WITH APOLOGIES TO MR NEBULA

This ’ere cosmic sundial indicates that it’s once again time to unfurl my bristly spiralled proboscis and use it to pick the rusty lock that needlessly secures the BARGAIN BASEMENT OF DOOOOOM. After a couple of Marvel-tastic instalments, it’s time to head back across the Bleed in search of cheapo-bin booty. Whenever I think DC, the first title that pops into my head is Justice League – and it’s a pretty close-run thing between the Giffen/DeMatteis and Grant Morrison incarnations of the team. 

Closely followed by the Detroit era. I'm only human.

Today, I’m going to take a look at a very much lesser-known title in the Justice League family. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Giffen/DeMatteis League was big news, and led to a number of spin-off titles, including Justice League Europe, the Martian Manhunter mini series, a Huntress special, Mr Miracle, Justice League Task Force and JUSTICE LEAGUE QUARTERLY. This meaty, 84-page fifth-week title, published (appropriately enough) four times a year, ran for 17 issues between 1990 and 1994. Most were anthology editions, though a handful consisted of one long story. And it’s fair to say that the majority were a big ol’ pile of G’Nort droppings. Lame, lazy stories, shockingly weak artwork, tenth-tier characters. Was the world really crying out for Praxis, Jack O’Lantern, Rising Sun and Stinky the Cat solo adventures? Who? Exactly.

Mind you, it was at least an attempt to branch out and diversify, and some pretty big names contributed to this thing: Mark Waid, William Messner-Loebs, Dave Cockrum, Phil Jimenez – and Mike Mignola, who contributes an absolutely stunning cover to an otherwise forgettable #14. 

And in amongst the astounding amount of unsupportable cobblers, there’s a handful of glittering gems. I’d recommend adopting an extremely selective approach to JLQ, so here are three specific issues that are worth your pentagonal coinage. Firstly, issue #1. 

Set not long after Booster Gold quit the team in Justice League America #37, this book-length tale by Giffen/DeMatteis follows Booster as he is recruited into a new corporate super-team, the Conglomerate, alongside the heavy-hitting A-listers Gypsy (ex of Justice League Detroit), Reverb (brother of the late Vibe), Vapor, Echo, Maxi-Man (human feminine hygiene product) and the aforementioned Praxis (who?).  The team sport the leather-jackets-over-lycra look that would come to be popular in the ’90s, but theirs are festooned with myriad corporate logos, including LexCorp. LexCorp! From a man who used to operate out of Metropolis… not known for his attention span, that Booster.

Booster’s shamelessly grubby sell-out shilling unsurprisingly irks his former friend and teammate Beetle, and tensions escalate between the two teams. Things come to a head when the Conglomerate are despatched to a South American nation state to unseat a dictator – ostensibly for humanitarian reasons, but in truth merely to protect the commercial interests of their sponsors. Despite the middling art and frankly underwhelming knockabout super-powered action, this it is a pretty interesting story by virtue of its pretty astute and surprisingly subversive political commentary, as well as some superb moments of ‘Bwah-ha-ha’-era League silliness.

Issue 3 is another book-length epic, this one written by Keith Giffen and Gerard Jones, with art by a young Mike McKone (lately, most famous for the Avengers: Endless Wartime graphic novel). This is some of his earliest comics work, and while a little raw and embryonic, it’s still fantastic. His is a really unique style, clean and light, a curious mix of ultra cartoony and highly naturalistic. The story follows on from the story in Justice League Europe #15–19 that found the team travelling to a dead world to battle a bunch of extermination-level villains (a great five-issue run, worthy of its own column at some point). During that adventure, the JLE encountered a guy named Mitch Wacky, who was anything but. Formerly a version of Walt Disney, he was a broken man, crushed by the death of his world, and would do anything to bring it back. In JLQ #3, he gets the chance. He and then-former Green Lantern Kilowog pool their tech expertise to build a machine that can travel through both time and space, and they head back to avert that disaster that killed Mitch’s world. Unfortunately, the process is not without its complications, and they find themselves shrunk to a few inches tall.

A hand-picked team of Justice Leaguers follow in their tiny footsteps in an attempt to prevent the space-time continuum being ripped to shreds. Much Giffen-esque ridiculousness ensues, including hyper-melodramatic Avengers parodies, an extremely creepy robot, a flying boot, mind-bending temporal paradoxes and Guy Gardner becoming intimately acquainted with the inside of a dog (where, if Groucho Marx is to be believed, it’s too dark to read). Yet this is offset by some moments of genuine anguish and horror – an unlikely mix, but Giffen and Jones somehow make it work.

Incidentally, I first read this issue while I was at university. It coincided with a period in which the metaphysics class was discussing the implications of time travel and its attendant paradoxes. I brought it up in a seminar as an example of the reverse grandfather (not a sex position). They looked at me strangely.

Anyway… #5 comprises four separate stories, three of which are stinkers. However, the lead tale, Mark Waid’s ‘Be Careful What You Wish For!’, again gorgeously rendered by a barely pubic Mike McKone, is a real beauty – the best of this bunch. Around the world, metahumans are falling ill and losing their powers. Thus far, it’s a bunch of the more interesting early ’90s second-stringers: Geo-Force, Valor, Red Star, Rebis (of Morrison’s Doom Patrol, in a relatively rare mainstream DCU appearance) and the Will Payton incarnation of Starman. Back at JL headquarters, Ice is suffering a crisis of confidence, feeling out of her depth and underpowered – though you’d think that having Blue Beetle and the Elongated Man as teammates would be quite the self-esteem boost for someone who can freeze your intestines with a thought.

As the JL get embroiled in the ailing heroes mystery, they encounter mysterious super-powered men in black and trace them back to an extremely creepy artificial Stepford-style small town. It turns out the power-stealing men in black are being controlled by an old League foe for a specific purpose… which I won’t spoil here. The setup is nothing special, perhaps, but the payoff to this story is hugely rewarding, weaving together both the mystery and Ice’s personal struggles in a satisfying and unexpected way, taking in some pretty sobering meditations on life and death along the way. Frankly, this one story is far too good for this title. 

It also features J'onn twatting someone with a locomotive.

While largely a stinking puddle of boiling monkey sputum, JLQ is not to be disregarded in its entirety. It offers a valuable lesson or two in discernment, in digging a little deeper to find diamonds, one of which is the size of my head.

Shop wisely, folks.

(originally published on The Big Glasgow Comic Page)