No boom today… no wait… – Justice League Europe #3

Another Fine Mess!

Justice League Europe #3
Cover Date: June 1989
Released: 25th April 1989

⋅ Writers: J.M. DeMatteis / Keith Giffen
⋅ Pencilers: Bart Sears
⋅ Inker: Pablo Marcos
⋅ Colourists: Gene D’Angelo
⋅ Letterer: Albert DeGuzman
⋅ Editors: Kevin Dooley / Andrew Helfer

Continued from Justice League Europe #2.

We start with a quick recap of the last two issues, revealing that our heroes are clued in that those they were fighting were formally part of the Global Guardians. Flash is his normal irritating self in a, which I think of a Josie and the Pussycat moment. Yeah, I know no one cool will get this, basically, one of the characters (Alexander, no really I didn’t need to look it up 😀 ) states she is in the movie because she was in the comic book! No, really the movie is fun, go look it up!

The team basically splits into three-ish groups, a bunch of them go off and do nothing so we can ignore them! Captain Atom meets a Frenchman who’s pro-JLE, his not being able to speak French is bought up at a plot point for something that’s coming up later.

Elongated Man and Pee Gee do the sensible thing and get Sue to look up the Global Guardians, getting the readers up to speed on who they actually are! We then cover the fact that Fire and Ice were members, with Ice making a quick cameo, before deciding to go to the Global Guardians base, which happens to be in Paris, to go check things out. This will basically be the main part of the story, yes we’re actually getting Pee Gee to be part of the main plot!

Going in civilian clothing, which means we get to see Kara in the most 80s of clothes, power shoulders and all! Ralph, Kara, and for some reason Wally join a tour, the Parisians seemingly proud of the Global Guardians (it is fascinating to see in world stuff we never get in regular superhero comics).

We get Captain Atom called out by Catherine that this European team has absolutely no European members on the team, to fit with the story saying why the Global Guardians are more popular. As I said more set up for the following issues.

Jack O’Lanterm watching from elsewhere, why isn’t made clear, notices our three heroes, from the back so we can’t even use the Clark without his glasses excuse! The crowd, quite impressive for a team that’s already disbanded, suddenly turns on our heroes as Jack O’Lantern turns up to gloat at the three. 

To get back to the language thing we cut back to Animal Man, Metamorpho trying to learn French, helped by Rocket Red. And yes technically Dimitri is Russian, and hence sorta European, but it’s complicated and not something I can really explain. Still, they get a news report about the fight in the Global Guardians headquarters, though it’s in French to hammer home the whole thing!

Back to the fight and the only one, obviously, who seems to be effective is Pee Gee, the others help but are electrocuted by Jack’s lantern bowling ball thing. It’s all for nothing as he teleports away, leaving Kara to carry the others out of the building before it explodes, It doesn’t look good for the JLE, who seem to be getting the blame for the destruction caused, especially Captain Atom. This seems to push Captain Atom to push back, though he was already being proactive beforehand! 

Again it was a nice surprise to read this comic, and as a bonus, it’s pretty Pee Gee heavy! It’s even giving time to set up a side plot about our very American team not understanding French, It’s kind of neat that the comic is taking time to explore this part of the team, though it would have been nice if they’d actually introduced more European characters (technically Wonder Woman would have counted) but we can’t have everything!