In Meta-Messages, I explore the context behind (using reader danjack's term) "meta-messages." A meta-message is where a comic book creator comments on/references the work of another comic book/comic book creator (or sometimes even themselves) in their comic. Each time around, I'll give you the context behind one such "meta-message."

Today, based on a suggestion from Tony F., I look at the response that the writers of Justice League Europe had to the abrupt departure of Wonder Woman from the team. I had written about the abrupt departure before, but now we can look at the response!

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Wonder Woman's history was altered so that she only NOW came to the United States of America. Therefore, she obviously couldn't be a founding member of the Justice League. So the League's history was altered so that Black Canary was the only female founding member of the team. Superman and Batman were also no longer members. They did the same involvement that they had in the original formation of the Justice League, they just never actually joined the team. That change wasn't as big of a deal, as Batman and Superman did not used to be as involved in the League in the early days anyways. The other five members were the MAIN League members.

In any event, this made it so that Invasion! was one of the first times that Wonder Woman was directly involved with working with other superheroes...

After Invasion!, Maxwell Lord invited a bunch of superheroes to a party in Justice League International #24 that he used as an attempt to recruit superheroes to a newly formed spinoff Justice League team based in Europe. At the end of the party, Lord gets a commitment from six new heroes, including Wonder Woman, who only agrees to be a part-time member, but that's better than nothing...

At this point in time, Wonder Woman's lasso of truth had been stolen and she was searching for it around the world.

In Justice League Europe #1 (by Keith Giffen, J.M. Dematteis, Bart Sears and Pablo Marcos), Wonder Woman shows up late for the first meeting (which is interrupted by a dying man barging into and dropping dead in front of the League)...

Then a bunch of Parisian attack the embassy (an operative of the Queen Bee has controlled their minds), and Wonder Woman helps corral them...

In Wonder Woman's own comic, #28 (by George Perez, Chris Marrinan and Will Blyberg), her visit in Justice League Europe #1 is referenced...

In the 1989 New Titans Annual #5 (by Marv Wolfman, Chris Wozniak and Carlos Marzon), Justice League Europe is briefly shown, and she is with them...

And that's it. She's never with the team again. I believe the Wonder Woman team thought Justice League Europe was a bit too silly for Wonder Woman, which is fair enough, really, but I don't get why she was ever loaned out to begin with then!

It took a while for the comic book to respond, but it was a pretty funny one...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='How they handled her departure']

After well over a year of her not being in the book, Justice League Europe #21 (by Keith Giffen, Gerard Jones, Marshall Rogers and Joe Rubinstein), finally addresses her leaving, only to say, in effect, "Good riddance," as new Justice League Europe head Catherine Cobert (she had been their liaison, but took over as their official head when Captain Atom got demoted to just field leader) was doing some administrative work and she decided to share her views (which likely mirrored Giffen's) about Wonder Woman's all-too brief Justice League Europe tenure...

Glad that Giffen got the chance to finally voice his displeasure with how they were handled in the situation.

Thanks for the suggestion, Tony! If anyone else has a suggestion for a good Meta-Messages, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!