Daddies’ Issues: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #11-12 (JLI 45)

[tcampbell1000]

Giffen plot and breakdowns, Bill Loebs script, Bart Sears pencils.

The JLE, at this point, was 50% isolated dads. Captain Atom was reconnecting with his kids after missing two decades of their lives in his own title; Animal Man (Buddy) had just seen his wife and children killed in his; Rocket Red (Dmitri) was in Paris missing his kids in the USSR; and Metamorpho (Rex) had just learned about his child’s existence in JLE #5. This issue focuses on those four, mostly on the last three, MOSTLY mostly on the last ONE, as Rex decides to start asserting his visitation rights.

Metamorpho is determined to see his child no matter what. Cap supports that in principle, but he wants to avoid a lawsuit from Rex’s powerful and vindictive ex-father-in-law, Simon Stagg. To stop that problem before it starts, Buddy and Dmitri go along to mediate. And a member of the JLA agrees to represent Stagg’s interests, someone who feels he and Stagg are already brothers under the skin:



I regret to report this version of Guy would’ve been a huge Elon Musk fan.

Stagg, I’ll give you points for assessing the situation (“cretin” indeed), but did you really think Rex was never going to be a problem?

Well, you’re not the only one showing a lack of foresight. Over in Russia, a couple of prisoners see a sudden ray of hope:



We last saw these two--the Silver Sorceress and Bluejay--in Justice League #3, which ended with them as captives of Russia’s program to develop its own super-beings.



Since then, the Russians have kept their powers neutralized, which guarantees their continued bondage. However, it seems like it’d be pretty hard to learn anything from testing neutralized superpowers, which, by definition, don’t exist. Good news, old-style bad-guy Russians! You’re about to learn more in an evening than you’ve learned for the last few months!

The Silver Sorceress and Bluejay have different plans for their future, and neither can muster any support for the other’s choice. They came to our world (well, the JLI’s world) to save it from nuclear self-destruction.



Bluejay still believes in that cause. Silver Sorceress, embittered by Wandjina’s fate and her own imprisonment, just wants to go back to her burnt-out cinder of a homeworld. We’ll see where both their paths lead them…later.

Back in the States, Metamorpho’s uncovered another super-powered captivity. Things are a little more complex than Silver and Blue’s situation, but not complex enough to pacify Rex:




Rex knocks out Buddy and Dmitri and charges into the playpen, only to run into Guy, who soon eggs him into a fight. Watching on closed-circuit camera, Simon Stagg orders his daughter’s accounts frozen as punishment for letting Rex see his son. “She’s been a very naughty girl.”





When Guy rises, he’s bleeding from the scalp. Rex tries to talk him down at that point, but Guy is now all rage and no coordination, not even trying to use his ring.



Rex realizes two things at this point: his son slept through the whole thing, and his son gets his looks from his dad.



But then he gets another interruption, this time from the Metal Men. The cold Dr. Magnus ordered them to protect this area and its contents, without giving them any clue they’re keeping a father from his son. (Though the family resemblance should’ve been ONE clue.)




This “battle of the elements” is a nifty Silver Age-style idea, and it’d been done before in the older continuity, in Brave and the Bold #66, 1966…




Java shows up just as Buddy and Dmitri recover, and they have a little side fight while Meta and the Metals keep trying to slopify each other. But the real heart of this story comes after the fighting stops. The baby’s crib capsizes, and Java catches him…to everyone’s regret.








“I mean, he committed WAR CRIMES in the Balkans. You guys were THERE.”




Postscript 1: The story of Buddy and his lost family in Animal Man would get weirder from here. It’s been covered elsewhere on this site. As I said then, it’s tricky to reconcile the grieving but high-functioning Buddy shown here with the total emotional devastation in his own title…



…but we can write it off as a brief afternoon of partial denial before the funeral.



Postscript 2: The Staggs had one further cameo in the Giffen League (JLE #23-24) and didn’t get much attention there. But they’ve shown up a lot in the years since, and creators have taken three very distinct approaches with them. Choose Your Own Simon: If you think Simon Stagg should be…

…an irredeemable monster, go to subhead A.
…just barely maybe tolerable (sorta), go to subhead B.
…a little silly and flirting with likability, go to subhead C.

A) The Metamorpho miniseries of 1993 (v2) picked up where this story left off, but in it, Stagg’s conversion didn’t last…he became more controlling about Sapphire than ever, with an inescapable Oedipal overtone. He shot Java dead and vowed to keep Saph for himself (#2)



In response, Sapphire turned on her father at last, and she and Rex pooled their resources to cure their son, now named Joey (#4).






Further complications would hit this family later, and Joey wouldn’t outlast the next continuity reboot, but if you hate Simon Stagg, this is the story for you.

B) The Terrifics (2018-2020) brought the Staggs back to something like their default settings: Simon was grumpy, greedy, and hubristic, but his flaws were at a level that Sapphire could excuse, and excuse them she did.



Simon passed away toward the end of the series (#28), leaving Sapphire to cope with an inheritance challenge from her long-lost brother, Sebastian...who doesn't realize how much growing up she's done from the simple, silly girl of the Bob Haney stories.



C) The most entertaining version of Simon Stagg is the most recent, from Al Ewing and Steve Lieber's Metamorpho: The Element Man miniseries of 2025. Its version crosses that old Bob Haney goofiness with the modern inanities of our AI-addled age.



Stagg is greedy as ever, but his schemes are more harmless in intent and his manic energy is more fun to look at. In this treatment, Sapphire's still better than Simon, but as a Kardashian-esque influencer, she shows more of her dad's genetics than in other versions.




At the end of the day, Simon becomes not Rex’s would-be killer, manipulative employer, or even grumbling ally, but his would-be savior.



Hey, sometimes we want to read about a rich guy who’s not a depressing psychopath or traumatized superhero. We used to have Max Lord for that, but, well…

Monday: A Green Lantern ring can do a lot. Can it make you more popular?

Comments

[thanekos]

Guy's dumb, but he still hits on handling the yellow weakness by using the ring indirectly against his opponent within a page.

[mazway_75]

By that point Guy would have faced others using the same trick and figured a way to handle it.

[metadronos]

1. Speaking of characters who teeter between utter loathsomeness and fun jerkassery, this arc shows both sides of Guy. In his battle with Rex, we get the contemptuous, narcissistic braggart easily provoked into near-feral rage. In the later scene with Oberon, we get the fun troll.

2. Having Buddy leave the JLE for good in both his own book and JLE was the right call, and not just because the latter title's writers had barely used him anyway. At least his exit scene with Dmitri neatly ties in his own family angst with Rex's and Dmitri's, though Buddy will have to wait somewhat longer than his colleagues to see his own family together again (in his own title at that).

3. That "come to poppa" scene with Simon and Sapphire... Jeezus, if that isn't the creepiest, most skin-crawling, "need to ritually bathe myself like NOW" comic scene I've encountered in a long time... Yeah, I'll take the more benignly corrupt Simon from the most recent Metamorpho mini (which, yes, needs a sequel as it was fantastic).

[mastermahan]

I do prefer Simon Stagg as a laughable sitcom villain rather than being a complete monster, or even mostly a monster.

My favorite change Ewing did, though, was switching Urania Blackwell from "I'm a superpowered freak and this is so awful I wish I could die" to "I'm a superpowered freak and that's fucking awesome!"

[metadronos]

The "wish I could die" version of Urania wasn't the normative, Silver Age one. It was a one-off take in The Sandman. Ewing's upbeat and functional portrayal of her was simply a return to what was before.

[zylly]

Oh yeah. That was even phrased in such a way “being an immortal super freak is something a gal could get used to!” feels like a direct conversation with the older story.

[mazway_75]

Reminds me how Len Wein wanted NIghtcrawler bitter and angry at the world hating him for his appearance only for Claremont to take the idea Kurt thought being blue and furry was cool.

[zylly]

Stagg is at his best when he’s more comedic, for sure. I once described him as Scrooge McDuck without any triplet nephews to outsource his moral compass to.

[cainofdreaming]

They actually did that story, with an alternate Scrooge to whom Christmas on Bear Mountain never happened so he never connected with his relatives. He set his sights somewhat above to what Stagg does (he had a money bin full of money bins).

[scorntx]

(Just a thing, but the post-script for Animal Man isn't available in all regions.)


JLI Guy, always finding new forms of being an utterly loathsome creep.
Impressive in all the wrong ways.

... question: Why is Doc Magnus helping Stagg with his scheme anyhow?


Golly, Sapphire's depicted level of intelligence and independence sure fluctuates wildly over the decades, huh.
Any other character it'd seem like an act which is occasionally inconsistent, depending on how much effort she's putting in to it.
With Simon Stagg, especially Silver Age cad flavour, just making robot duplicates of her seems more probable.
"And it only took twenty-seven tries to fix that nasty 'homicidal insanity' problem!"