Super Buddies - I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League

A six-issue sequel to Formerly Known as the Justice League, I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, was produced by Giffen, DeMatteis, and Maguire in 2004, but its publication was held off until 2005, after DC's Identity Crisis, in which a pregnant Sue Dibny is killed, had run its course. There is a running gag in the miniseries involving whether or not Sue is pregnant.

I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League, published in JLA Classified #4–9, finds the Super Buddies settling into their roles as super heroes for hire. The Elongated Man is bragging about Sue allegedly being pregnant, when she is in fact not pregnant. Fire and Mary Batson (Mary Marvel's sixteen-year-old alter ego) become roommates, much to the distaste of Mary's brother Billy Batson (aka Captain Marvel). Captain Atom has quit the team because of the incident with Mary from the previous miniseries and sued Maxwell Lord, leading him to attempt to recruit both Power Girl and Guy Gardner to join the team. Gardner causes several problems of his own: he is opening a bar next door to the Super Buddies' strip mall headquarters, and he takes delight in sexually harassing Fire, Sue, Power Girl, and Mary Marvel.

While visiting the Justice Society of America headquarters, Booster Gold begins messing around with Doctor Fate's talisman and inadvertently wishes the team to Hell. From the depths of Hell, Fire calls Sue for help (on her cell phone, which is then accidentally destroyed), and Power Girl and Guy Gardner are recruited to follow the team to Hell and save them. While in Hell, the Super Buddies work at a labyrinthine version of Big Belly Burger called the "Beelze Burger" fast food restaurant, with the demons using Mary Batson as a hostage, since her magic word - "Shazam!"-- does not work in Hell (since the wizard Shazam himself is not present in that plane of existence). Ralph's stretching abilities allow him to help foil a plan of torture the demons come up with. To the amazement of both Fire and Gardner, the Super Buddies discover Ice, another former JLI member, among the denizens of Hell. Sickened by Fire's and Gardner's displays of sorrow, the demons free the group, allowing them to take Ice with them, as long as they don't look back on their way out (a direct allusion to the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice and Lot's wife). Fire accidentally looks back, resulting in Ice's immediate return to the afterlife (whether heaven or hell is left ambiguous) instead of returning to life. It is implied, however, that Ice will be sent to Valhalla.

The group makes its way out of Hell, but soon find themselves trapped in an alternate universe populated by a team of sinister versions of themselves and their fellow heroes called the "Power Posse". This team is a group-for-hire who operated out of a strip club owned by a sleazy, or sleazier, version of Maxwell Lord and his moll, a degraded and somewhat dimwitted version of Sue Dibny. The Power Posse consisted of a giant-sized G'nort who began a destructive rampage, sado-masochistic incestuous versions of Captain Marvel (who talked with a lisp) and Mary Marvel, who called herself Mistress Mary, a murderous Ice, now a stripper using the name Tiffany, an even stupider version of Booster working as a bartender, and bouncer Metamorpho. The Fire of this universe had been killed by Tiffany and Sue had divorced Ralph. Doctor Fate finally brings the team back to their correct dimension after they have to do battle with doppelgängers of themselves. Most of the battle takes place on the hairy, insect-infested body of G'Nort himself.

The two series, while on the surface seemed mere parody and humour, contained foreshadowings of what was to come for the characters involved. Blue Beetle made the point of saying that he would be dead if he joined the team, and Mary Marvel's evil doppelgänger closely resembling the current dark Mary Marvel.