Previously, it took the combined might of Ty Templeton and Mike Parobeck to get me to like a twelve-page General Glory story; and today we have 80 non-stop pages of him...yikes. From 1994, Justice League Quarterly #16, "Visions of Glory" Written by Paul Kupperberg, art by Vince Giarrano, Rick Stasi, Curt Swan, Khato, Danny Rodriguez, and more.
Guy Gardner makes a brief appearance, visiting General Glory's civilian identity, Joe Jones, in the hospital. As Guy leaves, Joe meets his new roommate, former cop Donovan Wallace, who was paralyzed while saving a child during a shootout. To try and keep Donovan's spirits up--and maybe teach a little something about American perseverance--Joe retells several General Glory comic-book stories, most of which were probably fiction even in-universe; but they can still serve as inspiration. (Double-G had disappeared at the end of WWII, but his comic apparently continued well into the 90's!) We have a 50's style General Glory vs. "Groout, the creature who came from the cracks in the earth!" Then Curt Swan art for a very Silver Age "Moolah Murphy Goes Straight!" followed by a Dark Knight Returns pastiche and a 90's Image-style super-team book.
In the end, Joe remembers what put him in the hospital: after the JLA's last battle against Overmaster, General Glory had said his magic oath backwards and returned to the form of Joe Jones...a 70-year-old man who's heart could no longer take the strain. (GG was a Captain America parody, but also cribbed a little from Captain Marvel; which I always thought was a bridge too far. Pick one!) Joe transfers the mantle to Donovan, giving him the power to be a new vision of Grim-n-Gritty--I mean, General Glory. I'm not sure he was seen again, except per Wikipedia, where he was killed by Vandal Savage's Fourth Reich super-villain team. Which seems unnecessary: if your bad guys are naming themselves after Nazis, you probably don't need to have them kill a parody to establish their badness. This issue was mostly harmless fluff; but that discovery leaves a bad taste.
I have mixed feelings about General Glory. He was Guy's childhood hero, but he didn't always treat poor Guy all that well.
ReplyDeleteI have this one still, and damn, if you were ever a General Glory fan, THIS one was for you. I enjoyed the different era stories, especially the image=verse one and the DKR homage. So Donovan was killed off? Fuck, that sucks. No wonder there's no General Glory around. No one cares :(
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