Won’t Someone Think of the Corporations?: JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY #1 (JLI 61)

[tcampbell1000]

The launch of Justice League Quarterly might’ve seemed excessive, but in retrospect, it let Giffen, DeMatteis, and Jones explore a few story concepts in depth that otherwise might’ve been sent to the margins. First up was Booster Gold’s new super-team, the Fighting Shills. No, wait, I mean the Intellectual Property. No, wait, I mean the Bought-And-Paid-For Hacks. No, wait, I mean…the Conglomerate? Are we SURE that’s their name?



Claire Montgomery is giving a presentation to a group of nine corporate sponsors’ representatives.





What's the funniest part of Claire's presentation? Soft-soaping Vibe's pathetic, humiliating fate as "giving his life and dying a hero?" Using the word "asset" twice in two descriptions? Invoking the Hulk's catchphrase? Contenders all, but I have to give it to "as great an asset to us as Dr. Fate is to the Justice League." Praxis would leave the team for solo adventures after his first appearance here, so this claim is actually pretty accurate.

The Conglomerate first runs into the League when both groups are trying to keep a rampaging telekinetic from killing a Conglomerate sponsor CEO.



Well, it’s good to know Booster’s not petty about this. However, the pettiest person in the story would be Carl Thrunctuous, who can’t believe his status as corporate liaison doesn’t give him full access to the Conglomerate’s headquarters without a guest pass.



(There’s that name again. Is the receptionist related to Wanda? This is thankfully too early to be a reference to Jeffrey; it’s just a real disquieting coincidence.)



As time goes by, the Conglomerate members tire of the aura farming. Are they just here to smile and look pretty in corporations’ ads, or are they ever going on actual missions? The answer turns out to surprise them: they're sent to aid a pro-democracy revolution in the fictional nation of San Sebor.





It’s true that…(groan, grimace)…“El Fajita” was a bully and a tyrant, but the guy replacing him isn’t much better. Unless you’re a CEO doing international business, in which case he’s great. This abrupt, unilateral action startles the UN enough that they send in their super-team:



I would show the big fight that follows, but there isn’t one. Booster englobes everyone in his force field and runs back onto American soil, where the League’s authority is, in theory, more limited by the fact that the US voted against UN action. I’m not sure that would work: this isn’t a “Latverian diplomatic immunity” situation. But the Leaguers (except Beetle) are reluctant to turn on “their own,” so Booster’s action may just give them the excuse they need to avoid that unpleasant duty.

The confrontation does affect the Conglomerate, though. After hearing out a new assignment to put down a rebel coup in another country, they start turning gigs down on moral grounds. And when assigned to help with an oil spill, they encounter another test of independence:



The unctuous Thrunctuous has had enough of not getting the respect he thinks his due, as well as the Conglomerate’s (ugh) morals endangering his job.



Thanks to a “chemical waste product” from Dupree…whose CEO the Conglomerate saved in their first mission…he has a plan to streamline the Conglomerate operation to a single operative.



There are some flaws in his scheme: the new operative doesn’t have an EIGHTH of the average Conglomerate member’s sex appeal. But at least Thrunctuous can control him. Assuming Hector Hammond doesn’t betray Thrunctuous, and hey, does that sound like something Hector would do?

What Thrunctuous couldn’t have expected is that the Conglomerate would rather bury old rivalries than wait for their sponsors to pull the plug.




Thrunctuous alerts the Conglomerate to a “factory explosion.” The League joins with the Conglomerate to contain it, and that gives Booster the chance to man up and finish an apology he'd tried to start earlier.



The factory seems fine when they arrive, but it explodes seconds later.



…Seems like even without the League there, Booster’s field could’ve kept his own team from dying, but anyway. A frantic Thrunctuous orders Hammond to order the operative to attack the heroes, screaming past Hector’s objections.









RIP Ernie and Phil; RI"P" Thrunctuous.



This ending feels naïve by 1990s standards, let alone today, when media consolidation has threatened the independent press upon which Claire’s threats rely. Did the corporations know what Thrunctuous was up to? DuPree's CEO did, he's the one who handed Ernie over to Thrunctuous, but most of the others seemed to know only what he told them. In any case, I wouldn’t count on this potential scandal to keep them in line for long.

But Max’s ideas about “the personal touch” don’t sound like a blessing in the era of Bezos either. Hell, even when this story came out, Conglomerate sponsors LexCorp and Stagg Industries were both evidence that “the personal touch” could be not so great actually.



I don’t have any easy answers for this one, but I do appreciate Giffen and DeMatteis at least try to consider what hero work might look like in a world where things cost money. Most other DC and Marvel writers, if they confront economics at all, will just say “Well, Batman/Professor X/Iron Man is really rich,” and shrug their shoulders. Or else the super-team gets a benefactor like Cyborg’s dad, who just buys Titans Tower and then gets out of the way of future plots by dying.

Watch on YouTube

Thursday: The League takes a stand against tacky design, forgetting that its current membership includes the Crimson Fox and “banana-flavored costume” Power Girl.

Comments

[metadronos]

"The Conglomerate" is indeed a terrible name for a superhero team, even one founded by an ex-corporate bigwig and funded by yet more bigwigs. But at least, unlike said sponsors, the team members, behind all their "Nya nya, suck it JLI" fronting, are all in it to genuinely do good. Small wonder they all, even Booster, are able to swallow their pride in the end and join forces with the JLeaguers.

And I agree Claire, in her ultimatum to the now-dead Thrunctuous's colleagues, is being naive. I'd go a step further and say she should expose what Thrunctuous (gad, what a name) did anyway. The others may or may not have been in on it, but even being known to have associated with a cold-blooded murderer would do more to keep them in check than Claire's "Won't you help us for realsies this time?" olive branch.

-----

*Knock knock* "Yes hello, I have one order of character development, with extra apology, for a Mr. Booster Gold?"

"That's me; thanks pal; here, buy yourself something nice. -- Hey Guy, want a bite?"

"I'll give you a bite, you little--!"

(Guy notices Ice raising an eyebrow at him)

"Ah... a little bite, just a little, sure, thanks Gold."

[mazway_75]

A good bit when the Conglomorate debates if they're corporate shills or not and Booster noting "this is a time I feel out of place in this century," which is a good note on his different life in the future. A fun team that deserved more attention.

That said, it's also seemingly the start of the trend of so many 90s teams wearing leather jackets.