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scans_dailyConsidering how he seemed to regard Max Lord’s Justice League, one might expect Superman to hallucinate this in his last few minutes of life:
ICE: Whoa, I can’t believe you won, Superman! Doomsday seemed like he was too much even for you!
SUPERMAN: I…(haff)…I did what I had to, Ice…it’s only what any COMPETENT superhero would have done…
GUY: Yeah, it’s almost as rocksauce as how I woulda done it!
ICE: Here, let me ice your wounds. Your body clearly needs… 💖 lots of attention 💖 …
MAXIMA: A magnificent demonstration of f#ckability, Kryptonian. [shoves aside Ice, who flies through the air and falls into a dumpster] Now, we bang.
‘‘BLOODWYND’’: I am also impressed. Or am I? I refuse to tell you anything about myself. I am…me. That is all you need to know!
BOOSTER: Hold still while I get a victory selfie with you, Supes!
SUPERMAN: Ack…(choke)…
FIRE: Oh, me next! My new costume’ll really pop if we get Doomsday’s bloody corpse in the background!
BLUE BEETLE: Hope you don’t mind, I just sold the rights to Doomsday’s body as the site of a new casino!
SUPERMAN: I…I can’t take it anymore…kkkkkkk…kk.
BLUE BEETLE: …Supes?
I haven’t yet discussed Maxima, the other Justice Leaguer who wants into Superman’s trunks.
(Credit where it’s due: that’s a wonderfully terrible Guy Gardner face in the penultimate panel.)
Maxima is imperious, impatient, and impulsive, but she’s used to ruling a planet. One has to allow for a certain amount of culture shock in dealing with her. Good thing Superman is famously compassionate and diplomati-- (#63)
In fairness, he does help out a bit at her later legal proceedings (#66)…
…until he loses patience and leaves.
Then there’s Bloodwynd, the Martian Manhun--SPOILERS, sorry, let me try that again--
Then there’s Bloodwynd, the team member so mysterious he won’t tell anyone his powers, reasons for joining the League, moral alignment, or anything that might risk making him interesting. Only Blue Beetle seems to care about the security risk this represents (#65-66).
Like Guy, Bloodwynd would seem to merit the shade Superman’s throwing at everyone else, so what were Bloodwynd and Superman’s interactions like?
[IMAGE NOT FOUND.]
The only Leaguer Superman does treat with consistent respect is Ice, especially when they get trapped together on a lava world (#62)…
But even his horrible dad jokes only intensify Ice’s feelings for him, which raises more questions after they get to safety. Is Superman trying to ignore her crush, or is he unaware of it? She’s not exactly subtle about it. Could he be struggling with it, uncertain how to let a colleague down easy, or just avoiding it as one more aspect of a responsibility he doesn’t really want? We’ll never know (#68).
Obviously, there aren’t too many directions for this plot to go--even if Lois didn’t own Clark’s heart, he likes his women with more brass. Fire would have a better shot with him than Ice. But it’s weird how much this is built up on Ice’s side only to get no reaction from him at all, internal or external. No conflict, no comical awkwardness, no reflections on how some women are attracted to him as an ideal of perfection instead of his real self…nothin’.
Also in #68, Superman consents--after months!--to wear a signal device.
You’d think this would have dramatic payoff in the following issue, when Doomsday shows up. It will not.
Issue #68 ends with Maxima and Guy Gardner saving the planet with a simple deception and no bloodshed whatsoever. Superman treats this outcome as a sad, sad day for the League, truly one of its greatest disgraces.
Eight billion people might disagree.
I have a lot of respect for Dan Jurgens as a creator overall, which only makes this behavior of Superman’s more bewildering. It’s not like he shows his contempt in a funny way. Except for his air of near-constant annoyance, he acts like he did in his own main title, which Jurgens also drew and wrote.
Did Jurgens, at this point in his career, just share Superman’s impatience with this band of jokesters? Unlikely. The stories can’t replicate Giffen and DeMatteis’ sense of humor (a "hot" topic? Guy making a Gilligan’s Island joke? Cripes). But they do present the other Leaguers as sympathetic people--more so than Superman. Even Guy gets some love--from Jurgens, albeit not from Ice.
Yet it’s inconceivable Jurgens wanted to turn Superman into a jerkins just before the “Death of Superman” storyline, an upcoming development of which he couldn’t have been more aware.
My best guess is that Jurgens was trying to replicate what he saw as the League’s old dynamic: a mostly humorless “classic” hero as frustrated straight man, with everyone else sometimes competent, sometimes wackity-shmackity. In the Giffen days, that straight man was first Batman, then J’Onn J’Onzz. And the leader of this League has never been immune to making bad calls, so maybe Superman’s inaccessibility and stranding the team on Almerac are Jurgens’ version of Batman’s prickliness and almost leading the team to their deaths in Bialya. Or J’Onn J’Onzz’s own moments of eccentricity or irritability.
But nobody minds when Batman and J’Onn are stern--they both have resting stern face anyway. Whereas reading about a stern Superman feels like having your dad upset with you. “I’m not mad, just super-disappointed.”
What’s most puzzling about this conflict, though, is that it’s never resolved so much as abandoned. Starting in issue #69, Jurgens corrects some of the problems I’ve noted so far, but in a way inconsistent with his own earlier issues.
Superman begins the Doomsday saga by lying on the air about his leadership status:
Oh, so you WEREN’T ordering everyone around on the Almerac mission, Supes? You weren’t prepared to declare war on Earth’s behalf until Maxima tried the counterfeiting idea? Here, let’s have a montage of all the times you opened up and listened to others about League business.
That’s it, that’s the only time. And I’m pretty sure you only agreed because Ice said it. And you still looked like you wanted to heat-vision them into crackling ash while you apologized.
But as soon as Doomsday shows his containment-suit-shrouded face, Superman seems to get a lot more tolerant of his fellow Leaguers. Well, of course he has, you might be thinking. In a real emergency, heroes have to rise above petty differences. And sure. But if the Doomsday saga was the first time you saw “Superman’s Justice League,” you probably thought he was always confident in his respected peers (JLA #69, Superman #74).
And that he and Guy were at least “rivals with grudging respect, deep down” instead of “UGH, you SCAMMER” and “dude, could you at least NOTICE you stole my girlfriend?”
For what it’s worth, Ice would resolve her crush after Superman’s death in a way that reclaimed a fair measure of her dignity (JLA #70).
And Max got to recover some of his, worrying about the League’s post-Superman membership (#71).
But #70 and #71 echoed “Breakdowns” in that it seemed to break up the old band. Beetle was in a coma, Booster’s suit was destroyed, Fire had lost her powers, and Ice just quit.
This time, I quit with them. I mean, the dialogue “That’s it, the last nail” seemed to be ushering me out the door, know what I mean? The page above would be the last Justice League thing I’d read fresh off the rack until Morrison’s JLA won me back.
I quit Justice League Europe too, which hadn’t done as much to deserve it. Under Gerard Jones, the property had faced some imaginative villains like Deconstructo, Echidna, and the classic Amos Fortune. Hal Jordan and Aquaman acted just like they did in the Gardner Fox days, which is to say, boring as shit. But at least they weren’t hostile to the older Leaguers, and at least those older Leaguers sounded pretty much like themselves. The series had its moments...
Still, much of the old quirkiness was gone. Each villain arc seemed a little less inspired than the last, and there wasn’t much going on between those arcs anymore.
I didn’t discover the real end of Superman’s tenure with the League until many years later. That was a brief scene after his rebirth, where he thanks the reassembled Leaguers for their Doomsday service. He chooses to remain off the roster, but he’s nice about it. Even to Max. It’s a little weird (#86).
BOOSTER GOLD (meeting up with Beetle later): You know…even prizefighters lose a few memories when they get beaten down bad enough. And HE DIED. Do you think he remembers what he thought of us for most of the time he was part of the League?
BLUE BEETLE: No, and let’s never remind him. I’m not anxious to explain how that Bloodwynd thing went down, either. Of the League members most likely to blunder into tasteless cultural appropriation, J’Onn would’ve been at the bottom of my list.
GOLD: Below you and me?
BLUE: Oh, God, WAY below.
Saturday: By popular request, we’re gonna finish out the Jurgens era and see what I missed! It’s gonna involve a twisted guest appearance of the “classic JLA,” a brand-new superhero concept, and (checks notes)…uh…a nation sliding into fascism and a legacy of generations of slavery. Um…yay?
ICE: Whoa, I can’t believe you won, Superman! Doomsday seemed like he was too much even for you!
SUPERMAN: I…(haff)…I did what I had to, Ice…it’s only what any COMPETENT superhero would have done…
GUY: Yeah, it’s almost as rocksauce as how I woulda done it!
ICE: Here, let me ice your wounds. Your body clearly needs… 💖 lots of attention 💖 …
MAXIMA: A magnificent demonstration of f#ckability, Kryptonian. [shoves aside Ice, who flies through the air and falls into a dumpster] Now, we bang.
‘‘BLOODWYND’’: I am also impressed. Or am I? I refuse to tell you anything about myself. I am…me. That is all you need to know!
BOOSTER: Hold still while I get a victory selfie with you, Supes!
SUPERMAN: Ack…(choke)…
FIRE: Oh, me next! My new costume’ll really pop if we get Doomsday’s bloody corpse in the background!
BLUE BEETLE: Hope you don’t mind, I just sold the rights to Doomsday’s body as the site of a new casino!
SUPERMAN: I…I can’t take it anymore…kkkkkkk…kk.
BLUE BEETLE: …Supes?
I haven’t yet discussed Maxima, the other Justice Leaguer who wants into Superman’s trunks.
(Credit where it’s due: that’s a wonderfully terrible Guy Gardner face in the penultimate panel.)
Maxima is imperious, impatient, and impulsive, but she’s used to ruling a planet. One has to allow for a certain amount of culture shock in dealing with her. Good thing Superman is famously compassionate and diplomati-- (#63)
In fairness, he does help out a bit at her later legal proceedings (#66)…
…until he loses patience and leaves.
Then there’s Bloodwynd, the Martian Manhun--SPOILERS, sorry, let me try that again--
Then there’s Bloodwynd, the team member so mysterious he won’t tell anyone his powers, reasons for joining the League, moral alignment, or anything that might risk making him interesting. Only Blue Beetle seems to care about the security risk this represents (#65-66).
Like Guy, Bloodwynd would seem to merit the shade Superman’s throwing at everyone else, so what were Bloodwynd and Superman’s interactions like?
[IMAGE NOT FOUND.]
The only Leaguer Superman does treat with consistent respect is Ice, especially when they get trapped together on a lava world (#62)…
But even his horrible dad jokes only intensify Ice’s feelings for him, which raises more questions after they get to safety. Is Superman trying to ignore her crush, or is he unaware of it? She’s not exactly subtle about it. Could he be struggling with it, uncertain how to let a colleague down easy, or just avoiding it as one more aspect of a responsibility he doesn’t really want? We’ll never know (#68).
Obviously, there aren’t too many directions for this plot to go--even if Lois didn’t own Clark’s heart, he likes his women with more brass. Fire would have a better shot with him than Ice. But it’s weird how much this is built up on Ice’s side only to get no reaction from him at all, internal or external. No conflict, no comical awkwardness, no reflections on how some women are attracted to him as an ideal of perfection instead of his real self…nothin’.
Also in #68, Superman consents--after months!--to wear a signal device.
You’d think this would have dramatic payoff in the following issue, when Doomsday shows up. It will not.
Issue #68 ends with Maxima and Guy Gardner saving the planet with a simple deception and no bloodshed whatsoever. Superman treats this outcome as a sad, sad day for the League, truly one of its greatest disgraces.
Eight billion people might disagree.
I have a lot of respect for Dan Jurgens as a creator overall, which only makes this behavior of Superman’s more bewildering. It’s not like he shows his contempt in a funny way. Except for his air of near-constant annoyance, he acts like he did in his own main title, which Jurgens also drew and wrote.
Did Jurgens, at this point in his career, just share Superman’s impatience with this band of jokesters? Unlikely. The stories can’t replicate Giffen and DeMatteis’ sense of humor (a "hot" topic? Guy making a Gilligan’s Island joke? Cripes). But they do present the other Leaguers as sympathetic people--more so than Superman. Even Guy gets some love--from Jurgens, albeit not from Ice.
Yet it’s inconceivable Jurgens wanted to turn Superman into a jerkins just before the “Death of Superman” storyline, an upcoming development of which he couldn’t have been more aware.
My best guess is that Jurgens was trying to replicate what he saw as the League’s old dynamic: a mostly humorless “classic” hero as frustrated straight man, with everyone else sometimes competent, sometimes wackity-shmackity. In the Giffen days, that straight man was first Batman, then J’Onn J’Onzz. And the leader of this League has never been immune to making bad calls, so maybe Superman’s inaccessibility and stranding the team on Almerac are Jurgens’ version of Batman’s prickliness and almost leading the team to their deaths in Bialya. Or J’Onn J’Onzz’s own moments of eccentricity or irritability.
But nobody minds when Batman and J’Onn are stern--they both have resting stern face anyway. Whereas reading about a stern Superman feels like having your dad upset with you. “I’m not mad, just super-disappointed.”
What’s most puzzling about this conflict, though, is that it’s never resolved so much as abandoned. Starting in issue #69, Jurgens corrects some of the problems I’ve noted so far, but in a way inconsistent with his own earlier issues.
Superman begins the Doomsday saga by lying on the air about his leadership status:
Oh, so you WEREN’T ordering everyone around on the Almerac mission, Supes? You weren’t prepared to declare war on Earth’s behalf until Maxima tried the counterfeiting idea? Here, let’s have a montage of all the times you opened up and listened to others about League business.
That’s it, that’s the only time. And I’m pretty sure you only agreed because Ice said it. And you still looked like you wanted to heat-vision them into crackling ash while you apologized.
But as soon as Doomsday shows his containment-suit-shrouded face, Superman seems to get a lot more tolerant of his fellow Leaguers. Well, of course he has, you might be thinking. In a real emergency, heroes have to rise above petty differences. And sure. But if the Doomsday saga was the first time you saw “Superman’s Justice League,” you probably thought he was always confident in his respected peers (JLA #69, Superman #74).
And that he and Guy were at least “rivals with grudging respect, deep down” instead of “UGH, you SCAMMER” and “dude, could you at least NOTICE you stole my girlfriend?”
For what it’s worth, Ice would resolve her crush after Superman’s death in a way that reclaimed a fair measure of her dignity (JLA #70).
And Max got to recover some of his, worrying about the League’s post-Superman membership (#71).
But #70 and #71 echoed “Breakdowns” in that it seemed to break up the old band. Beetle was in a coma, Booster’s suit was destroyed, Fire had lost her powers, and Ice just quit.
This time, I quit with them. I mean, the dialogue “That’s it, the last nail” seemed to be ushering me out the door, know what I mean? The page above would be the last Justice League thing I’d read fresh off the rack until Morrison’s JLA won me back.
I quit Justice League Europe too, which hadn’t done as much to deserve it. Under Gerard Jones, the property had faced some imaginative villains like Deconstructo, Echidna, and the classic Amos Fortune. Hal Jordan and Aquaman acted just like they did in the Gardner Fox days, which is to say, boring as shit. But at least they weren’t hostile to the older Leaguers, and at least those older Leaguers sounded pretty much like themselves. The series had its moments...
Still, much of the old quirkiness was gone. Each villain arc seemed a little less inspired than the last, and there wasn’t much going on between those arcs anymore.
I didn’t discover the real end of Superman’s tenure with the League until many years later. That was a brief scene after his rebirth, where he thanks the reassembled Leaguers for their Doomsday service. He chooses to remain off the roster, but he’s nice about it. Even to Max. It’s a little weird (#86).
BOOSTER GOLD (meeting up with Beetle later): You know…even prizefighters lose a few memories when they get beaten down bad enough. And HE DIED. Do you think he remembers what he thought of us for most of the time he was part of the League?
BLUE BEETLE: No, and let’s never remind him. I’m not anxious to explain how that Bloodwynd thing went down, either. Of the League members most likely to blunder into tasteless cultural appropriation, J’Onn would’ve been at the bottom of my list.
GOLD: Below you and me?
BLUE: Oh, God, WAY below.
Saturday: By popular request, we’re gonna finish out the Jurgens era and see what I missed! It’s gonna involve a twisted guest appearance of the “classic JLA,” a brand-new superhero concept, and (checks notes)…uh…a nation sliding into fascism and a legacy of generations of slavery. Um…yay?
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Date: 2026-05-07 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-05-07 06:59 am (UTC)The art in that post-Return of Superman sequence... gad that's awful. (And no, not just because of the damn mullet because all artists were drawing Superman that way at that time because nineties.) Makes Bart Sears's work look halfway good by comparison.
Let's see... any positive things to say? The "buying Earth" ruse was cute, even if BoringMode!Superman didn't approve, and I dug Guy's eeevil grin in that scene and the earlier one with Maxima. Otherwise... yeah, T, I can't blame you for deciding to check out around that time.
Which reminds me... are you going to cover Morrison's JLA run at any point? I've been meaning for some time to read that because ( a ) it's Morrison and ( b ) the main League roster was all A-list heroes for the first time in many years and if I've heard right, that meant a more consistent tone for the stories -- no "Eh, let's treat Ted and Booster like total jokes except when we don't" kinda thing.