Green Arrow; Forgotten Man in an Increasingly Stupid JLA story

Meanwhile, in the shuttered planetarium where they've been sent by a disreputable Liverpudlian goon (Livergoon?), Barry decides the best thing to do is run around in total darkness at 1000 mph.

What could possibly go wrong?

See, this is how you can tell Barry is a superhero and you are not.  Because when you enter a pitch-black unfamiliar environment, your first instinct is not "must...break..sound barrier!"

Naturally, there's an electrified booby-trap that brrzzaps the Flash unconscious.  Batman, fully aware that it's a trap now, rushes right into to save Barry, and is attacked by a squad of Livergoons
WHO
WILL
NOT
SHUT
UP,
complaining about how Batman's NOT making jokes while beating the crap out of them.

Even worse, they make BATMAN start doing it.

If there were a potion to make me forget the English language in front of me while I read this, 

I would have not only drunk it, 

sed etiam magis poti requaererem.

Why is this happening? Remember, how in yesterday's post, the narration box was trying to be 'meta' and 'cool'?  [As if anything could ever been cooler or more meta than the very concept of narration boxes!]  Well, remember, this is 1969  DC (and Denny O'Neil in particular) is trying to drag its characters out of the goofy conventions of the Silver Age and into the Bronze Age, where everyone is 'hip'.  In this story, they are trying to have their cake and eat it, too: they are retaining the goofy conventions of the Silver Age (needlessly expository narration boxes, identically dressed goons, a terrible terrible villain who I won't spoil for you, pun-based battle-chatter, obviously traps, etc.) while being hip by 'lampshading' them to acknowledge they are stupid  And it fails fantastically.

Anyway, the unmentioned villain shows up and shoots Batman with a tranq dart from the shadows and an ominous "SOON MY REVENGE WILL BE COMPLETE!"

Later (earlier? simultaneous? it's completely unclear, actually), Atom and Superman are showing the police why they are wrong about Green Arrow because...the murder arrow is made of wood and not titanium, like GA's actual arrows are.  And then they are interrupted by...

Well, it's too ridiculous to type. I'll just show you:

It's Two-Face, isn't it? I mean, who else would think of that?

I agree completely with Superman and O'Neil: this is truly ridiculous.  Pointing that out, however, does not make is less so.

As Superman leaves the earth (where on earth does he go?  I mean "off ea--" oh, never mind), he uses those super-peepers of his to notice the Tattooed Man's corpse (at just that moment!) arising from the morgue and scaring the beejeezus out of poor Chuck Lumley:

Of course, Superman can't TELL anyone this because he's got to leave Earth and it's 1969 so he has no cellphone. In a real Superman story, he'd just burn a message into a sidewalk somewhere with his telescopic and heat vision.  I remember one time in the Silver Age, Superboy had to get a message to the Legion quickly, but he was stuck in class as Clark Kent, so he used his microscopic and heat vision together to burn a message into a penny and then threw it out the window fast enough to break the time barrier and land in the future.  Killing Rao alone knows how many people in its way.

Though proper use, there is very little heat vision cannot accomplish.

But this is a Justice League story and the only thing that makes JLA stories work is rendering all its god-like members incompetent. If you are a Marvel fan who likes imperfect heroes and hates DC's stupid godlike heroes for being too perfect and powerful...then "Justice League" is the comic book for you.

"Frustrated"? Hm, I think the word you are looking for is "moronic".

Next, the (pathetic) identity of our master villain revealed!