Justice League #50 / by MELINDA Schmidbauer

DOUBLE SIZED 50th issue!

Well, this issue wraps up the General Glory story line.  Predictably, the Evil Eye is destroyed by the JLA, and Schmidt (who is also the Evil Eye, a Nazi villian) confesses to having been a part of the set up to defame General Glory, all masterminded by the very man running the whole General Glory operation.  J. Newkirk Sharp did it for love; he wanted General Glory's girl. So he made it appear that General Glory was going insane, then had scientists wipe his memories.  Poor Louise died of a broken heart, so it was all for nothing.  So, that was the first story.  The second story was actually "The Last General Glory Story," which told of what Sharp did.  Then we go back to the JLA, where Lightray and Orion are quitting the League (that makes me happy, as I don't think they ever fit in), and Shilo, the new Mister Miracle, wants to join.   Max and Scott Free don't think he is ready.  

I did like the way Ernie told the General to stop with the exposition.  These guys really do talk to themselves a lot. Maybe General Glory took some classes at the Manga Khan correspondence school, too.  And I wonder how Ernie feels about being so old now, when General Glory appears to be the same age.  Would General Glory have aged if Sharp hadn't made him revert to human form?  Or is General Glory sort of like Captain Marvel?  For right now, all these questions remain unanswered. 

And finally, we get a really weird story about Guy visiting the offices of the comics company that puts out the JLA title in their universe, in order to get a job for the General Glory comic book artist.  I am sure this story must have had some inside meaning at the time, but I am not sure what!  It was written, pencilled, inked and all by Kyle Baker, who has won lots of awards for various comics, and this seems to have been pretty early in his career.  It did have an interesting "villian," Ktrrogarrx, who looks sort of like a giant purple dinosaur with little wings and heat vision.  Ktrrogarrx has his own reasons for wanting to destroy the Earth, which is is not sharing with us. 

I am glad the General Glory story is over, and I think the writers may be, too.  Or maybe had heard complaints, as the tagline on the first page is "At last, the concluding chapter to the seemingly endless General Glory saga!"