Wednesday Comics: DC, October 1983 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around July 21, 1983.

House of Mystery #321: The House gets shuttered, and unfortunately, it's last harrah seems to be inventory stories. That's outside of the mild humorous frame story by Mishkin/Gonzales, which has Cain receiving a letter about his cancellation and protest its closing by first accosting Karen Berger and then Joe Orlando. He also meets another version of himself, which does make me think of the modern, post-Sandman version of the character. The Bronze falls to the Modern Age.

In the other stories, DeMatteis and Redondo tell the story of a vampire being used by the U.S. government to deal with problems and detractors, who eventually turns on his handlers. There are a couple of comedy shorts, but Mishkin's last story with Geroche is also humorous (or intended to be) with a night custodian at a building inadvertently thwarting a mad scientist turned into a rampaging monster by unplugging his power source--because it's causing interference with the custodian's work music.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #12: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner wrap up Supergirl's fight with her menacing minis. She manages to dig in and survive in the disintegration pit they dropped her into, but also get handily cured of the radiation sickness due to some element of the pit. She's forced to expose the minis to gold kryptonite to stop them. Professor Drake is killed by his mysterious boss for her failure, and Supergirl gets a lecture from Lt. Peters about leaving this stuff to the cops which is kind of ridiculous, whatever one thinks of super-vigilantism.

In the Lois Lane backup by Cavalieri and Oksner/Hunt, Lois recounts a story about seeing one of her criminal sources killed by the blowgun killer, who she also winds up chasing on a motorcycle while wearing a business skirt suit and wearing heels.

Batman and the Outsiders #3: In the Outsider's first outing after their origin is sort of a clunker. There's some necessary establishing of their base of operations and their status quo in Gotham, and then they investigate some chemical plant bombings. It's all the work of Agent Orange, a deranged Vietnam veteran who wants revenge on the government, which he plans to get by unleashing a bomb on Gotham. 

Green Lantern #169: Cavalieri and Delbo reveal that the "War of the Rings" of the previous issue is just a simulation the Guardians are forcing on Hal as a test. When some of the other Lanterns question the need for that test, the Guardians use it as an excuse to take up the rest of the issue with a story about a Lantern on the cheekily named world of Tanjent, art here by Simpson/Martin. Unlike the rest of his people, Symon doesn't have mental powers, so his parents exile him to the moon and clone another son. Symon is made a Green Lantern then most make peace with the people of Tanjent and "invaders" who turn out to be exiles like him. He then comes to embrace his own clone brother. The people of Tanjent come to recognize the error of their ways. Like anyone hearing this story, the Lantern Krista is not completely convinced of her masters' methods.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Harris and Moore/Trapani we get the conclusion of the Lysandra Saga. As she and her people begin to move their world of Zintha, the other Lantern of her Sector shows up to reveal Zintha's son isn't going nova at all, but instead a living being about to give birth. Moving Zintha would doom mother and baby. Lysandra stops her people form making a mistake and they end up with two suns in their sky. It turns out the mother sun is in fact named Thar, and was the source of her people's deity of that name.

Sgt. Rock #381: In the main feature by Kanigher/Redondo, Rock is told by an SS doctor that he's implanted an ampule of the ridiculously fictional sound "rabidicine" poison in when, and a wire is pulled out, it will enter Rock's bloodstream. He wants Rock to escort him to safety. The poison thing turns out to be ruse, but the doctor gets his just desserts in the end as a German troop carrier mistakes him for an enemy and torches him with a flamethrower. 

The backups involve information on the P-61 Black Widow, the Long Tom 155mm gun, and a out of flash satire of M.A.S.H. called "S.M.A.S.H." by Ed Burdej. This is his lone DC credit, and his other two credits are TV parodies (including another M.A.S.H. parody) in Archie humor titles.

Legion of Super-Heroes #304: Levitz and Giffen deliver an issue more focused on the characters than action. Most of the issue involves introducing the students at the Legion Academy as Bouncing Boy and Duo Damsel train them. We also get to see the trainees' differing perspectives on Wildfire, and we see what happened with the Dawnstar/Wildfire relationship: she left to find someone with a physical body. Ouch. The question posed on the cover winds up being a bit deceptive. The Legion ultimately decides than none of the trainees are yet ready for full membership, a decision that honestly comes out of left field.

Warlord #74: I reviewed the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn/Randall get to recap what's gone before for someone that might be jumping on in the guise of an evening discussion between Jinal and the reptilian Barasha.