Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Them!”!

Justice League! The Avengers of DC, as it were. I realize now that I’ve never read any Justice League comics. Maybe I’ll like Superman more if he’s rubbing elbows with Batman and rubbing genitals with Wonder Woman. There are also other heroes, but who gives an absolute flying fuck about any of them.

I picked this particular series from 1997 because it’s supposed to be a good starting point. Don’t steer me wrong, Grant Morrison. It better be good.

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JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [January, 1997]
Written by: Grant Morrison

I know it’s hard to see, but Superman has a mullet on the cover. You’ve already won me over, Morrison. Let’s keep the momentum going.

LOCATION: WASHINGTON D.C. THE PERSON: THE PRESIDENT (Clinton Von Hasenjaeger). We’re thrown in the middle of a conversation with General McAuley about the Mexican president and someone else who said three words that “almost ended his career”. This is what we call hooking the audience. It didn’t work yet.

By the way, where’s Firehawk? General McAuley doesn’t know; Firehawk flew the coop. He doesn’t even know Firehawk. He doesn’t even know if Firehawk is a he or a she. Less than one page in and we’re discussing pronouns. The woke mind virus strikes again.

And to make matters worse, something is suddenly blocking out the sun! “Must be a cloud, sir,” McAuley says unhelpfully. What it actually is is a UFO hovering over the White House like it’s going to blow it up Independence Day-style.

“Will somebody call the Justice League?” the president says defeatedly.

I think something stupid is already happening, unfortunately. Another UFO that has an alien with a bubbling head and an alien with a red mohawk thing, among other aliens, comments upon the giant UFO that just descended upon America’s Favorite White House. “It’s big,” says Red Mohawk. “Must be a mile across, Rex.”

Rex is Bubblehead. Al is Red Mohawk. Write this down.

Rex is like “yeah, it’s as big as the Justice League’s collective fuckin’ ego” and… oh hey, there’s Mulleted Superman here to save the day. The aliens sit back and watch the action.

McAuley briefs the superhero. The UFO dropped some “eggs” and he doesn’t know if he should squirrel the President out of there. “Hmm,” Superman says smartly. “The eggs are x-ray opaque.” Probably because they’re made of lead and now everyone’s going to die of slow poisoning. Now there’s a comic.

Aww, cute, they’re hatching!

The eggs start humming and glowing. Humanoid figures start emerging. “Superman, you have to keep them away from the President,” McAuley says as if the President is some sort of bigshot that needs saving in the first place. Superman advises the General and his men to keep their weapons down until they know what they’re up against.

“PEOPLE OF EARTH! GREETINGS. ALLOW US TO INTRODUCE OURSELVES…”

I’m treated to a full-page spread of a bunch of dorky anti-heroes. There’s a gold guy and a white grim reaper and a Thing ripoff and several others. Six total. They call themselves “THEM!”

“I am Protex,” smiles the gold guy. “We are the Hyperclan. We’ve come to save the world.”

Protex is the leader of the alien Hyperclan and he smiles with impossibly white teeth while explaining that his own home planet had been destroyed by its inhabitants and now the survivors are searching for new worlds to live on (and probably destroy all over again). “The Hyperclan members have been travelling for what scientists estimate may be anything up to several million years of our time,” says the narration. “And they bring a powerful message for our planet.”

Yeah, this is going to be some anti-capitalism climate change allegory. The Hyperclan’s homeworld was destroyed by greed, pollution, and plague. He smiles as he says this like it’s good news. Like he’s happy this happened. Perhaps he’s not all there in the head. He and Superman are in good company.

Protex is the Lizard King!

Meanwhile, in Keystone City, the Flash (Wally West) is engrossed in the TV footage of Protex blah-blah-blah-ing while his girlfriend, Linda, asks if he’s going to pick up her dry cleaning before the place closes. Wally’s like “whuh” and Linda walks away from him frustrated. Men!

Meanwhile, in Gateway City, Wonder Woman (Diana of Themyscira) is engrossed in the TV footage of…

Meanwhile, in New York, Green Lantern…

Meanwhile, in Denver, the Martian Manhunter…

“We are to here house your homeless,” Protex continues. “We are here to feed your starving and to repair the damage you have done to your biosphere. We are at your disposal. Bring us your problems and we will give you solutions in return.”

How very altruistic. What does this bastard want in return? Earth’s sultry women? Fat chance, pal. They’re mine.

“Thank you for your attention,” Protex ends with a dandy flourish.

After only a day, the Hyperclan created a cloud-factory over the Sahara Desert using chilled air and pulsed electrical discharges. Then, they ferried thousands of tons of fertile topsoil from under the south polar ice fields. Then they seeded the wastelands. All sorts of the good shit. Makes the Justice League look like Amateur Hour. In fact, let’s throw all the Justice League into a rocket and launch them into the sun. We don’t need them anymore.

Superman doesn’t help. He gets on the TV to bitch and moan. He’s concerned that these are just cosmetic changes, that deserts can’t be “fixed”, that this all isn’t sustainable, that it’s all a spectacle. In short, Superman seems to be supremely jealous. “Smells like sour grapes to me, Superman,” says someone in the crowd. “Yeah,” says another, “maybe all we want are superpeople who don’t just spend their days pounding the stuffing out of one another…”

Fair points! Here’s the rocket, here’s the sun. Let’s get cracking.

Protex comes down and calls the crowd unfair to Superman. “I understand his reservations and I’d be glad to discuss them. If he wants to know where to find me, I’ll be out ‘fixing’ the world,” he smiles smugly.

So where’s the catch? Here’s the catch! The Hyperclan also punish supervillains by tying them to stakes and blasting them to death with eyeball lasers. It’s bad enough to even send the Joker into hiding. Supercrime is at an all-time low, but at what cost??

Fuck yeah, man. Let’s bring back crucifixions!

“On hearing the executions,” says the news, “Superman commented ‘It won’t happen again,’ but it seems that his is the minority view.”

The rest of the Justice League also have reservations about Earth’s newest saviors. Elsewhere, out of nowhere, red astronauts emerge out of a space shuttle and start “running” toward the Justice League’s base. The Justice League try to stop them with paper airplanes and electric flyswatters to no avail. “Who are these guys?” Green Lantern screams, sparking with green electricity.

There are bangs and pangs on the hull. Even clangs! “It’s them! It has to be! The Hyperclan!” says one of the guys I don’t know. Screamy McRedHair. “But we’re on the same side!” Green Lantern says with a finger in the air like he just made a good point.

A red guy pounds through the hull, breaching it. The Justice League runs to seal off the monitor room while Green Lantern assures his crew that he can get them all off the base safely. One of the guys, the white guy with the yellow aura (I don’t know any of these motherfuckers’ names) says “Forget it. You think these characters are just gonna let you waltz out of here with us in a big green bubble? Leave the escape plan to me, kid. You hold off the bad guys.”

Green Lantern asks Wonder Woman for backup, who is like “Call me Diana, creep.”

Panels of incomprehensible art seem to indicate that the Justice League is fighting off the red guys, but it also looks like everyone is dying of exposure to space at the same time. Nothing in the monitor room is working. Looks like everyone is boned. “We can’t die like this, we’re the Justice League,” says the icy-looking lady. I really need to learn some dang names here. Ha, I just figured out that Al and Rex are Justice League members. I’m such a stupid cunt.

There’s a lot of this kind of stupid shit going on. I’m getting a headache.

Let me skip through a couple of pages here. The Red Guys are winning. Rex has launched himself through a torpedo shoot toward Earth, but he’s heating up as he enters the atmosphere.

The Hyperclan is in Antarctica where they unearth some giant gold-metal base called Z’onn Z’orr. “BEHOLD THE GLORY OF Z’ONN Z’ORR!” Protex says like a nerd.

“…public opinion swings once more against the Justice League, in spite of the destruction of its satellite headquarters in what was described as a ‘mystery explosion’,” says the news. There’s an implication the Hyperclan was indeed involved. “Protex, named ‘The Sexiest Man in the Universe’ by readers of the Sunday Planet magazine, spoke exclusively to WGBS.”

“The Justice League seems hellbent on manufacturing a confrontation,” Protex says. “I pray it needn’t come to that.”

Mulleted Superman returns to whatever new base the Justice League has found to tell them that Protex denies all involvement in the destruction of the satellite. “He was lying,” Superman says.

They are now joined by Batman, who says that Gotham has been eerily quiet. “This is a planned invasion,” says Batman. “We’re facing an unknown, immensely powerful enemy. We don’t know how many there are and we don’t know what they want. First blood goes to them, but now it’s our turn. My suggestion is this: We make plans, we move fast, and we hit hard.”

Make plans, move fast, hit hard. Nice ideas, Batman. Doing all the heavy lifting, as usual.

“This is war!” he finishes, frowning. Here’s the face Superman makes:

Looking good, Steven Tyler.

Final Thoughts

What is this shit?