Legion of Super-Heroes Annual #1 – “Revenge is a Dish Best Served Cold” – Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen, Karl Kesel/Mike DeCarlo, Ernie Colon, Steve Mitchell
This one starts with a handful of Legionnaires (Brainiac 5, Shrinking Violet, Colossal Boy, Chameleon Boy, and new recruit Magnetic Kid) sitting around headquarters bored while everyone else is off on a mission. Brainy suggests they do something constructive and Magnetic Kid reminds them that they never figured out who tried to kill Laurel Kent with a kryptonite bullet in issue 8. Magnetic Kid and Colossal Boy go to the Academy to talk to Laurel (who’s wearing even fewer clothes than usual) , but she’s not very cooperative and
doesn’t like being reminded of what happened. They decide to tail her (disguised as aliens) in case someone tries to kill her again. They do find a suspicious guy following her, but it turns out to be Dvron, the Science Police officer who investigated the shooting. He was worried about someone trying to kill Laurel again too, but she insists she’s fine and tells them all to leave her alone. The fact that kryptonite was used in her shooting suggests the killer knew about her Kryptonian heritage, so Magnetic Kid suggests they trace the bullet. Dvron says he tried that but the kryptonite bullets purchased around that time were on Thanagar. Colossal Boy figures it’s worth the trip to Thanagar to investigate. On 
Thanagar, they find out a gun capable of firing kryptonite bullets was stolen from a museum not long before the attack on Laurel. One Hawk-Police guard was knocked out, but two others were blown away by someone in a giant suit of armour. Meanwhile, Shrinking Violet is checking out the scene of another murder on Winath (and narrating her story like Raymond Chandler for some reason). The victim was the detective who was murdered in issue 7 and who just happens to be a descendant of Batman. Starting to see a pattern here? Violet runs into a couple of Science Police officers and almost gets blown up by a bomb someone left in the dead P.I.’s office, which indicates something strange is going on. Back at headquarters, Brainy has figured out the connection and
points out that each murder (or attempt) took place during a full moon (and there’s a full moon that day). Brainy has deduced the next target (a tour bus driver named Oli Queen … yeah, he’s descended from Green Arrow), so he gave Oli his force-field belt to protect him. The bus is attacked, but Oli and his passengers are fine thanks to Brainy’s belt. Laurel is so bothered by almost being killed that she’s ready to quit the Academy and Dvron says they could use her in the Science Police. The Legionnaires head to Quebec to watch over the other two potential victims, Don and Dawn Allen (children of the Flash), who Brainy 
told the Science Police to watch just in case Oli wasn’t the killer’s next target. Sure enough, the guy in the armour shows up to kill the Allen twins, but Violet flies them to safety. The armoured guy takes off, but Chameleon Boy hitches a ride. He’s detected by the armour’s safeguards and zapped, so he’s forced to jump off, but he’s figured out where the guy is headed. Using Brainy’s deduction about all the victims being descendants of JLA members, plus observing that there was ice on the armour and the guy was headed north, lets Chameleon Boy figure out that the killer must be some JLA enemy with an incurable disease who was cryogenically frozen in the 20th Century. Now he’s being thawed
every full moon (to be allowed to age a few days) and is looking to strike at the JLA’s descendants. They head to the cryo-facility at the North Pole and run into the robot. It gives them a bit of trouble, but Magnetic Kid ends up pulling it to pieces. Apparently, the killer (who isn’t named but I think it’s supposed to be Professor Ivo) could control the robot from within his cryo-chamber; he’s probably been doing it for centuries and may have killed many of the JLA’s relatives. He could’ve killed even more if Magnetic Kid hadn’t decided they needed to solve Laurel’s case.
New Teen Titans Annual #1 – “Vanguard” – Marv Wolfman/Ed Hannigan/Mike DeCarlo
This story is set a couple years ago, when Raven and Terra were still around and before Robin became Nightwing. The framing story is that Jericho is looking through the Titans’ case files at some of their old adventures and this is one he hasn’t heard about (nor have we, of course). This kinda reads like Wolfman and Hannigan were showcasing the Vanguard, hoping to get fans interested enough to clamour for a regular series. This would’ve been after DC started giving creators royalties for characters, so Wolfman and Hannigan were probably hoping to create the next big thing and make a pile of money. Unfortunately, the Vanguard aren’t all that compelling. The Vanguard are a
team of alien police (Anti-matterman, Solarr, Scanner, White Dwarf, Black Nebula, and Drone, their sentient ship) who came to Earth fifty years ago and recently returned. They show up in Manhattan, hunting down Superman. Despite all his power, the Vanguard capture him (showing off their powers and personalities at the same time) and start dragging him across the sky. When the Titans (except Robin, who’s off on other business) notice that, they go out to confront the Vanguard. They soon realize something weird is going on when Superman urges them to kill the Vanguard. After a brief 
scuffle, the two teams reach a rapprochement thanks to Raven’s empathy and Starfire’s ability to absorb foreign languages. The Vanguard tell the Titans how a planet was attacked by an alien spaceship and Superman came to the rescue, but ended up being overwhelmed. The Vanguard responded to the distress call too and the alien ship tried to destroy the planet to slow them down. They got Superman to a nearby moon, but he was close to death. The alien ship sent out dozens of Superman androids, most of which Vanguard destroyed. But one escaped and came to Earth, so they had to pursue to learn more about Superman’s attacker. The Vanguard figures Supes just happened to respond to the call for help, but Wonder Girl
assumes he as the real target, since the alien ship already had a bunch of Superman androids on board. When they try to contact Black Nebula (who stayed on the moon to look after Superman), there’s no response, so the Vanguard take the Titans to the moon. They find Black Nebula dead and Superman gone. We soon see who Superman’s attacker is … Brainiac. Supes wakes up on Brainiac’s mothership and Brainiac tells him he’s draining his energy to power the ship. Brainiac is still paranoid about Superman and the “Master Programmer” (as we saw in Action 546), but now figures the best way to hurt Superman is to drain his power and use that power to destroy worlds. Brainiac even changes the configuration of his ship so it looks like Superman instead of 
himself. When Brainiac starts blasting a planet to shit, Superman’s guilt almost overwhelms him. The Titans and Vanguard glean some info from the last Superman android before it self-destructs and come to confront Brainiac (with the Vanguard providing a way for the Titans to breathe in space). The two teams aren’t really on Brainiac’s level, but they distract him enough for Superman to break free. Brainiac tempts them to finish him for good, but Superman points out that it’s a trap. After Starfire confirms Superman’s identity (with a kiss!), they bail out right before Brainiac’s ship explodes. The two teams figure Brainiac is dead, but Superman knows Brainiac can reconstitute himself from pure energy, so he hasn’t seen the last of him.