The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #6 (June 2019)

"This comic book is too woke!" screams some lunatic because of the three women on the cover while ignoring the Gollywog in the background.

Look, I just made up that lunatic out of my imagination. Some might call that a straw man and those "some" would be delusional centrists who choose not to believe in lunatics behaving lunatically so they can not believe in anybody warning them about the lunatics. "Both sides are so crazy!" is a thing they are able to say because when they decide not to see the lunatics then the people pointing out that there are lunatics seem like lunatics themselves. I've seen it with older in-laws living in red states. They think you're crazy when you point out reality because their information sources never point out reality. So if reality doesn't exist for them, anybody expressing concern over the current realistic conditions in our country just appear like Chicken Littles screaming that the sky is a white supremacist nation and the only thing that concerns members of the right wing party in America is when the government helps people who are not white or male or rich. The most pressing concern for Republicans is coming up with a new dog whistle for the N-word when the current one becomes too obvious to centrists. Lee Atwater's quote about how you have to find new ways to say the N-word is pretty much the entire Republican strategy. N-word. Forced busing. States' rights. Thugs. Woke. DEI. It's their only platform and I hope they all fucking choke on it as soon as possible.

Lotta people in power who can't swallow two barrels of 000 buckshot fast enough.

This might be the last cheated artist article by Al and Kev but remember, kids: almost all comic writers and artists have been cheated by their publishers!

The issue begins with a scene in 1904 in which Mina Murray has just finished afternoon tea with Sherlock Holmes and Alan Moore is all, "I'm going to do a little tiny meta for the fans."

I don't mean the elephant. If I knew what the elephant was and was commenting on it, I would have said "reference" instead of "meta".

The elephant is being chased away from Holmes' bee-keeping farm by a man with a bident. It must be a Heffalump going after the honey. But if a Heffalump makes an appearance here on Sherlock's estate, can we at least maintain a sliver of belief that Pooh and Piglet were also once members of The League? Maybe a back-up League dealing with smaller and less apocalyptic mysteries?

Mina and The League have just destroyed Moriarity and she's asking Holmes to be a sort of League mentor and advisor. But he refuses, wanting nothing to do with the superpowered and strangely unique. He believes there is no place in regular society for them, himself and his powers of perception and logic included.

Heffalump confirmed!

Holmes surrounds himself with metaphor, the bees being a version of society he sees as orderly and humane, the Pooh Bear representing the concept of Tao, the raging farmer chasing away the Heffalump something, um, about capitalism and class struggle?

Holmes compares Mina to Irene Adler which is a compliment and an acknowledgment that Mina doesn't need his mentorship; she is equal, if not better, to the task of League leader on her own. He also mentions that if a unique and selfish bee were to present itself to the colony, the colony would have to flee the chaos which would ensue. Was he, in 1904, seeing the pattern presented by Prospero and the fairies which would lead Mina and The League to remove themselves to the moon in 2010? Probably!

Back in 2010, all of the fictional characters that have immigrated to Lincoln Island evacuate into Nemo's Nautilus Rocket for immediate evacuation from Earth. Who are they? I don't know!

David Bowie's Starman? Blofeld? The Beagle Boys? Mindman, Electrowoman, and Captain Universe? Six-Gun Gorilla? The Moneypennies? The Pink Child and her Bodyguard? Um, a load of others?

I put a question mark by all the suggestions because I don't want to appear arrogant that I might actually know who Moore and O'Neill were going for, even if they're main characters!

Satin Astro finally meets Vull the Visible aka Mina Murray and lets her know about how the world goes into an apocalypse spiral from this point on. Being that this is a 2000 A.D. parody, she explains how the world gets fucked in Judge Dredd style with killer sentient radioactive monkeys and killer robots. Or that's just Terminator meets Planet of the Apes. Or both, probably!

Emma Night and Orlando console each other with their failure to kill that sexist piece of shit James Bond even though the fairies got him in a nuclear blast that was contained by Captain Universe. Also he didn't die in that blast but nobody knows that yet. He sneaks on board the Nautilus with Spy vs. Spy and The Shadow.

Van Dusen takes a moment to describe more of mankind's fictional nightmares attacking the world.

I don't know these references but they sound Lovecraftian with the odd-angled house and the fishmen.

The final images of Earth being destroyed are broadcast to the Nautilus as everybody climbs into their launch recliners: a Jabberwock decimating London. Leaving Earth to its nightmares, the Nautilus flies past the moon where they see gigantic ants, the Selenites, killing the inhabitants of all the various nations' Moon Bases. But they're leaving all the technology intact as if they're being directed by some sentient being or, as they postulate, black monolith! But it's not just the Selenite army they witness forming on the moon; it's also the army of Amazons which Mina dealt with previously (I think it was in the all text adventures described in one of the earlier volumes). But the Amazons are simply stealing the Earth ships and heading to Venus. Seems logical.

Bond bides his time as the trio of women from the cover discuss a few stories from their past, like how Mina told some sci-fi magazine editor her adventures on the moon which must be where the previous all text adventure came from. This chapter ends with the revelation that the Amazons have already conquered Venus and are possibly heading to Mars next. Marsman cries like an Earth baby.

"They've changed those Amazons from the frozen mountains (of the moon)!"

On Mars, the League find evidence that mankind's nightmares have overreached Earth itself and breed anew on Mars as well. Anywhere human contact has been made, their dreams and nightmares have traveled with them.

Mars got the really spooky nightmares.

All the evidence points to Prospero and the fairies manipulating mankind for its entire history. Mina has been nothing but a pawn. It was Mina who provided the Amazons with the frozen body of Professor Moriarty so that they would have access to his sperm. The next generation of Amazons included men and after long having been pacifists, they were now warmongerers. Holmes's prophetic bee metaphor now haunts Mina's thoughts. Was it her uniqueness, intelligence, and power which caused the downfall of Earth as she was puppeted by Prospero from behind the scenes?! Will she be able to reverse this seemingly unstoppable chain of events? Or will James Bond save the day, an unlikely Gollum accidentally derailing the entire plan as he selfishly tries to fuck more women? Or kill them, I mean?

The revelation that Mina may have been the unwitting pawn of the Fairy all along comes at the center of this issue. That means it's important! I mean, even if it wasn't at the center, it would be an important revelation, I guess.

The Nautilus, unable to make landfall on the moon, Venus, or Mars, continues deeper into the solar system looking for their new home: Captain Universe's Universarium in the Oort Cloud. Captain Universe has opened his home to Jack Nemo and his refugees on one condition: Jack, Captain of the ship, performs a marriage ceremony between Captain Universe and Electrogirl.

On their way, they pass by Jupiter whose orbit is chock full of black monoliths.

Double-O Seven? More like Double-O Anticlimactic.

Yeah, James Bond doesn't do anything exciting at all after all the sneaking and stalking and sexual assaulting.

The marriage between Captain Universe and Electrogirl goes off without a hitch minus the close call with sparking the oxygen in the ship and blowing everybody to smithereens when the bride and groom kiss. Also there's the matter of two wedding crashers who get their comeuppance.

The super tiny speech bubble from Kev reads, "Al, you're a complete cunt."

So that's it! That's the end of everything! Except for the last installment of the Seven Stars battle against the 'Mass and maybe an epilogue or two detailing what happens when Earth has been destroyed by man's imagination.

The Seven Stars' story ends with Zom returning Toby the Schoolboy to his overly fat size so that he can consume the 'Mass and save the country. Most of Britain's heroes have died and the Seven Stars discover that their careers are over since they've all been Seduction of the Innocented into bad press and legal troubles. The team breaks up and Mina heads off to go crazy for a few decades.

The final epilogue reveals that New Lincoln in the Oort Cloud continues to prosper as they watch every fictional alien invasion of the solar system from every year after 2010 blast toward Earth. I guess 2010 was the end of the world because of the 2001 sequel? We did see the monoliths around Jupiter and they were apparently tools of Prospero and the Fairies in controlling and manipulating mankind. The entire series ends with Mister Hyde resurrected in a new immortality pool recreated by Captain Universe so that Mina can have somebody to dance with. Also the Pink Child winds up dating Astro Boy. The end!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #6 Rating: A+. I haven't read the parody letters page yet because I never really write about it even if it's possibly the greatest part of every issue. I wish Alan Moore would make fun of comic book readers more often! Anyway, that's it. I'll probably understand it all better when I re-read the previous volumes (probably out of order). Just one last scan and I'm done!

Zom!

Justice League Quarterly #9 (Winter 1992)

Booster Gold has more muscles in one leg than I have in my entire body.

I just realized you're probably picturing me as a huge flabby mess after that caption! That couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm full of muscles! Just a big muscular muscle man! I guess you need that context to understand that my comment was to point out that Booster Gold has way too many muscles in his legs rather than just the right amount and that I have none. I just told you I have loads and loads of muscles to provide that context and not to brag about all of my muscles. So many muscles! But not too many so that I look like one of Booster Gold's legs! That would be gross.

I'm assuming nobody reading this has too many muscles otherwise I never would have said it was gross because I don't want to be hunted down and punched in my flabby face by some overzealous roid-brained hulk.

On a lighter note, did you see Fire's ass on the cover? Hot cha cha cha cha!

On a heavier note, was Max Lord ever not a villain? Just a total piece of shit from his first appearance through to whatever the fuck happened to him. I don't really care. Just an awful character.

What the fuck, Bea?

What's Fire got against Central America? Does she find everybody from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama disgusting? Or does she just hate the way Central America looks on a map? It's kind of like the inverted rectum of North America. Although I don't know what that would make South America. Double ick! Maybe back in 1992, the people of Brazil had some kind of overarching hatred for every single country in Central America and Mark Waid was doing some character building here by showing how Brazilian Fire is in her disgust of Central America. Or Fire's just a huge racist fucking pig. I don't know!

The Justice League have come to Central America (more specifically? Who the fuck knows? Mark Waid couldn't be bothered to open up an atlas at the time) to arrest Ira Quimby. Or as his friends begrudgingly refer to him, I.Q. The Justice League head into his lab cocky and arrogant because the guy's name is Ira Quimby. How hard can it be to catch a nerd with that nerd name? Nerd! But little do they know because they're not good at word puzzles and anagrams and initialisms, he's a certified genius! Not because he was born smart or he studied hard but because he rubbed an ancient alien rock all over his body and now when he gets in the sun, his mind work goodlier.

Just a sec! Me needs go rub rock on me and go sit under sun for moment.

Okay! Let's continue!

The Justice League enter Ira's lab and are immediately attacked by five hundred lab monkeys.

Oh man! I hope Ira was running experiments on how fast monkeys could take off women's clothing. That's something a nerd would do, right?!

Ira concentrates so fully while working that he doesn't hear the Justice League beat the shit out of all of his monkeys in the other room. It might also be because he's in a suit with an enclosed environment so he doesn't get any diseases from the monkeys. Wild monkeys may be cute but I'll offer you some advice you may not have considered: you shouldn't try to kiss them. Ira also might be wearing that suit to protect himself from a bacterial weapon he's developing which causes people to become super violent after one hour of coming into contact with it.

Uh-oh.

Don't worry too much yet! That might not have been the rage bacteria. It may have been the concoction that allowed the monkeys to take women's clothes off quickly! This comic book is about to get either super bloody or super sexy! Hopefully the boner I'm sporting is in anticipation of super sexy or else I might need more therapy.

Also I just realized that's probably Ira Quimby on the cover and not Max Lord. I was wondering why he had a monkey on his shoulder.

Ira calms the Justice League by telling them that his Rage Virus only affects one out of every six people due to some genetic factor that he's too stupid to figure out. Blue Beetle believes that means one of them will wind up trying to murder the rest of them instead of realizing that maybe none of them will be affected. That's only a 17% chance for any of them to wind up a multiple murderer and since I can't do more complex calculations than that, I'm pretty optimistic that none of them will wind up infected!

I just did a quick Maths study on the Internet and while I'm in no way confident in what I think I've learned, I believe there's only a 32% chance that none of them will have been infected. That doesn't sound great, does it?! Now I'm fucking worried! Or super horny because, remember, they might have been infected with the taking clothes off women quickly virus! Fingers crossed!

Ice is super against nerds who want to see women's clothes torn off.

Blue Beetle confidently tells the others that one of them will go berserk in exactly one hour. Thankfully, Ira shuts him up and is all, "Or two. Maybe three? One in six is a probability, idiot, not a certainty! Learn some statistics, asshole." It's a real shame because Blue Beetle doesn't have any super powers to fall back on so humiliating him for the only thing he has — his brain — must be devastating.

Also hanging about the lab are more monkeys that weren't rounded up by the Justice League in the first scene so I guess maybe some of them might go fuckshit bonkers too?

Some of the Justice League realize they can't leave without risking the rest of the world and that "some of the Justice League" is Booster Gold for some reason. I bet he went through some kind of horrible space measles pandemic far in the future so he understands quarantines. Since they're stuck together until they wind up murdered by whoever's infected (unless it's Blue Beetle and then, well, you know. Guy Gardner will just hold him by his forehead as he foams and rants and tries to tear out Guy's entrails), they gang up on Ira Quimby and force him to make an antidote. He was shown earlier palming a small vial of yellow liquid so I'm pretty sure he already has an antidote. He just wants to see the Justice League shit themselves.

Or he just wants to kill them by directly injecting a deadly solution into their veins.

The story continues like an episode of The Twilight Zone with everybody getting more and more paranoid. None of them even try to come up with a plan to maybe keep each of them separated. They just wander around the lab kissing monkeys and accusing each other of being the future killer. You'd think they'd use Booster Gold's force field to isolate each other, or Guy's ring, or a bunch of ice walls. Anything that would give them at least a few moments to realize who's infected and then concentrate on containing that person. Unless The Flash is infected. If The Flash is infected, they're already dead.

Before the virus even begins to affect anybody, they start fighting with each other. Ice and Fire attack each other, probably due to some grudges based on living as roommates for so long. Then Booster gets hit by stray fire and starts attacking. Flash tries to stop the fight and slips on some ice which makes him slide into Guy who punches Flash out with a light construct. It's a huge mess and in that moment, Ira Quimby makes a run for it! He winds up in a secret lab where he's protected by a forcefield. He wasn't trying to make an antidote at all! He just needed a chance to get away and be safe from the killers.

But it doesn't last because, again, he's not as smart as he thinks he should be after rubbing a stone all over himself and then lying in the sun.

See how easily he uses the term "voyeurism"? He definitely experimented with making monkeys rip women's clothes off.

After the force field breaks down, Blue Beetle makes a dangerous assumption. We don't find out about the assumption until later but what it is is this: he doesn't feel any rage coming on as the hour nears its end so he assumes that means he hasn't been infected. Did he not watch the monkey kill its family earlier when IQ was showing them how the virus works? The monkey was fine right until the clock ticked over to an hour and then it went berserk. Anyway, the assumption is made and luckily Beetle is right but what he also assumes is that every single one of his friends somehow realized the same thing. Ted fixes Ira's forcefield to create five individual forcefields to contain the rest of the Justice League and their agreement to be contained says to Ted that none of them are infected either. You know, because if they'd felt the rage coming on, they'd refuse to get in a force field so that they could kill the others. Which, again, seems like some crazy assumptions being thrown around by somebody who believes in science!

You know how sometimes you do or say something and you just know you're going to feel like a real fucking loser moron just before you say or do that thing and then the thing is said or done and you shame spiral into oblivion about it? Yeah, I'm not talking about Ted anymore. That's how I feel right now because, once again, I've allowed myself to argue against comic book logic. I read the thing where Blue Beetle makes the assumption and I know it's a fucking comic book and I realize that it works for the plot and I know everything's going to work out so that the plot highlights Blue Beetle's smarts and yet I still dig in my heels and try to argue about how stupid it is. Because that's all I have. I'm a petty little idiot man-child who finds the worst kind of joy in tearing apart the plots of people just trying to write fun little stories to distract us from the mortal terrors all around us. I might as well stare into an ice cream cone and disparage it for not melting correctly as I eat it. Maybe I should try reading this again but enjoying it this time? Just a second!

Okay, let's see. Bea's racist. Monkeys try to strip Tora naked. Ira douses everybody in Monkey Rage Mist. A monkey tears its family apart. Another monkey commits suicide. Everybody bickers and argues. Ira jizzes in his hazmat suit while watching the League fall apart. Ira shits himself when his force field falls apart. Blue Beetle makes a crucial error in logic that luckily saves the day so nobody points out his crucial logic error and everybody just treats Beetle as a hero instead of the two-bit engineer he really is, a character who has no super powers but still somehow held the interest of enough comic book nerds to support an ongoing monthly title for two years and then become a member of the greatest super hero group ever as if he's on par with Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman?! Dammit! Now I'm angry! At least I wasn't angry after reading the first time! I was just slightly bewildered by the end! But now I want to punch a murder monkey in the dick!

Anyway, where were we?

Blue Beetle pretends to be infected with the virus so he can chase Ira around the complex until Ira admits that he had already created an antidote. Still nobody worries about all the monkeys hanging around the complex who also have a 1 in 6 chance of turning murderous. Sure, if I were Booster Gold or Guy Gardner, I wouldn't be worried. But Ira and Ted definitely couldn't defeat a rampaging monkey. Oh, forget about the monkeys! Why must I always get distracted by things Mark Waid has decided aren't important to the story! The monkeys not currently murdering anybody probably proved immune weeks ago during Ira's experiments! See? If I truly want to, I can always find a reason to excuse the narrative rather than tear it down. It's all about attitude!

Ira finally attempts to jab Beetle with the antidote but Beetle just takes it and goes back to release his friends, none of whom were infected. They all take a jab of the antidote so they won't be carriers when they go back into the real world but then all die of cancer months later while Bill Gates maniacally rubs his hands together and laughs the secret laugh of the world's evil overlords! Or maybe they all just go home and live happily ever after while a monkey dangerously shakes some vial full of Ira Quimby's patented End-of-the-World Pox.

Bad monkey! Put Ira's Jizz-in-a-jar down!

The second story stars Crimson Fox and her twin sister, Crimson Fox. It's a murder mystery revolving around people who look like they've committed suicide but have, in fact, been murdered mysteriously! It's up to Crimson Fox and the other Crimson Fox to figure out what is going on in a story Kevin Dooley and Andy Smith like to call, "Churches of Homos!" No wait, that can't be right. The actual title "Cherchez L'Homme" badly translates to "Search for the Man." I only say "badly translates" because I used Google translate and translation isn't meant to be literal. It's probably supposed to be more like "Manhunt", right?

Oh no! Crimson Fox has been infected with Ira's Tear Women Clothes Off Virus!

You wouldn't believe the panel that follows the panel I scanned and which I imagined in my own head! It doesn't turn me on that they're twin sisters. That's actually kind of gross. But it's a comic book and also an imaginary panel that I invented in my head so I can totally believe that they're actually clones and not sisters. That's less gross, right?

Crimson Fox decides to investigate and discovers that a high-powered woman running some company I'm not even bothering to try to remember even for the few seconds it takes to put down the comic book and write this has been using some good-looking man to murder women connected to her company and making the murders look like suicide. Fox stakes out the company and eventually sees a woman leaving with a good-looking man. She thinks, "A-ha! A woman leaving the company with a man! This is a thing that never happens! This must be the man I am hunting!" I know that's not the best detective work but think of it this way: if you know you're in a murder mystery that's only about ten pages long, the first suspect you lay eyes on has to be the killer! There isn't any time for red herrings in a story this short.

Sacred blues!

With Crimson Fox now under the thrall of the murderer, it's up to Crimson Fox to save Crimson Fox! I would differentiate the Crimson Foxes except this entire story is translated from French so both Crimson Foxes speak exactly the same. They're only discernible when they speak English because one is fluent and the other has a strong French accent. One other way to know which is which is the length of their hair but I can't stop focusing on their boobies so that's no help.

By the way, is "Andy Smith", the artist on this story, a pen name of "Bart Sears"? Because this shit looks exactly like Bart Sears' shit. The inker is "Asylum Studios". Could that be Bart Sears?!

Crimson Fox figures out all the clues left by the murderer to discover where he's been hiding out because he really wants a hero to discover him. Because, as I pointed out earlier, the first suspect is always the murderer in a story this short. And yet even in these few pages, Andy Helfer managed to throw in a red herring of sorts! Because the man forcing the women to kill themselves with his pheromone power was actually the woman running that company whom Crimson Fox interviewed at the start! What an efficient use of so few pages!

Needing a man proved her downfall! She should have been happy with Crimson Fox!

What I like about this story is that the clues she left at the killings were important to her plan unlike Batman's villains who leave clues because, I suppose, they just get off on getting their asses beat. But this woman was trying to find a hero smart enough and strong enough to discover her wicked murder spree and then to control him with her pheromones so she could stop dating loser after loser. It was a pretty good plan! Although the plan was super sexist. Not because she murdered women while putting the plan into motion but because she assumed the hero that would stop her would be male. Ha ha! Feminism just kicked your ass, murderer!

The third story stars Power Girl not drawn by Bart Sears so I might actually find her attractive. That's a huge plus!

See?! If it wasn't for Ralph's weird stretchy neck ruining the mood, I'd be totally hard right now!

I'm just kidding! Ralph's weird neck sort of helps my boner!

No, no! I'm just kidding! I'm not a huge sex pervert like I pretend to be! If you think I'm disgusting, just remember, "Grunion Guy (or whoever claims to be the author of this) isn't really disgusting! They're just pretending to be disgusting because they find it funny to pretend to be disgusting! Although Kurt Vonnegut warns that we should be careful who we pretend to be because we generally are the thing we're pretending we're pretending not to be. So is Tess (or whoever claims to be the author of this) really a huge pervert? Probably not!" Just try to remember the "Probably not!" part of that and forget the other stuff where I cast doubt on the thing I was trying to prove I wasn't. Because I'm not just a huge pervert; I'm also a gigantic self-saboteur!

After Power Girl destroys the kitchen and nearly kills Ralph, Wally makes a bet with her that she can't go two days without losing her temper. They shake. Ralph suggests they rethink the bet. Power Girl yells, "NO!" Um, did she just lose? I guess she didn't just lose. Maybe to lose she has to destroy something and not just yell at innocent bystanders with disgustingly long necks.

Anyway, Kara loses the bet because everybody writing these Justice League stories have decided she's a one note joke like Guy Gardner being an arrogant prick and Wally West being a sex pest. Some writer tried to fix her by having Doctor Light point out it was the chemicals in the diet sodas she drinks for no reason fucking up her brain chemicals but I don't think most writers wanted it fixed. Just like nobody wants to fix Guy Gardner by having everybody realize he's suffering from traumatic brain injuries and that he should maybe get some help. I don't know if Wally's sex pest problem can be fixed. I guess just stop writing him that way? Which somebody eventually does, I guess?

The final story isn't about the Global Guardians so there's a high chance that I won't "accidentally" drop this issue in the paper shredder now. It's about Booster Gold. I'm not going to immediately have an accident but I'm also not not going to read this over a running shredder.

Booster Gold has a run-in with a homeless boy who steals his wallet and whom Booster Gold basically blasts on his ass with one of his future bolts to stop him. Also the boy is actually a girl. You can tell because this issue already had a story where a woman was masquerading as a man and also I was sexually attracted to the homeless person so I knew it couldn't be a guy because I'm almost certainly not super gay.

Booster Gold somehow recognizes this young lady because in the future, she has a huge career being a model who poses for the pictures that get stuck in empty picture frames being sold. Was she that good at it that she basically cornered the empty picture frame market for 400 years?! Booster also knows all about her life because she's super famous for other reasons too, I guess. He decides to help her out because he's memorized her Wikipedia page and he knows that she's run away from home and if she doesn't get back home, she's going to wind up doing pornography while her sister dies of cancer of the I Miss My Sister glands.

Later, he introduces her to the rest of the Justice League!

What a bunch of pervs! She's only fifteen! Stop admitting that you're sexually attracted to her, you pedoes!

We only have Booster Gold's word that she's currently fifteen so why don't we all pretend she's a nice round 24. If he had access to Skeets, I'd believe he knew how old she was in 1992. But he doesn't and he's from the 25th Century so how the fuck would he know how old she is?! Also she's fucking fictional so who cares? They could say she's eight right her and, well, that would be really fucking weird. Never mind.

How much money is this issue worth? It's got to be a lot since it has a page where you see the "O" faces of four separate members of Justice League America! I wonder what Martian semen smells like?

Booster Gold changes the future by making sure the pornographer doesn't get his pedo mitts on Geralyn and she goes back home and her sister survives and now Booster Gold has the hots for two super young women from the 21st century. What a weird fucking story!

The pedo porn guy is Bill Maher in a tiny French mustache disguise. Seems accurate.

Justice League Quarterly #9 Rating: I could have lived without ever reading it again. But how would I have known that without doing it, you know? Other than the huge stack of evidence which I call Justice League Quarterly #1-8, I guess. I would say "Live and learn" but I imagine if I live to be 90, I'm going to revisit this terrible shit yet again! God I hope I don't live that long!

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #5 (February 2019)

I dare! I dare!

Prospero's army of fictional monsters were set loose at the end of the last issue with help from Mina and James Bond and Orlando and all the others because they've all been manipulated by Prospero and the Fairies for hundreds of years! It's only the fifth issue out of six so I don't feel like this is the big twist. An even bigger one has got to be around the corner. But in the meantime, the world is about to be destroyed by Shirtless and Winged Spock, Sam Weir, the mascots from The Trees of Mystery, Harambe, a massive acid-spitting pronoun, and Frankenconductor. I don't know about you but I think I could take them. At the very least, I could defeat Sam by throwing an egg at him and ruining his stupid fucking life. Nerd!

In this issue's "Cheated Champions of Your Childhood" segment (Alan Moore playing fast and loose with the word "your"), Moore lets slip exactly what they're parodying this issue: "British reprints of pre-code American crime and horror comics." Does he do that every issue and I just missed it? I think every issue, I'm supposed to understand what's being parodied by the style and career of the person who was cheated. Or, at least, the era in which they worked. Because Moore ties the theme into the reason they're spotlighting this month's Cheated Champion: Denis McLoughlin!

Holy shit!

Man, Alan Moore fucking hates business people as much as The Kids in the Hall do! I suppose since one of the themes of Jerusalem is that artistic nostalgia can redeem us, I can see why he can't stand what publishing companies do to the artists who create all of the art. I don't mean to suggest that he pays them much mind during his life. He's too busy creating! But when he does think about them, he's not holding back. And yet he's doing it in such a fun and whimsical way. I love me some seriously subversive art. That's why I like The Monkees so much!

Shut up. You don't know.

Oh, I didn't finish my thought about how little Moore thinks of the people on the business side! I brought it up because it seems the people on the business side think about the artists all the time and how much they hate them and despise having to pay them and they resent them for every single imaginative creation they produce because the money grubbing business assholes couldn't come up with a fun thought if they were, um, forced to come up with a fun thought! Stupid headed fart butts.

This issue begins with Osiris telling Richard Dadd to kill his father (whom he thinks is the devil). Whenever I read a name in a League comic, I always check it on Wikipedia so I can get some context and possibly understand some of what Moore's going for in the story. If you're reading this, you're on the Internet (presumably! I'm sorry for anybody reading this if I actually got around to printing all 4000+ reviews as 'zines! But you probably have a Musk Brand Brain Internet Connection so you can just quickly learn about it from Musk's AI Wikipedia. I'm sorry that you still won't be any less ignorant than before, you poor future thing) so you can look it up yourself. It's quite a sad story in only one aspect: the fact he killed his father. All the other stuff? Grand! Inspirational! A dream! He wound up living nearly 40 years of his life in a mental institution painting every single day and just doing art. And all he had to do was kill his father?! Man. My dad owes me so much, I wonder if he'd let me do a Dick Dadd on him?

Here's O'Neill's interpretation of him.


And here's Dadd. Kev fucking nailed the eyes! (Photo by Henry Hering.)

What young Dick tries to describe is the sudden onset of schizophrenia. Probably! Two of his siblings had it and another one might have. It's either that or Moonknightinism. Dadd's narration is mostly from a small gnome, a figure you can see in his work, "The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke." He declares that the image he painted was the final moment before fairy set loose upon the world all of its fictional monsters and nightmares. Looking at the painting, you can see a fairy about to bring a hammer down on an acorn while the self-portrait of Dadd as a gnome huddles by looking anxious and worried. He has painted the final moment of the world and then become trapped within.

The moment after the last moment of a world not undergoing an apocalypse.

If you don't have your 3D glasses on, that's Mina and Jack in the background trying to escape the world of Faerie so they can return home and save it from Sam Weir, Harambe, and Baba Yaga's Chicken Hut (not featured on the cover but featured within).

When everybody's fictional nightmares have been released (I'm assuming some people have a phobia for bunnies so you've got to believe Fivel and Peter Cottontail are out there tearing people's heads off), London has a major blackout. They're probably related but since nobody in London knows that their childhood nightmares are roaming the streets, they just assume Tory incompetence. Also Labor incompetence. Fuck Starmer.

Oh, they're also probably not related because I just remembered that Electrowoman caused the blackout by having an orgasm in the middle of the street. I mean tantrum. It's just I haven't acted like a horny comic book reader yet and something was bound to give.

Understanding that I have the mind of a horny juvenile (and also because he's parodying those aforementioned horror and crime comic books), Alan Moore has introduced a ghostly narrator character helping keep the plot straight for me.

Great. Now I want to fuck Marsman.

The paper used in this comic book is of such high quality and are so glaringly white that my scanner often reads the white border as the underside of the scanner's lid and cuts it out of the scanning preview as you can see in the previous scan where my scanner decided the top of the page was the top of the panels and not the extra quarter inch of white paper that was also scanned.

Those were two of the Bonds that killed each other thanks to Marsman and his titties. The last three movie Bonds remain back at Vauxhall monitoring the blackout. Their generators give them enough power to receive incoming messages from around the world and they realize that monsters have begun attacking the rest of the world. Oh, also London is under attack by werewolves. Get it? Ha ha!

Mina, Jack, the Hercules fellow, the racist doll, and the other ones I've forgotten try to flee the Blazing World but are attacked by Demogorgon. It's not the Demogorgon that's the rival of Orcus. It's, according to Mina, "a monster of the people." Basically it represents ignorant populists who believe they can understand the world through "common sense" and "gut instincts" and "intuition." So naïve!

Oh, now you're going to fetch your 3D glasses, hunh?

I don't know why Coghlan stripped naked to fight the Demogorgon. It's probably some lore I'm unfamiliar with. Next time I meet Demogorgon in a D & D campaign though, I'll know how to defeat that bastard.

Let me once again state how incredible the 3D work is on this comic book. Standing ovation to Charles Bernard and Christian LeBlanc who worked on the 3D process in this comic. Fantastic!

The little feller whose name I don't remember, the sporty guy in the flat cap, cuts the Demogorgon's head off with the scythe he won off the grim reaper. He mentioned it an issue or two ago and I probably thought he was just bullshitting everybody and it wouldn't be important to the plot. Oops!

After Demogorgon lies dead, the team reboard the Nautilus and head back to Lincoln Island to meet up with Orlando's team and figure out how to save the world.

Demogorgon losing its head is the exact middle of this issue. That's probably important. Something about populist comic book readers holding no power over how the story should end. They've just gone back to watching television, jerking off, and tweeting about how angry they are that they heard a rumor that there were three Black men playing Stormtroopers in A New Hope. I guess they need to feel like they've developed the ability to discern the Anti-Male and Anti-White secret messages in all forms of entertainment media (but especially those things created after 2008 because, well, you know why). I don't get why ordinary idiots can't just be happy being ordinary and living an ordinary life while being a dumb idiot who can't enjoy their stupid comic books anymore because a bunch of dumb dillholes like Ethan Van Sciver have serious low self-esteem issues? Stop trying to keep everybody else at your level, jerkos! This extremely online portion of the "ordinary" population constantly scream about freedom and free speech but then when the idiot they voted for gets into office, they seem to cheer all of his moves to end the free speech and freedoms of loads of other Americans. We see you, you assholes. And we will never forget. I wish somebody in a flat cap would cut all of their heads off!

The next story is called "What Happened at 3:08 AM?" Oh, did I mention this issue was divided into four stories like an old horror or crime comic book? This third one is about Mindman and Captain Universe. They've finally arrived back in London to help their old Seven Stars friends. But Mindman can't seem to get over the thought that something that he can't psychically see is going to happen at 3:08 AM! Doesn't that usually mean, if you're psychic, that it's the time of your death? When you can't see it clearly?! If I were Mindman, I'd be all, "I see myself shitting my pants soon!"

Meanwhile, a 3D fairy (who was also seen lurking in London in the story with the Werewolves of London) delivers a small box with the symbol of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on it (a question mark) to Vauxhall. The movie James Bondses, not being incredibly smart or perceptive, bring it inside and decide to open it. A massive radioactive explosion occurs but Captain Universe and Mindman arrive just in time for Captain Universe to use his Polylocation power to contain the blast by making thousands of copies of himself and surrounding the blast with his bodies. M, the old main James Bond turned youthful, was not in the building because he was out test driving his fancy 007 car. He sees Captain Universe and Mindman save London and follows them to Orlando's team who are evacuating in one of Nemo's stealth fighters. Bond follows after them in his flying stealth car that's also a watch.

The final story's name is a totally hilarious literature pun!

Computer Van Dusen describes loads of scary things happening all over the world: Cthulhu, Giants, Vril-ya, vampires, and even the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sounds like everybody might be just a little bit fucked. That's why the League are getting out on Nemo's new ship, the Character Ark! Or maybe it's just called the Nautilus again. But this time, it's a space rocket that looks like a squid! Cool! They're headed to the moon where there's more black monolith activity. Also maybe a secret League base or something. I don't know! I haven't read Issue 6 yet. I mean at least not for six years! And whoever I was six years ago certainly didn't decide to retain any of the story for current me! Selfish prick.

The fifth part of the Seven Stars comic detailing their final battle contains the secret origin of Flash Avenger.

Gross! Poor people! Flash Avenger is my fave!

I'm not cross-posting these on tumblr anymore because I'm fucking tired of tumblr phasing out and not existing every three minutes or so and when I try to visit the site when it's not quite lined up with our reality, my browser crashes. But if I was, I'd probably be chastised by at least a few people for that previous caption because they don't have any ability to discern facetiousness. Or maybe not. Are they all still doing that Goncharov crap? Or that thing where somebody misuses a word and then somebody else reblogs it with, "No, that's X! What you're thinking of is Y!" But Y isn't right either and the next person is all, "No, that's Y! What you're thinking of is Z!" But then Z isn't right either and it just keeps going and oh it's so hilarious I'm pissing three pairs of underwear right now just thinking about it!

What I was trying to say before I so rudely insulted people on tumblr was that thank Christ's corpse that there were people who took pity on poor people like all of my friends' families when I was the poorest kid everybody knew growing up. Phil's family and Daniel's family and Sal's family and Davide's family and Doug's family and of course my aunt and uncle all treated me like I wasn't a dirty, stinky, smell, annoying piece of shit. Maybe I wasn't all of those things but if I was, they sure didn't make me think I was!

The Seven Stars battle the 'Mass but can't get the upper hand. It kills most of the British superheroes while every power the Seven Stars possess prove to be ineffective. But Vull comes up with a plan! She won't tell anybody though because that's how comic books work. You have to wait until the next issue.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 4: The Tempest #5 Rating: A+. What more do you want? I have a headache and I'm tired! Come up with a conclusion to the review yourself, you lazy bastich!

Satin Astro!

Justice League Quarterly #8 (Autumn 1992)

A white man in a suit is to blame? Was that supposed to be difficult? Or simply rhetorical?

Every member of the team must be matching up with their equivalent on the other team. And if that's the case (which it is because that's how comic books work and I know all about comic books and how they work having read Scott McCloud's seminal work, Comic Books and How They Work), I'd be completely fucking offended if I was Lizard Cyclops. "Oh? A challenging match-up for me is Blue Beetle? Get the fuck out of here! A challenging match for Blue Beetle could be a toddler with a Chatter Telephone."

Some of you might be too young to know what a Chatter Telephone is but you'll know when I say one thing: Skinamarink. It's the image that made you think, "That fucking movie looks so creepy!" And then you went to see the movie and you were all, "WTF?! That silly phone was hardly in it at all! Also: WTF?!"

The advert on the inside cover of this issue is for Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and it's absolutely fucking disgusting.

Can people stop fiddling about with farm animals? Leave the poor critters alone!

I don't know what Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest has to do with fucking barnyard animals but I just went on eBay to purchase a copy because it sounds fun!

The issue begins with Maxwell Lord firing most of the members of the Conglomerate by stamping out their faces on a picture of the group with his trusty "⊘" stamp. It's his most used stamp! I wish I had one for family photo albums with family members I no longer speak with because while they say they love me, they still vote Republican. It's simpler than using my mother's method which I discovered on a trip back home a few years: cutting people's faces out of the pictures and then acting like she doesn't know what happened when I decide to flip through the album until I finally realize that all the missing faces are attached to people my mother now despises and then grow deathly quiet and begin to worry that she might have something mentally wrong with her and if she's dangerous so later that night I block the door with a standing fan so that I don't wind up reverse-Psychoed by her.

Also, Maxwell Lord's clock has a weird way of displaying 10:27 AM.

Maybe artist Rod Whigham should have attended more than just art classes?

Okay, Max didn't fire any of the Conglomerate because he has nothing to do with them. They're run by his ex-wife Claire ("Are you a virgin, Claire? Why don't you just answer the question, Claire?" (You might think I'm quoting The Breakfast Club but I'm actually quoting Timothy Olyphant in Go!)). Maxwell Lord has simply offered the heroes better jobs through various shell companies he owns until they've all quit. He did this because he hates his ex-wife and he can't just let her have her own thing now that she divorced him for being a gigantic prick mind-controlled by a narcissistic satellite. Also, he dreamed up a huge arena event where the Justice League were to engage in a cage match with The Conglomerate and Max Lord liked the idea of wasting everybody's time by ruining the event. There's something seriously wrong with this guy. It wouldn't surprise me if he wound up murdering somebody some day!

Since Claire has lost all of her heroes, she quickly puts out some Craigslist want ads and gets several super hero applicants and a serial killer.

If you can't tell which one is the serial killer, might I advise you to delete all of your dating apps?

Claire's about to call the whole thing off when she gets one last applicant: The Plagiarizer! I mean, Norman the Doorman! He can open portals to parallel dimensions, particularly a faux Marvel dimension, and hire heroes from that world! Like the guys on the cover who may have caused you to think, "Haven't I seen these guys before? Is that Wolverine with a bow? Is that, um, the fast one? And the fire one with boobs?" If only Scott McCloud had a chapter in Comic Books and How They Work on recognizing Marvel parodies!

"Gentlemen"?! What a weird way to begin negotiations when at least three of them are presenting as women!

I might be off on how many are presenting as women because I'm too woke to see gender. My main chat up line is, "If you have a vagina, may I put my pee pee into it? And if not, you must have a butthole, no?" Sometimes it works and then they expect me to piss in their vagina and I have to be all, "No, no! That was slang for my ding dong!" And then they're all, "Oh! I've never tried a Hostess snack cake in my cake hole!" And then I have to run out and buy some Ding Dongs to shove inside them and by that time, I'm really not interested in orgasming. I'm just hungry.

What I'm trying to say is, yes, I've eaten a ding dong out of a bung hole.

The charity event where some superheroes bash some other superheroes for loads of money begins the next night at 7:60 PM on the dot.

I didn't think Ice was legally allowed to ride ice slides around! I guess if they're already stealing Marvel ideas with the guest heroes, why not go full Huck Finn?

The Flash begins making fun of The Conglomerate and their powers and Blue Beetle joins in because his super power must be a lack of self-awareness. But to their surprise, Claire introduces the new Conglomerate: Flamestar! Iceman! Spider-man! Mr. Fantastic! Hawkeye but also Wolverine! Quicksilver! And, um, Metamorpho! Blue Beetle shits his pants which makes the fourth time this issue. I just didn't mention the other three times because I was embarrassed for him.

"The Crawlies" must be how they say "The Skitters" in the Midwest.

Blue Beetle and Elongated Man lose the first battle because Blue Beetle doesn't have any powers but Cyclopean Spider-man has the proportionate strength of a scarab and destroys their flying disc. Blue Beetle thinks about making a stink but doesn't want to call attention to his lack of powers so he's all, "Um, good job! Well done! I was just about to do that same thing!"

Next up, Quicksilver versus The Flash in a power walking competition.

Shouldn't this be taking place in a mall?

While Quicksilver and Flash speed walk around the stadium, the other members of their groups shoot baseballs at them out of shoulder launchers. That doesn't seem too dangerous! Imagine speed walking at the speed of sound when you're suddenly smashed in the face by a hard rubber ball coming from the opposite direction at, well, any speed at all, really! One of these assholes is about to die.

It was Wally! He's dead now!

Quicksilver vibrates in that special way that causes the space between his atoms to become so large that other, more tightly packed atoms can pass right through. I know, it doesn't sound feasible, does it? You'd think that both objects would have to vibrate for that to work. I'm no scientist but I think I just found a flaw in the physics in this comic book! But then again, being that I just admitted to not being a scientist, you might be able to see the flaw in my reasoning. But do I even need to run any experiments to prove that something vibrating super fast wouldn't allow something not vibrating super fast (or, let's get wild here, is also vibrating super fast!) to pass right through it? Can't I just motion at the world around me and at the entire remembered history of mankind and say, "When has something that's usually solid ever passed through something else that's usually solid? And remained intact, I mean! Because, sure, birds have passed through jet engines but that's not exactly what we're talking about here, jerkface!" I suppose the theory is that gases and liquids can pass through gaps in solid material so if the solid material's gaps were wide enough (oh man I'm getting horny), solid material could also pass through solid material! Although it's easier to make your own gaps in solid material if you need to pass solid material through it which is why civilization invented doors and windows.

Anyway, Wally either isn't smart enough or isn't talented enough to vibrate correctly and gets beaned in the head with a baseball. Unless it's beamed. Maybe it's both. He doesn't die because he was hit in one of his non-critical body parts.

Blue Beetle was the one to blast Wally in the head so it might actually have been intentional. It's caused the Justice League to lose the second event and Max Lord to accuse Claire of cheating somehow. This is how you know somebody has cheated. They believe that the only way somebody else could have beaten them is if they cheated as well. But then they can't come right out and state that claim so they have to whine in the media every day for four years looking like a bitch-ass baby. Then a bunch of fuckshit losers believe their propaganda while screaming about free speech because some thirteen year old online said they shouldn't use the word "retard" supported them while pretending to believe it was for free speech but actually they just wanted to call people retards without being seen for the assholes they were. Then when their "team" somehow won because half of the country are either too stupid to live or fascist dickwagons, they cheer the ending of free speech for the people they don't like even though they were all, "Free speech for everybody!" Man, I fucking hate the freedom lovers. They're the ones who never actually understand freedom and just want the freedom to end the freedom of other people. Suck a boar's tit, you fucking imbeciles and bullies. Find some joy. Read a book. Eat a fucking vegetable.

Back at Justice League Headquarters, Hal Jordan drops by to watch the event with Oberon. Oberon claims the Marvel Like-a-Looks have been cheating like crazy but I don't know where he gets that. Who wrote the rules for this fucking thing? So it's cheating if you vibrate while speed walking or smash the floating disc of a rival? It's cheating to actually use all of the super powers at your disposal? Did Blue Beetle add that rule to the games?

While watching the game, Hal Jordan seems to recognize one of the members of the other team and he seems pretty shocked by it.

Or maybe this guy's dick just flopped out on the live feed.

Being an expert in all things Qwardian unless he's an expert on all things Earth-3 because who can fucking follow DC history when you're reading old books and you have to keep asking, "Wait? Is this Post Zero-Hour? Is this Pre-Crisis? Is this before or after John Byrne said Superman couldn't breathe in space? Did I just make that up? Are we all just making everything up as we go along? Is civilization just a bunch of slippery rocks on the cereal box?!", Hal Jordan recognizes The Conglomerate for what they really are: Qwardians! Or Earth-3ians! He tells Oberon they're new members of what had been known as the Crime Syndicate. Oh, that's why I brought up Hal being an expert on Qwardians because none of The Conglomerate are recognizably members of the Crime Syndicate like Owl Man or coke-snorting Ultraman or Johnny Superfast or Superwonderwoman or Cock Ring. He just realizes they're Qwardians following in the footsteps of the Earth-3 Crime Syndicate who are from Qward I mean. In other words, they're super duper evil and probably about to kill the Justice League.

Once Hal realizes who these jerks are, he flies off to warn the Justice League that they're in a real life or death battle. But at the same time, the Little Crime Syndicate drops the act and begins trying to kill the Justice League. So while Hal doesn't need to warn them, he probably can save their asses since he's the only real member of the Justice League in this fight. You know what I mean. Booster Gold? Blue Beetle? Fire? Ice? Those are all Giffen/DeMatteis era members of the Justice League. Hardly serious heroes! Oh, plus I forgot Elongated Man because why would I want to remember him? The only real power members on the team are Power Girl and Wally West and they're too inexperienced and full of diet soda to be truly awesome.

This is for all the perverts who have a squish kink.

Realizing the Justice League can't beat The Crime Conglomerate, Max Lord enlists the help of Norman the Doorman to send the Conglomerate back to Earth-Qward. So he makes a door and Green Lantern (with the help of friendship! Like Sailor Moon!) pushes them all back through the door and it's over. Everybody thinks it was a fun match and Claire's corporate sponsors are thrilled by the publicity. Fuck. That means The Conglomerate will probably show up again in one of these fucking Quarterlies. And I don't mean a cool version like this Crime Syndicate version! They'll probably be back to their boring roster of Big Silent Guy and Vibe's Less Popular Cousin and Gypsy. Ugh!

The 1st back-up story stars Power Girl and Flash. That probably means it'll be eight pages of Wally West begging Power Girl to touch his dick. Unless it's seven pages of that and one page of Power Girl screaming, "Fine!" and then ripping it off.

Power Girl and The Flash attend some kind of society gala in London. I don't know what it's for. I read what it was for but then I turned the page and now I've forgotten what it's for and I'm not spending any extra time reading this comic book by turning back to the previous page. It's a good thing I don't mind living in ignorance about almost every aspect of life. Personally, I wish I was ignorant of even more than I currently am ignorant. Why couldn't I do as Robert Frost told me and stayed gold? Why did I have to lose my virginity to that hussy?! That hussy was Linnea Quigley and "losing my virginity" was jerking off to her dancing naked on a grave in Return of the Living Dead. I lost my virginity a lot when I got that movie on video tape. When I technically did lose my virginity, the women I was with were always, "Why do you only last exactly 48 seconds every time?" Because I had to learn to nut before the scene was over so I didn't have to stop and rewind! Duh!

"Sir. My tits are down here."

Some Vincent Price looking motherfucker with a stick the size of Big Ben up his backside give Wally a tongue lashing as they enter the party. He hates America and its superheroes and believes the Justice League has just brought trouble to London the way the Titans brought trouble to New York. He's not wrong so I think he might be the protagonist of this story.

Before the party really gets swinging, some woman named Rook in a bird costume drops through the glass ceiling with her five robot birdmen. See? Vincent Price was right! I hope he gives them an overly long glare and a really savage tut after this.

Rook slaps some brain scramblers onto the heads of Flash and Power Girl leaving them helpless like a baby.

Power Girl's words! I think that aphorism is ableist!

Babies are only helpless because we put them in cribs and diapers. If they weren't restrained in those ways, they could poop as they rolled or crawled around and they stick everything in their mouth so they'd eventually eat something nutritious. I suppose they'd be helpless if a herd of boars came charging through but what are the chances of that when you leave your baby in the yard to fend for itself? Like 10 percent?

Luckily some twat named Peter Cannon has also been invited to this party. He's actually the superhero Thunderbolt. I know what you're thinking: Who? You know, Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt! Yeah, that's all I know about him too. I bet only huge comic book nerds bought his comic books. I don't know why he's suddenly starring in a Justice League book. I guess DC wanted more than just huge nerds to buy his comic books! This story should have been called, "Hey, Comic Book Fans! There's a Hero Named Thunderbolt! He's Super Cool! You Should Read His Comic Books!" Instead they named it "Ballroom Blitz" because that name hadn't been overused by 1992 at all!

Thunderbolt also gets a scrambler jammed on his head but he doesn't immediately start shitting all over babies and their flaws. Power Girl warns him the jammer cuts out super powers but he's all, "But I don't have any super powers!" And every reader who was beginning to think Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt was kind of cool just let out a long, "Awwww! Boring!"

He's lying. If that were true, he'd be Green Lantern instead of Hal Jordan.

I don't know why Peter Cannon has cum all over his face in those panels. Maybe that's what happens when you fully exert your will. Your face has an orgasm.

Power Girl and Flash, being without any will what-so-ever, could not take the jammers off themselves. So Thunderbolt removes their jammers so that they can save the day, having super powers and all. I don't even know why anybody without super powers would bother with a costume. Stupid Thunderbolt. Moronic Blue Beetle. Idiotic Batman.

Rook gets away because she's probably going to be one of Thunderbolt's arch enemies in his new monthly comic debuting next month! Fuck! I was tricked into reading a fucking advertisement! Do I even dare to read the next two stories?! What if I get tricked again? I'll be the laughingstock of the Internet! Better to just not believe anything at all and become a super cynical piece of shit who argues about everything with anybody I can find!

In the third story, Fire spends eight pages trying to get Max laid. She finally resorts to setting him up with his first wife and it goes well. Or poorly. I don't know. It doesn't fucking matter. It was a pre-Breakdowns flashback! Who the fuck cares about Maxwell Lord to care enough about his sex life anyway?

The last story stars the Global Guardians so I just re-read the Maxwell Lord getting laid story. It wasn't that good but it was probably better than another Global Guardians story. Why do the Justice League Quarterly team keep trying to make the Global Guardians happen?! Things were going so well when they'd lost three members but now all their members have come back to life! They're moving backwards! Maybe the Mermaid hasn't come back to life. I don't remember. But then again that might be what this story I'm definitely not going to read is about. Guess we'll never know!

Justice League Quarterly #8 Rating: Jesus fucking Christ I can't believe I keep reading these things! Just two more. Keep repeating to yourself: Just two more. Just two more. It's almost over, buddy! We're gonna get through this!