Taking Inventory: JUSTICE LEAGUE EUROPE #14, …AMERICA #41 (JLI 49)

[tcampbell1000]

No, I haven’t lost track of my numbering. These two “inventory stories” were published later on, but they seem set around here in the chronology. The first is the first Keith Giffen-Gerard Jones writing collab, with art by the underrated Linda Medley. Her style wasn’t as attention-getting as the works of Kevin Maguire, Adam Hughes, or even Bart Sears, but her down-to-earth approach syncs with the down-to-earth aspects of Giffen’s plotting. She’d do some more League work and go on to her own indie series, Castle Waiting.

Say, did you know film fans could be just as obsessive and antisocial as comics fans?



As our film lover begins watching an action film with…let’s say Paul Hogan in the lead role, a strange burst of energy shocks him unconscious. Then Paul Hogan steps out of the TV, looking at the film lover’s body in confusion. “That looks like me! But…I’m me!”



The film lover finds his ability more of a frustration than a blessing. His auditions as a celebrity impersonator go nowhere, and even his films don’t comfort him like they used to. In a bitter attempt to get something out of it all, he attempts a little identity theft at the Cannes Film Festival.



Captured by the police and on his way to jail, the impersonator has one escape option: an advertising screen on top of a theater is showing clips from Godzilla. “Flint Clintwood” vanishes, and is replaced by…



Of course JLE members are visiting Cannes. So are Fire and Ice, to give this story some crossover juice and because Ice likes foreign film and Fire likes livin’ the high life.





The “chainsaw killer” scrambles into one more theater.




The Leaguers never figure out what happened, despite all the clues the film lover was shouting at them. Are we sure Ralph’s still a detective in this continuity?

(You might think the choice of films represented here is a bit improbable for Cannes, but film festivals actually show all kinds of movies beyond the awards bait.)



The other “inventory story,” JLA #41, is another Max Lord tale by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Mike McKone. The cover’s somewhat misleading about this issue but a great metaphor for what writers will do to Max’s characterization after Giffen and DeMatteis leave!



We begin with Max confessing and demonstrating his power to J’Onn. Even Martian mental strength is no shield against it. Max implants a small illusion in J’Onn’s mind, though J’Onn soon realizes it wasn’t real. J’Onn suggests that this makes Max “something of a super-hero. I can see it now! We’ll get Fire to design you a garish costume…”




Max keeps marinating in contempt and boredom until a beautiful and beautiful-smelling woman distracts him. But that presents him with a new quandary.




When Max rises again, he does so as Maximum Force, a SUPER-HERO 🦸 who uses his power “to war on evil wherever it rears its head.” He leaves Wanda to go on a short patrol and--in the clearest sign yet that this is a dream sequence--she promises to wait up for him. Maximum Force’s dialogue is Adam West, but his attitude is pure Punisher.



The narrative gets more disjointed as it goes. Max shoos King Kong off the Empire State Building, sending him plummeting ninety stories. Then suddenly it’s time for a League meeting, even though it was the middle of the night a moment ago and Max told Wanda he’d be back in an hour.

Max rushes in and saves the Justice League from their greatest enemy, Massivtron. (Massivtron is kind of a more articulate and less tusky Doomsday.) In his one accidental kill of the issue, Max tells Massivtron to “drop dead.” And then…WHUMP. The Leaguers are far from grateful, stating Max’s actions have “disgraced” them. The police and army are converging outside, ordering Max to “come out with your hands up and your mouth taped!”



(It looks like Fire and Ice have their older costumes in the Mike McKone art and colorist Gene D’Angelo tried to “fix” them by coloring them as their then-current versions. Kinda works for Ice but not for Fire.)




Is Max being too hard on himself, or just hard enough, or not hard enough? If his “nudge” was really just a conversation opener, that doesn’t seem so wrong…as long as he’s sure that’s where his influence ended. But can he trust himself to be honest in that self-assessment? Does he even understand the power well enough to do so? It's a bad precedent to set, at the very least, and if Max didn't berate himself for it, that'd be an even more worrying sign.

It is true Wanda seems (and will seem) a lot happier to be around Max than the Huntress was with “her decision” to join the JLI, and Max has been learning some of his limits with practice. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt: to enjoy this Max-centered era, we almost have to extend him some grace.

Still, Max is trying to firm up his moral center and should probably get more comfortable with the man in the mirror before dating. Instead, he’s ready to declare his love for a woman he talked to for maybe two hours before failing at a drunken hookup.

Part of the problem is, we don’t know Wanda that well. Max thinks she’s witty and intelligent, but except for the “cheap date” line, we don’t get to see her be that. Beyond that, we’ve only learned she’s a fiction editor for a publishing house called “Partisan Press.” This no doubt makes her appealing to a guy tired of yuppie phonies, but…what was she doing at that rich backstabbers’ soiree? Maybe if I research this issue on Wikia, I’ll see some detail that makes me feel better about this meet cute between an uber-rich guy and a working-class lit major.



Or maybe I won’t.

Thursday: One angry yellow screamer leaves the League as another angry yellow screamer joins it.

Comments

[iamrman]

The art in these issues are a breath of fresh air after Bart Sears. A pity they're inventiry issues. I guess it's back to normal next time?

[tcampbell1000]

Between another guest artist on JLE and some more JLA issues, we won't see Sears again for a little bit in this retrospective. He's got about 13 more issues in total.

[metadronos]

What happened to the film lover after he escaped by turning into Winki the dog?

[tcampbell1000]

Not much! We see him one more time, taking a flight from Cannes to Paris and hoping there's no in-flight movie to tempt any further transformations from him. (The JLE members were on the same flight, but since that's the end of the story, one assumes he didn't blow his cover.) Beyond that, he never appeared again in anything, as far as I'm aware.