Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4 – “Invaders from Mars”! In the previous installment, the Hyperclan thinks the Justice League is dead when, in fact, exactly zero of them are actually dead. The most useful hero ends up being Batman even though he doesn’t have any super abilities except super-crying about his dead parents. In the end, the Hyperclan gets semi-thwarted. In the actual end, the Hyperclan hails seventy other members from out of secret invisible space orbital transmitters. The extended Hyperclan will level all of Earth’s major cities, including Tokyo, London, Pompeii, and Sim City.

The Justice League has aces up their sleeves though! Exactly what that is…? Er…

JLA (Vol. 1), Issue #4 [April, 1997]
Written by: Grant Morrison

As members of the Hyperclan leer over Superman, the caped crusader wonders why the kryptonite hasn’t killed him yet. As loyal readers will recall, Superman is strapped to a gurney with an orb containing kryptonite hovering over his face. Superman can sense chaos in Earth’s midst. The invasion fleet of the Hyperclan is landing in, among other high-profile cities, Washington, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, London, and Fake-Ass Metropolis. The airwaves are jammed with cries for help! The public needs their Super Man!

The kryptonite, though. Oh, god damn this kryptonite! It feels like someone is pressing a hot iron against Superman’s dick. Wanna know how Superman gets out of his predicament? He mind-over-matters it. As in, he starts thinking “hey, there’s no kryptonite here at all!” and then it doesn’t feel like there is any kryptonite there at all! Then he busts out of his restraints looking positively feral and a little hungry.

Superman, realizing these Hyperclan douchebags are Martians, wonders why there are more Martians running around in the first place. J’onn was supposed to be the Last of the Martians. What gives?

He tries to light things on fire because fire is the weakness of Martians, apparently. They’re like Frankenstein’s Monster without the neck bolts. And now that Superman has escaped, the Hyperclan really needs to keep his heat vision away from the Flower of Wrath. I’ve only mentioned the Flower of Wrath once before, but it sounded so stupid that I didn’t bring it up ever again! I guess heat is bad for the flower, too. Let’s keep that flower nice and cool like Miles Davis (who wasn’t nice, as it turned out).

Primaid is the white and blue woman who thinks they can still beat the Justice League, but Armek is the muscle-y robot guy who doesn’t agree. This is because Armek is actually Martian Manhunter, who used his superpower of… mimicry?… to deceive! “Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize this city you’ve unearthed?” he says with sassy crossed arms. “Z’onn Z’orr, the most infamous name in Martian history…”

Primaid calls Martian Manhunter a traitor. He owns it.

Look in a mirror, lady. No really, look in a mirror. Your eyes look bloodshot!

Meanwhile, in the Gobi Desert, the real Armek is talking to ZüM about the nerve of some of these Martians doing rude identity thievery. He’ll kill him! He was going to kill him anyway, but now he’ll double kill him!

Superman has the worst hair in the universe as he challenges Protex to a fair fight. No heat vision. No brass knuckles. Just fisticuffs at dawn. Protex’s eyes shine with maniacal redness! “YOU can be as fair as you like, Superman… I’LL stick to my own rules!”

lol

I’m like, okay, then use the fucking heat vision. But Superman is instead taken aback like an old priggy prude and gets enveloped by Protex’s new form: some sort of blobby white thing.

“We Martians have complete control over our molecular structures,” Protex explains to Superman, who is helpless against this newest development. Protex penetrates Superman’s blood vessels! He enters his brain! He cooks and cleans and sews! “Now to finish what we started millennia ago,” says Primaid as they cause a mysterious fissure in the earth.

Martian Manhunter clocks Primaid in the mug. He makes fun of the pale Martians. She makes fun of the green Martians. It’s a real racist good time. Martian Manhunter pulls a simple switch and deactivates the Flower of Wrath (it literally has a screen that says “FLOWER OF WRATH: DEACTIVATED”) Primaid gets killed, I think, before Protex swoops down over Martian Manhunter and gives him a big, long, boring soliloquy.

“Where are your friends now?…” Protex asks before he pops Martian Manhunter’s head off like a cork.

“Where we always were!” says Wonder Woman as she, the Flash, Aquaman, and Green Lantern strike poses. Big ol’ titties on this lady.

The Flash surrounds Armek with fiery candles and Green Lantern drops a projection of a 16-ton weight on his head.

Aquaman gives ZüM a big migraine by fucking with his brain’s basal ganglia. He can do that, you know.

Talk dirty to me, Wonder Lady.

Primaid is still alive, but Wonder Woman wraps her up in rope and they look like they’re humping each other for a bit.

Protex says a LOT of words about the primitiveness of Earthlings and how it’s the Right Thing To Do to take over Earth for the good of the Earth, and other Earth-related nonsense.

“You want the Earth so much Protex – IT’S ALL YOURS!” Superman says as he throws Protex down the fissure created after the Flower of Wrath was deactivated.

That is as stupid as it sounds. You’re right.

Then they start beating each other up in the fissure. That’s also stupid. “They fear you and they hate you and you don’t even have the guts to admit you despise them in return!” Protex tells Superman, referring to the dumb losers of Earth. “You know in your heart they’re INFERIOR!”

Superman punches Protex further into the ground. “They believe in me, and in my heart I believe in them.”

Now that everyone has neutralized their respective fight partners, the Justice League, including Batman, reconvenes. “We can’t waste time,” Batman says, ever the downer. “The invasion fleet has already arrived on Earth and Martian mind control has been overridden by terror.”

They look around the Hyperclan base for equipment to use. There are cameras hooked up that were meant to broadcast their executions to the entire world, maybe they can use those to put on a puppet show? Superman flicks on the camera.

Looking a little drunk there, Superman.

“I know it’s difficult right now, but try not to panic,” he tells his captive audience as dozens of UFOs are literally destroying cities. “You must fight against the invaders. We’re on our way but we can’t reach everyone in time. It’s up to you to defend one another. They’re afraid of fire! Use fire against them! Stand firm. Right now, courage is all that can light this darkness.”

The dumb people of Earth get out their BIC lighters and make angry, determined faces. As cities burn down, Superman salutes the camera. “The Justice League of America won’t let you down!”

“They’re surrendering!” cries Green Lantern as death, destruction, and devastation makes waves across Earth. “We did it!”

In the aftermath, Martian Manhunter explains that he knew these buttfuckers were all Martians after he saw Z’onn Z’orr. He apologizes for endangering the Justice League, all of humanity, and a couple of gophers due to personal feelings. Superman is quick to forgive because he’s not very smart. “I’m more concerned about what we do now.”

“Martians are shapechangers, Superman,” Martian Mansplainer says. “We’re familiar with a wide range of mind control techniques. There are… methods. Punishments. You may not approve, but I must be the final arbiter.”

What Martian Manhunter suggests is waterboarding them with battery acid and then tickling their feet with a giant feather. I don’t see whether or not Superman approves of the giant feather.

Meanwhile, all the special, idyllic ecosystems that the Hyperclan created in impossible places, such as the Sahara Desert, are dying and withering away. As expected. Let this be a lesson! “Humankind has to be allowed to climb to its own destiny,” says Superman with such poignant gravity.

In the following weeks, the League created a new base on the moon. It’s about 560 stories tall and looks like a complete eyesore. It’s made out of only the strongest adamantium and mudhoney and no one can penetrate it, not even Superman! That’s right, they’re keeping him out!

I wish, at least.

EPILOGUE: “Bob Grey’s had another bad night. To tell the truth, he hasn’t really felt right since they let him out of the hospital, right after the Justice League stopped that alien invasion. He feels like he’s been lobotomized with a corkscrew. And then there’s the dreams… Bob won’t ever know that exactly 69 other people in countries all around the world are having the same strange dream night after night.”

Final Thoughts

Curious! It’s always a good sign when dozens of people share the same dream every night. It always bodes well for future events. I guess we’ll see if it matters at all in Issue #5! If I ever even get to it! You never know…