Wednesday Comics: DC, March 1983 (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 December 23, 1983.

Night Force #8: I got this issue in a comics collector set when I was a kid. The Night Force is back from Russia, but all of them have changed. Caine realizes he was wrong to have attempted to use Vanessa to help make a weapon. He lost an arm and a leg and his wife for his crimes, but now he intends to be a better father to his son. Gold is forced by fear of unleashing her demons again (which is not a concern, but Jack doesn't know that) to play the dutiful lover to Vanessa. There are wedding plans. Vanessa doesn't really deserve to be stuck with him, but she's out of the psychiatric hospital where she's spent most of her life and no longer tormented by demons, so improvement. Meanwhile, a woman comes to the Baron for help. An alien horror is holding the residents captive within a Manhattan brownstone. The Baron somehow contrives to send a criminal on the run, Paul Brooks, into the building to investigate.

Sgt. Rock #374: This is a goof one from Kanigher and Redondo present a much better main story than last issue. Afte Easy finds paratroopers strung up, Rock heads out on solo recon to locate the SS murder squad responsible. First he finds a boy missing a leg, an escapee from a death camp. After an encounter with a tank they make it to a village with a doctor who will treat the sick boy. There are some tense moments where it appears the doctor and his wife may betray them. Rock finds a picture that shows their now-dead son was in the SS. But in the end, the scissors the wife had been holding behind her back so ominously the whole time get buried in the back of a Nazi soldier that discovers them. Rock believes he can leave the boy with them, and they promise to keep him safe. Later, Easy ambushes the SS murder squad and gets retribution for the paratroopers' deaths.

Then there are two shorts. The first involves a sailor who can't manage to roll a 7 in craps. Then when he's trapped in the sinking carrier, his luck turns around. The last story is short of pointless, being an extended joke (I guess) about the driving skills of New York cabbies as one distinguishes himself as a tanker in the War.

Brave & the Bold #196: Kanigher and Aparo team Batman up with Ragman, and it's an okay basic story of a kidnapping of a young woman by a terrorist group, inspired by Patty Hearst, but it's standard team-up book story is made silly by two costume switcheroos where Ragman plays Batman for a while, then Batman plays Ragman. Ragman gives me feel early 80s Moon Knight vibes here, but the thing that stands out the most about him in this issue to me, is how tall Aparo draws his hood. It looks silly, like he has a conehead, and I can't imagine what Aparo thought was going on under they to make it stand up so high.

Camelot 3000 #4: We're still in the "getting the band together" phase as Arthur assembles his knights as the new round table, but now the governments of Earth (their leaders burlesqued as an American president in a sort of futuristic star-spangled cowboy suit, a Soviet dictator, and an African military strongman) are nervous about the popularity of this King Arthur. Lucky for them the U.N. security director has got the problem sorted as he sends a team lead by the guy Tristram jilted at the altar to attack them. Tristram puts a shot through his head, and the knights defeat his troops. Not much to warrant a whole issue here, but it looks good.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #5: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner continue her conflict with the Gang, who have kidnapped her acquaintance, John Ostrander so he will give them the money they are owed. Supergirl's parents clue her in that she was only hallucinating when she thought her secret identity was revealed. The Gang forces John Ostrander to take them to the theater where he was auditioning and apparently left their payment. While there, Ms. Mesmer gets shot by a security guard. Supergirl, still fighting Mesmer's hypnosis, shows up to fight the Gang, and captures all of them but Brains. She also gets Ms. Mesmer to release her from her hypnotic suggestion in return for a quick flight to the hospital.

In the Lois Lane backup by O'Flynn and Oksner, Jimmy's precognition is revealed to be a side-effect of Brainstorm's previous influence on him. He' s nabbed by some of Brainstorm's former gang, who hope to force him to use that power to their advantage. The power has worn off, though. and Lois makes an attempt to rescue Jimmy.

Green Lantern #162: Barr and Pollard/Hoberg have Jordan take the liberated people of Garon to the planet Aoran (which Evil Star had wiped of life) to settle on, with Dorine as their new leader. When Hal and Dorine go to his space cruiser so Hal can recharge his ring, he finds his power battery gone. They find a kid running around, but he doesn't have anything to do with it. It turns out the ship's artificial intelligence has gone roque. So roque, that when the kid innocently enters an airlock, he sends him into space, killing him! In anger, Jordan smashes one of the ship's viewscreens, but then the ship sends food shooting out at them in the galley.

Meanwhile on Earth, a guy finds a crystal on the street and, when he picks it up, the mineral starts growing up his arm. On Oa, the Guardians see this, but they note the Guardian of Earth is in exile.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Snyder and Gibbons, Harvid, a retired Green Lantern is tending his garden as a storm approaches, when he gets a surprise visit from his brother. A brother he sent to 100 years of solitary confinement during his time of service. The two old men begin to fight while around them the storm gathers strength. When the storm causes the dam to break, neither man has the strength to fix it alone, forcing them to work together. In the end, the exhausted brothers make peace and head to Harvid's house for some wine.

House of Mystery #314: In "I...Vampire" Mishkin and Sutton have Deborah and Dimitri captured with a vampire named Edward Trane with a grudge against. Bennett. It seems Trane was a former human ally of Bennett's, but when they both were captured by the Blood Red Moon, a ravenous Bennett drank his blood then abandoned him. Trane has hungered for revenge against the man that made him a monster ever since. Bennett falls into his trap, and Trane plans to hold Bennett until he is so hungry he attacks Deborah. Bennett tricks him and escapes, and Deborah stakes Trane. Bennett reveals to his former ally that it was a vampire of the Blood Red Moon that turned him, and they made Bennett believe Trane had died.

That's followed by an update to Hansel & Gretel by Rosenberg and Janes where children are lured to their doom by a magical fast food joint in the woods. The last story by Mishkin and Trinidad is a Twilight Zone-esque yarn about a couple who narrowly avoid a head-on collision with a semi to wind up on a strange highway with vintage cars, pursued by a white sedan (which is actually colored purple). The woman steals a map from a gas station and they manage to make their way out of this limbo back into the land of the living.

Legion of Super-Heroes #297: Following last issue, Levitz and Giffen/Mahlstedt focus on Cosmic Boy. With his mother dead and his father and brother injured, He's struggling with a desire for revenge. The first time he attempts it, the Legion sort of stands back to "let him make the choice" which doesn't really seem like the best play, however, after reviewing his origin, he goes back again and comes close to killing the terrorists before backing off. This issue has a rather Marvel feel, particularly with the "we never knew he was so powerful until he cut loose in anger" angle.

Warlord #67: I reviewed the story in this issue here. The Barren Earth backup returns. Jinal and her new companion make it Skinner make it to Skinner's city after an encounter with a giant, mutant honey badger. Jinal finds the city folk primitive and unprepared for a Qlov invasion, but there is more pressing concern as folk from the desert attack.