker, the heroes would have expected this development and tried to stop him before he could break the planet. Instead they were caught with their pants on the outsides of their leotards waiting for Starbreaker to make his move on Almerac's star. And now Superman has been thrown into the molten core of the planet and all of the citizens of Almerac are dying horrific deaths.

If I were as powerless to help as Blue Beetle, I wouldn't constantly call attention to myself with nonsense.

If Starbreaker had previously mentioned how he wanted to sell more records than Madonna and blowing up Almerac was how he was going to do it, then I apologize to Blue Beetle for calling his argument nonsense. But if that didn't happen in the previous issue (and I'm fairly certain it didn't), then shut the fuck up, Beetle. You sound like an asshole.

Ice, Fire, Beetle, and Booster impotently discuss how completely impotent they are, trapped in a cage of energy. Basically they're using all the same adjectives the long-time DC fans have been saying about this version of the Justice League for about five years now: "useless," "idiotic," "underpowered." But Bloodwynd is also trapped in the energy cube and not even Starbreaker knows that he's actually Martian Manhunter. Which means he can just walk out of the energy cube!

Readers are waiting for Superman to burst out of the ground so Dan Jurgens has a short story about Superman in Almerac's core that ends with the core collapsing on Superman. That'll stop the dumb readers from thinking Superman will burst free later in the comic book! "See? You thought he'd get out, didn't you?" says Dan Jurgen as he draws Superman covered in rocks. "But look at that! I just covered Superman in rocks! No way he can get out of that, you idiots!" Dan smiles at his big trick, knowing that Superman will later burst out of Almerac's core. "Checkmate, you dumb readers!"

Why's everybody always gotta prove something to somebody else alla the damn time?!

It's always the dumb Alpha types who claim they have nothing to prove who constantly need to prove to everybody else how alpha they are. They're the true betas. And cucks too!

Bloodwynd finally comes up with a plan that won't blow his cover: he'll shapeshift into a Guardian of the Universe and taunt Starbreaker from inside the prison! Since nobody was paying much attention to Bloodwynd, nobody will notice that he's now missing. And nobody will know J'onn just shape-shifted because Bloodwynd will be all, "I channeled the dead! Again!" Then everybody will be all, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. Very clever how you challenge the dead! It's such a versatile power!"

Starbreaker doesn't suspect anything because he's too angry at the Oans to not try to kill one at first sight. And when he can't harm him through his own force field, the Oan is all, "Oh, you're too weak to blast me through your force field! The only way to kill me is to turn it off! What will you do?! Oh my!" Well, we all know what he's about to do, don't we?

Starbreaker is just as dumb as Booster Gold suspected. That makes me sad.

Bloodwynd reveals his deception and then flies away knowing that the rest of the Justice League do not have the ability to go toe-to-toe with Starbreaker. He has decided it's more important to save Almerac than to save Booster, Beetle, Fire, and Ice. And here I thought J'onn understood the importance of family! Bloodwynd flies off to fix the planet. Elsewhere, Maxima also finally finds the ability to go save her planet. That means Superman must be sealing the third and final fissure that is causing Almerac to fly off into the sun.

Back in the throne room, Fire distracts Starbreaker with her easily crushable skull while Blue Beetle proves how he's an asset to the team. Being that I'm a cynical jerk, I don't buy into the whole "Blue Beetle, being a genius inventor and having familiarized himself with Booster's future tech, invents an energy siphoning machine by combining Booster's force field device to Almerac's force field device." But that's what happens so whatever. I guess Beetle is more than a chauffeur. Look how dumb I look having written that bit earlier when he's just now saved the day with well-explained scientific bullshit. Well, maybe not exactly "well-explained." But definitely scientific bullshit.

Meanwhile somewhere in Almerac's molten core:

What?! No way! Superman didn't get crushed like I totally bought into earlier! Oh, Jurgens! You tricksy scamp you!

Superman plugs one rift and heads back to his team where he insults the fuck out of them by saying, "I never thought I'd say this but I'm impressed!" What a fucking asshole! Go suck on a Kryptonite dildo, you K-jerk!

I mean, I feel the same way. But I'm not Superman! I'm allowed to say this Justice League are a bunch of failure who probably shouldn't have defeated Starbreaker. And yet Dan Jurgens wrote them to to do just that! Incredible!

For the crimes of not giving a fuck about anybody but herself, Maxima is banished from Almerac. Superman allows her to remain on the Justice League, possibly because her ship is their only way back to Earth. At least that's what he'll have to tell Lois later.

Justice League America #65 Rating: B+. Even Ice helped out in this battle if you call making one large ice wall after Starbreaker was pretty much already defeated helping. And Fire helped by distracting Starbreaker with her easily bruised flesh. But mostly the team worked together to help save the planet from a cosmic menace. And this cosmic menace wasn't actively trying to destroy the Justice League either! So it's like they actually did something heroic! They didn't save any Americans but they did save Almeracans which is almost the same thing if you can barely spell like me! The issue lost a partial grade because Starbreaker turned into a pile of dust and I didn't want that to happen to the poor guy! He was just trying to prove himself worthy of his father's love! I think. Also, at one point, he called Booster and Beetle "boys" and that seemed pretty gay. He reminded me of Space Lestat! This was a really good time in our culture for super duper gay vampires. We know Anne Rice was the driving force for that incredible moment in time but I think Robert Smith of The Cure probably had something to do with everybody's love of gay vampires too. Just look at him from the time! So vampiric! And gay!

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