DC and Subway's Comicsvertisements (Pt. 2)

Previously, we took a look at Subway Presents: Justice League #1, a comic/advertisement insert that ran in the middle of some DC comics that teamed the Justice League up with a couple of famous football players for an adventure about how great Subway’s wares are.

The moral of the story was that Subway’s sandwiches are delicious, healthy and provide you with the energy you need in order to be a professional athlete and/or beat the living hell out of dozen or so henchmen.

Were you thoroughly convinced of the virtues of Subway’s menu, which now includes avocado? No? Well then, perhaps you simply need to read Subway Presents: Justice League #2!This “issue” is by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Bruno Redondo, and tells the tale “Slam Dunk.”

The previous Subway-sponsored, athlete guest-starring adventure began with the protagonists talking about going to Subway, and then skipped ahead to a point after they had gone to Subway. It skipped over the part where they were actually at a Subway restaurant, ordering their sandwiches, no doubt trusting the reader to be able to fill in the blanks of that scenario all by themselves.

Not this story! It opens with a scene inside a Subway restaurant, where a guy I assume is a basketball player (based on the fact that he’s holding a basketball) is ordering a sandwich.

How good are Subway sandwiches? So good you don’t even need to bite into them to know how good they are!You can just hold them six inches from your face and regard them, and know they’re mmm…so good…

The basketball player is so into enjoying his meal, that he forgot about his slam dunk show!

Luckily, there’s a guy leaning against a wall, sipping a beverage, and eavesdropping: He offers him a ride, but it sounds like a come on to me. I guess maybe it’s the weirdness of the situation, or the way he accentuates the word “ride.”

This guy, it turns out, is also a famous athlete of sorts, maybe, I guess! His name is Carl, and he has a Ford racecar emblazoned with a Subway and an Aflac logo with a number atop it.

I guess Carl is a racecar driver. When the basketball player, Blake, thanks him for the ride, the racecar driver responds, “Good thing I had a great meal at Subway today that fueled me up!”

On their way to the contest, they come across this scene:It’s the Justice League minus Martian Manhunter! And now they’re fighting gorillas, lead by Grodd (Normally he’s referred to as “Gorilla Grodd,” but here he just calls himself “Grodd.” I wonder if only humans refer to him as Gorilla Grodd, but when he’s talking to himself, or when he’s around other gorillas, it’s just Grodd?)

Now, take a good look at this panel, as it’s the only one in which you’ll see any of these superheroes doing anything superheroic, or anything at all really, save for Green Lantern Hal Jordan.

In the previous adventure, all Aquaman did was is get taken down by his enemies off-panel, and all Batman did was check on him. Here, Aquaman simply stands around, pointing at a geyser, and Batman throws some Batarangs at a gorilla, what seems to be falling off the roof of a skyscraper.

Carl and Blake decide to pull over and help, and they immediately begin ushering bystanders to safey.

Suddenly, Grodd approaches, touching his temples with his fingers, emitting Kirby dots and saying, “Your weak and tired midns will be mine!”

But his mental powers can’t touch Carl and Blake's brains because they “ate right at Subway,” and “got energized by the avocado, the superfood for the every day hero!”

This is an excellent selling point for Subway sandwiches. And avocado.

Eat Subway! With avocado! Otherwise you might get mind-controlled by an evil telepathic super-ape!

And then this happens:Blake throws a basketball and hits Grodd in the face, which cancels out his powers, and he loses control of his army of gorillas, which immediately stops its rampage.

This sequence raises a couple of questions.

First, what does Blake mean when he says he was saving that move for the contest? Did he really intend to bounce a basketball off the face of a gorilla in the contest?

Second, is that really all it takes to sever Grodd’s telepathic control? And Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Aquaman didn’t think of this? I thought hitting the villain in the face was one of the first things a superhero always tries.

But then, perhaps Grodd's telepathic link can only be severed if he's hit in the face with a basketball. And I suppose that Batman doesn’t have room for a basketball in his utility belt. Green Lantern surely could have ring-generated a basketball to bounce off Grodd’s face, though.

And third, isn’t it unfortunate that Grodd simply said “UGH! My powers!” instead of “UGH! A violent blow to my face! My one weakness!”

Most of the Justice League disappears at this point, perhaps slinking off in embarrassment that some guy with a basketball defeated a supervillain that was kicking their super-asses . Only Superman and Hal Jordan remain; Supes smirking in the background and tying Grodd’s hands behind his back, while Hal swoops over to the athletes.

For the second time in five pages, Blake mentions being late for his contest, and someone offers to get him there fast.

This time it’s Hal, who fixes the pair with a bizarre, inscrutable expression and says “I could help with that…”

He then ring-generates Carl’s race car—complete with all its sponsor stickers! Which includes their non-Green colors! Which should be completely impossible, since the ring is only capable of creating green things!—and the two athletes ride in it as GL flies it and them to the contest.

Carl wins, of course, but not because of his awesome basketball skills, or that he was all fueled up with the energizing, nutritious food of Subway, but because…Green Lantern uses his ring to make him fly or something….?Then the comic ends, in completely perplexing fashion.The athletes tell GL that they’re going to finally finish their sandwiches, which they clearly haven’t even bitten into yet (and haven’t been shown to be holding at all during the course of the last few pages, unlike the footballers from “Sacked,” who had their sandwiches in hand throughout the entire strip), he tells them how hot they are, and then flies away in a standing position, making another strange, angry, gleeful expression that doesn’t really seem to match up to any human emotion I can identify. And that is how it ends, as you can see by the words “The End!” written in Subway font in the bottom of th elast panel.

So, are you still here, sitting in front of your computer, reading this blog post? You are? Why? Why aren't you in your car, on your way to the nearest Subway, in order to order a sandwich with avocado? Do you really need more convincing? Well then, it's a good thing there are still two more of these to go! (At least according to the fine print, which labeled this comicsvertisement as "2 of 4").

If I happen to get any DC comics containing those two, I'll probably discuss them with you here.

The athletes Carl and Blake are, it turns out, Carl Edwards and Blake Griffin, according to the back cover. I imagine people who follow racecar-driving and basketball playing would already know that. Maybe they should do ads featuring comic book creators, then I'd know who all these "famous fans" are.

And once again, the back cover says "Follow the Subway Famous Fans comic adventures at subwaycomics.com," but if you type that in, it just sends you to dccomics.com, which doesn't seem to have any Subway Famous Fans comic adventures posted.

UPDATE: Nevermind that last paragraph. They got their site up and working, and you can download all four comics from there. The next two seem even better than the first two—and include athletes I've heard of, thanks in large part to Dancing With The Stars.