Wednesday Comics: DC, August 1984 (week 1)

New Teen Titans #1: Here we are at the 1st issue of the new, direct-sale only, better paper Titans book. The issue opens with credits indicating Wolfman and Perez are the books co-editors as well as creators. There’s not an indication of how much time has passed since last month’s Tales of the Teen Titans #44, but it’s long enough that Jericho is an established (if still new) member of the team and no mention is made of Tara’s death. Anyway, in a training exercise Jericho uses his power to take over Raven, leaving him horrified at his brief glimpse of Raven’s inner struggles and turmoil. He convinces the rest of the team they need to help Raven, but none of them know how, and then Raven rebuffs them and announces she’s leaving the team.

Before that can happen, Jericho again enters Raven’s mind, hoping to find some way to help. Instead, he experiences something akin to hell and gets the notice of the part of Trigon that dwells inside her. Jericho is cast out and Raven disappears. As the Titans try to determine what happened, sky outside the Tower grows dark and there’s thunder accompanied by sinister laughter.

DC Comics Presents #72: Kupperberg and Saviuk/Jensen come up with perhaps the most unusual team up this title has seen. The dimension where Maaldor (him again!) is basically a god has succumbed to his madness–a madness that might spread to other worlds. Sensing this danger (and the suffering of Maaldor) Phantom Stranger recruits Superman to go to that world with the only person capable of fighting madness with madness: the Joker. Once he gets the hang of manipulating reality, Joker threatens to betray his allies, but the Stranger and Superman are one step ahead. It’s an unconventional story and not the best this title has had to offer, but not the worst either.

Fury of Firestorm #26: We left Firestorm in pretty dire straits, having been bitten by a cobra and being attacked by animated toys. Firestorm manages to get out of this predicament by using his power to transform some of the toys into a mechanism to suck out the poison. Seems dubious to me, but hey, it’s a comic with a ghost of a Native American shaman fighting a guy with fire for hair! Anyway, despite being weakened Ronnie insists they pursue the villains who escaped by hijacking helicopter. He isn’t up to stopping them alone, but luckily, they get close enough to Reilly’s office that the fight gets Lorraine’s attention, so she comes to help as Firehawk. Ultimately, though, after animating the Statue of Liberty, forcing Firestorm to turn it into a “bop bag,” Black Bison and Silver Deer get away. 

Ronin #6: Miller brings his groundbreaking limited series to an end a bit over a year after it began. It might have backed more of a punch if it had come out in a timelier fashion, but he saves some of his most elaborate layouts and intricate pencils for this final chapter–even if those sometimes leave the action a bit confusing. Casey fights her way into Aquarius to rescue the Ronin, which she now knows to be Billy. A visit to her husband, Peter, allows him to reveal that Virgo built this samurai fantasy to exploit Billy’s power to transform itself from a machine to actual synthetic life. In the end it’s freeing Billy from Virgo’s clutches that is the solution to defeating it. Casey commands him with his ronin mentality to commit seppuku for his failures. The shock brings down the system, but the ending is ambiguous because the Ronin still seems to be alive. Anyway, work like this definitely paved the way for the real innovation in mainstream comics away from just newsstand superheroes.

Vigilante #9: Wolfman and Andru/Adkins continue the story from last issue. Chase escapes the burning house (just barely), but Ebert is dead, and a singed business card is the only clue. Chase is still thinking about taking the judgeship and has a couple of meeting that lean heavy into talk of “bleeding heart liberals” and “ACLU types” letting criminals off, but maybe this isn’t the ethos of the title as much character development for the supporting cast. Later, the Electrocutioner and Vigilante tangle again, and the Electrocutioner kills another criminal. Meanwhile, JJ tracks the business card to a factory and decides to hack their computer. He rashly goes to the factory in person, falling into a trap set by the Controller. The next morning, Chase and Terry see a news reporter indicating JJ’s body was found in the Hudson.

Wonder Woman #318: The story by Busiek and Norvick/Magyar is a fill-in, though its message is perhaps in harmony with the one in the ongoing story. Wonder Woman is transported to the 63rd Century to save the then-conquered Amazons from a race of sort of Magenta pig-faced orc aliens who have invaded Paradise Island. Once they are defeated, Wonder Woman (and Aphrodite) convince Hippolyta and her tribe that this happened in part because they strayed from the mission they were given.