From the Pile Episode 2: Justice League International Annual #3 by Keith Griffen and J. M. DeMatteis

This week I picked DC Comics Justice League International(JLI) Annual #3 by Keith Griffen and J. M. DeMatteis. One reason I chose this title is I will probably be a little Marvel-centric for the next few videos and I wanted to throw a little love to the die-hard DC Fans.

And you have to be a die-hard DC fan for this one, at least the main story. Around the World with the JLI takes up 33 pages of this book and nearly nothing happens. The story opens on the beautiful Pacific island of Kooey Kooey Kooey where a character named Herb is trying to convince his chief to allow the JLI to have an embassy on their island as a way of keeping the Soviets and Americans from attempting to establish a base there because Kooey Kooey Kooey is strategically located. What its strategic importance is, we aren't told. We are only told we are somewhere in the South Pacific.

Herb is the uptight sort while the chief likes to make dumb jokes and tell Herb to lighten up. The chief thinks inviting the JLI to have a base on the island is a bad idea as it will attract super villains, aliens, inter-dimensional monsters, and reporters. Herb tries to assure the chief that the JLI are very busy and will probably only visit the island rarely.

The chief takes it under consideration and after a couple of pages, decides to send Herb to speak to the JLI and offer them an embassy on the island. Herb is suddenly, "Why me?! I don't want to leave the island, it's so nice here! I spent four excruciating years at Brooklyn University," and I'm sighing in frustration because we just spent 2 or 3 pages of Herb arguing for and then worrying the chief will turn his proposal down. Don't make a suggestion if you don't want to take the lead on it, or have someone in mind to take the lead on it!

Next we cut to the JLI headquarters where the JLI have been summoned to go on a tour of all the JLI's embassies in different countries around the world for reasons that are never completely explained. Blue Beetle isn't happy because he has a hot date. Booster Gold jibes him that it is with Beetle's Aunt Millie being allowed out of the home for the weekend. It isn't funny and as the book progresses nearly every member of the JLI makes an Aunt Millie joke that is just as unfunny.

The whole feel of the book is like that of a 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoon and I could practically hear the lame laugh track in my head as bad joke after bad joke is made. If I wasn't reading this book to make a video, I would probably have put it aside forever.

As you see in my video the cover looks really fun and it shows snapshots of JLI members having fun in different countries around the world. Guy Gardner was even shown on the cover even though he, Batman and somebody called Captain Atom are excused from the tour, although Captain Atom makes an appearance later in the story.

The whole story is about Herb trying to catch up with the JLI who are always one location ahead because, I guess in 1989 they had no means of communication.

The artwork is the only redeeming quality of this story, the faces are especially well drawn and convey emotions extremely well. But in the end it is 33 pages of bad jokes, anti-adventure, and unhappy characters.

The backup feature is called The Man I Never Was (also by Griffen and Demateis), on the other hand, is 8 pages of pure comic book joy. This is a story that features Martian Manhunter, aka J'onn J'onzz, who is seeking to avenge the death of his former partner and comes to Gotham to start pushing around low-level mob guys hoping to shake up the higher-ups in the organization because he believes his partner was killed for investigating the mob.  Martian Manhunter is soon joined by Batman because nobody beats up low-level hoodlums in Gotham without Batman's permission!

The great thing about this story for a not very long time DC fan such as myself is that this  gives the reader deep insght into J'onn J'onzz's character. I think all the stuff I've read with J'onn J'onzz is the post-Identity Crisis stories and the little bit he was in Injustice: Gods Among Us, and none of those stories really go into his character that much. Probably Brightest Day is the story I've read with the most character building for Martian Manhunter but I don't think I had any idea he worked as a cop for a few years. But the way Griffen and DeMatteis let you into J'onn J'onzz's head is by having him focus on Batman and all the trauma and Bruce Wayne experienced as a boy and while J'onn J'onzz is telling us about Batman we are learning about J'onn. It is really quite inspired story telling. I'm not sure what happened with the main feature but these eight pages and the cover art are worth the price of the whole book.

If you happen to pick this book up or remember it from back in the day, let me know what you think in the comments section down below. And please support this blog by visiting my YouTube channel Super Comic Fun Time! and liking and subscribing, and if you are planning on shopping at Amazon, please consider using my affiliate link here which links right to Amazon's Comic Books and Graphic Novels and shop from there.

You can even pick up a copy of Justice League International Annual #3 if you so desire. I do think the back up story is well worth the read if you can find it for a good price and not have to pay more in shipping than  the price of the book.

This book also looks like it will be a part of the upcoming Justice League International Omnibus Vol. 1 which is due out on October 17, 2017. Based on my reading of this Annual #3, I don't feel compelled to get this volume, but if you are a fan from this time or you know there are much better JLI stories than this, maybe there are a lot more gems scattered out throughout this omnibus. If you are a reader back from the day or a fan of this era of comics, let me know what you think because I really did like, no love the back up feature in this annual. Comment below or on my video, link up above.

Suddenly Moving Dream 20170930

I dream I am living in a very nice house with hardwood floors. I have dreamed this house before, entering it in winter in one dream. I do not know if I recorded that dream.

In this dream, I suddenly find myself moving and for whatever reason I am moving alone. Everything is on me to pack up the house. I call my mom wondering if she knows someone with a truck because I have to be out pretty quickly. This leads me to understand that there is some issue with money. I am moving to another state and I have to rent a moving truck which, in my mind, is going to be very expensive.

I also do not have any boxes or tissue paper for wrapping delicates. In the dream, I come across a few religious relics from my childhood that I feel like transferring to the new house. One is sort of a stained glass piece and the other is a holy candle. I don't feel much connection to my Catholic upbringing but these relics seem like okay things to take.

Then there are pieces of furniture, a lot of it is authentic furniture but this is a black walnut finished box that isn't very interesting looking and seems like it is artificial.

While I am packing I suddenly realize that I will be selling this house and where I am moving too, somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee, the housing is about 1/3 of the price of this house. In my mind, my house is worth something like 330,000 and I will only need to use something like 100,000 to buy a new home.

But there is also time pressure and I feel myself going into a panic attack while I am packing.  This is when Scott Adams, the famous cartoonist and persuasion expert, arrives with my roommate who is a woman that isn't anyone I know but seems to be a composite of several women I have known over the course of my life.  Scott and this woman sit down in a window sill and they are eating ice cream and calmly and with a feeling of a sense of humor, watching me pack and panic.

I call out, not quite shouting, "I need some words of encouragement right now! I need to feel calm." And the woman and Scott Adams start intoning affirmations, "You are calm, Douglas." "Everything is working out in your favor, Douglas." While they are doing this, in the dream, I had been in a frenzy and the dream itself reflected this where everything was blurring but as they continue, I start to calm down.

I start to calm down a little bit and I notice them looking at my stuff, I ask them, "Is something wrong." And they make a statement like, "All of this stuff is yours, and when you got rid of a piece of furniture, you went to the store and bought a new one without even consulting your roommate."

I suddenly realize, I am moving and I didn't even think about my roommate and where she was going to live and that, in fact, she was my tenant, since I owned this house and I wondered how long she would need to live here while I moved and should I leave some furniture for her? There was also some thought of the religious relics, where they actually okay to take to the new house?

Then suddenly, everything seemed to resolve itself in an instant and as we three were realizing the resolution, I woke up, actually smiling, I think.

Since then I have been doing some work and I have been feeling a bit frenzied since then. I was just about to go and do my daily affirmations when I felt compelled to write out this dream first.

I'm just going to publish this right now without any proofreading because I feel that will capture most the spirit of the dream and when I look at this later today I will make any minor corrections and maybe add a picture or two. Especially if I come across anything that reminds me of the relics as that and Scott Adams' voice intoning affirmations are the things I remember most.

I also thought about dreams I had prior to moving into my current home. I had a whole series of dreams of coming home to my apartment, finding the door open and a bunch of stuff leading away from the door and I also had several dreams about moving into a new house.

So since I am working very hard on starting a marketing business right now, I am taking this dream as an omen that I am moving in the right direction.

I also realize I have Scott Adams' book in my Audible Library, How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life and maybe I should move that up my playlist?

Since I'm mentioning Scott Adams, his new book Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter comes out October 31, 2017