"Blood, Sweat, and Tabloids"
Cover Date: December 1990
Writers: Keith Giffen (Plot), Gerard Jones (Script)
Artist: Marshall Rogers (Pencils), Joe Rubenstein (Inker)
Previously...
The Justice League Europe accidentally blew up their headquarters in Paris, so they had to move to London.
Plot
Captain Atom is talking with Catherine, the team's non-powered U.N. liaison about the events of last issue. Maxwell Lord, who was in control of both teams of the Justice League at this point, calls in to demote Captain Atom to field commander, and promotes Catherine to be his boss. Captain Atom is delighted that he no longer has to be in charge.
Elsewhere, the Silver Sorceress, possibly the most forgettable member of the Justice League in history, tries to introduce herself to her new teammates, despite the fact that they, much like me and I'm going to guess pretty much every reader, doesn't care.
Power Girl, in the middle of a twenty-year stretch of shifting origins and spotty characterization, marches up to Captain Atom and starts complaining about a tabloid photograph of her in a bikini. Captain Atom cheerfully points out that he is no longer in charge of shit like that, and continues on his merry way.
Also, in subplots of marginal interest, Flash and Metamorpho go clothes shopping, Blue Jay broods and the Crimson Fox...it's the Crimson Fox, a character who's main selling point is that she was originally played by identical twins, so could be used as C-List fodder twice.
Anyway, Captain Atom and Power Girl go out for a walk, and talk about her cat...that's not a metaphor, they're actually talking about Power Girl's pet cat. Power Girl offers to get Captain Atom a gift to give Catherine. Later, Captain Atom gives Catherine the gift, which turns out to be lingerie. Captain Atom swears revenge. The End.
Comment
Kind of a hard issue to summarize, seeing as something like 90% of its charm is in the dialogue. Justice League Europe was never really a good comic. It was always basically a poor man's version of the Giffen/Dematteis Justice League run, and while that was a good run, I mean not sure that it really demanded a spinoff.
Especially, since, you know, they didn't apparently have enough characters to staff two full teams. At the time, the Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman teams didn't want their characters in a team book, so they were out. So, what did they have available? Well, they had the Wally West Flash, who was a great character...after Mark Waid had a chance to refine him, but in 1990, that hadn't happened yet. Captain Atom had his own book, but, well, it's Captain Atom. Power Girl would eventually become a popular character...fifteen years later, when they finally had a chance to settle her origin, powers and characterization. For whatever reason, Giffen and friends had decided to portray Power Girl as...well, as a raging bitch.
Still, it's a book that captures a moment in time where the Giffen/Dematteis vision of a super-hero team played as a sitcom was so strong that they thought it could sustain a second monthly title. Also, to serve as a convenient holding place for C-List characters that could be killed off when the time came.
I don't know, I guess you might like this book if you've gotten every Justice League story every written by the Giffen/DeMatteis team, but need more, but it's pretty inessential as far as these things go.
The really amazing thing about the book, though, is that it lasted for over five years from 1989 to 1994. That's pretty good, even when you consider that it was a boom time for the industry.
Damage Stars: ****
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