Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1983 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! Today, I'm looking at the comics at newsstands on the week of October 14, 1982. 

Batman #355:  Good cover by Hannigan and Giordano. On there drive home Bruce and Vicki are run off the road by Catwoman and into the river. Bruce manages to get them both out. Knowing that she has made a terrible mistake, Catwoman flees without looking back.

Later, as Vicki recuperates in the hospital, Bruce hears from Jason Bard and Jim Gordon that Rupert Thorne has been convicted of the murder of Pauling and Gordon gotten a call to meet with Mayor Hill. After leaving the hospital, Gordon goes to Hill's office. Hill is concerned that the Gotham City Council are call a recall election and in order to try to head than off, he gives James Gordon his old job back under the condition of his support.

That night, Batman goes to Selina's apartment and finds only her panther who hasn't been fed in a while. After taking care of the animal, he finds a clue that leads him to the Catamont warehouse. Catwoman is waiting and attacks. With Batman at her mercy due to his still healing injury, she could easily kill him, but she realizes her mistake and pulls back. They apologize to each other for the pain they each have caused and part ways.

A continuity glitch in this issue: Catwoman clearly knows Bruce is Batman, but earlier stories in this arc make it clear she doesn't know. Future stories (still pre-Crisis) will stick with the version where she never knew.

Flash #317: Bates and Infantino continue the Goldface story with the Eradicator lurking in the background. The Flash tangles with Goldface twice and gets defeated. Goldface demands Flash leave town or he'll continue murdering people in Central City.. The Flash isn't about to leave, but he recruits the reformed Heatwave to help him try to take down the villain. They get closer, but again Goldface escapes, and Flash is left in peril of drowning. Meanwhile, the Eradicator makes short work of Goldface's goons that come after him, and Creed Philips discovers that the Eradicator killed his physician (he doesn't appear to know that he's the Eradicator).

G.I. Combat #249: Kanigher and Vicatan bring back the Mercenaries are and get embroiled in saving Tibetan refugees from river pirates then meet a girl whose brother is the Dalai Lama(?). She offers them a jade pendant in exchange for helping get her brother across the border. Turns out she planned to sell out her brother to the Soviets, which the Mercenaries prevent, but then (as usual) they don't get paid because the emerald is shattered by bullets. 

There are two Haunted Tank stories as usual, but made a bit more memorable than average by a kind of ironic view of the fortunes of war. In the first, Jeb looses a bet with the tank retrieval crew when he assures them they won't have to pick up his disabled tank again, which of course they do on the next page. In the second, Jeb and his men spend the whole issue getting a captured German officer back to command only to have him almost immediately allowed to escape because he was a double agent.

The other two stories include a bleak short about a disabled former soldier who returns home to me mocked by young men eager to go fight themselves, unaware of his service. Finally, there's a "based on a true story" tale about how planting some bamboo aids soldiers in escaping a Japanese POW camp.

Masters of the Universe #2: I reviewed this issue here back in 2015. 

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing #9: Swamp Thing and crew arrive in New Jersey, where their helicopter (created by Reef in the previous issue) disintegrates and Reef is conveniently killed in the crash. Swamp Thing is morose the whole time because he's realized the little girl he was trying to protect (Karen Clancy) turns out to be evil incarnate.

Meanwhile in Washington D.C., Harry Kay takes Paul Feldner to a Sunderland facility to be treated for his burns. It turns out Karen Clancy had thought he might be the catalyst whose power she could consume to achieve her ultimate power, but nope, that's another associate of Kay's named David Marx. Karen develops into a fully grown woman over Feldner's burning body and offers to spare him in exchange for Marx. Marx goes to her willingly to save Feldner's life. Harry Kay is revealed to be a Nazi war criminal and he is operating his own mission, separate from the Sunderland's goals. 

Swampie and friends are confronted by Kay at the Barclay clinic where he explains that he is trying to obtain "information of vital importance to the future of the world" and asks for their help. They so Kay has his flunky Milton attack them with psychic powers.

In the Cavalieri/Carrillo Phantom Stranger backup, The Phantom Stranger and a builder investigate a murder and strange phenomena inside a church scheduled for demolition. Turns out it's living gargoyles.

New Teen Titans #26: Wolfman and Perez continue their story about runaways and street crime. Raven heals the wounded youth at the cost of nearly succumbing to the spirit of her demonic father, Trigon. The guy turns out to be the older brother of the teenager whose death Dick and Kory witnessed last issue. He had come to New York to investigate his brother's death only to nearly be killed by gangsters working for drug kingpin Anthony Scarapelli. Back at the youth center, the Titans meet with Adrian Chase and Roy Harper, the latter working as a liaison between federal and local authorities on drug-related cases. Leaving with the Titans, Roy gets into his Speedy gear, and they team-up to bust up Scarapelli's plans to have his new drug shipment distributed by duped, teenage runaways. Two of the kids, however, are killed in the fight, despite the Titans' efforts. Some of the ones that return home alive don't get happy endings, either. It's all a little heavy-handed and maybe even trite, perhaps, but no more so than what was in a lot of primetime dramas. And this was a comic for kids. it works as an arc and sort of differentiates the Titans from the X-Men.

There's also an Atari Force preview in this issue by Conway and Andru/Giordano. Disappointingly, this story is more an advertisement for DC's Comics that came with certain Atari game cartridges. It features the characters from those comics and is much more standard "toy tie-in comics" than the ongoing series than will follow the next year.

Superman #379: No mention is made of Superman's reduced power this issue. In Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics chronology for Superman, Wolfman's depowered Superman arc in Action (and crossing over into the Teen Titans) occurs well before the stuff going on in the other Superman titles, which is the most harmonious way of handling everyone else ignoring what Wolfman is doing.  

Anyway, in this issue Bates and Swan a strange proto-being is causing Bizarros all over Htrae to explode, and Bizarro No. 1 comes to Earth to see if Superman can help do anything about it. It turns out its actually a plot by Bizarro Luthor to save Bizarroworld from an alien invasion. 

This issue is the first appearance of the Bizarro Justice League and Bizarros Yellow Lantern, Hawkman, and Aquaman.