Flash in the pan - Justice League Europe #2

Somebody Up There Hates Us!

Justice League Europe #2

Cover Date: May 1989

Released: 28th March 1989

⋅ Writers: J.M. DeMatteis / Keith Giffen

⋅ Pencilers: Bart Sears

⋅ Inker: Pablo Marcos

⋅ Colourists: Gene D'Angelo

⋅ Letterer: Bob Lappan

⋅ Editors: Kevin Dooley / Andrew Helfer

Continued from Justice League Europe #1.

We start on something a little unusual, Captain Atom out of costume pondering the events of the previous issue. Flying back to the embassy he jokes with Catherine about how well things are going before getting Sue's help on looking up Neo-nazis and fringe groups, apparently, Sue is the resident hacker (for the 80s at least) hence her being accepted to the help on the team. In probably the least realistic (sadly) part of this story about superheroes there are only three such groups existing, though she does look for groups with metahumans I guess?

He then summons the other heroes, including our reason to be here Pee Gee who still it seems to be the CEO of Starr Industries (this will quickly be forgotten), and three groups mean no three stories.

In California Captain Atom and Animal Man go to the wreckage of an Aryan Nation camp, destroyed it seems by the Wild Huntsman. We have a kind of sort of misunderstanding fight, but more of that later. And whilst I'm not the biggest fan of superhero fights I must admit it is pretty well done using the two heroes' abilities to their fullest. Even though the plan was to just stun them, for some reason the Wild Huntsman is in a coma.

In Germany, our Power Girl, and Rocket Red, arrive just in time to find the place they were after burning away. We get a nice little conversation as to why they don't help the German firemen that go into the war, with Dimtri obviously having a slightly different viewpoint coming from his country of origin (I had to remind myself that right now Kara is not Kryptonian so doesn't correct him when he says her country). Flying away they meet up with another anti-Nazi (as they all should be) who attacks them straight away. This is Rising Sun who uses energy bursts, that seem to irritate rather than overly harm the two heroes. After a quick back and forward Pee Gee whacks him with a speedy flyby, which again knocks Rising Sun out and into a coma.

Finally the last three Metamorpho, Elongated Man, and Flash are on their way across the channel to Dover, which somehow seems to be missing their famous White Cliffs when they're hit with the final hero fight of our story Tuatara. Being, apparently, an aquatic hero the fight goes on above and below the water, with at least two of the heroes getting to show off their powers. Metamorpho gets a really good showing, doing the general shapeshifting and harassing Tuatara until Elongated Man can wrap him up and subdue them. Flash does nothing! Again Tuatara he falls into a coma.

On the final page, we get some clues as to what is going on here, the three heroes are members of the Global Guardian, an attempt by DC to bundle a bunch of their regional heroes together (often forgotten but Fire and Ice came from the Guardian originally). It appears that at least two of the Guardians know and are manipulating the others, that being Jack O'Lantern and Owlwoman.

They say that for comics it sometimes matters when you read them, and I got to admit this might be one of those situations. I was really down on the previous few issues, which is probably unfairly judging things on future events. This is a really solid issue that uses the various heroes' abilities well and builds on the mystery of the story. And thanks to this I'm generally looking forward to finding out what happens next!