My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around September 10, 1981.
Jonah Hex #55: Hex and his pursuers, sent by Turnbull, are forced to work together to defend themselves against El Papagayo's men. One of the younger men begins to view Hex more positive after he saves the group's life more than once, but the leader can't let go of his hate, and in the a confrontation kills the younger man who is defending Hex. Hex then shoots him and is the only survivor.
In the Tejano backup, Mishkin/Cohn and Yeates have the ranger making his escape from the Mexican army and the Comanches, but his friend is killed by his own commander, and he has a show down with the Comanche chief he met in his youth.
New Teen Titans #14: Wolfman and Perez reunite the team. The whole group gets to hear the story of Steve Dayton--who proves to have been brainwashed by Madame Rouge. He attacks the Titans, but Raven manages to defeat him. The Titans track the villains' now-airborne headquarters to the island nation of Zandia, The Titans are all defeated and captured and Changeling finds himself in the presence of the revived Brotherhood of Evil.
Secrets of Haunted House #44: Snyder and Rodriquez open this one with a topical tale of an unusually hardy plant found in the wake of the Mt. Saint Helen's eruption. A scientist hybridizes it, and it grows to control him, forcing him to feed it neighborhood children. The fire fighters discovering it set the house ablaze in horror, but the smoke only proves to spread the spores. The next story is a weird, sci-fi piece about a guy who's captured by the enemy and tormented by illusions, so even when he escaped he doesn't know truth from psychological warfare.
Kashdan and Henson present a future world desperate for energy whose problems get solved when explorers DNA gets altered on an energy exploration mission, and he and his wife produce an unhuman kid who generates energy. The final story is an EC-esque tale by Harris and Gonzales where a guy murders the owner of a wax museum and hides him in one of the displays. The perfect crime, until it melts the wax on the corpse and he drops his executioner's axe right on his murderer!
Superman #366: "Revenge, Superman-Style." Bates and Swan reveal that it is the alien Superman Revenge Squad responsible for the events of last issue. This issue makes it seem like that was revealed previously, but I took a look at last issue again, and it wasn't. Anyway, Superman says good-bye to everyone, then alters himself into a reptilian alien form to infiltrate the revenage squad. His plan works, and he's accepted as a member of the group.
The the "In-Between Years" backup Perry White proves that Superboy is in Metropolis when he secretly observes the Boy of Steel dealing with warring gangsters. He gets him to appear at the Daily Planet to prove to his editor, George Taylor, that the story is true.
Weird War Tales #106: Another War That Time Forgot yarn, another orange dinosaur. This time frogmen with a mission to sink a Japanese aircraft carrier wind up on an island, but one of them follows an alluring island woman to safety. Later he sees a mermaid, and the story never makes clear whether he is hallucinating or not. Barr and Cruz send a near catatonic German WWI vet on a mission to assassinate this Hitler guy that just became leader, but he's thwarted in the end. In a short by Kanigher and Talaoc a U.S. soldier is killed by the fixed bayonet of a dead Wehrmacht trooper. The final story by Kashdan and Ditko is some nonsense about Scottish clans with a feud lasting into modern day, and a witch's curse.
Wonder Woman #286: Kanigher and Delbo present an off-beat story, where it appears that Wonder Woman may be dying of cancer, but no, it's an aspiring actress going out for the part of Wonder Woman in a movie that is dying. Wonder Woman gives the chance to play her in real life, not knowing that the girl has only has a short time to live. Amazon science can't save her, but she dies accepted by them as one of their own.
In the Huntress backup, she tangles with a guy with the 90s name of Karnage who is trying to make a name for himself in the underworld by taking her down.
1 comment:
As always heroic.
I like the idea of Perry White in the Between Years being some kind of Charles Fort collector of weird clippings that piece together the story of a "Smallville Super Boy" years before anyone else on our planet figured it out. Maybe he even helped young Clark refine the myth that would emerge . . . and meanwhile young Clark would feed him details and "theories" that made sure Perry broke the scoop of the century.
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