Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1985 (week 3)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on October 18, 1984.

Robotech Defenders #1: This is not the Robotech you might remember from the Harmony Gold cartoon, which won't appear until sometime in 1985. Instead, this series is a tie-in with an unrelated line of scale model kits released by Revell with whom the more famous Robotech shares a name and logo. Read more about that here.

The story by Helfer and Hunt/Anderson involves a group of pilots representing various alien species and worlds fighting against the invading Grelons, a formerly less technologically advanced species that have somehow gained much more advanced and powerful weapons of war. Things are looking grim for the defenders until one of them discovers an ancient mech disguised as a statue amid the ruins of a city on her homeworld. Activating it, allows her to find the location of other such giant robots on all the resistance fighters' worlds. Each pilot goes and retrieving a mech: deep in the ocean, in the remote mountains, etc. When they're assembled, they win victories against the Grelons, until their mysterious benefactors supply them with titanic war machines of their own!

I owned this issue as a kid, and I really enjoyed it. The alien species, though all humanoid, are distinct, and the mech-acquiring portion of the story has some good set-pieces, even if they go by pretty quick.

Batman and the Outsiders #17: Barr/Aparo take the story in an unexpected direction by sending the team to ancient Egypt. Somehow, restoring Metamorpho did that. They're expected because a prophecy told Ramses IV people that look like them would show up to secure his throne. He needs all the help he can get, because Metamorpho is now in the thrall of the would-be usurper Ahk-Ton. 

Meanwhile, the past Halo doesn't remember is catching up with her. It seems she was a bit of a bad girl, and it's making it hard for her family to trust her. Then there's the matter of her old boyfriend found dead in Europe!

Again, this issue makes me think that this title is what Conway wanted to do with the New Justice League. Some well-known heroes mixing with new characters. Some character drama mixing with superhero stuff. Maybe this book should have been the new Justice Legue?

Blue Devil #8: Giffen is guest artist this issue, and he works better than Kane did. Dan and Sharon are still traveling with the Trickster. Dan is trying to keep the villain safe, but that guy isn't making it easy. After a message convinces him that the Organization is still on his tail, the Trickster runs, then tries to rob a back being transported via helicopter. The Trickster gives Blue Devil a hard time, but with Sharon's help, our hero both thwarts the bank robbery and reins in the rogue again.

Green Lantern #184: The current storyline takes a break (except for a frame) so that we can get a reprint of Green Lantern (Vol 2) #59 by Broome and Kane, which introduces Guy Gardner, via a "what if" sort of story, where Gardner becomes Earth's Green Lantern but after a mission on a very Star Trek sort of planet where ageless kids fight an unending war with robots, he contracts the same plague that previously killed the adults. Dying, he bequeaths the ring of Jordan. Of course, all that was hypothetical and Gardner never became Green Lantern. Hal's wink at the audience at the end, suggests another potential Lantern out there might soon be relevant.

Infinity, Inc. #10: At last, we come to the end of the "Generations" saga with The Justice Society and Infinity, Inc. having a showdown in the lair of the Ultra-Humanite. The kids initially have a tough time with their more experienced and ruthless elders, but eventually teamwork turns the tide and the JSA is defeated. Brainwave, Jr. must team-up with his father to defeat Ultra, though at the cost of his father's life. She is also Ordway's and Machlan's last issue on the series, and we are told Newton and Alcala will be coming on board.

Legion of Super-Heroes #6: Levitz and Orlando/Mahlstedt revisit Alya Ranzz's history and the origin of the lighting-powered Ranzz-siblings as the alien Zymyr takes Lightning Lord and Lightning Lass captive and carries them to his installation. Working together, the siblings defeat him, then back on Winath, Ayla defeats her brother in one-on-one combat. Afterwards, she decides she needs to return to the Legion. Meanwhile, the five Legionnaires lost in Limbo try to find a way home.

New Talent Showcase #13: This issue's cover story is unusual in that it's domestic drama rather than the usual genre fair. Newell and Eric Shanower present a Mid-Century tale of a young girl who falls for a race car driver, that finds the reality of her situation not matching the fantasies of teen love. After disguising herself as a man and beating her philandering and drunk husband in a race, she leaves their young son with him and sets out to find herself. 

The next story is a number superhero piece, though not an origin story, interestingly. It's got amateurish artwork by Norm Breyfogle. After that, Bobcat is back, courtesy of Tiefenbacher and Woch/Kessel. He and another kid have to recover a signed baseball that got hit into a crotchety old neighbor's yard. Finally, Juaire and Palmer deliver another installment of "Sentry A.D." where our hero defeats the oni physically, but then learns the bigger challenge is defeating the demon spiritually.

Saga of Swamp Thing #32: McManus is fill-in artist for a done-in-one story, a tribute to Walt Kelly's "Pogo." It's concerns with animal rights and environmentalism remind me a lot of Morrison's later work in Animal Man, now that I think about it. Anthropomorphic animal-appearing aliens land on Earth looking for a place to live in peace after being driven from their homeworld. Unfortunately, they find out this world would be no safer for their kind than the one they left.

Sgt. Rock #396: Like last issue, this is a reprint issue devoted to one artist, in this case, Russ Heath. It has an additional theme of reprinting stories about kids. In the first one from Our Army at War #208 (1969), Easy finds a ragdoll in a bombed out French town, and Rock feels compelled to find the doll's owner and return it. In the second from Our Army at War #215 (1970), Easy is guarding a prisoner, an SS officer, who begins to exert a strange influence over the children in a French town. After the kids still Easy's weapons, Rock has to battle the Nazi hand-to-hand. In the end, it's revealed that he was threatening to have the children's parents killed if they didn't help him.

Warlord #88: I reviewed the main story here.