Dreamslayer vs. Dreams’ Layer: JLA #59, JLE #35 (JLI 89)

[tcampbell1000]

JLA Giffen-DeMatteis-Sears, JLE Giffen-Jones-Robertson.

It’s time to face off against Dreamslayer, the wroth foe with a face like a Rothko. Except just now, he’s borrowed Max Lord’s handsome mug and an entire population of islanders.

#59:

Content warning: If stereotypical depictions of natives get under your skin, you might want to skip down to the Batman part.

This issue feels a bit like Seinfeld’s Puerto Rican episode, in that it’s by far the most culturally offensive installment of the main series and might’ve gotten more attention as such if it hadn’t come out so close to the grand finale. The Kooeykooeykooeyans have spent their other JLI appearances going, “What, you think we’re savages just because we wear loincloths and live in tents? Well, joke’s on YOU for thinking that! Hell, when you think about how you live your lives, maybe we’re the ONLY civilized ones here!”



Here, they’re just…savages, straight up. Now, granted, this is because Dreamslayer is controlling them. The mystic dimension that made him what he is didn’t have any sensitivity-training seminars. But comics are a visual artform, and it’s really hard to defend this cover. If you’re out of ideas except for “Wouldn’t it be funny to channel old racist cartoons?,” you are out of ideas.



(The fact that it’s riffing off a previous cover that’s riffing off a Laurel and Hardy catchphrase isn’t beating the “creative exhaustion” allegations.)




Anyway, here’s the story. If you’ve forgotten any important details, Bluejay and Silver Sorceress are here to catch you up.



Oh, Bluejay. I like the spirit, but you might as well be shouting, “NOTHING CAN GO WRONG!”

On the island, Dreamaxlayerd is reviewing his own life. He was human once, long ago, but repeated trips to alien dimensions have left him magical and mad. He took another such trip after the Sorceress destroyed his body in his last appearance. In his hands, Max’s persuasion power is on a scale of mass hypnosis of which Max never dreamed. Is Max any influence on him at all? Well, that might explain his new, macabre sense of humor…




Let’s sample just enough of this fight to establish J’Onn’s priorities and the Leaguers being themselves:



The Sorceress and J’Onn both feel Dreamslayer digging around in their minds. That makes the real Dreamslayer easier to find as the source of that psychic interference, but the distraction leaves the Sorceress open to an attack from a more mundane direction…





Tactically speaking, this would’ve been a good time for one of the Leaguers to sacrifice Max rather than letting Dreamslayer command an island full of hostages AND half the JLI. Fire could have resolved this with a gesture. It’d cost her some sleepless nights--Max was a friend to her--but it’d save a bunch of other people who’ll be dead by the next issue’s end. Still, you’ve probably read enough DC Comics to know why that’s not usually an option.

Batman shows up at the cave to check in, punch-drunk from fighting Killer Croc. At least I assume he is, because he drops this insane dialogue:



…WHEN? WHEN have you and J’Onn “seen the League through worse”? What was worse than being disenfranchised and facing this many crises of this intensity back-to-back-to-back? Are you talking about the stuff the previous League went through? Because I don’t think it counts as “seeing people through it” if those people END UP DEAD!

I never saw the point of this “I’ll be there in a real emergency” thing anyway; even at its most comedic, the JLI was confronting “emergencies” on a regular enough basis that the promises Superman made along those lines just seem like so much hot air:




Feels like subversive ol’ Giffen and DeMatteis would like to wink at us here and admit that, yeah, that "emergency" thing is bullshit, but they can’t quite bring themselves to come out and call Batman a slacker.

(I know, I know: the real reason is that Superman and Batman had their own titles with other creators who weren’t keen to give up control, but “reservist status” placated certain nerds’ cries of “they should be in the League!” and left the door open for some future top-selling League megastory. Superman will soon have a more active tenure with this League, with…unexpected results. More on that next week.)

Now, it is true that the League pulling itself together without UN support requires soft skills that are not Batman’s strong point. But he could’ve given them a couple of pointers about modifying a cave-based headquarters.



Anyway. At this point, J’Onn and the others come back with fashions by Kooeykooeykooey, brainwaves by Dreamslayer. The Leaguers who were left behind due to Despero-related injuries or other issues have to battle them.



Dreamslayer did consider putting them all in redface too, but there wasn’t enough time to do that AND troll the Silver Sorceress. “Ha ha, u r stupid and now ded.”



Oh, look! It’s a Keith Giffen shadowface! Panel 3, see it? We’re really breaking out all the classics, aren’t we?



JLE #35 is a war on two fronts. In the cave, brainwashed heroes fight unbrainwashed heroes under Batman. But we’re going to ignore that front for the most part, because the more interesting front is the one with the Silver Sorceress.

Feels weird to say that! In other stories, Silver has had the same problem as Mitch Wacky. While one has to feel bad for the terrible things she’s been through, her character just spent SO MUCH time mourning, she invited compassion fatigue. But sometimes, sometimes, that friend you have who’s always so gloomy is the one you need when everything DOES go wrong. Here, now, facing her end in a way few heroes do…she becomes compelling.






Dreamslayer is disturbed by the slow pace of his hero-on-hero battle. So he decides to shift his focus to taking control of the living island of Kooeykooeykooey. But before he can, his jaw drops in genuine shock: the three remaining Extremist robots are attacking him.



Screaming in frustrated rage, Dreamslayer abandons Max’s body and sends his essence hurtling toward the Sorceress, breaking his control of the other Leaguers.







We smash cut to a funeral on Kooeykooeykooey, several days later.



“I wanted to get to know her better…” Yeah, guys, maybe you should have found out her name at least. (The DC wiki has it as Laura Neilsen, but citation needed.)

The death of the Silver Sorceress stuck. The death of Dreamslayer…should have. Still, between a forgettable return as another bad guy’s pawn and a continuity reboot or two, I think he’s gone now. After mourning a while in his few remaining appearances, Bluejay would move on to another world in Justice League of America v2 #53.



Kooeykooeykooey would appear as an island with no native population in Suicide Squad v2 #7, and its soul would settle near Smallville in the Fire and Ice miniseries of the 2020s. I choose to believe that before then, the remaining natives parted ways with it and set up a village somewhere else.




The repairs Dreamslayer performed to Max’s body remained after he left, unlike those of SOME evil computers we could mention. So Max is now back to health and consciousness.

But even that blessing is a tainted one. Max’s mind was awake for everything Dreamslayer did with his body. Everything. Killing Mitch. Killing the Sorceress, Killing hundreds of Kooeykooeykooeyans, Possessing his friends. Just GORGING himself with abuses of the power Max had tried so hard to govern as a good, responsible man.




Sunday (not Saturday): Will Max Lord regain his mojo just in time for the incoming writing team to strip it away again? Fingers crossed!

Comments

[scorntx]

... it's weird, but come to think of it, the slightly different version of Max's Start of Darkness in JL: Generation Lost never mentioned any of this.
Which is odd because this seems like it would be a big deal, regardless of Max's moral alignment.

Guess not.


Impressive way for Silver to go, at least.


Wait, so in the whole time Sorceress had been in this series, nobody dropped her name? Not even in narration? Not even her BFF?
That's messed.