Legion of Super-Heroes #273: Conway improves on his performance from last issue with a callback to a plotline started by Levtiz and Starlin in issue 239 where it appears Brainiac 5 murdered Ultra Boy's ex-girlfriend and framed Ultra Boy for it. It was all put down to "temporary insanity," and he got better, but the Federation's new President (Colossal Boy's mom) is having none of that. Brainy is out, or the Legion is done! The Legionnaires do a thorough investigation and discover it was Pulsar Stargrave that did the deed and drove Brainy insane. The issue ends with a showdown between Brainiac 5 and Stargrave that is pretty well done.
Mystery in Space #117: This is better than last issue. DeMatteis and Infantino open it with a sort of trippy space opera yarn of a space general willing to stop at nothing to resurrect the gentle, poet lover of her youth, only to find he doesn't recognize the woman she has become. Watson and Netwon paint a quick portrait of a dedicated DJ, still broadcasting in the post-apocalypse for an audience of one--himself. This one is interesting mainly for the real world songs it references, showing perhaps what the writer was listening to at the time. Bruce Jones with Veitch and Yeates have a ne'er-do-well murder an alien and steal his ship, but he discovers that sometimes dreams are the stuff spaceships are made of.
The final story gets the cover. Barr and Tuska tell the somewhat obvious if kind of gruesome tale of a cold, misanthropic, robot pilot learning humanity after he's partially grafted to part of a gravely injured family man to keep both of them alive.
New Adventures of Superboy #15: The name story by Bates and Schaffenberger involves a wealthy, childless couple coming to Smallville to try to convince Superboy to be their son. It's the sort of forgettable Silver Age pastiches this title sometimes lapses into. The backup is mildly interesting in that it posits a meeting between a time traveling Superboy and a young Clark Kent of the 1930s. This story both re-establishing that this title takes place in the 1960s. It's unclear if this is a visit to Earth-2 or some other timeline yet, but there is suppose to be a part two.
Sgt. Rock #350: The main Sgt. Rock story by Kanigher and Redondo is a Christmas-themed tale of a new recruit in Easy so eager to get home by Christmas that he deserts. Rock, not wanting the kid to face a firing squad, tracks him down to a farm house where he's sharing Christmas with an Italian family. Rock brings him back and the kid learns they have to fight the war until they're done. The next story with art by DeMulder romanticizes the Confederacy, so moving on we find a story with no artist credited that relates the life and death of the Cheyenne chief, Roman Nose. Last up is another "Men of Easy" feature with art by Duursema that gives Bulldozer's perspective on Rock.
Super Friends #42: Bridwell and Tanghal present the story of a villain with a dangerous green thumb terrorizing Gotham. The Super-Friends get some help from Green Fury, the Brazilian superheroine who can shoot green flame out her nose and will eventually join the JLA as Fire. The Wonder Twins backup by the same creative team is Christmas themed. It has Jayna taking the form of a Krytonian deer, which of course can fly under a yellow sun to help Santa.
Unexpected #208: The stories in this issue are all weird, and not in the "Weird Tales" sort of way. The Barr/Sparling Jonny Peril story has him still tracking those mysterious star amulets. He's in the midwest at an almost deserted factory town, where he's set up by zombies or something and saved by a local woman. She explains that few of the townsfolk are left and no one knows what the factory does, but doesn't comment on the zombie guys. She takes Peril to the factory and is promptly captured by the zombies who serve the mysterious guy in the cloak (who somehow is able to watch Jonny on camera all the time and always has his hand in front of his face so we don't see his identity). Jonny chooses to make a move to save himself from being capture rather than to save the girl. He manages to set off some explosions and escape. He passes the woman who appears to be melting but either is revealed as one of the zombies or turning into one. She was part of the Master's plan to capture Jonny and she says he saw through her ruse, but there is no real indication that he did. It reads like he was just unconcerned for her safety. Anyway, now Peril is on the run in the woods.
The next story by Elliott Maggin and Murphy Anderson has a city in grip of weird, motiveless crimes by previously respectable citizens and the stressed police commissioner who goes into the place of business of an occultist that looks more like Aunt Bea than anything else, and getting so freaked out he leaves without his soul. Which is apparently what happened to the other former upstanding citizens. The story really doesn't make it clear whether this is by the woman's design or all just bumbling accident. The last story by Wessler and Sesarego opens with a guy carrying a woman away from rampaging giant beetles--a rampage each blames on the other. In the flashback, we see a UFO land, then the guy talking to beetles. When they complain about people stepping on them, he makes them giant so they can defend themselves. The woman, meanwhile, has the guy thrown off her land. She even has the area sprayed with special gas. The guy leads the beetles in attack, but saves the woman when they demolish her house. It's revealed in the end that their an alien couple who's just been having a spat.
Unknown Soldier #249: The story picks up from last issue with the Nazi agent Helga gloating about killing the Unknown Soldier and about to kill the man she believes to be his father. The old guy fights back, and defeats her. As she lays dying, he reveals he's the Unknown Soldier in disguise and gives his true origin--which really, isn't that different from the planted story she found out, other than it starts before the U.S. official entered the war and involves possible supernatural intervention. It's not clear why Haney thought that was better than what he gave last issue or why he didn't make it more different.
The backup is a story of Mlle. Marie, mini-skirted, bereted, brunette Red Sonja of the Maquis (spelled Maqui throughout this story) by Kanigher and Ayers. Marie is caught in an explosion and has a face bandaged exactly like the Unknown Soldier during most of this issue, only in a sexist turn, she doesn't take potentially being disfigured near as well nor do the people around her (to be fair, she does take it better than most people would in real life). In the end, though her face heals completely with not even any scar. Whew!
Warlord #43: Read more about it here. The backup is more OMAC. He defeats the Vanguisher and confronts the Verner Brothers who look like clones of balding fat guys in early 19th Century coats and cravats.
1 comment:
"Green Fury, the Brazilian superheroine who can shoot green flame out her nose "
I'm only familiar with her later JLA version (who eventually became a completely different person with a different origin and powerset) but I have to say, as Green Fury she has what may be the least dignified form of a flight power I've ever seen. Serious, who thought jets of flame out of her nose was a good look?
Nice that she was in charge of the local branch of Wayne Enterprises, though. Was Bruce aware she was a super when she was hired, or is this him overlooking parts of his vast corporate empire again? For such an omniscient master planner he seems to miss out on that sort of thing more often than you'd expect. I have this mental image of Bruce stepping into his mail room one day and discovering a very poorly disguised Killer Croc has been working for him for almost a year now without anyone saying anything about it. "We were afraid to mention it, we thought he was a diversity hire and he's never called in sick even once."
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