JLA Annual #3 – “Force of Nature” – Dan Mishkin/Rick Hoberg/Mike Gustovich
This one starts in orbit, with Red Tornado on the remains of the JLA Satellite. Reddy is trying to activate what’s left of the JLA computers so he can analyze himself. While fighting the Monitor (this takes place during the Crisis), someone remarked that Red Tornado was “more than machine and more than man”, so he wants to figure out what that means. But he ends up overloading the computers and the bulk of the Satellite catches fire and plummets toward Earth. A few members of the JLA (J’onn J’onzz, Vibe, and Steel) plus Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Black Canary manage to keep the debris from harming anyone or doing too much damage. Green Arrow and Vibe start mouthing
off to each other, but J’onn distracts them when he reveals there’s nothing left of Red Tornado but is costume and a few machinery pieces. But don’t mourn Reddy yet; in New York, his girlfriend Kathy Sutton gets a shock when she turns on the TV and hears Red Tornado’s voice asking for help. In California, Ralph (Elongated Man) Dibny and Zatanna are at a STAR Labs facility where they’re told of some dangerous weather affecting San Francisco. They assume it’s a side effect of the Crisis, but that’s actually been mellowing out lately. This weather anomaly has to do with some experimental weather control satellites STAR put in orbit. Someone seems to have taken control of 
them and is causing weird weather in San Francisco, Australia, and Equatorial Africa. Ralph tries to hit the self-destruct for the satellites, but a space warp appears in the room, shooting lightning bolts that almost fry him. Back in Detroit, the JLA give Green Arrow and Black Canary a tour of their headquarters, while Dale Gunn examines what’s left of Red Tornado. He says there’s not enough to put Reddy back together again and Firestorm tells everyone what he found out in issue 193; Reddy had the spirit of the Tornado Champion inside him, which is how he managed to cheat death before. But if the Champion didn’t get out in time, maybe Reddy really is dead. They’re interrupted by a call from Ralph, asking for help with the
weather control satellites. He assumes Anti-Monitor is behind it, although it seems obvious to us readers that it’s probably Red Tornado. The space warp in STAR Labs changes and pulls Zatanna and Ralph into it, ending his conversation with headquarters. We hear a disembodied voice up in the weather control satellites making plans and we see Kathy Sutton has followed the instructions Red Tornado gave her over her TV and gone to Gotham, here she receives more instructions (this time over an electronic ticker on a movie theatre marquee). The disembodied voice (which I’m now certain is Red Tornado) takes over a hydroelectric plant 
(there’s another space warp in the sky above) and tries to burst the dam, but several JLAers shut the plant down manually. In Gotham (which is being inundated by a huge storm), Firestorm, Green Arrow, and Black Canary are startled to see someone on top of a bridge. It turns out to be Kathy and she’s “rescued” by Geo-Force (who’s there with Batman and Black Lightning). Kathy tells Batman that Red Tornado told her to climb up the bridge, but Green Arrow informs them that Reddy is dead. Batman confirms that Gotham’s weird weather is coming from a space warp like the one at STAR Labs and says Superman is trying to penetrate the warp and shut it down. But even Supes can’t get to the warp and gets thrown back to the ground. When he’s told
about the weather satellites, his telescopic vision shows J’onn in orbit trying to destroy one of the satellites and having a hard time of it. Superman flies up to help him. At the dam, Zatanna and Ralph come flying out of the space warp to reunite with their teammates (including J’onn, who’s supposed to be in orbit; continuity mistake, I guess). After Green Arrow and Vibe have another argument (which ends with Arrow punching Vibe in the mouth), they realize the air has gone completely still … even Zatanna can’t raise a breeze magically. Gypsy points out that if the natural weather patterns are stifled, the high and low pressure areas will continue to build with no outlet 
for all that energy. In orbit, Superman and J’onn manage to destroy the weather satellites, but it’s too late; Red Tornado’s plan has come to fruition and he manifests atop the dam, first as a huge tornado, them as himself. Well, not quite himself, more a vague representation of his android form. He explains how he projected his consciousness from the falling JLA Satellite into one of the weather satellites and used them to reconstitute himself as a giant tornado. Black Canary points out all the destruction that caused, but Reddy says he’s no longer mortal, he’s a force of nature now, so he’s not worried about human lives. As he rants on about humanity’s destruction of the Earth, the JLA realize he plans to wipe out everyone so the
planet can have a do-over. They figure he’s become Tornado Tyrant again, so Firestorm sends Superman to get what’s left of Red Tornado from JLA headquarters, while the others try to fight him. Unfortunately, reuniting Reddy with his body doesn’t work the way it did in issue 193, because he no longer wants to be Red Tornado. Kathy figures there’s some shred of humanity left in Reddy (since he tried to save her from the flood in Gotham), so she tries to get through to him. She manages to talk him into manifesting in physical form, to plead his case as a man not an elemental phenomenon. Once he’s in (somewhat) human form, the JLA attack and try to subdue him. But even encasing him in metal can’t hold him back and he busts loose, 
giving them shit for betraying him. But he also decides that as a force of nature, he should plan his next move carefully, so he takes off, telling them if they survive the Crisis they’ll still have to deal with him someday. I’m not sure if anything actually came of that; I know there was a Red Tornado miniseries around that time, but I haven’t read it. I also know Reddy (and Firestorm for that matter) were eventually brought into Alan Moore’s whole “Elementals” stuff with Swamp Thing, where each of them represented one of the four classical elements. But for now, I think this is the last we’ll see of red Tornado for a while.
Infinity Inc. Annual #1 – “Green Dreams and Precious Illusions” – Roy Thomas/Ron Harris, Todd McFarlane/Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, Alfredo Alcala, Richard Howell
This one starts with most of the Infinitors (Silver Scarab, Fury, Jade, Nuklon, Northwind, and Star-Spangled Kid) having dinner in a restaurant with Alan (Green Lantern) Scott and his longtime assistant Molly Mayne (who’s obviously in love with Alan, though he seems to be the only one who doesn’t notice). Alan announces that he’s getting back into broadcasting and the others congratulate him, but they’ve got their own stuff to think about as well. Jade is still worried about her missing brother (Obsidian), Star-Spangled Kid bores Molly with his talk about PR opportunities, and Silver Scarab and Fury
can’t wait to leave so they can get it on. Jade is still sure Alan is her (and her brother’s) father, but he’s not so certain; he does mention he was married once, but says his wife died before Jade and Obsidian were born, so he can’t be their mother. Alan does offer to take a DNA test, but their conversation is interrupted when Obsidian comes crashing down out of nowhere. He can’t remember much about his involvement with the Crisis, just vague bits and pieces. Jade is looking forward to telling their house-guest (Dr. Rose Forrest) that Obsidian is okay, but Rose is having her own problems. Her villainous alter ego (Thorn) emerges and Rose (who looks a lot younger than she did 
before) tries to fight Thorn’s takeover of her psyche, smashing the mirror in her frenzy. When Jade and Obsidian find Rose’s room trashed and blood on the broken mirror, they get worried, but a scrawled note from Rose tells them she’s fine and just had to get away for a while. Thorn’s target is Alan Scott, who she knows is Green Lantern. As she uses her giant thorn-stalks to crush Alan, Thorn admits she doesn’t care that much about him … her real targets are Jade and Obsidian. Thorn attacks them and Jade recognizes her from issue 13, although she still thinks Thorn is Rose’s sister. It looks like Thorn slices Jade’s throat wide open, but it’s just an illusion cast by Harlequin, who’s come to help the twins fight off Thorn. But Thorn gets the
upper hand and wraps everyone in her thorn-stalks. Before she can finish them, Green Lantern shows up and pulls them out of the house. Thorn follows and grabs everyone, slamming them to the ground in preparation for finishing them off. Before she can, the Rose part of her personality asserts itself and forces Thorn to stab herself with one of her own poisoned thorns. As she dies, she reverts to Rose Forrest, but Green Lantern recognizes her as someone else … his first wife, Alyx. The rest of the issue is mostly exposition, as Harlequin confirms that Jade and Obsidian are GL’s children and Rose was their mother. Harlequin recaps Rose and Thorn’s history and tells them 
how Rose was supposedly cured when GL sent her to Paradise Island for treatment (which is apparently what kept her from aging at the normal rate). But Rose had fallen in love with GL, so she assumed the identity of Alyx Florin and wooed him, eventually marrying him. On their wedding night, Thorn’s personality emerged and Rose fought against it, ending up burning down the building they were in. GL woke up and escaped, but assumed Alyx was killed in the fire. Rose wasn’t dead, but she was pregnant and gave birth to twins … Jade and Obsidian, who inherited super-powers from their father. Rose gave the twins up for adoption because Thorn’s personality threatened to emerge and kill them. Rose ended up fighting GL again, went to prison and escaped, and wound up on the island where the Infinitors found her. The Thorn side
of her personality was woken up by meeting Jade and she started planning to kill her own children … or Rose’s children, in a manner of speaking. Harlequin winds up her tale (which she forced Rose to tell her a couple issues back) by admitting she’s actually Molly Mayne, Alan’s assistant and that she’s always been in love with him. Alan admits that he loves her too (and that he wears a hairpiece) and asks her to marry him. Most of the JSA and all the Infinitors are at the wedding, and there’s a surprise guest too … Doiby Dickles, GL’s old partner. Doiby has been living on another planet with his wife (the “Space Princeress”), but Dr. Fate got an invitation to him for Alan and Molly’s wedding (which goes off without a hitch).