Justice League Europe #1-6

Justice League Europe #1-6

Originally released in 1989

Written by Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis

Art by Bart Sears

Picking up where I left off with Justice League International, the book was split into two series - Justice League America, which focused on the main JLI members, and Justice League Europe, which focused on a different group.  I'm not sure why this was done - maybe Justice League International was such a popular concept that the creators were given the freedom to do another Justice League book with an even more unorthodox roster, or maybe it wasn't selling as well as DC hoped so they changed the name to Justice League America to make people more likely to pick it up.

With Giffen and DeMatteis returning for writing, I'm guessing that the series was popular. (since, if it was unpopular, then they wouldn't be writing the spin-off in addition to the main book, though I could easily be wrong about that)  I wanted to give Justice League Europe a try first because it starred characters that I was largely unfamiliar with aside from Wally West's Flash and Wonder Woman (and I'm not even sure if Wonder Woman will be in this book for long; I could see her being like Captain Marvel or Doctor Fate, where she's only around for the first few issues)

As Justice League Europe is just starting to get set up in its Paris embassy, a man stumbles through their door and bleeds to death after muttering something about "brace".  The man turns out to be a Nazi war criminal, which causes the French public (with the help of some kind of hypnotism) to barge into the embassy and start attacking the JLE.

Suspecting that someone's trying to discredit the JLE before they begin, Captain Atom (the team's leader) has them split up to look into three Neo-Nazi organizations with ties to superhuman activity. At each location, the League members are attacked by super powered people who think that the League members are Nazis.

A former member of the Global Guardians, Jack O'Lantern, seems to be behind this, targeting the League out of petty vengeance for the Guardians being shut down by the United Nations. I'm not familiar with the Global Guardians at all, but it seems a bit much to turn into a full-on supervillain over all of this, especially when Fire and Ice (fellow members of that group) rebounded and joined Justice League International.

Jack O'Lantern is trying to tear down public opinion of the Justice League, though it doesn't seem like he needs to try particularly hard.  Even pro-Justice League citizens grow increasingly annoyed with the team, between all but two of them (the Elongated Man and Rocket Red) making no attempt whatsoever to learn the local language and the team feeling increasingly like an extension of the Cold War (since it consists of six Americans, a Themysciran, and a Russian) rather than a European team.

The Flash, Animal Man, Power Girl, and Metamorpho head to Bialya to investigate, with Metamorpho forced to hide in the air conditioning as a gas.  I'm not sure if the character (and his choice of quote upon the plane landing) is an intentional reference to Marvel's Ben Grimm or if it's a more common quote than I realize, but I can see the similarity in their situations.

Metamorpho discovers the extent of Queen Bee's operation, and the team tries to infiltrate through the sewers. Unsuccessfully, I might add, as Queen Bee is quite paranoid.

Still, they manage to come to an agreement with her - she stops masterminding attacks against the Justice League, and they won't expose her villainous nature to the world so she can keep Bialya as having a respectable appearance. Upon the team returning to the US, someone else arrives at the JLE embassy - Metamorpho's ex-wife, Sapphire Stagg, who had been married to him before he lost his memory of the last five years; she thought he was dead until recently.

Since then, Sapphire discovered that she's pregnant with Metamorpho's child, though apparently the situation there is complicated.  Sapphire's a pushover when it comes to her father, Simon Stagg, who convinced her to marry his caveman manservant Java.

Metamorpho regains his memories, and Sapphire is still in love with him and calling him pet names, though she ultimately chooses to leave with her dad.  Throughout this, Captain Atom is doubting his leadership skills, but after a discussion with Martian Manhunter and Maxwell Lord, he becomes a lot more confident in that area, especially when he's given the same priority as J'onn.

Captain Atom suggests that the team take a beginner's French class (with the exception of those who already know French), which also happens to be attended by the Injustice League - the same incarnation from Justice League International, who are just as incompetent as ever.

Ralph's tempted to go to the class himself for the sake of amusement, though he decides to stay at the embassy with his wife Sue.  The two of them are fun together, adding a bit of a grounded aspect to the series.

The assembled superheroes and supervillains slowly start to realize that something is up with the other members of the class, not helped by Metamorpho only being able to hide who he is with a hat, a big coat, and poor posture.  It's not long before the police show up, one member of the Injustice League is caught passing notes, and a fight breaks out.

Justice League Europe definitely has more of a sitcom feel than even Justice League International did, and like I expected, Wonder Woman wasn't on the team for long (she vanished from the book by issue 2).  I got the most enjoyment out of seeing the Justice League taking French lessons, which is not a sentence that I ever expected to write - it was great to see how thoroughly things would go horribly wrong, especially with the build-up to it.