Memorial Day Spectacular! Justice League #45: Hell On Ice!

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TGH: Welcome to another special edition of Guy Gardner! Since it’s Memorial Day weekend and most sane people would rather not read awful Guy Gardner: Warrior comics, we’ve decided to review another classic JLA issue instead. An issue in which Guy Gardner somehow manages to talk Ice into yet another date after the last complete disaster.

QP: You may begin to question if Ice got some kind of a head injury after their last encounter, since she’s agreeing to yet another date with him.

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TGH: Apparently she got hit several times, as the comic opens with Ice yelling at Guy about another date that just went south, making this at least the third Guy/Ice date. Though it’s nice that Guy has upgraded from a porno theater to some more casual cock fighting.

QP: Guy knows how to impress the ladies. For example, with highly illegal animal abuse.

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TGH: Ice screams at Guy that there is not going to be another date ever, which makes me happy for exactly 3 panels, at which point she is already falling for Guy’s bullshit all over again.

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QP: But she at least kind of puts her foot down, insisting that she pick out the date, and Guy doesn’t get to complain about it. It’s the small victories, I guess.

TGH: True, though letting her choose was his idea to lower her guard, so it’s a slightly smaller victory.

QP: Fair enough. But clearly he didn’t know the depths to which she would stoop if given the opportunity.

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TGH: Fire does her due diligence and tries to talk Ice out of it as always, but to no avail.

QP: You know, Fire gets painted as the stubborn one of the two, but Ice can really be a donkey about things when she wants to be.

TGH: She keeps calling Ice Tara in this issue, which bothers me since I don’t think that’s ever been her canonical name.These guys created her, damn it. They should get it right!

QP: Yeah, she’s called Tara throughout, and I’m not sure if it’s a consistent typo or what. Did the letterer not know what her real name was?

TGH: Maybe they had a temp that day or something. And a temp editor.

QP: Must be it.

TGH: I like the dated Mel Gibson reference now that Mel Gibson is actually Guy Gardner IRL.

QP: How were Giffen and DeMatteis to know that Pee Wee would actually end up being the slightly better catch of the two of them?

TGH: Ice decides that they’re going to the Ice Capists, because of copyrights.

QP: It’s a little clever. Just a bit.

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TGH: Lightray, who I guess was hanging around JLI headquarters those days, has no idea what an Ice Capists is, so Guy gets a chance to explain how only a true :Warrior can survive the ordeal.

QP: To his credit, his description does sound way more exciting. Like, Ice Capades meets those zombie survival haunted houses.

TGH: I hope there’s an issue of something where Captain Cold tries this shit on someone. Turns out that Lightray totally knew what the Ice Capists is and has a laugh at Guy’s expense. Those New Gods, always clowning around.

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QP: In fairness, I think the entire world knew who Peggy Fleming was in the ’80s.

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TGH: Later, at the Ice Capists, we manage to get an early ’90s gay joke. I did not actually see that coming.

QP: The Comics Code does not cover gay jokes, I guess.

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TGH: Then Guy makes a comment about fucking Ice. I mean, I’m not super shocked, but still kind of shocked that they could write that in JLI? I mean, they did go to watch pornography the last time they went on a date, so I guess the bar was already set.

QP: I want to believe that Ice is just taking the piss out of him for this whole thing. Like, obviously she loves it, but she’s just hamming it up to rub it in, and that’s the only reason she seems oblivious to his behavior.

TGH: Her response could be interpreted at a jab at his penis size too, so damn, DC.

QP: Ice can burn like the best :Warrior.

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TGH: Back at JLI headquarters, Fire made the mistake of telling Blue Beetle all about their date. He of course finds it hilarious.

QP: I mean, he’s not wrong. Though most of us would not look at it as a prime opportunity for pranking.

TGH: That’s because we’re not Blue Beetle and because we don’t have direct access to Guy Gardner on a daily basis.

QP: True. I suppose if I had to put up with him that regularly I would never look a gift horse in the mouth before I pantsed it.

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TGH: Beetle tries to get Kilowog in on the action, since he’s I guess a better inventor than Beetle is (I guess by default, having alien knowledge). He declines, though as we find out in a bit, not for very long.

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QP: Meanwhile, back at the Ice Capists, Guy sounds like he’s pretty close to barfing.

TGH: He’s apparently been running to the bathroom all night, but Ice finally shuts that shit down.

QP: Guy wishes Black Hand would show up. I’d like to assume that Black Hand has crashed all of their dates thus far.

TGH: I wish we could’ve seen how that cockfighting date went, but it probably ended with Black Hand being thrown in the middle of the two birds and pecked nearly to death.

QP: Poor Black Hand.

TGH: He probably wasn’t even doing anything wrong.

QP: Probably was just investigating an illegal gambling racket for the police. Backstage, we discover that Kilowog finally went in for Beetle’s big plan after all.

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TGH: The glee on Beetle’s face is great.

QP: This is the most excited he’s ever been about anything.

TGH: Beetle lies and tells the people backstage that it’s Guy’s birthday, so they want to pay tribute to him. How they do this is bound to be terrible.

QP: Surely. It can go no other way.

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TGH: Back at the bathroom, a child confuses Guy for one of the Three Stooges.

QP: Guy bitches at Ice for taking too long in the bathroom, which is rich coming from Captain IBS.

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TGH: She gushes at him for secretly being a softy, which really is more fun if you just assume she’s fucking with him.

QP: He tries to cover by being a chauvinist, which…sigh.

TGH: The show is about to start back up, bu first! A very special tribute to someone in the audience! Who could it be?

QP: I hope it’s New Kids On The Block.

TGH: Sadly, no. It turns out to be Guy Gardner on ice!

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QP: Oh, the entendres!

TGH: Ice clearly thought they were being gross. Meanwhile, Guy almost can’t pay attention long enough to realize what’s happening.

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QP: I’m not gonna lie, I don’t think I’ve laughed at anything as hard as I’ve laughed at his “tribute” in a while. I want a plushie version and a 1/6th scale maquette ASAP.

TGH: You’d think someone would’ve made that by now, but the world is a disappointing place sometimes.

QP: Surely someone on Etsy can make my dreams come true.

TGH: I’ve got action figure versions of frankly some pretty shitty DC characters, and yet no Guy Gardner on Ice figure.

QP: This would definitely be better than another Aquaman-but-in-a-different-costume figure.

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TGH: Guy slowly loses his mind as the Guy robot performs.

QP: You can honestly see his sanity breaking in half.

TGH: Like, he can’t even talk, he’s so pissed. Beetle finally pushes him over the edge by having his pants drop.

QP: Amazing. Blue Beetle is truly a master of the craft.

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TGH: This is the best use of robots in anything ever. Age of Ultron had no pants-dropping Guy robot.

QP: Wall-E’s pants stayed pretty firmly on for the entire movie, if I recall.

TGH: The Iron Giant couldn’t even skate.

QP: Every other robot is a failure, and should report it’s sprockets to the nearest recycling center.

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TGH: Later that evening, we find out that Guy has been stuck on the couch in the rage position for the entire day.

QP: I guess catatonic-with-rage is a thing. Ice takes him up to his room, while telling him how impressed she is with how he didn’t murder anyone tonight. You keep lowering that bar, hon.

TGH: Sometimes you just want someone who isn’t a homicidal maniac on the outside, even if he’s clearly one on the inside.

QP: I mean, if that floats your boat…

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TGH: Once she leaves, Guy snaps out of it long enough to lose his shit completely and threaten to kill everyone.

QP: This is not helped by the fact that he opens his door and finds Guybot in his bed.

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TGH: I don’t even know how Beetle got it there that fast. I like that he just has no idea when to stop.

QP: Stopping is for amateurs. Why ever, ever stop when you can keep going?

TGH: I’m surprised that it never appeared again, though probably because Guy threw it into the sun or something.

QP: Sounds about right.

TGH: I will track Beau Smith down and hug him if I ever see that thing in the background at Warrior’s.

QP: The appearance of Guybot is enough to make Guy finally go back on his promise to behave himself, and he starts hunting Beetle and Kilowog all over headquarters.

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TGH: Luckily for them they had the foresight to set up camp on the roof.

QP: Not a bad call on their part, at least until Guy wises up and uses his ring to find them.

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TGH: Guy’s carrying on causes Orion to go upstairs and kick the crap out of him.

QP: It’s really about the best way any of this could end. In fact, I wish some of the GG:W issues ended with a New God showing up to hand Guy his ass.

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TGH: Guy with his head in the floor, Beetle with the seat of his pants ripped off. A happy ending for everyone. Sadly, I think that’s the last of the Guy/Ice date issues. They should’ve done this more often, but there were plenty of good stories during this run, so I guess I can’t blame them.

QP: It’s true. They had way too much material to work with to regularly subject readers to Guy’s terrible ideas for good dates.

TGH: We’ll be back next week with our normal Guy Gardner tale, where we’ll find out what happens after Superman beat Guy into submission. Spoilers: there is more punching. Such nuance.

QP: A punch is as good as a story.

’90s Ad Showcase:

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TGH: I think we all need to pause for a moment and just stare at that poor bastard in the Target: Renegade ad.

QP: Target: Renegade, starring that one guy in your dorm freshman year that only ate Twinkies. This ad is exhibiting his post-winter-finals sugar blitz fighting style.

TGH: I don’t think he’s going to last very long on the mean streets.

QP: That bicep he’s showing off is just a Twinkie implanted under his skin.

TGH: “Here’s the box for the game. Pose just like that. No, you look like an idiot, what is with your face…aww, fuck it.”

QP: The neon pink leopard headband is a nice touch.

TGH: That guy has at least 6 pairs of nunchucks in his van.

QP: I appreciate that he’s tastefully showing off a single nipple during his action shot.

TGH: I have actually nothing to say about this game. I just wonder which high school he’s a janitor for.

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TGH: The Dungeon people spent a lot of time figuring out exactly where the line was to avoid a lawsuit from DnD.

QP: There’s a dungeon, and there’s a dragon, but the two are definitely not related.

TGH: The dragon isn’t in the title, but they can put a huge one on the ad I guess.

QP: Actually, TSR is the publisher of D&D, so….yeah, no lawsuit.

TGH: Well there you go. Sweaters not included.

QP: That sweater is a nightmare.

TGH: The Cosby Sweater of the Dorito. -1,000,000 to charisma.

QP: It looks like a glitchy version of that old ski game rendered in yarn.

TGH: These were simpler times.

QP: That dude probably still had a chance with the ladies. While wearing that sweater.

TGH: He was unsuccessful in getting any ladies to join him for a rousing game of Dungeon.

QP: In fairness, the Dragon was always an ass to them whenever they came over. Always asking if they were virgins, and where their gold was, and would they like to accompany him back to his deep mountain cave.

TGH: Nobody knows who invited that guy anyway.

QP: But he insisted on DMing.

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QP: You know, now that we’re 25+ years removed from it, the Game Boy graphics were kinda shit. It’s amazing we didn’t all go blind trying to play on that tiny-ass screen.

TGH: Yeah, really. Backlighting and color have spoiled me forever.

QP: They were definitely not ever good enough to fool my senses into thinking it was real.

TGH: I think they’ll be using that line forever and it will always be a lie.

QP: The uncanny valley is a thing for a reason.

TGH: This is like the uncanny next state over.

QP: This is like your three year old draws a scribble on a piece of paper and asks you if it’s uncanny and you call a priest to come exorcise them because where did she learn that word?

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TGH: I remember renting the BttF game once, and was disappointed. The game made absolutely no sense at all. LJN ruined everything.

QP: Did it try to explain the intricacies of time travel paradoxes, alternate universes, and string theory via video game interactions?

TGH: It was just a bunch of unrelated screens that seemed to have no actual point or purpose.

QP: So yes then.

TGH: I think the instructions that were taped to the rental box mentioned what the two buttons on the NES controller did but did not delve into what the actual goal of the game was, which was in no way made clear in the game itself. Biggest waste of $2 ever. I mean really, how hard is it to come up with a good BttF game? I guess it’s easier to just get a deal on the license and crap something out in an afternoon.

QP: According to Wikipedia it just played “The Power of Love” for the entire game.

TGH: Well at least they got one element right at the expense of everything else.

QP: I mean, an endlessly repeating Huey Lewis soundtrack is all I really ask for in a video game.

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TGH: Remember when the NFL rebranded a bunch of candy with football names? Me neither. Also, what the hell?

QP: We didn’t have an NFL team in 1989 so this probably missed my entire market.

TGH: We had a pretty popular one and this is the first I’ve heard of it. Hell, maybe it was discontinued in the time it took to make an ad.

QP: I mean, at best it was a knock off bag of Hershey’s Minis. At worst, it was that candy your cheap neighbor gave out at Halloween.

TGH: Google doesn’t even know what the hell I’m going on about with this, so it must have been short-lived.

QP: Probably for the best for everyone.

TGH: I’ll take M&Ms over TDs any day.

QP: Agreed. “Super Bar” is just a shitty Snickers.

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TGH: Man, Galactus is hiring younger and younger heralds these days.

QP: That is totally gnarly, man. Tubular, even.

TGH: I was pretty jealous of people who had that Simpsons game, even though in retrospect it’s not that great.

QP: I don’t think I ever had any of those, but I did have the Simon’s Quest Tiger Handheld. And the Beauty and the Beast Tiger Handheld, because I think someone was horrified by how much I wanted the Simon’s Quest one.

TGH: I don’t think I ever had any of these. I like that they come packaged in 3 pounds of skin-slitting plastic.

QP: Yeah, I don’t really remember the Acclaim handhelds at all.

TGH: All of the features they tout over other handhelds are the exact same thing all other handhelds had.

QP: Yeah, pretty much every handheld had a high score memory, even the crappy off brand one your parents bought you from the gas station.

TGH: I feel like that’s the main thing you want out of a repetitive one-screen game like those, and everyone knew it.

QP: No one ever mentions the amazing lifelike LCD graphics.

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TGH: Man, is that the same damn kid in the next ad? How many games does he need (please ignore my Steam library)?

QP: A true gamer needs all the games. He’s got a blacklight bedroom and a flying V guitar. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t really an ad for Spencer Gifts.

TGH: Herald of Galactus on the streets, rock star in the sheets.

QP: Well that’s a horrifying thought, so thanks for that.

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