Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1985 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on August 22, 1985.

Detective Comics #556: Moench and Colan/Smith continue their story from this month's Batman. It's very much set under the red skies of the Crisis, but it's not labelled as a crossover. We find out, as Night Slayer keeps murdering them, that the False Face Society leftovers hadn't actually been working with Nocturna yet--but as of this issue, she takes command. 

Robin tries to tell her how he feels and lean on her for support, but Nocturna is preoccupied with what's happening to the night skies. However, when Batman tracks her down after an encounter with Night Slayer, she makes time for a kiss. Meanwhile, Bullock reveals to Commissioner Gordon his theory that the current Robin isn't the original (something Gordon had noticed as well) but is actually Nocturna's son!

In the Green Arrow backup, we get back to the story by Cavalieri and Moore that had been left dangling. Ollie agrees to help Onyx battle Lars, a renegade monk at the monastery where Ollie himself once trained, who has killed the Exalted Master and taken over. Ollie recalls a run in he had with Lars when they were both students, where the guy confided that he sought a "wisdom key" that would unlock the power of an ancient book. As soon as Green Arrow and Onyx arrive at the monastery, they are confronted by Lars's goons.

 

All-Star Squadron #51: A Crisis crossover, but that bit only amounts to a cameo, really. The Thomases and Clark/Jones/Coletta have the passing of Harbinger and Firebrand give Mr. Mind a way to find Earth--or at least an Earth. That leads to the events of this issue, where Hourman and Dr. Fate arrive at the JSA brownstone to find most of their team members missing and Hawkgirl a captive of a group of former JSA-member villains banded together as the Monster Society of Evil. This group is the brainchild of Mr. Mind, who came to Earth to meet his hero Charlie McCarthy only to find out he was just a puppet. He then decided to meet his other heroes the JSA, and when he could find them, he decided to be a super-villain. 

Hourman, Dr. Fate, Hawkgirl, and late arriver Sandy battle the likes of Oom the Mighty, Ramulus, Mr. Who and Nyola. Unfortunately, they're going to need more help to defeat them. Elsewhere, Liberty Belle and Johnny Quick have apparently fallen through the reverse of the portal Mr. Mind came through and find themselves facing Captain Marvel.

Nathaniel Dusk II #2: MacGregor and Colan pick up just at last issues cliffhanger. Dusk survives the falling unicorn statue, but the gunman who shot at Cranston gets away. As Dusk continues his job of trying to keep Cranston out of trouble, he gets the idea that the older man knows who is trying to kill him and is playing some dangerous game. Amanda's stepfather leans on Dusk to drop the case, and her husband takes him flying. He gets another piece of the puzzle when he finds out Cranston borrowed a camera from Amanda and that he visited her new family on the one day he slipped Dusk's surveillance. 

Before he can put any of this together, a drive-by with a tommy gun seems to take Cranston's life. This leads to one of those (for me) jarring aspects of the story, where it moves from conventional detective story to 80s action. Dusk pursues the shooter. The getaway car gets wrecked, and the shooter takes a bus. The issue ends with Dusk on top of the bus as the shooter blows holes in the roof trying to ventilate the detective, too.

Omega Men Annual #2: Klein and host of artists (including McManus, Colon, Smith, Giffen, and O'Neil) give us Primus's backstory, the events leading up to his marriage to Kalista and the founding of the Omega Men, his apparent death in the Spider Guild war, and how he came to be bonded with Artin. When she has heard the whole story Kalista accepts that this being is indeed her husband (at least in part) and the two reconcile. This issue pretty much closes the gap between the previous run and the time jump when Klein took over.

V #10: After all the setup and schemes last issue, it resolves pretty quickly. The mayor reveals herself to our heroes as one of the Visitors but tells them she is actually a triple agent and on their side. She gives them a device that can extend the New York winter, keeping the red dust active and at least postponing a renewed invasion. They're overheard, though, and the mayor is captured, interrogated, and executed. Still, the resistance has the device. Big, bad Walter sent to kill Donovan, gets in a fight with him, but before things resolve he's killed by friendly fire from an overzealous Visitor fighter. The device works, spring is forestalled, and our heroes return to L.A., presumably assuming the nascent New York resistance they were starting up can take care of itself. 

World's Finest #321: Cavalieri and Delbo pit our heroes against the Atom villain, Chronos. Coerced by the mysterious Powerbroker, Chronos uses time travel in a plot to destroy Batman. After sending Superman off chasing bombs in the timestream, Chronos forces Batman to journey to the past and watch his parents get murdered--or save them and alter history. Batman resists the temptation to save his parents, using the experience of again reliving their deaths to strengthen his crimefighting resolve, and he's rescued by Superman. Chronos, in a desperate attempt to evade capture, uses his time machine to become one with the timestream.

[Greyhawk] Keoland

Proud Keoland is the oldest of the human nations of the Flanaess. Though diminished from its greatest glory, its rulers never bowed to lords of the Aerdi in the Great Kingdom. Its warriors have been successful in the main in protecting the land from invaders, though they have been powerless against the folly of its kings.

Keoland's origins are in the migrations following the war between Ancient Suel and Baklunish. Suloise refugees, harried by the humanoid warbands and reavers of their own people, fled across the Crystalmists and settled in the fertile basin formed by Sheldomar and Javan Rivers. The Flannae population of the region was small, owing to the depredations of the humanoids and a plague brought by earlier waves of Suloise fleeing war and destruction. The remnant Flannae and scattered demihumans were pushed to the fringes by the newcomers who sought to create a unified Suel kingdom but were thwarted by conflict with others and their own fractiousness.

In another century, the Oeridian Keogha peoples swept into the region, scattering the encircling humanoid tribes. The Oeridians came in friendship to the Suloise and demihumans alike, but they brooked no disagreement with their intention to share the land between the rivers. They expanded rapidly, soon claiming hegemony over all the human settlements, as they began to intermingle with the Suel peoples.

Eventually a monarchy was declared with the old Suloise town of Niole Dra as its capital. Over time, it would come to dominate the entire basin. This was not accomplished solely through conquest, however. Keoish kings shrewdly made allies of the demihuman lands Ulek and Celene.

The people came to embrace Nomism in the main (though pockets of folk religion still exist). In fact, it is possible the belief system may have coalesced here with the blending of Suel and Oeridian beliefs. Saint Cuthbert is the patron deity of Keoland, and the land's churches are adherent to Velunan doctrines and traditions.

Periodically over the centuries, Keoish kings have succumbed to dreams of empire. Such ambitions have tended to fare poorly beyond the two rivers. Indeed, Keoish entanglements elsewhere allowed the Sea Princes to gain a foothold to the South and lost the kingdom control of the Yeomanry. 

Though Keoland is currently at peace with its neighbors, it may be that it is being weakened by enemies from within. The ancient and entrenched noble houses game and scheme to see their house ascend the throne. Humanoid bands and human renegades lurk within the Dreadwood and the expansive [as in bigger than Ireland!] Hool Marsh. The coastal marshes rely on a brisk smuggling trade and secretly deal with the piratical Sea Princes.

Keoland's real world inspirations are perhaps not as distinct as many of the eras in the Aerdian East. The Mediterranean climate suggested by Anne Meyer's maps brought to mind for me the Iberian Peninsula. That might make the Keoish Oeridians the Vandals/Visigoths. On the other hand, it's position on the map, and its use of light cavalry reminiscent of the turcopoles are reminiscent of Byzantine Empire.

Greyhawk Rising

 

Last year, I was working on a blog series doing my own take on the world of Greyhawk. As it goes with these things, my interest petered out after a bit, and I moved on to other things. I'm feeling that Greyhawk jones coming on again, and I think I have at least a few more posts on that topic in me. We'll see, but if so it seemed a good time to revisit where I'd been. 

I summarized collated the posts summarizing what I wanted to do with the project and the first batch of posts here.

I had three posts after that:

The Wild Coast

North Province

South Province

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1985 (week 3)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I read the comics on sale on August 15, 1985.

Batman and the Outsiders #27: I remember seeing this Barr/Davis issue on the spinner rack at the Pac-N-Sac gas station a few blocks from my house. Twelve year-old me found the "We call it WAR STARS! (or we'd get sued!)" cover blurb very clever. Anyway...Continuing from last issue, the U.S. fires missiles at the Star Wars station in defiance of Kobra's extortion, but the missile defense works on the station too, and they are disabled. In a show of glastnost, Gorbachev only pretends to make a deal with Kobra (reasoning rightly that the cult leader will turn on the USSR, too) and instructs his people to contact the U.S. and offer an alliance against the villain.

Meanwhile, our heroes are trying to get to the station to stop Kobra and rescue Halo, but the U.S. government refuses to loan Batman a shuttle. We see a computer screen labelling him "politically incorrect" due to his leaving the JLA and fighting with the Force of July. Harsh! So, the team just has to steal Kobra's own spacecraft and fly it up there. There's a fight in the station and the bad guys are defeated, but Kobra bests Batman in a one-on-one fight and escapes. Batman seems to relish the tough opponent though and looks forward to his next confrontation with the villain.

Halo's beau David decides to take some time to patch things up with his father, so she's free to return to the Outsiders.

Fury of Firestorm Annual #3: Conway and Kayanan/Akin/Garvey rewind to just power Ronnie and Stein left New York. Firestorm notices some fluctuations in his powers. Stein has a theory its due to sunspot activity and the two test it, leading Stein to figure the parameters of their powers. Largely, this seems like a way for Conway to rein in and clarify the limits of what Firestorm can do as we are given Official Handbook level quantifications.

While all this is going on, Frido, a guy in Miami with a drug problem, is having particularly bad time trying to get his fix to deal with his withdrawal. As the sunspot activity increases, Frido is somehow transformed into a being of (I guess) electricity. Still in pain, Frido takes out his frustrations on those who refuse to help him until Firestorm who has heard about this intervenes. He wins the day by short circuiting Frido (or Sparx as Firestorm names him) in the ocean.

Blue Devil #18: Mishkin/Cohn and Kupperberg/Maygar cheekily present "The Last Parallel World Story!" in this Crisis crossover issue. After the events of COIE #8, Blue Devil finds himself in space with some of the Omega Men. Luckily, they are picked up by a spaceship in the hands of a film crew composed of alternate universe versions of Cassidy and Blue Devil's supporting cast who had been sucked through a black hole into this universe just before theirs was destroyed by anti-matter. This being a somewhat humorous book, the characters take the potential trauma of being the last survivors of their universe and having lost everyone they know completely in stride. However, they soon find they are fading away, going to a Limbo since their universe no longer exists. Both Cassidys have to work to find a way to vibrationally stabilize both the crew and their ship.

The crew decides to go with the Omega Men to Vega via a teleporter as they know their universe's version of Harry Hokum has one. They try to send Blue Devil back to Earth, but he disappears before they can.

Green Lantern #194: Crisis crossovers often reveal that Harbinger had a tougher time than initially depicted assembling the heroes in COIE #1. Engelhart and Staton/Patterson again give us a bit of s scuffle, before Stewart agrees to go with her. This crossover is unusual as it depicts events on the Monitor's station from Stewart's perspective. We also see how the Anti-Monitor strikes a blow at the Guardians so that they can't interfere. A blast through the central Power battery kills many of them.

With everything going on Katma Tui turns to Hal, and the two of them reconcile. Hal seems ready to stop feeling sorry for himself, but feeling in a nostalgic mood, I guess, visits Abin Sur's grave. He finds Guy Gardner out of the nursing room, and misguidedly attempting to dig up a ring and power battery. The two fight, but then a Guardian shows up and gives Gardner exactly what he's looking for, inducting him into the Corps and snubbing Hal.

Infinity, Inc. #20: Another Crisis crossover by the Thomases and McFarlane/Bair, as the Infinitors deal with the weather disruption and natural disaster part of the Crisis. A hospital is threatened by extreme weather and an earthquake, and members of the JSA and the Infinitors must work together to try to save people. In the...well, crisis, a new hero emerges: Previous NEET Rick Tyler decides to follow in his father's footsteps and become a new Hourman, a move that worries both his father and Dr. Mid-Nite. There's another new hero in the making, too. McNider's medical protege, Beth Chapel, is blinded in the disaster and jokes bitterly the only sort of doctor she is fit to be is the next Dr. Midnight. 

Interestingly, a caption in this issue tells us it is "July 1985," which is (as George Olshevsky would have it) a "topical reference" to be ignored, but since this universe is going away anyway, I think it's usual in placing when the "modern day" events of the Crisis are occurring. This timeline goes with that idea. 

New Teen Titans #14: Yet another Crisis crossover from Wolfman and Barreto/Tanghal. Under red skies, Arella searches for her daughter and finds out she was for a time a faith healer in Alabama but has moved on by the time Arella gets there. Meanwhile, Captain Karras convinces Starfire to return to Tamaran, and Nightwing and Jericho choose to accompany her, leaving the others to deal with this whole Crisis thing. At the end of the issue, we find out Blackfire is waiting to greet her sister.

 The Titans that stay on Earth have to deal with Steve Dayton who is dying of cancer. Or at least he was. He may have used his Mento helmet to cure himself, but that seems to have driven him insane. He attacks his butler, then a club of wealthy men that denies him membership, then the Titans when they show up. 

Sgt. Rock #406: We finish Kanigher's and Gonzales's tribute to the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group. In the end, this story seems to have been largely for didactic purposes, which is a reasonable goal I suppose when we think about the assumed kid audience of comics. We get a lot more on the groups exploits and highlights of important members. Then, sometime later, Rock and Easy meet Captain Dennis again briefly. After that, we return to the frame of the civil rights era where the racist lieutenant turned police officer seems to recognize Dennis among the marchers and silent moves aside. Dennis feels Rock is with them in spirit, with the implication being that (as Kanigher as stated, I believe) Rock did not survive the War. 

Saga of Swamp Thing #42: Continuing the story from last issue, as Swamp Thing and Abby are piecing together what is going on, the past takes a greater hold over the present. The extras performing the ritual have caused the dead to rise from the graveyard and walk the Earth. The dead advance on the plantation house to confront the spirit of the former master of that house, now taken over an actor. Swamp Thing does have a whole lot to do as his plant powers can do little to stop a haunting. He's set on fire and accidentally catches the house ablaze too. That seems to break the spell and bring an end to what was going on, though one actor dies in the fire, and another seems unable to break from the traumatic memory of a man skinned alive. One of the zombies gets away and gets a job at a theater, so again the mystical strangeness of the world is rising.

Warlord #99: I reviewed this issue here.

Who's Who #9: Like last issue, the alphabetical span of this issue seems providential, as we get the Jordan and Stewart Green Lanterns (though no Guy Gardner), the Green Lantern Corps, and the Guardians of the Universe. The current artists, Staton, gets to draw Stewart, but Kane is fittingly given the honor of depicting Hal Jordan, and Bolland gets the two-page Corps spread. Gemworld is also in this issue as are both the Earth-Two and Earth-One Green Arrows, the latter depicted by Mike Grell. The Captain Atom foe, the Ghost, gets an entry and he hasn't even appeared in the DCU yet! We also get war comics characters Gravedigger, who we haven't seen since 1979, and G.I. Robot who we haven't seen since the demise of Weird War Tales in 1983.

Saving Throws and Implied Class Characteristics

Art by Jeff Easley

Savings throw in latter day editions of D&D are intrinsically tied to ability scores, which is pretty easy to understand. Old school saving throws, in contrast, are oddly specific and therefore difficult to generalize. Beyond that, given that they are tied to class, and only a few get ability score bonuses, it's not immediately clear what's going on in the fictional world.

Of course, this can be seen as a feature not a bug. Proponents point out the abstraction allows the player and DM to interpret what happens in the fiction, making this an unexpectedly more narrative sort of mechanical feature.

That's all sort of interesting, but a problem (for me at least) is that their progression is uniform based on class, and every member of the same class has the same distribution of saving throw aptitudes. So, while you're free to interpret success (or failure) any way you like, whatever situational explanation you give doesn't really build or develop the fictional world. As written, every cleric's better saving throw than other classes against Death Magic is just a mechanic.

I think it's more interesting to view them as telling us something about the world, while leaving room for situational factors. The fact that every member of a class is more resistant to certain dangers than others can tell us something about the training, aptitudes, of characteristics of people in that class.

Compared to the normal individual (0 level Fighter in AD&D parlance), we could conclude that:

Clerics have divine favor bolstering their spiritual and mental fortitude.  This particularly protects them from effects that would destroy or disrupt the body. Their biggest advantage is against Poison & Death Magic, but they have consistently good defense against all sorts of dangers.

Fighters have their martial spirit increasing their fortitude and perhaps giving them a "sixth sense" for danger. At first level, they are neophytes and haven't cultivated this to a great degree, but by the time they max out, they have the best saves on average.

Magic-Users possess an innate arcane aura that strengthens slowly as they develop their skills. It makes them particularly resilient in the face of spells and spell-like effects cast from common magical implements like wands and staves. Interestingly, they are also somewhat protected against the magical breath of dragons. Their aura adds little to protect them from poison, though.

Thieves rely on luck to get by. In the beginning it mostly protects them against things that would bind, hinder, or directly impair them being who they are. Unfortunately, they tend to wear their luck out and they max out their saves worse off than the other classes.

Certainly, these aren't the only implied class abilities you could take from these, but I wanted to come up with an explanation that didn't implicate ability scores, and I haven't really seen another approach that does that.

Weird Revisited: Kung Fu Dark Sun

As when I wrote this post in 2019, I've been watching some wuxia film lately, and then there was the announcement of a new edition of Dark Sun, so it seemed a good time to revisit this idea...

   

art by Eric Belisle

Still on a wuxia kick and thinking about the arid lands of Northern China, it occurs to me that Dark Sun might be an interesting mashup with kung fu action. It is true that the default 80s barbarian film meets Mad Max aesthetic of Dark Sun doesn’t scream Crouching Tiger or Hidden Dragon, but that aside, I think it’s actually not a bad fit. Let me run the list:

• The downgrading of weaponry due to the scarcity of metal in the setting leaves space for bare-handed martial arts.
• The Elemental clerics thing can easily spun in a wuxia direction (as seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender).
• The "fighting oppression" angle of Dark Sun dovetails nicely with with the "fighting corrupt authority" aspect of some wuxia.

• There are Thri-Kreen who are praying mantis people, essentially, who would be natural practitioners of praying mantis kung fu. 
• Athasian Dragons aren't common monsters but beings of immense power, like the Chinese conception of the creature (though Athas's is certainly not benevolent). 

Wednesday Comics: DC, November 1985 (week 2)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to the end of Crisis! This week, I'm looking at comics that were published on July 11, 1985.

Arak Son of Thunder #50: We arrive at the long ago announced final issue of the series as Arak and friends part ways from their more recent allies from the Middle East, and head ever eastward on a Chinese ship. Machinations of the Serpent see them barely making it to Japan, where they are attacked by the Ezo people under the command of an oni. Arak drives off the demon, sending the Ezo running too, and putting Arak and friends in the good graces of the local lord. The relationship sours, however, when Arak refuses to exterminate to Ezo for him. As Arak leaves, he frees an Ezo prisoner, who leads the group to his village. The Ezo aren't on the demon's side at all, but under his thumb. They want to escape to another island, free from the Japanese and the demon. Arak and friends slay the oni and get the lord to agree to giving safe passage to the Ezo.

Arak and Maligigi reveal that they have seen in visions that Charlemagne has now been made Emperor of the Romans. Valda realizes she must return to her king. Arak and Satyricus set out in a smaller boat to the Americas, but Maligigi is sure he and Valda will see them again.

This is the end of their story, though. Aside from some cameos, Arak and friends haven't appeared in the post-Crisis DCU. At 50 issues, Arak had the second longest run of any Sword & Sorcery character not based on a Robert E. Howard property in American comics.

Amethyst #11: Nice cover here by Cullins and Tanghal. Cohn and Colon/Kesel have Topaz and Turquoise reveal their love to Amethyst. Feeling betrayed, Amethyst decides to quit Gemworld to just live as Amy Winston on Earth. Gemworld isn't out of danger, though. Odd crystal formations are emerging, and one in the form of a serpent recruits Sardonyx for some evil scheme.

Things aren't so great on Earth, either. Amy's friend Rita is now Carnelian's accomplice in luring her father to his home to be a sacrifice for some dark ritual using the power of Dark Opal's broach. Meanwhile, in the Winston household's domestic drama, it seems like Herb's dissatisfaction with married life with an adopted kid who's also the savior of a fantasy world may be heading to an affair with one of his students from Hudson University.

Arion, Lord of Atlantis Special #1: The promised final issue of the series became a special instead. Kupperberg and Duursema seem like they're stuffing in every potential plot element they had thought of in this one issue. Atlantis is attacked by sub-men, alien invaders arrive, and jackal-headed S'net launches another assault. All of these forces manipulated and abetted by the evil god, Chaon. It's a lot for one issue, and it crowds out any significant focus on the characters, except that we do get to see Mara in her new relationship with the musician who also has an unusual ability: the power to manifest wings. 

In the end, the alien invasion is turned back after the revelation that they had their origins in expeditions from Atlantis millennia ago. Their ship is driven into the sun by one of their leaders sympathetic to the Atlantean cause so they won't be returning. S'Net is lost in space, and the sub-men have allied with the Atlanteans against their common foes. 

In Arion's fight with Chaon, though, the demon unleashes a blast sends seismic shudders through the land.  Arion banishes Chaon, but Atlantis is doomed. Arion, Chian, Wyynde, and many Atlantean refugees escape in ships, but their great city is no more. This is also the last appearance of Arion and his supporting cast in the pre-Crisis universe. Arion will show up in the post-Crisis world, mostly as a background element, though he will get another series in 1992 where he takes up residence in modern day New York.

Batman #389: Thanks to the Crisis (and Moench and Mandrake) there are red skies over Gotham. That's got Bruce thinking about his love life. He goes to the gym where Vicki is always working out to end things for good, but she thinks he's trying to win her back and storms off. Catwoman is back in town, tracking down the person killing wayward members of the False Face Society, and Batman meets with her to let her down easy, too. This attempt goes a bit better, but she declines to give up her vigilantism. Meanwhile, Jason is feeling the lack of a mother, so when a disappearance Bullock is working suggests Nocturna is back in town, he goes to the observatory to find her. Apparently, she's the one leading the False Face Society. Though no one knows it, Night Slayer is the one killing the Society members, with Nocturna is final goal. 

G.I. Combat #280: In the first Haunted Tank story by Kanigher and Glanzman, Stuart's Raiders draw cards to see who will go on a solo suicide mission to destroy the secret hangar for Germany's new jets, but even after Jeb "wins," his men won't let him go it alone. The second is a solo Rick story where he's attending a carnival with a woman when the Germans attack. Rick takes a shot from the top of a roller coaster to take out a fighter pilot.

In the Mercenaries story by Kanigher and Catan, the trio steals back a convoy of food relief for the Ethiopian famine from a hijacker chief, Nakamti. 

The two nonserial stories are both by Kanigher. The first, with art by Cruz, has an American G.I. and former championship skier besting the Chinese and an avalanche to complete his mission. The second has art by Catan as his about a paratrooper unlucky enough to get his chute caught on the wing of a German fighter plane, but lucky enough to make it out alive. 

Justice League of America Annual #3: Mishkin and Hoberg/Gustovich give us the ending of the pre-Crisis Red Tornado. It seems to me impossible to square the early events depicted here with the version of them in COIE #8 (though Wikipedia makes an effort). Here, Red is conscious and alone at the JLA station as he uses equipment there to test his powers, seeking to find out what the Anti-Monitor's cryptic comments meant about their being more to him. This leads to him exploding and sending the damaged station falling on to the Earth. The disaster is responded to by the new Justice League and several of the old members including Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Black Canary. 

Meanwhile, unusual weather patterns are starting up, and members of the JLA discover it isn't due to the Crisis but an experimental weather manipulation station that has mysteriously gone out of control. Red Tornado's lady friend, Kathy, is contact by Red through a TV set and other electronic devices. He asks her to meet him at the golden gate bridge.

It turns out Red Tornado has survived, he's again in the form of the living tornado, the Tornado Champion. Now viewing himself as a force of nature, he looks with a new-found horror at the ecological devastation humanity had wreaked on Earth. He decides to destroy civilization and battles the heroes to do just that. Finally, Kathy gets through to him, and he leaves the Earth to go elsewhere in the universe.

Legion of Super-Heroes #16: Levitz and Lightle/Smith still have Brainiac 5 moping over the death of Supergirl. If "moping" seems a dismissive description of grief over the death of a loved one, well, that's weirdly exactly how the narrative treats it. Brainiac is drawn to look like a sad sack, and a lot of other characters question why he's so upset when her death had occurred a long time ago and was a matter of the historical record. It seems the opposite of what you would want to do in a story, particularly when Crisis spent so much time trying to make her death impactful. I assume Levitz was trying to drive home that this is the future, and the past had been written, but that only draws attention to the fact that it clearly isn't, and it also seems to contradict the idea of Crisis as a sort of meta-temporal occurrence. Otherwise, to everyone but poor Anthro, maybe, the Crisis is to some extent "in the past."

Interestingly, the DCU fandom wiki argues Brainiac 5 is glum about the 1000 anniversary of Supergirl's Pre-Crisis death. It points out her death is not mysterious in this story--unlike a number of other Crisis-related events --and further notes Crisis isn't mentioned in this issue, nor does it carry a Crisis banner. Given, however, we saw Brainiac 5 grieving Supergirl in COIE #8, I'm not persuaded, but it is interesting.

Beyond, that a lot of Legionnaires attend the baptism of Graym, Lighting Lad's and Saturn Girl's infant. The new members also go on their first solo case to take down some bombers, which proves more complicated and mysterious than anticipated.

Omega Men #32: Klein and guest artist Spiegle do a fill-in issue where Felicity returns to Karna and finds work as a bar dancer, only to lose that job due to the lack of titillation in her dance. She meets a scarred face human named Mung who helps her get more work and gives her some dance pointers. In the background of all this, the cops are hunting for a serial killer who they believe to be a "regressor," a Karnan who can turn into a big cat like Tigorr. The story seems to signal that Mung is the killer, and he certainly tries to kill Felicity after revealing himself to be the bounty hunter Bedlam we saw previously. Felicity manages to best him and the cops take him away. Still, the issue ends with some ambiguity: Was Mung the killer? The only other possibility is that Felicity is secretly a regressor, but I'm not sure what Klein intended.

 

Star Trek #20: Laurie Sutton scripts with Tom Sutton and Villagran on art for this Sulu solo story. Sulu attends a family wedding where a clan cousin he was romantically involved with in his youth is marrying a son of a rival clan in the un-Trekian giant robot business. It turns out the young man hasn't given up the feud, it ends as these things must: Sulu and the guy fight, each piloting a giant robot.

Super Powers #3: Kupperberg and Kirby/Theakston send Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, and Dr. Fate to Easter Island, probably so Kirby can again illustrate the Maoi, which he has done more than once before. Like in those stories the statues turn out to be aliens, but the primary menace here is Kirby's redesigned Mantis. The grateful Easter Islanders erect busts of the heroes, but unfortunately Green Lantern feels they have to be destroyed, which could be construed as "destroying evidence."

Superman #413: Bates and Swan/Williamson get to the end of the this "Clark Kent--Fired!" storyline. Luthor, already having Supes doubting his sanity, moves to his endgame. It comes at a particularly bad time, too, because Clark has been invited to a dinner, unaware that it's a big to-do in his honor put in by his friends and colleagues. Luthor's devices convince Superman that the Earth is dematerializing around him. Lex plans to trap him in this simulated reality of defeat forever, but his super-hearing (I guess) picks up all his friends and co-workers mentioning Clark Kent. Their calls focus him on the real world, allowing him to pull out of Lex's machine. As he fights with the villain, though, Lex is pulled away by some force. From Crisis, we know that's Brainiac, but it's mysterious here.

Superman attends the dinner and gives Clark's regrets but clears his good name by saying his previous reporting was all part of a plan to catch Luthor.