Wednesday Comics: DC, January 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 October 21, 1983.

Brave & the Bold #194: Barr is joined by Infantino, though in a way the story feels more like the sort of thing Bates and Infantino might do in Flash. A motivational therapist Andrea Wye counsels the Rainbow Raider and Dr. Double X to realize their potential as villains by switching super-heroic opponents--the Flash and Batman, respectively.

Flash is attacked by Doctor Double X in Central City, while Batman has to face the Rainbow Raider in Gotham City. The villains get the upper hand against the unprepared heroes, and defeat and capture them. They back to Wye's island, where she pretends to experiment on the heroes, but Flash recovers quick thanks to his fast metabolism and frees Batman. Working together, Batman and Flash defeat the crooks, but Wye manages to escape while the heroes are busy capturing the criminals.

Camelot 3000 #2: Barr, Bolland, and Patterson continue their futuristic Arthurian epic. King Arthur and his entourage arrive at the United Nations and fight some Neo-Men goons.  Then they head inside, where Arthur pulls the sword from the stone. Seven stars shoot out of the sword and fly to various points around the world. Each star finds the reincarnation of one of the Round Table knights (plus Guinevere) and awakening their memories. Arthur, Merlin and Tom set about gathering his allies. At United Earth Defense headquarters, Commander Joan Acton recalls she is the Lady Guinevere. In Paris, France, wealthy Jules Futrelle remembers being Sir Lancelot. Meanwhile, the wicked Morgan Le Fay watches and schemes against Arthur. Another good issue, thought the star here is Bolland's art.

Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #3: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner pick up with the newly created Decay menacing the city. I'm not really sure what Pendergast's goal is now. He dissolves a homeless guy which is maybe in keeping with his previous mission, but then he dissolves some new construction. If he's just into destruction now, why start with the homeless guy? Anyway, Supergirl battle him, but she's almost defeated by his power when she allows him to grab her face with his dissolving hands! Luck for her, Psi has turned against Pendergast, whom she realizes has been manipulating her for his own ends. She appears at the battle, transforms Decay into Pendergast again, and vanishes from sight. There's also a subplot where Linda Danvers gets a part-time job as a secretary to her absent-minded major professor (and perhaps romantic interest). 

Overall, this really reads a lot like a 70s Marvel book, it's really only the Infantino art that keeps it from completely having that feel.

There's a Lois Lane backup by O'Flynn and Oksner continue the primetime TV drama sort of stories they were doing with Lois in Superman Family. In this one, an unsigned story on her desk seems to predict events in the future--but most of the story is about the apparent kidnapping of young model Missy Conrad, who actually ran away with her father whom she hadn't seen since her parent's divorce/ Then, she is really kidnapped by criminals her father owes money and Lois up in it.

Green Lantern #160: Barr and Pollard/La Rosa have Green Lantern abducted by The Headmen, goofy old foes of his that have elongated craniums like the Leader. They use their superhuman willpower to take control of his ring and knock him out. He's helped by Dorine Clay, a non-eggheaded member of the Headmen's race who explains that her previous rebellion failed. The Headmen are trying to join up with the Citadel and trying to use the captured Green Lantern as their admission ticket. Hal escapes briefly and tries to arm the rebels, but they overpower him again and put him and Dorine in a prison cell to be executed in the morning. Luckily, the Omega Men, who intercepted the Headmen's communication with the Citadel, come to their rescue.

Meanwhile, on Earth, there are still weird doings with a kid named Donny Weems and a crystal he found. On Tront, Green Lantern Eddore is determined to complete his mission, despite the Guardians telling him it's not in his jurisdiction anymore.

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Rozakis, Moore, and Rodriquez, continue the story from last issue. Penelops learns that the aliens heating his world are doing it accidentally as they try to increase the sun's energy to make another world warm enough for them to live. Penelops urges them to stop, but their process is irreversible. Thinking quickly, Penelops moves his world to a cooler orbit and the aliens still get their new home.

House of Mystery #312: Mishkin/Cohn and Gonzales have Bennett back in New York with his friends.  There have been a rash of disappearances in the subway, and they think it could be vampires. Bennett goes down to investigate and meets a reporter named Maggie Carle. They're attacked by a giant arachnoid beast who apparently has escaped from Barr Laboratories, the company responsible for creating the cancer cure that made humans poisonous to vampires. A team of men working for Barr Laboratories get the drop on Bennett and Carle and insist that they come with them.

Jones and Zamora tell the story of a poor waitress who is convinced the elixir she sees a strange, elderly man drink every day in the dinner where she works is some sort of miracle drug, but only after she's invaded his home to still a supply does she find out its embalming fluid and the man is undead. Boltinoff and Sangalang round out the issue with the tale of a wealthy, young couple in New York City who join the exclusive Suicide Club, only to find it lives up to its name in its expectations for its members who lose at games of chance. If that balk and following through, the club turns to murder.

Legion of Super-Heroes #295: Giffen gets a bit of a break as he shares penciling duties with Howard Bender this issue. Blok deduces that the Legion foe Universo is a renegade Green Lantern after watching tapes of an early adventure of the Legion in which they are at odds the Green Lanterns who are trying to stop a scientist from looking back at the origins of the universe (I feel like that's going to come up again). After the initially conflict, Green Lantern Vidar tries to do the same thing and gets kicked out for his crimes then goes on to become Universo.

Night Force #6: Once again, Wolfman and Colan/Smith show the scientific establishment out of its depth dealing with the paranormal. The head of Science City uses his psychics to unless Vanessa's link to darkness fully at it means their doom. Demons roam the complex and the KGB agents from his issue free Caine and Gold in the hopes they can help. But Vanessa feels abandoned by Gold and the demons are out to get him specifically! There's a Nigel Kneale sort of approach here. The demons are real things but not what folklore or ancient belief has said they are, but something more pseudo-scientific. It perhaps doesn't jibe with the DCU as a whole or even other elements in Night Force, but it works for this story.

While all of this is going on, Baron Winters gets a visit from the cops who promptly open the wrong door and get lose in the past, so now Winters has to rescue them.

Sgt. Rock #372: Another single appearance member of Easy Company meets his end as a kid who uses his (sanitized to hide the horrors of war) diary entries as letters who to his parents. Rock has the somber duty of writing the last entry and letter.

Warlord #65: I went over the main story in this issue here. In "The Barren Earth" backup, Jinal is found by some robed desert-dwellers who turn out to be reptilian. They don't harm her, but they aren't particularly helpful either. Then she's captured by human marauders who certainly don't have good intentions. Luckily, she's rescued by a guy that is dressed like one of the reptilians and rides a similar mount but is actually a human named Skinner who says he'll take her to civilization.