Justice League America #40 – “Hell on Earth” – Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis/Adam Hughes/Jose Marzan Jr.
Last issue, Despero came to Earth looking for revenge against the JLA for defeating him, but he soon found out that particular iteration of the team no longer exists. After killing Gypsy’s parents, Despero confronted the new Justice League, his hatred making no distinction between them and his original targets. Just as he’s about to waste Blue Beetle, J’onn J’onzz appears, having recovered from Despero’s mental attack last issue. Despero crushes Beetle’s skull and literally blows J’onn’s mind. When Fire tries to take him down he
extinguishes her. Despero decides he’s not quite done yet and lets his rage consume him, destroying first New York ad then the entire planet. His bloodlust finally sated, Despero allows himself to metamorphose back into an embryonic form and falls toward the ravaged planet. But the whole “destroying Earth” thing is a ruse, a suggestion planted in Despero’s mind by J’onn. He calls it the Mayavana, the ability to create a new reality inside someone’s mind. Since Martians can only do it once in a lifetime, they usually save it for someone they love, but J’onn used it to save Earth. Unfortunately, not all Despero’s 
victims are illusory: Ice is injured and Mr. Miracle is dead. Miracle’s teammates deal with his deeath in various ways, with Blue Beetle taking it especially hard. Naturally, Big Barda’s not happy about her husband dying and she punches out Max Lord at the funeral. (For what it’s worth, J’onn said he couldn’t detect any echo of Scott’s soul, and his body was completely vapourized, so I’m assuming he’s not really dead. He is the world’s greatest escape artist, after all.) Booster Gold shows up at the funeral and tries to recruit Gypsy for his new team, which gets him punched out by Blue Beetle (although Gypsy does
seem interested). Later, Superman tells Batman the team needs more heavy-hitters. Batman’s in a shitty mood, but passes on the message to Max, who agrees. Guy talks to Ice and the two of them connect when Guy finally acts like a human being. At the cemetery, we see Orion talking to Scott’s grave and deciding to go see the League. Well, he’s definitely a heavy-hitter …
Justice League Europe #16 – “Conquest” – Keith Giffen, Gerard Jones/Bart Sears/Randy Elliott
Last issue, the Extremists came to Earth from their own dimension after gleaning info from the mind of Silver Sorceress. The Extremists have destroyed their own world, so now they’re looking for a new place to wreck. They started in the League’s Russian Embassy, where they pounded the shit out of a visiting Metamorpho and sent him through the teleporter as a message. Flash is ready to go after them right away, but Captain Atom points out that it’s obviously a trap so they can’t just go charging in. Instead
of going through the teleporters, Captain Atom figures they’ll be better off flying to Moscow in a JLA Cruiser. In Moscow, the Extremists are having fun destroying the city and torturing its citizens. They’re also torturing their old enemy Blue Jay, who took refuge at the Embassy last issue. A phalanx of Rocket Reds show up to fight the intruders, but the Extremists take them apart pretty quickly. While they’re fighting, Blue Jay stumbles back to the Embassy, where Rosa sends him through the teleporter to Paris. Unfortunately, Catherine (and Power Girl’s mangy cat) take him for an intruder and kick 
his ass before Sue realizes who he is. Blue Jay tells them the story of what happened on his world. Basically, the Extremists took over their world’s nuclear arsenal and threatened the entire planet. Blue Jay and his fellow heroes (including Silver Sorceress) fought them, but didn’t do too well and came to Earth for help. They were disappointed to find Earthlings just as warlike as their own people, but when they returned home they found the Extremists had carried out their threat to destroy the world. Now they’ve come to Earth looking for a new world to ruin. Catherine decides to send Metamorpho back through the
teleporter and he arrives at the same time as his teammates. Unfortunately, the Extremists are too strong for them and pound the team pretty quickly. The Extremists discover that Earth has its own nukes and figure they can repeat the “triumph” from their own world, so they take off to find the nukes, leaving the JLE defeated and half dead.