80-Page Thursday: Justice League Quarterly #16!

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.
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80-Page Thursdays: Justice League Quarterly #7!

Justice League Quarterly #3 is one of my favorite 80-page issues ever. Today's book, Justice League Quarterly #7, not so much. The lead story, "Klaarsh Reunion!" (Written by Michael Jan Friedman, pencils by Eduardo Barreto, inks by Carlos Garzon.) features Blue Beetle going back to his high school reunion, something admittedly I don't recall seeing that often in comics. Ted brings Booster, Fire, and Ice; and when the school is pulled up by an alien tractor beam, his classmates confess they're actually aliens. Ted and his family were the only normal humans in Marquette, IL; which makes him seem a bit thick for not noticing. The aliens' overlords, the Klaarsh, show up to bring them back; the JLI stops them. A little thin, disappointing since I've liked other work from Friedman and Barreto.

The first back-up feature is a General Glory sixties pastiche, "If this be my Destiny...?" Written by Paul Kupperberg, pencils by Don Heck, inks by Mike DeCarlo. It's very, very, very much in the mold of a Lee/Kirby Tales of Suspense era Captain America story; more of a straight homage than a winking parody this time. While not knocking my socks off, it's the second GG back-up I've read that was better than his appearances in the regular JLI book.

The rest of the issue features Dr. Light and Rocket Red; and I'd only recommend them if you're a fan. Not the best.
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General Glory: Now at least 65% less sucky.

Like most of you, I'm not a fan of General Glory. I think Sally mentioned it the other day, which made me think of it, then I stumbled across this issue. I don't think I have more than maybe half a dozen GG appearences in the hundreds of comics in the basement, so the Happenstance Method was working overtime there. That, by the way, is one hell of an asskicking there.

General Glory was a really thinly veiled Captain America homage/parody (with shades of Captain Marvel for good measure) complete with dead kid sidekick, Ernie. Imagine making Cap more square. Somehow. Yeah, funny, huh? Less than you'd think, it shouldn't have run for as long as it did, and it was kind of the beginning of the end of the Giffen/Dematteis Justice League.

That said, I totally want one of these:

How great is membership? So great Franklin D. Roosevelt hits a guy with a chair on the previous page. I was previously unaware that FDR was hardcore, but that's what the Guardians of Glory Secret Society can do for you!

From Justice League Quarterly #9, "Jillion Dollar Legs" Written by Joey Cavalieri, art by Mike Parobeck and Ty Templeton. Ty is great, but even he alone couldn't make me like General Glory: with Parobeck, though, yeah. Read more!