Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1984 (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 November 17, 1983.

Swamp Thing #21: I read this story first in Best of DC #61 (March 1985) along with the NTT story from last month and the LSH backup this month. It blew my mind at 12 years old, and it is still a great story today.  Swamp Thing has been transferred to Sunderland Corp for study and put in the hands of the Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue, who Moore and Bissette give a creepy update in a way that will set the standard for late 80s "more mature" updates. His dissections reveal that the Swamp Things vegetable replicas of human organs are nonfunctional. The bombshell reveal is that Swamp Thing is not, and never was, Alec Holland. He isn't a man transformed into a plant creature but rather unicellular life that mutated into a new organism thanks to the bio-restorative formula that just believed it was Holland after it consumed his remains. Woodrue leaves his notes where the Swamp Thing can find them. When it realizes the truth of its condition--that no cure is possible--it flies into a rage, breaks out of the lab, and kills Sutherland.

Power Lords #3: While there isn't a whole lot to the story here, Fleisher and Texiera/Marcos certainly bring the action. It's pretty much nonstop, and the art looks good. Fighting the forces of the badguys, the Power Lords realize they will soon be overrun and flee so that they can switch tactics. Arkus has called and assembly of worlds so they he can give his terms for their surrender, or they'll face the might of his battle station. Sydot and Shaya infiltrate the proceedings but get captured. Adam manages to defeat the enemy force in deep space and comes to the rescue. He assaults Volcan Rock itself, and defeats Raygoth, Gryptogg, and finally Arkus in one-on-one fights. The galaxy is saved, and the Power Lords disappear from comics for about 42 years.

Batman and the Outsiders #7: Barr and Aparo pick up right at last issue's cliffhanger. It looks like Batman and crew are popsicles, but Halo saw the cryonic attack coming and managed to turn her heat power on. Once she's out, she melts free her teammates. She also figures out Katana's sword is sentient and can lead them to where the Cryonic Man has taken her. They crash his lair and engage in battle before he can harvest Katana's organs. Speaking with the Cryonic Man's "family" telepathically, the team learns that they had put themselves in suspended animation in 1947 in order to survive the nuclear war they were sure was coming. Phillip (the Cryonic Man) was revived at a later date to insure that the threat had passed, but in the name of saving his wife from a progressive and ultimately fatal illness, he's being lying to them about the year and the conditions, playing for time. Learning the truth and that they were betrayed, the Cryonic Man's family strike him down with some sort of psychoelectric blast before allowing themselves to die.

Green Lantern #173: The cover announces the new creative team of Wein and Gibbons, though they started last issue. Hal is still getting reacquainted with life back on Earth and his old job, but all his old friends aren't glad to see him. Even after Hal saves Rich Davis' life, the man thinks to himself that Hal is going to spoil things. Clay Kendall is doing psionic experiments, which I'm sure will be fine. Meanwhile, the villain Javelin has been hired to hijack a truck heading to Ferris Aircraft and steal a new engine. Green Lantern intervenes, but the Javelin surprises him with an exploding javelin that coats Jordan in yellow plastic, cancelling his ring's ability to keep him flying!

Oh, and the Monitor and Lyla show up this issue, up to their (by all appearances) nefarious ends. The Monitor seems to be involved in weapons trafficking.

The Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Cavalieri and Gibbons is a silent/wordless story. It shows the events in the "life" of a ring, as a Lantern is killed in battle, but passes the ring on to a member of a primitive species on the planet where he crashed. The new Lantern uses the ring to advance his civilization and defend his people until he too falls in battle and the ring finds a successor.

Legion of Super-Heroes #308: Levitz, Giffen, and Mahlstedt continue the Prophet attack on Khundia. The biggest threat here, though, may be distrust and political division, as the six Legionnaires that followed him to fight him are viewed as someone complicit, and the rest of the Legion is forced to standdown or precipitate a wider diplomatic incident.

The real point of interest in this issue for me, though, is the Colossal Boy backup, "Guess What's Coming to Dinner?" by Levitz/Giffen with art by Tuska/Mahlstedt. As mentioned above, it's another one of the stories featured in that seminal (at least for me as a young comics reader) anthology Best of DC #61. This story is a nice bit of character stuff (no action at all) clearly riffing on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). It is slighter on social commentary than the equivalent story would be today, no doubt, but the fact that they did it at all in 1983 shows how comics were evolving. Rereading it in 2024, I was pleased with its humorous touches and the warmth of it that still works after 41 years.

Sgt. Rock #384: The main story is another of Kanigher's "honorable opponent; brutality of war" riffs with a canny Wehrmacht sergeant who seems Rock's match in both warcraft and honor going up against Easy, but ultimately losing, in part because the SS shelled his men and well as Rock's.  After that, there's a one page humor strip by Bilby (2nd of the 3 credits in his DC career), and a reprint from 1971 of a story of Egyptians versus Persians with moody art by Toth.

Supergirl #16: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner have Giffen's Ambush Bug guest star, a character whose first appearance Kupperberg scripted. The cover is by Giffen and Oksner. Ambush Bug breaks out of jail and decides to become a superhero instead of a villain. Otherwise, he's up to the same old silliness. He gets in the same of Supergirl trying to track down a Stradivarius violin stolen by the notorious musical instrument thief, the Bandit. After her friend Phil Decker is kidnapped, Supergirl discovers that the Bandit wants him to conduct an orchestra consisting of crooks playing all the various stolen instruments in the hopes of creating the supreme orchestra performance. Supergirl manages to stop him and bring Ambush Bug back into custody, though Ambush Bug sees through her secret I.D.

Thriller #4: This issue has a lot of action, and the visual storytelling light gives it a great feeling a breakneck pace. Unfortunately, beyond that sense of motion it's hard to make sense of what's going on except in broad strokes. Salvo plummets to his confrontation with Scabbard on a speeding train, while the other members of the 7 Seconds race to get in position as well. Salvo rescues Dan from Molly Lusk and knocks her out. Salvo goes to the top of the train where Scabbard is waiting with a detonator in his palm to blow up Salvo's and Angie's mother, Marietta. Dan almost falls to his death, Data gets stuck in the mud and he and Crackerjack may not make it in time. We keep jumping between close shots of the participants, as Salvo shoots off Scabbard's hand apparently (which Crackerjack catches), Beaker Parrish saves Dan, and a helicopter blade cuts off Scabbards head. Molly, shocked, pulls the emergency cord, and the train screeches to a halt, injuring Marietta. Beaker and Angie save her (somehow) by Angie inhabiting Beaker which melts his artificial flesh. The mysterious Quo shows up and switches Molly's and Marietta's eyes (or at least their eye color?), restoring Marietta's sight and making Molly blind. Our heroes go home.

Warlord #78: I covered the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, Jinal and crew set out across the desert on lizard-back to find the advanced enclave that took down their salvaged starship. Unfortunately, they first run into an ambush by a group of slavers with a tank.

New Talent Showcase #2: The Kellogg/Mandrake Sky Dogs open this issue. It's more fast-paced but not terribly compelling derring-do, with Kidd and his crew trying to acquire the Crown of Siva and the Seven Jewels of Power but having to contend with the sorcerer Melin.

In the Klein/Hampton Class of 2064, Perrin is trying to get close to Chryse, which is trouble because the Free Earth extremists are after Chryse for something she unknowningly carries.  Chryse manages to escape them, but she's left stranded on their hot air balloon with no way to control it. Pern and Tycho still a small ship and race to the rescue.

Gary Kwapisz delivers the done-in-one "Danger Dungeon," a numerous story where a high school kid winds up in the dungeon fantasy setting of his daydreams. The jokes are stale, but there's an indie vibe to this one that gives it some charm.

Last up, Margopoulos/Woch continue Forever Amber. Our heroine manages to book passage to San Francisco, enduring sexual assault to get closer to her vengeance. She does turn their cargo of opium to amber in revenge as she leaves the ship... and immediately gets picked up by the cops!