Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 2)

My goal: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around October 15, 1981.

Batman #343: The arrival of Colan on art suggests we are getting close to some issues I remember from my youth. We pick up shortly after last issue, as Batman is still looking for Man-Bat without success. Also, Poison Ivy is about to take over Wayne Enterprises and Bruce can't tell anybody as they tiresome storyline continues. But the "A-Plot" this issue features another of Conway's one-off villains: Dagger, who specializes in thrown edged-weapons. He manages to destroy a Batmobile (indirectly) before Batman strikes down the origin of his weapons to a Rennington Steel plant in the small town of Stokely. Turns out the owner is Dagger, and Batman defeats him on his home turf.

In the backup, Robin just can't catch a break. After taking the traumatized girl he saved last issue to a psychiatric clinic he just happened to pass in Virginia, Robin learns that the "staff" are actually stand-ins and drug smugglers! The crooks capture Robin and leave him tied to a bed to overdose on anesthesia. Seeing Robin brings the young woman out of her dissociation, and she saves him. Robin is able to capture the criminals and free the real staff of the clinic. When the cops arrive, they ask Robin if there is anything they can do to repay him. He asks for a bus ticket to Gotham City!

Flash #305: Bates and Infantino/Smith present a Silver Age throwback sort of issue with Barry tormented by a dream about the death of Joan Garrick, then journeying to Earth-Two to investigate. His worry increases when he finds out from Jay that she as disappeared! Their search involves Dr. Fate and leads them to the realm ruled by the Lord of Limbo Barry tangled with back in issue #284. Joan is saved and everyone goes home--except the Lord of Limbo, who's still trapped there.

G.I. Combat #237: In Kanigher's and Glanzman's first Haunted Tank yarn, the crew is tasked with meeting the Soviets at the Elbe, and a courageous war photographer is sent along with them. Trouble is that the crew think the photographer's a jinx as they notice he's the only survivor of all the incidents he takes pictures of. They try to leave him behind or thwart his picture-taking, but in the end, he saves them from a Nazi ambush, and his own death is the last thing he photographs.

Kanigher and Trinidad follow that up with story of a lone-surviving Marine tricking dug-in Japanese troops into revealing themselves on an island in the Pacific. Next up is the obligatory O.S.S. story. This one features Kana the Ninja so unlike a lot of O.S.S. tales, the protagonist survives. 

Kashdan reveals a rematch between two Olympic skiers, one a German officer and one an American. The American sacrifices himself to blow up a German train so this time "The Loser Takes All." Then, we're back to the Haunted Tank as the crew helps defends Dover from an invasion from Calais with a group of wounded Commonwealth soldiers.

Jonah Hex #56: Having shoved Jonah's wife and child aside, Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga can get Hex out of the domestic world and back to done-in-one adventuring. Here he discovers a damsel in distress in a somewhat improbable frontier mental asylum. Jonah's meets up with the woman's husband who reveals she was committed by her uncle in an effort get control of the future left to her by her father. Jonah manages to get her out, but then the husband reveals that he plans to kill her and get the fortune for himself. Jonah dispatches him with a knife.

Bates/Mishkin/Cohn and DeZuniga present a pretty good El Diablo backup. A young gun comes to town convinced that Lazarus Lane is just pretending his "locked-in Syndrome" state and his really notorious outlaw Del Corbett. After the gunman shoots the sheriff, El Diablo comes to bring him to justice, and it is revealed that the town preacher is actually Corbett, having become the peaceful, empathetic role he played for years.

New Teen Titans #15: Wolfman and Perez bring this Doom Patrol-related storyline to a close with nonstop action, and more than a little meditation on trauma. Zahl and Rouge put Robotman and the Titans in a "Devolving Pit" causing them to begin changing into "Neanderthals." The two villains continue their brutal invasion of Zandia, which is actually a haven for escaped criminals. Changeling teams up with the new Brotherhood of Evil to attack the villainous duo and their followers and to free his friends. In the battle, Zahl is killed when one of his bullets ricochets off Robotman's body, and Madame Rouge meets her death accidentally in a struggle with Changeling but ends up thanking him for it. The Titans and the Brotherhood escape from the villains' flying island before it explodes, and for their help, the Brotherhood is allowed to go free. The original Doom Patrol is avenged at last, and Changeling and Robotman are reunited with Mento.

Secrets of Haunted House #44: The first story by Cohn/Mishkin and Gonzales is appropriately Halloween themed. A farmer invites a writer on the paranormal to see the Halloween God that supposedly lives in the town pumpkin patch. The creature is harmless, but the writer finds to his horror that the goblins that it produces every 20 years demand a new Halloween God take its place--and the writer is it.

Next to futuristic scavenger hunters fall prey to aliens also on a scavenger hunt, the difference being their hunt ends with the humans' heads on their wall.  Finally, Mishkin and Cohn are back again with Carillo on art and a tale of colonialists as a sought-after artifact is the means of an Indian cult's supernatural vengeance.