Wednesday Comics: DC, December 1982 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands around September 16, 1982.

Camelot 3000 #1: Barr, Bolland, and Patterson present DC's first "maxi-series." Earth in the year 3000 is being invaded by aliens. In London, Thomas Prentice flees to a historical dig site and opens the crypt of King Arthur Pendragon, who rises and kills Tom's alien pursuers. Arthur takes him on as his squire. The two steal an alien spacecraft and fly to Stonehenge. There, Arthur calls forth Merlin. They all go to find the Lady of the Lake, who--rising from the cooling waters of a nuclear plant--throws the sword Excalibur to Arthur, but it disappears in midair. At the United Nations, a rock thrusts up from the floor of the assembly room. Stuck in the rock is Excalibur. Interesting enough story, but the real draw here is the Bolland artwork.

Brave & the Bold #193: Burkett and Aparo give Nemesis his last hurrah by again teaming him up with Batman. This will be his last Pre-Crisis appearance, but he'll return in the Post-Crisis Universe in Suicide Squad #1. Nemesis contacts Batman to enlist his help in an operation against a The Council. It' seems Irene Scarfield is in cahoots with the terrorist organization the PLA and wants to use them to kill a congressman who's pushing through anti-crime legislation. 

The two make a coordinate attack from two fronts. Batman goes looking for the terrorist Bloodclaw and Nemesis goes after Scarfield. After a lengthy search, Batman locates and confronts Bloodclaw, but during the struggle, the criminal falls to his apparent demise. Nemesis tracks Scarfield to a secret base where the Council attempts to send a helicopter bomb on a mission, but Nemesis hijacks the chopper and brings it down to the Council headquarters, sacrificing himself in order to eliminate the Council leadership for good. 

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #2: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner pick up where the last left off. Supergirl is clashing with Psi, a young woman being manipulated by psychic researcher turned moral crusader, Pendergast.  Supergirl exerts her powers and breaks free from Psi's psychic trap. Then she fights back and begins beating Psi, while arguing against Psi's morally monstrous goal of destroying Chicago to wipe out "decay". Psi, in moral conflict, finally breaks off the battle and teleports away. Later, Psi reports to Mr. Pendergast, who tries to kill her for her failure. Psi blitzes him with a mental bolt, which somehow mutates Pendergast turning him into the monstrous embodiment of what he claimed to want to destroy. He becomes a slime-being calling himself "Decay."

Green Lantern #159: Barr and Pollard/DeCarlo bring back Evil Star who we haven't seen since issue 133. Evil Star is a villain I didn't know anything about until starting this read-through, but he's kind of interesting. He's a guy who was trying to achieve life extension but the device he created to do so corrupted the user and turned them evil. He is aware of the personality switch and part of him mourns it, but he is unwilling to give up his life to be rid of it. He destroyed his whole planet in the name of keeping it.

Anyway, his current plan is to spread his evil light throughout the universe, corrupting everyone. But Hal sacrifices himself and tells Evil Star to make him evil and spare everyone else. So Green Lantern turns into Evil Star's sidekick, and together they spread terror in a neighboring world. But when he is about to destroy a dam to cause a flood, Hal remembers his friends, Carol and Thom, and his predecessor, Abin Sur, and these memories help him break free from Evil Star's corruption. Hal flights back to Evil Star and defeats him again, this time taking off the component of the Star Band that makes it a weapon.

We get some other things setup: On Earth, a kid named Donny Weems finds a strange crystal, and he gets in a trance when he grabs it. In Oa, the Guardians dismiss the Green Lantern Eddore of his current mission, saying it's now out of his space sector.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Rozakis, Moore, and Rodriquez, aquatic Green Lantern Penelops of Penelo (who looks like an eyeball with tentacles), finds the seas of his world being artificially heated invaders shooting some kind of weapon at the sun. Penelops saves his fellow inhabitants and flies to confront the aliens.

House of Mystery #311: Paris Cullins pencils this issue's "I...Vampire" story. Bennett wanders through the streets of New York City and stumbles into a theater, where they're showing a documentary about the Woodstock. When he sees a young Deborah Dancer, he remembers the way they first met.

In 1969, Andrew Bennett and Dmitri Mishkin visited Woodstock on the hunt for Mary. The Cult of the Blood Red Moon is using the festival as a cover to recruit new vampires. Deborah Dancer is there with her friends, and they're invited to a private party with the Blood Red Moon. Bennett rescues her, but he is too late to save the others. When Deborah is later cornered by her former friends turned bloodsuckers. They are suddenly destroyed by the overwhelming positive emotions at Woodstock during an awesome Hendrix guitar solo. Really, that's what happens! It's a known vampire weakness. Anyway, from that day on, Deborah joins Andrew and Dmitri in their crusade against vampires.

There are a couple more stories but neither have vampires getting dissolved like a Wicked Witch hit by a bucket of water by a cool guitar solo, so they aren't worth the time.

Legion of Super-Heroes #294: Levitz and Giffen/Mahlstedt bring the Great Darkness Saga to a very satisfying conclusion. Things start bleak for our heroes. The mind-controlled Daxamites are rampaging across the galaxy. We get cameos by the Heroes of Lallor, the Wanderers, and Dev-Em putt up a fight, but they are no match for the forces against them. The Legion calls in their reserves including the Legion Subs.

The main battle is joined on Daxam. With reversals and last minute saves, a plenty, including the reveal of the child as Highfather and the restoration of one of Darkseid's clone servants to the form of Orion. Then Superboy and Supergirl arrive just in time, their powers bolstered by Izaya despite the red sun. Darkseid blasts Superboy back to his own time, but Supergirl fights on. Her struggle gives the Legion time enough to regroup around Darkseid, and Saturn Girl declares he's lost.

Perplexed, Darkseid realizes that his long sleep has made him too weak to fight the Legion and simultaneously control billions of slaves. The Daxamites are now free, and the Legion's allies are leading them in an assault. Darkseid admits defeat and after uttering a curse that the darkness will keep growing within them until it destroys them, he vanishes, taking Apokolips with him.

In the aftermath, the White Witch joins the Legion, Light Lass quits, and Brainiac 5 tells Supergirl he is finally over his crush on her. Kara, before she leaves for the 20th Century, remarks that that is a pity, since she was noticing how cute he was.

Night Force #5: Wolfman and Colan/Smith set most of this issue in a Soviet "Science City" in Siberia. Colan seems to have seen pictures of this place, but his version is decidedly more futuristic. Wolfman tells us it's all about psychic research. This is where Vanessa gets taken, and this is where Gold and Caine have to go to get her back. Vanessa at first is treated kindly, but then the administrator springs a trap and reveals he plans to torture her and still her power. Meanwhile, Caine and Gold get to know each other while almost dying out in the snow before reaching the city and getting captured.

So far, I feel like this is the well-done series that probably doesn't get its due, being out of step with the continued ascendancy of superheroes.

Sgt. Rock #371: So Kanigher and Redondo are out to make a point about the replaceability of the soldier and how it's the mission that's important, but what's memorable here is that the story has Rock and a few of his men coming to rescue of the rest of Easy from an ambush by riding a log down a river. Then there's a non-war story about a too wily for his on good general who survives Earth's final war and then rockets to a paradise planet that turns out to be deadly. That one's by Kelley and Randall.

Kanigher and Mandrake are back with an interestingly illustrated but silly ode to paean to the G.I.'s boots. Fianlly, Kanigher and Truman dubiously depict the kamikaze pilots as modern samurai. 

Warlord #64: I went over the main story in this issue here. In the Barren Earth backup, the crashed the humans that survived the crash and the Qlov assault start trekking across the desert to--well, anything. Most of them are killed by weird creatures along the way. There are a lot of them in this desert! In the end, only Jinal is left, and her pants have disappeared along the way! She finds herself surrounded by robed and veiled people with weapons on lizard-back.