Justice League International Year Three, Part I: How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm after They've Seen Paree? (JLI #22-25 / JLA #26-30 / JLE #1-6)

from Justice League America #30

Here, we hit the era where Justice League International was doing so well that it was split into two titles. In JLI #24, Max and Oberon decide to add more members to the group, but also to move half of them to the JLI's Paris embassy. Existing JLI members Captain Atom and Rocket Red are put on the new Paris team, joined by new members such as Metamorpho the Element Man, the Elongated Man, Animal Man, Power Girl, and the Flash. Thus, with issue #26, Justice League International is retitled Justice League America, in time for the debut of Justice League Europe. Like JLA, JLE has plot and breakdown by Keith Giffen with scripts by J. M. DeMatteis; Bart Sears pencils with Pablo Marcos on inks.

As I said back in installment #1 (see list below), I read JLE back when I was in college, but at the time I had not read any other JLI titles. So I got a big glow of nostalgia returning to these characters after twenty years... but also now bits of it make a lot more sense to me, like who "Queen Bee" is and why Jack O'Lantern is so mad at the JLE! 

My reading of the last third of the stories collected in the Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 1 was a lot more straightforward than those in the first two thirds, because this time I had no stories outside of the omnibus to work in. I did still tweak the order, though; the omnibus places JLE #1-6 almost at the very end, after JLA #30, but I recommend reading JLE #1-3 after JLI #25, since JLE #1-3 and JLA #26-29 occur simultaneously.

from Justice League International vol. 1 #22

"Little Murders" / "Gross Injustice" / "The Road Less Travelled" / "Hostage!" / "Across a Crowded Room..." / "Repossessions" / "How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm after They've Seen Paree?" / "Somebody Up There Hates Us!" / "Another Fine Mess!" / "Slice and Dice!, or There's Something Very Wrong with the Blue Beetle!" / "Mindswap" / "A Date with Density!" / "Nabu on in My Mind" / "Teenage Biker Mega-Death!" / "Bialya Burning!" / "Stagg Party!" / "No More Teachers' Dirty Looks...?!" / "Around the World with the Justice League" / "The Men I Never Was", from Justice League International vol. 1 #22-25 (Jan.-Apr. 1989), Justice League Europe #1-3 (Apr.-June 1989), Justice League America #26-30 (May-Sept. 1989), Justice League Europe #4-6 (July-Sept. 1989), and Justice League International Annual vol. 1 #3 (1989); reprinted in Justice League International Omnibus, Volume 1 (2017)
plot & breakdowns by Keith Giffen; scripts by J. M. DeMatteis and Dave Levin; pencils by Kevin Maguire, Ty Templeton, Dean Haspiel, Mike McKone, Bart Sears, Bill Willingham, and Tim Gula; inks by Joe Rubinstein, Dean Haspiel, Pablo Marcos, Dick Giordano, Bruce Patterson, and Tim Gula

The first two issues are are tie-ins to Invasion!, where an alliance of aliens invades the Earth. Most of the JLI is summoned to help Wonder Woman on an island in the South Pacific, while Booster Gold and Oberon mind the shop back at the New York embassy. The highlight of the first issue is definitely its opening pages, where the aliens send in an miniaturized strike force that immediately knocks out Booster, meaning Oberon must save the day. The second issue is set after the invasion, when the JLI comes up against the group of largely incompetent criminals who have branded themselves the Injustice League. My favorite is their leader, Major Disaster, who goes on about how failing political science caused him to miss his destiny... becoming a borough president in New York!

from Justice League International vol. 1 #24

After this, we get issue #24, which is an oversized issue that contains three stories, and the key one that splits the team into three groups. The first two stories are fun, particularly the second, a Maxwell Lord one where he gets taken hostage, but by the end, the hostage-takers are working for him, and they've paid Booster and Beetle enough to install a nice big tv in the JLI headquarters, but the third is a hoot. In this one, a bunch of prospective heroes are invited to a soiree at the JLI embassy... at the exact same time the miniaturized strike force Oberon imprisoned in some roach motels returns to normal size. Too many heroes all in a big group try to take them down, just getting in each others' ways.

Last in this sequence is a Beetle and Booster–focused issue, where they once again undertake their repossession business (see Justice League International Annual #2). It has lots of good jokes... and then gets surprisingly serious. Well done stuff.

from Justice League Europe #1

As alluded to above, I had a warm glow of nostalgia reading the JLE issues, especially #1, which mostly focuses on the character interactions on moving day. I love these characters, and I love the way they play off each other; obviously Kevin Maguire is a great artist, but Bart Sears and Pablo Marcos are also great in their own way, a bit cartoonier, but strongly expressive. The actual story here is fine, but what makes it all work are the character moments, particularly those revolving around Ralph and Sue Dibny. So many good jokes! You can feel the writers finding their way into what works for some of these characters (e.g., Metamorpho, Power Girl), but the Elongated Man and his wife click right from the off, and Rocket Red is starting to come into his own.

The work of genius here, though, is of course the issue where both the JLE and the Injustice League end up enrolled in the night school French class and cause a diplomatic incident. 

from Justice League International Annual vol. 1 #3

In the stretch of JLA issues collected here, the Blue-Beetle-attacks-Max-Lord subplot is surprisingly dark for this series often painted as a "sitcom," but I particularly enjoyed the story about a teenage street punk getting hold of Big Barda's mega rod... and being seduced by the call of Apokolips. Again, it's pretty dark, showing a side of Barda that's easy to miss—every time she goes into battle, she's resisting the power of this horrific weapon. Also we get a couple appearances of the Helen Bertinelli Huntress, before her retooling as a Gotham scion, when she battled gangsters on the streets of New York. I liked that series, and so was glad to see her here. We also get Ice's attempt to find the nice side of Guy by going on a date with him... which ends in dismal failure. (My favorite part of this was the crook who got out of the supervillain game, but then thinks Guy is after him when it's actually a total coincidence.)

Lastly, we get JLI Annual #3, which has two stories. One is focused on the Martian Manhunter and his trauma, but I felt like this didn't quite come off even if I liked the idea. The other is good fun, though; the JLI tours their embassies around the world, while Martian Manhunter tries to catch up to them with a delegation from a tropical island. Hilarity ensues, of course, but I particularly enjoyed the jokes about how all the tropical islanders had gone to the U.S. for college.

This is the third in a series of posts about Justice League International. The next covers issues #31-36 of JLA and #7-12 of JLE. Previous installments are listed below:

1. Justice League #1-6 / Justice League International #7-12 (May 1987–Apr. 1988)
2. Justice League International #13-21 (May 1988–Dec. 1988)