Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1982 (week 3)

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 22, 1981.

Brave & the Bold #181: Brennert and Aparo give us a team-up both familiar and unfamilar: The Earth-1 Batman with the Earth-2 Robin and (briefly) Batwoman. This winds up being a more interesting combo than you might think as this Robin is the age as this Batman and doesn't want to be treated as a junior partner--nor does he like this guy who reminds him of his mentor and father figure but isn't him. Batwoman has unresolved feelings for her Bruce, and her presence reminds Earth-1 Bruce of the recent death of his Earth's Batwoman. Anyway, it's not all drama. There's a suitably villainous plot by Hugo Strange, but there's more going on here than the average Brave and the Bold issue.

In Burkett and Spiegle's Nemesis backup, the three surviving members of the Council hire Greyfox, an assassin, to take out Nemesis. I feel like this series has sort of overstayed its welcome. I don't know if the backup enforced installment lengths have served it well.

Legion of Super-Heroes #283: Thomas does the sort of thing he tends to do well: fill in backstories. In this case, he has Wildfire relate his complete origin for the first time to a group of Legionnaire wannabes. It's got all the pathos Thomas learned at Marvel: lost loves and fears of lost humanity. 

Green Lantern #148: Wolfman and Staton start "change of direction" for this title. A shipful of Ungarans, (Abin Sur's people) show up seeking the help of the Green Lantern of Earth. They basically kidnap Jordan in the middle of some heavy soap opera-ish subplots at Ferris Aircraft, so he isn't happy, but even after they plead that their world is in peril, he won't help. He's got his own stuff to deal with, and besides the Guardians would have alerted him of they required his intervention. The Guardians aren't pleased this this response, and though his friends plead with them to give him time to deal with issues on Earth, he is sent off to Ungara. After that, Hal says he'll go to Oa and give up his ring.

Honestly, with pretty much everything going wrong at Ferris from Congressional hearings to his mentor's heart attack to Tom's whining, I'd think Hal might be glad for the respite.

House of Mystery #300: It's the 300th issue and the stories are maybe a bit better than average. Wein and Kane start things out strong with the story of a middle-aged man dissatisfied with his life who employs the services of an unusual therapy company that allows him to kill the aspects of himself he doesn't like. In the end, he kills so much he winds up committing a murder of someone who isn't him and sealing his fate. Wolfman and Staton follow that up with a woman caught in a construction collapse who frets about her baby, not realizing the man working to free her is death. Conway and Craig have the only survivor of an airplane disaster taking another flight with the ghostly passengers he was destined to join in death. Mishkin/Cohn and Gonzales present a "humorous" short about a paper girl trying to collect from Cain. Jones and Spiegle bring the issue to a close with a long-suffering guy fed up with his limelight hogging partner planning murder but accidentally getting his wife instead.

Phantom Zone #1: Gerber and Colan/DeZuniga set out to tell the definitive tale of the Phantom Zone. Charlie Kweskill, a Daily Planet pasteup man, is the focus of psychic assault from the denizens of th Phantom Zone. It turns out Kweskill is an amnesiac former Phantom Zone inmate whose Kryptonian powers removed by Gold Kryptonite in an elaborate escape attempt. The Kryptonian cons hypnotize Kweskill into breaking into hi-tech labs in his sleep, stealing valuable components, and using them to assemble a Phantom Zone Projector. Superman finds out about the plot just in time to break into Charlie's apartment as Kweskill activates the projector. It frees the Phantom Zone villains and sends Superman and Charlie Kweskill into the Zone! Along the way, Gerber presents an abbreviated history of the Zone and its most infamous prisoners. I've always liked this limited, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

Sgt. Rock #360: Kanigher and Redondo make it appear as if Easy Company has been wiped out, after they are sent on a dangerous mission, which is essentially a suicide mission when they keep being denied supplies and support. Of course, Rock and much of Easy survives. Next up, A mercenary questions his career choice when the solider he kills turns out to be his own son. There's the rare Vietnam story with art by Randall with the obligatory heroism and sacrifice. Finally, there's a Confederate junior officer who proves to his father the general he's no coward by dying.

Superman #367: The Bates/Swan Superman Revenge Squad story continues. Superman has infiltrated Revengers in his elaborate disguise as Vlatuu, but the aliens are sharper than he thinks. A conversation between Green Lantern (who along with Batman has been playing Clark Kent) and Supergirl is overheard by a Revenge Squad spy, who clues in his fellows that Vlatuu is really Supes. There's disagreement among Squad members about whether this is true, but when Vlatuu destroys the Superman proto-droid in battle, both the Squad leaders decide to send him to Earth to assassinate Superman. If Superman has hypnotized himself into thinking he is really Vlatuu, then Superman will become his own assassin! I'm enjoying this storyline so far. It's not exactly "modern" (meaning for this purpose post-Crisis) storytelling--more the surviving Bronze Age DC style that's one of the three types of stories you get in this era--but it's well done.

Superman Family #214: Pasko and Mortimer bring us the last (I guess) chapter in this Lena Thorul arc, but it's pretty convoluted to summarize briefly. They pack a lot of plot in! Suffice to say, Lena isn't happy with the reveal that Luthor is her brother, but Supergirl manages to foil a plot by Luthor's cellmate to get revenge on Lena's FBI officer husband. Lena and Lex seem to move cautiously to some reconciliation. 

In Mr. and Mrs. Superman, Lois realizes the Insect Queen is Lana and they figure out the sound of Superman's high-speed flying is somehow triggering the broach and setting her off. They, the Ultra-Humanite shows up with his brain in the body of one of her giant ants. Rozakis and Calnan present more of a PSA than a story as Clark Kent participates in a blood drive with a little help from a disguised Zatanna. Lois gets in a modern thriller sort of predicament courtesy of Levitz and Oksner as she's gassed unconscious and wakes up in handcuffs in an apartment which a guy she helped send to prison has designed to be her prison cell for life. She kicks his ass and runs the water until the apartment beneath floods to escape. Finally, Jimmy Olsen escapes from the gym deathtrap and helps Lucy Lane's beau but can't escape his own jerkdom as he pines for Lucy openly to his current girlfriend.

Warlord #53: I detailed the main story in this issue here. In the Levitz/Yeates Dragonsword backup, Thiron, his sidekick, and his mentors show up at the castle of Quisel who comes across less as a threat to the entire world and more a just bald guy with an axe. We're given several hints that the mentors have played Thiron in some way and he will have to sacrifice to when the victory they are after, but in this installment all we see is they won't do anything to help.