Wednesday Comics: DC, September 1984 (week 1)

My mission: to read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis. This week, I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands on the week of June 7, 1984. 

Vigilante #10: Great cover this issue by Ross Andru. Feeling guilt and anger over the death of J.J., Adrian retreats from the people around him into grim avenger mode. After pushing Terry away, he begins to go after the mob, leaning on various members to get information on J.J.'s killer. Meanwhile, the Controller puts his plan into motion, first roping the mob leaders into his scheme then distracting the police with fake alarm signals.

Atari Force #9: Christopher teleports back home surprising Professor Venture who has a lot of questions. After the security forces barge in to apprehend him, he 'ports to the O'Rourke's residence. Both of these interactions provide a frame for Conway and García-López/Smith to recap everything that's happened in the series so far as well as the original Atari Force's first encounter with the Dark Destroyer. It all looks great and maybe this recap was needed for new readers, but it still feels like the story isn't really going anywhere fast.

Blackhawks #272: Evanier and Speigle again devote a bit of time to the Blackhawk's providing answers to "why do the German's do what they do?" which I guess could be an important line of inquiry, but none of the Blackhawks (or presumably Evanier) have anything enlightening to say. Thankfully, this stuff is short-lived, and we instead turn to the barmaid Helga (who Blackhawk met in issue 267) who has fallen for some propaganda and got herself trained and conditioned to be Domino II with a mission to kill Blackhawk. She fails, and Blackhawk manages to break her conditioning enough to take her into custody so that she hopefully can be rehabilitated. 

In the backup story with art by Ken Steacy, Hendrickson meets an enlisted airman whose job it is to paint pinup girls on the noses of planes at an airbase when tasked with a prisoner transport. Hendrickson thinks this is a frivolous custom and the painter should be fighting, but he changes his mind when the soldier's painting rescues the two of them from the escaped prisoner.

DC Comics Presents #73: Bates and Infantino/Hunt bring some continuity into this team-up, because the Flash's legal woes are very much on his mind and Superman's. The Flash is drawn into the other-dimensional world of Norkk, and Superman (after receiving Flash's distress call) follows. There he discovers that the Flash appears to have gone rogue, terrorizing the people and destroying their city. Things aren't as they appear, of course, and it's all the work of the Phantom Zone criminals exerting telepathic influence.  Our heroes working together are able to prevail.

Fury of Firestorm #27: Conway and Kayanan/Rodriquez finish up this Silver Deer and Black Bison storyline. Silver Deer plans to make Congress to pass a law granting Indian tribes their hereditary lands back, then make them commit suicide afterwards so they can't repeal it. We get her origin by way of explanation for this scheme. It involves an Indian Reservation in North Carolina featuring a log cabin on what looks like the plains, where wolverines are apparently common. Anyway, she saw her brother and father die due to the prejudice of Whites and now she wants revenge. There's this Congressional costume party in town that she crashes to enact her plan. Firestorm and Flamebird show up to defeat her, which ultimately, they do, freeing Black Bison from her control. Silver Dear appears to have died, but they don't find the body, suggesting Conway wanted to keep the option of her coming back (but she doesn't).

Justice League of America #230: Conway and Kupperberg/Marcos continue the War of the Worlds, and things are looking grim for Earth and its defenders. The JLA satellite has been ruptured, threatening the lives of the Leaguers on board, and Earth's leaders are deciding when to deploy nukes with a Martian armada surrounding their world. All isn't lost, though! The Hawks appear out of warp for an ambush and Martian Manhunter sneaks aboard the Martian command ship to challenge the Marshal to a one-on-on combat. J'onn ultimately wins but would have been felled by treachery if not for the timely intervention of Firestorm.

The letter column promises a two-parter by Busiek and Kupperberg that will explain where the League's heavy-hitters were during this arc, but also it teases a whole new Justice League in the upcoming annual.

Wonder Woman #319: We're back with the Mishkin and Heck/Maygar storyline. Sofia finally sits down and begins to spill what she knows about Steve Trevor to Diana--except it turns out that isn't the real Diana. The imposter goes on to steal nuclear codes and frame Diana for the crime, while the real Diana is fighting a robotic distraction as Wonder Woman. In the end, the villain is revealed to be Dr. Cyber, who we last saw almost 3 years ago in issue 287.

The Huntress backup by Cavalieri concludes but with artwork this time by Woch which just doesn't have the same pizzazz. Huntress defeats Nightingale in one-on-one combat and reveals the ninja to actually be a man, an actor named Seiji Kato. She also exposes Seraphin's artifact fraud: the samurai statue head all this was about is a forgery.