Wednesday Comics: DC, August 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 May 19, 1983.

Batman and the Outsiders #1: Barr and Aparo introduce a new team in an action-packed debut. When Lucius Fox is captured by freedom fighters in the nation of Markovia, Batman seeks the aid of the Justice League to rescue him, but Superman has already promised world leaders the League would stay out of that diplomatic tangle, and the others back him, so Batman resigns. There isn't, however, a scene like the one on the cover in the story.

In Markovia, the king dies leaving his sons Gregor and Brion in charge of the country. Batman and Black Lightning have infiltrated the war-torn land and soon (improbably) encounter other supers: Metamorpho who has come seeking Dr. Jace and a cure for his condition Katana, who's out for revenge, and an amnesiac young woman Batman nicknames Halo. Brion is given powers by Dr. Jace, and becomes Geo-Force, but he's betrayed by his soldiers and shot in cold blood. All the other heroes except Halo are captured. Batman wakes up in a dungeon to find that he and the other heroes and Fox are the captives of Baron Bedlam.

House of Mystery #319: Another intriguing Kaluta cover, depicting Bennett from "I...Vampire." Mishkin and Sutton bring that strip to a close with this issue, leaving G.I. Combat as the only anthology book with a regular lead feature, and perhaps suggesting that this whole title isn't long for this world--which turns out to be correct. Bennett is helpless, trapped in a decaying body because he rashly took the Russian formula, and Mary Queen of Blood seems to have triumphed. She drains Deborah of blood and plans to keep Bennett around long enough to watch the woman rise as her vampiric thrall. Bennett longs for death but can do nothing but watch. Deborah does rise, but she proves too strong for Mary to command. She defeats the Vampire Queen and drags her into the sunlight. It seems Deborah took the serum as well and her freshly dead body rather than one with centuries-decayed organs, it works as intended. She sits with Bennett, professing her love, as he too crumbles to dust as the sun rises.

The second story by Mishkin and Ordway sees an underhanded Hollywood agent get his comeuppance when he orders a sandwich named for a form client of his he drove to his death and then dies from rat poison, courtesy of his ghostly chef.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #10: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner pick up where last issue left off with Supergirl is still seriously ill thanks to the radiation she absorbed from Reactron. On top of that, she has made an enemy in the vigilante-hating police Lieutenant Peters after her battle with Reactron. Oh, and she's got a date that she refuses to cancel despite the fact she's sick. After her date ends early, she tangles with Matrix-Prime again and is taken captive. She's turned over to Professor Drake, one of the Council members, who has developed a cloning process. He immerses Supergirl in a bath of chemicals that causes foot tall clones of Supergirl to form, all of them under his command. Unfortunately, as the mad scientist informs Supergirl, she will not survive the cloning process.

Green Lantern #167: Cavalieri and Tuska/McLaughlin continue the story from last issue. Hal manages to rally after his defeat by Gallius Zed wielding one of the power rings supposedly without the weakness to yellow. Hal is able to turn the tables in the rematch noting ironically that Zed's greatest fear (not being strong enough to wield the ring) seemed to manifest. As Hal tracks down Eddore to the planet Tront and defeats him too, a pattern emerges: Eddore's greatest fear becomes manifest and sews the seeds of his loss. Hal recalls how this all started with a group of striped outfit loving space pirates called the Free Lancers who had clued Kaylark on to the existence of these rings. Hal heads to Kaylark's planet, D'xe, where she has crowned herself Empress Surrenda.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Klein and Gibbons equoid Lantern Brin returns home to his family and retirement from the Corps. He relates that his failure to repulse an invasion by the Spider Guild (their first appearance) is what led the Guardians to let him go. But the Guardians honor him by selecting a replacement from his own household. Both his sons hope it will be them, but instead the Guardians select Brin's family's robotic nanny, Teacher.

Sgt. Rock #379: The main story by Kanigher and Redondo is certainly a departure from the usual. It involves a new private so ambitious he's willing to murder superiors to create the context for his promotion. He makes the mistakes of gunning for Rock and loses his life instead. 

The second story by Harris and Lindsey is less good with a French father moved to spare a Nazi officer who had previously threatened to kill his daughter if he didn't give up a hidden U.S. paratrooper due to the revelation that this Nazi had a daughter too.

Warlord #72:   I reviewed this first, non-Grell penned issue main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and friends infiltrate the Mulge guardian to get back their captured friends, encountering dangerous plants and fungi, and breaking up a creepy Mulge ritual to cause fungi to grow threw the bodies of sacrificed humans. This is probably the most interesting installment of this series so far.

Legion of Super-Heroes #302: I didn't comment on it last issue, but Levitz and Giffen are now credited as co-plotters. Lightning Lord shows up at Legion HQ, ostensibly out to find his sister, Light Lass, and puts a beating on a number of Legionnaires. Eventually, Lightning Lad steps in to fight his brother, and he and Saturn Girl decisively defeat him. Meanwhile, Ontiir of the Science Police lures Supergirl, Brainiac 5, and several other Legionnaires into trap on Webber's World, where they are blasted unconscious by the Emerald Empress's Eye. Meanwhile, Element Lad and Erin Schvaughn head to Imsk to investigate...well, something.

This is a good issue, but it bugs me a little bit with a conceit common to team books wherein a villain that usual fights the heroes with a team (in this case, Lightning Lord) is powerful enough to be a threat to the whole team of heroes, until that one hero shows up to best them one-on-one. 

Night Force #13: Katina and her son Gowon (who we learn is also Baron Winters' son) agree to help him save Vanessa after he tells them Vanessa is his daughter. His later comments to Merlin suggest this was a lie to get their help. Katina uses her very real inner demons to banish the ghosts, saving Vanessa and Jack. Those two leave the series never to return. Meanwhile, the vengeful ghosts burn Jack Carter with psychic energy in retaliation. Winters is ready to admit defeat and give up his position (whatever than is), but Katina forces him to accompany her through a portal to some mystic ziggurat where they are to journey into memory through some pool. Winters sees them as young mystic students of some sort whose romance was forbidden, so they were separated. Seeing them together again, the forces that wished them separated now declare that they are willing to kill them to do it.

The letter column announces that the next issue will be the last of the series but promises Night Force will return as a series of 4 issue limited series. The first half of that is right, but the limited series won't come to be. It will be 13 years before there is a Night Force volume 2.