TGH: Welcome back, readers! This week, before we get to Christmas at Warrior’s, we’re looking at the issues of Showcase 96 that featured Guy. It’s not a particularly important story, but it seems to take place chronologically after the one we just read, since Guy is back on Earth, and Evil Guy is going by The Enforcer, so it must be after he made his deal with Neron. Frankly, though, “From the pages of Superman” is a bit of a stretch.

QP: Yeeeeeah, I guess Superman was in the Guy/Steel team up issue for a second, but that really barely counts.

TGH: Steel is technically from the pages of Dead Superman, I guess.

QP: I see from the cover that this issue is set back in DC, so that’s nice.

TGH: It looks like they at least managed to prop the Washington Monument back up and glue it together after Guy wrecked it last time.

DN: The beginning of the issue proves that Beau smith both knows what a thesaurus is, and how to use one.

QP: In the manner of all great hacks, everywhere.

TGH: I dunno, I still haven’t been told how Webster’s defines it. The story opens with a group of the worst card cheats in history. They all decided that maybe they should just all bring like 12 aces each. These are the people that Sledge now hangs out with, so I guess he found a group that matches his intelligence pretty well.

QP: He’s done well for himself. Sledge asks this suspiciously Guy-ish fella in the eye patch if he knows him, but supposedly he doesn’t. What mystery!

TGH: Even after they all have four aces in their hands and Sledge loses his mind, you can see a bunch of extra aces still unused! Maybe they should’ve just dropped the act and all had five aces each.

QP: Also, if you’re choosing to cheat at cards against a guy that’s built like a silverback gorilla on horse testosterone, you’re just Darwinning yourself right there.

TGH: It’s cool, once he accuses them, they all try to fight him.

QP: Proving my point.

TGH: They’re going to go eat some lead paint under the power lines after this.

TGH: Sledge pretty much just murders everyone. I can’t look at these panels and imagine any of these people getting back up.

QP: Especially the two guys he Pound of Pains together.

TGH: Those two were murdered the most. I don’t even think they have heads left in the imaginary next panel.

QP: Then he literally lifts up the bar. Shoddy workmanship in this skeezy dive. Code at least calls for it to be nailed to the floor.

TGH: The one person who somehow wasn’t accidentally murdered during the bar-wide fight gives him a sarcastic clap afterwards. That’s a great display of perspective in that panel, by the way, with all of the tiny dead people about 3 floor tiles away from Sledge.

TGH: Hold on to your hats, but it turns out that the person who looks just like Guy Gardner but isn’t is actually The Enforcer, Guy’s evil clone!

QP: I am so surprised.

DN: Yaaaaaay.

QP: Still doesn’t explain why he’s wearing an eye patch.

TGH: His power is now shooting tiny hammers. That’s really worth selling your soul for.

QP: He got the ability to do that thing he already did, but in a different color.

TGH: “I will give you power beyond your wildest dreams.”
“Well, my dreams involve firing tiny hammers, so can I fire slightly larger tiny hammers?”

DN: THE ENFORCER then makes fun of Guy calling himself Warrior…Really, dude? Really?

QP: The Enforcer has some serious entitlement issues. First of all, you’re the clone, buddy, if anyone is running around with someone else’s mug, it’s you.

TGH: The Enforcer and Sledge spend a page getting us all up to speed on their boring back stories.

DN: And drinking and stealing.

QP: For any Superman fans who haven’t bothered to follow the rest of Guy’s story after Crime Tunnel. Read: All of them.

TGH: They come up with the brilliant idea of harassing Guy’s mom. It’ll never happen but this would be the best issue ever if they got there and she kicked the shit out of both of them.

QP: Just hits them over the head with a cast iron frying pan.

DN: These are such villains they also drink and drive! So that we know they’re EVIL…

TGH: Evil drives better when they’re drunk!

QP: So they head off to Baltimore, which contrary to what the cover would have you believe, is in no way Washington DC.

TGH: Meanwhile, in the other Baltimore timezone that Guy is in, it’s daytime, and Guy is being honored at a baseball game for being good at football? And just being a hero or whatever? Dig those awful, awful boots. A suit and boots, a Baltimore tradition.

QP: No, that’s just a classy tradition. Guy is awarded…something…by Steve Geppi, real life local Baltimore comic book publisher and store owner, and founder of Diamond Comic Distributors. BURN HIM. BURN THE WITCH.

DN: Yeah, that guy is on par with Hitler.

QP: I was trying to figure out why his face was drawn pretty much the same in every panel. DC was just trying to broker favor so Diamond wouldn’t “forget” to ship all their books that month.

TGH: “Draw him like a smirking turd sandwich. No, seriously, he really likes that.”

TGH: Meanwhile, The Enforcer and Sledge have made it to Guy’s mom’s house. Lucky for her, she’s never home, so once again, a bunch of assholes are just sitting around in her kitchen, reading fridge notes and…taking their shirts off seductively? Damn it, Sledge, what the hell is wrong with you?

TGH: While looking at the fridge, they find out that Guy is actually in town! That’s great, because frankly I don’t actually know what their plan was AT ALL if Guy wasn’t going to swing by.

QP: Sledge also makes fun of Guy for having a cell phone.

TGH: Back at the ball game, Guy meets up with Steel at the stadium and they talk shit to each other forever.

QP: We find out that Guy and Steel apparently played football together in college. I don’t think this is ever mentioned again in all of DC comics continuity. According to the DC wiki Irons went to Yale, so I call shenanigans.

DN: THE ENFORCER calls Guy on his cell phone to make some threats, and Guy gets all Vuldarian and tears his clothes off.

QP: How does either of them know to make a joke about stuffing his mom in the fridge?

TGH: There is seriously no reason for Guy to rip his shirt off and smash his phone. He just gets the keys to a car right afterwards. You can wear clothes and drive.

DN: I can’t.

QP: Guy doesn’t have very good impulse control, let’s be honest.

TGH: Meanwhile, The Enforcer is torching Guy’s old house. Sledge has thankfully put a damn shirt on at this point.

QP: He’s gotta cover his food baby after eating everything in the fridge.

TGH: Guy arrives at the house and loses his shit because he assumes his mom is in there.

TGH: Somehow Sledge and The Enforcer show up behind him stealthily and Sledge just flat-out sits on the borrowed car. Not cool, man. It’s not the car’s fault Guy threw you in jail. This is why you’re a true villain.

DN: Steel flies in pretty much right away to even the odds up.

QP: Has Steel always fired railroad spikes? Because that seems a little on the nose.

DN: Yeah, I think he did.

TGH: Steel announces it will be a funeral. “Yeah…theirs!” Guy screams.
“Yes, Guy, OF COURSE THEIRS. Jesus.”

QP: His arm oh my God what is that.

DN: A Vuldarian stump mace?

TGH: Will the combined force of Guy and Steel be enough to stop The Enforcer and Sledge? Find out…right now, because screw it!

TGH: So the whole second half of this pretty long story is just them going at it. Props to Steel for having the willpower to deflect angry monster-face beams with his hammer.

DN: Which are now yellow instead of red because who the fuck cares its THE ENFORCER.

QP: Why are they yellow and not red now? Did Neron just give up on The Enforcer?

TGH: He has all the powers he wants to make up at any given time. Kind of like the person he’s a clone of.

QP: Why isn’t he part Vuldarian then?

TGH: He didn’t drink the magic water, duh.

QP: Oh, I’m sorry, I willfully forgot that very important part of Warrior history. Carry on.

TGH: Sledge grabs Guy and plants him right into that car again. Guy is going to owe whoever that was who lent it to him a lot of money.

TGH: On the next page, Guy gets his clay face beaten in, a thing that I had willfully forgotten about.

QP: We haven’t had any body horror in a minute. I mean, aside from nub-mace.

DN: Also, Guy, use your powers! Shoot them with your flesh bullets!

TGH: Steel eventually jumps in to help, and just can’t help being a loudmouth jackass, almost as if he’s being written by someone who can only give every character one personality. Then Guy makes a nocturnal emission joke. Really ramping up the semen jokes these days, Beau.

TGH: The blue background, Final Destination, No Items stage was getting boring, so The Enforcer and Sledge fly away to a more fun stage.

DN: THE ENFORCER and Sledge take off to an amusement park Steel and Guy have to chase them to, which Steel says is a trap, but it’s not, really?

QP: Not even a little bit. I mean, I guess it’s a trap in that they will be waiting to fight them.

TGH: It’s kind of a trap, because Sledge was hiding in a bumper car somehow and managed to get the jump on them. How in the hell did he take them by surprise? He’s big and stupid, and they were back-to-back. He just warps into the middle of them and hits them.

QP: I mean, all he did in his previous appearance was sneak up on them.

TGH: I think he’s disconnecting and reconnecting his modem to take advantage of lag.

QP: Sneaking and punching, it’s all in the name. Sledge and Enforcer head to the top of a roller coaster, so Guy references an old Popeye cartoon that surely everyone has seen already. Note: None of us have seen this Popeye cartoon.

DN: Beau Smith making the timely references.

TGH: I guess Popeye made Wimpy fly above Bluto and shoot shit at him until Popeye tore the roller coaster apart, killing everyone. Because that’s what Guy and Steel do.

QP: Sounds like a great cartoon. Note part 2: We just found that cartoon and it has absolutely nothing to do with what is about to happen other than the fact that there is a roller coaster.

TGH: Luckily The Enforcer can fly, so…wait, nope, he just falls like an idiot with Sledge.

QP: Look, being able to fly doesn’t stop you from falling when it’s convenient for the plot.

TGH: Guy and Steel decide to stop being smart in their fighting tactics (yeah, okay) and just start kicking the shit out of everyone.

QP: There has been nothing smart about any of this. Nothing.

TGH: I’m pretty sure that at no point were either of them being methodical.

DN: This whole fight was like 90% punch 10% shitty ENFORCER powers.

QP: Aside from Steel shooting railroad spikes, nobody actually seemed to use any of their powers.

TGH: Guy beats the living crap out of Sledge until he admits that his mom wasn’t even home, so they’ve been fighting for nothing this whole time. That’s the kind of resolution I want to see after buying two standalone issues featuring a character I was following.

DN: Steel smashes THE ENFORCER’s glowy hand and then crams it into his own mouth. Jesus Christ, Steel.

QP: Then Steel makes a glib joke about how he’ll be eating thru a straw. This guy is supposed to be a Superman ally, Beau.

TGH: Not everyone is Guy, Beau, no matter how you see the world.

QP: Originally Beau Smith wanted Superman to be in this story, and it would end with him snapping the Enforcer in half.

TGH: “Dem’s the BREAKS, turd bucket!” -Superman

DN: Beau Smith: every character is a shitty murderer.

TGH: So then the story ends with Guy and Steel making fun of how each of them are incapable of wiping their own asses. So, are these guys going to jail? Will they get out immediately because vigilantes almost killed them both? Should Guy try to call his mom or at least leave a note with a neighbor about the house she can’t come back to?

QP: No, our “heroes” are just gonna make Charmin Bear-quality poop jokes at each other until they escape.

TGH: Welp, that’s it! The Enforcer and Sledge are dicks, and Guy and Steel beat them up. A great story with a great ending. Come back next week for Christmas at Warriors!

QP: I hope this is the culmination of the Enforcer’s story line, so that that was all a massive buildup for nothing.

’90s Ad Showcase:

DN: Cutthroat Island has a game on four platforms. That movie tanked HARD.

TGH: I bet using the license for a game got them at least a couple hundred more dollars.

QP: It was a romantic comedy action adventure film. That is too many genres.

TGH: Oh man, that contest probably offered a ton of expensive prizes based on its anticipated success, and then the winners didn’t get shit after the movie bombed.
“I won a real life treasure hunt!”
*Six months later* “Here’s your hat, kid. Congrats. Do you mind handling postage?”

TGH: Bio-Dome, starring Stephen Baldwin, my choice of lead for a live-action Guy Gardner movie.

DN: Pauly Shore as G’nort

TGH: He’d be rewritten as a weasel.

TGH: And then there’s the awful Aerosmith video game that featured their songs but was too early to not be a piece of crap.

QP: I like the half-assed attempt to photoshop the dude’s haircut.

TGH: Yeah, I don’t think they know what a scalp looks like

QP: Just like hair but skin tone, right?

TGH: Take orders from a tiny compressed video of Stephen Tyler. Fire CDs at the enemy. So, I guess you’re just throwing Aerosmith CDs at people instead of listening to them?

DN: That would be my plan.

QP: Definitely a better use of resources.