TGH: Welcome back to Extreme Justice, one of history’s most revered sequential art experiences! Last week, Ronnie Raymond’s old friend Professor Stein showed up and almost destroyed the entire planet on accident, but then got bored and left forever. On the plus side, Ronnie isn’t dying of cancer and can now join the team as Firestorm. What exciting new adventures will our ever-growing team get into today?

QP: Judging by the cover, it’s a This is Your Life special gone horribly wrong.

TGH: I feel you, Booster. I yell this at least once an hour while we review these things.

QP: Nobody wants to life live as a robot with perfectly coiffed hair.

BW: As a Booster Gold fan, I can assure you that we call these “the dark times” for a reason.

QP: That is some dedication to saliva pictured there.

BW: If there’s anyone who screams Grim Gritty McToothGritting, it’s the guy who had his own cereal. And is wearing blue and gold armor.

TGH: He had a box of Life, but someone took it. What do you think this issue is about?

BW: Oh, I thought he had some vintage magazines stolen.

TGH: The team fought a stoned fire god last week, but now Captain Atom must face his greatest challenge yet: an angry lady, amirite guys?

BW: Considering his track record? With anyone?

QP: Her Fortress of Solitude has gotten an impressive renovation since last time we saw it.

TGH: I think Atom was kind of hoping she would just ignore him and he could leave, but then she calls his name, which appears to mortify him.

QP: He yelled at her and since he didn’t get an immediate answer decided she was done with him. Captain Atom is the guy who decides you aren’t home and hangs up after the phone rings once.

BW: That or leaves an embarrassingly long voice mail.

QP: Or constantly butt dials you while he’s at the grocery store.

TGH: At least Beetle is getting a kick out of what an asshole his leader is.

QP: Atom is completely inept with human beings. I can’t imagine how he managed to snag the offending fiance in the first place.

BW: “She’s in Canada. You’d like her if you ever met her.” is a phrase I’m sure he’s used to describe her at least once.

TGH: Atom finally enters the main tunnel into her lair and is grabbed and emasculated while unable to communicate adequately with her. Freud would have a field day with this book’s team.

QP: He demands an explanation, like he didn’t absolutely 100% know this was gonna happen the second he decided to invade the Phallus Fortress.

TGH: He already knows the explanation from the last time she explained it to him and told him to leave. There’s really no additional information to glean here.

QP: It’s kinda great that he keeps bugging her because she doesn’t want to talk to him, when he was the one who rejected her in the first place.

BW: We have learned one new thing. Maxima apparently cannot decorate. Rapunzel’s Tower hasn’t got a stick of furniture in it besides the throne she’s sitting on.

TGH: I mean, what else does she even need?

QP: A toilet?

TGH: Do DC characters poop?

BW: Batman doesn’t sit.

TGH: But does he shit?

QP: He definitely pisses himself. And I’m pretty sure at least two members of this team have made jokes about shitting themselves before. You win the no-prize if you guess which ones.

BW: Maybe that’s why Booster is so upset on the cover. Extreme Poop Justice.

QP: Maybe Booster’s suit is powered by prunes.

TGH: Maxima gets into it with Atom about losing her family so Atom starts tossing everyone else’s dirt in her face in defense instead of his own because he is literally the worst.

QP: Maybe Will didn’t want everyone to know about his daddy issues, Atom, did you consider that?

BW: Everyone goes under the bus when Captain Atom takes the lead! Look out, Firestorm!

TGH: Then Atom gives his sad sack story about how he lost his family and makes the kind of face you make when you’re trying to convince someone you’ve had it rough so she’ll come out of her death tower.

BW: Oh God! He’s even doing the sad sack “poop” pose!

QP: He’s so depressed he drained the light out of the room.

TGH: Atom’s fiance was the only one that didn’t run from Atom, so he ran instead. What a guy!

QP: Then he has the nerve to start telling Maxima about his fiance and tell her that they’re a lot alike. You really know how to work the ladies, guy.

TGH: “Maybe you two can make out sometime! What? WHAT???”

QP: His birthday is coming up, he has a proposition for her.

TGH: Somehow that’s enough to make her at least feel sorry enough for him that she won’t leave, so that’s one horrible plot thread resolved.

BW: No one gets off this team that easily.

QP: Elsewhere, it looks like Oberon snuck into someone’s suitcase for the flight back from Pittsburgh.

TGH: I wasn’t actually expecting to ever see him again. They’ll never get rid of him now. That place has miles of ductwork and tiny tunnels.

QP: Booster is trying to look someone up on the internet and having trouble finding them. Ahh, the days when that was a thing that could happen.

TGH: So the evil conspiracy guy had a computer that let you find exactly where anyone was at any time, and now they’re using it, but it’s not evil. Got it.

BW: Using it to beat the crap out of someone. Totally legit if you wear a cape.

QP: I’m sure the NSA doesn’t think they’re evil, either.

TGH: Booster finds the guy he was looking for, his old agent, Dirk Davis, and then either races off to kill him, or just really has to poop.

QP: Prunes!

BW: Life cereal! Wait.

QP: “Don’t tell anyone I’m gone, because they definitely don’t want to follow.”

TGH: Oberon decides he’d better tell Beetle about the murder Booster’s about to commit, but first, he settles down for a quick nap.

BW: Beetle, meanwhile, is busy with Firestorm.

QP: Shooting a naked Ronnie with lasers or something.

TGH: Beetle is trying to figure out why Ronnie can’t be Firestorm now that his cancer is gone, but it turns out it’s because Ronnie hadn’t yelled “Firestorm.”

BW: Did someone secretly want to put Captain Marvel on this team and not get approval? Excuse me, “Shazam.”

QP: DC is about two lawsuits away from having to legally call him the Big Red Cheese.

TGH: Oberon finally manages to get Beetle on the phone and lets him know what Booster is up to. Also Beetle is naked because of the law of conservation of clothes.

TGH: Beetle runs to…wherever he’s going while Firestorm slips on some ice.

QP: Booster is off flying through some Morlock tunnels and Tron on his way to Las Vegas.

BW: It’s not far off from the truth. Sorry Nevada folks, you know I’m right.

QP: That’s the secret about Vegas that nobody wants to tell you.

BW: The only secret that actually has stayed in Vegas. Until NOW!

TGH: He’s not sure how to find his manager now that he’s there. I suppose Google Maps was still a decade away.

QP: Did Beetle not build a road atlas into his robosuit?

TGH: It had like 20 installation CDs. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

QP: Oh crap, yeah, who has that much space on their hard drive?

BW: Strangely it did have a “feed Booster prunes” function though. Science!

TGH: Booster lowers himself down into the peasantry to ask for directions and his costume gets ripped into yet again.

QP: It’s too bad he’s not in a town where they put the name of literally every building on it somewhere in neon.

TGH: He flies off in a huff and decides he’ll figure it out himself. And then…he just does! Good conflict, everyone.

QP: It does give Booster an opportunity to complain about the paparazzi though. Everyone hates the paparazzi!

TGH: At least the writers threw a line in where they admit he should’ve just used all of the computers that he was already using to figure it out.

TGH: Booster crashed through Dirk’s window and we get to witness a staggering misunderstanding of how shattered glass behaves.

QP: You mean it doesn’t have it’s own gravity field?

TGH: Dirk Davis looks just like Buck Wargo, which supports my “Buck Wargo is a con artist” theory.

QP: Ooooooh yeah, it’s uncanny.

BW: Is it possible they’re actually the same guy? Did Booster ever meet Buck?

QP: Not to my knowledge. Canon accepted!

TGH: He was on an “expedition” this week.

QP: I would be curious to see where this lines up with the story over in Warrior.

BW: Ouroborous wears a cowboy hat. It all makes sense!

TGH: I want to know, but there is no way I’m digging those things back out……….OK FINE. In July of 95, Wonder Woman’s Justice League (which includes Blue Beetle) teamed up with Guy and the Warrior’s team to fight the Tormocks, right before they went into space. So Buck Wargo is exonerated, but this raises some questions about what the hell Blue Beetle was up to. Also, as mentioned in my intro post to Extreme Justice, Atom and Maxima went into space with everyone too, even though they also had simultaneous Extreme Justice adventures on Earth without even any kind of acknowledgement. In conclusion, comics are stupid.

QP: Eddie Berganza is as bad an editor as he is a human being.

TGH: ANYWAY, Dirk Davis stole all of Booster’s money and started a video game company.

QP: AND a comic book company. This is not the way to make your teenaged readership think Dirk’s the bad guy here.

TGH: He’s apparently making a Wolverine and Hellboy game which is definitely not a copyright violation at all! Booster demands that Dirk just hand him a dollar sign sack full of money, but it turns out that video games aren’t the limo rides and champagne sunsets that the media makes them out to be.

QP: That’s not what some angry dudes on Youtube said. But I guess video games failed Dirk so badly, he could only afford enough eyeshadow for one eyelid.

BW: It’s pink though, so it goes with his lipstick.

TGH: Dirk lost the rest of Booster’s money in the Whitewater scandal and on non-DC comic enterprises.

QP: Timely! This issue really is written for teens in the ’90s. They love political satire.

TGH: Since he has no money left to give him, Booster just goes ahead and takes over the company like this is some kind of medieval coup. I’m sure this is legally binding.

QP: Beetle shows up to try and talk Booster down, but Booster lets him know it’s alright, he just got him some new computers to hump. Then, unsurprisingly, Beetle is a-ok with the situation.

TGH: I like that when Booster came crashing through the window he apparently put his arm up so Beetle’s rope could eventually pass through okay

QP: Dirk keeps reiterating that the company makes interactive multi-media, so I’m assuming some VCR games are in there.

BW: And CD games. Yes, those also existed. The ’90s were weird, gang.

TGH: I want a shitty Booster Gold VCR board game.

BW: I would play the hell out of that.

QP: It’s just a rebranded Chinese knockoff of the Green Lantern VCR board game.

BW: Crap. It was Hal, wasn’t it?

QP: Of course!

TGH: Booster tells Dirk he’ll be hearing from his lawyers. Somewhere, miles away, his lawyer shivers.

QP: Booster literally just stole a company.

TGH: Booster calls security (by the way, wearing a stock pot on your head and putting a receiver to your ear looks hilarious) and the guards are just like “sure, I guess you’re actually the CEO now.”

QP: You said, so, it must be true.

BW: I mean, if Buck Wargo had been their boss they MIGHT have fought it. It does say something about how liked Dirk is that security actually does march him out at Booster’s request.

TGH: Maybe that’s how the corporate world works. No wonder it’s so hard to get into a CEO’s office. All you have to do is get access to his phone and declare yourself CEO and they’re out, so only their most trusted allies can be allowed inside.

QP: Takeshi’s Castle is actually just a reenactment of the C-level promotion process. Time for me to go get rich, guys, BRB.

TGH: Booster makes Beetle a partner too, while he’s imaginary running this business in the brief moments before a SWAT team arrives.

QP: Maybe the guards were just dragging Dirk away to safety.

TGH: “Yes, Mr. Gold. You’re the boss now. Just…just stay right there for just a minute while we get Mr. Davis out of here. We’ll be right back sir. Just please don’t move.”

QP: “The shiny bracelets are just part of the CEO coronation ceremony, don’t worry about it.”

BW: I thought CEOs got crowns.

TGH: “Never mind the red dot. We’re just pointing to the man in charge.”

TGH: “-After all, everyone deserves a second chance,” Booster’s lawyer pleads, as we finally see what Captain Atom’s up to.

QP: Tits is what he’s up to.

BW: Captain Atom decided to remind us that his fiancee is neither Canadian nor imaginary, but is in fact, the super villain Plastique.

QP: She’s kinda French so she could be Canadian.

TGH: Atom decides to finally call Plastique, who is all naked and wet and posing sexily for us in her empty apartment.

BW: It’s a super villain thing. It’s what they do. Seriously, do NOT drop in on Clayface unannounced.

QP: I like that he has to chrome up to talk to her. She’s not even looking at you, you can be a fleshy one.

TGH: I guess she really is a lot like Maxima.

TGH: She even uses the “I’m not a schoolgirl” line on Atom, just like Maxima did. He has a type: not a schoolgirl.

QP: Thank God for small non-felonious favors.

TGH: She does him a favor and gives him until Must See TV to make her not hate him.

QP: He better hope Jeopardy isn’t a close one tonight.

TGH: Maxima is watching him fail miserably, so he puts her on hold. Good job.

QP: Digging his own grave even deeper. Maxima gives him shit for not being vulnerable, which means he physically has to be fleshy. Subtle.

TGH: In the 15 seconds he put her on hold, Plastique found something interesting on TV, so thank God he puts his suit right back on so he doesn’t have to try to be human anymore.

BW: And a reference to Giuliani. Clearly this IS the most ’90s of all comics.

QP: She tells him to turn on the TV, presumably because this episode of Friends features Marcel.

TGH: Captain Atom is absolutely the Ross of the team.

QP: The rest of them are all the Joeys. Unfortunately, tonight’s Must See TV has been superceded by an alien invasion. Whomp whomp.

TGH: Atom turns on his 55 billion inch TV to CNN and sees that New York has been visited by Monarch! Who I guess was killed or something during Zero Hour? I don’t actually know much about this guy, but Atom is pissed so I like him already. I think Guy looked at him once during the one super confusing crossover issue we slogged through but sadly I did not go out of my way to read the rest.

QP: I find it hard to believe that Guy fought anyone that’s ever appeared in another comic.

BW: Ehhh. Let’s just say the less said about Zero Hour, the better.

TGH: What reason does Monarch have to be in New York? Will Captain Atom immediately be a dick to him and probably everyone else? Tune in next time and find out!