L'École des Farceurs: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #6 (JLI 41)

[tcampbell1000]

The official line was that Justice League America would be the funnier title and Justice League Europe would be the more serious one, but things weren’t working out that way so far. As JLA #30 took that title to new depths of darkness, JLE #6 was Giffen and DeMatteis’ most ridiculous issue yet, its plot shamelessly engineered for maximum absurdity.



But before we dive in, let’s get to know our cast:

Major Disaster first appeared in Green Lantern v2 #43, 1965, in which he learned the secret identities of Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, engineered their defeat by employing a team of psychologists(!)…



…and created a bunch of “natural” disasters with the aid of machinery. Then he electrocuted himself by forgetting his PPE. I’m not kidding.



"Not that I'm GLAD the Major is dead, you understand. It's just real convenient."

A few confusing super-battles later, he can now create natural disasters with force of will. Which seems a lot more on brand.

Clock King was introduced in World’s Finest #111 as an Adam West-style villain with a time gimmick, trapping Green Arrow and Speedy in a giant hourglass.




His thousand-yard stare at the end of that story is the look of a man who’s regretting all his life choices. Those choices, and the obsession with time, sprang from a false diagnosis that he had six months to live and some related family tragedy. But that’s all behind him at this point, and only the obsession remains.

Cluemaster had a more respectable beginning than you might think. It’s true his basic gimmick is “discount Riddler,” but the clues he left in his first adventure, Detective Comics #351, were clever visual puzzles…



…and he was playing a dual game, distracting Batman and Robin with the clues while working to crack their secret identities.



Unfortunately, he was just as compulsion-driven as the colleagues he criticized, and later engagements with Batman were less inspired.

Big Sir barely made it into the Barry Allen Flash’s Rogues Gallery, first appearing in Flash v1 #338. This made him the last new villain Barry faced before he died in the Crisis, unless you count the Anti-Monitor. And he didn’t even qualify as a bad guy, really: the other Rogues had to motivate him with a story about Flash abusing a mouse. Sir beat Barry in #339…



But the Rogues' story fell apart when Barry helped Sir save another small animal in #340.



Multi-Man gained the power to resurrect himself with different super-powers in Challengers of the Unknown #14. His appearance and, at times, his personality were as changeable as his abilities.



The Multi-Man seen in the Injustice League seems to be stuck in a non-powered form and--despite his fits of depression--in no hurry to die again. That covers everyone except the Mighty Bruce, introduced in the Injustice League’s first appearance.



Meanwhile, the JLE are trying to address their PR problems by learning French--except for Ralph and Dmitri, who already speak it.

Metamorpho uses the ol’ trenchcoat disguise to hide the fact that his body is made of base elements. The French teacher, Ms. Kessler, might understand his difficulties, since she has a body made up of male adolescent fantasies.



I told you the plotting was shameless.





Back in the classroom, Major Disaster and the Mighty Bruce are trying to defuse the situation by passing notes to warn their teammates and coordinate an exit. But Ms. Kessler intercepts Bruce’s note and, in classic high-school teacher fashion, disciplines him by reading it aloud.



A dozen or so reaction shots go here, showcasing confusion, aggravation, tension, alarm.





Cap’s having more trouble with hand-to-hand than you might expect, since he can armor up any part of his body. This may be an attempt at restraint on his part, or it may intersect with a plot in Captain Atom comics wherein he lost his powers and tried to keep leading the JLE without them (#34, again).




If so, the nod was brief: Cap would be back to using his full abilities in the following issue of JLE.

The violence escalates, but so does the volume of Ms. Kessler’s protests, until…



It turns out everyone in the class who was not a member of one super-League or the other was spying on the JLE on behalf of several governments. This incident has mostly convinced them they needn’t bother.

As the IJL hasn’t committed any successful crimes on French soil, Camus has them deported rather than arrested. But, to teach a lesson of his own, he does toss the JLE into le clink for a couple of hours. Catherine comes to release them…



Saturday: Another strain of vampires appears, and these guys are somehow even more pathetic than Caitiff. Is this a grudge or something? Did someone in a vampire mask scare Giffen as a child?

Comments

[iamrman]

Thanks for explaining who those losers in the Injustice League were. I had never even heard of Big Sir before.

[beyondthefringe]

Poor Big Sir.
He was a badly conceived character when the Rogues engineered his empowerment in The Flash (with a truly awful civilian name). Though he was given mental enhancements by Gorilla City, those wore off by the time he was recruited into the Injustice League.
He became a joke.
And much later, he’ll be a short-lived member of the Suicide Squad with most of the other former IJL.

As for that old Barry and Hal story… if you’re erasing your secret identities from your significant others so often you’re bored by the process and want to try something different… you may have a problem. At least they… didn’t call in Zatanna, right? (Probably because she might not have existed yet, sure…)

[blueprintstyles]

Flash's anatomy is worrying in page where he's unconscious

[mazway_75]

Always loved this take on the Injustice League especially their attempt to become heroes.

[metadronos]

I like how nearly every single one of the standard grade school rules gets broken, as if DeMatteis had brainstormed up a checklist. All that's missing is "Don't deface school property" (I dunno, maybe one of the IJL guys could've ripped a page out of their French textbook to write a note on). All other cliché school "don'ts" I can think of would've been long since out of date or otherwise inapplicable (e.g., "Don't dip girl's pigtails in your inkwell" or "No fidgeting, making armpit noises, etc., during the Pledge of Allegiance/national anthem/prayer/etc.").

Also, I find it curious that despite this being a French course, Ms. Kessler (at least in the scans posted here) utters not a single word of French. Though that may be because she's too distracted by these young whippersnappers' and jackanapes' misbehaviour to actually teach anything. (Still, even a simple "Arrêtez!" or Ne parlez pas!"" could've doubled as a repriimand and a bit of vocabulary intro.)

[tcampbell1000]

We do see a very quick instance of French being taught, as Kara struggles through "Parlez-vous Francais" and is advised by multiple sources that the "z" is silent. It's implied that the group gets through maybe a quarter of their actual lesson before things go all the way south. (As someone who struggled a lot in French myself, I appreciate that Kessler knows not to throw these newbies into the deep end right away!)

[thanekos]

" I hate to use that corny routine of power-ringing them to forget our secret identities! Even I'm getting tired of that.. "

Self-aware writing - it's not new at all.