Wednesday Comics: DC, February 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 November 11, 1982. 

Batman #356:  After all the Catwoman business, Bruce and Vicki are still an item, but Vicki's work increasingly means Bruce only gets a limited amount of her time. After a date cut short, Bruce returns home and gets attacked by Alfred. Except it isn't the real Alfred, and Bruce wonders if somehow he imagined the whole thing. Meanwhile, Vicki gets done with her work and calls Wayne Manor only to find that Bruce hasn't returned home. It's all part of the overly elaborate revenge plot of Hugo Strange.

While the real Dick Grayson goes looking for Bruce, Bruce is attacked by a fake Grayson in the phony Wayne Manor. Injury to that Dick Grayson reveals it to be a robot. Bruce goes into the Batcave and he finds a cleanshaven Strange dressed as Batman. Strange reveals how he faked his death, then he gives Bruce a spare Batsuit so that they can settle the score once and for all. The two Bat-men duke it out, but Strange's ruthlessness momentarily gives him the upper hand. Robin appears in the Batcave and is confused at the sight of two Batmen. When Strange Bats commands him to kill the "fake" Batman, Robin realizes who's the real deal and turns against Strange. Not wanting to be taken in, Strange apparently blows himself up and the fake Wayne Manor.

Dick and Bruce return to their real home just in time to save Alfred from a final Bruce Wayne robot. I guess Conway didn't like the way Strange died the first time? It seems a lot of effort just to quickly kill him again. Of course, he'll be back, but not in a Conway story. 

Flash #318: Creed Phillips is starting to unravel it seems. He kills his Butler who discovers the Eradicator costume he left carelessly laying around, then he goes on live TV and outs himself as the deadly vigilante during a TV interview. It turns out the Eradicator and Creed personalities are somewhat separate, and the Eradicator one chooses to kidnap Fiona Webb as they flee the station. This is all sort of (perhaps unintentionally funny) because elsewhere in the issue Flash and the lunatic, wannabe hero Captain Invincible have been trying to figure out who Eradicator is--then the guy just reveals himself on TV. 

While Philips/Eradicator and Webb are in a cave outside the city, Flash and Invincible are searching Phillips' apartment, which has been rigged with a bomb booby trap. When the bomb is triggered, The Flash vibrates his molecules to become intangible, but the blast wave knocks him out, and he gets partially fused with the wall. Captain Invincible tries to help, but overestimates the necessary force in breaking the way, sending them both plummeting to the street, far down below.

We get a Creeper backup from Gafford and Gibbons. The Creeper prevents a mugging in Gotham City, as enforcer "Thumbs" Tamblin tries to collect an overdue payment from discredited doctor Ben Goldstein. Jack Ryder has a new job, so he leaves Gotham and catches a bus to Boston. His new boss, H.J. Harrigan, suggests he start with an investigation into Tamblin, who has also moved to Boston after getting involved with his former boss's daughter. Tamblin's new boss, Wesley Winterborne, sends him to collect some debts, but the Creeper interrupts. Tamblin's goon shoots the Creeper, who falls out of the window into the Charles River.

G.I. Combat #250: In the first Haunted Tank story, the crew has been told one member of their crew is going to be representing the armor division in a nationwide bond drive tour. Each member of the team believes they're the best and deserve to be chosen, but a day of the typical sort of fighting the tank gets into, they return to base and tell their commander he'll need to pick someone else, because everyone in their team is more important than in other. They act as one.

In the second Tank story, the crew picks up a Major Kendall, who had just escaped from the Germans with important information. Ultimately, The group has to split up, with Rick and Kendall running off to lure the Germans away. They walk into a trap at an abandoned mill, however, and the rest of the crew must come to the rescue.

There's an O.S.S. story by Kanigher and Cruz where an operative named Eagle is taken to a German POW campe where he hopes to ferret out a mole. It turns out to be a man the other prisoners believed was simple-minded and harmless. Then Kashdan and Ayers present the story of an experiment Sergeant in Vietnam who finally snaps under pressure, but in doing so he still inadvertently saves his unit. The last story relates to ANZAC coast-watchers and intelligence provided before the Battle of Midway.

Masters of the Universe #2: I bought this issue off the stands as a kid, I reviewed it here.

 

Saga of the Swamp Thing #10: Kay, now revealed as Helmut Kriptmann tries to force Swamp Thing and his allies to help in his quest to destroy Karen Clancy. When his psychic, Grossman, fails to hold him Kriptman, has to switch tactics and persuade them. Ultimately, they agree.

Meanwhile, Grasp and Sunderland discover that Liz Tremayne is still alive, and Kay is working on his own project. Grasp is ordered to hunt them down.

Feldner as able to fill Swamp and crew in on Karen's plans thanks to the period she had him captured. She needs the pendulum of Nazi occultist von Ruhnstedt who eventually died at Dachau. The group rushes there to find a hellish scene. Karen has raised an army of dead German soldiers while she flies overhead searching for Von Ruhnstedt. The undead occultist tells her that the pendulum is in the hands of a person with a collection of Nazi memorabilia in Berchtesgaden. Karen then destroys the entire camp in "an avalanche of psionic fury" and disappears.

When they've escaped the rubble, Kriptmann begs the others for assistance in stopping Karen. Barclay says that he wants nothing more to do with the sort of monster responsible for places like this. Kriptmann reveals that he wasn't a Nazi by showing the prisoner's tattoo on his arm.

In the Cavalieri/Carrillo Phantom Stranger backup, The Phantom Stranger and his ally are sentenced by living gargoyles to be killed by being crushed by the great clapper of the church's bell, but in a Raiders of the Lost Ark-ish turn, the two have to shut their eyes and not move as the power of God (I guess) punishes the gargoyles for their sacrilege.

New Teen Titans #28: Changeling continues his pursuit of the fugitive Terra. He finally captures her and brings her to Titans Tower, convinced the team can help her. Meanwhile, Brother Blood's cult strongholds are being systematically attacked and destroyed by the Brotherhood of Evil. 

While all this is going on, the other Titans pursue their private lives: Dick gets being kind of an ass to Kory; Donna meets Terry Long's ex-wife and young daughter for the first time, and it's a tense meeting; and Raven meditates. Kid Flash, Raven, and Cyborg are on hand when Changeling brings Terra in. After hearing how she had been forced to commit crimes by terrorists holding her parents, the rulers of the nation of Markovia, the Titans rush off to attack and subdue her tormentors but discover that the girl's parents have long since been killed. Changeling befriends Terra in her grief, but Raven keeps getting bad vibes about her.

Superman #380: Bates and Swan reveal the perils of time travel. Superman returning from a mission to the past and Superboy going home after a visit to the Legion of Super-Heroes. They both come across a strange gap in spacetime, and both make the unwise decision to fly straight through. They bump into each other and their consciousnesses get mixed up. While they are doing the usual heroics and trying to sort things out, but there's a man named Euphor who has to ability to absorb people's unhappiness. He's got ulterior motives, though, and plans use all of Metropolis' unhappiness to gain power.